The release of Nightmare Zone, which took place just months after Old School RuneScape (OSRS) launched in 2013 and marked the first release of new content created specifically for OSRS, revolutionized combat training for a significant percentage of the player base.
Old School’s take on the Dominion Tower offers players not only the chance to re-fight certain quest bosses, but the ability to have boss after boss spawn in without any additional input in Rumble mode. It essentially created a massively effective and efficient AFK (away from keyboard) training method that is, to this day, the single best way to train combat in the game.
The method is optimized for Melee training, but you can use it for Ranged and Magic as well. In fact, it’s what I’d recommend for Ranged. Most folks have lives outside of Gielinor and can’t spend hundreds of hours clicking repetitively to train combat, and the fact that this method is as quick as it is makes it even more appealing.
OSRS Nightmare Zone requirements
You need to complete at least five out of a select list of 38 quests in order to be eligible to participate, and there are ways to optimize the training method by selecting certain quests bosses over others. I will be going over my personal recommendations below.
The basics are as follows: do the Freeing the Mountain Dwarf subquest of Recipe for Disaster. It doesn’t count toward the five quests, and neither do its prerequisites, but it allows you to get the Dwarven Rock Cake. This allows you to set your life points to 1 before starting a Rumble encounter.
You can then use Absorption potions (after earning enough initial points by simply brute forcing your way through Rumble a few times) for up to 1,000 life points at a time.
With each boss’s max hit being based on your actual life point total, they can each only effectively hit you for 1 life point, and those hits drain off your Absorption total, thus massively extending your lifespan during an encounter.
And before we go any further, I don’t think I’m offering up anything groundbreaking by saying that getting the Dwarven Rock Cake is easier than getting all the requirements for Dragon Slayer II and getting the Locator Orb, which serves the same purpose.
Getting started in the OSRS Nightmare Zone
Note that if you use Overloads, you’ll want to reduce your life point tally to 51, not 1, otherwise you can’t get the desired combat boost (which subsequently drains your life points to 1).
You will also need to be more active with the game during a session, as Overload doses expire after five minutes. You will also need to reduce your life points down to 1 every once in a while, since you will naturally regenerate a point every minute, though how often you do that is up to you.
I don’t recommend starting Nightmare Zone until you have level 60 in your desired combat skills. This is manageable before you even buy membership.
I have done 11 total runs to max combat in Nightmare Zone, and not all of my runs have looked the exact same. The guide below is simply what I feel is the best way to optimize your path, and instead of exaggerating the XP rates, I’ve actually tried to be conservative, just so you can have a pretty good idea of what your floor should look like.
Optimizing OSRS Nightmare Zone quest boss selections
As far as which quests to do, the best six (not just five, which we’ll touch on below) are Ascent of Arceuus, Depths of Despair, Vampyre Slayer, What Lies Below, Tree Gnome Village, and Lost City. They unlock the Trapped Soul, Sand Snake, Count Draynor, King Roald, Khazard Warlord, and the Tree Spirit, respectively.
First things first: make sure auto retaliate is turned on. Not doing so defeats the purpose of this method. And secondly, never use normal mode. Always use hard mode.
The bosses have more life points in hard mode, thus limiting the number of times your true max hit will actually be less than what it is. For example, if you fight a boss with 35 life points and have a max hit of 17, your effective max hit is only 11.67, since you need at least three hits to kill it. This also reduces the time spent switching from boss to boss, and this can add up quickly.
Yes, the bosses may be more accurate, but when their de facto max hit is 1 with your Rock Cake/Absorption strategy, that doesn't really affect much.
Plus, hard mode awards way more reward points, making it easier to imbue your rings (touched on below), thus increasing your XP per hour rates, and also giving you more flexibility when it comes to testing the amounts of Absorption and Overload you need as you level up.
Now let’s really get into it.
OSRS Nightmare Zone: Melee training guide
From Melee (Strength, Attack, Defence) levels 60 to 80, I use Obsidian Armor (Helmet, Platebody, and Platelegs), as well as the Obsidian Sword (Toktz-xil-ak) with an Obsidian Shield (Toktz-ket-xil). I recommend getting to 65 Strength and 65 Attack to access the Warriors' Guild and then upgrading the Shield to a Dragon Defender.
A Berserker Necklace pairs well with the weapon due to its enhanced damage output. I also use Dragon Boots, Granite Gloves, a Berserker Ring (imbued with reward points, as soon as possible), a Holy Blessing, and then either a Fire Cape, Obsidian Cape, or a Mixed Hide Cape.
As far as the bosses, I take all but either the Khazard Warlord or the Tree Spirit.
You can count on between 80,000 and 85,000 XP per hour from level 60 to 80, provided you start with Strength and then do Attack and Defense. It is worth keeping in mind that that number obviously starts lower when you have lower Strength and Attack levels, but over time, the increases allow it to average out between 80,000 and 85,000; the same goes for further XP rates mentioned in this article.
