Ranged vs Necromancy, Which Combat Style is Better in RuneScape 3

[@jur_007]

Necromancy has a unique advantage over anything else because it has more than one spender source being adrenaline, residual souls and necrosis stacks. The other styles are reliant on adrenaline alone as a spender. Adding multiple conjures for free damage per minute as a set and forget also boosts it farther.

[@Gutigwolfe]

Conjures are probably one of the biggest factors. Ghost heals and gives extra dps, Zombie adds poison plus dps, skeleton is pure dps, with the ability to lower armour rating if you use lord of bones. You have conjures doing constant dps, even if you have to move. Other styles require you to always be attacking. If you move away when attacking with other styles, you lose dps, where with Necro you always have your conjures.

[@Psyshimmer]

Hopefully phase 2+ of the combat rework addresses the lack of identity the older styles suffer from. Necro has everything right now: high damage, good healing, damage mitigation, resource diversity, utility, etc. You can't truly incentivize other styles over necro until you address this foundational discrepancy.

[@MiaKhalifa-mj5xz]

I disagree the vestment/leng glass cannon build. The crit =adren farm magic rotation. Range is eof city but the others have style

[@Psyshimmer]

​@@MiaKhalifa-mj5xz The styles aren't concrete enough, imo. Sponge said it best in his discussion with Prideslayer: ideally, each style would have several "identities." An example would be a conjure-focused necro build vs. a souls-focused necro build. Same goes for each of the other styles. E.g. a bleed heavy melee build, a glass-cannon high damage 2h build, on and on. That would prevent high level gear being made suddenly irrelevant (e.g. Khopeshs) by lesser or equivalent gear. You could set them up to tailor to individual identities.

[@MiaKhalifa-mj5xz]

@@Psyshimmer oh then Don’t play RuneScape. Try Diablo 4 I hear u can customize your class build and it did really well of launch and has a ton of replay ability! Lmao blizzard

[@Psyshimmer]

@@MiaKhalifa-mj5xz Maybe the least useful reply possible

[@MiaKhalifa-mj5xz]

@@Psyshimmer perceptive 🧐 nothing gets by you does it?

[@PricklyAporocactus1]

Good video, I appreciate the time you put into this. I will say though, you did lack a couple fundamental upgrades for ranged. Not having elite dracolith or ECB EOF is one thing but you should have at least an SGB EOF. It’s just the reality with older styles; end game abilities like split soul aren’t given to you from a skill tree like with necro. So you kind of need those to compare at least most of them. Lining up an SGB spec with BOLG stacks does crazy high damage!

[@PricklyAporocactus1]

Also you can’t compare regular sirenic with no set effect to T95 necro gear with crazy good set effects. You should have used T90 necro gear

[@christianbarrett3040]

Necro still has a lot of utility that range and magic lacks. Specifically the cleave, and healing

[@reillybecker9855]

Cleave?

[@christianbarrett3040]

@@reillybecker9855cleave is a general term for the amount of AOE damage a style can produce. It comes from the melee basic ability and refers to consistent and common aoe damage. Thanks to the scythe ability, death skulls, and soul strike, necromancy has a lot of cleave making it great for melee range AOE.

[@strpurepo9]

The heeling you’re referring to is literally just the blood reaver spec lmao Also mech chins do exist for range and gchain is better in some burst AOE examples Buttttt necro is indeed way easier to use

[@christianbarrett3040]

@@strpurepo9 necro has extra healing from the ghost, which is what I was referring to

[@Antasco]

Necromancy > Every other style because it's accessible as an ironman because god forbid theres a reasonable way to get Magic or Ranged armour/weapons without 99 Crafting / Runecrafting (I know dracolich exists now but Magic is still suffering this problem)

[@aaronw-arrior9974]

Virtus seren, anima core of sliske, tho. All pretty easy to get and really strong as an iron tho and sliske is pretty much bis

[@Antasco]

@@aaronw-arrior9974 I wouldn't say "easy" as you are still beholden to droprates on both the armours and the essence. Virtus is much easier now with Necro yes, and Sliske is a later goal because god forbid Gregorovic not shit out loads of damage making it a rather annoying boss to stay long at without some higher end gear. But while that is an option and so is Cryptbloom but at that point just skip everything else and use Cryptbloom. Dragonhide got rebalanced on the crafting table and yet Ganodermic which would be a good alternative to Cryptbloom until you get it is... 95 slayer and 98 crafting???? That's kind of fucked up really. But then you could just get Ports armour right? Or cryptbloom again. The problem isn't bosses that could take a while to get your gear, the problem is that the alternatives to those bosses might as well have you max a skill for something thats weaker than another item you can make at a lower level.

