Ancient Relics/Guide

From Melvor Idle

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 low level.

Dungeons can be completed in any order up to the Air God Dungeon, the following table provides a suggested order of dungeon completion based on the max hit and difficulty of the boss of each dungeon. Included is a link to the guide for 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. The player will likely have to manually eat in every single dungeon (with the exception of Barrier Dungeons). Doing the first Dungeons idle is possible with the right Ancient Relics, however it would require an inordinate amount of time and effort and is thus not recommended.

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

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

Make 100% sure to clear ALL Dungeons and spend ALL skill cap increases before clearing the Impending Darkness Event, this includes the optional Miolite Caves and Infernal Stronghold which have Slayer requirements. If these dungeons are done after the Impending Darkness Event, skill level caps will bug out.

Skills

All skill levels are initially capped to 10 which means that careful management of resources and equipment will be necessary early on. Fishing and Cooking are locked until completion of the Impending Darkness Event, ensuring finding food in more creative ways is similarly important.

Skill XP is capped to the amount required the next level above the cap -1 XP, meaning the player can earn the majority of the experience needed for the next level above the cap and no more. Any experience earned above the cap is deleted. Mastery XP works as normal, there are no limits to earning mastery.

Skill levels for basic combat skills ( ) increase by 5 every time a new dungeon is defeated. For all other skills, upon completing a new dungeon the player will be able to increase the level of five skills by 15 levels, each of these five skills is chosen by the player from two available options.

Recommendations for which skills to upgrade here.

Notes:

  • Skill choices don't always pop up in the middle of the screen after defeating a dungeon, if this happens the skill upgrade choices will be in green text above the Shop in the lefthand sidebar.
  • The skill level increase menu can be canceled by clicking anywhere outside of it, and the choices will be waiting in the lefthand sidebar.
  • Holding Enter to eat (on desktop) will cause skill level increases 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.
  • A possible bug may occur where no skill choices or combat cap increases are granted at all after clearing a dungeon. This can be solved by <solution here>

Food

There are 3 good options for Food before Fishing and Cooking are unlocked (although it is very unlikely you will Fish for Food after unlocking it too):

Potatoes are a good option for the very beginning and can help save "good" Food while grinding for Slayer Coins, especially if you have Auto Eat - Tier I.

Ancient Relics

Performing an action in any skill has 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. Achieving Skill Level 20 and 99 in any skill awards one of the Ancient Relics for that skill. Five skills will have a level cap of 25 after completing the first dungeon, so these relics can be obtained quite early. All Relics in a skill can be earned before Skill Level 20 with enough time (or luck), the bonus relics at 20 and 99 are just to aid in finding them all.

Ancient Relics can be obtained through any action regardless of XP earned, Thieving Success rate, or Combat hit chance.

Barbarian Fishing actions that grant Strength experience only rolls for Fishing Relics, not Strength. Firemaking Relics similarly cannot be found while training Woodcutting with modifiers that provide Firemaking XP for Woodcutting actions.

Ancient Relic drop rates are affected only by specific relics that provide increased chance to find Relics, but Relics can be found more often by decreasing the interval at which actions are performed.

Lesser Relics

Each action in non-combat skills has a chance to award a Lesser Relics, which can be equipped to give bonuses to that skill and to Combat. Lesser Relics provide helpful bonuses for the early game, such as the Mining Lesser Relic that grants a gem for each Mining action, which is a great way to accelerate GP and progression in the earliest stages of the game.

Lesser Relics have a 1/1,000 chance of dropping for every skilling action performed. They always drop in stacks of 300, and one lesser relic will be consumed for every action. They function similarly to all other consumables, they stack indefinitely and don't need to be fully consumed before acquiring new ones.

Skill Cap Recommendations

After each Dungeon is defeated, 5 Skill Cap increases (6 after Throne of the Herald dungeons) will be awarded. The following is a recommended priority of skills in descending order. These recommendations are focused on progressing quickly and efficiently, to beat the games final boss(es) as quickly as possible.

