Melee Gear Progression

Intro

For this guide, I'm not going to cover Items that have no unlock requirement like quests so that you can just go to the grand exchange and buy it.

Armour

the first thing you wanna consider is Tank vs Power armor. Power armor is your best bet, it's the DPS version of armor which in most situations beats Tank armor. The good thing about tank armor is it's cheap so what I suggest is if you don't have lots of money use tank armor until you can afford Power armor.

For melee this is how I would progress:

Necronium if I dont have enough for Bandos
Bandos
Bane armor if I need something tankier then Bandos but I would still have a set of Bandos for things like slayer or where I don't need to be as tanky.
Elder Rune again if I need something tankier then Bandos and Bane
Masterwork is gonna be your endgame armor other then t92 which I'm not gonna go into cos its niche and for people with a lot of money and have a use for it

But what about Malevolent, Zaros and Torva armor. In short, Malevolent is now used as material for Masterwork the same goes with Torva. Torva is still used by some people but its a luxury rather than a necessity for those who don't care about the price and want something slightly cheaper to upkeep then Masterwork but stronger then Bandos. Zaro's equipment, to be honest, is not really used due to the high price and cost more then Masterwork. The main reason it's in the game is for Ilujankan components for the invention perk Aftershock 3 which is why it maintained its high price.

Intro

Armor

Item Name	Item Req	Armor Type
Masterwork	90	Power
Elder Rune +5	90	Tank
Anima Core of Zaros	80	Power
Bane	80	Tank
Bandos	70	Power
Necronium +4	70	Tank

2H Weapon	Item Req	Accuracy	Damage	Weapon Speed
Noxious Scythe	90	2011	2458	Average
Dragon Rider Lance	85	2011	1788	Average
Masuta's Warspear	82	2023	1832.7	Average
Bane +4	80	1876	1765.7	Average
Saradomin Sword	75	1378	1694	Fast
Necronium +4	70	1650	1653.9	Average
Barrows Weapons	70	1486	1564	Average

Weapons

Duel Weild Weapon	Item Req	Main-Hand Accuracy	Main-Hand Damage	Off-Hand Accuracy	Off-Hand Damage	Weapon Speed
Drygore Long Sword	90	2458	1102	2458	551	Slash
Blade of Avaryss and Nymora	85	2458	768	2458	384	Fastest
Elder Rune +5	90	2178	1041.3	2178	520.6	Slash
Bane +4	80	1876	967.8	1876	483.9	Fast
Necronium +4	70	1650	1102.6	1650	551.3	Average

Weapons 2H:

Guthan's warspear / Verac's flail / Torag's hammer / Dharok's greataxe
Saradomin sword / Zamorakian spear / Godswords
Bane 2h sword + 4
Masuta's warspear
Dragon Rider lance
Noxious scythe

Weapons Dual Wield:

Necronium battleaxe + 4
Bane longsword + 4
Blade of Avaryss and Blade of Nymora
Drygore weaponry Long swords ( Long swords are the best all round even more so when wielding a Shield/Defender)

My personal progression would be to get; Masuta's warspear, blade of avaryss and blade of nymora, then trade the masuta's warspear for a dragon rider lance. Then, I would trade the blade of avaryss and blade of nymora for drygore long swords, then trade the dragon rider lance for noxious scythe .

It's always good to have both duel wield and two-handed weapons for melee. Duel wield deals more damage on single targets and two-handed (2H) deals more area of effect (AoE) damage. People see scythe and get tunnel vision, and duel wield weapons gets unnoticed but for the most part most bosses are single targets so you can deal more damage so just think about what you want to kill.

People tend to have the idea to go straight for a tier 90 weapons and get tier 80-90 armour after, but then struggle with mid to high level bosses which they wanna kill to make money to buy the weapon. They tend to think is because they're weapon is too weak, or not high enough level or they're not skilled. But most of the time the trouble isn't the damage per second (DPS) its the survivability, so I would suggest get a tier 80-87 weapon and tank armour like tetsu, bane or elder rune.

When To Buy T92 Weapons?

When you have nothing else to literally buy as listed below. It's usually the last thing you buy to increase your DPS in a Combat Style.

Got all Tier 90 weapons and armours perked fully
All jewellery
Max cape
All the other ability codex's
All the prayer codex's
If you have done all this then start with buying the weapons then armours last

2H Weapons

Dual Wield

When To Buy T92

Overal Gear Progression

Bandos (always keep)
Saradomin sword
Ring of fortune
Blood fury (always keep)

Bane Armor +5
Musuta's warspear into a dragon rider lance or bane long swords +5 into the blade of Nymora/blade of Avryss

Elder Rune Armor +5
Drygore long swords
Amulet of souls
Noxious scythe
Masterwork armour

Cinderbane gloves / Death touch Bracelet (Check the gloves guide for more info)
Ring of Death
Luck of the dwarves
Reaper necklace (if you don't have a use for it buy it later when you do i.e. Araxxor or Telos)

Perks

At this point If you haven't perked your melee gear I'd suggest you start investing in the following:

Chest: Biting 3 and Crackling 3 + mobile or undead if you do a lot of Elite Dungeons 3 (ED3) Mobile is a good all rounder.

Legs: Enhanced Devotion 3 Impatient 3 / Impatient 3 + Devotion
(only use the Impatient combo if you got lucky no need to fuss over getting the combo. It does stack, a Jagex mod has confirmed it but it's super rare that it will benefit you. Essentially enhanced take priority to proc, and if on cooldown devoted can then proc but the cooldowns are pretty low even more so at lvl 20 item level you will rarely see benefits. I've only personally noticed it happen once or twice maybe. Something to chance after you got nothing else to buy and improve.)

2H Weapon: Precise 5 and Aftershock 3

Main-Hand: Aftershock 3

Off-Hand: Precise 5

If aftershock 3 is too expensive you can live without it and save it for later or the last perks to do, same with biting 3. I personally put biting 3 on my tier 90 armours and only put biting 2 + venomblood on my Nex gear and GW1 armours. It's a little bit cheaper but i'd say it depends on your invention level. At 120 it will probably cost you from anywhere between 1-30m, its all RNG.

Also, when you disassemble a nox weapon for biting 3 at item level 9+ you get 20 noxious components which is enough to make 4x biting 3 gizmos. So you're paying whatever a Nox weapon divided by 4, so it will be about 30-40m per Biting 3.

At this point, all you have to buy is codexs and tier 92 weapons

Mutated Fury (This is a must it will mean no more cancelling fury)
Mutated Flurry (optional)
Mutated Barage (optional)
Reprisal (is optional but only buy if you have a use for it.)
T99 Curse
T92 Weapons and then perking it.

Shields and Defenders

Spirit Shield
Malevolent
The best defender you can get

When to use them:

Resonance - Shield (always t90)

Barricade - Shield (always t90)

Debilitate - Shield (always t90, switch to Defender after for good DPS whilst keeping debil effect)

Reflect - Defender

Immortality - Defender

Revenge - Shield with full Achto, defender with DPS gear

Spirit Shields are used when not doing defensive thresholds. Then when you need to do a defensive threshold you switch to defender or t90. Essentially you're switching shields. You can combo Spirit shields with penance aura and you will almost have unlimited prayer points depending on the content, which will help with the prayer being drained too fast from all incoming damage while wearing the shield (with sufficient prayer points) will be reduced by 30%. Simultaneously, 6% of the damage received will be reduced from one's prayer points.

Overal Gear Progression

Shields and Defenders