OSRS Melee Weapon Progression: What to Buy from Level 1 to 99

Last updated September 2026. Reflects the 22 July 2026 Summer Sweep-Up Gear and PvM Changes update, which is what the Soulreaper axe entry depends on.

The OSRS melee weapon progression is shorter than it looks. Iron to rune scimitar, Dragon scimitar at 60, Abyssal whip or tentacle at 70 to 75, Ghrazi rapier at 80, plus a Dragon warhammer for the spec. Everything else is a sidegrade or a specialist.

Melee is the cheapest combat style in the game to run and the easiest one to overspend on. You never buy ammunition or runes, so the weapon is almost the entire cost of your damage. A 308M Inquisitor's mace buys you 0.21 DPS over a 24.3M Ghrazi rapier.

The path from level 1 to 99 runs through six scimitars, a whip, a tentacle and then one of three end-game weapons. The specialists have their own section at the end of this guide.

Why Your Weapon Matters More Than Your Armour

Melee armour buys you survivability and a small slice of Strength. The weapon buys you damage, through four levers that stack on top of each other:

• Attack speed matters more than stats. A 4-tick weapon swings 25% more often than a 5-tick one and nearly twice as often as a 7-tick maul. This is why a 60K Dragon scimitar beats a 59K Dragon longsword, 4.496 against 3.763.
• The Elder maul carries +147 Strength and still loses to a rapier against anything that is not heavily armoured, for the same reason.
• Strength bonus is damage; attack bonus is accuracy. Attack bonus decides whether you hit. Strength bonus decides how hard. Against a low-Defence target, you are hitting anyway, so Strength is nearly the whole picture. Against a boss with 250 Defence, accuracy matters as much as your max hit, and that gap is what Osmumten's fang was built to exploit.
• Match your attack style to the target, not your preference. Almost every monster in the game is weaker to stab, slash, or crush. A Dragon scimitar’s +67 slash does very little against something that resists slash, which is why a finished melee account carries three weapons rather than one.
• Four weapons break these rules. Emberlight, the Dragon Hunter Lance, the Keris Partisan, and Osmumten's Fang all look mediocre on a generic target. Each one beats weapons worth ten times as much on the one fight it was designed for.

How I Calculated DPS and My Setup

Every DPS figure in this guide comes from the OSRS DPS calculator and is the weapon on its own. No armour, no prayers, no potions, no shield, nothing in any other slot.

The moment you add best-in-slot gear, the armour's Strength bonus lifts everything at once. A level 1 scimitar starts reading like a serious weapon, which tells you nothing about the weapon. Stripped bare, the number you see is the weapon and only the weapon.

The exact setup

Attack and Strength are both 99 so that every weapon is measured on the same footing. That is what makes the rows comparable: the only thing changing between one row and the next is the weapon itself. The figures are therefore lower than you will see in guides that calculate in full gear.

How to read the numbers

Keep these points in mind before you use the table:

• Two-handers get a free pass here. Because nothing else is equipped, two-handed weapons don't pay for the shield slot they occupy. In a real setup, a one-hander also carries an Avernic defender and its +8 Strength. Read the five two-handers in this list as slightly flattered: the Sulphur Blades, Abyssal Bludgeon, Noxious Halberd, Soulreaper Axe, and Scythe of Vitur.
• The listed attack style is the one I measured. I tested every weapon in all of its attack styles. Where the Accurate and Aggressive stances produce the same max hit, the difference between them is under 0.005 DPS.
• I have listed the Aggressive stance because that is the one you should train on. Where Aggressive raises the max hit, as on the Blade of Saeldor and Osmumten's fang, it wins outright.
• Two max hits need explaining. Osmumten's fang rolls its damage between 15% and 85% of the theoretical maximum, so its max hit is the in-game ceiling rather than raw formula output. The Keris partisan's 75 against kalphites comes from its triple-damage effect.

Untradeable weapons are marked as such, with the cost of their components where one exists.

Melee Weapon Progression Overview

This is the progression, in Attack-level order. The Role column tells you how to read each row. A Step is a weapon you buy and move up from. A Sidegrade covers an attack style or a situation the Step above it does not. A Specialist is bought for one kind of target.

