Doomster

I'd suggest PICKING UP while doing the Minotaurs (will probably result in more arrows than you started with), take a maple bow in as well, then on getting 30, waste the remaining arrows on the west wall, northwest room Catablepon safespot, for their sceptre piece. If you get it, you could try the south wall, south room safespot for the Ankou, though I've always reckoned on magic being better there. The only good reasons for training "no pickup" are: 1. Safespot without easy access to target area (eg. crafting guild hobgoblins). 2a. Getting hit too badly if you leave safespot 2b. Taking too long to kill, so most arrows are lost unless you do mid-combat collections

The amulet of magic is unbeaten in attack bonus, only the members Glory and Fury equal it. So in order: Fury > Glory > Magic > Power > Accuracy > Unholy Symbol > Defence > Holy Symbol - At least on an attack primary / defence secondary basis. The strength amulet is completely useless to a mage.

Only the "shield" icon for spell selection should give DEFENCE levels for magic (magic + defence xp). The non-damage spells (confuse, weaken, curse, enchant, teleport & alch) give neither defence nor HP.

Demolition: At level 1: Demolish harmless piles of rocks Level 10: Small rockslides blocking a path Level 20: Make a hole in a fence Level 30: Low walls Lelvel 99: Make your own hole through any city wall (no more messing around with aglity) Tools: Hammer, plus new range of hammers from bronze to dragon sledgehammer, and low / medium and high explosive potions.

Other equipment? If you're full rune armour or better ('zerker helm) and rune wep or better (Dragon, maybe not a poisoned dagger as you want full XP from them), then Lessers may still be reasonable - fishing at Karamja (Musa) makes a hell of a difference, they would be truly awful if you were buying and bringing food. There are other things that are faster XP, but hoping for a rune med adds a little spice to the Lessers. If you like tough monsters, the Ankou (need to survive on trout/salmon or pike from the river) also have a much larger variety of P2P drops than F2P. I'd avoid giants, their big bone drops make them too popular, and popular = busy = slow training.

The only ways anyone else can assist you with the sceptre are: 1. Running interference... Taking out the "wrong" monsters, covering your back in less than safe safespots. 2. Slightly less than half killing your target, or finishing it off after you have more than half killed it. The pieces cannot be traded, so do not appear to anyone other than the player who did the most damage. They also tend to stack low, some pieces almost hide under bones. The sceptre cannot be recharged, but additional sets of single pieces can be collected, and may be paired but not fully assembled.

Was trading my air running profits for arrows at Brian's. There was a level 3 standing there, Rii00__ (where the two underlines are a number). After several runs, hadn't moved, challenged him for auto buying in public chat, set as friend (showed up as online) and repeated challenge in PM, reported. Next day, a different numbered Rii was there, level 3, same outfit. Time for some randoms for people staying indefinitely in store view, i think!

After the pure ess shock, it seems that rune essence prices have firmed up, maybe due to the desertion by autoers.

Got one at level 32, but my legion (well, 2) of sceptre pures are preparing to attack the stronghold, currently arming the first of them. Both were made last halloween, got the skeleton kit (will go SO well with the sceptre) and then I slid back onto my main for a levelling spree.

The balance may also be swayed by those moving up from F2P. Other than the enormous smithing level requirement, the F2P melee could be 100% self sufficient, though in practice a set of armour and weapon can be easily bought, and lasts a long time with care. The F2P ranger has some decent extra kit to upgrade to, the same level as the warriors rune armour, and the armour is cheaper, as is the weapon. The drawback, is buying arrows. The F2P Mage can be self sufficient in runes, for spells up to fire strike, but then it gets expensive. There is also no upgrade kit. Starting in F2P, invariably encourages development as a melee, unless intending to operate entirely from safespots. After all, why waste ammunition when you are being hit, when you have a weapon that needs no supplies. Moving to higher levels, the highest combat levels are only possible in melee. Prayer was another barrier, though one that has now been rectified with the mage and range prayers. Anyway, if they want to alter the balance of players moving up from F2P, then give F2P fletching and arrowhead smithing up to iron, and extend F2P runecrafting up to chaos.

Also depends on what you offer, not sure where the "proper" air company rates are, but 2k + ess (3k no ess) seem to be about the norm. If competing for runners, 2.1/2.2k may swing it, while if runners are finding it hard to catch a 2k, 1.5k may get some business. I've run a few times, and usually end up getting fed up waiting... In order of preference: 1. Says 2k, ess back 2. Says 2k 3. Just says open 4. Says anything less than 2k (though if that's the only place I can get served after several tries) - Also saying the name can help, as does standing in not too deep a stack... it's chaos there! As I usually build to crafting 3x or more airs and my own supply of other runes, I don't run for airs. I've also seen some giving a couple of laws as payment, also works out as 2k value in individual laws, though a lot less in bulk.

If making potions to use yourself, merge 4 x 3 dose into 3 x 4 dose, then recycle the remaining vial. If trading, it may be better to stick to 3 dose "as it comes", as that is what most players will be trading - the exception, strength potions in F2P, as the apothecary makes them up as 4 dose, so F2P'ers would consider a 3 dose to be "short".

