Last Updated: Jul 08, 2026
By 60
So you want to build a zerker/rune pure, but don’t know where to start? I have spent over 10 years creating personal rune pures/zerker accounts, with different builds, even including ironmen! I’m going to give you a full breakdown of how to build the perfect 40-45 defence account.
There is a lot of information in this guide, and a lot of different options for quests and builds. Read it carefully, as I will explain the pros and cons to each different route of questing for each build.
Note: make sure to read this guide right to the end - you don’t want to miss anything because you can only train your defence/attack/prayer once!
If you decide you don’t want to have to grind out a zerker pure, look no further! Check out our Premade OSRS Zerker accounts by clicking here!
In this section, I am going to show you every single defence exp quest for zerkers, and explain what unlocks each of them gives you. In the section afterwards, I’ll explain different questing routes with different things unlocked. Let’s start with all of the quests/unlocks:
Note: If you are 1 Sailing for this, make sure to do the Pandemonium quest first to unlock sailing EXP from Tears of Guthix.
Note: If you are 1 Herblore for this, make sure to do Druidic ritual quest first to unlock Herblore EXP from Tears of Guthix.
MAKE SURE YOUR LOWEST STAT ISN’T DEFENCE FOR THIS OR YOU WILL GET DEFENCE EXP.
Firstly, no matter which route you decide to take, you will be completing barrows gloves. So once you’ve decided which route to take, you can see our barrows gloves guide here!
Now we’ve covered each defence quest and what they provide, lets talk about the different questing routes you can take for each build. There are now 3 types of builds that people opt for when it comes to Zerker/Rune Pure builds. These are 40/42/45 defence. Each unlocking different things (with additional combat levels). I have listed the below possible routes for 45 defence (and included 40 defence in here too). If you’re looking for 42 defence, we have a full void pure guide right here, which will have all the routes for 42 defence listed there!
45 Def Route-A 
DO:
A Soul's Bane
In Search of the Myreque
In Aid of the Myreque
Nature Spirit
What Lies Below
Fremennik Trials
Heroes
Holy Grail
Dragon Slayer I
MM1 Training
DO NOT:
Olaf's
Between a rock...
This will put you at 66,937 xp with 1,046 xp left until 46 defence. (Same QP as Route B).
45 Def Route-B 
DO:
A Soul's Bane
Between a rock...
In Search of the Myreque
In Aid of the Myreque
Nature Spirit
What Lies Below
Fremennik Trials
Heroes
Dragon Slayer I
MM1 Training
DO NOT:
Holy Grail
Olaf's
This will put you at 56,637 xp meaning you will have to train to 45 Defence. (Same QP as option A).
45 Def Route-C 
DO:
A Soul's Bane
Between a rock...
In Search of the Myreque
In Aid of the Myreque
Nature Spirit
Olaf's
What Lies Below
Fremennik Trials
Heroes
Holy Grail
Dragon Slayer I
DO NOT:
MM1 Training
This will put you at 63,937 xp with 4,046 xp left until 46 def. (Most QP).
40 Defence (Only one Route) 
DO:
A Soul's Bane
Between a rock...
In Search of the Myreque
In Aid of the Myreque
Nature Spirit
What Lies Below
Fremennik Trials
Heroes
Dragon Slayer I
DO NOT:
MM1 training
Holy Grail
Olaf's Quest
This will put you at 36,637 xp with 587 xp left until 40 def. Train the rest of the way to 40!
Quest Name | Prayer EXP Gained | Prayer Level Requirement? |
Rag and Bone Man I | 500 | None |
Making History | 1,000 | None |
Recruitment Drive | 1,000.5 | None |
The Restless Ghost | 1,125 | None |
Priest in Peril | 1,406 | None |
Mountain Daughter | 2,000 | None |
Ghosts Ahoy | 2,400 | None |
Another Slice of H.A.M. | 3,000 | 25 Prayer Requirement |
Rag and Bone Man II | 5,000 | None |
The Great Brain Robbery | 6,000 | 50 Prayer Requirement |
Rum Deal | 7,000 | 47 Prayer Requirement |
Spirits of the Elid | 8,000 | None |
Swan Song | 10,000 | None |
Holy Grail | 11,000 | None (GIVES DEF EXP) |
Miniquest Name | Prayer EXP Gained | Prayer Level Requirement? |
His Faithful Servants | 20,000 | None |
Hopespear's Will | 38,750 | 50 Prayer Requirement |
Note: Make sure to read the ‘Additional hidden completionist EXP for zerkers’ section at the end of the guide for potential other prayer EXP gained.
Unlike Prayer EXP, there is no real reason not to do ALL of the attack quests for your zerker account (that fit within your build and don’t give you unwanted defence XP). They will leave you below 50 attack, and will give you further quest points towards additional slayer blocks for training. So I would strongly suggest doing all of these before training your attack!
