Defence (spelled "Defense" in RuneScape Classic; sometimes abbreviated as Def) is one of the primary combat skills that grants players protection in all forms of combat. For this reason, Defence is one of the skills that will raise the combat level of a player regardless of other skill levels.

The higher the Defence level, the fewer successful blows an opponent will land against the player, this applies to all combat styles used against the player. Defence is thus a vital skill for enduring attacks for long periods of time, and can be extremely helpful against opponents with high Attack, Ranged, Magic or powerful Summoning familiars.

A player's Defence level also determines which equipment he or she is able to wear, as most pieces of armour or other equipment have a Defence level requirement. Not to forget, the Defence stat is also very handy when travelling through the Wilderness. The current minimum requirement to be ranked (at approximately rank 543,453) on the hiscores for Defence is level 15. As of 25 May 2013, there are 98,968 current members that have achieved level 99 in Defence.

Contents 1 Gaining experience 1.1 Combat 1.1.1 Melee 1.1.2 Ranged 1.1.3 Magic 1.2 Experience rewards 1.3 Other ways to gain experience 2 Defence and pures 2.1 Combat pures 2.2 Defence pures 3 Equipment 4 Other features 5 Skill mastery 6 Temporary boosts 7 Trivia 8 See also

Gaining experienceEdit

CombatEdit

Defence plays an important role in all forms of combat. The higher a player's Defence level, the more likely the opponent is to miss an attack, dealing 0 damage. Defence level or defence bonuses play no part in reducing damage taken from a successful blow. Before it was removed, only damage soaking worked for that purpose.

Defence can be trained in combat using any of the three combat styles: Magic, Melee or Ranged. The Constitution skill also receives some experience, but it will be equal to the damage dealt divided by 7.5 regardless of combat or attack style. For example, if a player hits a 30 with melee, then they will receive 4 Constitution experience, in addition to the 12 experience in Defence.

MeleeEdit

Main articles: Free-to-play Melee training and Pay-to-play Melee training

If a player hits an opponent while on Defensive attack style, chosen on the Combat interface, the damage dealt is divided by 2.5 and that amount of experience is given to the Defence skill. In other words, you receive Defence experience equal to 40% of the damage dealt. For example, if a player hits a 10, then he will receive 4 Defence experience. The Defensive attack style is available with all weapons besides the dwarven army axe and also when fighting barehanded.

If a player fights with the "controlled" attack style, then whatever damage they deal will be divided by 7.5 and given to the player's Strength, Attack and Defence experience.

It is worth noting that the Defensive stance gives an invisible +3 boost to Defence level, and the Controlled stance gives an invisible +1 boost to Defence as well as Attack and Strength.

RangedEdit

Main articles: Free-to-play Ranged training and Pay-to-play Ranged training

Prior to the Evolution of Combat, you could earn Defence experience when attacking with Ranged by using the Longrange attack style, which split experience equally between Ranged and Defence. 2 Ranged and Defence experience were earned for each 10 damage dealt. Post Evolution of Combat one can choose between ranged, defence, or both skills by clicking the XP button in the combat tab.

MagicEdit

Main articles: Free-to-play Magic training and Pay-to-play Magic training

Defence can be trained while training Magic when casting offensive spells by toggling the "defensive casting" option in the lower right corner of the combat menu. 1 Defence experience (as well as 1.333 Magic experience) will be awarded for every 10 points of damage dealt. The experience awarded for casting the spell will not be affected, and will only be awarded to Defence.

After Evolution of Combat, combat experience is gained only when the target is defeated, not each time damage is done.  Defence can be trained while casting by selecting Defence in the combat experience tab under magic.  All experience gained in combat while casting will go to defence if this option is chosen (with 1/4 of xp going to constitution).  Players may also choose Magic & Defence to divide combat experience gained equally between magic and defence.

Experience rewardsEdit

Main article: Defence/Experience_rewards

Players can get Defence experience as a reward for completing certain quests for a total of 166,037 experience. There are also lots of quests that allows the player to choose the skill that will receive an experience reward.

