Ironman guide

Ironman Mode and Ultimate Ironman Mode are account-types that were released in Old School RuneScape on 13 October 2014, as official support for the Ironman style of playing, where players are completely self-sufficient.

Both modes can only be activated by speaking to either Adam or Paul on Tutorial Island before being teleported to the mainland. You are also able to decide if you would like to be able to type in your bank pin to revert your ironman account into a regular account, or if you want it to be permanent.

Starting Off
Typically, the first step when creating a new account is to create goals, both long term and short term, that allow you to not only stay on track but to also make sure that you don't complete a quest that levels or over-levels a skill that you didn't intend to. One of the main things you should consider before leveling any combat skills is how your combat level will affect all of the various methods of obtaining things through the wilderness. For example, an ironman account may keep their combat level at 3 so that they can catch black chinchompas in the wilderness with little to no chance of being killed via PVP. Another good example, it is worth keeping all combat stats but magic at 1 so you can kill Lava dragons without getting PKed. Regardless of when you start training your combat levels, the most efficient way to level your combat stats is by completing quests which give you large amounts of experience. This causes you to be able to quickly jump up and kick-start leveling so that instead of killing chickens with a bronze dagger, you are able to complete the Waterfall Quest and then The Feud to be able to start training with an Adamant Scimitar before even touching a monster.

General Tips and Tricks
A looting bag allows you to store 28 items. You can only store items when standing in the wilderness. Items in the looting bag do not add to your total weight. Barrows items in the looting bag will not degrade when you die (needs confirmation). Since ultimate ironmen cannot use banks, you can only get your items out of the bag by dying and picking up the items; this will destroy the bag. It is therefore not advised to get high-effort items that disappear on death, such as gem bags or coal bags. Looting bags are dropped by all monsters within the wilderness. The easiest spots are therefore the Giant rats north of Varrock or the skeletons north of Edgeville. A looting bag is counted as a weapon/banned item and can therefore not be taken to Entrana (unless it contains no banned items) or Glarial's Tomb (even if empty). Destroying a looting bag will destroy the items inside and it therefore should be taken into account when doing activities that don't allow a looting bag to be taken inside, like going to the aforementioned areas.

Complete the Abyss (miniquest) upon finishing Rune Mystery Quest as it grants 1,000 Runecrafting experience, gives you the small rune pouch, and allows the player to access the Abyss.

Agility
Trained as normal. Walk or teleport to the highest level course you are able to train on.

Doing Rooftop Agility Courses (like Draynor and Seers' Village) allow you to collect marks of grace, which is used as currency to purchase pieces of the graceful outfit, which possesses weight reduction abilities.

Combat
The Stronghold of Security is a good training option at any combat level, due to the gradual increase in difficulty and abundance of monsters.

Popular sources of food are:
 * Cakes - which have 3 slices that heal 4 hitpoints each - may be stolen or bought in Ardougne.
 * Cup of tea - restores hp depending on level, boosts attack by 3 - can be stolen in Varrock
 * Potato with cheese - heals 16 hitpoints, can be bought from Lidio in the Warriors' Guild
 * Peaches - heals 8 hitpoints and is created from regular bones after casting Bones to Peaches.

Construction
Boosts

A cup of tea made in your player owned house will boost your construction level. These are free to make in your kitchen if you have the proper furniture. A clay cup will boost your level by one, a porcelain cup by 2 and a gold trimmed porcelain cup by 3.

Spicy stew with orange spice allows you to boost your construction level by up to 5 levels.

A crystal saw allows you to build items 3 levels above your construction level. These items must require a saw to build, therefore it does not allow you to build rooms above your level. This effect stacks with skill boosters, as it does not actually change your level. This combined with tea allows you to easily build 5 levels above your construction level and with spicy stew up to 8 levels above your construction level. A crystal saw has 28 charges, thus it is not recommended to use it for training.

Training

Planks - They spawn in various locations. Some locations are close to a deposit box like in Port Khazard.

