Combat triangle

The combat triangle is a game mechanic put in place to balance out the different combat styles in combat. Each combat style is given an advantage against an opposing class, while receiving a disadvantage against the other. The exception to this is the Necromancy combat style, which sits outside of the existing combat triangle.

Under the hood, the triangle works by adjusting the player's Affinity towards the other combat classes. This results in an 18% accuracy bonus when fighting the style the player is strong to and an 18% accuracy penalty when fighting the style the player is weak to. Note that the player's armour also influences this style bonus, so if the player's opponent is wearing armour of a higher tier than the player is wearing, then the player's accuracy bonus won't be as high.

Wearing armour of a class other than the weapon's class in any slot except the cape penalises accuracy. A percentage of the item's Armour bonus is subtracted from the Accuracy stat: 150% if the armour is weak against the weapon's class, 80% if not.

While the triangle offers a sizeable advantage, it does not guarantee that a class will always beat its weaker class.

Overview

Melee is stronger than Ranged
Ranged is stronger than Magic
Magic is stronger than Melee
Necromancy is neutral to all other combat styles

Melee

Warriors are strong against rangers. Rangers' projectiles can't penetrate metal armour very well, but warriors' blades can cut through leather with ease.

Ranged

Rangers are strong against mages. Their leather and dragonhide armours absorb the magic spells used by mages. Their arrows easily pierce the soft cloth of mage robes.

Magic

Mages are strong against warriors. The metal armour of warriors conducts spells so that the effect of the spells is more potent. Also, freeze/bind spells put warriors at a disadvantage because frozen warriors can't attack mages from a distance.

Necromancy

Necromancers are neither stronger nor weaker to any other combat style.

Hybrid

Using hybrid gear allows the player to stand at more than one point on the triangle. To make up for this, hybrid gear has lower offensive and defensive bonuses and less armour.

Trivia

Although Summoning familiars usually attack from a corner of the combat triangle, the Protect from Summoning prayer will protect the player from their attacks even if multiple familiars are attacking the player from multiple sides of the combat triangle.
In the top right corner of an old downloadable wallpaper from the RuneScape website, among the Dwarven script, there are three equations that are used in game to calculate a player's combat level based on whichever combination of statistics results in the highest combat level.
- The Dwarven "blueprint" is a possible reference to Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man.