Combat Guide: Difference between revisions

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# {{ZoneIcon|Cursed Forest}} and {{ZoneIcon|Necromancers Palace}} for powerful lategame equipment
# {{ZoneIcon|Cursed Forest}} and {{ZoneIcon|Necromancers Palace}} for powerful lategame equipment
# {{ZoneIcon|Golden Cloud Mountains}} only until obtaining the {{UpgradeIcon|Golden Shard}}
# {{ZoneIcon|Golden Cloud Mountains}} only until obtaining the {{UpgradeIcon|Golden Shard}}
# {{ZoneIcon|Millennium Gate}} for BIS engame Armor with the highest Damage Reduction
# {{ZoneIcon|Millennium Gate}} for BIS endgame Armor with the highest Damage Reduction
# {{ZoneIcon|Golden Cloud Mountains}} for BIS endgame weapons
# {{ZoneIcon|Golden Cloud Mountains}} for BIS endgame weapons
# {{ZoneIcon|Lair of the Spider Queen}}
# {{ZoneIcon|Lair of the Spider Queen}}

Revision as of 05:49, 23 January 2023

This page was last updated for (v1.1.1).

Introduction

This guide is written for characters playing the Standard game mode. If playing Hardcore or Adventure modes, preparation for certain events is different, especially for the Fire God Dungeon due to the differences in the Combat Triangle. This guide will assume there are no self-imposed restrictions put upon the account, if you choose to restrict your character in some way, you have to figure out how to get around it.

Progression in Melvor Idle primarily revolves around combat; while there is of course progression in all of the non-combat skills, that progression all serves to make you better at combat. This guide will break the game into multiple sections and try to give advice for each. The sections this guide will look into, and roughly how long they will take are as follows:

  • The Early-Early Game:
    • This is when the player is using very low level gear, has not purchased or obtained vital upgrades like Auto Eat or the Amulet of Looting and may require active (or more active) play to get through safely and efficiently. Can take a few days up to about a week.
  • The Early Game:
    • Where most of the game opens up and when combat gets exciting. The player has obtained reasonable gear, is able to fight the majority of monsters in Combat Areas and the first few Slayer Areas comfortably, and is starting to prepare to get more specialized gear from combat to progress. This section can take anywhere up to about a month or two, and is marked by the completion of Volcanic Cave.
  • The Mid Game:
    • This section revolves around finishing your armor sets, maxing out your stats, and completing long term achievements like the God Dungeons. This section can take up to several months, and is usually marked by completion of Into the Mist.
  • The Late Game:
    • This is when the player is working on upgrading their weapons in the Dark Waters Area, upgrading their armor in the Unhallowed Wasteland Area, and fully preparing to defeat the Impending Darkness Event. This step contains long grinds, but if enough preparation has already been done, it should only take a few weeks at most.
  • The Late-Late Game:
    • Here the player finishes any achievements that haven't been mopped up yet, with the goal of filling the completion log with anything that hasn't been worth the time. This step's length is variable, as it depends on how much has already been completed, and how optimal/lucky the player is finishing up. Prepare to spend multiple days hunting for an item you'll never actually use!

The guide will start with an overview on how combat works, the stats, and what items affect them. After that, it describes in detail the leveling up to the first challenging dungeon of the game, the Volcanic Cave. It will cover the God Dungeons and conclude with guidance for late game content. Remember that the majority of things mentioned here are recommendations and are not always required or the most optimal; if you don't want to do something, you probably don't have to.

Using Non-Combat to improve at Combat

There are several non-combat skills that improve various parts of the combat experience:

  • Agility - Many of the obstacles provide important combat bonuses.
  • Herblore - Diamond Luck Potions are among the highest DPS boosts in the game.
  • Thieving - There are a multitude of useful item drops from several NPCs, including Chapeau Noir, Knight's Defender, and others.
  • Astrology - Many powerful and important passive benefits, including Hidden Skill Levels, which provide further combat bonuses.
  • Summoning - Tablets provide boosts to combat effectiveness and deal damage on their own. The Dragon burn effect is particularly great against high hp enemies.
  • Cooking - Cook food to eat so you don't die!
  • Farming - Farm food to eat so you don't die! Farming is particularly useful because it does not require you to actively spend time on it, you can farm food 'while doing combat' for example.

Other skills helpful for smooth progression include:

  • Smithing - Melee armor and weapons.
  • Fletching - Ranged ammunition and weapons.
  • Crafting - Jewelry with unique effects and Ranged armor.
  • Runecrafting - Magic armor and weapons.
  • Firemaking Level 99 - The Firemaking Skillcape grants a boost to XP earned and Ash, which can be buried for Prayer Points
  • Township - The Trader can be used to exchange goods for food and consumable items that make combat easier.
  • Township - Township also has many Tasks available that grant rewards to players for achieving certain accomplishments or having certain items, using these is a great way to find something to do if you're unsure.

Melvor Idle is not competitive, so it is recommended to set goals that you personally want and work towards them. The game will take a very long time to complete, so anything you can do to make it more fun for YOU is hugely recommended; using a weapon that you personally think is cool or useful, or not using an item because the grind isn't fun is perfectly acceptable and makes the game more interesting!

Stats

All gear has certain stats that link it to one of the three combat styles: Melee, Ranged, or Magic. Gear that is more difficult to obtain is usually better. Closer to endgame, the choices become more situational.

For stat breakdowns and math, use the Combat Simulator or read the Combat page.

Shared Stats

Attack Interval

- Main article: Attack Interval

Attack Speed is determined primarily by the default Attack Interval on weapons and affects how long it takes between attacks. It is given as seconds per attack, so a lower number is better. A variety of things, such as Equipment, Pets, Spells, and Prayers can provide a reduction to the player's attack interval.

