Free-to-play Woodcutting training

This article is about the free-to-play guide. For the members' guide, see Pay-to-play Woodcutting training.

This guide outlines the best methods for training the Woodcutting skill in free-to-play.

To optimise your Woodcutting experience gained, it's usually fastest to drop your logs instead of banking, both in terms of time saved not travelling to the bank but also time saved by not having to compete for resources, as Woodcutting locations far away from banks are usually empty. This depends on your ability to quickly drop an entire inventory of logs versus the travel time to and from the nearest bank. Some players may find that when cutting willow trees for example, with the very close willows to the bank in Draynor Village, it may be faster and less stressful to bank the logs instead of dropping them.

Training Firemaking alongside Woodcutting may be an appealing choice depending on your situation. For players with a Firemaking level below 45, it's usually an efficient use of your time to burn cut logs; however, once you reach a Firemaking level of 45, it is more time efficient to drop/bank your low-level logs from training Woodcutting and use the saved time to build up money for maple logs or yew logs instead.

Forestry

Players who want to earn anima-infused bark whilst training Woodcutting can do so, but free-to-play worlds can only spawn the Struggling sapling, Rising roots, and Friendly ent Forestry events when wearing the Forestry kit. These events can give players more Woodcutting experience per hour and anima bark to purchase only the felling axe handle if needed.

The probability of spawning an event increases when chopping a high-level tree, chopping with 10 other players on the same tree, or doing both whilst chopping a tree. Below are popular areas where players can spawn events in free-to-play worlds:

Tree	Popular Areas
Oak	West of Draynor Village bank
Willow	South of Draynor Village bank
Maple	Corsair Cove Resource Area
Yew	North of Varrock Palace, South of Edgeville

Axes

Axes are required to train Woodcutting; they range in quality from bronze to rune. Each tier up has a higher chance to successfully cut a tree and thus it is recommended to always use the highest tier axe available. If the Attack level requirement is met, save an inventory space by equipping the axe.

Item				How to obtain	GE Price	Weight	Multiplier
	Bronze axe	1	1	Bob's Brilliant Axes: 16	69	1.36 kg	1
	Iron axe	1	1	Bob's Brilliant Axes: 56	59	1.36 kg	1.5
	Steel axe	6	5	Bob's Brilliant Axes: 200	97	1.36 kg	2
	Black axe	11	10	Reward casket (beginner)	889	1.36 kg	2.25
	Mithril axe	21	20	51 Smithing	113	1.33 kg	2.5
	Adamant axe	31	30	71 Smithing	446	1.587 kg	3
	Rune axe	41	40	86 Smithing	7,232	1.36 kg	3.5

Trees

Level	Logs	Tree	Exp per log
1		Trees	25
15		Oak trees	37.5
30		Willow trees	67.5
45		Maple trees	100
60		Yew trees	175

Levels 1–99

Levels 1–15: Trees

Starting Woodcutting requires cutting trees from level 1 to 15, which grants 25 experience per log.

Trees are found throughout Gielinor. There are large patches of trees south of the Grand Exchange, west of Lumbridge Castle, or outside Draynor Manor. Doing so south of the Grand Exchange allows for easily selling logs as they are cut.

• Starting experience: 0
• Experience required: 2,411
• Logs required: 97 (2,425 experience)
• Profit: 8,439

Levels 15–30/60/99: Oak trees

At level 15, it is recommended to start cutting oak trees, which grant 37.5 experience per log.

Oak trees are found throughout Gielinor. There are several oak tree spots: there are trees south-west of Varrock west bank, two behind Lumbridge General Store, some south of Falador's southern gates and near Port Sarim, and more east of Rimmington. If banking the logs, it is recommended to use the trees near Varrock west bank. There is also one oak tree just outside Falador west bank and another oak tree near Draynor Village's bank that are both very convenient for banking logs.

A table displaying the Oak Logs and XP required to level up, starting at 2,425 XP assuming the player chops exactly enough Logs to reach level 15:

Start	End	Logs	XP Gained	GP Profit
15	30	292	10,950	31,828
30	45	1,576	59,100	171,784
45	60	5,368	201,300	585,112
60	99	340,286	12,760,725	37,091,174

2-tick oaks

Using the same technique as 2-tick teaks for members, auto-retaliate can be used for tick manipulation by artificially resetting the cooldown before a log can be cut.

First, equip any shortbow set to the rapid attack style, with no arrows equipped, and carry your best axe in your inventory. Bring some runes for Confuse and Curse, or equip enough armour to splash and carry runes for a damage spell. (Energy potions may also be helpful, especially if wearing armour.) Just outside the southern Falador gates are two oak trees that are reachable from a single tile, which are also within range of two rats at the nearby farm that can be lured over to the oaks by using Confuse or splashing any spell. Usually, the rats do not end up anywhere close to the trees automatically, so they have to be led there each time manually. This can be very tricky since only the area very close to the trees is multicombat and the rats are very difficult to get to cooperate.

