Looking to dip your toes into entry-level PVM but not sure where you should start? Barrows is one of, if not the easiest activity you can try at first. While it isn’t an exceptional moneymaker unless you get a good gear drop (a few pieces go for 1-2m each), it’s a nice way to stock up on runes.
I genuinely enjoy doing it every now and then, and my loot tracker shows roughly 20m worth of runes and another 20m in gear after a few hundred chests. In this beginner’s guide, I’ll go over how you can clear Barrows and an extremely affordable yet comfortable gear setup for it!
Recommended Gear & Stats
You should be able to comfortably clear Barrows with 60-70s in combat stats. You need at least 43 prayer, but it’ll be a bit hectic unless you get higher. If you can, try to get 70 prayer as soon as possible, since you’ll need it for a Morytania diary step anyway (more on this later).
For your gear, basic rune armor can get you through it just fine. Here’s an example setup worth just around 200k that works fine at a relatively low level:
- Head: Rune Full Helm / Helm of Neitiznot (if you’ve done The Fremennik Isles)
- Amulet: Amulet of Glory
- Back: Ava’s Accumulator
- Top: Rune Platebody + D’hide switch (any is fine)
- Bottom: Rune Platelegs
- Gloves: Combat Bracelet or your best RFD Gloves
- Shield: Rune Kiteshield
- Boots: Climbing Boots
- Weapons: Air Battlestaff, Hunters’ Sunlight Crossbow (w/ Sunlight antler bolts), and your best melee weapon
- Alternatively, you can swap out the crossbow with a magic shortbow + mithril/adamant arrows.
- If you bring a dragon dagger, you can dump special attacks on Karil before swapping back to your staff. There’s a combat achievement to kill him with just that, but it’s unlikely you’ll get it at the moment.
With this setup, you very likely don’t need to buy a lot of stuff, since you probably already have some of these by now. As for your supplies, you really only need a few things, like the following:
- Some food – Lobsters or swordfish are fine.
- Spade – You can get one in the shed by the entrance of Barrows.
- Around 100-200 death runes to start with – You’ll find that finishing a Barrows run will often “refund” the runes you just used, if not more.
- One or two prayer potions / Moonlight moth mixes – The latter are ideal if you have the hunter levels for them. They’re absolutely better value, especially if you’re an ironman. More info in my “free” prayer potion alternative guide.
- Ring of Dueling – Lets you recover at the Ferox Enclave.
- Your preferred teleportation methods:
- Barrows teleport tabs cost around 2k each, and it’s the easiest way to get there at a low level.
- Home teleport + a Barrows portal (This requires lvl 83 magic, or 78 with a +5 boost. Lvl 50 construction for the portal itself.)
- Home teleport + Use somebody else’s house with a Barrows portal in it. Bonus points if they have an ornate pool for healing back up!
- Morytania Legs 3 and sprint there. (More on this later)
- Fairy Rings – It’s a horribly slow option, but an option nonetheless.
With all of this in mind, the image below is what the setup will generally look like. Substitute the pouch for home teleport tabs, or bring one yourself and slap in some runes for the home TP spell. Ignore the Saradomin brew, cause that’s just so I can drop my stats to test this myself. I don’t write these without actually trying it!
Clearing Barrows
Now, once you teleport to Barrows, you’ll notice that there are six mounds in this area. Whenever you dig on top of one of these, you’ll find yourself in one of the brothers’ crypts.
As a low level/budget player, you’ll want to do these in a specific order to use your prayer points efficiently, because regenerating them isn’t cheap. The following is what you’ll want to do:
- Dharok
- Ahrim
- Karil
- Guthan
- Torag
- Verac
Refer to the image below for a visual reference. This order will take you through the three brothers that you need to pray against, leaving you with just three brothers that you can simply tank your way through.
Fighting Each Brother
Before you start, make sure that you have your staff set to autocast Wind Blast. Even with full armor on, you’re going to hit frequently because all of the brothers except Ahrim have extremely low magic levels.
When you first dig into a crypt, you are gonna be on a timer. After every third of a minute or so, one of the brothers’ faces will pop up in your screen, signaling that a decent chunk of your prayer has been drained. This is why you want to fight them in a specific order.