[@renandossantos9668]

Well, to defend your point, the combat triangle also needs A LOT of grinding bosses to get all armours/ weapons. In Necro you Just grind krill and rasial, basically

[@Antasco]

@@renandossantos9668this too, and kril is incredibly afk at t70

[@PupRs]

The comments are scary ngl. It’s like a necromancy cult

[@SilencedRS]

Definitely lots of strong opinions! What’s your favourite combat style rn @PupRs?

[@PupRs]

has to be range. i expected it to be melee but range is just so good now and enjoyable with all the stacks and buffs. @@SilencedRS

[@crazedmonk8u]

This is a great breakdown and I agree with everything. I like what they did with the combat beta to bring up the other styles but i will still use Necro just due to the simplicity its perfect for me. I can revo+ the basic abilities and manual cast my spenders and it actually FEELS good to play that way vs other styles it feels bad if revo+ does your rotation cause you know damn well its not optimal and can feel it, with Necro the rotation is simple i don't have to weapon swap and my pop off skill (living death) allows you to stay mobile to deal with mechanics. i don't have to think about different rotations like oh my sunshine off cd but i dont have the right amount of adrenaline /other skills off cd thanks revo! for my ideal rotation do i send it now or wait for the right time etc. so in short the only reason why you would play other styles right now is because you enjoy them vs them being actually better then Necro since alot of people have a hate boner for Necro which just stems into what i said above, you can't just pump up numbers and expect it to be done when Necro encompasses modern design not just for runescape but in general since its builder spender system and easy rotations is akin to modern mmo combat systems . Also you highlighted in your video you ran out of food. That is another reason why I like Necro since i don't have to carry switches and extra EOFS! or even worthy about any of that so i have more room for food. you had 3 spots wasted for your switches in range, (sgb, chins, crossbow for aoe clones) you could have gotten the kill with that with plenty to spare.

[@LTAT42069]

What I'm hearing is in order to make Ranged worth while you need over 10B in gear which imo is ludicrous! I wonder if other range builds are more viable (non poison builds) even tho the poison build looks fun. If you still need 10B to run those that's again ludicrous and doesn't solve the problem of Necromancy being the only real accessible style which kinda sucks cuz I miss other styles even tho I love Necromancy. I just feel forced to stick with it despite wanting to play other styles. I saw the RS Guy compare all the styles saying Ranged is king damage, but hard to play. Didn't explain it in depth unfortunately.

[@lahabrea]

necro is vry good to learn to pvm and get decent times, ranged is king regarding DPS if ur willing to get BIS and tons of APM

[@RockBandRS]

If you put in the money and effort to learn it, full bis range can wipe the floor with necro. But I mean full bis; so elite draco, bolg, and sgb/ecb/dbow eofs. On top of arrow switching. It's a lot, and most players won't bother. Unpopular opinion: the survivability and ease of use of necro should have the trade off of being the lowest dps style. Melee and mage cost more than necro and do less damage; with melee also requiring a lot more effort due to switches.

[@LeviGoAt]

I have full best in slot for every combat style gear wise, apart from a few perks that aren't the absolute best but rather 2nd best, and i've been testing out the different styles with the recent combat update. The results I got are basically the same as what you've shown in this video. Even with all the bells and whistles for ranged, melee, and magic, Necro is superior by far from what i've seen. Ranged in 2nd, melee 3rd, and magic 4th - generally speaking. However, I am not a pro in every combat style, so that is definitely a big factor to keep in mind. I am most familiar with Necro, like most people I'd assume, with range being in 2nd place for me, in terms of how well I know the style. But despite how well I know the styles, it seems that the kit Necro has is just easier to use and simply more well rounded than the rest by a long shot in most cases. To be honest, I wish it wasn't this way because I love using range, but the price of the gear... 😭and the tediousness of all the switches, and the uncertainty of when to switch to what because the game doesn't give you any guidance on that at all... Most of the time, it's just too much of a hassle for me personally, so in my opinion, Necro is still king and it's not even close.

