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The best place for a free player to do some splashing is at the Champions’ Guild. Members can also use the same spot, or opt for a more scenic view at Ardougne’s port.
But what exactly is splashing?
First we have to understand how earning experience in combat-related skills works in OSRS.
For every point of damage dealt to a monster, the player receives 4 XP in the corresponding skill, or 2 if it’s Magic. Magic is halved because every spell in the game (except home teleport) has a “casting” experience attached to it.
For example, casting “Fire Strike” will give the player 11.5 magic experience for casting it, plus the amount of damage dealt times 2.
So back to the previous question: what is splashing?
It’s the act of casting magic (usually combat) spells on low level monsters that can’t be interacted with by other players, like chickens, while purposely wearing gear that gives enough negative magic attack bonuses to make sure the target never gets hit more than a zero (-64 is the sweet spot).
Tip: don’t go splashing on rats because other players might grief you by killing the rat with their cats (you kinda deserved it if you splash on rats).
But you can then leave your character attacking indefinitely, and come back to click once every 20 minutes to make sure you don’t stop auto-retaliating.
It’s also important to note that splashing doesn’t work around the general area of Lumbridge.
Best F2P Splashing Spots
You might come to realize that basically no splashing location is “better” than the next, since you’ll always get the same experience.
It all comes down to personal preference or geographical position.
For that reason, the best place for a non-members to go splashing (in my opinion) is at the Champions’ Guild.
Due to its close proximity to a bank, you can always leave and gear for a different activity quickly.
You can also drop by the Grand Exchange to stock up on some more runes.
To access the guild you’ll need to have started (but not necessarily completed) the quest “Dragon Slayer”.
If you don’t have the 32 quest points required to enter the Champions’ Guild, then the single chicken in the White Knights Castle courtyard is equally close to a bank.
And Falador is very easy to reach.
Best P2P Splashing Spots
If you’re a member, you quite literally have the entirety of Gielinor to choose from.
My personal favorite spot is the chickens at the small port in East Ardougne (west of Witchaven).
Not a lot of people pass by here, but sometimes someone stops and gives you a “hello” or two.
Gearing For Your Splashing Needs
As we mentioned earlier, you’ll need a minimum of -64 magic attack to make splashing work.
This can be done by wearing:
A full set of plate armor (such as bronze or iron) including the shield
Metal boots of some kind (again, any from bronze to dragon will do)
And any dragonhide vambraces
Next up, depending on the spell you’re casting, you’re going to need the appropriate elemental staff.
Since you’ll most likely be casting fire spells, any staff that provides fire runes is usually the best choice – with the Smoke Battlestaff being the absolute best because it gives unlimited air runes too.
If you don’t care about saving money on runes, then a Harmonized Nightmare Staff is able to autocast spells much faster, netting you more experience per hour.
Pictured above: example build of splashing equipment
And lastly, let’s talk about spells.
Most players usually go with Fire Strike as their spell of choice when splashing, due to the incredibly low cost of a mind rune.
Unless you’ve really got money to burn, it’s not recommended to use any of the higher level combat spells – since even using a chaos rune will be ten times more expensive for only double the experience (and if you do have the money, you should be bursting or barraging instead).
