Hardest Skills To Master - List

[Howdydee2003]

OK well I thought I'd make a list of the hardest skills to master. Now, everyone will have a different opinion or thought about this, so that is why I am making the list using Hi-score numbers. Numbers do not lie :)

 

 

 

Keep in mind though, some skills have been out longer than each other...

 

 

 

Skill ----- # of Accounts at 99

 

----------------------------

 

#24 Strength - 61,746

 

-I have to say this is the best stat a character should have, Helps out alot doing everything. Probably the reason for having the highest number.

 

 

 

#23 Cooking - 56,298

 

-Not as useful as strength, but so many Maxed out because of the easiness of it.

 

 

 

#22 Fletching - 54,591

 

-Same as cooking, not as useful...But really easy to Max

 

 

 

#21 Attack - 47,582

 

-Goes hand to hand with Strength. Helps kill everything, So the high Max Number does not surprise me.

 

 

 

#20 Hitpoints - 38,415

 

-Keeps you alive, no wonder thousands of people have 99

 

 

 

#19 Defence - 31,958

 

-One of the top Combat stats to Max

 

 

 

#18 Ranged - 24,737

 

-Harder to level than Melee Fighting, 99 Rangers have my respect

 

 

 

#16 Magic - 22,107

 

-About the Same to level as Ranged, Just costs more. But I love it

 

 

 

#15 Firemaking - 17,552

 

-Hands Down the most Non Useful stat there is, 17,552 people have ALOT of time on their hands :)

 

 

 

#14 Fishing - 11,177

 

-Now This Surprised me, Fishing has been out since the beginning...I thought there would be a lot more people Maxing this out

 

 

 

#13 Thieving - 6,761

 

-Everyone was training this skill once it first came out... Now i Rarely here anyone say "I'm going to train thieving!"

 

 

 

#12 Prayer - 6,693

 

-Not too hard of a skill, just really Pricey. Waste of money IMO , But grats to the 6k people that have that awesome cape

 

 

 

#11 Hunter - 6,211

 

-Lol, This skill has not been out for long and tons have already mastered it, Jagex could have done a better job with this skill

 

 

 

#10 Crafting - 3,741

 

-A Great Skill, Thumbs up to who ever has 99 :thumbsup:

 

 

 

#9 Slayer - 2,732

 

-Surprisingly, I thought this was going to be the hardest skill, Just takes a lot time but it relatively easy.

 

 

 

#8 Farming - 2,503

 

-Fun, but takes along time! I doubt there will ever be over 10k People with 99 Farming.

 

 

 

#7 Smithing - 2,490

 

-I love smithing , and yes it was hard and pricey 8-)

 

 

 

#6 Agility - 1,927

 

-A cool skill? Kinda pointless unless you run a lot everywhere?

 

 

 

#5 Mining - 1,718

 

-Hands Down, The Hardest Skill In Runescape to Master IMO. Its been out since the beginning and has only 1,717 people with 99.

 

 

 

#4 Herblore - 1,557

 

-A 99 I would LOVE to have, Just Really Pricey.

 

 

 

#3 Runecraft - 1,224

 

-I do not think anyone has mastered this by themselves and without runners, I might be wrong but I doubt it. If you have runners, quite easy but very tedious.

 

 

 

#2 Construction - 970

 

-Cool when it was first introduced. Watched many people spend millions Maxing this out, another waste of time in my book.

 

 

 

#1 Summoning - 812

 

-Very tough to collect charms and have all the Cash. But, it is the latest skill added

 

 

 

----------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

There is over 400,000 Skill Capes out there, Wow.

 

 

 

Hope you liked the list. And yes It is off a little because the age of each skill and the skills you can "buy". If you wanted to determine the listing with time of release and 99'ers.... Then Mining, Smithing, and Crafting would be the Hardest Skills of All Time.

 

 

 

I respect people's opinions but I would Suggest you putting the order YOU think they should be in. I'm just going by the Hiscores.

[DRUMINATOR17]

Eh, makes me realize how much time ive wasted or spent playing this game. Alot of both really, really just depends on how you look at it, or how I view it at any given day of reflection. Great game, but it takes up great amounts of time as well.

 

 

 

To each their own, ya know pick your poison.

 

 

 

That being said, I normally wouldnt look over these things, but this is one of those things that catches your eye as a quick glance over these forums every so often.

