Stealing Creation tips include a number of specific points, which may be useful to players who are planning a strategy for the Stealing Creation minigame.

Contents 1 Gathering / Earning Points 2 Combat 2.1 General 2.2 Magic combat 2.2.1 Standard spellbook 2.2.2 Lunar spells 2.2.3 Ancient Magicks 2.3 Ranged 2.4 Melee 2.5 Fog 2.6 Barriers 2.7 Tanking and anti-tanking 2.8 Prayer 2.9 Armour 2.10 Extra tricks 3 Damage limitation 4 Teamwork

Gathering / Earning PointsEdit

• Processed items are worth twice as much as the raw clay, and even processing it gives as much points as collecting or depositing the clay; one of the easiest ways to earn points is to take clay from your base, process it, and deposit it again. Try to bear in mind what items your team needs most - create a couple of staves or bows rather than turning your whole inventory into runes or arrows.
• There will almost always be some Fragments of class 1 clay near your base. You should start by collecting four and turning them into the four basic tools. Trying to collect barehanded from sources other than Fragments can take a long time.
• Concentrate on getting clay before converting them or attacking enemies.
• To save space, making stackable items (arrows, runes) can be a good choice. This is especially notable when using a familiar and Clay Deposit. Stackable items can be stored in a familiar in very large quantities, allowing you to gather for longer before depositing. Arrows can also be equipped, further saving inventory space and not allowing others to pickpocket them off you.
• Get a Summoning Pouch and a few scrolls as soon as possible, of the highest class you can. The ability to Clay Deposit when attacked can mean the difference between a 15k score and a 35k score. Even a class 1 familiar can hold one item or (preferrably) a stack of items.
• Despite the higher points given for higher level clay, maximum points are often obtained with Class 4 or even Class 3 clay. They can be gathered much more quickly, so even though they are worth fewer points individually you can easily end up with more at the end of the game.
• The pattern at the beginning of the game generally involves making a set of Class 1 tools, and gathering any higher level clay that happens to be near your base. As soon as you gather one higher-level clay, turn it into the appropriate tool to maximise further gathering speed. Do not forget to make the rest of the tools too, because sources near your base are very quickly exhausted in large games.
• A good use for class 1 clay is to turn it into runes. While you will receive less than with higher quality clay, this makes it much more useful than it would be as anything else and more valuable in terms of score. It also allows your team to use the higher quality clay for items which will benefit much more from its use.
• If you want to increase your points, use a resource that is close to a Creation Kiln. For example, if a Class 3 or Class 4 source is close to a kiln, it is better to skill there for more points than a Class 5 that takes 2-3 map loadings from a kiln. Although this doesn't happen in most games, it does in very big games, which are increasingly rare.
• Keep an eye on your base's clay table. Many high-level gatherers might not have the skills to productively use their clay (there are many more 80+ woodcutters and fishers than smiths and runecrafters). They will just use Clay Deposit to send raw clay back to base.

CombatEdit

GeneralEdit

• Combat is not recommended until the players has at least 75 in most or all combat skills. It is a rare game on an official Stealing Creation world that does not feature a few 94+ mages on each side.
• Ranged is the most common attack method in this game; if you are too low-levelled to fight effectively, at least make yourself the best melee armour you can and a few pieces of food, to give you a better chance of making it back to your base.
• If you are geared up to PK, it is recommended to have several pieces of food (Class 4 and Class 5 are the best choices). Also, store some food in your familiar to hold 1, 6, 12, 18, or 24 extra pieces of food.
• Often, a high-level player would slip through the defences and attack low levels near the base. They could easily do great damage over some time by ambushing skillers on their way to the base, so it would be wise to call some higher leveled players back to deal with the menace.

Magic combatEdit

• Remember to drink magic potions; they gives a maximum of 15% magic damage, and are the only way to boost your maximum hit with magic in this minigame.
• If you are a mage, do not carry any more than 200-400 runes of each type, less if possible; instead, carry around some spare clay in case your runes get stolen. The other way is get a clay summoned beast and a deposit scroll and store runes in it, as the runes cannot be stolen from the beast and the scroll is good for banking everything if you get stacked by enemies. You can always use take BoB to grab some more runes if you run out in a battle.

