Old School RuneScape skills Tier List: All OSRS skills, ranked

Skills are the bread and butter of Old School RuneScape. The gameplay loop of Jagex’s iconic MMO revolves around the dopamine hit of seeing your skills and XP go up. The slow crawl to 99 is excruciating, but there’s nothing quite like the moment all your hard work pays off.

We’ve separated our Old School RuneScape Skills Tier List into two different categories: free-to-play and members. The game’s paid content is so much more in-depth that it’s difficult to directly compare the two. That’s not to say OSRS isn’t worth trying for free: It’s still a classic MMORPG, but you’ll have a lot more fun with the skills as a paying member.

Free-to-Play Old School RuneScape Skills Tier List

Most Old School RuneScape players dip their toes into the game as a free-to-play user. The game does a great job of introducing skills to new players, offering just enough to pique your curiosity. With 15 free-to-play skills to train, there’s a variety of options to experiment with. Naturally, everyone will have their own favorites, which is why it’s good to see what kind of gameplay you enjoy before committing to a membership.

So, how are we actually ranking these Old School RuneScape skills into a Tier List? Is it cost to train? Quickest to reach 99? Neither. In a game as grindy as OSRS, the best skills will inevitably be the ones that feel the least like a full-time job. We’ve placed these skills based on how fun they are to train, from 1 to 99, even if each will still take you hundreds of hours to train to completion.

S Tier

• Attack
• Defence
• Hitpoints
• Magic
• Strength

A Tier

• Prayer
• Ranged

B Tier

• Cooking
• Crafting
• Fishing
• Smithing
• Runecrafting

C Tier

• Firemaking
• Mining
• Woodcutting

Members Old School RuneScape Skills Tier List

In Old School RuneScape, paying members get access to an extra eight skills to train, as well as a ton of new content for the free-to-play ones. The new skills offer access to a lot more endgame content, where you can make (and spend) a ton of gold.

Just like the free-to-play offerings, our Old School RuneScape Tier List for members’ skills is ranked based on how fun they are to train. It’s no secret that just about everything in Old School RuneScape can feel like a chore at times, and if you’re a player yourself, you might find that you play a lot with something on a second monitor to remain engaged. It’s the ultimate AFK game in this regard, but not all grinds are created equal. Some of the members’ skills definitely feel a lot more rewarding and fun to train. It’s to be expected—after all, this is the game’s premium content.

S Tier

• Construction
• Slayer

A Tier

• Herblore
• Hunter
• Thieving

B Tier

• Fletching

C Tier

• Agility
• Farming