This page was last updated for (v1.2.2).

Dungeons

While dungeons are unchanged, the Ancient Relics game mode requires players to complete dungeons to increase their skill levels, which are otherwise locked to a very low level.

While dungeons can be completed in any order up to

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Air God Dungeon

, the following is a suggested order based on the max hit of the boss of each dungeon and ease of clearing, included is a link to the guide to that dungeon, as well as the combat level cap the player will have for that dungeon.

The guides are not Ancient Relics exclusive and are only meant to be used as a guideline. You will have to manually eat in every single dungeon (with the exception of   Underwater City). Doing the first Dungeons idle is possible with the right Ancient Relics, however it would require an extreme amount of time and effort and is thus highly recommended against.

Lvl Dungeon Guide Max Hit
10
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Chicken Coop
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Chicken Coop/Guide
52
15
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Undead Graveyard
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Undead Graveyard/Guide
106
20
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Spider Forest
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Spider Forest/Guide
142
25
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Frozen Cove
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Frozen Cove/Guide
172
30
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Deep Sea Ship
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Deep Sea Ship/Guide
204
35
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Bandit Base
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Bandit Base/Guide
174
40
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Hall of Wizards
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Hall of Wizards/Guide
208
45
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Miolite Caves
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Miolite Caves/Guide
240
50
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Dragons Den
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Dragons Den/Guide
470
55   Golem Territory   Golem Territory/Guide 240
60
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Unholy Forest
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Unholy Forest/Guide
260
65
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Volcanic Cave
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Volcanic Cave/Guide
520
70
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Air God Dungeon
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Air God Dungeon/Guide
780
75
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Water God Dungeon
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Water God Dungeon/Guide
1014
80
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Earth God Dungeon
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Earth God Dungeon/Guide
1235
85
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Fire God Dungeon
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Fire God Dungeon/Guide
1300
90
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Infernal Stronghold
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Infernal Stronghold/Guide
898
95   Trickery Temple   Trickery Temple/Guide 500
99   Cult Grounds   Cult Grounds/Guide 740
99
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Into the Mist
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Into the Mist/Guide
800
99   Underwater City   Underwater City/Guide 3090
99
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Impending Darkness Event
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Impending Darkness Event/Guide
960

Make 100% sure to clear ALL Dungeons and spend ALL skill cap increases before clearing

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Impending Darkness Event

, this includes the optional

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Miolite Caves

and

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Infernal Stronghold

which have

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Slayer

requirements. If you do those after

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Impending Darkness Event

your skill caps will bug out.


Note: The recommended order for dungeons does not match the order shown in the game.

Skills

Skill level are initially capped 10 which means that you will need to carefully manage resources and equipment early on. Completing a dungeon will raise your skill caps by 15, so this is a good first goal. Fishing and cooking are locked until you beat

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Impending Darkness Event

, making dungeons considerably more difficult. You will need creative ways of getting food that heals more hitpoints.


Skill XP is capped at the next level above the cap -1 experience, anything above that will be deleted. Mastery and global mastery XP works as normal.

You can see the recommendations here.

Disclaimers

  • Skill choices don't always pop up in the middle of the screen after defeating a dungeon, if this happens your skill choices will be in green text above the Shop in the side menu.
  • If you're not sure of which skills to pick or don't want to make a choice right at that moment they pop up, you can cancel it by clicking anywhere that isn't the skill choices and the choices will be waiting for you in green text above the Shop in de side menu.
  • Holding Enter to eat (on desktop) will cause your skills to be picked automatically (it will pick the left/top choice by default). If you don't wish this to happen, ensure that you don't hold Enter for the last few attacks.
  • There is currently a bug which seldomly happens. That you don't get any skill choices or Combat cap increases at all after clearing a dungeon, in that case it is recommended you visit the Melvor Discord #aod-ancient-relics channel and ask for the solution.

Food

There are 3 good options for Food before

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Fishing

and

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Cooking

are unlocked (although it is very unlikely you will Fish for Food after unlocking it too):

Ancient Relics

Performing any skill will give you a small chance of discovering an ancient relic. Whilst it is possible to get all of the ancient relics without completing dungeons, it is not recommended. It is worth noting that many of the ancient relics will give you passive rewards that go beyond the skill and should not be overlooked. There is however a guaranteed ancient relic when you reach skill level 20 which is likely to happen after completing your first dungeon. You should try to get these relics as soon as they are available.

Ancient Relics can be obtained during any action, you do need to actually get experience and this actually hit for the Combat Relics.

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Fishing

actions that grant

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Strength

experience only grants chances for the Fishing Relic, not the Strength one.

The only things that effect your Relic chances per hour are lower intervals and the Relics that grant 1% increased chance to find a Relic. Other than that it's just Random Chance.