Base Game

Choose the highest priority skill listed up to the Until Level listed. Skills with the same priority can be chosen by whichever is lower level, or whatever other criteria is desired.

Priority Number Skill Until level Reason
1 Slayer 99 Slayer progression gives access to dungeons: Miolite Caves and Infernal Stronghold for more unlocks, as well as access to really good drops and Slayer Coins. It is literally the only skill that has no workaround at all, so when we see it, we take it.

You can get locked in your progression if you don't get enough unlocks in 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.

Not getting the last skill cap increase to Level 99 before you move on to Impending Darkness Event will lock you out of that dungeon and all of Throne of the Herald entirely.

Don't worry if you can't use the levels now, just click it.

Do not worry too much about this. As long as all Slayer options are chosen when offered, this should not happen. If it does happen, there was nothing that could have been done differently to change it. A solution can be found here.

2 Runecrafting 85 The best way to clear the Dungeons up to Volcanic Cave is using the Magic style so Runecrafting is very important to level up. Almost all the early dungeons use Melee, and, notably, Adept tier robes offer 4% Damage Reduction by Runecrafting (skill).svg Level 47, which is much easier and cheaper to get than the other two styles. Therefore, it's extremely valuable to get Adept gear by the time you can use it (at Magic (skill).svg Level 35), and you don't want to risk missing it at future cap increases.
3 Summoning 99 Summoning levels are crucial for Atlas of Discovery content. Tortoise SynergyIcon.png Dragon is highly recommended for Underwater City, which requires Summoning (skill).svg Level 90.

Additionally, Leprechaun SynergyIcon.png Monkey is your best source of GP for most of the base game. It offers many other benefits along the way, always try to be leveling Summoning when you're not at the level cap. One important reason for this is to be ready to immediately unlock Eagle (Summoning (skill).svg Level 100) as soon as you beat Impending Darkness Event.

4 Astrology 85 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 Throne of the Herald. This Master Relic requires you to fully max out all the attributes offered in each Constellation, this involves getting 99 Mastery in it plus buying all the options for Dust (even the crossed out ones). Going for the last Astrology (skill).svg Level 99 unlock is suggested if the other skill cap increase is not on this table or the level has already been reached.
4 Prayer 99 All of your future level ups are gated behind beating Dungeons, so any source of largely free Combat output that stacks with everything else you're doing is very strong. In addition, unlocking Protect Item makes manually eating dungeons and trying to push for thieving stealth drops much safer. There's really no such thing as a bad prayer upgrade, so we go all the way to 99. Note that it's usually much easier to get Slayer Coins in Ancient Relics mode, and we are already planning to get Food from buying Basic Resupply, so don't worry about having enough Prayer Points to power your prayers.

Note that Stone Skin can often be the difference between idling a dungeon or not, and Battleheart is one of the most time saving things you can acquire in the entire game. For these reasons, later Prayer cap upgrades are even more important than early ones.

5 Thieving 70 Thieving (skill).svg Level 34 unlocks first Assistant Cook and then Chef which is are great sources of Food and is the most important reason this skill is rated this high. Thieving is also going to be your best source of GP for Auto Eat - Tier III and Dungeon Equipment Swapping - which is very important for manually eating through some Dungeons. Additionally, higher level thieving targets give you access to items you might not be able to get any other way or as quickly by investing cap into only this one skill. Notably, Troll gives you access to Silver Bar without Smithing, Cyclops gives you access to Magic Logs without Woodcutting, and both give Stack of Bones and 100 Eyeball which are extremely useful, especially for the associated Elite Tasks. Additionally, Lumberjack alone almost singlehandedly allows you to not pick Woodcutting until extremely late.

We stop at Thieving (skill).svg Level 70 because after that it's mostly only unnecessary GP upgrades, with the notable exception of Book of Scholars at Thieving (skill).svg Level 75, but even that is not a huge bonus and is often made irrelevant by Skill Caps.

6 Agility 55 Note: You probably won't have the money for agility obstacles immediately after Chicken Coop and Undead Graveyard, so very early on Agility is not a big priority. Even after you build your first obstacles, you won't have the money to switch them around as needed until you have Thieving established.

