The Combat Triangle

Written on November 2, 2009 by Connor

The combat triangle is the way Jagex keeps the different ways of combat equal (or as close as they can make it). There is three different parts of the combat triangle mage, melee, and range.
Jagex made it so that it is like the game rock-paper-scissors. Mage does massive damage to melee fighters, but take a lot of damage from archers that use range. I will now go into more detail about the three different ways of combat.

Magic: The mages that use magic are very strong at an early level. At level 20 they can be hitting 9’s on many of there opponents with wind bolt and at level 50 they can be hitting 25’s with Iban Blast. But the main part of the magic skill is the massive damage you can do at a very early level.

The free to play (F2p) mages can hit a maximum of 16 with fire blast at level 59 magic.
The pay to play (P2p) mages can hit a maximum of 25 with the earlier mentioned Iban Blast, with the original magic book.

Some of the advantages of mages are that they can use a quick Bind spell to stop their opponent from getting to close or to make a quick get-a-way.

Melee: The melee’rs or people that attack with any hand to hand combat with swords or items similar to a sword. A melee fighter can defer and a lot more ways then a mage or archers. At level 20 attack, 20 defense, 20 strength, and 20 health points the max is about 6-7 depending on the armour you wear.

The F2p melee’re can hit a maximum of about 30 with a rune 2 handed sword or rune 2-h.
The P2p melee’re can hit a maximum of about 112 with full Guthans armour and weapon, but with a god sword the preferred weapon of choice for most P2p melee’rs you can hit up to about 75.

Some of the advantages of melee’rs is that they have much more variety then the other two parts of the triangle, a melee’r can use a poisoned dagger and have you poisoned and then go in for the kill with a god sword.

Range: The rangers or archers are people that shoot out bolts or arrows out from bows or crossbows (x-bows). At level 20 range they can usually hit very rapid 5’s.

The F2p ranger can hit a maximum of about 19 with a willow short bow.
The P2p ranger can hit a maximum of about 90 with the Dark Bows special with hitting two 45’s at the same time.

Some of the advantages of a ranger is that they can shoot out arrows or bolts much faster then any of the melee or mage weapons or spells. So you can hit a couple of 19’s in F2p PvP or after weakening them down hit up to a 90 with a dark bow.

So the bottom line is that all three parts of the combat triangle have their advantages and disadvantages so pick wisely and try and beat the best!

References:
Connor from RSB for writing the article.
Draynor.net for the max hit calculator.
Runescape Wiki for info about certain weapons.
For the Blog to post to.
The official Runescape site for being able to write about and for some pictures and info.

Posted in Misc, Runescape Guides, Runescape Tips

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