Old School RuneScape’s PvM landscape is full of mechanics that are never formally explained in-game. Understanding these fundamentals makes bossing dramatically easier, safer, and more consistent. Whether you’re brand new to PvM or already have experience, these twelve core principles will increase your success across every boss encounter. Having enough OSRS GP will also help you succeed.

1. Understand Game Ticks

OSRS runs on a strict cycle: every action happens once every 0.6 seconds, known as a game tick. Movement, attacks, food consumption, and boss mechanics all follow this rhythm.

If you click to move just after a tick occurs, there is a short delay before your character responds. If you click just before a tick begins, your character moves instantly. This is not lag—it's how the engine works. Recognizing tick timing is the foundation of advanced combat techniques, including flicking, movement manipulation, and precise DPS optimization.

2. Eat Strategically—Not Randomly

Eating causes a 3-tick delay, temporarily stopping your attacks and lowering your overall DPS. If possible, eat after defeating a monster rather than during combat. When you must heal mid-fight, use movement to minimize risk:

Step underneath large bosses to gain extra ticks of safety while healing.

Avoid standing still and eating consecutive pieces of food in front of a boss—this dramatically increases incoming damage.

Special food mechanics to know:

Karambwans: can be eaten in the same tick as regular food. A food → karambwan combo provides large emergency healing.

Anglerfish: Raise your max HP temporarily, and they are excellent for boosting before difficult phases.

Nightshade Antelopes (Moonlight Antelopes): heal the highest total amount over time and cure poison.

Learning when to eat and how to chain healing items efficiently is essential for survival in tougher encounters.

3. Use Potions Correctly

Like food, potions can be consumed without delaying your attacks as long as you re-click the boss within the same tick. Practice the rhythm: potion → attack.

Key potion notes:

Super combats, bastions, and combat potions provide essential DPS boosts.

Magic potions offer minimal benefit unless they enable a higher spell tier.

Divine potions keep stats fully boosted for five minutes but deal 10 recoil damage per sip.

Saradomin brews provide unmatched healing per inventory slot and can overheal. They also reduce your offensive stats, so pair them with super restores to maintain combat levels.

A common “ratio” is 3 brew sips: 1 restore sip to avoid dropping below base stats.

Prayer renewals restore prayer slowly over time and help prevent running dry during long fights.

Efficient potion management significantly increases both survivability and damage output.

4. Know Your Weapon Speeds

Every weapon attacks on a different cycle:

Whip: 4-tick attacks

Godswords: 6-tick attacks

Blowpipe (Rapid): 2-tick attacks

DPS is determined by accuracy, max hit, and attack speed. This is why faster weapons like the whip or blowpipe outperform slower but harder-hitting weapons in many scenarios.

When choosing weapons for bossing, prioritize DPS over max hit.

5. Learn True Tile Positioning

Your character model and your actual position (“true tile”) do not always visually match. The true tile determines collision, incoming attacks, and hazard interaction.

Understanding this helps you:

Get behind cover earlier than your model suggests.

Avoid poison tiles and hazards by skipping tiles during movement.

Know when you are in melee distance or safely out of range.

Enable the “true tile” indicator in RuneLite to better visualize your real location.

6. Turn Off Auto-Retaliate

Auto-retaliate can cause your character to walk into danger unintentionally. Keep it disabled for all boss encounters. The only time to use it is when AFKing low-risk monsters or certain Slayer tasks.

7. Prioritize Stats and Weapons Over Armor

Armor contributes far less to DPS than weapons or higher levels. As a general priority:

Train combat levels

Upgrade your weapon

Then upgrade armor

Offensive gear is typically stronger than defensive gear. For example, a Dragon defender is more valuable than most shields because it boosts accuracy and strength.

8. Know What Combat Stats Actually Do

Defense: reduces enemy accuracy, but does not reduce the damage of hits that land.

Attack: increases your chance to hit.

Strength: increases max hit.

Prayer: grants better prayers and improves restoration per sip.

Ranged: boosts accuracy and max hit.

Magic: increases accuracy and magic defense but (usually) not damage unless gear provides a magic damage bonus.

Understanding these distinctions helps prioritize training and gearing efficiently.

9. Use Flinching for Safe, Low-Risk Kills

Flinching allows you to kill monsters while avoiding damage:

Stand behind an obstacle.

Step out, attack once, then immediately retreat behind cover.

Wait until the monster’s HP bar disappears.

Repeat.

This is useful when low on supplies or learning a new boss safely.

10. Master Prayer Switching

Quick and accurate prayer switching is essential for nearly all high-level PvM. Set up intuitive keybinds—many players remap F-keys to number keys for easier access.

Practice switching between:

Inventory

Prayers

Combat tab

Spellbook

Prayer flicking can also save significant prayer by activating protection prayers only on the correct tick.

11. Know When Damage Is Calculated

For most monsters, damage is determined the moment the attack animation begins—not when a projectile visually hits you. This is why protection prayers must be activated before the animation starts.

Exceptions exist, such as Jad, where the animation determines which prayer to use.

12. Don’t Be Afraid to Attempt New Bosses

No amount of research replaces firsthand experience. Watch a guide or two, then attempt the encounter. Even if you die, the practical context makes future attempts far easier.

A long-term goal for mid-level players is the Gauntlet and eventually the Corrupted Gauntlet—a challenge that tests nearly every PvM skill in the game without requiring gear. Completing it proves mastery of core mechanics and is an excellent stepping-stone into advanced PvM. Having enough OSRS gold will also help you master it.