In RuneScape 3, Slayer is one of the more unique skills. Its oddity lies in that, to level it up, you have to take missions from Slayer Masters and kill off a specific number of creatures. These creatures are unkillable if not on a mission, so you also get unique items that are otherwise unavailable. This is an essential resource for members, as many materials can only come from it. It also makes the skill profitable.
Here's how to level it up efficiently to level 120.
Equipment
Your most important piece is the Slayer Helmet and all its variants. It increases the damage dealt to your mission targets. The higher its level, the higher the boost it gives. When you’re doing the tasks, this is one item you don’t want to forget.
You can also store 5 Rings of Slaying and 6 Ferocious Rings (both fully charged) if you have 60 Crafting and 500 Slayer Points. The helm also incorporates all Slayer Headgear effects, such as helmets, face masks, and earmuffs.
For the other slots:
- Power Armor (those with damage bonuses) is better than Tank Armor (high-Defense equipment). You always want to use augmented gear when training Slayer.
- Use Cinderbane Gloves for targets that you can poison.
- As mentioned, the Slayer Helmet is your most important piece of gear.
- For target creatures that drop bones, it’s best to have the Demon Horn Necklace (or variant) and Bonecrusher.
- The Blood Amulet of Fury is best for healing if your task creature does not drop bones.
- Two-handed weapons are the best for their area-of-effect attacks. Halberds are especially recommended for melee, as they have the widest AoEs.
- Luck Rings offer bonuses for all combat styles, so using them is best. Plus, they provide a boost to get an item from the rare drop table.
- Vampyrism and Penance auras are excellent for low-intensity training to restore HP and Prayer Points, respectively.
Here are some recommended equipment for each combat style:
Magic
- Virtus Armor
- God Cape
- Seer’s Ring
Melee
- Torva Armor
- Fire Cape
- Warrior Ring
Ranged
- Pernix Armor
- Ava’s Alerter or Accumulator/Attractor
- Archer’s Ring
Generally, you want more damage bonuses on your gear than other kinds.
Other Useful Items or Unlocks
You’ll need many food recovery items, Prayer restoration, combat boosts, aggression potions, weapon poisons, and runes for Magic. You’ll also want the following:
- Spring Cleaner variant
- Enhanced Excalibur
- Ancient Elven Ritual Shard
- Dwarf Multicannon and Cannonballs or Oldak Coil
- Summoning Pouches and Scrolls
- Herb Bag
- Seed Bag
- Upgraded Gem Bag or Artificer’s Measure
- Spirit Gem Bag
- Large Rune Pouch with runes for High Alchemy
These are situational items, depending on your needs or target:
- Dreadnips
- Alloy Armor Spikes
- Ring of Slaying (for easy teleports to areas)
- Ferocious Rings (also for teleports)
- Headhunter’s Sacrifices and Thrills, depending on your priority (Slayer points for the former, experience for the latter)
- Torstol Incense Sticks (increase experience gained)
You’d also want to bring Drop Cleaners which convert drops to experience. Examples of this are Bonecrushers, Herbicides, Seedicides, and Gold Accumulators. For familiars, Beasts of Burden are the best to bring because they can alleviate the burden on your inventory. The most commonly used ones for this function are the Spirit Terrorbird, War Tortoise, and Pack Yak.
Those with enough Invention levels can also use some perks. Damage bonus ones are best, though you can also take Scavenging and Caroming. Archaeology also has something similar to it with Relics. Recommended Relics are:
- Fury of the Small
- Berserker’s Fury
- Luck of the Dwarves
- Persistent Rage
- Slayer Introspection
- Inspire Love
Slayer Masters
Training with a master is recommended for level 50 or 75, so train with Duradel (or Lapalok) and Kuradal, respectively. The others are not recommended because they assign too varied tasks, which can impact leveling.