And then, believe it or not, I do the exact same thing from levels 80 to 99, again with Strength first, then Attack, and then Defense. I use the same bosses and can expect between 100,000 and 105,000 experience per hour.
OSRS Nightmare Zone: Ranged training guide
There are quicker ways to train Ranged, but again, I recommend Nightmare Zone due to its AFK nature. And I actually start with level 50, as opposed to level 60.
At level 50, I use the same bosses as I do for Melee, and I actually prefer the Overload method rather than the Super Ranging potion method, just because the Overload boost is consistent and doesn’t fade over time (aside from when it expires completely every five minutes).
From level 50 to 60, I use a Snakeskin Bandana and Boots, plus a Blue Dragonhide Body, Chaps, and Vambraces. I attack using an imbued Magic Shortbow with Rune Arrows, and I also use an Ava’s Accumulator, an Archer’s Ring (imbued with reward points, as soon as possible), and a Necklace of Anguish, given the fact that my Hitpoints level is now over 75 after training Melee.
From level 60 to 70, I simply upgrade Blue Dragonhide to Red, and from level 70 to 75, I upgrade Red (and my leftover Snakeskin) to whatever the cheapest Blessed Dragonhide is at the time. It’s usually Guthix. Combining level 50 to 75, you can expect to average between 45,000 and 50,000 XP per hour.
At level 75, things start to pick up. If you can upgrade to Armadyl Armor (Helmet, Chestplate, and Chainskirt) and Pegasian Boots, go for it. If not, no big deal. But you need to upgrade to a Toxic Blowpipe as your weapon, and with Amethyst Darts (plus Zulrah’s Scales).
The cost efficiency of using Amethyst Darts beats using Dragon Darts by a country mile, even though their Ranged strength bonus is a bit less. And from level 75 to 80, you can still expect to get between 85,000 and 90,000 XP per hour.
And at level 80, things really start to pick up. Replace the Blowpipe with a Venator Bow, and go back to using Rune Arrows (plus Ancient Essence, due to the Bow’s passive special effect).
Here’s why you need six quests instead of five. Sand Snake is not a single-tile boss, and in order to ensure the special effect is as effective as possible and can consistently bounce between the maximum number of bosses and thus do the most damage at a time, you want to make sure all of your bosses are single-tile bosses.
So whichever one of the Khazard Warlord and the Tree Spirit you’re not already using, plug it in and take out the Sand Snake.
Do this from level 80 to 99, and you can expect to earn between 135,000 and 150,000 XP per hour.
OSRS Nightmare Zone: Magic training guide
As for Magic, most of my training has been via splashing (I’ve maxed Magic on 10 accounts by spending months mindlessly casting Fire Blast on chickens at South Falador Farm), though I did do one run from level 60 to 99 in Nightmare Zone.
While using the same bosses I use for melee training, I use full Bloodbark Armor (Helm, Body, Legs, Gauntlets, and Boots) since it is a nice budget option, and I cast using a Mystic combination staff (exact staff varies, depending on which spell I’m casting), along with a Seers Ring (imbued with reward points, as soon as possible), an Occult Necklace, a Malediction Ward, a Holy Blessing, and a Fire Cape.
If you don’t have a Fire Cape, that’s fine; you really don’t need any cape for this method.
A lot of your XP gain is going to come from casts (using the highest elemental spell possible), as Magic is generally weaker against these bosses than Melee and Ranged, and Magic damage XP is inherently halved. Still, you can anticipate earning between 80,000 and 85,000 XP per hour from level 60 to 99.
OSRS Nightmare Zone AFK training method: Conclusion
There is, of course, no perfect way to do it. You could always do Troll Romance and plug in Arrg due to the XP boost, but he also has higher defensive bonuses, specifically against Ranged. I personally like the Troll quests due to the nostalgia, so I save them until I’m done training (even though you obviously don’t need max combat stats to do them).
The fact that I’m even bringing this up illustrates the fact that there is no perfect science to this. There are a number of other viable options as far as quest bosses go, but the quests I included are all relatively beginner-level, easily accessible quests without a ton of big requirements. All six of them are Intermediate-level quests.
As long as you understand the general concept of what it is you want to achieve, you can achieve it. And that is why Nightmare Zone is designed the way it is.
You can make various gear substitutions as you see fit as well. Dharok’s armor’s special effect is huge with low life points, and if you do Ranged training before Melee training, you can have a high enough Hitpoints level to make Dharok’s work from around level 80 melee stats, rather than waiting until level 90 or 95. You just have to spend more money (and time) on frequent gear repairs.
And if you’re training more than one account at once, in which case I would not recommend Dharok’s, you may also opt against the Overload method, thus decreasing the need to constantly interact with the client (and thus keeping the “A” in AFK).
It’s completely flexible.
But all things considered, this particular method has worked pretty well for me over the years, and it’s doable even if you’re nowhere near your computer, simply by keeping a tab up and using something like Chrome Remote Desktop to access it via your phone.