That said, our biggest priorities are River Crossing, Pipe Climb, Mud Dive - early on Damage Reduction doesn't do very much anyway, but hitpoints does, Cliff Climb - doing Slayer tasks and getting Slayer Coins is really important, and the damage balances out the XP penalty, and most important of all Rocky Waters - enormous early boost to survivability.

You should expect to be swapping around Pipe Climb with Balance Seesaw when it's time to get Agility XP, and Cliff Climb with Cliff Balance once you get the Prayer relic that reduces cost. There are a lot of good obstacles at Agility 4 so rather than list them out, use your judgement about when to swap, and expect to do so fairly often - noting that Gap Jump is by far the best one for Agility XP.

After Agility 6, it is too slow to level Agility without Performance Enhancing Potion IV and Eagle SynergyIcon.png Monkey, and too hard to get the requirements both in items and levels, so don't worry about it until after Impending Darkness Event.

7 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 value in leveling it further as you can get all the Armour you need from Combat. It also takes advantage of the mining time you are probably going to do anyway, as Mining Lesser Relic is the single best source of GP in your first week.
7 Smithing 40 To turn your Gold Ore and Silver Ore into Gold Bar and Silver Bar. See Mining for reason why not higher than 40. Note that if you happened to get lucky with Thieving (notably, Thieving Relic #4) and enough cap, you don't even need this much Smithing as you can get the bars you need from Golbin Chief and Troll. However, this edge case is likely not going to happen by the time you need to upgrade Melee armor, so we include it in this list anyway.
8 Cartography 90 There are several good rewards from Cartography in the form of Points of Interests, check out the full list here. The main goal however for Cartography (skill).svg 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 Township Hard Task 15.

The other goal of Cartography (skill).svg 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 Ranged (skill).svg Level 120.

8 Archaeology 90 Archaeology (skill).svg 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 Archaeology are: Accuracy Gem, Agile Gem, Ancient Silk, Old Spyglass, Chisel, Dirty Mining Boots, Blacksmith Tongs, Ring of Summoning, Old Summoning Gloves, Malevolent Ward Shield, Ancient Hunting Bow, Golden Leaf (to stick in passive slot after Into the Mist), Barrier Gem to make Tortoise.

Archaeology (skill).svg Level 120 unlock can be useful for Pirate Hook and Merman Pendant but it takes a really long time to level that high.

Note: it's very difficult to take advantage of Archaeology levels if the absolute level is above that of your Cartography level, so keep that in mind if the game offers them to you in that order.

9 Farming 70 Good source of passive generating low healing Food. Which is very useful when Auto-Eating. It's also the most efficient way to progress in Herblore later; make sure to have your Farming level stay ahead of your Herblore level.

It is discouraged to pick any unlocks for Township until the point farming Casual Township Tasks for Slayer Coins becomes irrelevant. Keeping Township at Skill Level 10 will keep the reroll cost at 0 GP.

Any skills not mentioned on this table or levels above those that are listed do not really matter, and can be chosen at will. Keep in mind the free Skill Level 20 Relics can be fun to pick up.

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 Slayer) in Throne of the Herald.

Other than that pick Prayer whenever offered when the alternative is not your first 2 Runecrafting unlocks to make combat more efficient.

Astrology Level 116 unlock is a good 4th option as Ashtar adds a lot of combat value.

Other skill options are mostly irrelevant as they are not required for progression, nor do they benefit the player's combat journey in outstanding ways. Most non-combat skills should also be low enough level that increases to their level cap will not provide anything at all for some time.

Getting locked due to no Slayer Cap Increases

There is currently a very small chance of being "locked" from progression by not getting enough Slayer Skill Level increases before completing the Impending Darkness Event.

This solution should only be used in the following cases:

Please note that clearing all the Barrier Dungeons up to and including Underwater City is required.

What to do if you're Locked
This will require the use of the Console.

