OSRS 1–99 Ranged Guide

Ranged earns its place as a top training priority for a few reasons. First, speed: at the high end you can push enormous XP rates, and the fastest path to 99 is one of the quickest in the game — comparable to Magic and far faster than the slow gathering skills. Second, AFK flexibility: unlike most fast skills, Ranged also has genuinely relaxed methods, so you can choose your effort level day to day. You can sweat over a packed corner of monkeys when you have the focus, then switch to the Nightmare Zone and leave it running for 20 minutes when you do not. Few skills give you both extremes.

The biggest reason, though, is combat use. A huge share of OSRS bosses are either weak to Ranged or far easier with it — Zulrah, Vorkath and Phantom Muspah are classic ranged kills, and all three raids (Chambers of Xeric, Theatre of Blood, Tombs of Amascut) expect a strong Ranged level. Because so many high-defence enemies have weak ranged defence, a bow or crossbow is often your most accurate option even when it is not your highest max hit. As a rule of thumb, aim for at least 80 Ranged before you take bossing or raiding seriously, and 85+ before the big moneymakers.

Beyond PvM, Ranged is the backbone of most pure and PvP builds thanks to its fast attack speed, high accuracy and the famous Magic shortbow special attack that fires two arrows at once. And there is the account-progression angle: several quests carry a Ranged requirement and gate areas and further quests behind them, you need level 60 Ranged for the Quest Cape, and level 70 for the Achievement Diary Cape. In short, the level pays off across combat, money-making and completion goals all at once — which is why most players train it early.

Two stats drive every shot. Your Ranged level raises both your accuracy (how often you land a hit) and your max hit (how hard those hits can land). For scale, a plain Shortbow with Bronze arrows has a max hit of 1 and about 50.5% accuracy at level 1, and the same gear reaches a max hit of 12 with around 95.8% accuracy at level 99 — so the level lifts both numbers, but your gear does most of the heavy lifting on max hit. That is the single most important thing to understand about training Ranged: your ammo and weapon matter as much as your level.

Accuracy is governed by your Ranged attack bonus, supplied by your weapon and armour. The higher this number, the more often your shots connect. The corrupted Bow of faerdhinen gives the single highest ranged attack bonus of any weapon at +128, and Masori armour gives the highest bonuses of any set, which is why the two are the endgame standard. Your max hit, separately, is driven by your Ranged strength bonus, and that comes mostly from ammunition — the specific arrow, bolt or dart you fire — with smaller contributions from a few items like the Necklace of anguish and the Masori set. The highest raw strength setup in the game is a Heavy ballista loaded with Dragon javelins, though it is a niche choice for specific kills rather than general training.

Most ranged weapons offer three combat styles: Accurate (an invisible +3 Ranged level boost), Rapid (attacks one game tick faster), and Longrange (increased attack distance, useful for safe-spotting). For the best XP and DPS you should almost always use Rapid — the extra attack speed beats the small accuracy gain from Accurate in nearly every situation. Chinchompas are the exception, because they use Short, Medium and Long fuse instead, and their accuracy scales with how many tiles away the target is. Medium fuse gives the best XP per hour thanks to its faster attack speed, while Short fuse stretches each chin further to save money on tightly-packed stacks. Getting these basics right — Rapid, best ammo you can afford, an Ava's device to recover it — quietly saves you hours and millions over a full 99.

The golden rule is simple: use the best weapon your level and budget allow, and pair it with the best ammo you can afford to lose. It helps to think in three brackets.

In the low bracket (levels 1–45), a Dwarf multicannon is the fastest single thing you can use even at level 1, while Iron knives and the basic Shortbow are the cheap shooting options. Knives and darts are thrown weapons with a fast attack speed, so they put out surprisingly good XP for the price — from level 20 a Mithril dart is very affordable and effective. At level 30 the Maple shortbow becomes the staple all-purpose bow and is the highest bow available to free-to-play.

In the mid bracket (levels 45–75), chinchompas give by far the best XP rates — that is the entire fastest-path story below, and nothing else comes close while you have monsters to stack. For everyday single-target shooting and bossing, a Rune crossbow (level 61) with Broad bolts is roughly on par with a Magic shortbow firing Rune arrows, but Broad bolts cost a fraction of Rune arrows, so the crossbow usually wins on value. The Magic shortbow's special attack still makes it the pure and PvP favourite.