You can get Relics even when you're at the Skill cap, in theory you are able to obtain every single Relic before even doing a single Dungeon (apart from the

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Fishing

and

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Cooking

one).

The ones you get for free at Levels 20 and 99 are just extra. They can all be obtained by random chance, these are just guaranteed ones if you reach those levels.

Lesser Relics

While skilling you can be rewarded with Lesser Relics, which can be equipped to give boosts to that skill. One lesser relic will be used for every action. For example, in

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Mining

the   Mining Lesser Relic will guarantee one gem for every ore, which is a great way to earn   early in the game. Similarly, the   Thieving Lesser Relic provides an extra +30 stealth which will come in handy when you want to progress

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Thieving

.

Lesser Relics have a 1/1,000 chance on dropping every skilling action you do, they always drop per 300. They are just normal items and don't require you to spend them all before you can get new ones, they stack up to the global maximum items of 4.6 billion.

Skill Cap Recommendations

After each Dungeon you defeat you get 5 Skill Cap increases (6 in  Throne of the Herald). This is the recommended priority of choices in descending order. When offered the option between 2 skills, always go for the lowest number on the list first until at least the level in the 3rd column is reached, once the 3rd columns level has been reached, you can disregard the skill unless mentioned otherwise.

These recommendations are focused on killing   The Herald as soon as possible, to unlock both   Harold and unlocking all level 120 skill caps.

The recommended setup for this is quite cheesey but it is a very difficult fight with our caps & trying to rush it, you can find the recommended Setup & Strategy here. If cheesing is not your way the linked Strategy is not for you and it is recommended you make up your Strategy for killing it.

If this is not your goal the recommendations might mean less to you, the reason why the recommendations are made should however still be taken into account.

Base Game

There's some Skills with the same priority number, feel free to pick either if you get a choice between the 2 of them, neither is more impactful than the other.

Priority Number Skill Until level Reason
1
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Slayer
99 You can get locked in your progression if you don't get enough unlocks in
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Slayer
. It is technically possible for the random skill picks to still lock you by not giving this option, make sure you don't skip this choice.
2
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Runecrafting
85 The best way to clear the Dungeons up to
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Volcanic Cave
is using the
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Magic
style so
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Runecrafting
is very important to level up, always pick this option untill
3
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Summoning
99 Summoning levels are crucial for  Atlas of Discovery content.
  Tortoise  
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Dragon
is highly recommended for   Underwater City.
It offers many other benefits along the way, always try to be leveling
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Summoning
when you're not at the level cap.
4
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Astrology
80 The Master Relic in this skill is VERY powerful, start by mastering all the combat-related Constellations, save the pure skilling ones until after you defeat
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Throne of the Herald
. This Master Relic requires you to fully max out all the attributes offered in each Constellation, this involves getting 99
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Mastery
in it plus buying all the options for Dust (even the crossed out ones). Going for the last
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Level 99
unlock is suggested if the other skill cap increase is not on this table or the level has already been reached.
4
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Agility
55 There are several combat boosting
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Agility
obstacles available up to obstacle 7,
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Raft Building
in obstacle slot 8 we can't build because   Swordfish is very hard to come by. You can technically get them from the   Food Box I but the chances are too low and thus you will need to clear too many Dungeons to get enough to build the obstacle. All you need is
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Level 50
for Obstacle 6 (7 only provides negatives).
5
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Thieving
40
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Level 34
unlocks
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Chef
which is a great source of Food. Higher level unlocks can provide good   but shouldn't be prioritized over other options, if the other skill choice is not on this table, feel free to pick until
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Level 99
. If you get
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Thieving
Relic #4 or #5, you can more safely thieve without needing Food.
6
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Mining
40 Best source of   Gold Ore and   Silver Ore to upgrade your Armour to (G), alternative would be killing   Statue, which is incredibly slow. There is no need to level it further as you can get all the Armour you need from Combat
6
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Smithing
40 To turn your   Gold Ore and   Silver Ore into   Gold Bar and   Silver Bar. See
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Mining
for reason why not higher than 40.
7
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Cartography
90 There are several good rewards from
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Cartography
in the form of Points of Interests, check out the full list here. The main goal however for
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Level 90
is (31, 17)   The Sand-Covered Treasure for 1,000   Damage Reduction Potion IV which you can turn in for 5,000   Damage Reduction Potion IV with
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Township
Hard Task 15.
The other goal of
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Level 90
is one of the requirements to unlock   Underwater Ruins to obtain   Engulfing Vortex Longbow as this is one of the best bows in the game for Ancient Relics and it won't be replaced until
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Level 120
.
7
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Archaeology
90
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Level 90
is the other half of the requirement to unlock   Underwater Ruins for   Engulfing Vortex Longbow, which requires (2, 28)   Melantis to be unlocked, this is done by completing the clue chain starting here.
Other worthwhile items to pick up from
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Archaeology
are:   Accuracy Gem,   Agile Gem,   Ancient Silk,   Old Spyglass,   Dirty Mining Boots,   Blacksmith Tongs,   Ring of Summoning,   Old Summoning Gloves,   Golden Leaf (to stick in passive slot after
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Into the Mist
),   Barrier Gem to make   Tortoise.
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Level 120
unlock can be useful for   Pirate Hook and   Merman Pendant but it takes a really long time to level that high.
8
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Farming
70 Good source of passive generating low healing Food. Which is very useful when Auto-Eating.

