Skill mastery
See Hiscores for the relative total rankings of the different skills.
| Number of players at level 99 or more | ||
|---|---|---|
 154,239
|
 158,486
|
 31,644
|
 198,208
|
 27,087
|
 32,817
|
 129,043
|
 50,469
|
 75,407
|
 120,884
|
 37,425
|
 167,352
|
 57,776
|
 31,901
|
 104,991
|
 152,270
|
 124,700
|
 135,830
|
 45,577
|
 28,825
|
 27,086
|
 22,836
|
 36,261
|
 37,627
|
 42,408
|
All skills: 3,561 | |
| As of 17 November 2012 | ||
Skill mastery is achieved by reaching level 99 in any skill. Level 99 (achieved by reaching 13,034,431 experience points) is the maximum level a player can reach in a skill (with the exception of level 120 in Dungeoneering), although players can have up to 200,000,000 experience points in any skill. The current maximum total level is 2,496 (level 99 in all skills and level 120 in Dungeoneering). When level 99 is reached in any skill, there is a different fireworks animation that can be heard by everyone nearby.
Pay-to-play players reaching level 99 in a skill are entitled to wear a Cape of Accomplishment for that particular skill. This cape is bought from a specific skill master for 99,000 coins. When operated, the player performs a unique emote and has their level in the skill boosted to 100 for a short time. Furthermore, if the player reaches Level 99 in more than one skill, the player's skill cape becomes trimmed and any more skill capes the player obtains will also become trimmed along with the newly received cape, in addition the trimmed cape adds a small prayer bonus.
Cooking, Fletching, and Firemaking are fairly quick to train to level 99 (2–4 weeks) as well as the cheapest with a low cost of 1-8 million coins or a profit of 3 million coins or more depending on the methods of training used. Woodcutting is debatably the easiest, although not necessarily the fastest skill to master. Level 99 can be achieved in about 3 months with very little input using the most popular method, Choking Ivy, making it the easiest skill to train with minimal attention required. Another little-known skill that gives fast, inexpensive experience is Thieving (see the amount of people with 99 Thieving compared to Cooking and Fletching). Level 45-99 Thieving can be done in 2–4 weeks with a total of 83–98 hours spent, depending on how long someone plays each day. Strength is by far the most trained, resulting in the highest number of 99s.
Before the Skill interface update, players with a level 99 skill could view the experience needed to earn level 100.
In RuneScape Classic, the maximum total level was 1,782. With the addition of Runecrafting (1,881), Slayer (1,980), Farming (2,079), Construction (2,178), Hunter (2,277), Summoning (2,376) and the newest skill to be released, Dungeoneering, the maximum total level is now 2,496.
Level 99 Parties
A Level 99 party is a party held by a player to celebrate his/her achievement in getting a level 99 in a skill. This party can happen anywhere; many players have them at their POH, and some choose to be near the skill master so they can get their cape quicker. There are mixed views on these parties, which also vary for different skills. Some players view "easy" 99s unworthy of parties, but this varies greatly.
Celebrating
Players tend to invite friends to follow them as they level up from 98 to 99. After levelling, they usually head to the master of that skillcape (For example Wilfred near Falador who sells woodcutting capes or Hickton in Catherby who sells Fletching capes). The player will then buy the cape (value of 99,000) of the 99 skill and equip it. After buying it, it is unofficial custom for players to do the first skillcape emote with that cape, often with a group.
Alternatively, some players may get 99 in a skill (without any friends) and later go with a group of friends to purchase the skillcape.
Players may take videos or get a friend to take a video of their journey to 99 and of them getting their cape. These videos are some of the most common RuneScape videos shown on sites such as YouTube. These videos are made to congratulate, or in memory of another user, or the owner himself and to commemorate his efforts in receiving 99 in the particular skill he has achieved.
Partying
The player may then host a house party in their house or a friend's. The group of players will usually just have fun and relax. Alternatively, players may head to the Party Room and have a drop party. They may light origami balloons, use toy mice, or do anything else to celebrate.
Players may also host normal drop parties (which involves the player dropping the items manually).
Announcements
When a player achieves level 99 in a skill, a message will appear in orange text to the other players on the same server.
Achieving 120 Dungeoneering, reaching 99 in every skill, or earning the right to wear the Completionist cape or its trimmed version will be announced on all of RuneScape's servers in red text.
When a player achieves something and their private chat is set at least on 'friends', it will be announced in green text to all logged-in players on their friends list regardless of whether they are on the server.
However, one may only see other players' achievements if their game filter is set to 'on' and a player's achievement will only be broadcast to everyone if their private chat is set to "on".
First Players to Achieve Level 99 and Level 120
When level 99 stats first started appearing, players with such stats were often well known around the RuneScape community since they were one of the few to have a level 99 stat.
