OSRS Pure Defence Training: Crossbow & Spear Guide

Game screenshots and facts are cited from the Old School RuneScape Wiki (strategy, equipment, drops, and related pages). Writing is original editorial, not a copy of the wiki article.

Pure Defence accounts exist for tank builds, niche PvP brackets, and that specific satisfaction of wearing Barrows or Justiciar while still showing a clean 1 Attack and 1 Strength. The challenge is not just getting Defence XP — it's doing it without accidentally ruining the account. This guide focuses on two reliable methods that keep Attack and Strength at 1: a long-ranged crossbow from safe spots, and a spear set to defensive style in controlled areas.

We'll cover the mechanics, exact setups, unlock requirements, realistic XP expectations, and where buying gold or a levelling service is an honest trade instead of a grind. All methods assume a members world. Free-to-play options exist, but the best low-attention methods and most useful unlocks are members-only.

Pure Defence Training: The Goal and the Non-Negotiables

Before you fire a single bolt or poke a single crab, define your account build. A defence pure typically has no Attack, no Strength, and often minimal Ranged or Magic — or at least wants to freeze those stats at a certain level while pushing Defence to unlock better armour, higher total level, or a specific combat bracket. In PvP, a high Defence account with low offensive stats can be an annoying tank that hits back with Ranged or Magic. In PvM, it's a novelty or a base for a future account that hasn't decided on a melee build yet.

The non-negotiable rule: every combat style you choose must not award Attack or Strength XP. That means no Accurate, Aggressive, Controlled, or any shared style on melee weapons. For crossbows, only Longrange gives Defence XP while also giving some Ranged XP. For spears, only the Block/Defensive style gives pure Defence XP. One misclick can permanently alter your account, so check your attack style interface before every session.

Core Mechanics: How Defence XP Works Without Attack or Strength

In Old School RuneScape, experience is awarded per point of damage based on the selected attack style. Ranged weapons have three styles: Accurate, Rapid, and Longrange. Accurate and Rapid give 4 Ranged XP per damage. Longrange gives 2 Ranged XP and 2 Defence XP per damage, and it also increases your attack range by one tile — a huge benefit for safe spotting. For crossbows specifically, Longrange is the only style that trains Defence without touching Attack or Strength, but it does train Ranged alongside it.

Melee weapons have styles that can train Attack, Strength, Defence, or all three (Controlled). Spears offer a Block style, which is the melee Defensive style. Block gives 4 Defence XP per damage and awards no Attack or Strength XP. This makes a spear the only melee option for a pure who wants Defence without any offensive melee XP. However, if your Attack level is 1, you are limited to bronze and iron spears, which have very low accuracy and max hit. That's why many defence pures prefer crossbows for faster XP, though the Ranged XP gain might not fit every build.

Requirements and Unlocks Before You Start

Both methods are members-only in practice, though free-to-play has limited crossbow and spear options. Here's what you need before you commit to a training session.

Method 1: Longrange Crossbow Safe Spots

Safe spotting with a crossbow on Longrange is the bread-and-butter method for a defence pure who doesn't mind gaining Ranged XP. The extended range of Longrange lets you hit monsters from one tile farther than normal, which means you can often stand completely out of reach behind an obstacle. This eliminates food and prayer costs entirely, making it very cheap to sustain.

Step-by-step setup:

• Open your combat style interface and select Longrange — not Rapid. Rapid gives 4 Ranged XP per damage but no Defence XP, and it doesn't extend your range.
• Equip your crossbow and bolts, plus the best Ranged armour you can wear. Dragonhide, blessed dragonhide, or Karil's are ideal. Avoid metallic bodies, because they disable Ava's device recovery.
• If you have an Ava's device (attractor, accumulator, or assembler), wear it in the cape slot. It will automatically recover a percentage of your fired bolts, saving a significant amount of money over time.
• Find a safe spot: stand behind a rock, fence, table, or other scenery where the monster cannot path to you. Attack the monster and watch the XP tracker. You should see Defence and Ranged XP trickle in, with zero Attack or Strength XP.
• If the monster stops being aggressive or dies, click the next one without moving from your safe tile, or re-position to a new safe spot.

Common safe spot targets include rock crabs, sand crabs, ammonite crabs, ogres, and certain Slayer monsters. Ogres east of Castle Wars are popular because they are aggressive and can be trapped behind trees, though the area can be crowded. The research pack notes that this exact spot is also used for cannoning, but for a pure defence crossbow build, a simple safe spot works just fine.

Method 2: Defensive Spear at Controlled Areas

If you want Defence XP with zero Ranged XP gain, the spear on Block style is your only melee option. The catch is that a true 1 Attack pure can only use bronze or iron spears, which have terrible damage output. This makes the method extremely slow but completely AFK. If your account already has higher Attack (for example, you got 40 Attack for a rune spear from a previous build decision), this method becomes much more viable.

How to set it up:

• Equip a spear and open the combat style interface. Select the style labelled Block (some spears may call it "Defensive" — check the tooltip). Never select Lunge, Swipe, or Pound, as those give Attack, Strength, or controlled XP.
• Travel to a controlled area with aggressive monsters that have low Defence and low max hit. Sand crabs on Crabclaw Isle, ammonite crabs on Fossil Island, or rock crabs near Rellekka are classic choices. These monsters auto-attack you, so you can leave auto-retaliate on and simply stand there.
• Wear the best melee defence bonus gear you can, but keep your Attack and Strength at their target levels — gear doesn't give XP. Food or prayer is optional if you can out-heal the damage; many players use cheap food like lobsters or a regen bracelet, or just bank when inventory is empty.
• For extra AFK, set a logout timer extension by using the in-game idle timer, or use a method like splashing (but that's Magic Defence, not melee). The key is to check back every few minutes to eat or re-aggro if needed.