A complete listing of things that effect the player's attack interval is provided on the Attack Interval page.

Damage Reduction

- Main article: Damage Reduction


Damage Reduction, or DR, is the most important stat in the game. Damage Reduction, Hitpoints, and Auto Eat tier are all taken into account when considering how much damage the player can take before being able to die. Damage Reduction can be found on:

For the end game, there are some Prayers and items that drop from Impending Darkness that affect enemies' DR:

Auto Eat

- Main article: Auto Eat

Auto Eat is an upgrade that automatically eats equipped food after a certain health threshold. Upgrading this as quickly as possible is critical. Auto Eat Tier, along with Hitpoints and Damage Reduction controls what content is accessible without a chance of death.

With Auto Eat, the type of food does not matter as long as one does not run out of it. Eating either Potatoes or Whale (Perfect) will both keep the player alive as long as they have enough of either. The main difference between any given food sources is the time spent Cooking, Fishing or Farming instead of fighting monsters.

Auto Eat Threshold

Auto Eat Threshold is the HP value necessary to trigger Auto Eat, lowering the necessary HP/DR required. In the base game, only one item affects the Auto Eat threshold:

Auto Eat Efficiency

- Main article: Auto Eat Efficiency

Auto Eat Efficiency increases the amount of HP healed per piece of food eaten. This can be found on:

Lifesteal

Lifesteal heals the player for a portion of damage dealt, it does not deal extra damage. This stat can be found on:

Slayer Area Effect Negation

- Main article: Area Effect Negation

Slayer Area Effect Negation reduces the effect of Slayer Area debuffs when fighting in one of these areas. These can range from annoying ( Forest of Goo, Arid Plains) to downright progress blocking ( Dark Waters, Unhallowed Wasteland). This stat can be found on:

Attack Bonus/Accuracy Rating

These are included on all weapons, and some pieces of armor. Melee has Stab, Slash, and Block Bonuses, while Ranged and Magic have their own attack bonuses. In combat the player's Accuracy Rating determines how often they hit an enemy, based on the enemy's Evasion Rating. Summoning Tablets use the player's accuracy rating to calculate their chance to hit.

Defence/Evasion Rating

These are included on all pieces of armor, and are heavily connected to the Combat Triangle. The higher the number, the better. Evasion only helps to kill enemies faster if they can stun, slow, or sleep, as the player will evade their disabling attacks more often.

Hidden Skill Levels

The main Combat page has details on the specifics of the max hit, accuracy, and evasion equations the game uses to calculate your stats. In summary, levels in Attack, Strength, Ranged, Magic and Defence increase your stats based on different equations, but only up to the level cap (99 for the base game, and 120 with ).

Hidden Levels in any of these stats force these equations to use the player's base skill level (the one shown on the sidebar, equal to the amount of XP earned) AND the player's hidden levels, making the player more powerful than their stats would otherwise indicate. Additionally, hidden levels allow the formulas to calculate stats beyond the level cap.

  • A character that is level 15 Strength with +5 Hidden Strength Levels would calculate their Melee Max Hit based on their Effective Level of 20
  • A character that is level 99 with +5 Hidden Strength Levels would calculate their Melee Max Hit based on their Effective Level of 104, even when their level is capped and can't go any higher.

Reflect Damage

With this effect, whenever the player takes damage, they will also deal a portion of that damage immediately back to the enemy. Reflect does NOT reduce the amount of damage taken. Reflect damage cannot kill an enemy, does not provide XP, and has a 2 second cooldown before it can activate again.

This effect can be found on:

Monster Respawn Time

After killing any monster, there will be a respawn time of 3 seconds before the next monster appears. During this time the player cannot deal damage, and therefore cannot gain XP. This means that a monster respawning can be considered a guaranteed miss (or two).

This timer can be reduced with the following effects:

Class-related Stats

Melee Stats

Melee gear focuses on 4 stats:

  • Strength bonus: One of the factors that determines max hit.
  • Stab/Slash/Block bonus: Determines the accuracy (chance to hit) of that particular attack style. Each melee weapon has stats that favor one of the styles, and using the correct one will boost the player's accuracy substantially.

Magic Stats

Magic armor and weapons focus on 2 stats:

  • Magic Damage Bonus: Determines max hit.
  • Magic Attack Bonus: Determines accuracy.

Additionally, Magic also benefits from Rune Preservation Chance and Rune Cost Reduction. This can be found on multiple items and buffs, including:

Ranged Stats

Ranged armor and weapons focus on 2 stats:

  • Ranged strength bonus: Determines your max hit.
  • Ranged attack bonus: Determines your accuracy.

Additionally, Ranged gear also benefits from Ammo Preservation. This can be found on multiple items and buffs, including:

Minimum Hit and Special Attacks

Each normal attack made by the player or an enemy will deal a random amount of damage between its minimum value and its maximum value, for all monsters, and for players without any bonuses, the Minimum Hit is 1.

Increasing the minimum hit is possible with buffs such as:

Special Attacks are typically found on weapons have a percentage chance of triggering when in combat and will replace your standard attack. If the player has multiple items that grant a special attack, and the combined total adds to greater than 100%, the game will attempt to normalize the chance of using either attack. For example, if the player is wearing both an Ancient Sword and a Ring of Blade Echoes, the player will have a 50% chance of using Life Leach, and a 50% chance of using Blade Echoes. A list of equipment and spells with special attacks can be viewed on the Special Attacks page.

Passive Effects

Beyond just stats, many pieces of equipment have passive effects that increase stats that don't directly make the player better in combat.