Planks and Oak Planks can be easily made by using the Loot Bag method. The method is rather simple. Following items are needed: Weight Reduction clothes, ring of dueling, hatchet, money, and loot bag. You will need to have done the Enlightened Journey Quest for balloon travel to Varrock Lumberyard. Procedure as follow: Starting at CW with the items listed above, you go to Varrock Lumberyard via Balloon. You'll cut the trees you want to turn into planks until full inventory. Turn logs into planks. Head north and into the wilderness. Once in the wilderness, fill the loot bag with you planks. Head south, out of the wilderness, and cut your trees for more logs, turn logs into planks. Once filled, use ring of dueling to Castle Wars. Bank and repeat process.

Do not buy iron nails as they are more expensive than steel nails.

Soft clay can be obtained in Rimmington with a bucket of water, mining clay and then turn it into Soft Clay by using a bucket of water on the clay. You can fill your buckets at the house in Rimmington. Once you have the Soft Clay you go straight to your house and train construction (Clay fireplace)

From levels 33-74 you should make Oak larders which requires 17,968 oak planks which = 4,492,000 gp making oak planks.

Cooking
Make wine from buying grapes and jugs from the Culinaromancer's Chest in Lumbridge Castle basement. Each completed subquest in Recipe for Disaster adds 1 grape to the food store in the chest, up to 8 total. After defeating the Culinaromancer, the number will increase to 10. Buy the stock and hop worlds to get a new full chest. Each successfully fermented wine gives 200 Cooking experience. Wines may occassionally go bad, this also occurs at higher cooking levels. However, this method can still earn you as much as 200k cooking experience per hour, if using Lunar spells to fill the jugs with water.

Crafting
For Ironmen, a good way to train Crafting is to buy buckets of sand and soda ash at any Trader crewmember in Port Khazard. Then, quickly bank them using the bank deposit box a short way to the north-west. You can then smelt these into molten glass at any furnace (The one in Port Phasmatys and Edgeville are both close to banks) and then into other glass items with a glassblowing pipe for good experience.

Elemental Workshop I and II will net you a total of 12.5k Crafting (and Smithing) experience, with relatively low skill requirements and being fairly easy to do.

The Hand in the Sand quest once you've gotten 49 Crafting, is highly beneficial, since you can receive 84 free buckets of sand each day from Bert.

For Ultimate Ironmen, a good way to train crafting is to buy buckets of sand and soda ash at any Trader crewmember in Port Phasmatys. Then smelt them into molten glass at the furnace close to the port, then use a glassblowing pipe to make them into other glass items. You can then sell back your products to the traders, since they are a general store. Hop worlds to quickly get a full inventory.

Another method for low-medium crafting is to mine silver in the TzHaar city, which can then quickly be smelted into bars using the furnace or Superheat Item spell. Lastly, the silver bars can be crafted into silver items - bolts are recommended as they stack and can provide fletching experience later. This method can be used to train Smithing, Crafting, Mining, Fletching and Magic.

Farming
When paying Farmers to look after Bushes, Trees, and Fruit trees, don't use any compost as this doesn't affect the time of growth nor the yield when harvesting as it is a fixed harvest. This saves you from wasting your compost.

Tool leprechauns will note all farmed products for you, these can be unnoted at a bank. This includes products which can be farmed and from other sources. A notable exception is the leprechaun at the Falador farm, will not note cabbages.

An effective method for obtaining the early allotment and herb seeds to progress through the lower levels of farming is to pick-pocket the master farmer (38 Thieving).

Potatoes, cabbages, and onions can be gathered indefinitely by going to farming patches and collecting them by hand and storing them in sacks. This is a great method for low level players and it provides payment for low level allotment crops. Bananas can be picked on Karamja and Ape Atoll or purchased from the Traders.

Pineapples can be purchased from Trader Stan's Trading Post or collected at Brimhaven. There are 6 trees that produces 5 pineapples. This is a great way to make super compost early in the game.

Woodcutting will occasionally drop birds nest which contain tree seeds, which are very good for xp.

Mammoths, located in the wilderness, have chances of dropping tree seeds. All uncommon drops.

Planting Barley and Potatoes are easy ways to continue farming when you are low on seeds. Their payments are bucket of composts which can easily be made or bought. Even though this is not the greatest or fastest method, it does keep the exp flowing for cheap.

