MMO player in a league of their own jumpscares their game's entire community with an unassuming screenshot that took 21,840 hours to make

With a screenshot that only gets more terrifying the longer you look at it, one Old School RuneScape player has lured in and subsequently flabbergasted the MMO's community.

The screenshot in question was posted earlier today, October 6, and has since grown white-hot on the OSRS subreddit. JcW07 (just Jcw in-game) dropped by the Reddit to celebrate reaching level 94 in the Slayer skill and a total level of 2,000, letting them access game worlds reserved for high-level accounts.

Now, Slayer is a pretty slow and valuable skill, and 2,000 total is getting up there. This is undeniably a significant milestone for any OSRS player, but it's also the kind of post you see on the MMO's subreddit a lot. 'Hey! I accomplished a thing!' and so on. Good for you, player. Keep at it.

Here's the thing. This post ain't about 94 Slayer or a total level of 2,000. Not really. See, Jcw's skill tab is an outlier among outliers, and there's a reason that the top comment on their post is "What in the hell."

Let's talk about 94 Slayer first, because this is the easier one to explain. Slayer is a skill about, well, slaying monsters – set amounts of specific monsters at the order of a Slayer master. It's therefore a very combat-intensive skill. In fact, it's the premier way to train the MMO's melee, magic, and ranged combat skills for many players due to the bonuses and loot that Slayer tasks yield. So it's quite odd for Jcw to have... zero combat skills. At all.

All of their combat stats are still level one, with their HP at the lowest possible level of 10. At 94 Slayer. How does that even happen? How do you slay that many monsters without getting any combat XP from attacking things and dealing damage?

Fortunately, we don't have to speculate. Jcw explained the mystery in a Reddit reply. OSRS developer Jagex recently introduced some gag weapons which are guaranteed to hit a zero, preventing any combat XP from being earned. By combining these weapons with a second, combat-ready account and some very careful timing, Jcw can train Slayer as a pure pacifist.

"Because normal Slayer kills reward half Slayer XP to final hit, and half Slayer xp to most damage (you may notice this if you've ever been crashed), I'm able to deal the final hit (0) in the same tick as another account, rewarding me half Slayer XP per kill."

OK, that's the no-combat Slayer solved. Now we have to talk about the real boogeyman in this screenshot. Jcw not only has level one in all combat skills, they are also level 126 in all non-combat skills. First of all, this isn't even technically possible because all skills naturally cap at 99. You can only display a higher base level by accounting for overflow XP using game plugins. But that's just scratching the surface. (And yes, they aren't actually total level 2,000, so those exclusive worlds remain out of reach.)

Even with those plugins, you still have to reach 200 million XP in a skill to hit the simulated level of 126 – roughly 15 times the amount of XP needed to actually max a skill at 99, and the maximum possible XP you can earn before the game throws up its hands and stops keeping track. Bear in mind, just reaching level 99 in all skills and obtaining the coveted Max Cape takes most players thousands of hours. The vast majority of that time comes from non-combat skills, particularly bugbears like Agility, Mining, and Runecrafting. Jcw has done that 15 times with an account that can't access anything combat-reliant.

In other words, Jcw has created a true monster, and the OSRS hiscores confirm it. It's one of the most impressive MMO accounts I've ever seen, and I've seen OSRS players cash in 8 years of grinding in 60 seconds and spend 19,000 hours maxing four extremely punishing accounts. Jcw has hit 200 million XP in all non-combat skills and is now leveling Slayer without any actual training whatsoever. It's no wonder that, as they tell me in an interview, they're approaching 22,000 hours played after some 910 in-game days.

Jcw actually hit 200m XP in all skills way back in 2020, and they've kept their level 3, combat-free status ever since. But while they are well-known in the skiller community and maintain bustling YouTube and Twitch channels, plenty of players aren't familiar with their accomplishments, hence the slack-jawed reaction to their Reddit post.

"This is obscene," as one staggered player puts it.

"The 'difficult' parts of a non-combat account for the most part aren't that hard (besides Slayer)," Jcw insists. "There are small things such as not being able to quest for Morytania, sometimes skilling methods are locked behind quests and I have to do something a bit slower. These vary over the years based off updates as well."

Jcw does more than just skill, too, and I'm not just talking about the alt that's carrying them through Slayer. "I was the first person to do a max cape speedrun series, came in second place to He Box Jonge by 22 hours, and I currently speedrun an Ironman to max as well (taking a break to do 99 Slayer since this method came out though)," they explain.

Still recovering from my own shock, I ask how they feel about the new Sailing skill which is currently in the works for OSRS after a successful player poll. "I wasn't originally excited about it," Jcw tells me, "but now that it's officially coming into the game I'm looking forward to it - think it's going to be a lot of fun trying out a new skill."

A part of me sincerely hopes that Sailing can be trained combat-free, because I don't want this dream to die.

Earlier this year, the OSRS devs answered our burning questions about Sailing, the first new OSRS skill in 17 years.