Once both rats are led to the trees and are both attacking you, keep standing on them and moving around a few tiles at a time until the two rats perfectly stagger their attack animations to attack once every two ticks. Then, on the tick that the 0 hitsplat lands on you, click one of the two trees, and on the alternating ticks, either drop a log from your inventory or click underneath you/underneath the tree such that the game registers an action but does not move you. Continuing this pattern gives you a chance at a log every 2 ticks instead of 4.

At 75 Woodcutting, it is possible to get over 82k experience per hour using this method.

Levels 30/60–99: Willow trees

At level 30, players can cut willow trees, which grant 67.5 experience per log.

If dropping logs, oak trees are higher experience rates until level 60, however because willow logs are closer to the bank in Draynor Village compared to the oak trees near Varrock west bank, banking oak and willow logs makes the experience rates equal.

Experience rates are about 35% higher than those achieved when cutting maple trees, however maples are a more AFK method.

The best places to chop willow trees are south-west of the bank in Draynor Village, but beware of aggressive dark wizards. There is also one tree East of Edgeville that is very close to a bank. If a bank isn't required, or if you are level 3 and don't want the dark wizard attacking you, there are more trees just east of the Rusty Anchor Inn in Port Sarim, with a nearby bank deposit box just south on the docks next to the monks. There are more trees west of Farmer Fred's house in Lumbridge, south of the Port Sarim jail, south-east of Rimmington, and east of the Champions' Guild.

A table displaying the Willow Logs and XP required to level up, starting at 13,375 XP assuming the player chops exactly enough Oak Logs to reach level 30:

Start	End	Logs	XP Gained	GP Profit
30	45	714	48,195	52,836
45	60	3,144	212,220	232,656
60	99	189,047	12,760,672	13,989,478

3-tick willows with snow

Players who have completed a Christmas event and have unlocked the snow globe can attempt to use snow for tick manipulation; this gives a chance to cut a willow log every 3 ticks instead of the normal delay of 4 ticks between receiving logs, increasing experience rates by 33.3%. Find a secluded area where you can cut from two willow trees without moving from a single spot. Then, choose the snow option on the snow globe to drop a pile of snow underneath you; there is a delay of 7 ticks before the snow appears. To 3-tick with snow, on tick 1 click the snow, on tick 2 shift-click to drop a set of willow logs from your inventory, and on tick 3 click the willow tree, and repeat this 3-tick pattern. Because snow lasts only 24 ticks and there must be an empty tick with no snow between snowdrops, you have to remember every 25 ticks to click snow on your snow globe. The ideal tick to operate your snow globe for the next pile of snow is on the 18th tick when the current snow is active. The best way to time operating your snow globe every 25 ticks is to create a custom music track or metronome to listen to that plays a sound every 25th beat at 100 beats per minute.

3-tick willows give one of the highest possible Woodcutting experience rates in free-to-play, capping out at a maximum of 85,000 experience per hour at level 99 Woodcutting.

Level	Woodcutting XP W/out 3-tick	Woodcutting XP W/ 3-tick
30	20,000–28,000	26,600–37,240
40	28,000–35,000	37,240–46,550
60	34,000–45,000	45,220–59,850
80	45,000–56,000	59,850–74,480

Levels 45–99: Maple trees

At level 45, players can cut maple trees, which grant 100 experience per log.

Experience rates are about 35% lower than willow trees (when not using tick manipulation), however maples are easier to AFK as they take more time to cut therefore allowing a more relaxed style of grinding. At level 80 Woodcutting, it is possible to obtain 36,000 experience per hour without tick manipulation.

The only place where free-to-play players can cut maple trees is the Corsair Cove Resource Area which has 4 trees and is very far from a bank. It requires completion of Dragon Slayer I to enter. Players must start The Corsair Curse to access Corsair Cove where the resource area is located.

A table displaying the Maple Logs and XP required to level up, starting at 61,570 XP assuming the player chops exactly enough willow logs to reach level 45:

Start	End	Logs	XP Gained	GP Profit
45	60	2,122	212,200	38,196
60	99	127,607	12,760,700	2,296,926

Other methods

Levels 60–99: Yew trees

At level 60, players can cut yew trees, which grant 175 experience per log. While yew logs earn a profit, it is recommended to cut willow or maple trees for experience and use the time saved to earn money doing other things.

The best place to chop yew trees is south of Edgeville bank, as there are two trees close to a bank and each other. Banking can also be made even faster by swapping to the PvP world to bank whenever your inventory fills, as the free-to-play PvP world has a bank extremely close to the yews. Note that the yews are in a PvP zone, but the bank in the building is a safe zone, so as long as you swap worlds in the safe zone, there's no risk to doing this. The next best location to cut yews is behind the Varrock Palace east of the Grand Exchange, and there are also 3 trees south of Falador east bank and another 3 between Lumbridge and Draynor.

For more information, see Money making guide/Cutting yew logs (free-to-play).

A table displaying the Yew Logs and XP required to level up, starting at 273,770 XP assuming the player chops exactly enough Maple Logs to reach level 60:

Start	End	Logs	XP Gained	GP Profit
60	75	5,353	936,775	1,391,780
75	90	23,634	4,135,950	6,144,840
90	99	43,932	7,688,100	11,422,320