Here is a list and their requirements:
- Turael/Spria
- Jacquelyn
- Vannaka (30 Combat)
- Mazchna (50 Combat)
- Chaeldar (75 Combat, Lost City quest)
- Sumona (90 Combat, 35 Slayer, Smoking Kills quest)
- Duradel/Lapalok (100 Combat, 50 Slayer Shilo Village quest)
- Kuradal (110 Combat, 75 Slayer, Barbarian Training quest but can be avoided by using NPC Contact)
- Morvran (120 Combat, 85 Slayer, Plague’s End quest)
- Laniakea (120 Combat, 90 Slayer)
- Mandrith (120 Combat, 95 Slayer)
Slayer Leveling
Your Slayer level decides which tasks you can take. Here are the ones you can take as you reach specific ones.
- 1: Gelatinous Abominations and Icefiends
- 5: Crawling Hands
- 7: Cave Bugs
- 10: Cave Crawlers
- 15: Banshees
- 17: Cave Slimes
- 20: Rockslugs
- 22: Desert Lizards
- 25: Cockatrices
- 30: Pyrefiends
- 32: Mogres
- 33: Harpy Bug Swarms
- 35: Wall Beasts
- 37: Killerwatts
- 39: Molanisks
- 40: Basilisks and Terror Dogs
- 41: Night Spiders
- 42: Fever Spiders
- 45: Infernal Mages
- 47: Brine Rats
- 50: Bloodveld
- 51: Phoenix
- 52: Jellies
- 55: Turoth
- 56: Warped Terrorbirds and Warped Tortoises
- 57: Mutated Zygomites
- 58: Cave Horrors
- 59: Wild Jade Vine
- 60: Aberrant Spectres
- 61: ‘Rum’-Pumped Crabs
- 63: Spiritual Rangers and Spiritual Guardians
- 65: Dust Devils
- 67: Automatons
- 68: Spiritual Warriors
- 70: Kurask
- 71: Seekers
- 72: Skeletal Wyverns
- 73: Jungle Strykewyrms
- 75: Gargoyles
- 77: Desert Strykewyrms
- 78: Aquanites
- 80: Nechryael and Mutated Jadinko Babies
- 81: Gladii, Rorarii, Scutarii, and Capsarii
- 82: Grifolaroos
- 83: Spiritual Mages
- 85: Abyssal Demons
- 86: Mutated Jadinko Guards
- 88: Grifolapines and Corrupted Scorpions
- 90: Dark Beasts and Edimmu
- 91: Mutated Jadinko Males and Corrupted Scarabs
- 92: Airut
- 93: Ice Strykewyrms
- 94: Lava Strykewyrms and Corrupted Lizards
- 95: Ganodermic Runts, Ganodermic Beasts, Legiones, and Dragonstone Dragons
- 96: Wyverns, Ripper Demons, Camel Warriors, and Acheron Mammoths
- 97: Corrupted Dust Devils
- 98: Onyx Dragons
- 99: Soulgazers
- 100: Corrupted Kalphite Marauders and Corrupted Kalphite Guardians
- 101: Hydrix Dragons
- 103: Corrupted Workers
- 104: Vinecrawlers
- 105: Salawa Akh
- 106: Bulbous Crawlers
- 107: Feline Akh
- 108: Moss Golems
- 109: Scarab Akh
- 111: Crocodile Akh
- 113: Gorilla Akh
- 115: Fight The Magister
- 117: Imperial Mage Akh, Imperial Warrior Akh, and Imperial Ranger Akh
As you get Slayer experience per target monster defeated, your combat level plays a more significant part when leveling the skill. There’s also your equipment, as some targets are only vulnerable to specific weapons. Some of the targets are only available after completing quests. Stronger targets do give higher experience, but they’re also more challenging to defeat. You should find the balance between easy-to-kill and high XP, or you might have other considerations.
Other Factors to Consider
You’ll want your target to be easily accessible and easy (enough) for you to defeat. If you’re going for repeat tasks, having a method to teleport or quickly get your destinations (Slayer Master and the area where your assigned task is) would be best. That's if you don’t have NPC Contact from Lunar Diplomacy.
If you have the latter, you can stay in your mission area and contact the master through the spell. However, that will cut in the runes you must bring, especially if using Magic. Still, there are various other ways to get around this small problem.