Standard spellbookEdit

• Standard spellbook is less useful as normally it has the advantage of being relatively cheap, as it requires more elemental runes rather than catalytic runes in Lunar spells or Ancient Magicks; however, elemental and catalytic runes are equally easy to make in Stealing Creation, and the sheer amount of runes needed for standard spells (14 for Entangle, 19 for Fire Surge) make it more expensive in a sense, while normally extremely expensive spells cost less (9 for Blood Barrage and 12 for Ice barrage).
• However, Storm of Armadyl is a very notable exception, requiring only a single catalytic rune, and hitting in the league of barrage spells while having a minimum damage of 110, as well as draining defence by 1 with each hit. Completion of Ritual of the Mahjarrat required. Storm of Armadyl mages are somewhat like dagger 1-itemers, being able to deal heavy damage while risking next to nothing.

Lunar spellsEdit

• Lunar Spells can also be effective as you can boost other players stats, transfer run energy, rebound damage, and even heal team mates.
• If using Lunar spells, remember to cast Disruption shield and Vengeance once, if you have access to them, as soon as possible. Once the cooldown passes, you could cast them again immediately when the original spells have been worn away by attacks. It is not uncommon for players to overwhelm another player with 10 more combat levels with the aid of 2 of each spell.
• Vengeance Group is preferred over Vengeance or Vengeance Other, as it gives the effect to multiple players while still could be cast once every 30 seconds. However, the spell does not appear to propagate through barriers. Also note that while most of the area is multicombat, the base is single combat. This means that Vengeance Group could be cast but not Vengeance Other.
• Heal Other or Heal group is often counterproductive, as it could hit you very hard, up to 75% of your maximum life points, making you extremely vulnerable. A more practical way to use the spell is “ferrying healing”, used when your base is surrounded, you do not have the gear to fight but there is still a chance to thwart the other team (at least one very high level ancient mage is an invaluable asset). Taking around 10 casts each time, go out of the base, heal a teammate, go back in immediately, talk to mystic to heal, and repeat the process. Try to protect the highest leveled geared teammate, especially “Ancient tanks”. This effectively “ferry” the mystic’s healing ability, and have some advantage over eating by the combatants themselves, such as the facts that food takes up space and takes time to eat. If more than one player helps this way, the “tank” would be virtually invulnerable.
• Boost Potion Share could be used to boost the stats of some less well-equipped teammates, as well as helping them recover defence drained by Storm of Armadyl or attack drained by shadow spells.

Ancient MagicksEdit

• Ancient Magicks is very effective in this game, provided that the mage does not lose his/her runes from a pick-pocketer. (A high thieving level helps here.) The ice spells can be very useful when being chased by high levels with melee attacks, although it is used more often as a tool to trap warriors or weaker players. The Smoke spells can kill after they have run away. Shadow spells can help friends by lowering the attack level of enemies. Blood spells can heal you and do it quickly if using Blood Burst or Blood Barrage when multiple enemies are next to each other.
• Ancient Mages should always open with an ice spell, even if they have access to higher spells (e.g. a mage between 71-81 or 86-93). Put your most damaging spell on auto-cast, and manually make the first ice cast (and subsequent ice casts if the victim lives through the first). The extra few damage during those casts could make all the difference.
• The freeze time of all bind/ice spells is much reduced in this game. It is unlikely that you will be able to kill enemy players within just one binding period unless you have help or they are of a very low level. There are a few seconds after being frozen during which a player cannot be refrozen.
• Ice spells are a very common sight in Stealing Creation. Unfortunately, the missiles are rather hard to see on the area’s icy-blue ground. If you watch your chatbox, the message “You have been frozen!” appears slightly earlier than the damage effect and sounds. Watching the minimap for any white dots, signifying an enemy player, is also a good idea. Changing the graphics options to minumum makes the ground texture disappear, leaving a flat, uniform background on which missiles are more easily detected.
• When using multi-target ancient magicks, choose your initial target with a little care. For example, if three enemy players are in a line, hitting the one on the left or the right would only give you two simultaneous hits. Attacking the one in the middle would allow you to dish out more damage. This also applies diagonally.
• When fighting mage-to-mage against an opponent with a similar level, consider using a blood spell instead of an ice spell. Blood spells only hit slightly lower and their healing ability more than makes up for it. For example, Ice barrage could hit up to 300 normally, and Blood barrage hits 10 less, at 290 damage. However, a 290 hit would also heal you by 72 life points. Also, ironically sometimes it is harder to escape from a mage that mainly uses a non-ice spell. If you fight an opponent with Blood barrage, you could immediately throw an Ice barrage to freeze them when they start running away. However, if you are using Ice barrage, it is very likely that when the opponent begins to run, they are currently immune to your freeze effect, and might be able to run to safety.
• The maximum hit with Ancient Magicks is 345.