Passive effects are bonuses that are always in play. These can increase damage dealt, Coins.svg  GP earned or simply provide more item drops. Item doubling is incredibly powerful as it increases the amount of items received independently of damage dealt or respawn time. This can be found on multiple items and buffs, including:

GP increases can be found on:

External Tooling

Two popular external tools are the Combat Simulator and Can I Idle.

Combat Simulator is a Mod that allows you to estimate many attributes of combat, such as death rate, XP/hr, drops/hr, DPS, and so on. With Combat Simulator, it is trivial to check if your setup is going to work or not. It simulates combat at high speeds using the games own code, so it's quite accurate. As of game version v1.1.1 this mod has not yet been updated to work with the new built in mod manager and is currently not available.

Can I Idle is a site built by Silber. You enter some of the stats found on the combat page and see which enemies you can or can't idle. It's a very useful tool throughout the game. As of v1.1 the site is no longer being updated for anything beyond the base game, however it will still be entirely accurate for players who have not purchased any expansions. It will only be inaccurate for Elite/Master Slayer tasks for players who have completed Impending Darkness Event and have purchased the .


Base Game Combat

The Early-Early Game: Levels 1-40

Early on, the game is primarily about leveling up your core combat stats, getting a feel for the combat systems, and acquiring basic combat equipment.

All three combat styles are connected. It is impossible to use only one style throughout the game if you wish to complete all content. The Combat Triangle determines how much damage and damage reduction you have against enemies of each different combat style, and is very important in choosing how to approach combat.

It is highly recommend to level all styles to not be in the position where you finished are almost ready to take on a dungeon that requires a specific combat style, and then have to level that skill from level 1 for 2 weeks.

Major Goals

The earliest for most players is the Auto Eat upgrade, purchased in the shop for Coins.svg 1,000k, followed by the Amulet of Looting, found in the Spider Forest, which will make combat a fully automated activity. Beyond that, it's mainly a matter of learning how combat works and leveling up your skills.

Slayer

Slayer is a skill that mostly revolves around fighting monsters in special areas called Slayer Areas, these areas function similarly to normal Combat Areas such as the Farmlands; however, each Slayer Area also has a negative passive modifier that applies to all combat that takes place there. In the early game, there's not much that can be done about Slayer Area Effects, so they can be ignored.

The other aspect of Slayer is Slayer Tasks: a "bounty" rewarded for killing a number of enemies:

  • Selecting the "New Task" button and choosing a difficulty is required to obtain the first task.
  • Any other time the "New Task" button is pressed, the window will open again, and the player must pay a fee of Slayer Coins.svg Slayer Coins to either re-roll a task of the same difficulty or select a new task of a different difficulty.
    • the Easy difficulty has a re-roll cost of Slayer Coins.svg 0 and can be re-rolled infinitely in order to choose a specific monster, if desired.
  • The player will be given a quota of a random enemy available in that difficulty level.
    • The "Extend Task" button will charge another fee of Slayer Coins.svg SC and add a amount of monsters to the current task. Including the fee, completing an extended task will always provide more slayer coins in total than if the task was not extended.
  • Any time the player kills one of these monsters, they will be awarded Slayer Coins.svg SC.
  • Any task that is completed will automatically end and be replaced with a different task of the same difficulty, combat will continue with the current monster and the player will stop earning Slayer Coins.svg SC.
  • Slayer XP is earned by fighting Slayer Tasks or by killing enemies in Slayer areas, these amounts stack, so a greater amount of XP is earned by doing Slayer Tasks in Slayer Areas.

It is recommended to start with Slayer Tasks as early as possible, working towards unlocking Auto Slayer as the primary goal. Be aware that this can take some time as the enemies the player is able to kill at this stage will not drop very many Slayer Coins.svg SC.

  • The least amount of effort to do this would be to simply re-roll until the monster the player is currently fighting is the current slayer task, and then extending that task to make it last as long as possible.
  • Using Slayer Tasks as often as possible can be a great way to level multiple skills at once.
  • Slayer Tasks can also encourage the player to fight targets they normally wouldn't simply for the rewards.
  • In the early-early game, stick with Easy difficulty tasks due to their free re-rolls
  • The least amount of effort that can be put into Slayer is re-rolling as many times as it takes until the monster the player is fighting becomes the task.
    • This is especially useful against Plant, Cow, and Chicken and other very low level monsters.

Leveling Guidelines

As the player is just being introduced to combat, this section will try to be as simple as possible, while also setting some guidelines for the rest of the guide. The tables in each section in this entire guide will generally provide bare minimum recommendations. Some notes on how to use the information given:

  • The player must have an appropriate Auto Eat level and won't run out of food.
  • The player has enough Damage Reduction to survive against enemies when Auto Eat is not enough by itself.
  • Armor should be upgraded from the Bank screen whenever possible, this is possible for all Melee except Gloves armor and Ranged armor starting with Green D-hide

For the first section, the player will likely not have any cape, amulet, rings, Prayer, Potions, Astrology bonuses, or Agility obstacles. With proper bonuses, the player can attempt much more difficult content and make progress a lot faster. Some notes on the first section:

  • All assumed skill levels are equal to the ones required by the set of gear.
  • When choosing a proper monster to farm, it is recommended to follow a priority rule:
  1. Drops something that useful.
  2. Is the current Slayer Task.
  3. Highest XP/hr.

Hitting the same enemy for 2 weeks because they are the "best" is a really boring way to play the game.

And finally, using Combat Simulator and Can I Idle should be your guide over anything printed here. This guide accepts no responsibility for untimely deaths.

Melee

Leveling

Most players start combat with Melee as it does not require the overhead of Fletching Ammunition for Ranged or Runecrafting Runes for Magic.

For Melee, use Smithing to wear and wield the highest level gear available.