Players can use the dev.Console mod to execute these commands within the Steam, Epic, Android, and iOS versions of Melvor Idle.

On Web, Steam, and Epic, the console can be opened with F12. If using Steam or Epic, you must enable the dev console first before being able to open it.

Once the Console is opened you can use the following code to raise the Slayer maximum Level:

game.slayer.setLevelCap(75) or game.slayer.setLevelCap(95) as appropriate.

Starting Tips

  • Township Tasks: Check out the easier Township tasks as often these will give useful rewards such as food, GP or SC 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 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 Chicken Coop dungeon.
  • Runecrafting: Ancient Relics uses the hardcore Combat Triangle. This means magic is powerful against melee monsters. 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 Magic (skill).svg Level 10 on the Cow.
  • Township Just like a standard playthrough it is advised to go for Aeris Worship at the start.
  • Mining: The Mining Lesser Relic provides a guaranteed gem. This makes mining ore a good source of GP early on. Sell Jewel of Rhaelyx to obtain 1,000,000GP and unlock Auto Eat - Tier I early, as this will give a considerable advantage.
  • Melee: Train melee to 10 XP and unlock the Golbin Thief. Use Mining and Smithing to create 50. Make at least one Golbin Thief so that you can receive more marks.
  • Chicken Coop The 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 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 new and powerful 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 SC. You will need a supply of GP, 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 GP.

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

- Main article: Chicken Coop/Guide

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

Level up all of your combat skills to level 10 on Plant and Cow using low-level slayer tasks. When you obtain Golbin Thief craft 50 to allow more marks to be discovered.

For the dungeon battle, equip Earth Strike and equip 25 and 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

- Main article: Undead Graveyard/Guide

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 Runecrafting was not upgraded then stick to the Earth Wizard Gear:

Survey and discover Old Village to unlock 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 50,000SC. Purchase 5 from the Shop to complete the township task that gives you 1000. Obtain the Occultist and then craft as many Occultist as you can.

Using your remaining SC, 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, Fire Strike, Soul Split I and Blinding I spells. Use Occultist and Thick Skin to increase your chances of success.

Spider Forest: Level 20

- Main article: Spider Forest/Guide

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.

If you didn't get Runecrafting cap increases it is recommended you visit (7, 15) The Runed Battlefield for some limited 1,000 Chaos Rune and 1,000 Death Rune to be able to cast Bolt Spells.

Using the Mining Lesser Relic mine your best ore available to obtain Jewel of Rhaelyx which you can sell. When you have 1,000,000GP available, purchase Auto Eat - Tier I to make combat slightly easier. It is especially important that you spend the time to train your prayer and hitpoints.

Equip 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.

This is the last Dungeon where you can brute force your way through with Magic without getting Runecrafting Skill caps. It is recommended you swap over to Melee if after Spider Forest your Runecrafting is still capped at Level 10. You can clear all the way to Water God Dungeon with Melee if you don't get enough Runecrafting unlocks, this will however take more time and effort so switching back to Magic when you do get these unlocks is highly suggested.

Use the following Setup for the next Dungeon if you are still capped at Level 10 Runecrafting.

Obtain the Silver Ruby Necklace from Mummy or Crafting, if available.
To get the Mithril gear, kill Mithril Knight until you have a full set of Mithril Armour. Complete the Township Normal Task #1 to get your upgraded (G) Mithril Platebody and (G) Mithril Shield. Then go back to killing Mithril Knight to complete the set again.

You can upgrade the Armour pieces with Silver Bar to upgrade them to (S) and then Gold Bar to upgrade them to (G), after doing this the Items will get their Damage Reduction stats. This however shouldn't be needed for the upcoming Dungeon Frozen Cove.

Silver Bar and Gold Bar can be obtained through Mining and Smithing if you have those Skill caps at 40, if you don't the only other viable alternative is Statue.

Mid-End Base Game Tips & Comments


  • If you still have questions after reading through the entire guide, free to to come ask them in the #aod-ancient-relics channel on the Melvor Idle Discord.

Throne of the Herald Tips & Comments