Experience lamps, gained through tasks and random events can be used to grant experience to any skill. Players can also trade points gained in certain minigames for experience in Defence level. Other ways to get reward experience in Defence is through the Dragonkin lamp, penguin points, Tears of Guthix and by completing Court Cases with a successful defence.

Other ways to gain experienceEdit

• The brawling gloves (melee) provide 50% bonus experience whilst training on any of the Melee skills (Defence, Strength and Attack) using the melee combat style. In addition, the gloves provide 300% bonus experience if players train whilst in the Wilderness. The gloves last for around 100,000 combat experience, and disintegrate after the player receives all this bonus experience.
• Wearing any charged piece of sacred clay equipment, a reward from the Stealing Creation minigame, will grant 100% bonus experience of whatever experience you gain in Defence, Attack, Strength, Magic, Ranged and Constitution. Players will always get 24450 bonus experience per piece (including the experience gained in Constitution) no matter how many pieces they equip. If you can earn more than the bonus experience in the amount of time it takes to recharge a Stealing Creation armour piece (15-25 mins a game lasts) then training with sacred clay equipment is innefective.
  • You don't gain any experience from combat (or from any type) during a Stealing Creation game.
• A player can train Defence on the Catapult room at the Warriors' Guild, the player will receive 10 experience per successful defence.
• Players receive combat experience from the damage dealt by their Summoning familiars, the skill that receives the experience varies depending on the familiar, except that Constitution always receive 13.3% of the damage done by the familiar.

Familiar	Combat level	Required Summoning level
Granite crab	26	16
Spirit kalphite	39	25
Bronze minotaur	50	36
Iron minotaur	70	46
Steel minotaur	90	56
Mithril minotaur	112	66
Adamant minotaur	133	76
Rune minotaur	154	86
Iron titan	220	95

"Controlled Familiars", for whom 13.3% of damage dealt is converted to Defence experience^[1]:

Familiar	Combat level	Required Summoning level
Spirit spider	25	10
Spirit scorpion	51	19
Vampyre bat	44	31
Spirit larupia	93	57
Stranger plant	107	64
Arctic bear	122	71
Giant ent	137	78
Spirit dagannoth	148	83

1. ^ Strength and Attack also receive experience equal to 13.3% of damage dealt.

Defence and puresEdit

Combat puresEdit

Some players believe that training Defence is unnecessary and instead focus on the offensive skills of their chosen style(s), such as Attack, Strength, Ranged and Magic. These players, commonly known as combat pures, generally possess better offensive capabilities than their combat levels suggest, which can be useful for player killing. Some of these players leave Defence at level 1; some train Defence up to level 20 for initiate armour, and some may raise Defence to level 30 for Turmoil, level 50 for rune armour, or 42 for Void Knight equipment.

While potentially effective in player-vs-player combat, this approach could be dangerous for situations which involve fighting against monsters, such as completing Slayer assignments or fighting boss monsters.

Defence puresEdit

Rather than ignoring Defence altogether, some players train the skill almost exclusively, resulting in a very high Defence level for their combat level, but limited offensive capabilities. These players are known as Defence pures or simply tanks. Some may also train Summoning in order to become Summoning tanks, or train both Summoning and Prayer in order to become Safeguard tanks. Additionally some players choose to max out their Defence level first to 99 and then aim to max out Ranged. This results in a 'Ranged tank' pure which can be effective in PKing.

EquipmentEdit

Almost every single piece of combat equipment (except for the ones that go on the weapon, cape, ring, aura and amulet slots) requires a certain Defence level to wear. Here are links to tables of armour and equipment that require a Defence level to wear:

• Armour - For an overview on the different types of Armour.
• Melee Armour - An overview of the different types of Melee armour.
• Magic Armour - An overview of the different types of Magic armour.
• Ranged Armour - An overview of the different types of Ranged armour.
• Prayer Armour - An overview of the different types of Prayer armour.
• Defenders - A weapon that goes on the shield slot and provides offensive bonuses while also having an Attack and Defence levels requirement.

