Wilderness/Survival guide

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This article is about how to survive in the Wilderness. For information on monsters and how to deal with them, see PvM.

Located north of the kingdoms of Misthalin and Asgarnia, the Wilderness is a large and dangerous Player-versus-Player (or PVP) area. Dying here may cause a player to lose all of their items. This guide aims to help players to safely navigate their way around the dangers of the Wilderness.

Wilderness levels and attack range

The Wilderness level is displayed in the top right corner of your screen. The level represents the potential combat level difference between players that can engage in combat. For example, a Wilderness level of 1 means the player can attack and be attacked by players within one combat level of their own. Note that carrying a Demonic skull, Cursed energy, Cursed memories, Hellfire bow, or Warband supplies allows the player to be attacked by any level player.

Teleportation

Most methods of teleportation do not work above Wilderness level 20. These items are recommended to use as a level 20-30 teleport:

Recommended level 20-30 teleportation methods

Item	Value or reclaim cost
Amulet of glory	11,364
Combat bracelet	10,687
Grand seed pod	93,435
Ring of life	3,003
Ring of Wealth	8,945
Skills necklace	10,472
Saradominist token	0
Zamorakian token	0
Armadylean token	0
Bandosian token	0
Wilderness sword 4	100,000

Useful items and effects

Item or effect	Effect	Notes
Armour	Armour with high defence bonus will provide good protection against player-killers (or PKers). Royal dragonhide armour is a good and cheap option.	Bringing valuable armour increases risk; players should only bring items they are willing to lose.
Shield	Any shield or shieldbow will allow you to use more defensive abilities.
Gorajian mushroom	Heals 10% of the player's maximum health, and for 10 seconds afterwards, damage in PvP is reduced by a flat 15%.	60 seconds cooldown.
Portent of restoration	Heals you when you drop below 50% health in combat.
Wilderness sword	Offers several teleports into the wilderness. Wilderness sword 4 allows teleportation from level 30 wilderness.
Hard Wilderness Tasks	Ability to choose your arrival destination when using Ancient Obelisks.
Enhanced Excalibur	Heals the player over time.	5 minute cooldown
Fury shark	Heals the player and grants the ability to protect one additional item for up to one minute after being consumed.	Player-killers may wait a minute for its effect to run out; bring more than one if relied upon. Stacks with Protect Item.
Protect Item	Protect an additional item.	Stacks with Fury shark.
Phoenix necklace	Automatically restores the wearer's life points by 30% of maximum if they drop below 20% of the maximum.	Destroyed after use.
Ring of life	Automatically teleport the wearer to their respawn point if they have less than 10% of their life points remaining.	Phoenix necklace is activated first. Destroyed after use.
Morrigan's throwing axe	Its special attack will rapidly drain run energy, useful for escaping from someone who cannot counter it.
Ogre flask (salt water)	Provides infinite run energy, countering the Morrigan's throwing axe special attack.
Stamina potion
Salt water bath
Globetrotter boots
Adrenaline potion	Gives 25% adrenaline, useful for getting to the adrenaline requirement for threshold or ultimate abilities.	120 seconds cooldown.
Beast of Burden	Allows the player to carry additional items.
Pack yak	Allows the player to carry additional items and its special move allows you to bank items at level 30 wilderness or below.	If used on a stack of items, it will only bank one.
Imp-in-a-box	Allows you to bank items at level 30 wilderness or below. Cannot be used while in combat.	Can bank stacks of items at once.
Committed perk	Allows the player to skull themselves to gain access to the Bandit camp.
Melee weapon	Allows you to use the Barge ability to free yourself from a bind and, as it places you within melee distance of your target, to get to a far away player or NPC. A mainhand weapon is recommend to also allow the use of a shield.
Mobile perk	Halves the cooldown of Surge, Escape, Barge and Bladed Dive.	In the wilderness Bladed Dive shares a cooldown with Surge and Escape.
Disruption Shield	The next hit you receive from a player or NPC is negated.	60 seconds cooldown
Camouflage potion	When consumed, the potion removes the player's minimap dot for 1 minute.
Numbing root	Can be eaten to remove damage over time effects	45 seconds cooldown

Teleport Block

A player casting Teleport Block on another player.

Main article: Teleport Block

Teleport Block is a spell in RuneScape that requires a Magic level of 85 and can only be cast on another player. If successful, it will prevent that player from using almost all forms of teleportation (both through spellbooks and through enchanted items) for 5 minutes. If the cast is successful but the target had Protect from Magic or Deflect Magic active when it was cast, the spell will only last for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. The spell will also wear off upon leaving the Wilderness by any means.

The animation for teleport block is very small, spins quickly, and is dark purple so it is hard to see it in many places. Therefore, many players do not realise they have been teleport blocked, until they attempt to teleport. Players receive the message "A teleport block has been cast on you!" in their chatbox when they are hit with the teleport block spell.

Skulling

Main article: Skull (status) § White Skull

The white skull is a feature that appears when a player (or familiar):

• Attacks another player or their familiar in the Wilderness.
• loots from a Wilderness Warbands camp.
• enters the Abyss without having a Forinthry brace equipped.
• asks Mr Ex in Edgeville to skull the player.
• has wielded recently or is wielding an augmented item with the committed perk added
• Dwarf multicannon will skull the player if it hits another player's familiar.

