Beginners Guide

This page was last updated for (v1.0.3).

Melvor Idle is an idle game inspired by Runescape and as such, much of the time spent playing can be done without making any inputs.

This guide will give you some useful information to get started.

If you're interested in a particular aspect, please refer to its dedicated page for details.
You can also check out the Frequently Asked Questions for more information.

Before we get started, it is recommended that you set up an account with Melvor Cloud. You can register for an account by selecting Login/Register from the drop-down box in the top right of your Melvor Idle game. Logging-in will automatically backup your save file to the cloud every 5 minutes.

If you run Melvor Idle in an inactive tab, the browser may slow the game down, which is not good. To avoid this, you can run the game in an active browser tab, or open Melvor Idle in its own window, or use some specific browser commands to prevent it.

Video Guides

In addition to the information on this page, there are also some video guides for new players:

Video Title	Author	Version
Melvor Idle Tutorial Part 1	Procyon Lotor	v0.19.2

The Interface

The interface is split into three sections:

The Left Menu

The bar on the left side of the screen is a menu filled with a list of buttons. There are buttons for every skill, a couple of information pages, your Bank, and a Settings page. Clicking the eye icon next to Combat or Skills will hide/show the list. Please take note of the fact that you can scroll in this window.

The Top Bar

In the top bar, you can see what page you are currently on. The potion and helmet icon on the right side can be selected to view your currently selected potions or equipment. You can also click on your name and check if you are currently logged into Melvor Cloud. You can find a login button in the Settings window or by clicking on your user name in the top right.

The Main Section

The main section of the screen can be filled with a plethora of content. It can be filled with the Bank, Settings, a Skill, or one of the information pages.

The Bank

- Main article: Bank

The Bank is where your items are stored. You can upgrade, sell, or equip your items by selecting them from the Bank screen. Weapons and armour have stats that can be viewed by first selecting them in the Bank, then selecting View Item Stats in the menu that appears. The item stats screen will show information about the item and a comparison of its stats to whatever item is currently equipped in the same slot. For example, if you had a pair of Bronze Gloves equipped and you Viewed Item Stats for Iron Gloves in your Bank, there would be a green (+1) next to the Iron Gloves attack stats, showing that the Iron Gloves offer a higher attack when compared to the Bronze Gloves. Bank slots can be bought in the shop. You can sell your items with the menu opened by clicking on the item in your inventory.

The Shop

- Main article: Shop

The shop is where you can spend your hard-earned GP. Here you can buy things like better pickaxes and axes, more bank slots, some ingredients for various skills, and more.

Settings

- Main article: Settings

The settings page is where players can change various options for the game, including notifications, auto restart dungeons, dark mode, and save management. These options can be accessed from the left menu, towards the bottom. You can hover over the settings for a more detailed description of their effects.

Basic Skill Usage

One of the main aspects of the game is gathering resources with the various gathering skills and then processing those resources into more refined products with various other skills.

The fishing window.

One of the most simple production lines is with Fishing and Cooking.

1. Select Fishing from the left menu to open the fishing skill page.
2. To start fishing, select the fish you want to catch, then select 'Start Fishing'.
3. At fishing Level 1 you only have access to Raw Shrimp, so start with catching them.

Actively fishing.

Now that you have started fishing, the fishing window has changed slightly. Near the top of the window you will notice that the experience bar is slowly making its way across the window indicating that you are gaining Fishing experience. The selected fish will have information about it displayed within the Shallow Shores tile. The tile displays the name of the fish selected, the experience you earn for successfully catching the fish, the Mastery level of the fish, and the progress towards the next Mastery level.

Successfully completing a skill action will award you experience towards the skill used in addition to Mastery experience awarded towards the specific skill action used. When fishing for Raw Shrimp you will earn +5 XP towards your Fishing skill level and +1 XP towards your Raw Shrimp Mastery level. In the left menu, you will also notice that Fishing is now shown in green indicating that this skill is active.

The cooking window.

Actively cooking.

