Beginner's F2p Range Pure Guide

Ever-since runescape 2 came out in 2004, the popularity of range pures never stopped increasing, and for good reason; A properly made range pure will put up a fight and win (with good strategy) against mostly anyone of similar combat level. Whether you are a beginner or have been playing on pures forever, you will most likely learn something new from this guide; from creating a range pure and planning his stats, to the best training spots, how to save time and make money on your pure aswell as some of my personal pvp strategies/tactics, and other cool random tips.

Definition of A Range Pure; For those who wouldn’t know, a range pure is an account specializing in ranged, training it to high levels while keeping levels such as defence, prayer and summoning to a minimum (often 0) in order to become super aggressive and dangerous all the while having the lowest possible combat level.

Overview

As with other pures, range pures rely on the principle that the best defence is the offence; If you are attacking and your opponent is eating, then your defence levels are not playing any role towards beating your opponent. Instead of getting defence, I suggest you invest into more offensive levels [ranged] and become even more aggressive and dangerous at a relatively low combat level. Here’s a couple of facts;

-Your range level counts towards both range accuracy and range strength bonus (how accurately and how high you hit). This is not the case with melee levels for instance, where both attack and strength need to be leveled.
-Rangers have the advantage of attacking from a distance. They can use this to get an extra hit or two against meleers, or even attack safely from behind a fence or bridge.
-Equipement/Gear for range pures consists mostly of light armor and weapons. This becomes very useful for running away or chasing someone when pking (player-killing) in a pvp world as you will have more running energy.
-The attacking process is very accurate and reliable; it deals a small but consistent amount of damage each time.
-Range yields good results when combined (hybriding) with either magic or melee (or even the three in same time) – [more on this later].
-In most circumstances, Range Pures do tend to win versus strenght pures.
-R-Pures do not have any major weaknesses; they can take on just about anyone
-Cons; Arrows can sometimes be annoying to pick-up, and can also get expensive if not careful.

Choosing a Name

I find it better to just use any normal name you'd like, and not the regular ''xx owned'' type of name that most pures seem to use. The advantage of getting a regular character name is twofold; First, people will sometimes underestimate your fighting abilities and not run away as much, which can get you more kills. Secondly, it gets pretty annoying to have people always call you ''hey xx owned'' or whatever other geeky pure name you come up with. My tip is to choose a name that you like. Further down the road, you can  have the option to change your name provided you become a paying p2p member.

Equipement for a Range Pure

When you start off with lvl 1 range, head to the grand exchange. I suggest that you buy the following items to give you a solid head start;

• (1-20 range) Leather chaps, leather vambraces, leather cowl, leather body, boots, all available shortbows, a power amulet and a cape of your choice (if you want one). This set of items will kickstart your range training and give you a small accuracy boost.
• (20-39 range) you can change the leather cowl for a coif and leather chaps for studded chaps.
• (40 range) When you achieve 40 range, you can upgrade your chaps and vambraces to the dragonhide version and upgrade your bow to a maple shortbow.
• Arrows; As for training arrows, you can choose any from bronze to mithril depending on if you’re aiming at training speed or money saved. For myself, I find that bronze arrows work out just fine for the price.

You can also get the Sighted Maple Longbow obtained from Dungeoneering if you wish, but in my opinion it is not totally worth it. After several tests, I see that it takes slightly more time to train with the sighted longbow than the regular maple shortbow.

Making Money As a Range Pure

Gotta find a way to fund all those arrows eh? When checking out other f2p range pure guides, I've found that almost all of these tell you to start training a new non-combat skill from scratch, like woodcutting, mining, or others...In my opinion this way of doing is totally wrong! First, training ranged already takes up an incredible ammount of time, and secondly you will make back your money and more from the loot of the monsters that you train on. That's right, training range makes you money in most cases, on top of receiving the range xp that you crave for. If you do need money at the very start, then make sure that you complete stronghold of security mini-quest which will give you 10k gold. That should be more than enough to buy all your armor and then some arrows. From there on, simply make your money while training range. Of course some range training spots make more gold than others while giving you less range xp per hour, and vice-versa - more on this in the next chapter.

Once that you have bought the necessary equipment, it is time to train. Set some goals and discipline yourself to train an x amount of hours every day or week. Don’t set too high goals, but rather a series of small achievable goals… Stay realistic!