Below is a chronological list of the first players to reach level 99 and level 120 in their respective skill
First Players to Max Skill Totals
Achievement (Members) Date Achieved Player 1980 
Overall
9 July 2005 Zezima 2079 Overall
4 October 2005 Zezima 2178 Overall
11 June 2006 N0valyfe 2277 Overall
8 December 2006 Thehate 2376 Overall
12 February 2008 Kingduffy 2475 Overall
7 May 2010 Skiller 703 2496 Overall
22 August 2010 Telmomarques
Achievement (Free-to-Play) Date Achieved Player 1494 Overall
28 January 2008 Syzygy 1593 Overall
11 June 2010 S Diamant Y 1614 Overall
9 October 2010
Achievement (Runescape Classic)
Date Achieved
Player
1782
Overall
Mr Helmut
- Notes:
- 1. ^ Cowchicken and Dragoon 787 reached level 99 Firemaking on the same day, but it is commonly accepted that Cowchicken reached it earlier.
- 2. ^ Snake Slava was banned for macro use after Jagex mistook his English-Russian translator for cheating software. To prove that he did not cheat, while on vacation, he brought his computer to the Jagex headquarters. To prove that he could achieve it again, he trained his second character Snake Slavik to 99 Ranged as well before anyone else could do so. [source needed]
- 3. ^ Cursed You was given a manual permanent ban later, removing his account from the hiscores.
Rarity of level 99s
Strength is currently the most common 99 skill in the game, followed by Cooking, Attack, and Constitution. Farming, Construction and Agility are the rarest. Below is a list of the order of the skills depending on the number of players having 99 in it. Most people consider Cooking and Fletching to be the easiest 99s to achieve. It should be noted however, that although they are considered the easiest by many people, they are by no means the fastest. Opinions on skills vary greatly, so it comes down to the individual to decide for themselves which they prefer and dislike.
NOTE: The skills' difficulty, attention, speed and profit rating is based upon a typical player achieving 99 using the quickest methods. Combat skills (with the obvious exception of Prayer and Summoning) are potentially by far the most profitable to train through boss hunting and camping monsters such as frost dragons for their drops, although the majority of players usually train these skills using low-profit methods such as completing Slayer assignments.
- Difficulty: The amount of planning required to train the skill and the risks involved.
- Attention: The number of clicks it takes per minute to train the skill.
- Speed: The experience rate per hour.
- Profit: The amount of money needed to train the skill and the payoff of training the skill.
Rank Skill Difficulty Attention Speed Profit Frequency Reason 1 Strength ***** ***** ***** ***** 198,208 Strength is popular among many pures, who tend to have low Defence and very high Strength. Quick, easy and somewhat inexpensive (or profitable) to train, depending on the monsters chosen to fight. 2 Cooking ***** ***** ***** ***** 167,352 Cooking is one of the fastest and easiest 99s to achieve. It requires little attention and is somewhat inexpensive (especially in conjunction with fishing training). As such, it is one of the most common 99s. 3 Constitution ***** ***** ***** ***** 158,486 99 Constitution comes passively with other high combat skills. Many players will achieve 99 in some other combat skill before they achieve 99 Constitution, making the untrimmed skillcape extremely rare. 4 Attack ***** ***** ***** ***** 154,239 Attack is also popular among pures, though pures and lower levels tend to level Strength first. Like strength and defence, it is cheap and easy to train. 5 Magic ***** ***** ***** ***** 152,270 Magic is possibly the most difficult combat skill to master. It is not particularly hard, but it requires a lot of time and attention and can be very expensive if trained using quick methods. Many prefer to high alch their way to 99. Use of String Jewellery GREATLY reduces the attention paid, since one click performs all the casts required to string the amulets in the player's inventory. 6 Woodcutting ***** ***** ***** ***** 135,830 Woodcutting is a fairly easy 99 to achieve. It can be done quickly with no profit or slowly, earning quite a decent amount of money. It also requires little money to train. Not much attention is required. With the update of ivy, Woodcutting became much easier. 7 Defence ***** ***** ***** ***** 129,043 Even though Defence is ignored by pures, it is quite common among tankers and players seeking maxed melee stats. Like Attack and Strength, depending on the methods, it can be somewhat inexpensive to train, requiring only some attention. 8 Fletching ***** ***** ***** ***** 124,700 Fletching is one of the easiest and quickest 99s to achieve. It doesn't require much attention and it's rather cheap (depending on the methods used), or even profitable, compared to other skills. 9 Ranged ***** ***** ***** ***** 120,884 Ranged is one of the fastest 99s if red chinchompas (One of the most expensive methods, the most expensive being the use of the Dwarf MultiCannon) are used; otherwise, is relatively slow compared to other combat skills. 10 Firemaking ***** ***** ***** ***** 104,991 Firemaking is a very fast 99 to achieve. This skill can cost nothing or quite a lot, depending on how you choose to acquire level 99. ( It requires little attention after bonfire update.) 11 Fishing ***** ***** ***** ***** 75,407 Though Fishing is not particularly fast, little attention is required, and it can be quite profitable. Although fast experience methods require to spend some money on bait at the beginning, the later training requires little money to max up the skill. A player can gain around 45-65k /h, using the better methods, were little attention is desirable.