Now that you have caught some fish, it's time to cook it with the Cooking skill! After opening the cooking window, you will notice the cooking page has three parts: cooking fire, a furnace, and a pot. The furnace and the pot can be unlocked later through the Shop. The fire will be named "Basic" because it's the starting version of the fire. Click on the "Select Recipe to Cook" button, and select the Shrimp. Once a fish has been selected, you can select "Active Cook" from the middle tile to begin cooking. The "Passive Cook" is an option that you will use in the late game.

Offline Progression

- Main article: Offline Progression

Offline progression allows your game to progress while closed for up to 18 hours. If the game is closed while performing an action, for instance mining Copper Ore, when you return it will calculate how long you were gone for and provide you with the XP, Items, Mastery XP, and other various things that you would have received if the game was left running. A popup menu will provide a summary of what you earned while being away. The used skill will then continue progressing as normal.

Basic Combat

- Main article: Combat

To fight monsters navigate to the combat page by selecting any combat skill from the left menu. The combat page contains three tabs containing the locations where monsters can be fought, above a section for equipment and combat stats. Select browse combat areas, slayer areas, or dungeons to reveal a menu containing all the relevant locations. Selecting a location will display the enemies which can be found there, along with their Hitpoints, Combat Level, and Attack Type. The "Drops" option will display the possible loot drops a monster can give and selecting "Fight" will begin combat. Combat will continue until you run, die, or defeat the dungeon.

Slain enemies drop items sometimes. You can either loot the items manually by pressing the Loot All button or it will be done automatically if you run from the fight.

Combat skills are leveled by damaging enemies with weapons and magic. Mainly, usual weapons train Melee, bows train Ranged, and magic wands train Magic. The available Attack Styles will change depending on the type of weapon you have equipped. Most combat skills have a passive effect even when the relevant style is not selected. Weapons, armour, and food can be equipped for use by selecting them in the Bank. Weapons and armour provide various bonuses and penalties to your combat stats, while food can be used for healing in combat. Upon death a random piece of Equipment worn will be lost forever, however Skillcapes lost this way can be repurchased from the Shop.

Combat Skills

Attack

Attack increases your accuracy rating with melee weapons, which affects your chance to hit. Higher tiers of melee require higher Attack to be equipped.

Strength

Strength increases your Max Hit with melee weapons. Max Hit determines your maximum potential damage on a successful hit.

Defence

Defence increases your Melee, Ranged, and Magic Evasion Rating, which decreases the likelihood you will be hit by enemy attacks. Higher tiers of some armours require higher Defence to be equipped. Importantly, Defence does not reduce damage taken from enemy attacks, but Damage Reduction from various sources, such as certain armours, prayers, potions and pets, can reduce incoming damage.

Hitpoints

Hitpoints affect your maximum life total and your passive regeneration rate. After receiving damage you will heal slowly over time, the speed at which you heal is based on your Hitpoints level. In addition to passive regeneration, your hitpoints can be replenished by consuming any food you have equipped. Hitpoints experience is earned by damaging enemies.

Ranged

Ranged increases your Accuracy Rating and Max Hit with ranged weapons, which affects your chance to hit and damage respectively. Higher tiers of ranged weapons, arrows, and some armours require higher Ranged to be equipped.

Magic

Magic allows you to cast Spells from your Spellbook if you have the required Runes in your Bank and a magic weapon equipped. Magic increases your Accuracy Rating with Spells, which increases your chance to hit while using them.

Your Magic skill level increases your damage with Spells. Magic also increases your Magic Evasion Rating, which decreases the likelihood you will be hit by magic. Higher tiers of magic weapons and some armours require higher Magic to be equipped.

Prayer

Prayers are passive bonuses that expend Prayer Points to remain in effect. You gain Prayer Points by burying Bones, which are dropped by Monsters upon death. Prayer experience is earned by damaging enemies while eligible prayers are active, and is multiplied by Prayer Point cost.