Because spear damage is based on Strength level and gear strength bonus, a 1 Strength pure with a bronze spear will hit 1s and 2s, making XP painfully slow. The upside is that it costs almost nothing and requires almost no attention. Many players use this method while working from home or watching videos, accepting the slow pace because they are not gaining any unwanted XP.

Supplies, Ammo, and Prayer: What You'll Actually Burn

Crossbow safe spotting has a hidden cost: bolts. While you can pick up ammunition manually, that's tedious and breaks the AFK flow. Ava's devices solve this by automatically recovering a percentage of your fired bolts, and they also collect them into your inventory or ammo slot. The table below shows the three tiers from the Ranged training guide.

Effectiveness represents the average number of times a piece of ammunition can be used before being broken or lost. A higher effectiveness means fewer bolts you need to buy. Remember: any metallic body worn in the torso slot disables the recovery effect, so stick to dragonhide, Karil's, or other non-metal chest pieces.

For the spear method, supplies are mostly food and optional prayer potions if you use Protect from Melee. Since you're only poking for 1s and 2s, you won't need high-tier food. A few hundred lobsters or monkfish can last hours. If you're at sand crabs and standing in a spot where multiple crabs can attack you, you may want a small stack of food and a quick bank teleport.

Bolts, food, and prayer potions all cost gold. If you're planning to go from 1 to 70 Defence with crossbows, you could burn through tens of thousands of bolts even with Ava's. That's where having a solid gold reserve helps.

XP Rates and Time-to-Goal: AFK vs Efficient

Your experience per hour depends heavily on your gear, target Defence, and attention. The two methods in this guide occupy the low-attention end of the spectrum, while chinning maniacal monkeys on Longrange is the efficient extreme. The Ranged training wiki provides exact Ranged XP rates for chinning with the Rapid style (Medium fuse); using Longrange halves the Ranged XP because the XP is split between Ranged and Defence. Attack speed for Longrange chinchompas is the same as Rapid, so Defence XP per hour is roughly half of the listed Ranged XP. At 45 Ranged, the wiki lists 290,000 Ranged XP/hr on Rapid, which translates to around 145,000 Defence XP/hr on Longrange.

The crossbow rates above are community-reported baselines for low-defence monsters with mid-tier gear; your personal rate can be much higher with BiS Ranged gear and a good safe spot. The spear rate assumes a bronze or iron spear at 1 Attack — pitiful. If you already have 40+ Attack and can use a rune spear, expect the higher end of that range.

For time-to-goal, here's a realistic snapshot using total Defence XP requirements from the skill table:

These AFK estimates assume a modest 20k–30k Defence XP/hr for crossbow and lower for spear at 1 Attack. They are not exact — use an XP tracker for one session to get your personal rate before projecting a long grind.

Common Mistakes That Ruin a Defence Pure

Most ruined pure accounts are the result of a few seconds of carelessness. Here are the classic errors to avoid.

• Wrong attack style: Using Accurate, Aggressive, Controlled, or even Rapid (for crossbow) by accident. Always double-check before attacking.
• Forgetting Longrange on crossbow: Rapid gives no Defence XP and may feel faster, but you'll waste hours with zero Defence progress.
• Using a metallic body with Ava's device: The recovery effect stops working, and you'll burn through bolts at full price.
• Chinning without Longrange: If you use Medium fuse (Rapid) with chinchompas, you'll get Ranged XP but no Defence XP. Longrange is the only chin style that trains Defence.
• Leaving auto-retaliate on with the wrong style: If you're AFK at crabs and your spear is on Lunge instead of Block, your account will be ruined while you're away. Always set the style before going AFK.
• Not doing Animal Magnetism for Ava's: Without the device, crossbow training costs significantly more and requires manual ammo pickup.
• Starting at a bad safe spot: If the monster can path to you, you'll take damage and have to bank, breaking the AFK loop.

When Buying Gold or a Training Service Is the Honest Shortcut

Pure Defence training is a marathon, not a sprint, unless you're using expensive chinning methods. If your goal is 70+ Defence for a tank build, the AFK methods in this guide can take 25–100 hours depending on your setup. For many players, that time is better spent elsewhere — working, studying, or playing other accounts. Buying gold to fund chinning supplies (chinchompas, prayer potions, divine ranging potions) can reduce the grind to a few hours, but the upfront cost is steep and the method requires high attention and quest prerequisites.

Alternatively, a professional training service can handle the safe spotting, style discipline, and session management for you. This is the honest shortcut: you trade real-world money for dozens of hours of low-value clicking, and you get back an account that hasn't been ruined by a misclick. Reputable services will follow your exact build constraints and provide progression screenshots.

If you go the gold route, use it to buy better crossbow bolts, an Ava's assembler upgrade, or chins and supplies — not to gamble or buy gear you won't use. Always verify the marketplace's reputation and understand the risks of third-party transactions. Jagex does not endorse real-world trading, and account bans are possible.

Sources

• Defence training — OSRS Wiki
• Pay-to-play Ranged training — OSRS Wiki