You don’t need to defeat the highest-leveled targets to level Slayer. Again, it would be best to consider your combat levels, what they drop, and whether you want to profit alongside leveling. If you’re prioritizing experience, you want something you can defeat quickly and have the Headhunter’s Thrills. Otherwise, you can look through what you stand to gain while hunting them and choose that way.
Leveling your combat styles could be another factor. If you want to practice those, you need to find a Slayer task that would be weak to the battle method you wish to train.
Recommended High-Level Slayer Targets
Gemstone Dragons (Ranged)
These are Hydrix Dragons in the Gemstone Caverns. Alternatively, place one in the Sunken Pyramid to level AFK. You can use Bonecrushers with Notepaper, the Demon Horn Necklace, or use Scrimshaw of Sacrifice for extra EXP.
However, you’ll need Antifire potions. Mechanized Chinchompas are an excellent tool for these, though they are expensive. Also, the Dragons debuff your Adrenaline, so it may take longer to defeat.
Ripper Demons (Melee)
It’s recommended you have Darklight and low ping so you can avoid their one-hit kill attack. It provides high experience rates and valuable materials you can sell. However, they are abundant in the Wilderness which means you can be targeted by PvPers. Not a method for low-leveled characters.
Soul Devourers (Melee or Magic, depending on the target)
Salawa, Feline, Scarab, or Crocodile Akhs are recommended. Gorilla Akhs not so much due to high health and less experience and profits from it. Most of these enemies aren’t AFK-able because of some troublesome abilities. On the bright side, few people train here, so there isn’t much competition for spawns. You can also choose to defeat the Magister but weigh in the cost and profit of doing so.
You’ll need many Feathers of Ma’at to kill these creatures, though. If you’re strapped for gold, this might not be a method for you.
Shadow Creatures (Melee)
You can put 5 Manifest Shadows in the personal Slayer Dungeon Sunken Pyramid and an Aggression Potion. Otherwise, you can find them in Prifddinas near a Light Rift in Amlodd District. Wear a variant of Tirannwn Quiver for an extra 5% bonus damage to them.
This provides a high experience rate per hour, but you can easily get overwhelmed. The drops aren’t as good as other options as well. It’s best for those focusing on experience and leveling up.
Nightmare (Melee/Magic)
You can set them up in the Sunken Pyramid. It’s possible to use an Aggression Potion for more XP, but this also increases the danger of their ball attack. They have good drops you can High Alch for gold and Muspah Spines for Nightmare Muspah Pouches for profit.
Still, you should be cautious and alert when training here. The ball attack can kill if you try AFKing it, so you’re better off fighting them one by one instead of luring a crowd in.
Alternative Methods of Leveling Slayer
As usual, there are quests you can do for some amounts of Slayer EXP. You can use them to help you along your Slayer leveling.
- Spiritual Enlightenment
- Recipe for Disaster: Freeing the Mountain Dwarf
- Animal Magnetism
- The General’s Shadow
- The Curse of Arrav
- Fur ‘n’ Seek
- Desert Slayer Dungeon
- The Hunt for Surok
- Lair of Tarn Razorlor
- Royal Trouble
- Wanted!
- Smoking Kills
- Hero’s Welcome
- A Clockwork Syringe
- Back to the Freezer
- The Path of Glouphrie
- Back to my Roots
- The Branches of Darkmeyer
- The Lord of Vampyrium
- City of Senntisten
- The Light Within
- Fate of the Gods
- The World Wakes
Other Repeatable Tasks That Award Slayer XP
- Phoenix Lair
- Wild Jade Vine
- Daily Slayer Challenge
- Wilderness Warbands (slay the leader)
- Corrupted Scarabs
- God Statues
- Killing Bork
- Killing the Skeletal Horror
- Player-Owned Port
- The Ark
- Big Game Hunter (requires 75 Hunter)
These tasks will give you a break from endless hunting and fighting. That breaks up the repetitive activity of hunting target creatures for Slayer XP.
Go Out and Slay, Adventurer!
Whether your goal is to reach 99 or 120, we hope this guide helps you achieve it. Enjoy hunting and slaying in RuneScape!
