Leveling up your Attack skill in Old School RuneScape is a must for your overall account progression and a critical skill to train if you want to unlock multiple money-making methods. Attack is paramount for your melee skill, dictating your accuracy against monsters and the weaponry you can wield.
There are two main reasons to train your attack skill: you’ll be able to hit more often, and you’ll be able to wear better gear, which will result in faster and faster XP per hour. However, training your attack will not increase your max hit, so stop training your attack at level 82, bring your strength level to 99, and then continue training your attack to 99 for the fastest route to 99 in all your melee skills.
Melee: Attack vs. Strength
In Old School RuneScape, the offense's main components for the melee combat style are attack and strength. Especially for early levels, you should train them together. This is why it’s important to understand the significant attack milestones you should aim for and the weapons you will unlock at these levels.
Attack Levels Milestones
Level 5 Steel Scimitar
Train your attack and strength alternatively till level 5, when you should upgrade to a steel Scimitar. As Ironman, you can get one at the Al Kharid shop.
Level 10 Black Scimitar
Keep alternating between strength and attack until you can get a black scimitar. As an Ironman, it will be more difficult to get one since you’ll need either 61 thieving or 20 percent Shayzien favor, so you should skip this upgrade if your focus is training your attack and keep alternating strength and attack until the Mithril Scimitar at level 20 Attack.
Level 20 Mithril Scimitar
From 20 to level 30, you should use a mithril scimitar, which you can get at Al Kharid as an early-level Ironman or via the Grand exchange on a regular account. You should aim to have a few strength levels ahead of your attack for maximum efficiency.
Level 30 Adamant Scimitar
At level 30, you should upgrade to an Adamant scimitar. For a regular account, buying it from the GE shouldn’t be a problem; however, for Ironman, the easiest way to obtain one is by killing sourhogs with Slayer and completing the “A Porcine of Interest” quest. Alternatively, you can use your thieving skill if you bring it to a minimum level of 28 and lockpick the chest inside the Isle of Souls dungeon. For early-level F2P Ironman, there’s no good way to obtain one, so you should wait until 40 to upgrade to a rune scimitar.
Level 40 Rune Scimitar
The best way to get a rune scimitar as a drop is from Fire Giants for both F2P and members. If you’re not an Ironman, simply buying it from the GE is the way, but otherwise, you should consider safespotting some Fire Giants and upgrade to the Rune Scimitar as soon as you hit level 40 Attack. You’ll be using this until level 60, especially if you don’t plan on rushing to complete the Monkey Madness quest and unlock the Dragon Scimitar.
A good approach is bringing your strength to 70, then your attack to 60, and immediately upgrading to a Dragon scimitar and heading to the warrior’s guild to obtain the Dragon defender.
Level 60 Dragon Scimitar / Dagger
At level 60 Attack and with 70 strength, you can get two amazing upgrades that will make training your attack much faster. Here’s where, as a regular account, you should focus on training your attack to 70 and making enough GP to buy an Abyssal whip, which costs above 1 million GP. If you’re an Ironman, this is the point where you should start training your slayer alongside your combat skills if you haven’t already because you can only get your next upgrade (the Abyssal Whip) at 85 Slayer since this is the level when you can start killing abyssal demons, the slayer monsters which drop the abyssal whip.
Level 70 Abyssal Whip / Dagger / Barrows Weapons
Once you reach level 70 Attack, you should carefully consider whether you have the monetary means or, as an Ironman, the necessary skills for the subsequent upgrades unless you focus on training strength until 99 or until you can upgrade your gear further.
Level 75 Abyssal Tentacle / Arclight / Godswords
At level 75, you unlock the ability to use Archlight, the Abyssal tentacle, and Godswords, which all represent entry boss weapons or, in the case of Godswords, spec weapons that you should use during many boss fights. Unless you want to start early bossing, prioritize training strength over attack.
Level 78 Dragon Hunter Lance
The Dragon Hunter lance is a best-in-slot weapon, which, besides costing tens of millions, is also rather hard to obtain as you will need level 95 Slayer to start killing the Alchemical Hydra. On top of this, you will also need some barbarian training that involves leveling other skills. It is a niche weapon best against dragons, so you should only upgrade to it after getting a better training weapon first.
Level 80 Scythe of Vitur / Inquisitor’s Mace / Blade of Saeldor
At level 80 Attack, you will unlock the ability to wield high-level and expensive weapons such as the Scythe of Vitur / Inquisitor’s Mace/ Blade of Saeldor/. Unless you have access to them, you should keep training your strength.
Level 82 Osmumten’s Fang
This is the Strength training weapon you should aim for and prioritize, especially as a regular account, since it might be slightly harder to obtain for Ironman since it is a drop from Raids 3 (Tombs of Amascut). Considering the cost-to-efficiency ratio, it costs around 35 million and is the best weapon to train your melee skills.
Monsters
Now that you know what weapons and when to train Attack with your Strength skill, you should consider what monsters to kill and whether to involve other skills, like Slayer. An alternative route for the early levels for members is that you can complete some quests that grant Attack XP, such as the following:
- In Search of the Myreque
- Death Plateau
- Tree Gnome Village
- Waterfall Quest
How to Level Up Attack in OSRS
Levels 1-30
For the early levels, you should kill Goblins in Lumbridge. There are many goblin spawns in Lumbridge; all you have to do is cross the bridge to the east from your respawn point. Even though they don’t drop any valuable items, they represent a great starting point. Alternatively, you can kill chickens further to the North if you want to pick some loot up. Once you hit level 10, you can even go to the Stronghold of Security and kill Minotaur.
Levels 40-60
If you want the action, this is the moment where you should start training your slayer skill, but if you want the peace, then you should do the Bon Voyage quest and park your character at the ammonite crabs on Fossil Island. There you can afk for around 10 minutes since the crabs won’t do much damage to you (depending on your defense level and gear). After every 10 minutes, run a couple of screens away and then return to reset their aggro.
Since this is a popular training place, you might encounter other players. While most will hop worlds and respect your training, you might also meet players who will crash you. The best strategy is often ignoring them since they will eventually get bored.
If you don’t want to complete the Bon Voyage quest, you should know there are three varieties of Crabs Rock, Sand, and Ammonite. They all have high Hitpoints and low damage, making them an excellent pick for training your combat skills since they will stay alive and provide XP but rarely damage you.
Stronghold of Security is another excellent pick, especially if you are looking for drops: you can opt for Flesh Crawlers or Spiders for consistent XP gains, but as you level up, you can go in deeper levels and kill higher-level monsters.
Levels 70-99
If you haven’t already, it’s time to get into Slayer. You should be above level 75 combat now, so you can pick any slayer master except Duradel; we recommend going with Konar. She will send you to specific locations, and this can be a great advantage if you don’t fully know you’re way around Gielinor yet. Her tasks are worth more points than those from the other slayer masters you have access to at 75 combat, and you will also be able to get Brimstone keys, which are great for maximizing your profits.
Alternatively, you can AFK up to 20 minutes within the Nightmare zone minigame if you have completed enough quests. Another great combat minigame is the Pest Control Minigame, since here you can obtain the Void Knight Outfit and the elite void upgrade.