In the high bracket (level 75+), Black chinchompas top the XP charts for active training, while the corrupted Bow of faerdhinen is the best single-target weapon for regular use, followed closely by the Toxic blowpipe. The Venator bow from level 80 is special: it hits up to three monsters at once, which makes it the king of multi-target AFK training in dense areas. Each step up costs real gold, so check live prices in the GE Price Tracker and model the payback before you commit to an upgrade.

Because most of your max hit comes from ammo, picking the right arrow, bolt or dart is one of the most important Ranged decisions — and one of the easiest to get wrong by either overspending or under-hitting. Match your ammo to your weapon and to what your target is worth.

Arrows ladder up Bronze → Iron → Steel → Mithril → Adamant → Rune → Amethyst (level 82) → Dragon, each tier adding ranged strength and therefore max hit. Note that the bow you use caps the arrows you can fire — a Maple shortbow only accepts up to Adamant, while higher bows take Rune and beyond. The catch with all arrows is cost: they are consumed on every shot, so the higher the tier the more gold you burn per hour. This is exactly why Ava's device (covered below) is so important — it recovers most of your fired ammo automatically, turning expensive arrows into an affordable training option.

For crossbows, Broad bolts (usable at level 55, made with Fletching or bought with Slayer points) are the cheap workhorse bolt for training — they are why a Rune crossbow is so cost-effective. Enchanted bolts are a different tool: Ruby bolts (e) chunk a percentage of a boss's current HP and Diamond bolts (e) ignore a slice of the target's Defence, so they shine on high-HP bosses rather than on training dummies. Thrown weapons use darts, and Adamant darts are a popular cheap option for hands-off AFK shooting paired with a Twisted buckler. Finally, if you go the cannon route you will be feeding the Dwarf multicannon Steel cannonballs by the thousand — roughly 2,000 to get from level 1 to 45 — so budget those into your plan, since cannonball cost is the main expense of the early game.

Ranged armour is built around dragonhide, and the progression is one of the smoothest in the game. From levels 1 to 50 you climb Snakeskin (level 30) into Green, Blue and Red d'hide bodies — just note the Green d'hide body and the higher bodies require Dragon Slayer I to wear, and a pure who cannot raise Defence is limited to the leg slot. Above level 50, Black d'hide (level 70 Ranged) is the cost-effective all-rounder that carries most accounts a long way, while Masori is the best-in-slot endgame set. Blessed d'hide matches black d'hide's ranged bonuses but adds a prayer bonus, which is handy when you are flicking Rigour or Eagle Eye.

Two special sets are worth understanding because they break the simple ladder. Void (always aim for Elite Void) only shines against monsters with high Defence, so it is a bossing-and-chinning set rather than a general training one — against low-defence training fodder, dragonhide or Masori out-damages it. Crystal armour, unlocked after Song of the Elves, is actually better than Masori specifically when you wield the Bow of faerdhinen, because the bow and the crystal set share a damage-and-accuracy synergy — so those two pieces of kit are bought together.

The smaller slots add up. In the head slot, a cheap Coif or, for pures, a Robin hood hat early, working up to Karil's, Armadyl or Masori. In the boot slot, Snakeskin or d'hide boots are fine before the pricey Ranger and Pegasian boots. For gloves, use the best vambraces you can afford, with Barrows gloves as the big mid-game jump and Zaryte vambraces as best in slot. In the shield slot, the Twisted buckler is best in slot, with an Odium ward or Book of law as cheaper options. And in the neck slot, an Amulet of glory or Amulet of fury (each +10 ranged attack) bridges to the Necklace of anguish, which is the one to chase for its ranged strength bonus. For full loadouts at each budget tier, see our Ranged gear guide.

A handful of unlocks make Ranged dramatically cheaper, faster, or both — chase these before you start a serious grind. The most important by far is Ava's device from Animal Magnetism. It is a cape-slot item that automatically retrieves most of your fired ammo as you shoot, which means you can train with expensive arrows for a tiny effective cost. Over a full 99 this saves you millions, so it is close to mandatory for any members account. The first version is the Ava's attractor, which upgrades to the Ava's accumulator, and finally to the Ava's assembler after Dragon Slayer II — the assembler is the best version and also adds ranged attack and strength bonuses on top of the ammo recovery.