The DPS column is not meant to descend, because Sidegrades and Specialists sit wherever their Attack level puts them.

Stats checked against the game’s item data, September 2026. GE prices taken in September 2026.

The Soulreaper axe and Scythe of Vitur rows in the progression table need context. The Soulreaper axe figure is at five soul stacks, which is where it sits after its first five successful hits; from zero it does 5.265.

The Scythe of Vitur looks broken because a Sand Crab occupies a single tile, so only one of its three hits can land. Against a boss it is a different weapon.

What To Use For Stab And Crush Before 70

The progression table is slash from level 1 to level 70, and that is not an oversight. Slash carries the early game because the scimitar line is the only cheap 4-tick weapon class in the game. No stab or crush option under 70 Attack comes close to it in damage per GP.

That leaves a gap when the monster in front of you resists slash.

• Crush under 70: Viggora's chainmace at 60 Attack, around 4.4M, is a Dragon scimitar with a crush bonus and a Wilderness passive. Below that, the Barronite mace at 40 Attack costs about 11K and is the only crush weapon worth owning early.
• A rune warhammer at 40 Strength will do between those two if you are a pure and cannot raise Attack.
• Stab under 70: the Dragon sword at 60 Attack, around 72K, is the honest answer and nothing cheaper is close. Before 60, a Dragon dagger at about 17K is carried for its special attack rather than for sustained damage.
• At 70 the gap closes. The Abyssal bludgeon covers crush, and the Zamorakian hasta covers stab, and both are in the progression table.

Mains, Ironmen, and Pures Walk Different Paths

Progression means three different things depending on what you are playing, and the progression table is written for a main with a Grand Exchange.

• A main buys the path as written: rune scimitar, Dragon scimitar at 60, Abyssal whip at 70, tentacle at 75, Ghrazi rapier at 80.
• An Ironman farms in a different order, because price stops mattering and drop rate starts. The Zombie axe comes before the whip, not after, since armoured zombies are far quicker than 512 Abyssal demon kills.
• Sulphur blades and the Brine sabre become worth having, because a drop you already own costs nothing. The Dragon scimitar is still the single best hour you will spend.
• A pure's path stops early by design. A 1 Defence pure tops out at the Abyssal whip or a Granite maul for the spec, because everything above it raises combat level for damage you do not need. If you’re interested in building a 1 Defence pure account, read our OSRS 1 Defence Pure guide here.

Every Melee Weapon Worth Buying, Level by Level

Iron Scimitar

• Level: 1 Attack
• Price: ~27 GP
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +10 slash
• Strength Bonus: +9
• Max Hit: 13
• DPS: 2.627

The iron scimitar is where to start, rather than the weaker bronze scimitar. Scimitars are the right weapon class all the way through the early game: 4 ticks, decent slash, and cheap at every tier. You will hold this one for about twenty minutes.

Steel Scimitar

• Level: 5 Attack
• Price: ~96 GP
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +15 slash
• Strength Bonus: +14
• Max Hit: 13
• DPS: 2.634

The steel scimitar is the first upgrade, and level 5 arrives in minutes. Steel is +14 Strength, compared with iron's +9. The max hit stays at 13, so the gain is small, but it costs 96 GP.

The black scimitar at level 10 is a trap: it adds accuracy only, keeps the same +14 Strength, and measures 2.639 for fifteen times the price. Go to mithril instead.

Mithril Scimitar

• Level: 20 Attack
• Price: ~368 GP
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +21 slash
• Strength Bonus: +20
• Max Hit: 14
• DPS: 2.841

The mithril scimitar is cheaper than the black scimitar and better than everything below it. This is where the line starts to feel like a weapon rather than a formality, and it comfortably holds you to 30 Attack.

Adamant Scimitar

• Level: 30 Attack
• Price: ~1.5K
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +29 Slash
• Strength Bonus: +28
• Max Hit: 16
• DPS: 3.250

The adamant scimitar is the best free-to-play training weapon and the last one you buy for pocket change. Bryophyta's staff is the members' alternative at this level, for its +50 Strength. It swings at 5 ticks and measures 3.253 against the scimitar's 3.250, a tie for about 4.4M more GP.