[@oskaradolfson7450]

“Commenting for the KZbin algorithm!” Nicely done and really fast uploaded 😄

[@445588997]

Ngl I'm still using necro mostly as I'm doing casual slayer. Nearly died when using melee as I forgot there's no ghost heal 😛

[@SilencedRS]

The ghost is definitely missed with other combat styles

[@michaelscott8424]

Draco imo is more than a slight upgrade you basically always crit after rapid fire it's super nice especially into a sgb or dbow

[@michaelscott8424]

And tbh without ecb you can't make a comparison no offense but ffs dude it's busted lol

[@chaama144]

I would love to see this comparison for melee. I've heard that it's really good

[@hihihi45ify]

like 95% of the time, I do not know what I am doing. Rs3 is, kind of, new to me. I played for a few months in 2015, but I am someone that is coming back from childhood. There is so much to know in the expanded lore of runescape and I do believe that there is a lot of buffing to do. I have been playing rs3, since January of this year, from an account I made in 2011 and I idealize mage form my nostalgia (I played as a kid but lost account). I have learned a lot from playing I this great community, and dueling, and I have realized that necro kind of nerfed everything else. I would like to hear opinions on my perspective because I do truly wish rs to continue for generations to come, but there are kinks to work out and I am but one person. thanks for the vid.

[@brianjenkins2247]

Eof's to add for ranged that I've found useful since eoc2* changes Ecb/dbow/sgb + new worthwhile picks saragbow eof and decimation eof. They've lowered the adren and increased the heals on the sara. 30% for about 4k worth of heals. And decimation turns your blog into a mechchin for 10 seconds with way higher damage for only 35 adren adren with bone shield always on you can use the shield adren gain basic all the time which is so fun.

[@Unslain]

Can you test on raksha? It's weak vs range arrows, would be interesting to see a boss that is weak vs range against necromancy. You can also use necromancy incantations with range, such as split soul and darkness

[@msmitty709]

Do you think you're using a fully optimized rotation for getting the most out of the both the last guardian ability? Because I do not have that down and I know it can make a huge difference. Not saying it would beat out necro, just something that occurred to me

[@msmitty709]

Ahh, I see you commented on this around 11:55 toward the end of the video... Just after I posted the comment hah

[@SilencedRS]

I had my basic abilities on revolution which I think was okay but if I was doing full manual and optimizing the BOLG passive effect I’m sure my dps would be higher. Overall I would say it’s possible to beat out Necro dps with ranged but would need near perfect ability rotation and optimizing the BOLG

[@victorrenato835]

​@@SilencedRSalso sgb inside eof to use inside equilibrium spec and split soul/dbow specs should all be used within bolg to best results. Not to mention the new ranged gear is powerfull for critical builds and dbow spam. Ranged is not cheap haha

[@charliezhang8829]

hey mate awesome content! have a question, do think a budget range setup could out dps BIS necro when doing demon and dragon bosses? my range building is missing SGB Eldritch xbow and t99 pray, thx!

[@reillybecker9855]

As someone with bis in both, no bis range is about the same damage as bis necro. And surpasses it with poisonable bosses which also have a 5x5 hit box for sgb. A budget build would be about the same time as necro if you are able to use bik arrows.

[@hafezelmap8516]

Im happy you posted the video, i just stumbled on your stream yesterday while me and my friend were trying to figure this out. Just wanted to let you know, my friend has best in slot for both combat styles and was doing arch-g yesterday at 1400+ enrage. For reference he was using elite dracolich with blood reaver and bik arrows and cinderbane and was getting 6:30 kill times. For necromancy he was achieving 4:30 kill times while not using any familiar, so maybe shave off another 20-10 secs depending on how lucky you are with crits and mechanics. However it is important to note that range should theoretically deal much more damage if using wen and full and hyrixbolts as switches while wearing full dracolich armor.

