For pure melee-only bosses in the Nightmare Zone (NMZ) in OSRS, the most common and reliable picks are:

  • Count Draynor
  • Black Knight Titan
  • King Roald
  • Sand Snake (from Depths of Despair)
  • Moss Guardian
  • Headless Beast
  • Tree Spirit
  • Me (from Lunar Diplomacy)
  • Trapped Soul
  • Khazard Warlord
  • The Bear (from Mountain Daughter)
  • Black Demon (from The Grand Tree)

These bosses either have no ranged/magic attacks or only use melee attacks, so they’re ideal if you want to train melee without worrying about magic or ranged damage spikes.

Quick “AFK” Melee Rumble List

If you’re doing AFK melee training (Rumble mode, normal or hard), many guides recommend rotating these five as your core:

  1. Moss Guardian
  2. Sand Snake
  3. King Roald
  4. Count Draynor
  5. Headless Beast

You can add:

  • Tree Spirit
  • Me
  • Khazard Warlord
  • Trapped Soul
  • The Bear
  • Black Demon

to keep the rotations fresh and avoid over-focusing on one boss, which can help with prayer management and point variety.

Bosses People Often Avoid for Pure Melee

Some bosses are still mostly melee but have annoying ranged/magic elements or extreme mechanics, so they’re less ideal for “melee-only” style grinding:

  • Witch’s Experiment – has ranged/magic components.
  • Elvarg – dragonfire + mixed attacks.
  • Slagilith – has ranged/magic attacks.
  • Nazastarool , Dagannoth Mother , Tanglefoot , Glod , Chronozon , Giant Roc , Barrelchest – various mixed or extreme mechanics.
  • Damis , Kamil , Karamel , Gelatinous Mother – often removed via Ultimate Force if you want a cleaner melee experience.

If you’re just trying to AFK melee XP and don’t care about max points, you can literally run a small set of the pure melee bosses above (like Moss Guardian + Sand Snake + King Roald + Count Draynor + Headless Beast) and let the game cycle them.

Why These Are Good for Melee Training

  • They don’t require heavy ranged/magic defense prep.
  • They’re generally slow and predictable , making them easy to AFK with Guthans gear or basic melee setups.
  • They give solid melee XP without forcing you to constantly switch prayers or move a lot.

If you want a specific rotation for points vs. AFK XP, you can say what your goal is (e.g., “I want 1.5M+ points/hr” vs. “I just want to max melee while AFK”), and I can suggest a tailored boss list. Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.