 

 

 

Other then the occasional typos dispersed throughout, was worth a read, although a bit pointless with some of the biased remarks too. Surprising to see how high slayer has shot up recently since about the time of summonings release. Think the number to 99 I was in slayer and summoning in my sig with the dates, if that helps put it into prospect.

 

 

 

Just another little nit picky thing, its not # of people to 99 in that skill, its # of accounts with 99 in that skill. Little something, thats really nothing, that people kinda let slip by. Afterall, dozens of people have multiple accounts, and almost just as many of those accounts tend to get leveled up in the same way and fashion with the same 99 skills. ;)

[Master_Smither]

Numbers do not lie :)

 

 

 

If you tested the # of people that got 99 in a certain time period they wouldn't but as you said some have been out longer.

 

 

 

#24 Strength - 61,746

 

-I have to say this is the best stat a character should have, Helps out alot doing everything. Probably the reason for having the highest number.

 

 

 

It is in fact not the higher because it is the most useful(but thats a matter of opinion) but it's high because of the massive amount of pures.

 

 

 

#18 Ranged - 24,737

 

-Harder to level than Melee Fighting, 99 Rangers have my respect

 

 

 

With chinning range can be faster than melee and with that it is not hard to click a group of monsters.

 

 

 

#16 Magic - 22,107

 

-About the Same to level as Ranged, Just costs more. But I love it

 

 

 

With the price of nats it is relitively cheap so not even close to the cost of range if it is chinned.

 

 

 

#15 Firemaking - 17,552

 

-Hands Down the most Non Useful stat there is, 17,552 people have ALOT of time on their hands :)

 

 

 

Not realy alot of time because it is extremely fast XP. But they do have alot of clicking skills.

 

 

 

#12 Prayer - 6,693

 

-Not too hard of a skill, just really Pricey. Waste of money IMO , But grats to the 6k people that have that awesome cape

 

 

 

It's extremely useful if you monster hunt regularly.

 

 

 

#8 Farming - 2,503

 

-Fun, but takes along time! I doubt there will ever be over 10k People with 99 Farming.

 

 

 

The rich can get this level extremely fast with all trees and such so it depends what you do for a time. But I'm sure one day there will be 10K+ people.

 

 

 

#7 Smithing - 2,490

 

-I love smithing , and yes it was hard and pricey 8-)

 

 

 

Not if you use cannonballs ;) but ya mainly pricey ya.

 

 

 

#3 Runecraft - 1,224

 

-I do not think anyone has mastered this by themselves and without runners, I might be wrong but I doubt it. If you have runners, quite easy but very tedious.

 

 

 

I soloed it all without using familairs or ZMI(I don't even have the song unlocked).

 

 

 

#1 Summoning - 812

 

-Very tough to collect charms and have all the Cash. But, it is the latest skill added

 

 

 

Charms are extremely easy to collect as it just is doing combat and getting a usual drop but your right it does cost alot.

 

 

 

The ones I didn't comment on I agreed with your description.

 

 

 

I'll put an order I guess. But these are based on XP hour, cash, and how easy they are to obtain and it's only my opinion

 

 

 

24- Cooking

 

23- Fletching

 

22- Thieving (Plunder is insane XP)

 

21- Firemaking

 

20- Range-Totaly dependant on what you do but mainly people chin.

 

19- Strength-Strength, attack, defence are all the same so any order goes.

 

18- Attack

 

17- Defence

 

16- Magic-Totally dependant what you do but mainly people alch.

 

15- HP

 

14- Summoning (Con,summon,prayer, and herb are just based on XP/hr but are ranked mid because of cost)

 

13- Construction

 

12- Prayer

 

11- Herblore

 

10- Crafting (Craft and smith are fast if you have the cash andmost who do 99 do power train them. )

 

9- Smithing

 

8- Hunter

 

7- Woodcutting

 

6- Fishing

 

5- Farming

 

4- Agility

 

3- Mining

 

2- Slayer

 

1- Runecrafting

[XxTearGodxX]

Says the player with no 99 skills.

[Howdydee2003]

Says the player with no 99 skills.

 

 

 

You Speaking about yourself or something? lol

[Master_Smither]

Says the player with no 99 skills.