[@chriskhach6257]

Ranged can def now compete with necro but overall I still think necro is just overall better. The skill just is more streamlined than the others. The ghost sustain is huge vs all other styles. We will be getting more conjs in the future (hopefully) which might make necro even more busted. One thing I thought that could be a cool idea is toggles for conjures. Every 1 min it drains 3-6 plasm to keep In line with the cost. But I still think necro will be BiS for a while. It can do everything all the other styles can do

[@bulltrades365]

I’ve seen nothing but better times at hm Kerapac with Necro, I got my pb with a 4:15, not any good at pvm by any means but I’m phasing before the walls each time and it feels really good with bis perks. I think it’s also worth mentioning Bloat is extremely good now and I’m hitting more 20-30k crits compared to the rework

[@cannotchangeforfourteendays]

Interesting, but bad comparison. There are certain points where you can't compare it like you would apples to apples (i.e. your necromancy gear is pretty much vastly superior to your ranged gear just because of how many pieces you are missing to make ranged what it should be). If you were to remove T95 offhand, maybe then you'd be able to compare the setups and even then it's questionable. Range simply has that much more investment as a must before it is in contention. Some mistakes I've noticed in comparison as well: Low enrage kills at glacor and normal mode kerapac isn't where you use Bik, it's where you use wen/ful at the very least, and that goes for pretty much every single boss you've done the comparison at. Bik should be used when bosses have over 1m HP (more or less) as after a certain point it becomes pretty much half of your damage, so you focus on DoT's way more than raw damage. As it is, in raw damage range is just absolute monster which outclasses all of the styles, just no comparison, however, proper setups are required for it. You're losing additional 10-17k hit from not having SGB in eof, not using ECB in eof is another mistake, as it is another thing that just ramps up ranged damage by so much and puts it in another level. The only thing I'd recommend taking away from this is that range has a steep cost of approx. 10B before you can engage in a conversation between what's better. If you have the fat pouch, range is a great skill to use that requires you to be always on point and dynamic on demand. For ease of use, stick to necromancy, it is a great style to introduce any player to runescape PvM.

[@eyybabyj1397]

It's not just about numbers. Necromancy is far easier and a lot more forgiving and has a lot less buttons to push. Definitely the correct style for people learning pvm. Whereas Meele has amazing burst damage but requires lighting fingers to play it to its full potential

[@masengutormson2078]

Necro is definitely the most versatile to be great everywhere even if it’s slightly not bis at certain places. That being said, short fights like vindicta are actually best in melee I’m pretty sure. I’m not even close to bis (just scourge, eof, normal masterwork) and I did it easily in 24 seconds and I’m not that good in pvm

[@SirBigBuzzz]

i did the same my kill times with HM kera with necro are 3.20 solo and with bis ranged its upwards for 4-5 mins even with the nerf to necro the whole kit is just so much more powerful and i dont think they will ever be close

[@hypershadow1910]

Melee got the most ammount of changes but nobody is talking about it, why?

[@sjellie2094]

Sssst lets gatekeep melee so we can get all the upgrades first🤫

[@jorgz3436]

so for ranged at AG, you would never use bik under 1k enrage, with ful arrows and book. you can delete the boss in no time. ranged is way better then necro to dish out damage atm, but its way more sweaty. so for the average John necro is 100% better.

[@DiamondFang1]

good video but feel like ranged is being used very sub optimally in this video and is a better style under bis and optimal gameplay

[@zeabzeab1]

😁

[@Lead1121]

Sold my bolg for full necro set up. Oh boy am I happy

[@SilencedRS]

Congrats on full necro! Its so much cheaper and still OP

[@Lead1121]

@@SilencedRS it's wonderful! Hope they don't nerf it. Rather see the other combats be brought up to necro's standard

[@HBLRsClanChannel]

Could you pls do this with all 3 others?