Rune Scimitar

• Level: 40 Attack
• Price: ~14.8K
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +45 Slash
• Strength Bonus: +44
• Max Hit: 19
• DPS: 3.870

The rune scimitar covers the longest stretch of the early game, from 40 Attack to 60, and it deserves it. 14.8K for +44 Strength at 4 ticks is the best damage per GP anywhere below level 60.

I see two weapons recommended over it, and neither is worth the money. The brine sabre is +2 Strength for thirty times the price and measures 3.872. The granite hammer at level 50 is 4.285, but it costs about 7.5M.

Stay on rune until 55 or 60.

Brine Sabre

• Level: 40 Attack
• Price: ~433K
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +47 Slash
• Strength Bonus: +46
• Max Hit: 19
• DPS: 3.872

The Brine Sabre drops from brine rats, which need 47 Slayer to kill, and it is the clearest early-game trap.

It is +2 Strength and +2 Slash over a rune scimitar, at the same 4 ticks and the same 40 Attack requirement, and it measures 3.872 against the scimitar's 3.870. That is 0.002 DPS for roughly 418K more GP, a difference you could not detect in a week of training.

I included it because a Slayer drop makes it free. If one lands in your bank, use it, because it is the better weapon by a hair. If you are buying off the Grand Exchange, take the rune scimitar and keep the 418K.

Sulphur Blades

• Level: 55 Attack
• Price: ~106K
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +72 Slash
• Strength Bonus: +64
• Max Hit: 22
• DPS: 4.550

Sulphur blades drop from sulphur nagua in Varlamore and are the most underrated mid-game weapon. For 106K, you get +64 Strength at 4 ticks, which edges out a Dragon scimitar on raw damage, 4.550 against 4.496.

The scimitar is cheaper at 60K, so this isn't a value pick. It is two-handed, so in a real setup you lose the defender slot, and the scimitar pulls back ahead. Buy it at 55 Attack if you have no defender yet, and expect to replace it at 60.

Dragon Scimitar

• Level: 60 Attack
• Price: ~60K
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +67 Slash
• Strength Bonus: +66
• Max Hit: 22
• DPS: 4.496

The Dragon scimitar is the best value weapon in OSRS, and it is not close. 60K buys +66 Strength at 4 ticks, which is 81% of the DPS of a 24M Ghrazi rapier and 67% of a 427M Soulreaper axe. You need Monkey Madness; I finished.

Every melee account should own one. Below a 25M bank, you have no reason to buy anything else, because the rapier is the next real step and it costs 24.3M on its own.

If you want the same weapon for crushing monsters that shrug off slash, Viggora's chainmace is the dragon scimitar's exact twin. Charged with revenant ether, it gains 50% accuracy and damage against anything in the Wilderness.

Zombie Axe

• Level: 65 Attack
• Price: ~1.7M
• Attack Speed: 5 ticks (Hack, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +105 slash
• Strength Bonus: +107
• Max Hit: 29
• DPS: 4.758

The zombie axe carries +107 Strength, more than an Abyssal tentacle, on a one-handed weapon that costs 1.7M and needs no Slayer level at all. The 5-tick speed holds its DPS down, but that 29 max hit is 7 higher than a Dragon scimitar's, which matters anywhere you only get occasional swings.

The zombie axe is the correct pick for an ironman without the 85 Slayer that whips require.

Abyssal Whip

• Level: 70 Attack
• Price: ~819K
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Lash, Controlled)
• Attack Bonus: +82 Slash
• Strength Bonus: +82
• Max Hit: 25
• DPS: 5.118

The abyssal whip has been the mid-game standard for twenty years and still is. +82 Strength at 4 ticks for 819K is excellent value.

Whips have no Aggressive stance, only Accurate, Controlled and Defensive. Controlled splits XP three ways, so your Strength climbs at a third of the rate an Aggressive weapon gives you. If your Strength level is still climbing, this weapon stops it.

Buy the whip over keeping a Dragon scimitar the moment you hit 70. Attack: 5.118 against 4.496 is a 14% jump for 819K. The tentacle is only 0.006 DPS ahead at 1.1M, so skipping the whip to save for it is tempting. You cannot, because the tentacle is built from a whip.

