Melee training

Melee training is the act of leveling up the three melee skills Attack, Strength, and Defense. As these levels increase, so does your Hits level. This article is a guide on how to efficiently level up the Attack, Strength, and Defense skills.

Unlike in RuneScape 2, the amount of combat experience you receive is not based on the amount of Hits a monster has. Rather, each monster grants their own amount of experience, 1/4 of which goes to hits, and the rest to Attack, Strength, or Defense, depending on the attack style used (Controlled, Aggressive, Accurate, or Defensive). Because of this, many low level monsters, such as chickens, are ideal for training combat skills, because they can give over twice as much Hits experience than they have Hits, while most mid to high level monsters give significantly less Hits experience than they have Hits.

Weaponry Choice
Two-handed swords give the highest damage per second of any melee weapon in RuneScape Classic, though you will miss out on a large amount of Armour bonus provided from use of a shield. These are useful in areas where defense is unnecessary at your level, or when using Prayer to train melee. Some monsters which you might train with a two-handed sword on include lesser demons or black knights.

Battleaxes provide damage per second similar to Two-handed swords and allow use of shields, but significantly reduce WeaponAim. The Dragon Battleaxe is the highest hitting weapon in the game, however the Rune Two-handed sword has the same WeaponAim bonus and the Dragon sword provides a higher bonus. These are best used on enemies that have high power but low defense, such as fire giants.

Longswords give WeaponAim exceeding that of a battleaxe and are one-handed, however a large amount of WeaponPower is sacrificed. These are best used on enemies which have high defense but hit significant amounts of damage, such as green dragons.

Most other weapons are seldom used, as they are often considered inferior to the weapons listed above. These include maces (weapons that give only moderate WeaponAim and WeaponPower), daggers (which can be poisoned, but poison does NOT reward experience, and is only effective in pvp situations), scimitars and short swords (which are weaker than longswords).