In Runescape, the cards are heavily stacked towards being a member; more quests, more enemies, more items, a larger community and landscape, and just more stuff in general. Members can make more money quicker and more efficiently than most F2P (free-to-play) players can. Also, training is much easier due to the variety of options. However, for the mid to high-level free players who don’t want, can’t afford, or somehow disagree with being a member, there is an alternative method: Crandor Isle.
Players first arrive on Crandor Isle during the Dragon Slayer quest to find and kill the dragon Elvarg. What some don’t know or care to use is the fact that after you defeat Elvarg, you can still come back to train on this magnificent island. This guide explains how to level up eight skills without ever having to leave the island, until you reach your target levels or you’re just plain bored with it.
First off, you should know the requirements you’ll need for this island. As previously stated, you will have at least begin the Dragon Slayer quest to access the island; when you’re finished, you can go through the wall near the Deadly Red Spiders in the Karamja dungeon. The items and skills you’ll need are:
-A decent set of melee armor and melee skills (55 attack, strength, defense, and constitution). Although you can bring mage or ranged equipment, these supplies will eventually run out, forcing you to leave the island to restock.
-A pickaxe (mithril or higher) and at least 40 mining.
-40 smithing.
-A fire staff and at least level 43 magic.
-40 or higher cooking, if you need food.
-Some money, 10,000 or more, to buy some starting law runes.
Now, on to the guide. Those of you who have visited Crandor before may have noticed that there are four mines located on the island. One of these contains three gold rocks. You’ll want to head there first. If you have a low combat level, beware the King Scorpions who patrol the area. Equip your FIRE STAFF and start mining. Whenever you have a pause where you are waiting for the gold to respawn, go to your magic tab. Cast superheat item on the ores; this will turn them into bars, earning you magic and smithing experience in addition to the mining xp you earn for getting them. If you would prefer to save some time by not dropping the bars, you can cast low or high alchemy on the bars to get some more magic experience. There you go; that’s three skills you can level up fairly easily, with little competition or interruptions.
However, I’m sure the more pessimistic among you will notice the flaw in the plan; “Aha!”, you’ll say, “What happens when you run out of nature runes? What then?” Also, you may be wondering why this works so well on Crandor, besides the isolation. I’ll tell you. What monsters, in F2P Runescape, could possibly drop nature runes? Well, Moss Giants do. And, It just so happens that three of them respawn on the southern tip of Crandor. This is where the combat aspect comes in. Wearing your armor and weapon, go maul some giants. You may wish to bring some food from Karamja for this part, as those who powerfish there often drop tuna, swordfish, and lobsters, which you can then pick up. The general store sells an axe and a tinderbox; buy them, cut down a tree, and cook them.
This combat experience (Strength, Attack, Defense, and Constitution), the mining, the smithing, and the magic experience are easy to earn and continue earning for as long as you continue. But wait; it gets better; didn’t this guide promise to train eight skills? Of course, in addition to the nature runes that Moss Giants drop, they have a 100% drop chance of big bones, which give the most experience and train the most difficult F2P Runescape skill to train, Prayer. Each big bone drop grants 15 prayer xp, 3 times the amount of normal bones.
Once you get to 55 mining and 50 smithing, you can move on to mining mithril on the east and north sides of the island; there is 1 mithril rocks and 7 coal rocks, with 7 mithril rocks farther south, that you can mine to continue the cycle. Once you get to 70 mining and smithing, you can stay near the Moss Giants indefinetely, as there are several coal and adamantite rocks close to them, where you can also hide to range or mage the giants if you brought some runes or arrows. Essentially, you don’t have to leave Crandor until you have 99 mining, smithing, magic, strength, attack, defense, constitution, and prayer – or you decide you need a change of pace. Thanks for reading, and have a great time on the wondrous Isle of Crandor.
-P.S. I’m still taking my own advice and running all around Crandor; you may recognize me as Dragonmansd on world 14.