It is highly recommended you do not pick any unlocks for

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Township

until the point you no longer want to farm Casual Township Tasks for Slayer Coins. Keeping the cap at Level 10 will keep the rerolling them free.

All skills not mentioned on this table or levels above those that are listed do not really matter, you can pick and choose whatever you desire, although level 20 can be fun to get your first free random Relic.

Throne of the Herald

Skill cap increases for the  Throne of the Herald Expansion are pretty simple. You gain 3 levels in all combat related skills including

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Slayer

in Throne of the Herald. The top priority is to get at least 1 (preferably 2)

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Runecrafting

unlock for   Despair Rune and   Soul Rune to cast   Despair which will be almost mandatory for

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Throne of the Herald

Phase 3.
Other than that pick

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Prayer

whenever offered when the alternative is not your first

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Runecrafting

unlock to make combat easier/better.

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Astrology

Level 116 unlock is a good 3rd option as Ashtar adds a lot of combat value.

All other options shouldn't really matter as you don't need to level any other skills at all and your Non-Combat Skills should be so low to not be effected by a higher Skill cap.

Starting tips

  • Township Tasks: Check out the easier
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    Township
    tasks as often these will give useful rewards such as food,   or   which can be a big boost early on. Use a   Bronze Dagger to kill 100   Plant. This will complete the township task and reward you with 2,000   Potatoes.
  • Cartography: Starting
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    Cartography
    will give you   50. Surveying the   Farmer's Market at (13, 16) which is close to your starting position for   500.
  • Slayer Tasks: Selecting a new slayer task is free, and so for every task keep re-rolling until you get a low level monster. You will need to stick to   Plant,   Chicken and   Cow. Use potatoes while training combat, and save high healing food items such as   Shrimp for the
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    Chicken Coop
    dungeon.
  • Runecrafting: Ancient Relics uses the hardcore Combat Triangle. This means magic is powerful against melee monsters.
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    Runecrafting
    will let you unlock more damaging spells. Mine plenty of   Rune Essence to create runes and obtain staves such as the   Staff of Earth including the highest magic gear you can obtain. You can train
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    Level 10
    on the   Cow.
  • Mining: The   Mining Lesser Relic provides a guaranteed gem. This makes mining ore a good source of   early on. Sell   Jewel of Rhaelyx to obtain 1,000,000  and unlock
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    Auto Eat - Tier I
    early, as this will give a considerable advantage.
  • Melee: Train melee to 10 XP and unlock the   Golbin Thief. Use
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    Mining
    and
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    Smithing
    to create   50. Make at least one
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    Golbin Thief
    so that you can receive more marks.
  • Chicken Coop The
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    Chicken Coop
    can be defeated once you have maxed out your magic, hitpoints and prayer XP. You should wear your strongest magic gear possible, and a good supply of runes. Use Earth Strike magic, and Thick Skin as your prayer for a small advantage. Use   Shrimp to maintain your health.

Once you have defeated

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Chicken Coop

, you will unlock level 15 in combat, and the skills you have selected in the choices that popped up.


Here are some suggestions on where to go next:

Continue defeating dungeons to increase your skill caps and along the way you will discover the ancient relics. Good luck!

Dungeon Walkthrough

This section gives a walkthrough on how to defeat the early dungeons without relying too much on player skill and/or luck. In your playthrough, you should use the ancient relics and skills that you unlock. It is possible that your route will deviate quickly from this path. This guide does not rely on any particular skills or relics being obtained and so should work for most playthroughs, but will necessarily be optimum for your relics and skills.

For the walkthrough, it is assumed that you have levelled all of the combat stats to the maximum after every dungeon. And that all combat training is done using Slayer Tasks to give  . You will need a supply of  , and it is assumed that you are either mining ore to obtain jewels, or thieving and selling items. When equipped, the   Mining Lesser Relic will give a guaranteed jewel for every ore which is a good way to make early  .

In your playthrough, it is recommended that you level every skill to 20, as soon as it becomes available, as this will give a guaranteed Ancient Relic. Ancient relics often give benefits outside of the skill itself, so so not overlook the benefits these and the lesser relics. Leveling township and farming as you go along is recommended as these passive skills will pay dividends in time.

