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Moneymaking Analysis of RuneScape Non-Combat Skills Why Do So Many Skills Lose Money?

Unlike non-combat skills, we cannot analyze the earning capabilities of combat skills in isolation, because you always rely on at least three different ones when you fight. As such, what I will do here is to look at making money through combat in general terms, and then also examine how it differs for each of the three main combat styles. After that I’ll also discuss what I call the combat-related skills: Prayer, Slayer and Summoning.

Combat is a good moneymaker on the whole, provided that you fight monsters with good drops. This is generally not hard to do, because there are so many monsters with useful drops, ranging from the highest levels all the way down to surprisingly low-level monsters—even the hides and bones from cows can make a decent amount of cash for a new player.

Note that in some cases you may give up maximum training speed potential to earn money through combat, so it ends up being another case of the classic trade-off between money and training speed. For example, killing dragons is good money and good training, but you can train faster in other ways. However, on the whole, it’s not hard to find a good compromise that enables decent XP and earnings.

The most popular style of combat, melee depends on four skills: Attack, Defence, Hitpoints and Strength. It can potentially have the greatest earning potential of all of the combat styles, for the simple reason that it is the fastest way of killing most monsters. Its drawback is that it can also have high costs in terms of the need for food and potions. Whether this exceeds the cost of ranging ammunition or runes depends mainly on the characteristics of the monster.

Ranged combat uses the Ranged, Defence and Hitpoints skills. It has less net earning potential than melee, because it is slower, and because it always incurs some expendable ammunition cost: arrows, bolts, crystal bow recharges, cannonballs and so forth.

On the other hand, ranging can be more effective when fighting NPCs that are weak to it, especially if a player can fight from a safe spot. A good example is black dragons, which can be ranged easily from safe spots; in contrast, meleeing them is slowed by the dragons’ high melee defence, and made pricey by the need to use prayer potions.

Note that attempting to train the Ranged skill quickly turns it into a big moneylosing skill instead of a moneymaker.

Maging has the least net earning potential of any of the combat styles, because it incurs the greatest cost per point of damage dealt due to the use of runes. You can still make money if you use cost-effective spells and fight monsters with good drops, but on the whole, you will get less profit than you would through melee or ranged combat.

The only exceptions to this are the small number of monsters that are weak to magic but have high melee and ranged defence. Two classic examples are giant rock crab (which must be maged to be killed effectively), and the melee brothers at The Barrows, which are always best killed using spells.

Combat is also sometimes used to powerlevel the Magic skill, especially through the use of Ancient Magicks spells. This is a tremendous money drain due to the use of hundreds of expensive runes.

These are skills that are not actually used to engage in combat, rather rely on and interact with combat skills. They either make combat easier, facilitate types of fighting that would otherwise be impossible, or enhance the rewards you get from combat. Since they are support skills, they all generally impact moneymaking indirectly, rather than earning money themselves.

This important support skill is a good moneymaker skill because it is a critical part of the skillset needed to fight high-level monsters. Without a good prayer level, the amount of time you can spend in difficult dungeons like the God Wars Dungeon or Ancient Cavern is severely restricted, which likewise limits your ability to make money.

In addition, a high Prayer level also saves you money, because you restore more Prayer points for each dose of a prayer or super restore potion that you drink. What’s that old expression… “a penny saved is a penny earned”? Well, you get the idea. J

This is often considered to be one of the better moneymaking skills in the game, and that’s true—even though the skill itself has no earning potential whatsoever. J Slayer is a good money skill because it lets you kill monsters that have good drops, be they high-ticket items or even just routine drops that add up. Examples of the former category include the abyssal demon and dark beast, which drop the abyssal whip and dark bow respectively. In the latter category we have the aberrant spectre—the best monster in the game for herbs and herb seeds—and even the banshee, a low-level NPC that drops lots of herbs and noted pure essence.

Summoning is both a combat support and non-combat skill. As originally released, the Summoning skill did not help much in combat, as familiars were quite weak, and keeping them alive was a nuisance. They have now been much improved; it will take some time to tell just how much they can help in fighting, but any assistance will obviously be most welcome. And even better, you now get experience for damage your familiars do, so you no longer are effectively competing with them for XP.

Moneymaking Analysis of RuneScape Non-Combat Skills Why Do So Many Skills Lose Money?