Strength leveling

This article provides information about effective ways to train Attack, Strength, Defence, and Hitpoints through melee combat.

This guide is organised into sections based on skill levels. For example, if the section header is Levels 20 to 30, you should begin training at the area with an Attack and Strength level of at least 20. Defence is also preferred to be at that level, but is not always required. The solution to lower Defence is to bring more food, or use food that heals more.

General training notes

 * The Waterfall Quest will give you both 30 Attack and Strength if completed at level 3 combat.
 * Strength can be trained without training hitpoints with barbarian fishing.
 * Defence can be trained by using Ancient Magicks on longrange or Chinchompas on Long fuse against Maniacal monkeys for more experience per hour than using melee.
 * Once completed, the Recipe For Disaster quest gives access to the Culinaromancer's gloves, which significantly boost offensive accuracy.
 * Players can complete Slayer tasks to train Slayer while simultaneously training combat stats. This also allows players to use the very powerful Slayer helmet, which significantly boosts melee damage and accuracy, to more efficiently fight monsters and gain experience faster. This combined with slayer giving access to many high-profit monsters and bosses means that most high-level players seeking to make profit or max their account should train slayer instead of fighting the monsters on this list, which will mostly be high-experience but low-profit monsters.
 * When fighting dangerous monsters it is suggested to bring a teleportation tablet or if your magic level is high enough, teleportation runes in order to quickly escape. Note that a tablet can be more easily clicked from your inventory and takes up less space than runes for a teleport spell.

Some general rules when choosing a weapon

 * In nearly all cases, choosing a weapon with an attack speed of 6 (2.4 second interval) will be the best choice for dealing the highest damage per second. Slower weapons almost always give less experience overall, even if they do more damage per hit.
 * Monster vulnerability may cause certain weapons to perform better than their stats suggest. For example most Dragons are weak to Stab, making the otherwise weaker Zamorakian hasta a better choice than the Abyssal whip when fighting them. Check a monster's wiki page to see its defensive bonuses and consider picking a weapon it is weak to.
 * In nearly all cases, optimising for offensive stats is more effective than optimising for defensive or balanced stats, especially when fighting the low-offense, high hp monsters on this list.

Shield-slot items in order of effectiveness
* Note 1: When fighting dragons, a Dragonfire shield is the best melee offhand item due to its ability to block dragonfire while having high strength and defence bonuses. However, if dragonfire protection and high defence are not needed, defenders are better due to their accuracy bonuses.
 * 1) Avernic defender
 * 2) Dragon defender
 * 3) Rune defender
 * 4) Dragonfire shield *
 * 5) Adamant defender
 * 6) Toktz-ket-xil **

** Note 2: As defenders require access to the Warriors' Guild and thus a combined Attack and Strength level of 130 (for example, level 65 in both), the Toktz-ket-xil should be used until that requirement is met.

Training weapons in order of effectiveness
* Note: All one-handed weapons in this table will have their stats displayed as if they were paired with a Dragon defender, due to two-handed weapons having the disadvantage of not being able to use one. It is much more feasible for most players to obtain a Dragon defender compared to the expensive Avernic defender which is why it is chosen for this list, however if you do have access to one use it instead.

If you do not have access to a shield at all, such as if you do not want to risk an additional item in the Wilderness or you have not yet unlocked the requirements for any offhand equipment, certain fast two-handed weapons like the Saradomin sword become much better in comparison due to a lacking the opportunity cost they usually incur.

The weapons listed here with level requirements of less than 60 will not include the bonuses of a defender, as it is unlikely that someone using one of these low level weapons would have access to one due to the 130 attack+strength requirement. As noted above, players with 60 defence without access to defenders should be using the Toktz-ket-xil.

Suggested training methods
Levels 1 to 30

Completing the Waterfall Quest at level 1 attack and strength will instantly bring the player to level 30 in each. This quest has no requirements, making it the fastest way to train a brand new account to these levels, skipping much of the slow low-level training. However, there are several aggressive and hard-hitting monsters during the quest, so players may want to train some Defence and Hitpoints levels in order to make the quest safer. See the Waterfall Quest guide for more information on how to complete this quest.