Hardcore Combat Only

The entire gameplay consists of fighting enemies in different areas, and trying to reach end-game bosses, without ever touching any of the non-combat skills, or ever dying.

Differences

Since we're playing Hardcore, there are some important parts to keep in mind:

No natural HP regeneration/s.
We start with 12 bank slots, capped to 80 (+ slots gained from Bank Slot Tokens after hitting 80 cap)
Harder penalties for being on the weak corner of Combat Triangle.
Permanent death

To regain

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Hitpoints

, our choices are very limited:

Consuming food, gained from monster loot:
- Potatoes from Plant
- Salmon, Lobster, and Shark from Sweaty Monster, Wet Monster, and Moist Monster
- Trout from Raging Horned Elite
Ancient Sword with its 25% chance for Life Leech (25% healing from damage dealt)
Fervor I auroras, with 5/10/15% healing of damage done.

Known alternatives

Some people play alternative versions of this gamemode.

One of these variants (called 12 Bank Slots or 12B) includes limiting themselves to the starting 12 bank slots. Another style allows using some non-combat skills, but none of the gathering-skills. This means they can't use

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Woodcutting

,

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Fishing

,

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Mining

,

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Farming

, but they can use the resources they gain from killing enemies. As a note, they will not be able to level

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Firemaking

, as there is no way to obtain wood without

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Woodcutting

.

Starting out

Starting out, it's quite possible you will die many times. Either because of bad luck, or because you forgot to pay attention to the game. Before you do anything, get a stack of potatoes by punching plants.

For the first few levels, personally, I recommend using Block, to level up

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Defence

. Leveling defence up improves your natural evasion ratings, effectively reducing all enemies' hit chance. I don't enjoy spam-clicking potatoes 300 times a minute. After reaching defence level 15 or so, I will start leveling my

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Attack

stat, for a higher chance to hit enemies.

Once I get both combat levels up to level 10, at least, I will try to get my first gear.

Gaining gear

Bronze Battleaxe and Bronze Shield are both dropped from Golbin at Golbin Village. With these, I will go back to grind more potatoes, until I get bored, and believe I am strong enough to get myself some steel gear from the Steel Knight. A quick note: Any weapon is better than your fists, simply because of the 4s cooldown between attacks with your fists.

You will be able to push yourself through the first three knights (Steel Knight, Black Knight, Mithril Knight) quite decently, getting Boots, Platelegs, Platebodies, Helmets, Shields, Swords, and Scimitars. Furthermore, the Black Knight will drop you a Black Dagger.

After getting a full set of Mithril Helmet, Mithril Platebody, Mithril Platelegs, Mithril Boots, and possibly a Mithril Sword or Mithril Scimitar... I will do what I call a Pro Gamer Move, and kill a few Purple Goo Monsters until they give me an Adamant Dagger. The benefit of wielding a dagger over a sword is that you will save yourself 0.2s between attacks, allowing you to hoard up even MORE POTATOES.

At this point you should already have figured out you would benefit from the extra +7% Combat XP from the Gold Emerald Ring, and the Silver Ruby Necklace or the Silver Topaz Necklace dropped at Mummy. The Gold Topaz Ring is kinda meh, for now, since we won't have access to Aorpheat's Signet Ring anyway.

After having some decent clothes, a necklace, ring, and weapon... it's time for our next step.

Gaining gold

Okay, so you're sick of being a manual autoclicker, pressing Loot All, equipping potatoes, and munching potatoes for 1001 nights in a row. Okay, so power up an Arduino, connect a real life potato to fuel it with energy, and turn it into a potato powered autoclicker instead. Do this until you have enough potatoes to get a million gold, and can buy Auto Eat I for 1 000 000 Gold Coins.

Just kidding. Kill Cows, loot Leather, and get free Bones, experience, and some pennies. Do this until you can afford auto-eat. In my experience, this is the most efficient way to get gold at this stage.

While the efficiency of Auto Eat I might not be the best, you will save yourself a lot manual labour, and can finally get yourself a shower, by consuming your hard-earned potatoes.

Post-AutoEat I

Okay, so you've seen the doctor, and they cured your Arthritis, and you can finally return to play Melvor Idle (which wasn't idle until now).

At this point, you should consider getting the gear from the last two knights (Adamant Knight, and Rune Knight), and upgrade the rune gear with Silver Bar and Gold Bar "quite easily" farmed at Statue.

TBD

Post-Amulet of Looting

TBD

End-game

TBD