Slayer

Slayer experience is earned by killing enemies in slayer areas or by completing Slayer Tasks. Slayer Tasks also earn you Slayer Coins that are used to purchase Slayer Equipment from the Shop. Slayer areas are unlocked by raising your Slayer level.

Skills

This section introduces the non-combat skills. For details, please visit their pages.

Woodcutting

Woodcutting is the best way to obtain Wood for Firemaking and Fletching. You can cut two trees simultaneously by purchasing the Multi-Tree upgrade from the Shop for  1,000,000.

At Level 99 Woodcutting you can purchase a Woodcutting Skillcape from the Shop to increase your woodcutting speed significantly.

Fishing

Fishing is a good skill to level before others. It allows you to catch raw fish that can be Cooked for food. When fishing, you can randomly get Treasure Chests that can contain Amulet of Fishing - an item that will help you to fish much faster.

Fishing is also the only way to obtain two rings that are very useful in the long run - Ancient Ring of Skills and Ancient Ring of Mastery. Fishing for Raw Magic Fish is a decent way to earn a lot of Money. For other money-making methods, please check out the Money Making page.

Firemaking

Firemaking is leveled to unlock higher tier Cooking Fires and create Coal Ore.

Cooking Fires are Skill Upgrades purchased from the Shop and are used in Cooking to obtain a Cooking Experience Bonus. You will only receive Coal Ore 40% of the time from burning Logs and other methods - such as Mining - are more efficient for gathering coal. The Firemaking Skillcape provides a +5% global XP bonus, which is unlocked for purchase at Level 99 Firemaking.

Lighting Bonfires will only give an Experience Bonus to Firemaking while active.

Cooking

Cooking is used to turn your raw fish into edible food. Cooking Fires can be purchased from the Shop and are unlocked by raising your Firemaking skill. Cooking Fires let you cook without manually lighting a fire and grant an Experience Bonus to Cooking.

The chance to successfully cook is not 100% from the start. Increasing the mastery of a particular food item increases its chances to be cooked. Cooking Gloves can be purchased from the Shop to increase the chance of successfully cooking food.

Mining

Mining is another good skill to level first. It is used for mining ore, rune essence, and gems. The Mastery Level of each ore affects how many times you can mine it before it's depleted and needs to respawn. The more valuable the ore is the longer the respawn time will be, with durations ranging from 1 to 120 seconds. Every time you mine there is a 1% chance you will find a random Gem in addition to your ore.

Mining with Gem Gloves is one of the good Money Making strategies of the early game. Note that Gem Gloves don't work when mining Rune Essence. Purchasing multiple Gem Gloves will stack the charges.

Smithing

Smithing lets you turn Ore from Mining into Metal Bars, and then turn those into Weapons and Armor for Melee, as well as metal components () for producing Ranged equipment via Fletching. Advancing this skill will allow you to produce higher-tier equipment, granting you a greater advantage in Combat when using Melee and Ranged styles.

Thieving

Thieving lets you pickpocket for money and items. The Thieving Gloves sold at the Shop increase you success rate when equipped. Thieving can give many useful items and is arguably the best way to obtain Seeds. You only earn experience from successful Pickpocket attempts.

Farming

Farming is a passive, long-term skill that allows you to grow crops, herbs, and trees in the background while performing other tasks. Fertilizing, planting, and harvesting do not interrupt other skills. Farming is one of the most time-efficient ways to obtain food, which is used for healing in Combat. Farming is the main way to obtain the Herbs that are used in potion brewing with Herblore.

Seeds planted without fertilizer have a 50% chance to yield crops after growing. To increase the chance of their survival, you need to fertilize the them with Compost. Each Compost used on a Seed will increase its survival chance by 10%, raising your Compost Level to 5 will guarantee your crops survive. Compost must be used every time a seed is planted to have an effect. Any crop that reaches Mastery Level 50 will always survive without Compost, and any crop of Mastery 70 or herb of Mastery 50 will yield enough seeds on average to be replanted endlessly.