12 Prayer ***** ***** ***** ***** 57,776 Prayer is one of the fastest 99s to achieve. However, it is extremely expensive. 13 Herblore ***** ***** ***** ***** 50,469 Herblore is a fairly fast 99 to achieve. It doesn't require much attention, but depending on the methods used, it may be extremely expensive. 14 Runecrafting ***** ***** ***** ***** 45,577 Runecrafting is a moderately paced skill to train. In the Runespan, it's possible to obtain reasonably fast experience per hour without paying much attention (~100k+ /h at level 99), but at the cost of zero profit. Regular runecrafting at altars and to a less degree, the ZMI altar, affords a lucrative profit, particularly at high levels, but is very slow experience (~50-60k at 99) 15 Dungeoneering ***** ***** ***** ***** 42,408 (99+)
3480 (120)Dungeoneering is not a difficult skill to attain mastery in. Like some other skills, it requires constant attention, as it involves all skills, boss fights and puzzles. It also requires a lot of planning and teamwork for fast training. In return, proper training methods will give very fast experience rates per hour. The skill does not have that much use outside Daemonheim, apart from a cape and several reward items as well as having access to resource dungeons. There is no direct cost associated with conventional training of this skill, but some elite groups use Overload or Prayer Renewal doses for their lasting effect. 16 Thieving ***** ***** ***** ***** 37,425 Thieving is one of the fastest 99s to achieve with many players oblivious to its quickest methods. It does however require constant attention. The amount of planning needed depends on the level and method used. It can cost some money to spend on food required to heal after failing the skill. 17 Hunter ***** ***** ***** ***** 36,261 Hunter is a tedious 99 to achieve. Although it may seem slow at first, at higher levels it becomes quicker. Constant attention is required, but it is a popular skill for money. 18 Summoning ***** ***** ***** ***** 37,627 Summoning is one of the fastest 99s to achieve once all the charms are gathered. The gathering of said charms, though, is an impressive task that takes a vast amount of time. In addition, the other ingredients for the pouches are often quite expensive due to demand. It also cost a bit of cash. (option: faster methods will speed up the xp rate significantly, but at a greater cost.) 19 Smithing ***** ***** ***** ***** 32,817 Smithing can be a fast 99 to achieve. It requires some attention and is generally expensive, depending on the method used. 20 Crafting ***** ***** ***** ***** 31,901 Crafting can be a fairly fast 99 to achieve for those with the wealth to do so. It will be much slower without said wealth. Can be trained with little attention. 21 Mining ***** ***** ***** ***** 31,644 Mining is a tedious 99 to achieve. It starts out slow, but when players are able to mine in the Living Rock Caverns it becomes a little quicker, and much less attention is required, and players achieving 99 can make decent profit. (around 150k+ /h, at level 99 from concentrated gold depending on prices.) 22 Slayer ***** ***** ***** ***** 28,825 Slayer is levelled alongside combat. Therefore, players will frequently achieve 99 in combat skills while reaching 99 Slayer. It is often achieved simply for the cape, but can be relatively profitable. Note that Slayer is one of the slowest skills in which to reach 99. In addition, it requires a lot of planning and having to buy supplies. 23 Farming ***** ***** ***** ***** 27,086 Farming is a slow and tedious 99 to achieve. It can be trained passively as plants can go unattended for long periods of time; however, depending upon how you train it, you will either gain or lose a lot of money. The skill is rather difficult to train due to optimal route planning. 24 Agility ***** ***** ***** ***** 27,087 Agility goes at a slow-medium pace. Constant attention is required. Although it does not yield any profit, Agility is one of the few non-combat skills for which there is a benefit gained from each level. However, it may require some money for food and potions. (~65k+ /h, at level 93+ using barbarian adv course.) 25 Construction ***** ***** ***** ***** 22,836 Construction is currently one of the fastest skills to train as it is possible to get 99 in less than a week. However, it is without a doubt one of the more expensive skills at higher levels, and most players would find acquiring this sort of money much more of a challenge than training the skill itself. For example, leveling from 74-99 alone can cost around 200,000,000 coins or more (with the quick methods). Keep in mind that acquiring sacred clay hammers from Stealing Creation can reduce the cost of training this skill by as much as half the amount of cash needed.
See also
- Milestones
- 200 million experience
- Cape of Accomplishment
- Skill cape Emotes
- Hiscores
- Hiscore Table
- True skill mastery