Smithing armor can be upgraded () twice from the Bank, once with Silver Bars and the second time with Gold Bars. Typically, upgrading armor isn't really worth the extra time spent until at least Adamant.

Melee leveling is split across 3 different skills, Attack, Strength, and Defence.

In general, all Melee weapons have Stat distributions that encourage the use of the following Attack Styles:

Weapon Details Style
Dagger Fast, weaker Stab Block
Sword Stab Block
Scimitar Slash
2H Sword No shield, slow Slash
Battleaxe Slow-ish Slash Block
Level Attack Weapon Strength Weapon Defence Weapon Armor Recommended Monster Idleable Dungeons
1 Bronze Bronze Bronze Bronze Cow -
Iron Iron Iron Iron -
5 Steel Steel Steel Steel Skeleton -
10 Black / Steel Black / Steel Black / Steel Black / Steel Tentacle / Skeleton Chicken Coop (Requires Auto Eat - Tier II)
20 / Mithril Mithril Mithril Mithril Frozen Archer -
30 / Adamant / Adamant Adamant Adamant Undead Graveyard
40 / Rune / Rune Rune Rune Spider Forest / Frozen Cove / Bandit Base
Ice Sword Bandit Miolite Caves (Requires Auto Eat - Tier III)

Gear Goals

Ranged

Same as Melee, you should be doing the highest XP/hr monster with the highest possible gear. Due to the slower attack speed and the relative difficulty of Fletching large amounts of bolts, you shouldn't use crossbows until you have the Dragon Crossbow or better. For bolts, anything worse than Emerald Bolts is sellable. Save the Diamonds for Diamond Luck IV Potions.

Leveling

Ranged has a lot of options to do great damage, particularly to Magic enemies that may be very difficult to beat with Melee.

For Ranged, use Crafting to obtain the highest level Armor, and Crafting to obtain the highest level Weapons and Ammo.

Crafting armor can be upgraded () once from the Bank, using more of the raw Dragonhide. Upgrading Ranged armor is always recommended once it's available.

Ranged has three different Attack styles, Accurate, Rapid, and Longrange:

  • Accurate increases your Hidden Ranged level which causes each attack to be more accurate and deal more damage.
  • Rapid lowers the attack interval of the weapon by 0.4 seconds, making each attack significantly faster
  • Longrange increases your Hidden Ranged Level by less than Accurate, while also giving Hidden Defence Levels and evenly splitting the amount of XP earned between Ranged and Defence.

In general, Accurate is more effective at low levels, while Rapid is more effective at higher levels. The cutoff is approximately level 40. Longrange should likely be used before this cutoff to also get an amount of Defence XP!

Ranged has several different Weapon types to choose from, each with their own benefits and drawbacks. For the early part of the game, it is recommended to stick with Longbows, since Arrows are the most plentiful ammo source:

Weapon Details Ammo Notes
Shortbow Fast-ish, weaker Arrows Not great.
Longbow More accurate, more damage Arrows Arrows are cheap and easy to mass produce.
Crossbow Slow with high damage Bolts Bolts are valuable and difficult to make.
Throwing Knives Extremely fast with low damage and accuracy - Does not require Fletching.
Javelins Fast with high damage and low accuracy - Javelins are worth a lot of GP when sold
Level Bows Arrows Armor Recommended Monster Idleable Dungeons
1 Normal Longbow Bronze Arrows Leather Cow -
Iron Arrows -
Ice Arrows -
5 Oak Longbow Steel Arrows Skeleton -
10 Hard Leather Tentacle Chicken Coop (Requires Auto Eat - Tier II)
20 Willow Longbow Mithril Arrows Wizard -
30 Maple Longbow Adamant Arrows Bandit Undead Graveyard
40 Yew Longbow Rune Arrows Green D-hide / Ranger Hat/ Ranger Boots Spider Forest
Ice Shortbow Ice Master Wizard Bandit Base / Hall of Wizards / Frozen Cove / Deep Sea Ship / Miolite Caves(Requires Auto Eat - Tier III)

Gear Goals

Magic

Leveling

See Magic/Training for an alternative way to level magic with non-combat Spells.

Magic is a time consuming but rewarding Combat Style due to the sheer prevalence of Melee enemies. Dealing more damage and taking less damage from the most common enemies in the game is fantastic.

For Magic, use Runecrafting to obtain the highest level weapons and armor, as well as to create runes to cast spells.

Runecrafting armor does not need to be upgraded to provide Damage Reduction, appropriate level Robes will automatically provide this stat.

Magic has two different Attack styles, Magic and Defensive:

  • Magic increases your Hidden Magic level which causes each attack to be more accurate and deal more damage.
  • Defensive increases your Hidden Magic Level less, while also giving Hidden Defence Levels and evenly splitting the amount of XP earned between Magic and Defence.

In general, Defensive is always the most efficient Attack Style to use, as training Defence with Magic uses the least amount of time and damage while remaining efficient.

Combat Magic has a ton of options to choose from, mainly based on the amount and type of runes required to cast each spell. Curses and Auroras can add a lot of damage, but are entirely optional as they increase the amount of runes required to

It is recommended to choose a spell, staff, robes, and aurora that use as many of the same primary Elemental Runes as possible.

Rune Staff Spell Aurora Robes
Air Rune
Water Rune
Earth Rune
Fire Rune

Each non-Wind spell also has the option of using Combination Runes. Combination Runes are a good way to level Runecrafting as they are worth significantly more XP than their individual counterparts; crafting combination runes for spells you plan to use is a great way to make more efficient use of your Runecrafting leveling.

When using Combination Runes, look to synergize your staff with any Aurora also being cast, as their rune cost reduction does not apply to Combination Runes. For example, there is no benefit to using a Fire Battlestaff with Fire Wave if you are casting the spell with Smoke Runes, but there would be a benefit of using a Air Battlestaff with Fire Wave if you were also casting Surge II.