RangedEdit

• Ranged used to deal the least damage at comparable levels, but after the Evolution of Combat, it might be the most damaging style of combat. Ranged has the advantage of being long-ranged, less noticeable and not as consumable intensive (1 arrow used each shot, compared to multiple runes for spells).
• Fragmentation Shot is extremely effective against fleeing opponents or meleers closing in, as damage is tripled if the target moves. This could easily lead to about 3000 damage over 5 hits. Remember not to use Binding Shot or other similar attack so the target could move. Other damage over time abilities such as Deadshot may be used to kill players attempting to escape through a barrier.

MeleeEdit

• Daggers are generally regarded as more damaging then Scimitars or Warhammers due to their rapid attacks, and higher level melee armour also tend to gives relatively low melee defence, with no weakness to crush. Players with 80 smithing should try and make multiple class 5 daggers and deposit them in base; far fewer players have 80 smithing then 80 attack.
• Dagger 1-iteming is sometimes frowned upon, but is quite effective if used correctly. Players simply wield a high level dagger and kill any enemy players in enemy territory, having no other items and losing nothing when they die, as they always use Protect Item. This is a good tactic to kill off weaker players, as well as drawing fire from high level combatants, to weaken their forces on the front.
• With a class 5 weapon and near maximum strength level, it is possible to hit low 300s.

FogEdit

• Fog banks are randomly dispersed throughout the area, but most densely in the middle.
• They hide a player completely; hiding into them is often a better solution than running into a barrier, as they are indestructible.
• Players cannot take any damage while in a fog bank. This affects even deflection and Vengeance damage, or damage-over-time effects from abilities like Deadshot; if a player attacks another player but goes back into the fog before the hit connects, damage could be avoided.
• Players in fog banks could pickpocket players right next to the fog. One of the most effective ways to stop the rampage of a careless mage. This applies vise versa; do NOT stand next to fog banks unless you are sure there is no one inside. Players vanish entirely when they enter the fog. A thief could empty your pockets before you know it when you are preoccupied with a hit-and-run sequence.
• Ranged is preferred over magic for hit-and-run purposes utilising fog banks, as a hit is initiated slightly faster; for the same time a player spend outside the fog bank, it is possible to shoot an arrow but not cast a spell. Rangers are also far less vulnerable to pickpocketers. If done properly, it is near impossible to be frozen by a mage. Decent armour and food is still recommended for misclicks.
• When popping out of the fog, be random. Make your exit points unpredictable. This would lower the chances of being frozen or pickpocketed.