Suggested Range Training Spots                                            

Cows 1-15
Starting off, you can head to the cow place just south of the falador east bank. There you have set yourself a perfect ground for starting up your range training. Each cow you kill gives a cowhide, raw beef and bones, which altogether are worth more than 300 gp at the grand exchange (as of writing this). Another cow spot is located in Lumbridge but is further from the bank and usually more crowded. Lastly, there is another cow spot north-east of Lumbridge and with a bank nearby.

Men near edgeville bank  1-15
This is also a very good spot for early training. There is a house fully packed of level 3 men just north of the Edgeville bank. They have lower defense than cows and also have a quick respawn rate. Training here is faster, however you can make more money at cows.

Hill Giants
Although Hill Giants have low defense and drop big bones which are valuable, the area is almost always crowded. Most people use this spot as to make money rather than gaining combat experience. Think of the range xp as a nice bonus that you wouldn't have gotten by skilling for instance. For fast xp, train elsewhere.

Minautors  15-30
Minautors (level 12 and 27) have low defence and carry 100 and 220 hitpoints respectively, which make it an ideal range training spot. Head to barbarian village and climb down the ladder in the middle of the rocks to reach the stronghold of security. Then cross the doors through south-east. You should now see the level 17 minotaurs, and be able to range them from behind the fence. They drop a generous amount of iron arrows and noted items that you should pick up. Bringing some trout will be useful, although you can stand behind the fence as well.

Hobgoblins 30-60
The hobgoblin spot next to moss giants in Varock is little known. You can access this spot by entering the small house south of the grand-exchange, right next to the cooking guild by using a brass key. Once you are in it, climb down the ladder and head west till you see them. This spot is largely unknown to most. Hobgoblins carry a decent (280) hitpoints level and drop limpwut roots once in while (worth more than 2k gold each). See the picture for safespots. Use this training spot to cruise your way through 60 range.

Moss Giants 50+
These are the green giants that are commonly found in the varock sewers. It is a crowded spot though. The best place to train on moss giants is the spot in Crandor island, which is rarely populated. Moss Giants have a reasonable 60hp, drop big bones as well as other items that are good to cast high alchemy on. This would be the ideal spot for a range pure that wants to train his prayer up along with range. The only downside though is that to access crandor island, you will have to go halfway through dragon slayer in order to access this spot as well as have 32 quest points to start dragon slayer.

Ankous 60 +
Ankous located at the stronghold of security are level 82 combat and have 60 and 70hp. The area is rarely crowded. Ankous are abundant and they have a fast respawn rate… Plus they have a relatively low defence level, making for a pretty fast training spot. Drops are also pretty good. I suggest that you bring lobsters or better food, since you have to wait around 15 minutes for them to become un-aggressive, and thereafter have a veritable safespot. Take a look at this video for instructions on where to locate the safespot. You can decide to stay here till 99, but there are a few more options;

Lesser Demons 63+
Back in the days, Lesser Demons in Karamja were the most common monsters to train on from 63 range and onwards. Lesser demons (lvl82) carry 79 hitpoints. They seem to have slightly more defence than ankous, but the higher hitpoints level is a tradeoff that allows for surfing and multitasking while training. At 70 range, you should average around 30-35k range experience per hour using bronze arrows.

Greater Demons 75+
Standing at 87 hp, and with slightly better drops, Greater Demons are like the "upgrade" of lesser demons. There are two spots for these; at level 47 wilderness (bring a few lobsters in-case you see revenants) and in the volcano crater where you can range them behind the rocks. The drops are slightly better than that of lesser demons.

Hellhounds 60+
Hellhounds look like red dogs, and are found in the volcano crater within the wilderness. They have a whooping 116 hitpoints level and are accompanied by a surprisingly low defence level! Plus it rarely gets crowded, very few people know this spot. The only minor cons to be noted are;

1.      Hellhounds do not drop anything and
2.      It takes around a good 30 seconds for one of these tospawn, so perhaps you can bring something to do during that time (perhaps high alching, superheating or even some crafting). Or worst case scenario, you can do some homework or other non-runescape stuff during that time.

