The nightmare zone is hands down the best place to train AFK in old school Runescape. In fact, it’s so easy to get max combat here that many players truly despise it.
At the nightmare zone any player can get 99 attack, strength and defence while watching Netflix, skilling on another account or working. Excited yet? Let’s get started with this complete OSRS Nightmare Zone Guide.
What is the Nightmare Zone in OSRS
The nightmare zone is a mini-game located near Yanille. In this mini-game players can fight quest-bosses in a dream-state. Many osrs players come to the nightmare zone to train their melee and ranged.
The nightmare zone is very popular for its AFK play style without the risk of dying as the nightmare zone is a 100% safe mini-game.
On top of the fact that you can safely AFK train at the nightmare zone, players also come here for the rewards. The nightmare zone is the only place that lets you imbue items such as slayer helmet, salve amulets and rings such as: ring of suffering, berserker ring, warrior ring and more.
You can also make money from the nightmare zone by using your points to buy 15 herb boxes every day for 150k profit per day or 4.5M per month.
How to get to the nightmare zone in OSRS
The nightmare zone is located in Yanille. The easiest way to get here is to use the Nightmare Zone teleport in your grouping menu. Your grouping menu can be found in the same place where clan chats are found.
Nightmare Zone Requirements
In order to access the nightmare zone, you must complete a minimum of 5 quests from the list below. These are quests that have bosses that you will need to spawn in the dream state.
There are no stat requirements for the nightmare zone but for the best results you should at least have 70 combat.
The nightmare zone is not a free mini-game. In order to play one of the game modes you need to pay every time. To do this you should first deposit money in the coin pouch (preferably at least 100K).
To start the nightmare zone you should speak to Dominic Onion (make sure you have coins stored in the coin pouch) and select your preferred game mode. Then drink from the vial to start the nightmare zone.
Different NMZ Game Modes
The nightmare zone has three different game modes: practice, endurance, and rumble. Each game mode has two different options: normal or hard mode.
Practice
In practise mode you fight monsters 1 on 1. You don’t get any experience or points for playing this game mode. The only real reason to use practice mode is if you need to recharge your dragonfire shield.
You can recharge your dragonfire shield by selecting practice mode against Elvarg and turning your auto retaliate off. Once your DFS is fully charged, leave practice mode.
Endurance
In endurance mode, you fight monsters 1 on 1 in different waves. The point is that you defeat them all and earn points for each boss you kill.
Beating every boss gains you 215,269 points in normal mode and 771,696 in hard mode.
Rumble (most used)
Rumble is the most used nightmare zone game mode. This is the mode players use to train their stats, AFK, and gain nightmare zone points.
For the best results, you should always select a customizable HARD rumble. This way you can select the monsters you will fight.
Normal mode
Normal mode means every boss spawns with the same hitpoints and combat level they show up in during quests.
Hard mode
In hard mode the hitpoints and attack, strength, magic, and ranged levels of the bosses are doubled.
To get the most NMZ points, you should always select a customizable hard rumble. This way you can select the monsters you will fight and you get the most points for killing those monsters.
Potions At The Nightmare Zone
Training at the nightmare zone comes with more benefits than high AFK Exp rates and nice rewards, you also get access to stat-increasing potions that you otherwise never have access to.
There are 4 different potions in the nightmare zone:
- Super Ranging potions
- Super Magic potions
- Overloads
- Absorption potions
For melee training, you should use the overloads, and for Magic/Ranged you should use the super potions.
A sip from an absorption potion gives you 50 hitpoints on top of your regular hitpoints. So a full potion (4 doses) gives you 200 additional hitpoints. You can sip up to 1000 hitpoints at a time, or 4 full absorption potions.
Absorption potions are necessary if you want to AFK at the nightmare zone.
TIP: you can use dwarven rock cake or locator orb to bring your Hitpoints down to 1. This means the monsters can only hit 1 on you so your absorption potions will last forever!
*You cannot use these potions outside of the nightmare zone.
