Melvor Idle 2 Best Skills to Level First
The best Melvor Idle 2 skills to level first, ranked by what they unlock: food, gear, cash, potions and passive buffs.
"Best" depends on what you are trying to unlock. A first account needs food and gear before it needs a 90 in a gathering skill; a second account with a funded bank can rush the money skill instead. The ranking below is for a fresh Early Access account with no outside help.
It weighs three things: how quickly the skill removes a bottleneck, how much of its output is consumed by other skills, and how well it runs offline. Raw XP per hour is deliberately not the criterion.
The shortlist
| Rank | Skill | First target | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fishing | 40 | Renewable food, sellable surplus, special items |
| 2 | Cooking | 40 | Food that heals enough for quest bosses |
| 3 | Mining | 40 | Ores for Smithing, gems for cash and crafting |
| 4 | Smithing | 40 | Weapons and armour you can replace without drops |
| 5 | Thieving | 40 | Cash, seeds and unique drops |
| 6 | Farming | 30 | Herbs for Herblore, passive real-time progress |
| 7 | Herblore | 30 | Potions that turn boss attempts into clears |
| 8 | Prayer | 30 | Damage and defence buffs with real uptime |
| 9 | Slayer | 40 | Task rewards, monster access, points |
| 10 | Agility | 30 | Passive modifiers for combat and skilling |
Why Fishing and Cooking are first
Every combat plan is a food plan. Fishing produces the raw material, Cooking turns it into healing, and the surplus sells. No other pair removes a bottleneck this early with this little setup.
The second reason is replacement speed. A player who can replace a food stack in one session can afford to attempt a hard quest boss; a player who bought one stack has to stop and farm gold after every failure.
Target: get both to roughly 40 before pushing combat past the first act. That is enough to make food a renewable resource rather than a purchase.
Why Mining and Smithing are next
Drops are random; bars are not. Mining and Smithing give you a predictable gear floor, which is exactly what a quest boss check needs. You do not need the best weapon in the game, you need a weapon you can replace after a bad run.
Train Mining on the highest ore you can gather without excessive failures, then Smithing on the bars that produce gear for your combat style. The Mining guide→ and Smithing guide→ cover the tier transitions.
Early on, a new weapon is worth more than a full armour set. Make the weapon first, then body and legs, then the smaller slots.
Thieving, Farming and Herblore
These three are a chain disguised as separate skills. Thieving produces cash and seeds; Farming turns seeds into herbs on real time; Herblore turns herbs into potions. Skipping the middle step makes Herblore expensive. Skipping Herblore makes every later combat wall a gear check you cannot pass.
Thieving is also the best early cash skill because it does not consume the materials you need for other skills. Selling fish is fine, but selling the fish you need for combat is a false economy.
What about Agility and Astrology?
Both are force multipliers rather than foundations. Agility courses cost cash to switch and give passive bonuses; Astrology gives constellation modifiers and is one of the three skills added for Early Access. They are excellent once your account has a working food, gear and potion loop, and mediocre before that because you cannot exploit the bonuses.
Train them in the 30–60 band, not at hour one. The Agility guide→ and Astrology guide→ explain the setup costs.
Skills that can wait
- Woodcutting and Firemaking are stable AFK money but do not feed combat directly.
- Runecrafting and Magic are a second combat style; build them after the first style works.
- Fletching and Crafting are useful but replaceable by drops early.
- Township-style passive systems are long-term investments; start them once the active loop is stable.
The fastest skill to level is not the best skill to level. A skill that produces something no other skill consumes is a hobby, not a foundation.
FAQ
What is the single best first skill? Fishing, because it feeds Cooking and produces sellable surplus. Cooking is a close second and should be trained alongside it.
Should I level combat before skilling? Level one combat style alongside the food chain. Pure skilling leaves you unable to pass quest bosses; pure combat runs out of food.
Is Thieving better than Mining for money? Thieving is better early because it needs less setup and produces seeds. Mining scales better once Smithing consumes the bars.
How high should I push before Early Access ends? There is no deadline. The full release raises the cap to 120, so aim for a broad 40–60 base rather than a single 99.
Official source: Melvor Idle 2 on Steam ↗ Official source: Early Access announcement ↗ Community source: r/MelvorIdle ↗