By This article breaks down the top 10 best bolts in OSRS, giving attention to pure power, as well as how practical and useful they are day-to-day.
Want to know the best bolt for leveling, great PvP bolts, or great dragon killing bolts? Then read on.
A bolt is only as good as the situation you are in.
Using enchanted dragonstone dragon bolts on a high defense player? Total waste.
Dropping an enchanted diamond dragon bolt on a low defense pure? Sure you can still do high damage, but WHY???
More importantly, if you are serious about doing high range damage, you have to have the right set up.
Completing the hard Kandarin Diary is an absolute must, as it will give a boost to your activation chance on any of your enchanted bolts (whether you have the headgear equipped or not).
Also, of course, recommend leveling ranged up to 99. Using Rigour, having a full Elite Void Knight set, and ranging potion at all times will maximize your damage with ANY bolt (duh), but especially the higher end bolts.
Here is a breakdown of the TOP 10 Best Bolts in OSRS, and the right (and maybe wrong?) situation to use them in.
- Enchanted Emerald Bolts
Requires:Ranged 36 Stats: +85 Ranged Strength, 55% chance of triggering Magical Poison (54% PvP).
These are a type of Mithril Bolts that have emerald bolt tips attached, and are enchanted.
These bolts are worth using for the Magical Poison effect – this bolt does some nice poison damage, especially at lower levels.
The high trigger chance makes this bolt even more poison effective than using super poison.
This bolt is essential in the arsenal of a lower level character, and is an especially essential bolt for an OSRS lower level PK.
- Enchanted Opal Dragon Bolts
Requires: Ranged 64Stats: +122 Ranged Strength. Enchanted Procs Lucky Lightning (visible ranged level x 10%)
Enchanted Opal dragon bolts are a great bolt selection – some might say electric, thanks to their Lucky Lightning proc.
These enchanted bolts have a 5% chance of triggering (+ an extra 10% if you’ve completed Hard Kandarin Diary).
Lucky Lightning causes a savage bolt of lightning to strike, inflicting visible ranged x 10%.
These puppies have a +122 ranged strength, so you should be putting out some solid DPS in general.
Once you factor in the proc, especially with HDK bonus, this bolt is a force to be reckoned with, an essential to have in your inventory for boss fights or PvP situations.
- Enchanted Jade Dragon Bolts
Requires: Ranged 64 Stats: Ranged Strength +122. Enchanted proc Earth’s Fury (knockdown effect)
These bolts are a solid option if you are NOT fighting against high agility opponents.
The enchanted bolts trigger Earth’s Fury, an effect that buries your enemy in rocks, knocking them down.
This is a kickass bolt to have in your arsenal, as a knockdown effect is really powerful.
The downside is this bolt needs to succeed on two rolls to proc the knockdown: first roll is to trigger Earth’s Fury (~5% chance), second roll is against your target’s agility.
If they aren’t higher agility, it is going to knock them on their ass.
Use this bolt, but use it wisely, as it is just too expensive to be popping off on everything you see.
- Adamant Bolts
Requires: 46 Ranged. Stats: +100 Ranged Strength
Adamant Bots are considered as one of the strongest ordinary bolts, and they can only be fired using adamant crossbows or higher crossbows, which require 46+ Ranged.
The bolts can be made from the adamantite bar or in Ruby bolts and diamond bolt tips can be attached to them to add more effects during combat.
The price of Adamant Bolts is often higher than most bolts because they do not require a slayer level.
Because of their easy accessibility, they are on the expensive side and are sold at a price of about 191.
Adamant bolts come with a ranged bonus of 100 hence joining the league of the best bolts in OSRS.
- Broad Bolts
Requires: 55 Slayer and 61 Ranged to equip. Stats: +100 Ranged Strength
Plain old broad bolts are an important bolt to have in your arsenal, enchanted or not.
They have +100 ranged damage, and, more importantly, they are cheap as hell to buy.
I know it feels good to have runite or adamant, but if you aren’t pissing coin, broad bolts often do the trick.
Want to get real fancy? You can upgrade your broad bolts to amethyst broad bolts for 15 more ranged damage.
This bolt is a Slayers everyday bolt. This is the best bolt in OSRS for leveling. Respectable damage, reasonable price.
- Runite Bolts
Requires: Ranged 61. Stats: +115 Ranged Strength
These are the fourth strongest bolts in the game behind dragon bolts, onyx-tipped, and dragonstone tipped rune bolts.
These bolts are high damage, but also high price (~4000 for 10). If you aren’t bleeding coin, I recommend saving these for your more ‘special’ engagements, where you need to survive by dumping out serious damage.
These bolts are the best alternative to amateurs or players who are just starting in this game; they come in handy in the early adventures and the best type of ammunition to use as they’ll help you go past your opponents with ease.
- Enchanted Ruby Bolts
Requires: Ranged 46 Ranged Stats: Ranged Strength +103, Bloody Forfeit (11% chance PvP, 6% PvM). Bloody Forfeit hits for 20% targets HP (100 damage cap)
Enchanted ruby bolts are adamant bolts, with ruby bolt tips and enchanted with Enchant Crossbow Bolt (ruby).
The Blood Forfeit proc on these bolts make them a super powerful bolt, especially early on in a fight with a high hitpoint boss.
The enchanted ruby bolt is a great bolt option in OSRS for the God Wars dungeon or against dragons such as Vorkath.
Note that when this effect triggers, it triggers instead of the bolts damage.
This means that you should only use this bolt on higher hitpoint targets, as a lower hp target losing 10% is probably less then the +103 bolts base damage, and therefore a total waste.
- Enchanted Diamond Dragon Bolts
Requires: Ranged 64. Stats: +122 Ranged Strength. Triggets Armour Piercing Effect (1% trigger chance, 11% with completed HDK). Armour Piercing increases max hit 15%, ignores your accuracy and range level / opponents defense on hit.
The enchanted diamond dragon bolt is #3 on this list for a good reason: this bolt can drop some serious damage.
The fact that Armor Piercing ignores your own accuracy and your opponents defense AND it gives you a 15% boost on max hit means that you can drop a 115% max hit on someone with stacked armor.
This bolt is a great bolt for PvP. Make sure you have completed the hard Kandarin Diary, otherwise you are wasting your time and money shooting this bolt.
A stack of will cost around 13,000 coin, so this isn’t an entry level bolt.
- Enchanted Dragonstone Dragon Bolts
Requires: Ranged 64. Stats: +122 Ranged Strength. 6% Chance to trigger Dragon’s Breath (Inflicts dragonfire on target, causing visible ranged level x 20%).
Want to watch some low d pures burn alive in PvP? This is the bolt for you.
The Dragon’s Breath trigger and damage are calculated on Defence. So any target with low defence is going to simply be eaten alive by this bolt.
The enchanted dragonstone dragon bolt is not cheap, but it is also only effective in special situations, so make sure to have some on the ready.
- Enchanted Onyx Dragon Bolts
Requires: Ranged 64. Stats: +122 Ranged Strength. 10% PvP, 11% PvM Chance of activating Life Leech (11% and 12.1% with hKD completed). Life Leech deals 20% extra damage, and heals you for 25% of the TOTAL damage that was dealt.
I feel like I really don’t have to explain how or why this bolt is insanely good. I also don’t really need to talk about why it costs almost 100k for a stack of 10.
I will sum it up this way. You deal the big damage. You get back the hit points. Big success!
If you can afford it, use Enchanted Onyx Dragon Bolts on any high intensity engagement where you are going to be taking some heat.
What did you think of our list of the top 10 best bolts in OSRS? Did we miss something or get something wrong? Please leave a comment and let us know!