Chicken Coop: Level 10

Start mining   Rune Essence until you reach level 10. Equip the   Mining Lesser Relic if it becomes available. With

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Runecrafting

make roughly equal numbers of air runes, mind runes and earth runes. After that, craft enough runes to create the following magic gear;

Start

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Cartography

to unlock   50, but save this for the dungeon. Survey and discover   Farmer's Market in (13, 16) to obtain   500 which will be your main combat training food supply. Next, survey and discover   The Restless Sanctum at (13, 14) to get   1000 which can be buried for   . Level up all of your combat skills to level 10 on   Plant and   Cow using low-level slayer tasks. When you obtain

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Golbin Thief

craft   50 to allow more marks to be discovered. For the dungeon battle, equip

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Earth Strike

and equip

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25

and

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Thick Skin

. Time your   Shrimp eats carefully when battling   Mumma Chicken so that you get the most hits in.

You should now unlock Level 15, and will be given a random selection of skill boosts.

Undead Graveyard: Level 15

Level up all of your combat skills to level 15. If you have any skills that are 20 (or higher) then level these up to give you more Ancient Relics.

If needed, mine more   Rune Essence and craft the slightly stronger magic equipment as shown in the table below. If

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Runecrafting

was not upgraded by the first dungeon then consider a melee build instead:

Survey and discover   Old Village to unlock

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Archaeology

. Navigate a path that follows the lowest cost tiles (and avoids any other POIs) until you reach the   The Friendly Fisherman at (6, 27), which rewards   50. Next, survey and discover   Shrouded Horizon at (4, 26) to get 50,000 . Purchase   5 from the Shop to complete the township task that gives you   1000. Obtain the   Occultist and then craft as many

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Occultist

as you can.

Using your remaining  , purchase as many Basic Resupply as you can afford to give you   Lobster. You should now have more than enough food to complete the dungeon.

For the dungeon battle, equip   Manta Ray or   Lobster,

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Fire Strike

,

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Soul Split I

and

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Blinding I

spells. Use

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Occultist

and

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Thick Skin

to increase your chances of success.

Spider Forest: Level 20

Level up all of the combat skills to unlock all of the Ancient Relics. Do the same for any new skills that you have obtained (only level them to 20 for the Ancient Relics. For this dungeon, it is recommended to switch to a melee build unless your runecrafting has been upgraded.

Obtain the   Silver Ruby Necklace from   Mummy or

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Crafting

, if available. To get the Mithril gear, kill   Mithril Knight until you have a full set of Armour. Submit this to the township task to get the upgraded gear Mithril Armour. Then continue killing   Mithril Knight to complete the set, as shown below:

If you still did not get

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Runecrafting

unlocks you can continue up to

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Water God Dungeon

with Melee, at which point it is recommended you switch to

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Ranged

.
If you do get some

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Runecrafting

Skill cap choices at a later stage the choice is yours whether you keep going as Melee or switch to Magic, please do note that Melee will take more time and effort than Magic. Using the   Mining Lesser Relic mine your best ore available to obtain   Jewel of Rhaelyx which you can sell. When you have 1,000,000  available, purchase

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Auto Eat - Tier I

to make combat slightly easier. It is especially important that you spend the time to train your prayer and hitpoints. Use

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Burst of Strength

and

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Clarity of Thought

to increase your odds. Equip

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Occultist

summon. During the battle with   Spider King you will need to time your eats carefully to avoid being killed and it may take more than one attempt.

The optimal way to Manual Eat is to wait with eating your food until you have preformed your attack and before the monster attacks again. This will take some practice but it is suggested you learn how to do this effectively at this stage of the game, as you will be needing to Manual Eat for the majority of your playthrough.

Congratulations, you are well on the path of Ancient Relics. You can check out all of the dungeon guides for more hints and tips. Good Luck!

Mid-End Base Game Tips & Comments

Throne of the Herald Tips & Comments

  • You can rush / Manual eat every single dungeon up to
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    Throne of the Herald
    with just God Gear. It's well worth it for your Skill cap increases & unlocking the Shop bonuses.
  • You will need to clear
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    Lair of the Spider Queen
    to unlock Combat Skill caps 112. This will grant access to the following 110 items (
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    Ranged
    and
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    Magic
    )   Bundled Protection Body,   Perfect Sight Legs,   Frost Walker Boots,   Lightning Aura Helmet. These 4 items are highly recommended for every combat style. All that really matters at this point is the Damage Reduction they offer. If you wish you can grind up 110
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    Ranged
    and
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    Magic
    to make the following Dungeons slightly safer.
  •   Royal Toxins Spear is a very good Melee weapon which you can use up to
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    Level 120
    . Manualling this Dungeon shouldn't be too hard, the drop rate on   Royal Toxins Spear is about 2% and well worth going for once you can use it.