Quest Name | Attack EXP Gained |
In Search of the Myreque | 600 |
Mountain Daughter | 1,000 |
Fairytale I | 2,000 |
In Aid of the Myreque | 2,000 |
Tai Bwo Wannai Trio | 2,500 (claimed post quest optionally) |
The Fremennik Trials | 2,812.4 |
Death Plateau | 3,000 |
Underground Pass | 3,000 |
Heroes' Quest | 3,075 |
Vampyre Slayer | 4,825 |
Tree Gnome Village | 11,450 |
Fight Arena | 12,175 |
Waterfall Quest | 13,750 |
The Grand Tree | 18,400 |
MM1 Training EXP (Optional) | 20,000 (claimed post quest optionally) |
TOTAL EXP GAINED: | Without MM1 EXP: 80,587.4 XP (47 Attack) |
Note: If you plan to do the ‘Cold War’ quest, there is a small 40XP drop in Attack from killing one of the monsters in the quest. It is granted upon death of the NPC, and is necessary to complete the quest. It’s a very small amount of EXP, but some people like to have exact XP numbers, so this is a little gamer tip for those of you with OCD looking for ‘Perfect’ accounts!
I won’t go into too much direct detail in regards to how to do each training method in this guide - because luckily for you, we have a guide on every single one!
Zerker Melee Training 
There are lots of options when it comes to training your melee stats on your zerker account. If you don’t like the slow progress of training, we offer all of this and more - Click here to go to our OSRS services page!
Firstly, I would recommend completing your desired attack/defence/prayer quests.
Your route will look like this:
- Complete Barrows gloves for ~1-47 Attack and ~1-45 strength
- Grab your training gear and head to Gemstone crab until your desired attack level and ~70 strength (alternating 10 levels in each at a time)
- Now you can decide whether to stay at the Gemstone crab (most people in 2026 do this) or head off to Nightmare Zone to continue 70-99+
Note: NMZ has become much less popular in recent years, as it is only slightly more EXP per hour than Gemstone crab, but costs a lot more and is much less AFK.
Now we’ve covered that, lets talk about both of those methods!
This will be most peoples AFK activity the whole way to maxing their stats. We have an entire in-depth guide on this method, so instead of going into detail here, you can click here to see our Gemstone Crab guide!
Nightmare Zone has become much less popular in recent years. For most players, the gemstone crab just has much better AFK time and costs much less to do (because you don’t have to repeatedly buy instances to fight in).
Although this method is slightly faster, it is mostly not worth the additional effort for a lot of people. Your DPS is increased because of the overload potions, but when you also consider the downtime of rebuying/restocking the NMZ potions/overloads, re-setting instances, etc. Then you lose a lot of that gained DPS in reset time.
Overall - Gemstone crab is king (it’s no surprise everybody trains there now instead)!
Zerker Range Training 
Range has a few additional options than melee, because of the potential use of cannons/chinchompas.
Your route for ranged training will look like this:
- Complete the dwarf cannon quest
- Cannon from level 1-45 range (see method below)
- Grab your range training gear and head to the Gemstone crab to train from level 45-70 (our gemstone crab guide is here)
- At this point, you can either choose to continue at the gemstone crab/NMZ to 99 (as the melee guide above), or you can switch over to chinning from 70-99 instead (see the full method below)
Chinning Ranged XP 
If you would like a much quicker alternative for training range, we have a complete and extensive guide on chinning in OSRS. This will take you from as low as 45 range to 99 at record speeds. If you’re interested in chinning, check out our full guide here!
Cannoning Ranged XP 
This is an alternative for people who are looking to avoid HP experience, or minimize it somewhat for a particular build or to stay in a certain combat bracket. We have a full guide covering cannon spots and best ways to utilize cannon training; you can see our guide for that here.
Zerker Mage Training 
Magic has the widest amount of options for training. There are hundreds of different methods with varying degrees of intensity.
To start out, I would suggest this route:
Note: There is also the option to enchant bolts starting from level 4 onwards. This is extremely quick because you can hold down the space bar and click the spell every tick to cast. It costs a lot, but even at level 4 you can cast 6,000 spells per hour for 54,000 exp/h. That exp per hour doubles to 108,000 exp/h with the level 7 spell, and scales up very quickly with each new spell.
If you’re willing to spend some money and do something more click intensive, this method will have you at level 55 for high alchemy in under 1 hour. Make sure to upgrade to the next best spell each time you unlock.
From this point, there are a few main options that people tend to use:
Bursting 
The first (and most efficient) option is to burst your way from level 70 to your desired level. You can either do this via slayer, or through MM1/MM2 tunnels (with a few other alternatives if absolutely necessary).
This is by far the quickest way to train your magic, and will also grant you lots of HP exp (and slayer EXP if you take that route). I won’t go into any more detail here, because we have an entire in-depth guide for everything bursting! Click here to go to our OSRS Bursting guide!
Alching 
The second option is to simply continue alching. The good thing about alching is that you can do it zero time while you quest/do other activities. Just bring along your alch runes and your item to alch & you can do this along with almost every activity in the game. It is slower and more click intensive than the other options, but it will still give you over 100K XP/H and you can do it zero-time with your other goals.