BarriersEdit

• If the enemy team sets up a barrier near your base, everyone on your team should try and take it down immediately. Not only do barriers provide a safe location for the enemy team to momentarily eat and quaff potions, but enemy players you defeat will appear there, instantly ready to rejoin the fight.
• Setting up class 1 barriers is strongly advised against unless you just need a moment’s respite while being chased in a deserted area or as a simple frustration tactic. It is often counterproductive as it could take only several hits before crumbling, degrades and collapses by itself rapidly and make clay gathering more time-consuming and click-intensive.
• It is recommended that you set up barriers according to the class of clay from the spot within. Class 5 barriers should not be set up around a class 4 resource spot, unless there is a class 5 source nearby, as you could only repair walls with clay barriers of an equal or higher class.
• The class of barriers is often a useful method to evaluate the levels of the players within before they could see you and vise versa. It is possible for a low level to be inside a high level wall, but those inside class 1 or 2 barriers are likely inexperienced players. When you attack their barriers as a high level player, they tend to flee, making them easy targets for Ancient mages to pick off at leisure.
• Starting to smash barriers cause a player to lose control of their character for a couple of moments; good chance at launching a surprise attack.
• If you set up a barrier at the exact time when an enemy player runs into the plot, the player would be briefly trapped in the barrier and then booted out of it. Their action is cancelled and this often leaves them disoriented for several moment, but this is hard to pull off.
• You must click the barrier again to continue damaging it after it has visibly degraded. It is unknown whether stats, weapon bonuses and prayers affect the speed of damaging barriers.
• Barriers block the effect of spells which normally affect an area, hostile (e.g. Ice Barrage) or friendly (e.g. Vengeance Group).

Tanking and anti-tankingEdit

• If a strong “tanker” manages to attack the base and fend off several defenders at once with healing methods such as Blood barrage and Soul split, it is crucial to defeat them as soon as possible, or more deaths would result and less clay would be gathered and processed. Players might Smite or Soul split them out of their prayer points, but ineffective if the tanker brought multiple prayer potions. Shadow spells, especially Shadow barrage, is quite effective against melee tankers. Besides being a hard-hitting spell by itself, it decreases the targets’ attack level by 15%. This is often destructive to a tanker because they sometimes rely on Soul split healing to stay alive, and many would not bring an Attack potion. Even if they do, this would still prove a constant distraction.
• If you are melee tanking yourself, deflect melee or deflect magic is recommended over Soul split if you are fighting more than 1 opponent with a medium-high combat level. Most players with a combat level of at least 100 could deal 100+ hits consistently. Assuming that your opponent hits 100 every hit and you hit 200 every time, Soul split heals you by 200*0.2 = 40, but Deflect prayers prevents 100*0.4 = 40 damage also, with additional deflected 10 damage. Soul split does drain prayer points, but this is fairly easily negated by a dose of prayer potion. If attacked by more than one such enemy player, Deflect prayers would be far more superior than Soul split.
• However, if you are mage tanking, Soul split could be more effective if you can freeze and then blood barrage several players at once, resulting in high combined life point recovery.

PrayerEdit

• Rigour and Augury now requires 70 prayer and do not need to be purchased at Daemonheim. Anguish and Torment are also available for rangers and mages respectively.
• Spend your prayer points generously. Unlike in Gielinor, prayer potions are easily made, and there is always an altar to recharge prayer points. If you are participating in a large-scale battle, having Rapid heal and Steel Skin on while maging might be the difference between life and death. If on Ancient curses, do not hesitate to turn on all Leech curses at once or Turmoil. It is recommended that players bring as least 5 dose of prayer potions with them at all times. Dying because your prayer points run out at the wrong time would be a shame.
• The only Altar in a Stealing Creation game is a very often fought-over spot. Locating it soon and defend it with strong barriers is a good idea, especially if it is near your base. If the enemy is allowed to set barriers around an altar near your base, players wielding only daggers could respawn indefinitely and overwhelm your team, and tanks would have an area to rest, eat, recharge prayer and continue to fight, which could easily be the difference between victory and defeat.
• Soul Split is very useful for surviving in enemy territory; while it might not be best in an all-out battle as the appropriate deflect prayers might be more effective in conserving life points, players could hide in fog and ambush lower levels to regain health. Blood Barrage could be used for the same purpose, maybe even combined with Soul Split.