 

 

 

Read his sig and look him up :wall: =D>

[ryno258]

You can't really base how easy a skill is by the number of people that have 99 in the skill, but also Master you can't base it on the amount of exp you can get in an hour I mean even if you could get 500k exp in an hour if I hated the skill I would probably only be able to get 1m at a time but if a skill that I loved only gave 20k exp an hour I would find it easy to get 99 in that skill.

 

 

 

By the way How you forgot number 17 Woodcutting.

[Infi]

I wouldn't say that there are actually 400,000 cape owners out there, but rather that's the amount of people who actually got the 99. Remember that there are people who dislike buying capes and that a large portion of that number are F2Pers.

[konkar]

Most decent list in a while.

 

 

 

:thumbup:

[Master_Smither]

You can't really base how easy a skill is by the number of people that have 99 in the skill, but also Master you can't base it on the amount of exp you can get in an hour I mean even if you could get 500k exp in an hour if I hated the skill I would probably only be able to get 1m at a time but if a skill that I loved only gave 20k exp an hour I would find it easy to get 99 in that skill.

 

 

 

By the way How you forgot number 17 Woodcutting.

 

 

 

I understand and it's the same for me but I did it because it shows how potentiolly easy it could be which was an attempt to be unbias but everyone is a little bit and it was just my opinion anyway.

[yuriqiu]

RCing is for me, the hardest skill of all time. The XP/load ratio is just way too low even though it is extremely profitable. IMO, here's my list of the skills in RS from easiest to hardest:

 

24-Cooking-The only skill I found that I could both watch a TV, click about 3 times a load, and still get a level at 95+ in less then 4 hours. Also loses little to no cash.

 

23-Fletching-Same reason as Cooking, although stringing the bows take just a tad more time and attention.

 

22-Strength-Way too common of a cape, easily achieved in PC. Although this might also be my biased opinion as I dislike melee combat with a passion (Don't ask why, i don't know. I just don't like it.)

 

21-Attack-Same explanation as Strength. Also might be easier as Whip has a Accurate option

 

20-Magic-High alch, Humidify, Plank Make. With enough cash, a piece of cake.

 

19-Defense-Now a lot of people hates defense training, but it has also been tainted by PC.

 

18-Hunter-Very Very fast xp/hr ratio. Red Chins being stackable only helps it more.

 

17-Thieving-Way too fast xp/hr ratio. However, you must pay 100% attention

 

16-Woodcutting-Click and afk. Easily achieved if one has the patience.

 

15-Fishing-Interchangeable with Woodcutting

 

14-Range-Of course Red chins is ridiculously fast xp, but I prided myself and got 99 Range with out using one chin. It was no joke.

 

13-HP-Just being 1/4 the speed of training any other single combat skill is enough to push this above any other combat skill ranking

 

12-Firemaking-Currently training for this. I still believe this is the most underrated skill in terms of ease to train. The clicking is unbearable and I'm only lvl 91.

 

11-Prayer-Costs a lot, but easily achieved once you have the cash

 

10-Farming-Either spend a lot of money with trees or gain a lot of money with herbs.

 

9-Smithing-Loses less money then most people make out to believe. A few clicks on making unf. bolts and you get really fast xp

 

8-Crafting-Green D-hide bodies anyone?

 

7-Construction-Costs insane amount of money, but that's about it.

 

6-Agility-After achieving 70 Agility, i felt like hanging a bunch of monkeys and torturing them. Then again, some people say Ape Atoll becomes easier after 75.

 

5-Summoning-Not that hard at Waterfiends, overrated.

 

4-Herblore-Loses a lot of money, and I am one of those person that empties 2 pots in an inventory every time I try to combine potions.

 

3-Mining-Clicking on 1 rock after another takes a large toll on you

 

2-Slayer-It's... Slayer... enough said....

 

1-RC-A blood rune, the highest possible rune that someone can currently make, gives out 10.5xp, that along with a maximum of 61 ess carried possible in one inven(4 max pouch and familiar) is about 640.5xp per inven. Try doing that for 1m xp and your making 1562 trips. If that's not insane I don't know what is.

[tripsis]

Numbers do not lie :)

 

Numbers also cannot always correctly answer questions in the way that you ask them ;) Summoning, for example, may be difficult, but it is also the newest skill, which results in fewer people with level 99. And skills can be done in several different ways and how hard the skill is depends on what things you take into consideration. Construction, for example, can be incredibly easy to 'master.' Cheap? No. Quick? Yes. It all depends on how you look at it.