You can use this website to find good things to alch for the lowest loss (or sometimes even profit): https://alchmate.com/
String Amulet Spell 
This is a slightly less known method. You will need to continue using your above method of choice until level 80 magic. You will also need to have already completed the ‘Lunar Diplomacy’ quest. This route still offers over 150K XP/H, but can be done extremely AFK stood at a bank. One single click will have the spell slowly string all of the unstrung amulets in your inventory.
You simply buy unstrung amulets from the GE, the runes to cast the spell, then withdraw an invent and cast, then repeat once complete.
This method also has a high cost attached, similar to bursting, but the trade-off is that you get a very relaxed way to level 99 magic, with very little clicks/concentration needed. The amulet type does not matter for the magic exp/h, so choose whichever amulet has the best margin for loss.
I have attached a small table here from the wiki to show the profit/loss for each amulet at the time of making this guide, and it is constantly updated at: https://oldschool.runescape.wiki/w/String_Jewellery
Avas’ Assembler 
Although the game has a new best in slot range backpack - this is still a crucial unlock because using it on the quiver gives a higher bolt retention rate. So by getting this, you will save more ammo fired, even when using the quiver.
Void Armour 
This is a must have for both PvM and PKing on a zerker account. It is a very overpowered armour, that once obtained is almost completely free to use in PvP, with just a small repair cost.
Dizana’s Quiver 
This is a much larger upgrade than most players think. Wearing this quiver alone is the equivalent to wearing an extra piece of black d’hide armour (and also has range strength on top of that too). Make sure to charge it for the additional bonuses! A must have for any zerker account - Click here to see our OSRS Quiver services.
Fighter Torso 
Possibly on-par being the most iconic item on a zerker pure account build (right alongside the zerker helm). With the stats of essentially a rune platebody, and the strength bonus of a bandos chestplate, this is one of the most important pieces of any zerks’ equipment.
Infernal Cape 
Widely known as the most prestigious item in all of OSRS. Not just being a status symbol, but also an insanely good upgrade. Adding 2-3 max hits in most setups. Get in there and fight that Zuk, or click here to go to buy our infernal cape services!
Fire Cape 
A much easier item to get hold of than an infernal cape. Really great for earlier accounts and still boasts really good bonuses. With a little experience, you can have this done in under an hour.
Rune Defender 
For the short amount of time this takes to get, it is by far one of the craziest upgrades for a zerker account. It gives 1-2 max hits in all setups, but potentially even more importantly, it gives so much accuracy (which without piety, helps a lot). It will require a combined 130 Attack/Strength levels to get. So as soon as you hit that, head straight for the Warrior’s Guild and get this one done!
Mage Arena II Cape 
Once again, this really doesn’t take very long to complete at all. But with this, you’ll gain not only the best mage damage cape on a zerker account, but the best mage damage cape in the game! As soon as you hit 75 magic, take your god cape to the mage arena and get this knocked out. You won’t regret it!
This is a small, but very important final section. If you’re a true completionist player, there are a few things that you can do to maximize your zerker on the way to training it. Most of these lie in the prayer skill. You don’t want to get to 52 prayer, then realize you still need to do this stuff and end up at 53+.
After completion of the ‘Ghosts Ahoy’ quest, you can travel back to Dragontooth Island for 25 ecto-tokens each time. This may seems useless, but if you complete clue scrolls - you will get this step reasonably frequently. You can pay 500 ecto-tokens as a one time, permanent access to the island. If you do this all with regular bones, you’ll need to sacrifice a total of 100 bones to the ectofuntus.
This will be a total of 1800xp in prayer, then you can pay to have access to the island forever - so you can always do this clue step and not continue to gain prayer EXP.
This one is short and sweet. During the wilderness diary, you will be required to bury a lava dragon bone on the lava dragon isle. This is only a small 340xp but things like this can add up quickly, if you’re already close to a prayer level.
This one is a big one. It was mentioned earlier in the guide, but I’m going to draw some extra attention to this here, because it is a LOT of EXP. This miniquest will get you 20,000 prayer EXP upon completion. It will unlock the ability to see your map within the barrows tunnels, instead of just a dark map screen. The 20,000 is a lamp, so you can destroy it instead. But with Jagex’s tendency to add actually claiming exp for future rewards (See Monkey Madness 2), then it is worth doing this before you finish training your prayer.
This was also mentioned earlier in the guide, but it is very important because if missed, you’re locked out of doing this forever. The Lumbridge Hard diary has a requirement to get 100 tears in the Tears of Guthix minigame. Doing this will grant you EXP in your lowest skill, so you must do this before Defence is your lowest skill. Your aim is to get to 170-200 QP and then do this, while still having skills lower than your defence level. Then you can happily train your skills, knowing you’ll never be locked out of this content!
That finishes off the guide. It is short, and a lot of information has been packed into it, but it will give you the ability to make the truly best Zerker accounts in the game. If you ever have any questions, or need assistance with anything at all, open up a chat and we’re here to help!
Happy Zerkin’!
In this OSRS 1 Defence Pure Guide, we have listed useful quests that can be completed on a 1 defence pure, along with all useful items that can be obtained
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