If you intend to chin — and you should if you want the fastest 99 — you need a Monkey Madness unlock. Monkey Madness I opens the Skeletal monkeys tunnel, while Monkey Madness II opens the Maniacal monkeys cave, which has more monsters packed together and is therefore the faster, higher-XP location. You travel there with a Royal seed pod and a gnome glider, and in the MM2 tunnels a Bonecrusher keeps your Prayer topped up automatically. Separately, the Dwarf Cannon quest (no requirements) unlocks the Dwarf multicannon, the backbone of both low-level and Slayer training.

Three more upgrades round things out. An imbued Archer's ring — imbue it quickly at Soul Wars or AFK at the Nightmare Zone — gives a meaningful all-round bonus. The Rigour prayer at level 77 Prayer, unlocked by reading a Dexterous prayer scroll, is the single biggest ranged accuracy-and-strength prayer in the game and a huge DPS jump for bossing. And for the highest training rates, sip a Divine ranging potion (or a cheaper plain Ranging potion) to boost your effective level for several minutes at a time. Pures also value the Book of law from Horror from the Deep, a no-requirement off-hand giving +10 ranged attack.

The early Ranged levels are painfully slow if you simply shoot low-Defence monsters normally — your max hit is tiny and kills crawl — so there are two smart ways to skip the worst of it. The first is quests, which hand you bulk XP for no grinding. Putting the Shadow of the Storm reward on Ranged and completing Death to the Dorgeshuun and Horror from the Deep grants a combined 16,662.5 Ranged XP — enough to jump straight from level 1 to 32. From there you can push further with Temple of Ikov: its stated level 40 Ranged requirement can be bypassed by wielding knives or darts while you have Ice arrows equipped, for another 10,500 XP, taking you to roughly level 36. Knocking out these quests first means you essentially skip the slowest part of the skill.

If you would rather train normally, the two best low-level methods are crabs and cannoning. Crabs — Sand, Ammonite, Swamp and Rock crabs — are cheap and AFK: find a spot that turns two or three spawns aggressive at once, switch on Auto Retaliate, and reset aggression by running a minimap's distance away every 10 minutes. Swamp crabs are technically best because they have negative ranged defence, but Sand and Ammonite crabs are easier to reach for fresh accounts. In our method table this AFK style sits around 30k XP/hr.

Cannoning is the opposite trade: maximum speed, ongoing cannonball cost. Even at level 1 Ranged a Dwarf multicannon can pull well over 100k XP/hr at dense spots like the Ogres near Castle Wars, Rock Crabs, or the Dagannoths in the Lighthouse (one of the fastest cannon spots in the game). One trick worth knowing: a cannon's accuracy is based on the attack bonus of your current weapon and style, so wear your best gear while cannoning. If you want to soften the cannonball bill, cannon Ice Trolls (rune drops and granite shields roughly break you even) or Scabarites after Contact for alchables, herbs and seeds.

The fastest path to 99 is cannon to level 45, then chinchompas the rest of the way. Chinning works by herding a pile of monsters into a corner and throwing a chinchompa into the middle — it explodes on impact and hits every monster in a 3x3 area at once, so the more bodies you stack, the more XP each throw produces. That area-of-effect damage is what makes chinning the highest XP per hour in the skill, and it is why you want the most densely-populated room you can find.

There are two chinning locations. The Monkey Madness I tunnels hold Skeletal monkeys, and the Monkey Madness II tunnels hold Maniacal monkeys. MM2 has far more monkeys packed together, so it is the faster, higher-XP spot — aim to complete Monkey Madness II if you are serious about speed. In both, you run between a couple of tiles to make the monkeys aggressive and stack them up, then chin the pile; when they lose aggression after a while, run back the way you came and return to reset them. Chinning is the most attention-heavy method in the skill — you are clicking constantly and managing aggression — so it rewards focus, but it is also why it tops the XP charts.

