Beginner's Guide to Raising a Runescape Character's Combat Level

At first glance, raising combat levels in Runescape is simple, but it is actually more complex in many of the bigger commercial mmorpgs.

Ranged Combat gives Runescape players the option of removing their foes from a distance, but sometimes an mmorpg player prefers to get up close and personal. There are also times when a Runescape character is just out of runes to craft offensive spells or ammunition to use in his bow or crossbow. Fortunately, the centuries old art of swinging a melee weapon is alive and well in Jagex's free mmorpg.

Melee combat is divided into a selection of related skills that depend on how the weapon is used. A character can choose from attack, strength, defense, and summoning. The last combat skill is available to paid members only.

The Combat Level of a Runescape Character
Most mmorpgs depend use have a straightforward way of determining a character's level based on the amount of experience a character has earned. The skill based mechanics of Runescape make this more difficult than it is in other mmorpgs, but each character has a combat level. The combat level is determined by a formula based on the combat related skills a character possesses. These bases are magic, ranged, and melee.

The melee level is an aggregate of all the combat skills used. If the ranged or magic combat level of a character is higher, he must increase his melee skills enough to become higher level. A character who focuses on one skill type only is known as a pure.

Raising Runescape Combat Skills
While raising all Runescape skills is a matter of using them, it is not immediately obvious to the player which skill he is raising. Each weapon has a selection of attacks that a player can use that raise a skill. Often these are along the lines of lunge, chop, pierce, slash, thrust, and block. Using any one of these attacks gives the character experience in the related combat skill.

When a Runescape player figures out which combat skill he wishes to raise, he merely has to put his weapon on the appropriate attack type. For each attack a character makes, he gets an amount of combat experience based on the amount of damage done.

Training Hit Points in Runescape
Hit points, which are an important part of almost every mmorpg, are raised along with a character's combat level in Runescape, but it is not a skill that a player can set out to train for his character by exercising a skill. Instead, raising a Runescape character's hit points is indirectly related to his combat skills. If he raises enough skills to increase his combat level, his hit points increase.

Runescape Weapon Types
There are 4 basic melee weapon types in Runescape daggers, swords, maces, and axes. The difference between them is the type of damage they do or between axes and swords their speed and how much damage the weapon does overall. Runescape characters also have a new item that can help them raise their combat skills called a defender. These are off-hand items available at the Warrior's guild, according to the Global Runescape website.

Runescape combat is as easy as any other Runescape skill to raise, if not easier. It will probably be the one of the few skills that every character in the game uses at one time or another, so it is worth a character's time and effort to keep the skill level as high as possible. When a character gets tired, he can always fall back on cooking, mining, or blacksmithing.