Level Weapon Spell Armor Recommended Monster Idleable Dungeons
1 Staff of Air Wind Strike Air Acolyte Wizard Robes Tentacle
Magic Wand (Basic)
10 Basic Staves Strike Spells Acolyte Robes Confused Pirate
30 Battlestaves Bolt Spells Acolyte Robes Giant Crab
Magic Wand (Powerful)
40 Mystic Staves Blast Spells Adept Robes Giant Crab

Gear Goals


The Early Game: Levels 41-75

Volcanic Cave (and Dragons Den to a lesser extent) is the first real challenge the game presents to you, and preparing for it will likely take a couple of weeks of grinding for standard accounts.

This is where the Combat Triangle becomes extra important, and ignoring it entirely can be deadly or progress hampering.

Major Goals

The primary goal of this section is to replace all equipment and weapons obtained from non-combat skills with upgrades obtained from combat. Do note that all Ancient Armor is technically skippable, it will be replaced quite quickly with the armor from the God Dungeons, especially if these are done as early as possible. They are left in the guide as it is very common for players to get them anyways, and they can make progression a lot smoother.

Equipment Options

Slayer

Many of the important items for this stage of the game are found from monsters in Slayer Areas, so it is helpful to have decently high level Slayer before going too far.

At this stage the player should be geared enough to be comfortably dealing with Normal difficulty tasks, and moving in to Hard difficulty tasks by the end of this step.

Slayer Areas sometimes require items that must be purchased using Slayer Coins.svg SC from the Shop such as the Mirror Shield and Desert Hat. The monsters locked in slayer areas will not be rolled in slayer tasks until the item has been purchased from the shop. Also, if you are using Auto Slayer, monsters locked behind an item will never appear if the item is not equipped; you can leverage this to control the task rolls.

Melee

Leveling

Level Attack Weapon Strength Weapon Armor Recommended Monster
41 Rune / Elerine Spear Rune Rune Armor Bandit
50 Desert Sabre / Rune Desert Sabre / Rune Rune Armor Bandit
60 Dragon Claw / Dragon Dragon Claw / Dragon Dragon Armor Vampire
70 Ancient Sword / Warberd Ancient 2H Sword / War Axe Ancient Armor Holy Archer

Gear Goals

Ranged

Leveling

Level Weapon Ammo Armor Recommended Monster
41 Rune Javelin / Yew Longbow Rune Arrows Green D-hide Master Wizard
50 Rune Javelin / Magic Longbow Rune Arrows Blue D-hide Master Wizard
60 Slayer's Crossbow / Dragon Javelin Emerald Bolts Red D-hide Master Wizard
70 Slayer's Crossbow / Dragon Javelin Emerald Bolts Black D-hide Superior Eyed Monster

Gear Goals

Magic

Leveling

Level Weapon Spell Armor Recommended Monster
41 Mystic Staves Blast Spells Adept Robes Giant Crab
50 Mystic Staves Wave Spells Adept Robes Turkul Giant
60 Mystic Staves Surge Spells Adept Robes Griffin
70 Mystic Staves Surge Spells / Slicing Winds Expert Robes / Ancient Wizard Robes Venomous Snake
Magic Wand (Elite) / Imbued Wands

Gear Goals

Volcanic Cave and Ancient Armor

The major goal of this section is to find and equip Ancient Armor

Ancient Wizard Robes come from the Hall of Wizards.

  • This dungeon isn't really difficult enough to warrant a guide, it is recommended to use the best available Ranged equipment to benefit the most from the Combat Triangle.
  • As with most Magic equipment, these robes do not need to be upgraded to get the full benefit.

Ancient D-hide Armor comes from the Dragons Den. - This dungeon has a guide at Dragons Den/Guide

  • This armor needs to be upgraded, getting the raw D-hide necessary to fully upgrade this armor will likely take longer than getting each piece of armor
  • Ancient D-hide Shield has a second upgrade, the Scaled Shield, which is best in slot for Ranged for a long time.

Ancient Plate Armor comes from the Volcanic Cave. - This dungeon has a guide at Volcanic Cave/Guide

Due to the nature of the game, it is entirely possible to skip Ancient armor completely, and go straight to the next section. This does however require a bit more knowledge of how the game works, and is not necessarily recommended. The Dragonfire Shield and the Scaled Shield are two important items that should not be skipped.


The Mid Game: Levels 76-95

After acquiring and equipping all of the Ancient sets of armor and obtaining decent weapons, the player should now be well prepared to step up to the plate of the next challenge the game has to offer, Infernal Stronghold and the God Dungeons. But first, it is hugely recommended to assess the progress of all non-combat skills; each of these dungeons is difficult enough that NOT having access to Prayers, Herblore Potions, Summoning Tablets, or Agility / Astrology bonuses can make progress significantly slower than it needs to be.

This section will first outline any particularly useful buffs and some crucial pieces of equipment to grab before moving on.

Major Goals

External Buffs

Prayer

Prayer, while always useful, can be difficult to level up in the early game, and many players ignore it due to the upkeep required. Now is a great time to remedy that!

Obtaining Prayer Points is the main ingredient here, this can take time and effort, but is rewarding. Prayer Points come from the following sources:

As for which Prayers to use, preferably Battleheart and the best combat style prayer available, Piety, Rigour, or Augury.

Agility

Agility grants many powerful bonuses the most important of which being increased Hitpoints. This can make achieving idle-breakpoints much easier when your effective HP is 9 levels higher than it should be.