You pick your chinchompa by budget. Grey chinchompas (the item is simply named "Chinchompa") are the cheapest and start around 250k XP/hr at lower levels — still very fast for the price. Red chinchompas step the rate up: our table lists a solo/mid estimate of 400k XP/hr, climbing toward roughly 840k near level 99 with stacked two-account play. Black chinchompas are the fastest and priciest, at a solo/mid 500k XP/hr and up to about 1.03M with two-account stacking. Those 800k–1M figures are the two-account stacked ceiling, not a casual solo rate — in normal solo play expect the mid-table numbers, which are still among the best in the game. The complete cannon-then-chins route runs in as little as ~22 hours and costs around 112M with black chins, or less than half that if you stick to grey or red. Bring a Divine ranging potion for the boosted level, your best Elite Void or Masori, and in the MM2 tunnels a Bonecrusher to keep Prayer topped up — but do not use the Bonecrusher in MM1, because the Skeletal monkeys respawn from the bones left on the floor.

If you would rather not click constantly, Ranged has one of the best AFK ladders of any combat skill — you can reach 99 almost entirely hands-off, just slower than chinning. From level 1 to around 70 (or all the way to 99 for a pure who cannot use the higher methods), crabs are the relaxed option: about 10 minutes of AFK per reset, sitting around 30k XP/hr in our table. If the usual crab spots are crowded, the Depths of Despair quest opens the quieter Crabclaw Caves, or you can pay 10k to reach Crabclaw Isle. Bring an Ava's device so you can use better ammo here without bleeding gold.

At level 70 you graduate to the Nightmare Zone, the AFK workhorse of the late game. Set your dream bosses to Normal Mode — hard-mode monsters have high ranged Defence and tank your XP — and with the right setup you can AFK for a full 20 minutes before you stop attacking. Our table lists NMZ at 80k XP/hr. To stretch the AFK time you drink Absorption potions and lower yourself to 1 Hitpoint with a Rock cake or Locator orb, so incoming damage is soaked rather than killing you; both potions and the Super ranging potion that boosts your level are bought with NMZ reward points.

At level 80 the Venator bow becomes the best AFK weapon outright. Charged with cheap Ancient essence (about 66 coins each), it hits up to three monsters at once, so in dense multi-combat — the Catacombs of Kourend, or the Nightmare Zone itself — it racks up XP with barely any input. Paired with Super ranging potions and absorptions at NMZ, the Venator bow reaches roughly 140k–150k XP/hr at level 99 (and more on hard mode where it is safe to use). Cheaper AFK alternatives that still pull good rates are an imbued Magic shortbow with Rune or Amethyst arrows, or Adamant darts with a Twisted buckler. Whatever you choose, always wear an Ava's device to keep most of your ammo, and consider mixing AFK days with chinning days — the level is identical at the end, so train however suits your schedule.

Slayer is one of the biggest passive sources of Ranged XP in the game, and unlike chinning it pays you in gold, gear and other combat levels while you train. There are two ways it feeds Ranged. The cleanest is the Dwarf multicannon: drop it on big multi-combat tasks (Smoke devils, Nechryael, dust-filled caves) and it grinds out ranged XP on every kill while you fight with another style. Our table puts cannon-on-Slayer at around 60k XP/hr of Ranged on top of the Slayer XP you are already earning — effectively free levels. The second way is to shoot the task directly: many Catacombs of Kourend assignments such as Bloodvelds, Abyssal demons and Dust devils sit in a multi-combat area, so the Venator bow can AFK them three at a time for ranged XP while you clear the task.

The important thing is the order of operations. If you ever intend to go for 99 Slayer, do Slayer before Ranged. Training Slayer from 1 to 99 while cannoning your tasks and using a bow as a backup style will, on its own, drag you up to roughly level 90 Ranged. That means if you grind Ranged to 99 first, then go for 99 Slayer, you end up wasting a huge pile of overlapping Ranged XP you never needed to buy chins for. Sequence it the other way and Slayer does most of the Ranged grind for you, almost for free. Map out how the two skills overlap with the Ranged calculator before you commit a single chin.

This is where your Ranged level genuinely pays for itself, because Ranged is the single most useful combat style for money-making in OSRS. With just level 61 for the Rune crossbow you can already take on Jad for the Fire Cape and the King Black Dragon, which drops the Dragon pickaxe, a Dragon visage and a pet. The Rune crossbow with Broad or enchanted bolts is the classic entry-level bossing weapon precisely because it is cheap and accurate — many players earn their first Fire Cape and their first few million with exactly that setup before upgrading anything.