Abyssal Bludgeon

• Level: 70 Attack, 70 Strength
• Price: ~18M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Pound, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +102 Crush
• Strength Bonus: +85
• Max Hit: 26
• DPS: 5.334

The Abyssal bludgeon is built from the three pieces that come out of an unsired at the Font of Consumption.

The bludgeon is the best Strength training weapon at 70, because it has the Aggressive stance the whip lacks. It hits Crush for the monsters that resist slash and outdamages the whip while doing it. My OSRS best Crush weapons guide ranks it second, behind only the Inquisitor's mace.

Its special attack adds 0.5% damage for every Prayer point you are missing, which is a strange design and rarely worth planning around.

Zamorakian Hasta

• Level: 70 Attack
• Price: ~1.5M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Lunge, Controlled)
• Attack Bonus: +85 stab
• Strength Bonus: +75
• Max Hit: 23
• DPS: 4.713

The Zamorakian hasta is a Zamorakian spear that Otto Godblessed converts into a one-handed weapon for 300K GP, or 150K with the Elite Kandarin Diary. As a one-handed weapon, it keeps your defender. That is the whole pitch, and it is a good one: 1.5M for the best stab attack bonus available under 2M.

Hastae are controlled-only, have no Aggressive stance, and aren't corpbane weapons, so for the Corporeal Beast you want the two-handed Zamorakian spear instead. The hasta is also the base item for the Dragon Hunter Lance.

Abyssal Tentacle

• Level: 75 Attack
• Price: ~1.1M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Lash, Controlled)
• Attack Bonus: +90 slash
• Strength Bonus: +86
• Max Hit: 25
• DPS: 5.124

The Abyssal tentacle is a kraken tentacle attached to an abyssal whip, and the best slash weapon you can buy under 20M. +86 Strength and +90 slash at 4 ticks, for about 1.1M all in.

It degrades over 10,000 hits and the whip inside it is what gets consumed, so you keep the tentacle and feed it a new whip. That works out at roughly 120K an hour.

Make one as soon as you have 75 Attack and a spare whip. Going straight from a Dragon scimitar to a tentacle is not an option, since a whip is a component, so the whip is never a wasted purchase.

Ghrazi Rapier

• Level: 80 Attack
• Price: ~24.3M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Lunge, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +100 stab
• Strength Bonus: +93
• Max Hit: 27
• DPS: 5.537

The Ghrazi rapier is where end-game melee starts and it is the one I would buy first. +100 stab and +93 Strength at 4 ticks, one-handed, from the Theatre of Blood. Before the 22 July 2026 Summer Sweep-Up update it was +94 stab and +89 Strength.

At 24.3M it is a fifth of the price of a Blade of Saeldor for identical damage, and it is the standard stab weapon for every boss in the game.

It is worth buying once your bank clears roughly 40M, which leaves room for the weapon and the armour to put behind it. Below that, the tentacle does 92% of the work for under 5% of the price. Bandos or a Fighter torso will do more damage than the rapier.

Blade of Saeldor

• Level: 80 Attack
• Price: ~113M for the seed
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +100 slash
• Strength Bonus: +93
• Max Hit: 27
• DPS: 5.537

The Blade of Saeldor is the slash mirror of the rapier, made from an enhanced crystal weapon seed. It measures 5.537, identical to the rapier to three decimal places, so the choice between them comes down to which style the target is weak to.

It never permanently degrades and recharges with crystal shards, making it the lowest-maintenance end-game weapon. Whether that is worth 89M more than a rapier is a question about your bank, not your DPS.

Inquisitor’s Mace

• Level: 80 Attack
• Price: ~308M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Pummel, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +102 crush
• Strength Bonus: +96
• Max Hit: 28
• DPS: 5.742

The Inquisitor's mace is the best crush weapon in the game, dropped by the Nightmare. It is also the clearest example of a price with no relationship to performance: 0.21 DPS ahead of a rapier for roughly 284M more GP.

Buy it because you fight things that resist stab and slash, such as the Nightmare itself or Vorkath, or because you already own the Inquisitor's armour it works with.

It is +102 Crush and +96 Strength since the 22 July 2026 update, up from +95 and +89, plus a +2 Prayer bonus.