Bringing sacks and baskets to food shops is a great way to buy bulks of farming products without having to bank as often. Plan accordingly.

Currently the most efficient way for training Farming is the Tithe Farm in Hosidius, Great Kourend. Requirements are 100% favour in Hosidius House and 34 Farming. When done in combination with regular farm runs, players can gain Farming experience well above a hundred thousand per hour at higher levels.

Firemaking
This skill is best trained simultaneously with woodcutting. Light the logs you chop as you go. However, you could alternatively bank the logs and then light enough logs to keep your firemaking and woodcutting within the same level(s). By doing this, you could use the remainder of your logs for fletching.

Collect Maple Logs from Miscellania if you don't want to woodcut.

There is also an area on Ape Atoll, just south of the tunnel entrance; this can be used to train woodcutting efficiently, as well as firemaking.

For ultimate ironmen: clear as much inventory space as possible to minimize time traveling to lighting logs.

Fishing
Fishing and cooking trout and salmon at Baxtorian Falls and selling to Rasolo is the fastest method if you desire experience in both skills.

Otherwise, do Barbarian fishing and drop or cut the fish.

Fletching
Fletching an unstrung bow from a log gives the same xp as attaching a bow string to an unstrung bow, making it quicker to fletch the unstrung bows and selling them to a general store, up until higher levels, where you may chose to string them in order to high alch them.

Doing the Kandarin Achievement Diary will allow you to claim 30, 60, 120 or 250 noted flax each day from the Flax keeper south of Seer's Village. The easy diary requires 16 fishing, 13 farming, 20 agility and either 42 crafting for a fishbowl or receive it as a rare drop from monsters.

For Ultimate Ironmen, smithing mithril darts at the blast furnace to train fletching with would yield the best rates per hour. Otherwise you can simply cut logs and fletch them into bows on the spot. The south-east of the Grand Tree has all tree, from normal to magic, and flax plants located next to 2 spinning wheels. If one desires to make bows for alching, that spot give you the most per hour.

Herblore
Tool leprechauns will note both grimy and clean herbs for you, these can be unnoted at a bank.

Purchasing the Herb Sack for 750 Slayer Points will store 30 grimy herbs of each type.

Training the slayer skill can be an excellent method of obtaining herbs, as many slayer monsters frequently drop assorted types of them, tasks like Aberrant Spectres are an excellent example.

Kill Flesh Crawlers or Druids for fast herb drops.

Plant all herb seeds you get from slayer.

Playing the Sorceress Garden minigame provides herbs. Noting the herbs at the leprechaun in Al Kharid or banking at Shanty Pass. You will also get 3k farming experience per hour.

Vial of water packs can be bought in several shops across runescape, which contain noted vials of water, allowing you to train herblore more easily.

To get the early levels of herblore, it is recommended that the player gathers as many guams as possible, since you can buy packs of eye of newts in several herblore shops across runescape, allowing you to quickly use up your noted guams.

The best herb for ultimate ironman at lower levels is the harralander. At level 26 it can be made into energy potions, which require chocolate dust, which can be bought (and ground up) at the grand tree, allowing you to quickly use up your noted harralanders. At level 36 it can be used to make combat potions, which require goat horn dust. This can be obtained by grinding up desert goat horn, which will be dropped in noted form when you have completed the easy desert achievement diary.

Hunter
Varrock Museum questionnaires provides 1,000 exp to hunter (and slayer).

To be successful catching black chinchompas in the wilderness you should bring imp boxes. Catch imps near Yanille walls because there are a lot of imps in that location. Use the imp boxes at level 30 wilderness to teleport your black chinchompas to the bank, as the imps will not bank items past level 30 wilderness. This method is not useful for Ultimate ironman though.

Magic
A good way to train magic is by collecting 10,000 coins from the Stronghold of security and training on chickens for feathers, once you have reached the require level for fire bolt you can then move on to lava dragons located in the deep wilderness. Lava dragons are a good source of prayer experience and you will always profit every trip as they drop rune items frequently. It is also recommended to bring food and energy potions (if you have the required herblore level) as this is a main area for lower level pker's.