Which bonuses you pick and whether or not you want to swap courses often are up to you as which obstacles are "best" varies based on what you're doing and what your goals are, but the following table will list any obstacles with helpful combat bonuses:

# Obstacle Reason
1 Cargo Net +3% Global GP, woohoo!
2 X
3 Pipe Climb The only obstacle on this tier with any benefit to combat.
4 Coal Stones The only obstacle on this tier with a net-positive benefit to combat.
Mud Dive / Cave Climb These obstacles are decent in the Early Game for squeezing out a little bit of extra power when your HP and Damage Reduction don't really matter.
5 Cliff Climb Use this typically any time when doing slayer, but be aware of the negative modifier and pick and choose when to run this.
Cliff Balance Can be used as the default combat obstacle, the Prayer point increase is really not as bad as it sounds.
6 Rocky Waters This obstacle is extremely powerful in the early game, and is always viable for Combat. This obstacle can single-handedly let you do Dungeons much earlier than normal.
Lake Swim Damage reduction is great, so is doing more damage and preserving Prayer points! In the later stages of the game, this obstacle is typically more useful than Rocky Waters, but will rarely, if ever, provide more survivability.
7 Pick the trap that hinders what you're doing the least, this varies based on where you are in the game and what goals you have.
8 Pipe Crawl Used for Slayer.
Raft Building More well rounded, and can help making damage reduction breakpoints. This obstacle can safely be the default.
Spike Jump Used for completing Dungeons.
9 Lava Jump Primarily used for killing weak enemies as quickly as possible, particularly when the enemy dies in one or two hits. The negative modifiers make this unappealing for any other use
Water Jump Great if you do not need the bonuses from Ice Jump or Frozen Lake Crossing and can afford to swap to something else when you do want those bonuses.
Ice Jump The most well rounded for all Skills including, and can be used as the default.
Cave Maze Competes with a bunch of heavy hitters, there should be no reason to use this instead of the other options.
Frozen Lake Crossing The most well rounded for combat, not as useful for non-combat and can be used as the default.
10 Lava Waterfall Dodge Well rounded and often best for non-combat skills, this can be used as the default.
Dragon Fight Primarily used for killing weak enemies as quickly as possible, particularly when the enemy dies in one or two hits.
Ocean Rafting Always useful for combat, not as useful for non-combat and should generally only be used if you really need extra Damage or Slayer Coins.
P Pillar of Combat Does everything you want it to.

Herblore

Preferably Diamond Luck Potion IV or Damage Reduction Potion IV. Alternatively:

Summoning

For dungeons, preferably Dragon and the best combat style Tablet available, Minotaur, Centaur, or Witch. For Slayer Cyclops paired with the same combat style tablets a safe bet. The best two alternatives are:

Slayer

Slayer is crucial to continuing to upgrade your equipment at this point; if it has been neglected, now is nearly the last time to catch up without falling behind. Elite and Master difficulty Tasks can be quite difficult, especially if using Auto Slayer, it may be more efficient to only do tasks when possible, and fight each enemy normally when the player can't be around.

Fury of the Elemental Zodiacs (FEZ)

Final upgrade of all of the Elite Amulets. FEZ has a table that details a number of important stats on each Amulet at FEZ/Guide. If the guide has been followed thoroughly until this point, here is a quick summary of where each amulet should be obtained from the quickest:

Dungeon Guides

Infernal Stronghold

- This dungeon has a guide at Infernal Stronghold/Guide

The primary reason to do this dungeon is the Infernal Cape which grants 4% Damage Reduction and works well for each combat style. The Infernal Cores dropped here can be used to upgrade and Ancient Claw into an Infernal Claw, a critical and powerful one-handed Melee weapon.

Air God Dungeon

- This dungeon has a guide at Air God Dungeon/Guide.

The Air God Dungeon drops Ranged armor and equipment, and is usually completed with Melee equipment from the Volcanic Cave.

Water God Dungeon

- This dungeon has a guide at Water God Dungeon/Guide.

The Water God Dungeon drops Magic armor and equipment, and is usually completed with Ranged equipment from the Air God Dungeon.

Earth God Dungeon

- This dungeon has a guide at Earth God Dungeon/Guide.

The Earth God Dungeon drops Melee tank oriented armor and equipment, and is usually completed with Magic equipment from the Water God Dungeon..

Fire God Dungeon

- This dungeon has a guide at Fire God Dungeon/Guide.

The Fire God Dungeon drops Melee dps oriented armor and equipment, and is usually completed with Ranged equipment from the Air God Dungeon.

Into the Mist

- This dungeon has a guide at Into the Mist/Guide.

Into the Mist is one of the most difficult challenges in the game. It cannot be idled.

To start, the player must first fight 20 Afflicted versions of randomly chosen monsters between combat level 165 and 677. Any monster, including bosses, save those from Unhallowed Wasteland or Dark Waters, can be chosen.

Affliction is a special status effect applied by monsters that reduces your max HP. This means that the encounters are a race against the clock, forcing you to kill the enemy before your affliction stacks get too high. Due to this, it is recommended that you focus on DPS above all else when choosing your three gear sets.

This dungeon cannot be completed without the Dungeon Equipment Swapping upgrade purchased from the shop.

Note that it may be beneficial to complete the Master tier Slayer tasks required to unlock Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Master) before completing Into the Mist for the first time. This is because of Dark Waters monsters being added to the pool of available enemies. It will no longer be trivial to use Auto Slayer for Master tier Tasks, as the new enemies are fairly strong, and are more lethal to the average player than the Greater Dragons available in the Perilous Peaks version of Master Tasks. If you do not feel comfortable learning how to do manual slayer, feel free to Auto-slay Perilous Peaks. See below for a more in depth explanation.

Into the Mist consists of 3 boss phases in a set order, with pauses in between each phase. Refer to Into the Mist/Guide for a comprehensive guide on completing this dungeon.