Around level 85 you can comfortably kill the big three ranged moneymakers — Zulrah, Vorkath and Phantom Muspah — all highly profitable, all soloable, and all with pet drops, making them the standard way newer accounts build their first real bank. From there the gear ceiling climbs steeply. The Toxic blowpipe is a fast workhorse DPS weapon for many bosses, the Dragon hunter crossbow melts dragon-type enemies like Vorkath, the Armadyl crossbow bridges the mid-to-high range, and the Twisted bow is the endgame trophy weapon whose damage scales with the target's Magic level — making it devastating in raids and against high-magic bosses.

Ammo choice matters at least as much as the weapon here. Ruby bolts (e) tear a percentage of a boss's current HP off in one hit, which is brutal on high-HP targets, while Diamond bolts (e) partly ignore Defence for guaranteed-accuracy damage — the right enchanted bolt turns an ordinary crossbow into a serious damage dealer. Push your level high enough and you unlock all three raids (Chambers of Xeric, Theatre of Blood, Tombs of Amascut), which bring in the most profit in the game. Build and compare your boss loadouts slot by slot in our Ranged gear guide.

Ranged is fully trainable in free-to-play, though the rules change because you cannot get Ava's device — without ammo recovery, cost management is the whole game. Climb the bow ladder as you level: Shortbow → Oak shortbow (5) → Willow shortbow (20) → Maple shortbow (30), which is the free-to-play ceiling for bows. Always use the best bow your level allows for faster, harder shots.

Ammo is the real decision in F2P. The best is Adamant arrows, but the Maple shortbow is the only F2P bow that can fire them, and since you lose every arrow, the cost adds up fast. Many free players therefore drop down to cheap Iron arrows and accept slightly slower kills to keep the grind affordable — a sensible trade when you are picking arrows up off the ground rather than recovering them automatically. As a reference point, optimal F2P gear with Adamant arrows pulls roughly 35,000–37,000 XP/hr at around level 72 if you are not stopping to collect drops.

For targets, low-Defence cows and chickens around Lumbridge get you started cheaply. At mid-to-high levels you can safe-spot monsters from behind obstacles so they cannot hit back: Ogress Warriors in the Corsair Cove Dungeon (after starting The Corsair Curse) are decent profit, and Moss Giants in the Varrock Sewers let you build up to fighting Bryophyta. For relaxed AFK training, the spiders on the third floor of the Stronghold of Security give about 10 minutes per reset — wear full Rune armour with your Maple shortbow here, because the spiders hit fairly hard and you want to survive the whole AFK window. Bear in mind that the very fastest method (chinning) and the best AFK methods (the Nightmare Zone and the Venator bow) are all members-only, so a free account tops out well below what a members account can reach per hour.

A handful of habits quietly save you hours and millions over a 99. Always train on Rapid (or Medium fuse for chinning) — the faster attack speed beats the small accuracy bonus of Accurate in almost every case. Wear an Ava's device at all times so you are recovering ammo instead of re-buying it; this single item is the difference between affordable and ruinous arrow costs. Sip a Ranging or Divine ranging potion before any serious session for the boosted effective level, and unlock Rigour the moment you can afford a Dexterous prayer scroll, because it is the biggest single damage-and-accuracy jump available to a ranger.

Think about sequence, too. If you plan to do Slayer or a lot of bossing, do those before grinding raw chins — both pour Ranged XP into your account as a side effect, and ignoring that means paying for chins you never needed. Wear your best gear even when cannoning, since the cannon borrows your weapon's attack bonus. And world-hop or use the quieter crab and Crabclaw locations if your spot is crowded, so you are not splitting monsters with other players. Plan the whole journey — ammo cost, hours to 99, where each method takes over — with our Ranged calculator, price your upgrades in the GE Price Tracker, and browse more skill walkthroughs in the guides hub.

Finally, every Ranged training method has a small chance to drop the Heron, the skilling pet shared between Ranged and Fishing — so whether you are sweating over a stack of monkeys or AFKing crabs in the background, there is always one more reason to keep shooting.