Your First Game At The Nightmare Zone
Absorption and other potions can only be bought with reward points from the nightmare zone. So you first need to play a couple (or one good) game in order to rack up the points so you can afford the potions.
The way to get these points the fastest is by going into the nightmare zone with prayer potions and surviving until you get at least 100,0000 points. If you don’t get it after one game, play another game until you have the points.
Once you have 100K + nightmare zone reward points you can start buying absorption potions to train at the nightmare zone.
Power-Ups
The nightmare zone has 4 different power-ups that spawn randomly. These can be handy to rack up your points and/or experience per hour.
Ultimate Force (white): wipes all bosses in the room, you get no points or experience
Zapper (purple): deals extra damage to nearby monsters, you get extra points per hour
Recurrent damage (red): deals extra damage per hit to monster, you get extra points per hour
Power surge (yellow): regenerates your special attack for 45 minutes. This can be used to effectively increase your hourly EXP rates by using dragon claws, granite maul, dds, or other spec weapons.Â
Nightmare zone bosses to avoid
There are a couple of bosses you should always avoid in the nightmare zone because they require certain items or spells to kill them or they are just very annoying or hard to kill.
These items will be spawned inside the nightmare zone room but that would just slow you down so you better turn them off.
- Corrupt Lizardman: Can hit through absorption potions
- Elvarg: Drains your stats and you need an anti-dragon shield
- Dagannoth mother: hard to damage her
- Slagilith: You need a pickaxe
- Agrith Naar: teleports you away
- Tanglefoot: you need magic secateurs
- Chronozon: You need blast spells
- Glod: drains your prayer
How to get the most nightmare zone points per hour
In order to get the most points per hour at the nightmare zone you should select as many monsters as you can. The more monsters in your dream, the more points you get. Of course you want to exclude all the bosses we mentioned earlier.
How to get the most EXP per hour at the nightmare zone
The following bosses give you extra EXP when you kill them inside the nightmare zone:
- Moss Giant: 107,5%
- Dad: 110%
- Ice Troll King: 112,5%
- Arrg: 117,5%
OSRS Nightmare Zone AFK Guide
If you want to AFK at the nightmare zone you should always pick a customizable normal rumble with the following boss setup:
- Count Draynor
- King Roald
- The Kendal
- Tree Spirit
- Khazard Warlord
- Bouncer
These have low defensive stats and don’t hit very high to maximize your AFK time with absorption potions.
Armour setup
As for your armour you want to wear full obsidian (helm+platebody+legs) with the obsidian necklace and obsidian sword (toktz-xil-ak).
The full obsidian armour setup will give you a 10% boost in melee accuracy and strength and the necklace will give your weapon an extra 20% damage boost.
Inventory setup
Absorption potions with 5 overloads (or preferably super combats) and possibly 1 spec weapon. If you plan to not check your screen at all you should leave out the spec weapon.
Check out Spellsey OSRS’s video on AFKing the nightmare zone below.
Nightmare Zone Rewards
The nightmare zone has three different reward options: Resources, Upgrades and Benefits.
Resources
The resources contain a bunch of random items as you can see below. The only two valuable items here are the herb boxes and scroll of redirection.
Every day you can buy 15 herb boxes which will result in around 150K profit when you sell the herbs on the grand exchange.
The scroll of redirection can be used on a house teleport tab to switch its end-location. More info here.
Upgrades
The upgrade tab is where you can imbue items. Item imbues range from 500K nightmare zone reward points to 1.25m reward points depending on the items.
Benefits
The benefits tab is where you can buy the potions that you can use inside your dreams.
Summary: OSRS Nightmare Zone Guide
Hopefully, this osrs nightmare zone guide has helped you learn everything you need to know about this awesome mini-game.
Remember: if you want to AFK the nightmare zone you should go for a full obsidian outfit and choose a customizable NORMAL rumble.
If you want to get the most points at the nightmare zone you should go for a customizable HARD rumble and choose as many monsters as possible as the more monsters you have activated, the more points you get.