Noxious Halberd

• Level: 80 Attack
• Price: ~39.5M
• Attack Speed: 5 ticks (Swipe, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +132 slash
• Strength Bonus: +142
• Max Hit: 35
• DPS: 5.753

The Noxious halberd is built from three Araxxor drops and carries the second-highest Strength bonus on any melee weapon at +142. Measured weapon-only, it is the highest-DPS melee weapon in the game outside the Soulreaper axe, and it does that at about an eighth of the Inquisitor's mace's price.

The catch is that it is two-handed, so once you factor in the Avernic defender you give up, it slips back behind the rapier tier. It also reaches two tiles, which changes how you can fight.

Its 35 max hit is the highest in this progression table outside the Soulreaper axe. The Elder maul beats it at 36, but that weapon lives in the specialist chapter rather than here.

Soulreaper Axe

• Level: 80 Attack, 80 Strength
• Price: ~427M
• Attack Speed: 5 ticks (Hack, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +134 slash
• Strength Bonus: +125
• Max Hit: 41
• DPS: 6.738

The Soulreaper axe has the highest melee DPS in the game, and by a wide margin: 6.738 against the rapier's 5.537. Every successful hit builds a soul stack up to five, and each stack adds 6% to your Strength level, so five stacks is a 30% damage boost.

It used to drain 8 Hitpoints per stack and the 22 July 2026 Summer Sweep-Up update removed that cost, so the stacks are free now.

The Soulreaper axe figures in this entry are at five stacks. From zero it measures 5.265, above an Abyssal tentacle's 5.124. The ramp is the real consideration, because stacks decay 30 seconds after you stop attacking, so short kills never reach the good part.

Buy it when your trips are long, and you are already past the rapier. At 427M, it is the second most expensive weapon in this guide. If your save is taking a while, you can pick up the Soulreaper axe from our item shop.

Scythe of Vitur

• Level: 80 Attack, 90 Strength
• Price: ~1.21B for the uncharged staff
• Attack Speed: 5 ticks (Chop, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +125 slash
• Strength Bonus: +75
• Max Hit: 24
• DPS: 3.950

The Scythe of Vitur is the most expensive melee weapon in the game and the worst one in this table, at 3.950. That places a 1.21B weapon between a 14.8K rune scimitar and a 60K Dragon scimitar.

The stat line in this entry, +125 slash and +75 Strength, is the charged scythe. Uncharged it drops to +75 slash and +50 Strength, and the 1.21B price is for the uncharged staff, so budget for blood runes and vials of blood on top.

It hits up to three times per swing, but only against targets larger than a single tile, and a Sand Crab is one tile. Each hit deals 50% less than the previous one, rounded down, so three hits isn't triple damage.

Against General Graardor, it measures 1.796, while a Ghrazi rapier manages 1.241; against something like Verzik, the gap is far wider. You buy this because you are running Theatre of Blood and Chambers of Xeric, not because it tops the price list.

Osmumten’s Fang

• Level: 82 Attack
• Price: ~17.7M
• Attack Speed: 5 ticks (Lunge, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +105 stab
• Strength Bonus: +103
• Max Hit: 25
• DPS: 4.831

Osmumten's fang breaks the rule the rest of this list follows. Against a low-Defence target it is unremarkable: 4.831 against a rapier's 5.537.

Its passive rerolls a failed accuracy check rather than adding damage. It also clamps its damage roll between 15% and 85% of maximum, which is why its max hit is lower than weapons with worse stats.

Against a high-Defence boss, that reroll is enormous. On General Graardor, the fang measures 1.461, whereas the rapier manages 1.241, hitting at 30.22% accuracy against the rapier's 22.00%. It is the weapon for Tombs of Amascut and for any boss where you keep missing, and at 17.7M it is cheaper than the rapier.

Specialist Melee Weapons

Specialist melee weapons are not progression steps. Four of them are special-attack weapons you carry alongside a real weapon: the Dragon warhammer, the Elder maul, the Bandos godsword and the Voidwaker. The rest exist for one type of monster and are mediocre everywhere else.

For a specialist the Sand Crab figure is meaningless, so I have measured each one on the target it was built for. A Ghrazi rapier sits alongside as a reference point.