ArmourEdit

• With sufficient practice, you could estimate the combat prowess and style of players by glancing at their armour and weapon. This is useful when you want to keep your mouse on your food or don't have a chance to click on them before they hid into fog banks. This is harder than it sounds as all equipment have a similar texture and colours (grey and brown) unlike in Gielinor.

Extra tricksEdit

• Do not forget that potions exist! Dishing out damage earns points both directly (proportional to damage inflicted) and indirectly (killing that enemy player nets you his entire inventory), so quaff one before heading into battle. Even if you do not plan to fight, having a Defence potion and a Magic potion to hand might save your life (boosting Magic reduces the chance of being hit by spells and also increases the chance of your spell being successful and a higher hit).
• The Mystic in your base can heal you completely in a two-box dialogue. Do not sit around in your base waiting for someone to make food - speak to him and get back out there! If you are quick enough, you could click talk while holding space bar to heal in between damage-over-time effects, this could save your life.
• If you are doing hit-and-run from your base, an enemy player might be fast enough to freeze you before you could go back in again. When this happens, it is essential that you do not panic and click franticly on the barrier. If you have a reasonable magic, defence and constitution level, it is unlikely that any single player could kill you within the shortened freeze period as long as you keep your protect/deflect prayer on. If you click repeatedly on the barrier, it is possible for you to submit 2 actions in rapid succession, making you go in and back out again, which usually lead to death if the attacker has a high combat level. Calm down and click on the barrier once every second, stopping immediately when you start moving.
• Try to adapt to your opponents' prayers. Some players tend to panic when attacked by more than one combat style, and might switch protection prayers quickly and sometimes wrongly, or even accidentally deactivating them, making them more vulnerable as well as less attentive to their life points.
• Occasionally, there would be level four pures in combat Stealing Creation games. Try to kill them every time you see them, as they are easily defeated and usually have high skill levels, leading to quick gathering and processing of high-level clay.
• In the case of a battle with multiple players on each side, try to eliminate enemies under heavy fire. It is a powerful but hard-to-use strategy for players of a same team to coordinate themselves through a friend chat and agree to attack the same player (usually a high level one) at once. This usually kills the target quickly and decreases the overall damage taken and possible risk of death.
• Always summon clay beings when you before going into battle. Besides holding food, they deal extra damage and is a bunch of additional right click options to confuse your opponents and make attacking more click-intensive. An accidental hit or interacting on your familiar is one less hit on you; clay beings also makes your group look larger.
• Remember that you are fighting against human opponents who adapt to your tricks quickly. What works today may not work tomorrow.