As soon as you enter, interact with the coffin to spawn that crypt’s brother. Upon doing this, or even before you click on the coffin, turn on the correct prayer depending on the boss you’re facing.
- Dharok – Protect from Melee. Make sure you never run out of prayer here, because he deals more damage the lower his current HP is!
- Ahrim – Protect from Magic
- Karil – Protect from Missiles
- The other three – Pray melee only if you have points to spare. Otherwise, just tank them.
Ahrim – Range Switch
When fighting Ahrim, you should put on your ranged gear before you dig into the crypt. He’s the only one who will put up a fight against magic, so you’ll kill him much faster with the “correct” combat style.
In this case, we’re only bringing in a ranged weapon and a d’hide top so that Ava’s accumulator can do its thing and occasionally save some of your ammo. This is a budget setup, so every penny counts.
Finding the Hidden Tunnel
Whenever you run Barrows, one of the coffins won’t spawn a brother. Instead, you’ll get a message in your chat box saying that you’ve found a hidden tunnel. When this happens and you still haven’t cleared the others, leave the crypt and kill all the other brothers before returning to this one.
When you’re done with the other five, enter the hidden tunnel. Once you’re in this underground area, your goal is to reach the middle room, where the reward chest is found.
Navigating to the Middle
To reach the center, you’ll need to go through the doors with a lighter shade. The darker ones are inaccessible, and this is random for every run.
The second to the last door will always include a simple puzzle before you can go through. If you’re using RuneLite, the “Barrows Brothers” plugin will show you the solution by default, which saves you a few seconds.
One thing to keep in mind is that a random monster will spawn each time you open a door. You’re not required to kill them or the other things roaming around, but to increase the quantity of your final loot, try to kill the following before you get to the middle:
- 2x skeletons
- 1x bloodworm
There is also a small chance that the remaining brother will spawn whenever you open a door, so be ready to pray if it’s one of the first three in our ideal order. On that note…
Reward Chest and the Final Brother
By the time you reach the middle, your prayer has likely been drained down to zero by now. Don’t panic! Save your prayer potions/moonlight moths and only take a sip if one of the dangerous brothers spawn.
Once you reach the middle room without encountering the last brother, they are guaranteed to spawn as soon as you open the reward chest. If the last brother is one of the first three, sip your potion and turn on the appropriate prayer before clicking on the chest.
Depending on your RNG, you should be able to take down the final Barrows brother before your prayer hits zero. If you’re facing Dharok, you might want to take a second sip to avoid his potential one-hit KO.
Once the last brother’s down, interact with the chest again to claim your loot, then teleport out. If you’re still pretty new, teleporting to Ferox Enclave via the Ring of Dueling is an inexpensive way to heal back up and use a bank.
That’s all there is to it. You just get into a loop of teleporting to Barrows, clearing it, and then going to Ferox Enclave.
Here’s a video example of an average run using this budget setup:
Next Steps – Better Setups & Rewards
Later on, you can use a Twinflame staff with wind wave to speed through the brothers. You can earn that from the Royal Titans boss encounter. Mage gear or even full elite void is something you can consider too, as well as an imbued god cape.
If you can complete the medium combat achievements, you’ll get the Ghommal’s hilt 2. While holding this item, your prayer can’t be drained at Barrows. This is something you can work towards as a long-term goal, as an inexperienced player is unlikely to get this immediately.
It makes the activity hilariously chill to the point where you can wear literally anything you want while still avoiding damage… Except from Verac, because he can hit through prayer.
Morytania Legs 3 is another one you can try to get eventually. This requires you to finish the hard tier of the Morytania Achievement Diary. If you’re an ironman, definitely consider working towards this ASAP if you ever plan on farming Barrows.
Not only will this significantly increase the amount of runes you get from the reward chest, but you can also use the legs to teleport to Burgh de Rott. It has unlimited uses, and this puts you just a short jog away from Barrows. It’s a nice free option if you don’t have your own portal yet.
And that’s all from me! By the time you reach these higher level stuff, you’ll have figured out your own setup by then anyway, or have moved on from Barrows completely. I personally enjoy doing it, so I still send some runs here and there just for fun.