Dragon Warhammer

• Level: 60 Strength, no Attack requirement
• Price: ~15.8M
• Attack Speed: 6 ticks (Pummel, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +95 crush
• Strength Bonus: +85
• Max Hit: 26
• DPS: 3.553 on Sand Crabs

You do not buy a Dragon warhammer to attack with it. Its special attack lowers the target's Defence by 30% on a successful hit, which makes everything else in your setup more accurate. That is worth far more than its damage.

It needs 60 Strength and no Attack level, which is why it is a staple for Strength pures.

The spec does not grant 50% more damage. It only reduces Defence, and the extra damage you notice comes from landing more hits.

Elder Maul

• Level: 75 Attack, 75 Strength
• Price: ~91.7M
• Attack Speed: 6 ticks (Pummel, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +135 crush
• Strength Bonus: +147
• Max Hit: 36
• DPS: 4.932 on Sand Crabs

The Elder maul has the highest Strength bonus of any melee weapon at +147 and a 36 max hit. It still loses to a Ghrazi rapier because of the 6-tick speed.

Like the warhammer, it is a Defence-reduction tool first. The special attack gains 25% accuracy, reduces the target's current Defence by 35%, and stacks with successive hits. I use it in place of the Dragon Warhammer for raid and boss openers. Bring it for the opening hits of a fight, then swap to a real weapon.

Bandos Godsword

• Level: 75 Attack
• Price: ~18.1M
• Attack Speed: 6 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +132 slash
• Strength Bonus: +132
• Max Hit: 34
• DPS: 4.658 on Sand Crabs

The Bandos godsword is the godsword I carry in boss setups, because its special attack drains the target's combat stats by the damage dealt. It is slow at 6 ticks and outdamaged as a main weapon, but as a spec weapon in a boss setup it earns its inventory slot.

If you want Defence reduction rather than stat drain, the Elder maul does it harder.

Voidwaker

• Level: 75 Attack
• Price: ~38.2M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Slash, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +80 slash
• Strength Bonus: +80
• Max Hit: 25
• DPS: 5.116 on Sand Crabs

Madam Sikaro assembles the Voidwaker for a 500K fee from the blade, hilt, and gem that Vet'ion, Callisto, and Venenatis drop.

Unusually for a spec weapon it is also a good main weapon, measuring within 0.01 DPS of an Abyssal whip. The special attack is guaranteed to land and deals Magic damage between 50% and 150% of your maximum melee hit.

It has been the standard PvP spec weapon since the Wilderness Boss Rework released it on 25 January 2023. For pure PvM, there are far cheaper ways to buy this much damage.

Dragon Hunter Lance

• Level: 78 Attack
• Price: ~47.1M
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Lunge, Controlled)
• Attack Bonus: +85 stab
• Strength Bonus: +70
• Max Hit: 23
• DPS: 2.713 on Vorkath, against the Ghrazi rapier’s 2.465

The Dragon hunter lance is a hydra's claw welded onto a Zamorakian hasta, and a single-purpose weapon. Its passive adds 20% accuracy and 20% damage against draconic creatures, which on Vorkath puts it ahead of a rapier costing half as much.

Against anything without dragon in its attributes, it is worse than the 1.5M hasta it was built from, at +70 Strength against the hasta's +75. You are paying 47.1M for a weapon that is strictly weaker off-task, which is the whole argument against buying one early.

The lance needs 78 Attack, not the 70 its base hasta needs.

Arclight and Emberlight

• Level: 75 Attack for Arclight, 77 for Emberlight
• Price: Both untradeable
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks
• Attack Bonus: +38 slash on Arclight, +70 on Emberlight
• Strength Bonus: +8 and +13
• Max Hit: 12 and 13
• DPS: 2.460 (Arclight) and 2.678 (Emberlight) on Sand Crabs. On K’ril Tsutsaroth: Arclight 0.994 and Emberlight 1.435, against the Ghrazi rapier’s 1.324

Arclight and Emberlight have poor stat lines by design, which is why they sit at the bottom of any general comparison.

Against demons the demonbane passive adds 70% accuracy and damage, and this is where the upgrade matters. Emberlight beats a Ghrazi rapier on K'ril Tsutsaroth. Plain Arclight does not, because without gear its +8 Strength cannot carry the 70% bonus far enough.