To start Farming, you will need Seeds. Three seeds are needed for a single crop, two for herbs, and one for trees. The most efficient way to gather seeds early on is to fight Junior, Adult, or Master Farmer, in the Farmlands. You can also get seeds from the Bird Nests found during Woodcutting. It is recommended to start leveling Farming early because it's quite lengthy.

Fletching

Fletching allows you to create Ranged weapons and ammunition. This includes Bows which fire Arrows using both hands, Crossbows which fire Bolts using one hand, and Javelins which are thrown using one hand. Fletching primarily depends on Woodcutting and Smithing for raw materials, with higher-tier materials from both skills being needed to create better Crossbows and Javelins. It also depends on the Shop for Bowstring used in creating weaponry.

Training your Fletching skill allows you to create more powerful equipment, which increases the effectiveness of your Ranged attacks during Combat.

Crafting

Crafting allows you to create Leather Armour and Dragonhide Armour for protection and bonuses during Ranged combat, Jewelry for bonuses during general Combat, and Pouches for resource preservation during skilling. The skill is generally better at providing utility to the player instead of flat profit from its products. Training your Crafting skill allows you to create more powerful Ranged armour to increase your effectiveness during Combat, and give you access to a wider variety of bonus-providing items.

Crafting primarily depends on Combat or the Shop for Hides used in armour production, Mining and Smithing for Gems and Bars used in jewelry production, and Thieving for Bags used in pouch production.

Runecrafting

Runecrafting uses Rune Essence to create Runes that are used to cast Magic Spells with Magic or make Elemental Potions with Herblore. It is also used to make Staves and Magic Armour.

Herblore

Herblore is used to Brew Potions. A single Potion has many Charges and can be equipped to the Potion slot available for each Skill, which is accessed from the top right of your screen. Once the Charges from a single Potion have been consumed, a new one can be used automatically if "Auto re-use potion" has been enabled in the Settings Menu. Bird Nest Potions are a good example of how useful potions can be in the early game when leveling Woodcutting for extra Seeds or GP.

Agility

Agility is a support skill that allows players to build an agility course from a choice of obstacles, each providing their own bonuses and penalties to improve various aspects of other skills. While the initial cost of creating obstacles is high, there is no ongoing cost, and each completion of an obstacle grants money.

At the start, it could seem that the bonuses are not significant, but they begin to be really useful closer to the mid-game.
It is advised to keep level this skill whenever the next obstacle can be bought in a reasonable time.

Summoning

Summoning is a support skill that involves the creation of Summoning tablets for various familiars, with each familiar providing bonuses to various tasks while equipped. Two tablets may be equipped at a time, some combinations of which provide bonuses that are added bonus on top of the already-provided effects by each equipped tablet.

Like with Agility, it is advised to keep this skill a priority because its synergies can save you days of effort later on.

Alt. Magic

Alt. Magic is an alternative method to train Magic using non-combat spells. It is still the same skill as Magic - all XP is shared. Each action takes 2 seconds and can be trained offline.

Some of the Alt.Magic spells are the cornerstones of the best methods to gather resources or money. For instance, Blessed Offering is the best source of Prayer points through the most part of the game. Superheat IV is the spell that is used in one of the best Money Making methods of the game - creating Dragon Javelins.

In addition, the Nature's Call Staff can help you to reduce the cost of the Alt Magic spells.

Astrology

Astrology is a support skill that provides passive buffs to other skills in the game similar to the Agility. Modifiers will be unlocked as you level up your mastery in each constellation and can be upgraded by spending Stardust or Golden Stardust.

It is recommended to level it a bit for a respective skill that you were going to use and then to level it fully when you get the majority of XP and Mastery buffs.

Mastery

- Main article: Mastery

When you perform a Skill Action, you earn two types of experience:

• 'Skill Experience' that increases your Skill Level,
• 'Mastery Experience' that increases the Mastery level of the specific Skill Action being used.

Mastery Levels will only give bonuses to the specific action they were earned on and can be viewed by selecting Completion > Mastery in the left menu. Each successful Skill Action earns 1 experience point towards that action's Mastery Level, but it massively changes with progress. For example, making an Iron Dagger with Smithing would earn 1 experience point towards Iron Dagger Mastery Level.

