RS3 Combat Basics

A tick is the game server's heartbeat: 0.6 seconds. Anything you do (attacking, moving, eating, swapping gear) is processed at the start of the next tick, so all timings in combat are whole ticks. An ability with a 25-tick cooldown is ready again after 15 seconds; walking moves you one square a tick and running two.

You do not need to count ticks to play well. It helps to know that pressing two things in the same tick, such as eating and attacking, both happen together, and that longer channelled abilities hit once every one or two ticks.

Using an ability starts the global cooldown (GCD): 3 ticks, 1.8 seconds, during which no other ability can start. It is why abilities come out one at a time in a steady rhythm. Each ability also has its own cooldown, from none at all (the basic attack) to a minute or more (most ultimates).

A few utility abilities ignore the GCD, such as Magic's Runic Charge, so you can fit them in between two others. If a channelled ability is still going when the GCD ends, pressing the next ability cuts the channel short, so let a channel finish unless you need to move.

Since March 2026 every weapon attacks every 3 ticks, so the basic attack lines up exactly with the GCD and weapon speed no longer matters when choosing a weapon.

Adrenaline is the bar next to your life points, from 0% to 100%. You build it with basic abilities and your basic attack, usually 9% each (Adaptive Strike gives 12%), and spend it on stronger abilities:

• Enhanced abilities usually cost 20% to 25%. A few cost nothing but have long cooldowns.
• Ultimate abilities cost 60% (Overpower, Omnipower, Deadshot, Death Skulls) or 100% (Berserk, Sunshine, Death's Swiftness, Living Death).
• Weapon special attacks cost adrenaline too; click the adrenaline bar to use one.
• Eating food costs 3% adrenaline.

After 10 seconds out of combat the bar drains quickly, so start a boss fight soon after building it. Adrenaline potions, which an Ironman can make with Herblore, give a quick top-up before an ultimate.

Each style's ability book splits abilities into four groups:

• Basic abilities deal modest damage and build adrenaline. The basic attack is a basic ability with no cooldown that fires on its own whenever you have nothing else queued.
• Enhanced abilities are your hard hitters. Most spend adrenaline and can be used the moment you have enough; they replaced the old threshold abilities, which needed 50% to use.
• Ultimate abilities spend a lot of adrenaline for a big hit or a damage buff, with cooldowns of 30 seconds or more.
• Utility abilities do not deal damage: movement like Surge, Dive and Escape, or buffs like Runic Charge.

Defence and Constitution abilities are shared by every style. Some of them are still threshold abilities, costing 15% adrenaline.

Every style has an ability damage number, built from your level in the style (Strength for melee), your weapon's tier and damage bonuses from your armour and jewellery. Each ability then hits for a range of that number: a basic attack might deal 90% to 110% of it, a big ultimate 420% to 500%.

Since the March 2026 rework, levels give more damage early on and less near the top, so a mid-level Ironman feels stronger than before while the total at level 120 with boosts is unchanged.

Any hit can be a critical strike. The base chance is 10%, and a critical adds bonus damage that grows with your level in the style, from 10% at level 1 to 50% at level 90. Damage over time (bleeds and burns) usually cannot critically strike.

Hit chance compares your accuracy (your level plus your weapon's tier) with the target's armour, scaled by the target's affinity to your style. You can see it in the target panel when you attack.

Against monsters, hit chance scales your damage rather than deciding hit or miss: with 80% hit chance every hit deals 80% of its usual damage. Below 1% you miss everything. That makes hit chance worth fixing before damage, which is why accuracy boosts and using a monster's weakness matter so much.

A monster's weakness, shown next to its name in the target panel, sets its affinity: how easy it is to hit with each style. For a typical monster since March 2026:

• 90 with its exact weakness (for example stab, bolts or fire spells),
• 70 with the style that weakness belongs to,
• 60 with a neutral style, and always for Necromancy,
• 50 with the style it resists.

Many bosses ignore this and have their own values, often low across the board. Every monster page on this site lists its weakness, so check the bestiary before a Slayer task.

Melee beats Ranged, Ranged beats Magic, and Magic beats Melee. Each style gets about 18% more accuracy against the style it beats and about 18% less against the style that beats it. Necromancy sits outside the triangle: it is neither strong nor weak against anything.

Your armour counts too. Wearing armour of another class with your weapon lowers your accuracy, so keep your armour and weapon the same style (hybrid gear and capes aside).

• Revolution uses the abilities on your main bar for you, left to right as they come off cooldown. You choose which kinds it may use. Good for Slayer and for learning.
• Full manual leaves every ability to you (the basic attack can still fire automatically). This is where the extra damage is, and what boss guides assume.
• Classic mode (the old Legacy mode) only ever uses your basic attack, with special attacks on a separate energy bar.

A common path: Revolution with your basics on it while you learn a style, then Full manual with a few key abilities keybound once bosses get harder. See the keybinds guide for a layout.

Defence abilities work with any style. Most of the strong ones need a shield, but Anticipation, Freedom and Debilitate work with any weapon, and Devotion makes your protection prayer block everything it covers for a few seconds. Keybind Freedom and Resonance first; between them they answer most stuns and big single hits.

Level is your Defence level. One tick is 0.6 seconds.

Ability names, levels, cooldowns and adrenaline from the RuneScape Wiki's ability data (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0), checked 2026-10-10. The descriptions and advice are ours.