[@catmankitty9504]

melee is great but its complicated as heck, plus you are very squishy

[@johnspencer8982]

Its that a end game necro setup is 2b while range is 6b

[@gwilasean7928]

i am so used to range arch i dont want to do necro :p but not using bolg but blights with seren godbow spec in amulet love that spec

[@keetahsanlee6629]

Youre necro setup basically done. Just missing biting4 mobile

[@iyammatt]

"Necromancy has everything" yup. That's why I hate it lol

[@gwilasean7928]

you say necro has darkness but you can also use that on range .. i take my nexus with all styles

[@brawndo1255]

I melee camped all throughout the necro clone meta. I just don't like overpowered stuff in any game I play. It feels like a shortsighted attempt of developers to pull in casual players who likely won't stick around for the long term.

[@lak3r108]

For short kills, 100% arch glacor, and normal mode kerapac. You should have used ful arrows not Bik. Same with ED1 bosses. Plus not having ecb eof is huge. I wouldn’t expect you to get near necro damage if you aren’t using the right arrows and don’t have split soul capability for range like you do necro. Bit of an unfair test really

[@anrs3153]

Wouldn’t wen arrows be better now because of the upgrade they had ?

[@lak3r108]

@@anrs3153 idk maybe. Ful get 15% flat damage boost so idk if wen beats that. Wen is for places with below 100% accuracy. But maybe. Wen would be better than Bik at short fights too

[@x74EN]

bring a nexus and use the 30k death ability and your range would be faster

[@SilencedRS]

Death mark only works with necro. In order for ranged to beat out necro I would need to get a few more upgrades like an ecb in a eof and dracolich armour.

[@Llamabong]

Short answer is melee

[@VihMelchior]

bik arrows at 100% AG are basically useless, bik arrows should be used at 1k%+

[@Rsn.Slippinfoot]

With Necro you can very easily 1 cycle the crystals

[@LordOfTwinkies]

Lol not me but still can solo

[@gsgangganggang6445]

Sorry man but im getting 4min kills at kerapac hm necro gear same as your except full robes and 90 prayer unlocked also on mobile lol and 4:30 zammy 50% enrage beating my pb with max range before release of the newest armour

[@Mogardie]

This is why Jagex should have left animate dead typeless damage reduction on cryptbloom.

[@teqhsmothi]

I killed hm kera with zartyte bow

[@ambiguoususername2966]

NecromancyScape

[@dartagnian105]

with dracolich ranged is far superior.

[@michaela6939]

Get the ecb and sgb eof ranged

[@shehad1266]

ED1 3 cycle and with necro 2 cycle XDDDDDD

[@Loolooloon]

Bro i cant even get 1b for sgb you talking bout 10b bis lol

[@shehad1266]

6 minutes hm kerapac is pretty good? :D

[@SilencedRS]

It’s good for someone’s first kill. Competitive times are more like 4 minutes

[@troubleshootgaming1339]

Thx for the vid, in all honestly youre pretty bad with ranged so I guess that goes into the calculation 😂

[@SilencedRS]

Haha I’m certainly not the best ranger in the game but I think it’s a decent representation for the average player. With more practice my dps would like be a bit better with ranged

[@shehad1266]

your range gear is fairly close to BIS? r u high or something ? youre missing ~5b of gear to be BIS

[@SentientSandwich]

The necromancy comparison just proves that the other styles are a little outdated, we need some type of minion for each style to match necromancy.

[@Rgj68123]

Necro is KING💪🏽 and cheaper 😂

[@tvwr447]

❤

[@DvdV1337]

If ranged is better only because of bik arrows, theres still something that needs to be changed. Necro still overtuned, or other styles still undertuned.

[@martincarreon4235]

if you're going to make a video comparing the two. atleast have bis in both styles. sloppy video comparison and lack of knowledge in both combat styles was hard to watch.

[@igunsoul1312]

This. I was a bit annoyed because he lacked Dracolich, and rotations could have been improved. I think he needs to learn the style more, wait for BIS before voicing such a big opinion, regardless, the utility of necro is insane

[@ducksquidbat8315]

Why do you use lame af cosmetic overrides? It just incentivises jaggex to make more

[@Samu-p8j]

Melee....

[@smailas773]

Mage the best

[@Beatmastapat09]

still gonna say necromancy ruined rs3

[@jensv874]

I fucking hate necro.

[@jsx0328]

This game isn't dead yet?