Notable Rewards:

  • Access to the Dark Waters slayer area, where the T90 weapons can be obtained
  • Pablo - Drops after 5 completions

Combat Passive Slot

Main Article: Combat Passive Slot

Congratulations on completing Into the Mist! The reward is one of the best upgrades in the game, the Passive Slot. This allows any item with a "Passive: ____" effect to be equipped in said slot.

While the original article is more than exhaustive, some of the best choices are highlighted here:

  • Chapeau Noir - More item doubling is always good
  • Ring of Wealth - More item doubling is always good
  • Master Slayer Armor - Lets you splash more Flat Slayer Area Reduction, along with a pittance of item doubling
  • Elder Crown - Slightly more dps from attack interval reduction, a big pile of free lifesteal helps preserve food stocks
  • Fighter Amulet - Melee only, good dps, less attacks taken from enemies
  • Deadeye Amulet - Ranged only, fantastic dps

When to complete Master Slayer Tasks: Before or after ITM

Slayer Gear Upgrade Kit (Master) and therefore Master Slayer Armor are unlocked by completing 40 Master tier Slayer tasks. In the base game, Master Tier Slayer consists of 3 Slayer areas based on the following unlock conditions:

The contains new Master Slayer areas, but these are all locked behind completion of the Impending Darkness Event

Completing 40 Master tasks can take anywhere from 20-80+ hours (with a probable average of about 40hours), depending on your setup, luck with task length, or efficiency/luck in re-rolling for short tasks on the fastest to kill monster. These tasks can be completed either before or after Into the Mist, and which method you do is up to you.

Due to the difficulty of enemies in Dark Waters, using Auto Slayer to complete Master tasks is no longer feasible following the completion of Into the Mist. Therefore, it is 'simpler' to complete all 40 tasks while having only Perilous Peaks unlocked, as the only necessity is to meet the DR checkpoints of each monster. You will also need a fairly healthy supply of food, as these Greater Dragons all have the Greater Dragonbreath ability, which deals a large amount of unavoidable damage.

The Dark Waters drop valuable materials to make powerful weapons, generally consume equal or less food than greater dragons, and an average of about 40 hours each to complete with optimal setups. Therefore, even though they cannot be done on Auto-slayer, completing your Master tasks while working on your t90 weapons will most likely consume less food, and generally take less overall time on on task by killing two birds with one stone. The major downside here is that you will want to check back in every 2-3 hours to swap your equipment and manually change to the next task. This is not mandatory, but it is recommended as you will be earning Slayer XP and Slayer Coins all the while, and you will be able to purchase Prayer Points and Food at a profit.

Consider the addition of the Passive Slot - By equipping powerful passive effects in this slot, you can greatly increase your DPS, item drop rate, or greatly reduce your food consumption. This is most noticeable on Greater Dragons; with the Elder Crown equipped, food use against these enemies drops dramatically. Fighter Amulet works similarly for enemies primarily fought with Melee; Rokken and Hunting Greater Dragon.

The Late Game: Levels 96-99

Following completion of Into the Mist, you now have access to Dark Waters, the penultimate slayer area and will soon be able to unlock Unhallowed Wasteland

These are long grinds, and may require quite a bit of preparation.

We recommend acquiring them while fighting each monster as a slayer task, this will require you to turn OFF auto-slayer, and will encourage semi-frequent check-ins. Doing these on task will increase your damage dealt to them from various buffs, namely Slayer Skillcape.

All items dropped in these two areas come as fragments of the final pieces, needing hundreds of individual items to make one final version, therefore it is recommended to attempt to sneak in as much item doubling into your gear as possible. Using the Combat Simulator to measure your Drops per hour with no deaths is highly recommended. It can make the difference in literal days of grinding.

Major Goals

Dark Waters

- This Slayer area has a guide at Dark Waters/Guide

These 3 monsters drop fragments for the T90 (tier, or level requirement) weapons, high level and powerful weapons that are extremely helpful in completing the following Slayer Area, as well as the Impending Darkness Event. Each weapon is upgraded by combining 100 fragments, and the fragments have a 2% drop rate. That's 5,000 kills on average with 0% chance to double items.

Using the above "manual" Slayer method will make the order you obtain the weapons in effectively random, but if you want to do them in a specific order, we recommend the following:

Additionally, you should also acquire the pet Otto whilst doing this grind, if you do not, continue farming whichever mob you kill the fastest on or off task until you get it.

Unhallowed Wasteland

- This Slayer area has a guide at Unhallowed Wasteland/Guide

After completing the T90 weapon grinds, you are ready to face the another difficult challenge, the Unhallowed Wasteland (UW) - the final Slayer area in the base game

To access it, you need to purchase a Map to the Unhallowed Wasteland.

The area requires maximizing a different stat than DR. All of the monsters here will heal a % of their current HP every 2 attacks, which will massively hinder your DPS regardless of the setup. To mitigate this, you need a cumulative 100% Flat Slayer Area Effect Negation.

With 0% chance to double items, these monsters all require an average of 4000 kills to obtain all items required.

Here's an example of the gear required for melee:

Item Slot Slayer Area
Effect Negation %
Slayer Helmet (Master) Head 20%
Slayer Platebody (Master) Body 20%
Slayer Cowl (Master) Passive 20%
Max Skillcape/ Slayer Skillcape Cape 25%
Hunter's Ring Ring 10%
Agility Pillar of Combat Agility 5%
Total 100%

For the other combat styles, you'll be wearing the equivalent Master Slayer armor. Note that you cannot ever wear two of the same item, so whichever item you choose to put in the passive slot must be one of the armor pieces not currently equipped in your chest/head slots.

