TruthScape.com  9  TruthScape Skill Secrets       9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - A General Guide to RuneScape Skills and Training            9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - General Guide - RuneScape Skill Training Speed and Powerleveling Issues

The Training Option Spectrum and Skill Activity Ratings The Difference Between Natural and Artificial Leveling Goals

This term powerleveling describes skill training activities where getting XP as fast as possible is either the primary goal or the only goal. It is often—though not always—mentioned in reference to players who spend a large amount of money to quickly raise skills that normally take a long time to train. The term powertraining is synonymous and also seen often.

(Note that these terms also refer to illegal activities, such as paying other people to quickly train skills on your account. This is certainly not something I advocate and isn’t what I’m discussing here!)

Powerleveling is a very controversial subject in RuneScape. On the one hand we have a large group of players who feel that powerleveling is just working hard to achieve a goal, and that there’s nothing wrong with spending money to train a skill if you can afford it. And on the other hand, there is perhaps an even bigger group that feels powerleveling “cheapens” the game, allowing those who have a lot of money to “buy skills” in an unfair way. As we’ll see, this fundamental dispute has become even more heated since the introduction of skillcapes, with much debate over which capes “deserve” respect and so forth.

Of course, the silent majority doesn’t really care all that much one way or the other, and I’m in that camp myself. I personally am not into powerleveling, because I think it is usually pointless and wasteful, but at the same time, I don’t think it is immoral or fattening or whatever like some people seem to.

At the same time, I prefer training through what I call smartleveling. I don’t mean to suggest that I am smarter than anyone else—it’s just that I like to find ways of working on skills that emphasis smart training, rather than just going as fast as possible. There are several facets to this style of play:

• Emphasizing efficient gameplay that focuses on the skill activities that provide the most XP for the lowest cost, or the best XP for the greatest return.
  
  
• Looking for innovative methods of training skills.
  
  
• Taking advantage of natural goals that provide built-in motivation to pursue skills. An example would be deciding to train up one’s Defence level to be able to use a new shield that’s just been released.
  
  
• Avoiding artificial goals that lead to expensive powertraining without good reason, most especially including the pursuit of skillcapes.
  
  
• Long-term planning, such as gathering materials over time for skills I may train in the future.
  
  
• Opportunistic training, which means taking advantage of XP-giving situations that most people neglect. An example is bringing a chisel to a Slayer assignment to cut up gems that other people leave on the floor. Another would be bringing along a pickaxe to mine the mithril, adamantite and runite rocks in the Heroes’ Guild when going to recharge amulets of glory.
  
  
• Moving from one skill to the next rather than training the same skill for weeks on end, to avoid leveling boredom and burnout.
  
  
• Exploiting natural skill synergies to train multiple skills at once. Classic examples include training Mining and Smithing together, Farming and Herblore, or Fishing and Cooking. A less common but equally useful synergy is Smithing and Fletching.

I expand on these and other issues related to smartleveling in the rest of this section, and also in the one on training strategies and techniques.

The Training Option Spectrum and Skill Activity Ratings The Difference Between Natural and Artificial Leveling Goals