Arclight is Darklight plus ancient shards and spends a charge on every successful hit, holding 10,000 at most (30 shards). Emberlight upgrades it with a tormented synapse, around 39M, at 74 Smithing, and never degrades.

If you kill demons regularly, Emberlight is mandatory, not optional.

Keris Partisan

• Level: 65 Attack, or 80 with a jewel attached
• Price: Untradeable
• Attack Speed: 4 ticks (Lunge, Aggressive)
• Attack Bonus: +58 stab
• Strength Bonus: +45
• Max Hit: 19, or 75 against kalphites
• DPS: 3.881 on Sand Crabs, 1.537 on the Kalphite Queen, against the Ghrazi rapier’s 1.405

The Keris partisan is a Tombs of Amascut drop that deals 33% bonus damage to anything with the kalphite or scabarite attribute. It also has a 1-in-51 chance of punching through the exoskeleton for triple damage, which is where that 75 max hit comes from.

Attaching a jewel from the raid raises the requirement to 80 Attack. The breaching version adds 33% accuracy against Kalphites. The Keris partisan of Amascut trades the damage bonus down to 15% for much better base stats. But those stats only apply inside the Tombs.

Inside Tombs of Amascut, on Kephri, the Keris partisan measures 3.952 against the rapier's 3.866.

The Path I'd Take

Three things come out of running these numbers side by side, and none of them matches what the price tags suggest.

Speed beats stats. The Elder maul has the highest Strength bonus of any melee weapon in the game, yet it loses to a rapier. The Scythe of Vitur is the most expensive melee weapon in the game and, against a single-tile target, sits between a rune scimitar and a Dragon scimitar.

Almost everything at the top of the table is a 4-tick weapon, or a 5-tick weapon with a max hit of 35 or more.

The value curve collapses at the Dragon scimitar. 60K gets you 81% of the DPS of a 24M Ghrazi rapier and 67% of a 427M Soulreaper axe. Above the rapier tier you are buying fractions of a DPS or buying a passive effect for one specific fight.

The 308M Inquisitor's mace against the 39.5M Noxious halberd is the clearest case: the cheaper weapon wins on raw damage.

And the specialists are not optional. Emberlight against demons, the Dragon Hunter lance against dragons, Osmumten's fang against high-Defence bosses, the Keris partisan against kalphites. In every case a cheaper weapon with the right passive beats a more expensive weapon with better stats.

That is the real melee progression, and it is why a finished melee account carries three or four weapons in the inventory rather than one expensive one on the character.

If you are building from scratch, the honest path is short: iron scimitar to rune scimitar to Dragon scimitar, then an Abyssal whip or tentacle, then a Ghrazi rapier. Pick up a Dragon warhammer along the way so that everything else in your setup works better. Everything past that is a specialist purchase.

Frequently Asked Questions

What order to upgrade melee gear in OSRS?

Weapon first, then armour. Use an iron-to-rune scimitar through the early levels, then a Dragon scimitar at 60 Attack for about 60K. After that, an Abyssal whip at 70 for 819K, an Abyssal tentacle at 75 for 1.1M and a Ghrazi rapier at 80 for 24.3M. Pick up a Dragon warhammer for the special attack when you can afford one.

What is the best melee weapon in OSRS?

The Soulreaper axe has 6.738 DPS in a bare-weapon test, compared to the Ghrazi rapier's 5.537. It costs about 427M and needs five soul stacks to reach that figure, so it only wins in longer fights. For everyday use I would buy the Ghrazi rapier at 24.3M.

What is the melee gear progression in OSRS 2026?

Scimitars to 60 Attack, then a Dragon scimitar, an Abyssal whip at 70, an Abyssal tentacle at 75, and a Ghrazi rapier at 80. Add a Dragon warhammer or Elder maul to reduce Defence. Then add a specialist for the content you run: Emberlight for demons, Dragon Hunter Lance for dragons, Osmumten's Fang for high-defence bosses.

Is the Abyssal whip still worth buying?

Yes, at 70 Attack. 819K buys +82 Strength at 4 ticks for 5.118 DPS, a 14% jump over a Dragon scimitar. It is also a component of the Abyssal tentacle, so the money is never wasted. The one catch is that whips have no Aggressive stance, so they train Strength at a third of the usual rate.