You can also fire strike/bolt fire giants until you get either a rune scimitar or 55 magic.

An alternate, cheap method, is to splash curse to a higher level such as 55. This can be done by equipping full armor including a kiteshield, helm, platebody and legs to get at least -64 magic attack bonus. Then repeatedly cast curse on either the caged lesser demon in the wizard's tower, or the caged zamorak monk in the varrock palace.

Mining
Planning out what you want to do with your ore is important. Mining pure ess for runecrafting, mining ore to make arrow heads, knives, or darts, or just mining ore to make high level armor to alch are important on how to tackle this skill.

Upon reaching level 30, you can enter the motherlode mine which provides a great source of minerals: coal, gold, mithril, adamant and runite ores. Choosing this method of leveling mining on an Iron Man account over power mining will grant the player an effective means of training smithing concurrently. In addition, the store offers coal (able to hold up to 27 pieces of coal) and gem bags (helpful with slayer tasks as many slayer monsters drop gems), clay packs 10 nuggets/pack (will be helpful for crafting/creating teleport tabs [with the exception of Arceuus tabs]), bag of gems 40 nuggets/bag (Not to be confused with the gem bags), as well as mining exp boosting clothing.

Prayer
Prayer is a very important skill due to its utility in combat. Due to prayer's difficulty to train, and the highly desired protection prayers,players should therefore do several quests to start off: restless ghost, priest in peril and the holy grail (in that order). After that kill green dragons (or blue dragons/baby blue dragons) for bones and use them at the ectofuntus north/east of the haunted woods and Canifis because a gilded altar is very difficult to get as an ironman. It is highly recommended to have completed the Ghosts Ahoy quest for the ectophial to quickly teleport to the ectofuntus.

Ranged
Early levels can be trained cheaply and quickly by using the best short bow you can and bronze or iron arrows from Lowe's Archery Emporium. From level 40 onwards it is suggested to use iron or steel knives/darts, along with Green dragonhide armour. Completion of Horror from the Deep gives 4662.5xp in range and can be done at level 1 ranged, bringing you to level 20. After The Lost Tribe, players may choose to use a Dorgeshuun crossbow when they reach level 28. The crossbow uses bone bolts that are very cheap, making it a cost-efficient way to train ranged.

An effective, yet afkable method to train range at higher levels can be to kill bandits within the bandit camp in the Kharidian desert, whilst utilising the cheap and cost-effective bone crossbow and wearing a Saradomin or Zamorakian God item, bringing noted food is extremely useful and there is an NPC capable of unoting items in the camp.

At higher levels (61+), obtaining a rune crossbow to use Broad bolts is desirable due to their cheapness and versatility. A Rune crossbow is commonly dropped by Kree'arra, rarely by the Crazy archaeologist and Uncommonly by Skeletal Wyverns (unstrung). Another way to get hold of one is also to kill Aviansies, which has the runite limbs as a rare drop.

Otherwise, range may be trained in the same way as normal accounts.

See: Ranged training

Runecrafting
Completing the medium Ardougne Achievement Diary will allow you to collect 100 pure ess from Wizard Cromperty each day. In order to train runecrafting, you should clear as much space in the inventory as possible and mine essence yourself, which can then be crafted at an altar. Regular ironmen are recommended to mine and bank essence in varrock then later craft it.



Ultimate ironmen will unfortunately need to mine a new inventory of essence for each trip, it is recommended to do so by teleporting to Ardougne and then to the essence mine via Wizard Cromperty. Get rid of most of your things before beginning training to maximize speed, this can be done by purposefully dying to Zulrah to allow Priestess Zul-Gwenwynig to store your items, this is not recommended if you are training runecrafting in a dangerous manner, as you will lose your stored items upon the second death.

Alternatively, they can mine essence in the wizards tower, which has a fairy ring on its island.

