Which skills should you train first?
OSRS has 23 skills, and you do not need to push them all evenly. The most common early mistake is grinding one gathering skill to a high level for its own sake while your account can't do any real content. Train to unlocks and requirements first, and let goals pull the rest.
A good default priority for a general account:
- Combat stats (Attack, Strength, Defence, Ranged, Magic, Hitpoints) — they gate almost everything and are trained partly for free through quests.
- Prayer to the key breakpoints — the biggest survival and DPS multiplier in the game.
- A money-making skillso you're never broke — often a gathering skill early, then a production or PvM skill later.
- Support skills on demand — Herblore, Agility, Construction, Farming — trained when a goal or quest needs them.
Essential skill milestones
These are the levels that unlock disproportionate value. Aim for them before chasing round numbers like 99.
| Skill | Level | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Prayer | 43 / 44–45 / 70 | All Protect prayers / Eagle Eye & Mystic Might / Piety (Rigour 74, Augury 77) |
| Herblore | 81 / 90 | Saradomin brews / Super combat potions (divine variants 97+) |
| Agility | 70+ | Key shortcuts and Rooftop courses; Marks of Grace for the Graceful outfit |
| Farming | Any | Herb runs — one of the best passive money makers in the game |
| Slayer | Ongoing | Access to Slayer-only bosses and the best money tasks |
| Construction | 75 | Gilded altar for fast Prayer XP; teleport rooms for travel |
Combat-wise, defensive levels matter more than raw offence for survival: 70 Defence covers Barrows and Karil's armour and many quest requirements, and 75 opens higher-tier armour like Justiciar. On the offensive side, 75 Ranged unlocks the toxic blowpipe and 75+ Magic the stronger tridents — the weapons that carry most mid-game PvM.
Money-making & PvM skills
Some skills earn while you train, and some directly enable PvM. These give the highest return on your hours:
- Farming — herb runs are a few minutes of clicking every 80 minutes for a huge daily profit that scales for your whole account. Nearly every player should train it.
- Slayer — the single most rewarding non-combat skill for a PvM account. Tasks fund your bank and unlock bosses.
- Runecraft & Crafting — Blood/Soul runes and high-level jewellery are strong, if grindy, gp.
- Hunter & Thieving — flexible, mostly-AFK income (chinchompas, Master Farmers, Ardougne Knights) that scales well.
For live numbers on any of these, the Money Makers hub filters methods to what your levels can do right now.
Efficient vs AFK training
Every skill has a fast method and an AFK method, and picking wrong burns hours or attention you don't have. The trade is simple: fast methods demand constant clicks (and often cost gp), while AFK methods are cheaper and let you multitask but give less XP per hour.
Match the method to your situation
Grinding at your desk with full attention? Take the fast method. Half-watching something else? Take the AFK one. The “best” method is the one you'll actually stick with for the session you're in.
Buyable skills (Prayer, Construction, Herblore, Crafting, Fletching) can be rushed with gp when you need the unlock quickly — useful for hitting a quest or gear requirement without a long grind.
When to stop training a skill
You rarely need 99 in a skill to get its value — you need the unlock level. Once a skill clears the requirement for your current goals, stop and move to the next bottleneck. Save the 99 grind for skills you genuinely enjoy or that fund your account (Slayer, Farming), and for the max-cape long game.
Turn a target level into a plan
The ScapePath calculators turn any target level into exact XP, the number of actions, and the gp cost — per skill and per method — and the skilling hub ranks the best method at your current level. Sign in and both prefill from your real stats, so the plan is specific to your account.
Take this further with ScapePath
A guide can tell you the general path. These tools apply it to your account — your stats, your quests, your bank — so the next step is always specific to you.
Skilling hub
The fastest and most profitable training method at every level, per skill.
Calculators
Turn a target level into exact XP, actions and cost.
Planner
Weighs every quest, boss, skill and money method against your account and tells you what to do next.
Money Makers
Live gp/hr methods filtered to what your account can actually do right now.
Keep reading
- OSRS Quest Progression GuideWhy quests are the real backbone of OSRS progression, which ones to prioritise, and the major unlock quests — Recipe for Disaster, Monkey Madness II, Song of the Elves, Desert Treasure II — worth training for.
- OSRS Money Making Progression GuideHow to make money in OSRS at your level, organised by account stage rather than a raw gp/hr leaderboard — your first 100k, first 1M, mid-game staples, and 10M+ PvM and skilling methods.
- OSRS Progression GuideA stage-by-stage roadmap for Old School RuneScape: what to prioritise in the early, mid and late game, how quests, skills, gear and bossing feed each other, and how to always know your best next move.
Requirements, drop mechanics and unlock names in this guide are checked against the live game and the Old School RuneScape Wiki. Factual OSRS mechanics originate with Jagex and the community Wiki; the explanations, structure and recommendations here are ScapePath's own. Last reviewed 27 August 2026.