Other featuresEdit

• You require a certain Defence level to do certain quests. The highest requirement is level 80 Defence for The Brink of Extinction.
• The prayer Piety requires 70 Defence to be activated.
• You also need a certain Defence level to complete certain Tasks; they involve, among other things, quest requirements, trying out some equipment at certain places, and the highest levelled task being to enter the Seers' Village Courthouse with the Piety prayer activated.
• Defence is used on the Dungeoneering skill in several ways.
• Thieving using a Maple blackjack (d) requires having 30 Defence.

Skill masteryEdit

After achieving level 99 Defence, players can buy the defence cape from Harlan the melee instructor in the building north of the Lumbridge general store. The defence cape is light blue in colour, and has a cream trim for players who have more than one level 99 skill.

Temporary boostsEdit

Flat and percentage Defence level bonus don't stack with each other when they add up above the base Defence level. They do, however, stack with the effective defence bonuses of prayers and equipment special effects, as they don't increase the defence level in any way but directly affect the actual chance of dodging an attack when in combat. Members items are marked with (m)

• Defence cape - Boosts Defence level by 1 for a short period of time after using the skillcape emote. (m)
• Defence potion - Boosts Defence level by 3 to 12 (3 + 10% of base Defence level rounded down).
• Super defence potion - Boosts Defence level by 5 to 19 (5 + 15% of base Defence level rounded down). (m)
• Extreme defence potion - Boosts Defence level by 5 to 26 (5 + 22% of base Defence level rounded down). This item cannot be traded and the only way to obtain it is by making it yourself, this requires 90 Herblore. (m)
• Overload offers the same boost as the Extreme defence potion, but is refreshed every 15 seconds for 5 minutes, at which point it wears off completely. (m)
• Saradomin brew - Boosts Defence by 25% in addition to other effects. (m)
• A captured Sapphire Glacialis, one of four types of hunted butterflies, can be used on another player in a multicombat area to increase their Defence level by 4 + 15% of that player's base Defence level rounded down. (m)
• Cabbage from Draynor Manor boosts Defence by 1 or 2 levels. This is completely random.
• The special move of the Granite Crab familiar raises your Defence level by 4. (m)
• The special move of the War Tortoise familiar raises your Defence level by 8. (m)
• Titan's Constitution - The special move of the Fire, Moss and Ice Titans boosts Defence level by 1 + 11% (m)

The following bonuses don't increase the player's current Defence level on the stats tab, but allows the player to be hit less often (see above) and will therefore stack with other boosts:

• Prayers from the standard book:
  • Thick Skin, Rock Skin, Steel Skin, and Chivalry (m) boost Defence by 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%, respectively.
  • Piety (m), Augury (m) and Rigour (m) all boost Defence by 25%.
• Prayers from the Ancient Curses:
  • Leech Defence boosts Defence by 5%, increasing to 10% over time, while draining the opponent's Defence by 10%, increasing to 20% over time (m)
  • Turmoil(m), Torment (m) and Anguish (m) boost Defence by 15%, plus an additional 15% of the opponent's Defence level while in combat

Trivia Edit

• The spelling "defense" was used in RuneScape Classic, though it is a British game and "defence" is the British spelling.

See alsoEdit

• Defence/Level up table
• Defence/Experience rewards
• Combat Calculator

v • d • e Skills
Free-to-play skills	Combat skills Attack • Strength • Defence • Ranged • Prayer • Magic • Constitution Other skills Crafting • Mining • Smithing • Fishing • Cooking • Firemaking • Woodcutting • Runecrafting • Dungeoneering
Member skills	Agility • Herblore • Thieving • Fletching • Slayer • Farming • Construction • Hunter • Summoning
Former skills	Hitpoints • Carpentry • Tailoring
Upcoming	Divination