Ultimate ironmen may also wish to collect essence by killing monsters that regularly drop noted pure essence - such as Skeletal Wyverns and Banshees. After amassing a number of noted essence, they may train runecrafting with normal methods by un-noting each inventory of essence at a bank or un-noting merchant. It is also recommended to complete the medium requirements for the Ardougne achievement diary, as this provides 100 free noted pure essence per day from Wizard Cromperty, which can be collected and saved for future runecrafting training.

Ultimate ironmen can also do abyss runs pretty efficiently if they have a glory and access to the recharge dragonstone spell on lunars at 89 magic.

The fastest and most efficient method for runecrafting on a ultimate ironman however would be mining pure essence in the dungeon north of lunar isle and runecrafting astrals.

Runecrafting Method:

Requires: Access to fairy ring, Ecoplasm vial (Or ardy cape), level 27 runecrafting (for cosmics), high agility, ring of dueling.

Use Clan War free-for-all portal to recharge your run energy everytime you are done refilling your inventory. Teleport to a location to gain access to the fairy ring (Ardy cape is quicker). Go to cosmic alter and runecraft. Teleport to Clan War.

Slayer
To train slayer efficiently, it is recommended that you begin after reaching 60-70 combat, with reasonable gear. Consult the Slayer training guide.

Smithing
You can train Smithing cheaply and fast in the Blast Furnace, since you can buy the ores (up to mithril) for relatively little money from the shop and smith nearby in Keldagrim, or if you have 60 smithing, you can smith in the blast furnace itself. There is also a bank in the blast furnace, which makes it incredibly time-saving to bulk smelt all your own ores and bank all the bars to smith in other places. If you do not have 60 smithing, you must pay the dwarven foreman 2500 gp for 10 minutes. There is an armour shop that buys all mithril, adamantite and runite armour for slightly less than the low alchemy price; it is therefore not advised to sell to this shop, since general stores buy items for low alchemy price and specialty stores generally for more than high alchemy price. It is simple to break even or profit by smithing the most most valuable item and high alching them. There is always an army of players/bots operating the machine in the dedicated blast furnace world.

Thieving
Pickpocket men until you are able to steal from cake stalls, then steal cakes until 20, when you can thieve silk stalls. After completing Death to the Dorgeshuun you have access to the H.A.M. store room where you are able to pickpocket the guards for keys. The keys are then used to open chests for jewelry. You can alch them for some money. Level 20 thieving is required, wearing full H.A.M. robes helps reduce the chance of failure. HAM storerooms and high alching the loot is a great way for ironmen (especially ultimate) to make money.

Woodcutting
Going about leveling woodcutting is no different than you would normally, cut the trees you can in order according to xp/hr. Typically you will want to chop willows or maples for the fastest xp and yews and magics for money. Take note that oak planks are useful for training construction; around 15k are required for 75 construction (gilded altar) So it may be beneficial to train the early levels on oaks. The only challenging part about woodcutting is obtaining the axes you need when reaching the next milestone. Players who have access to the Fairy Ring system can use code BKQ and safespot tree spirits for axe drops up to and including rune; this is preferable to grinding the smithing level required to create the axes from scratch.

If you have access to the Woodcutting Guild (75% Favour in house Hosidius, and 60 Woodcutting) You may use the guild as a very quick way to get Logs, Oak Logs, Willow Logs, Maple Logs, Yew Logs, Magic Logs, and even redwood logs, all very near to a bank.

Rimmington yew trees is one of the best places to go to for yew logs as there are 4 yew trees. There are several methods of bank and traveling to/from Rimmington. Hot Air Balloon Transportation from Castle Wars to Crafting guild is a good way to get to Rimmington quick, then teleporting to Castle Wars to bank when you have collected a full inventory of logs. Another method is teleporting to your house, if it is located in Rimmington. Getting to the bank is quite easy: Ring of dueling to Castle Wars, Clan wars, or Barbarian Assault Mini-game (cheaper to make and purchase). Whatever method works for you.

Low Requirements
''Keep in mind that you make more money high alching most items, so a good short term goal to aim for as a new account is 55 magic for high alchemy. ''

Questing
Visit the Quest experience rewards page for a list of all the experience gained from every quest.