Damage limitationEdit

• Normally, when killed, all of your items will drop to the ground for the killer to pick up. If you think you can make it back to where you died within a minute, drop as many items as you can. Dropped items still undergo the one-minute time-out before appearing to everyone, even if you die.
• Be wary of players on the opposing team who say "no pking" or similar when you find yourselves both gathering from the same spot. There is nothing to stop them suddenly equipping a high level dagger or some mage gear.
• If high levelled Player Killers come to your base, then everyone on your side of the team should attempt to defeat them as quickly as possible, or drive them away. Otherwise, by staying near your base, they can pick off low level players one by one and cause a lot of damage. It is possible to pickpocket mages and steal their runes, preventing them from casting. This means that they will be easier to kill and will gain the pick-pocketer points from the runes that they have stolen. All of one type of rune will be stolen at a time. As soon as you get the runes, drop them as you will be most probably killed due to pile jumpers. Once you re-spawn in the base again, quickly run and get the runes and get back to base and deposit them. If you get attacked, drop the runes again. This way opponents cannot get the items back.
• If you see someone turn to you but they do not attack, they are pickpocketing. To avoid losing items, attack them (pickpocketing is not allowed during combat) or run to a barrier or Fog. Note that many players like to hide in barriers, in the base, or in Fog then pop out when you pass by to pickpocket you.
• Hold extra clay when you are finished and ready to go kill the other team's players. If you do this, you can be protected by creation kilns if you get in a bad situation. Players using them are granted a few seconds in which they cannot be attacked. Pickpocketing is also not possible next to them.
• If you are ranging and spot a warrior heading for you, you need to start running well in advance. Once they reach melee range, they will stay in melee range until they run out of run energy, and Binding Shot might miss. In Stealing Creation this is almost always enough time to kill you. Mages do not suffer this problem with Rangers as there is still a reasonable chance that a bind/ice spell will hit.
• Rangers and mages should carry the highest level dagger they can use with them. Rangers will need it when a meleer attacks them and the ranger cannot escape, while mages will find it useful when they get their runes stolen. Mages should carry several for this purpose.
• Be careful when using Protect Item. Although it is useful for protecting items such as class five daggers, class five food and five dose potions are calculated as being more valuable. As a result, the other item will be dropped on death.
• If you are trying to kill players deep in enemy territory, bring 4 barriers to build a safe area if you need to escape.
• If you are being attacked by a mage casting ice spells (or multiple mages, as is often the case), you will usually die unless you are either an high level ranger or an extremely high level mage, with good equipment and food either way, or if you are assisted by others on your team. Since they are using ice spells, activating the protect item prayer is suggested if none of those requirements are filled. This can also be seen with the counterpart binding spells in the modern spell-book, but these usually do not spell death because they do not do damage and those that use them are usually of lower levels.
• It is wise to have Protect from Magic on if you are running back to your base to heal and resupply. You never know what might be waiting in a fog bank, and you really do not want to get stopped in your tracks.
• If you die and have a familiar summoned, the items that were in the familiar appear on the ground, invisible to other players for 1 minute. It is a good strategy to put an extra dagger (and/or runes, armour, tools, whatever you need) into your familiar so that when you die, and lose everything in your inventory, you do not have to start over from scratch. You can just run back to where you died, pick up what your familiar left, and get back to PKing or gathering.
• Attacks can follow you into the base and kill you there. You will respawn as normal, but it would be impossible for both sides to retrieve the items you dropped until one minute expires and you could pick them up again. The same applies to areas inside barriers except the opposing team can get the items by smashing down the barrier.
• Remember to activate Wrath or Retribution when there is no escape. A double-K.O. would stop your killer from getting your items as easily.
• If your team are "based" (trapped in base, everyone has no gear and multiple PKers prowling outside), it is generally pointless to go out and fight barehanded; it's just handing points to your opponents. The best way to deal with this is to sit inside the base idle; you could simply do other things while waiting for the game to end (remember the 5-minute logout timer) or maybe taunt the aggressors. Sometimes, if idle long enough, the opposite team might simply leave out of boredom, as they must pay full attention to the game.

TeamworkEdit

• Teamwork is an extremely important factor in this game. If someone requests an item, and it is something that you can make quickly, then it would be in your best interest to do so. If your team wins, you get a 10 percent boost in your score, allowing you to purchase more rewards. For example, high level processors can help their team by creating weapons and armour early in the game, allowing player killers to start killing earlier and thus weakening the other team. High level runecrafters can help by giving runes to mages, high level smiths can help by giving weapons to warriors, and so on.
• Remember that it is important to have a solid defence team. If a skiller dies because he was not being protected, then the entire team loses points. As such, it is important to not only work together to attack the enemy, but also to protect your team's skillers. It is common for players to form a "buddy" system with similar levelled players; as the entire arena is multi-combat, this system works extremely well against uncoordinated enemy teams, allowing players to quickly score kills while having somebody watch their back, and possibly cover for them if a high level player attacks. It is not uncommon for a few medium levelled players to kill a high levelled player through a coordinated effort.
• When you see a teammate chased by a player killer, attack the aggressor with a long-ranged attack. The slight distraction might just help the teammate to escape.
• The important thing to remember is that you are all on the same team, so try to contribute any way that you can.