Early Game Items and Equipment

Mastery Tokens

Mastery Tokens randomly drop while earning experience for non-combat skills other than Alt. Magic and can be used by claiming them in the Bank. By using a Mastery Token, you fill the Mastery Pool by 0.1% of the max pool XP.

Skill Upgrades

Shop Skill Upgrades increase the speed at which you can Cut Wood, Fish, and Mine Ore. Higher tier Skill Upgrades are unlocked by raising the associated skill and purchasing any lower tier upgrades already available.

Skillcapes

When any skill reaches the maximum level of 99, a Skillcape will become available for purchase from the Shop. Skillcapes often have very powerful effects, like giving you a bonus Coal Ore for every mining action or doubling your potion production.

Gold Topaz Ring

The Gold Topaz Ring gives +15% gold when defeating monsters. However, this ring has another special effect: every monster you defeat and every skilling action you do has a very small chance of giving you one half of Aorpheat's Signet Ring.

Gold Emerald Ring

Gold Emerald Ring gives you +4% Combat Experience. You can craft one with Level 50 Crafting or find one by killing Mummys - Combat Level 29 - in the Penumbra.

Amulet of Looting

Amulet of Looting has a 4.55% drop rate from Spider Chests, which are earned from completing the Spider Forest dungeon. This amulet allows you to Autoloot, although the boss will require some preparation to idle.

Gem Gloves

Gem Gloves are a Money Making staple, costing  500,000 from the Shop and coming with 2000 charges. Once all the charges have been used by Mining Ore and the Gems found are sold you are expected to receive around  762,000, which is a  262,000 profit on your  500,000 purchase.

Upgrading Armour

- Main article: Upgrading Items

Certain types of armour can be upgraded, in other words trimmed, using Silver Bars, Gold Bars, and GP. An armour piece must first be upgraded to (S) using Silver Bars and GP, before it can be upgraded to (G) using Gold Bars and GP. Once armour has the (G) prefix it has been fully upgraded and cannot be upgraded again.

It's usually reasonable to start trimming Mithril armor and above if you're going to use it.

Early Game Goal

Skills in Melvor Idle often follow a natural progression order, you need Mining to get ore for Smithing, which allows you to make armour and weapons for Combat. Deciding which skill to level first becomes a more intuitive choice once you understand which items are needed for your chosen goal. Typically players will choose to level Woodcutting, Mining, or Fishing first, because they are a great starting point for several progression routes and also have some Money Making strategies associated with them.

If your goal is to prepare yourself for Combat, you'll probably want some Equipment and food. You can find equipment while fighting monsters, however it will be hard to start fighting without any weapons or armour.

Without food, you will only be able to fight for a bit before having to wait for your health to regenerate. Food allows you to heal during Combat, so you can keep fighting without the need to take breaks. You can get food with Cooking that requires fish from Fishing.
After you cooked the food, you can equip it from the Bank along with your other weapons and armor.

You'll need to mine some ores Mining to create weapons and armour in Smithing. Now that you have some basic armour and weapons, you can equip them from the Bank and start fighting Monsters.

One of the efficient routes of leveling up is described on the page What to level first.

Melvor Idle version v1.2.2 (Released: 15th November 2023)
Combat: Attack Strength Defence Hitpoints Ranged Magic Prayer Slayer
Skills: Woodcutting Fishing Firemaking Cooking Mining Smithing Thieving Farming Fletching Crafting Runecrafting Herblore Agility Summoning Astrology Township Cartography Archaeology Alternative Magic
Other: Beginners Guide Guides Bank Combat Mastery Money Making Shop Easter Eggs Pets Golbin Raid Full Version Throne of the Herald Atlas of Discovery
Reference Tables: Items, Equipment, Experience Table, Upgrading Items, Combat Areas, Slayer Areas, Dungeons, Chest Loot Tables, Monsters, Monster Loot Tables