 

 

 

#3 Runecraft - 1,224

 

-I do not think anyone has mastered this by themselves and without runners, I might be wrong but I doubt it. If you have runners, quite easy but very tedious.

 

I personally know/am friends with several people who have and I'm sure there are many others who I do not know/haven't heard of. And I, at least, had gotten over half way before I quit RuneScape.

 

 

 

#2 Construction - 970

 

-Cool when it was first introduced. Watched many people spend millions Maxing this out, another waste of time in my book.

 

And I love the skill ;) It certainly wasn't a waste of time to me.

 

 

 

On another note, I'm pretty sure I've seen another list like this somewhere. It's possible that it got deleted in the rollback though.

[ydrasil]

When you divide each number by the time it has been out for, you get a better idea of how often someone gets that skill to 99. By the way, your list is missing out number 17, you forgot the Woodcutting skill.

 

 

 

Strength - 61,746

 

Cooking - 56,298

 

Fletching - 54,591

 

Attack - 47,582

 

Hitpoints - 38,415

 

Defence - 31,958

 

Ranged - 24,737

 

Woodcutting - 22,806

 

Magic - 22,107

 

Firemaking - 17,552

 

Fishing - 11,177

 

Thieving - 6,761

 

Prayer - 6,693

 

Crafting - 3,741

 

Smithing - 2,490

 

Mining - 1,718

 

Herblore - 1,557

 

10th July 2002 I think, I got from earliest update in news archive.

 

 

 

Hunter - 6,211

 

21st November 2006

 

 

 

Slayer - 2,732

 

26th January 2005

 

 

 

Farming - 2,503

 

11th July 2005

 

 

 

Agility - 1,927

 

12th December 2002

 

 

 

Runecraft - 1,224

 

Unsure, around 17th February 2004 I think

 

 

 

Construction - 970

 

31st May 2006

 

 

 

Summoning - 812

 

15th January 2008

 

 

 

When these are divided by the amount of years the skill has been out for, you get:

 

24)Strength - 9664.361063

 

23)Cooking - 8827.302744

 

22)Fletching - 8544.4747

 

21)Attack - 7447.439966

 

20)Hitpoints - 6012.639365

 

19)Defence - 5002.002573

 

18)Ranged - 3871.786021

 

17)Woodcutting - 3569.549743

 

16)Magic - 3460.143654

 

15)Hunter - 3006.651194

 

14)Firemaking - 2747.204117

 

13)Fishing - 1749.401801

 

12)Thieving - 1058.218268

 

11)Prayer - 1047.575043

 

10)Summoning - 846.8

 

9)Farming - 729.7084665

 

8)Slayer - 703.2299013

 

7)Crafting - 585.5338765

 

6)Smithing - 389.7298456

 

5)Construction - 381.5193966

 

4)Agility - 320.7273142

 

3)Mining - 268.8979417

 

2)Runecrafting - 253.6967632

 

1)Herblore - 243.698542

 

 

 

Now the numbers are not exact, as more people will have gotten them to 99 recently and I didn't bother to include the extra day from the leap year/s. However, this guives a very good indiction regardless. Keep in mind, this doesn't show how hard the skill is, instead it shows the average players per year who get it to 99. That can be influenced by many factors including time it would take to get 99, cost and liking of this skill.

[Eddo89]

Numbers ALWAYS lie on face value. It is the truth underneath that does not lie. Consider the F2P/P2P factor, time skill was introduced and the usefulness of the skill versus the speed of experience. I really have to question the word "Master" for skills such as herblore and farming. Whats the difference between 99 farming than 85 farming for instance? Since you can do everything in the skill by that level and there is no additional benefit.

 

 

 

For herblore especially, the drop off point is like 83 or a similar number. Since this would had been the goal for a lot player pre-cape days, thats where they stop. Then there is perception of usability, agility makes very slight differences for most players, hence is not liked.

 

 

 

So with these factors, can you honestly say with no doubt that, say Construction is harder smithing, when you look at F2P for smithing, and being a foundation skill.

 

 

 

From the list of ydrasil, it is clear which type of skill is the most popular, and it is clear that light-labour, AFKable skills are clearly has the upper hand. Labour intensive skills generally has less. There are few exceptions, like FM being quite high up, while smithing and herblore being low even with auto-options.