It should be noted that while UW is listed first, completing the Impending Darkness Event will strictly make this grind faster! You can complete ID without any of the UW gear sets, and the shields greatly speed up these grinds.

While you are here, you will be working to acquire all of the set bonus gear, dropped from each of the UW monsters:

Impending Darkness Event

- This dungeon has a guide at Impending Darkness Event/Guide.

The final dungeon of the base game of Melvor Idle also has a bunch of unique mechanics:

  • Combat takes place in Slayer Areas, with their respective Slayer Area Effects active
    • This also includes the entry requirements for each Area!
  • Negative modifiers, each phase of the event will require the player to choose a modifier that applies to all enemies.
  • Running from Combat will not make you leave the event, but will reset any progress made on unfinished Slayer Areas.
    • Bane's combat style will also be re-rolled, if you want to choose a different combat style.
    • All non-combat skills are able to be trained while the Event is paused, which can be helpful if the player wants to complete the Event over multiple sessions without losing time doing nothing.

And some returning mechanics:

  • Affliction - everybody's favorite debuff!
    • Each phase of the Event gives the normal Slayer enemies more Max HP, more Max Hit, and a higher chance to apply affliction.
  • Manual Eating - It is very difficult to impossible to guarantee your safety in this event without careful manual eating and knowledge of each enemy's attacks.

Similar to Ahrenia, Bane requires you to fight him with the same combat style he is using.

Each phase of the event is the same, with the added dangers of extra negative modifiers and increased base passives. The player will be given the choice of a negative modifier, then must complete a series of gauntlets through 4 difficult Slayer Areas, these gauntlets are up to 8 monsters randomly chosen from the pool of available monsters in each area. Once each area is completed, the event pauses until the player selects the next area. Immediately upon completion of the final slayer area, Bane will spawn with a random combat style. While the main article has more information, it is recommended to complete the slayer areas in the following order:

Because Bane uses the modifiers from the Slayer Area you fight him in, you should always fight him in the Perilous Peaks. Your prayers will be Battleheart and Protect from Style, which makes the area effect (-% Evasion) not actually have an effect on Bane's chance to hit the player.

The final fight with Bane is a special version, Bane, Instrument of Fear with an extra ability.

Each time Bane is defeated the following rewards are given directly to the player, in this set order. All of these are BiS for the base game, and are still useful and viable in any expansion content:

FAQ

Q: No Monsters are spawning!

A: Make sure you select a Slayer area! Monsters do not spawn on their own here.

Q: I'm not dealing any damage with any of my attacks, and attacks that can't miss are missing!

A: As combat takes place in Slayer Areas, the player needs to have access to the area to be able to deal damage.

Q: How long does this dungeon take?

A: Approximately 2 hours, depending on your gear and preparation. Each phase of the dungeon (there are 5) should take up to 20 minutes of combat and 5-10 minutes for equipment swapping, ability reading, and hard breathing

Q: How many times do I need to complete this Event?

A: Bane, Instrument of Fear only needs to be killed once. Note that Bane must be killed four times before reaching the final boss.

Q: What Skills can I train while the Event is Paused?

A: All non-combat skills including Alt-Magic. No other combat can be trained until the event is completed or the "Stop Event" button is pressed.

Q: How do I beat this event?

A: Keep your HP above 0 while lowering your enemy's HP to 0. Works every time!




Throne of the Herald Expansion

This section will be updated as time goes by, for now, following some basic guidelines will be a good way to get started: Combat in the Throne of the Herald Expansion revolves significantly around using Slayer areas to prepare to complete a dungeon. Leveling can be done in the first 2 Slayer Areas, the Jungle Labyrinth and Lava Lake - note that Deadly Poison is simply a more damaging version of Poison, it deals 25% of the players HP over the duration instead of 10%.

A simplistic order for completing Combat:

  1. Jungle Labyrinth for the Labyrinth Solution
  2. Ancient Sanctuary - See Ancient Sanctuary/Guide
  3. Lava Lake and Forsaken Tundra
  4. Underground Lava Lake and Lightning Region Dungeons
  5. *optional*: Lair of the Spider Queen - must be cleared manually at this stage.
  6. Foggy Lake for powerful midgame tools
  7. Midnight Valley for powerful midgame weapons
  8. Cursed Forest and Necromancers Palace for powerful lategame equipment
  9. Golden Cloud Mountains only until obtaining the Golden Shard
  10. Millennium Gate for BIS endgame Armor with the highest Damage Reduction
  11. Golden Cloud Mountains for BIS endgame weapons
  12. Lair of the Spider Queen
  13. Throne of the Herald

Stats and Buffs

Minimum Recommended Levels

Suggestion Benefit
Hitpoints Level 110 More HP means less dying
Agility Level 99 Pillar of Combat
Summoning Level 110 Siren and just having more options
Prayer Level 110 Valor

Astrology

As many combat bonuses from Astrology constellations are recommended, but not required. In total, Astrology serves as a massive buff to combat and will make the fight easier. The main bonuses are:

Agility

# Obstacle Reason
11 Pipe Maze More damage.
12 Boulder Balance Lower attack interval and more damage for the low price of lower accuracy.
13 Rope Trap More damage.
14 Freezing Climb More evasion, accuracy and damage.
15 Waterfall Crossing Is the equivalent of a permanent Diamond Luck Potion IV, which frees up the potion slot for Damage Reduction Potion IV It is necessary to have this obstacle at 99 mastery to halve the -100hp modifier.
EP Elite Pillar of Conflict Lots of beneficial combat bonuses.

Consumable Slot

The only DPS benefitting item which goes in here are Whetstone. However, they only affect Melee. Blood Vial or Portable Rations can be used outside of your melee set, but have very little effect.

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