As soon as one of the methods above occurs, the skull will appear above their character. If a player dies with a skull in the Wilderness (and dungeons linked to the Wilderness, excluding the King Black Dragon's lair), they will drop all of their items upon death, unless a Protect Item mechanic is used (the prayer itself, or consuming a Fury shark), in which they keep their most valuable item with them.

If a player is attacked by another player, they can retaliate without getting skulled. However, if any of their AoE attacks, spells or abilities hit anyone who has not initiated combat with the player first, then the player will get skulled. For this reason, it is recommended to disable autoretaliate.

Upon skulling, a timer of 10 (or 20 if you attacked another player/familiar) minutes (of in-game time) will count down; once this timer expires, the skull is removed from the player. Players can remove skulls immediately by dying in most safe areas, eg. lava in Fight Cauldron.

Recommended equipment

Weapons

Bring two-handed weapons - they prevent the risk of losing an additional item, albeit they are more expensive than dual-wielded weapons. Tier 87 or lower two-handed weapons are acceptable to use; tier 90 and 92 may be used, but with a higher risk.

Armour

It is recommended to minimise risk in the Wilderness. If armour isn't necessary, don't bring it. It's better to die and lose almost nothing than to risk valuable items. Players doing slayer or bossing in the Wilderness may however need the defence that armour provides. Fremennik armour and its superior variants and royal dragonhide armour are cheaper options while player-owned ports armours provide higher defence for more risk.

Escape strategies

Escaping an enemy attacking you can be rather simple depending on the skill of the other player. Firstly you should enable protection prayers corresponding with the enemies attack style, this will ensure you take less damage while you're trying to get away. Be aware that the enemy can remove your over-head protections with Snipe, Havoc and Dragon Breath. After 3 seconds be sure to enable your prayers again to reduce the damage taken again.

While running away be sure to use Surge (or Bladed Dive with dual-wielded melee weapons) when it's off cooldown to put distance between you an the enemy player. Having the Mobile perk equipped on an augmented piece of gear will let you surge every 10 seconds instead of the default 20. Running between solid objects that players cannot attack through will give you time for you to leave combat and lobby or hop world.

Note that Mobile will not be as effective against melee attackers, as they also have access to Barge/Greater Barge, which acts as a pseudo-Mobile. They do not share a cooldown with Mobile/Escape/Bladed Dive, essentially allowing a melee attacker to cover twice as much space in the less than or the same amount of time as you would have from a single use of Surge or Bladed Dive, with or without Mobile. The best bet in this case is to hope to catch the attacker off-guard with a well-timed Surge/Bladed Dive and a bind.

If skulled, try to keep prayer as high as possible as the attacker is more inclined to use Smite or Soul Split, which drains prayer. Neglecting your prayer might cause you to get smited, losing your +1 item on death and adding substantial risk if you're risking more in the first place.

Tips and tricks

• Be aware if anybody in your world is carrying the Hellfire bow as this could prove to be deadly if you meet a player killer with this item. An announcement is made when a player in the wilderness picks up this bow.
• Keep an eye on your Minimap for white dots which can mean potential player killers nearby. It is very possible to travel all the way through the Wilderness relatively unscathed, and without encountering any player killers.
• It is advised to keep auto retaliate off to avoid other players tricking you to skull on them, resulting in losing all items when killed.
• One is a lot more likely to get attacked in the more popular places of Wilderness, as other players know where the busiest spots in the Wilderness are. These places include Revenants, active Warband camps, the Wilderness Volcano Lodestone, Wilderness Agility Course, etc.
• Obstacles such as trees can be used to interrupt combat with a player killer. Running through areas with lots of obstacles like a forest can allow one to escape more easily by getting the attacking player stuck or lost behind several obstacles.
• Jennica's ring can be helpful to escape the Wilderness using the Spirit Realm portals. Activating the ring on the portal can teleport you inside a safe location, from which you may teleport out of regardless of what level of Wilderness you were in. However, you cannot teleport to the Spirit Realm if you are currently teleblocked or in combat.
• Explorer's ring 3 is useful for its run restoring capabilities, as well as the teleport.
• Ring of life can be very useful to save your life in case your life points fall below 10%, but only under level 30 Wilderness.
• If travelling through the Wilderness with no intention to fight anything, it's a good idea to wear as little as possible and carry teleportation tablets/runes and food.
• The Wilderness obelisks can be used as a way to escape a player killer by luring them in the middle of the obelisk and activating it. Teleblock prevents the obelisk's teleport from affecting a player, which can be used as an advantage when trying to escape from a player killer.
• Despite its location, Daemonheim does not count as the Wilderness. Fleeing here is an excellent way of leaving Wilderness if you happen to be nearby, but you will not be able to enter through the gate under attack
• Use a world with a low population.
• War's Retreat Teleport Can be unlocked from War's Wares after killing 10 bosses and is a great Emergency teleport when below level 20 wilderness.