Runescape Pkers Guide

I'll be going over some of the finer aspects of the topic, but first, a few general guidelines:

1. Never run when you do not need to, you made need the energy later to escape from a fight that is not in your favor.
2. Know the terrain, know where non-multi combat zones are, and use this to get away from, or trap your opponents; an example is the dark warrior's fortress, you have probably seen people close the doors behind them as they walk back, making it harder to escape.
3. PK with people you trust, I'm not saying every person you meet in the wilderness who asks to team is out to get you, but be careful.
4. ALWAYS bank after you get a kill, unless they had nothing on them, you don't want to die and lose 2 sets of full rune do you?
5. If you ever see a group of 3+ people walking toward you, tilt your screen and check their levels, if they are anywhere near yours get to a safer area, if they are a decent amount lower, retreat to a non-multi zone and then try to defeat them 1v1.
6. Always have an escape plan.

Preparations

1. Your best set of equipment for whatever type of combat you intend to do.
2. For melee PKers, 1 full Strength Potion is recommended, but not necessary.
3. For mages, adequate runes to suit your needs, (the amount you should bring depends on how much damage the spell does compared to your potential opponents hp, and you should always bring enough to last your through multiple fights, but have some in the bank in case you die)try to take up as little inventory space as you can with these.
4. Rangers, 500+ arrows, some fights can be quite drawn out and you don't want to have to run and pick up arrows in the middle of it.
5. Besides the runes and arrows, ranger and mage equipment is quite cheap compared to melee equipment, so have several sets in bank if you can.
6. Unless you are pure melee or range, you should ALWAYS have runes and a high enough magic level to teleport out of wilderness, preferably to Varrock or possibly Falador.
7. Rest of your inventory gets filled with food, lobbies and swordies are the only way to go, unless you are low level and pking in low level wildy, in which case you might be able to get by the tuna or salmon
8. If you use prayer, make sure its charged obviously.
9. Do not bring anything you are not willing to lose, I PKed a blue Halloween mask once, an example of why you shouldn't bring expensive items into the wilderness unless you plan to use them.
10. You are now ready to PK.

Builds

There are several types of skill builds for PKers, I'll do my best to describe them all.

Regular Build

This is my main's build, it is a balance of everything, and as such may not be quite as suited to fighting pures effectively, but as you get into the higher levels pures become much harder to find, as an example, my main's combat stats are: 74 Str, 67 Att, 65 Def, 69 HP, 63 Mage, 55 Range, the nice thing about the regular build is it allows you to pk with any combat type you please if you are of about equal level in everything.

Strength Pure

There are several types of these, but a True Strength Pure raises nothing but strength, relying on that to do damage rather than armor or weapons, which are restricted to iron.

Next there are various tiers of Str Pures with some attack, which can vary from steel all the way to rune, or for p2p, dragon, which means, aside from only building Strength, they all have just enough attack to use whichever weapon they choose, I seem to see these more than True Strength Pures.

Lastly there are semi-Strength Pures, which are like the ones I just mentioned, but they have Defense as well, making them closer to a regular build except the stats would look more like 40 att, 40 def, 80-90 str, with no magic or ranged.

Magic Pure

Self explanatory, trains only magic, nothing else, I have made 2 of these and they can be quite fearsome opponents, being able to hit 12s with fire bolt in their mid 20s.

Tank Mage

Like a mage pure but has def as well, used to be quite good in rs classic, doing high damage but good resistance to attacks, they dropped out in rs2 though, because wearing armor inhibits the users magic capabilities, making it not worth it.

Range Pure

Another self explanatory, trains only range, although some will raise defense, so they can wear the higher levels of armor*, I have also made one of these, they are quite good because they have fast attacks that are pretty accurate.