Despite these two small inconvenients, hellhounds remain nonetheless a top range training destination for pures. Tip; When you attack, most hellhounds usually retreat and then come back at you in order to prevent from using a safespot. However, there is one hellhound I have found to stand still, located at level 20 wilderness in the volcano crater (located at the entry of the west crater). This one does not retreat, so simply stand behind the rock and range it.

To get prayer or not to get?

In the past, there was no range-boosting prayers, there were only prayers for melee. People would stay at 1 prayer. Nowadays, there's a prayer for each combat class prayer is running popular on ranged pures. Number-wise, every 8 prayer levels accounts for 1 combat level. The three ranged prayers are;

1. Sharp Eye [level 8]: Increases ranged by 5%. It has a drain rate of 1 point per 12 seconds (will last approximately 1minute 36 seconds)
2. Hawk Eye [level 22]: Increases ranged by 10%. The prayer has a drain rate of 1 point per 6 seconds (that would come down to last 2minutes 36 seconds)
3. Eagle eye [level 44]: Has a drain rate of 1 point per 6 seconds (would last 2 minutes 12 seconds)
   

So there's always always a compromise into getting prayer or not. Prayer gives you more combat levels and ranging power but on the other hand, it is not permanent. It's mostly a matter of personal choice, so see for yourself if it's worth it or not. One thing for sure though is that once you get it, you can't go back.

Ranged Max Hits
Ever wondered what you could hit with adamant arrows in PvP or bronze arrows for training? Well here’s a graph that shows you your max hit from levels 30 to 99. These are without prayer.
                               
Ranged Level    Max Hit with Bronze Arrows    Max Hit with Adamant Arrows
Level 30:          -              4.8                          -                    6.2                   
Level 40:          -              5.9                          -                    7.7
Level 50:          -              7.0                          -                    9.2
Level 60:          -              8.1                          -                   10.6
Level 70:          -              9.2                          -                   12.1
Level 80:          -              10.3                        -                   13.6
Level 90:          -              11.4                        -                   15.1
Level 99:          -              12.4                        -                   16.4

PvP techniques and Strategies

Range pures tend to deal a significant amount of damage on a consistent basis. Your scope will be to remain aggressive and stay on the offensive, keeping your enemy busy eating so that he does not even get the chance to switch from eating to attacking!

Before venturing in PvP, make sure that your computer won't CRASH in the middle of the action. For reference, you might want to check out a couple of tips to reduce lag in runescape.

Always bring the best equipement and gear you can. You won't achieve much fun with mediocre gear.    

Bring good food; Even if you are on a tight budget, cheap food will cost you more money, resources and time on the long run…trust me on this one, or you’ll learn it the hard way like myself!! For alternatives, look at wine instead of tuna (watch out for clicking empty jugs) and similar swaps or check if there’s a good deal on the grand exchange but really, think twice before buying cheap food with a low healing rate for your combat level. 

Eat food properly; A proper eating technique is of crucial importantance if you want to go far in pvp. The better flow you have between healing effectively and attacking, the better the chances to stay on the attack and win. Do not eat solely one piece of food at a time, but rather in groups of 3 or more. For instance, you can eat the first piece of food without your opponent noticing; As you get low on food and right as your bow starts to lift up, click on a piece of food. What will happen is that you will have eaten a piece of food and restored your hitpoints while shooting an arrow and causing damage in the same time. Your character will perform the shooting action, not the eating one. After performing this action, I suggest you heal another 2 food or more than that as needed.

Choose the right P-king spots; I can't hide the fact that without 80+ range, finishing an opponent with range alone and by yourself might be tricky. If you want to get any kind of loot, you need to be at the right places, and that usually means far away from safespots. What happens usually when you just hang around the grand exchange, or close to other safespots is that your fellow opponents will just run to safety when low on food. You will do much better off for instance by going into low-crowded areas, and attack other players there, as there will be much more running to do, plus can even find skillers and travelers to pick on - cool targets that are not quite ready to fight!

Part 2 of This Guide

If you've read this far, then you must have had a good grasp of the basics to get you up and running! This first guide is paused for now, however stay tuned for part two of the series (the follow-up). Every month there will be a new detailed guide on pvp, pures and pking. Hint; and next guide will feature more advanced PvP strategies.

I also want to mention that It's always delightful to read what others are doing! - So cheers everyone and don't be shy to submit your own training tips, opinions, corrections and stories below.. Like when did you start pking? what was your best drop?!

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