[Nenga]

I'd say farming.

 

 

 

Though try going from 76 to 99 entirely by fishing sharks and it's a lot harder than most people think. After all took me the better part of a year.

[kudos6969]

there are quick ways to level all skills runecrafting included yeah you can do it without runners but its also doable with runners meaning that its not that difficult you just didnt choose to level it fastest way.

 

 

 

summoning cant be very easy because collecting the charms for 99 with bursting takes ages let alone the training of the skill afterwards to 99 and the money gathering of 250m which some people have not reached in 5 years of playing...#

 

 

 

if you consider all the factors for training skills, time for the money to raise that skill, how quick it is etc the list would be very different.

[Grimy_Bunyip]

there are 3 skills that are definitely too uncommon on the hiscores list by my

 

 

 

Construction:

 

it has the same pricetag as prayer but actually trains faster and less tediously (less right clicking and potentially accidental bone burying)

 

very few people have it because it's alot more useless than 99 prayer

 

Considering the miniscule amount of total xp required to get front page with this skill,

 

im surprised more people havent gotten it yet

 

 

 

crafting:

 

most low level players dont realize yet that sapphire necklaces make good profit with the rogue trader

 

and otherwise air battlestaffs are the next best thing at only ~ 2gp/xp

 

definitely is one of the cheaper skills out there

 

 

 

smithing:

 

also not as expensive/slow to 99 as people realize it

 

once you can superheat rune ores you can make profit while training mage and smithing

 

once you reach addy platebodies 200k+ xp/hour is attainable, at almost half the price of say prayer/construction

 

however most players dont reach the 80+'s where smithing becomes easy, and thus they view 99 smithing as a rather difficult skill

[Wingless]

#3 Runecraft - 1,224

 

-I do not think anyone has mastered this by themselves and without runners, I might be wrong but I doubt it. If you have runners, quite easy but very tedious.

 

 

 

 

 

Thats a lie. I've barely ever heard of people with 'runners'

 

 

 

I know tons of people who have gone back and forth to different altars for over 5-7 months trying to get 99 RuneCrafting; saying that they used 'runners' besmirches their honour.

[B_Ryan20]

this is all based on opinion and what skills you like to do because for me firemaking and fletching would be some of the hardest because i hate those skills.

[Ollyc3]

Interesting to see the numbers of skillcape owners these days, proud to own the 4 least common :

[miracleman58]

People are saying RC is the hardeast to skill but imo there is more drive behind that than mining, RC can earn u millions but mining is just dropping granite over and over again. I know this isnt everyone but the majority Make double nats and drop granite for 99's in those skills.

[Bauke]

I wouldn't say that there are actually 400,000 cape owners out there, but rather that's the amount of people who actually got the 99. Remember that there are people who dislike buying capes and that a large portion of that number are F2Pers.

 

Exactly. Doubt people will actually buy all the capes once they get more 99's. Personally I wouldn't know why I'd want a rubbish fletch or cook cape.

 

I have 16 99's but only one cape (mining). You can only wear one, so I don't need more.

[Mercifull]

You can only wear one, so I don't need more.

True but when you operate it you get a +1 bonus for a while which is usefull when woodcutting or fishing for example.

[Fools_Taco]

Hardest cape to get is slayer, hands down. You need to to quests and get gear to train it with any efficiency. Also its the slowest exp rate. 10k an hour is about about maxed out if you average all the hours. Slayer opens up the whole game to people, i cant believe there are still noobs training combat at bandets.

[Grimy_Bunyip]

Hardest cape to get is slayer, hands down. You need to to quests and get gear to train it with any efficiency. Also its the slowest exp rate. 10k an hour is about about maxed out if you average all the hours. Slayer opens up the whole game to people, i cant believe there are still noobs training combat at bandets.

 

 

 

10k an hour is bs, the majority of tasks assigned by duradel dont go under 15k xp/hour if you know how to train right

 

also slayer trains other skills and generally doesnt cost money outside of the initial investment in gear. Slayer points and drops basically allow you to break even while cannoning every other task

 

and most importantly it's FUN

 

mining and runecrafting are faster than slayer technically but they dont train att/str/def/hp/ranged simultaneously and for most people are the complete opposite