The order in which you complete these quests is entirely up to you, but it is highly recommended to start off by completing Waterfall Quest giving you 13,750 Attack and Strength experience, 2 diamonds, 2 gold bars, and 40 Mithril seeds. You should then complete Merlin's Crystal for 6 quest points, Excalibur (stronger than mithril scim), but most importantly, so that you can complete Holy Grail (quest) for 11,000 Prayer Experience and 15,300 Defence Experience. From there it is advised to complete Vampire Slayer and Fight Arena for more Attack experience, Witch's House for 6,325 Hitpoints experience, The Feud for an Adamant Scimitar and access to the Rogue Trader Minigame (a source of rarer runes), Doric's Quest for some mining xp, The Knight's Sword for 29 Smithing, and lastly Tree Gnome Village (quest), Grand Tree, Monkey Madness, and Dragon Slayer. While this might seem overwhelming at first - keep in mind that all of the quest bosses are easily killed via safe spots or flinching.

Murder Mystery grants the player 1406 exp in crafting and 2000gp, no skills required and only item needed is a pot.

Traveling
Keep in mind that the higher your Agility level gets the longer you will be able to run.

When you first begin your Ironman account, your access to transportation is very limited making time spent traveling very high. It is best to try to obtain as many methods of travel as early on as possible in order to minimalize the time you spend walking around during the time spent on your account. Considering all of the various methods obtainable, you don't even need to magic level to be able to travel to all of the same locations; many of which listed below.


 * Teleport to minigame via the Minigame Group Finder in the quest tab. This allows players to teleport to various minigames once every 20 minutes for free.
 * One of the first ways of transportation you can use is the Canoe system. This allows the player to travel between: Lumbridge, the Champions' Guild, Barbarian Village, Edgeville, and a one way trip into the Wilderness.
 * Another item which can be obtained fairly easily is the Ardougne cloak 1 which gives the player an infinite amount of teleports to the Ardougne Monastery.
 * One of the more expensive methods earlier on is using the Charter ship. You can make the trips a lot more cost efficient when chartering from the Karamja port instead. This technique applies for most places and enables you to spend a lot less than you would have normally.
 * Fairy rings
 * Spirit trees can be used to transport the player between the northeastern corner of the Grand Exchange, Tree Gnome Village, Tree Gnome Stronghold, and north east of the Khazard Battlefield.
 * Crafting Games necklace and Ring of dueling
 * Ectophial to the Ectofuntus
 * Camulet
 * Magic carpet
 * Teleport crystal to Lletya
 * An Enchanted Lyre will take you south-west of Rellekka. If you can't catch shark yet, but you have an activated ring of charos, you can charge it with a raw bass.
 * All of the Gnome glider will take you to the Grand Tree glider, from there you can take gliders to the Digsite (it will crash when you get there.), Al Kharid, White Wolf Mountain's peak (combat levels 30 beware!), Feldip Hills (accessible only after the One Small Favour quest). Crash Island (accessible after Monkey Madness) destination only.
 * Balloon transport system
 * Eagle transport system
 * The wilderness teleport lever in Edgeville takes you to the Deserted Keep, pulling the lever at the deserted keep will then take you to a building near East Ardougne along the West Ardougne wall. Pulling the lever from Ardougne will take you back to the Deserted Keep (but not back to Edgeville).
 * If players have completed the Easy Wilderness Diary, they can right-click the lever in the Deserted Keep to go to either Edgeville or Ardougne.


 * Wilderness teleport obelisks
 * Dorgesh-Kaan - Keldagrim Train System
 * Grand seed pod
 * Abyss - By traveling to a specific Runecrafting altar then exiting via the portal
 * Tactical death to Lumbridge or Falador

Obtaining Items/Gear

 * Mithril axe - safespotting blue dragons in the Taverley Dungeon, killing tree spirits, or bought from the Woodcutting Guild.
 * Rune axe - safespotting lava dragons, killing tree spirits or bought from the Woodcutting Guild.
 * Rune scimitar - safespotting fire giants in Waterfall Dungeon
 * Adamant scimitar - Completing The Feud quest.
 * Amulet of accuracy - Completing the Imp Catcher quest.
 * Superantipoison - Near observatory.