Unless you intend selling mithril ore or preloading to smelt it (as unless you were buying in ores, you mine long before you can smelt), then don't bother with mithril at level 55 (says I, who snatched mithril at level 54 and a stout - I was preloading, and had a lot banked when I did get to smith it). The extra XP for mithril, does not make up for its extreme slowness at the bare minimum level (the same reason that Yews are not good until several levels above the minimum).

The base maps may be a little old (old position of the swamp mine and agility shortcut). Also missing, Canoes. This is unlikely to make AOW, as there is already a tip.it page on travel http://www.tip.it/runescape/?page=getting_around.htm Though mapping all the methods by location is a different approach.

Since a melee fighter cannot engage in combat without being hit, food tends be be a greater consumable for the melee fighter. There is one melee weapon group with consumables - the lizards, uses herb tar even in melee attack.

Specialty shops is the generalzed description for stores that trade in a fixed set of items, at better prices (both ways) than general stores. They will only buy the items that appear in the store, in stock or zero stock. They often do not even deal in the full range of items.

America tried alcohol prohibition - IT DIDN'T WORK! So why are we surprised by the negative results of drugs prohibition? Regulation and taxation makes a lot more sense.

Java is also developing, and may not be the limitation that some consider it to be. http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/tsc/articles/jcanyon/ Actaully, that's not even a latest version demo, I was looking for the Java 6 examples.

Earth strikes would also be worth a look, using only 1 air instead of the two for fire strikes - I don't like them, as I craft that airs and minds, and would rather get the most power from each mind. A side bonus of earth strikes, is that by carrying waters and bodies, you can also curse the target, potentially giving more hit based XP, takedowns and drops for the same amount of strikes. Actually, I'd suggest taking around 1 curse per 20 strikes, even for fire.

Go mad on the stronghold and get lots of full sceptre sets, 5 Barbarian village teles per sceptre? House with a mounted glory (unlimited uses), and house teles or teletabs to get there?

What resolutions is the desktop monitor capable of, and what is the screen set to? (Right click the desktop background, Properties, Settings, to see the current settings). The IE Window is not maximized. Finally, if the bars are stealing too much space, try the Jagex download client instead.

You only get XP per essence, not per rune, so multiples do not help your progress. So by XP per ess: 5.0 Air: Always in demand, and a route that isn't the longest, runners possible at higher levels with lower loss, breakeven or profit. 5.5 Mind: A long route, but a useful rune - a smaller market than airs, but that works both ways, with a shortage of sellers. 6.0 Water: A long route. 6.5 Earth: Not a bad route, but mostly used with water staff and bodies for curse training. 7.0 Fire: Similar walk length to Air, using the general store to un-note ess shortens the route but increases the cost. 7.5 Body: With the fence removal, this is now one of the shorter routes, giving 50% more XP per run than air, but probably the worst rune to trade, with practically no market at all.

You need to move a long way up the mithril ranks to hit an item as good as steel plates, though doing a few mithril items to stores (like square shields that are often out of stock) can save on nats for alching. Working the gold & silver mine in the crafting guild is another option. Anyway, with 80 mining, you can use the mining guild, making coal often easier than iron (unless you like bullying lower levels off the iron). Actually, even at 50% success for smelting, iron is slightly more XP per ore (smelted & smithed) than steel or anything higher. The drawback of iron is that smelting is very slow, so slow you can time out on a load, and it generates 50% more bars to smith for only a little more XP. So if you mine coal not much slower than iron, you're actually better off doing steel, and the cash-out is better, since if you mine the ores yourself, you can high alch at a profit when buying the nats. If you can't high alch, then watch the stores and make the items they are short of, or do mixed items for general stores.

Another point to make... There are 3 ways to use the stronghold, and 2 of them are NOT training. 1. Training, with a bias toward the Minotaurs and Wolves over fences for lower level mage/range safespot training, and the auto-aggressive flesh crawlers for mid-level melee. 2. The boot run, getting through all the levels (without combat), to claim the best melee boots in F2P, plus a few other rewards, also opens up all the portal jumps for later. 3. Sceptre chasing, not too hard for higher levels, to gain the only 1-space teleport item in F2P, but for lower levels, it's the F2P equivalent of Barrows. Getting the sceptre on a lower level (so far , I've done a 34 and a 32) tends to result in awe from those who know how much of a challenge it is.

F2P pure, so no messing with whip or D-weapons. If keeping with a melee based pure, then 40 ranged for green dragonhide chaps and vambs, soon as you like (unless intending to use cheapskate iron armour throughout). This might get an extra HP or 2, good or bad depending on the argument of a longer lifeline, or gaining an extra combat level (1 HP = 1/4 combat level). Weakening and cursing mage to 25, opens up a teleport, while increasing magic also increases resistance to magic. The alternative to secondary range or magic, is to go for an all-out hybrid, in whic case, you would generally want approximately equal combat level calculations for the two skills that you hybrid - eg. Range/R2H, though this means dying with more kit. Pures in the wilderness are in a "kill or be killed" situation, and using ranged effectively means you must be attacking first.