Ironman guide

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This article is about the members Ironman guide. For the non-member version, see Free-to-play Ironman guide.
Ironman Guide

This guide aims to give general advice, tips, and suggestions for regular and Hardcore Ironmen. Ultimate Ironmen have their own guide here. <mapframe align="right" text="In order for an account to be an ironman, one must speak to Adam or Paul before leaving Tutorial Island." plane="0" width="300" y="3084" x="3128" height="300" zoom="2" mapID="0">

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Limitations

Playing as an Ironman or Hardcore Ironman adds the extra challenge of restricting your account to being entirely self-sufficient.

Ironmen accounts are restricted to the following general rules:

  • Trading other players is disabled.
  • Ironmen cannot use the Grand Exchange to buy or sell any item with the exception of bonds (which can be bought but not sold).
  • Ironmen cannot Accept Aid.
  • Ironmen cannot gain experience from player-versus-player encounters.
  • Ironmen cannot pick up drops from other players' kills.
  • Ironmen cannot receive help to slay a monster.
  • View the complete list of restrictions here.

Hardcore Ironmen follow these same restrictions, but with the added challenge of only having one life. Any dangerous death will revert the account to regular Ironman status. The player's stats on the Hardcore Ironman Hiscores will also be frozen at the time of death. Safe deaths, such as those in many minigames, will not cause the loss of Hardcore status, unless you are a Hardcore Group Ironman.

Ironman modes must be activated by speaking to Ironman tutor on Tutorial Island before being teleported to the mainland.

Overview

The game can be represented by three main phases: the early-game, mid-game, and end-game.

The early-game consists mainly of questing, training skills to ~60–70, and acquiring best-in-slot ironman mid-game gear. Highlights include:

The typical Ironman mid-game seeks to address the catch-22 that most further gear upgrades will come from high-level bossing, but in order to effectively kill most high-level bosses, gear upgrades are required. While some Ironman players choose a more bossing-focused grind as outlined here, others choose to focus on longer-term skilling grinds to achieve upgrades to their setup. Highlights include:

Once a player has achieved their mid-game upgrades, they are ready to start participating in diverse end-game content. This includes many high-level bosses and raids, each with their own set of powerful upgrades.

Early-game

Transportation

One of the earliest concerns when beginning an Ironman account is reducing the time and resources required to travel around the game world. A new Ironman account starts with very few teleports and, before training Agility, run energy will recharge very slowly.

Training Agility early is beneficial, in that the early levels drastically improve the restoration rate of run energy. It also allows access to time-saving Agility shortcuts. Furthermore, Agility is a very independent skill to train - it only requires access to food, which is readily available through early-game training of Fishing, Cooking, and Thieving. Finally, earning the graceful outfit early on will improve travel time on foot, though it typically takes until Agility is leveled to 60+ to collect the 260 marks of grace required for the full outfit. Further marks of grace can be used to make stamina potions.

New accounts begin with Lumbridge Home Teleport and some teleport destinations in the Grouping interface. These can't be cast in combat and have 30- and 20-minute cooldown periods, respectively. Other destinations for minigame teleport are unlocked by completing quests and/or leveling skills.

Many items and methods exist that allow transport to specific destinations. Here follows the most noteworthy teleport methods that are accessible early- to mid-game.

  • The Ardougne cloak 1 provides unlimited teleports to the Ardougne Monastery. This offers quick access to an altar for restoring Prayer. It is also reasonably close to a fairy ring, a bank, a spirit tree, and a ship that provides access to Brimhaven and Rimmington. The easy Ardougne Diary has low requirements and is quick to complete on a new account.
  • Teleport jewellery provides among the most useful teleports in the game. The ring of dueling, in particular, provides quick access to the Castle Wars bank, and to the restoration pools in the Ferox Enclave. Many jewelry items have low skill requirements to make. Some jewelry such as Dragonstone will not be available until your account progression is further.
  • The fairy ring network greatly expands map travel with its wide variety of destinations. There are many options available, at various stages of the game, to quickly reach a fairy ring.
  • Other teleport methods with low-level requirements include the spirit tree network, the use of gnome gliders, the eagle transport system, and the balloon transport system. It is worthwhile to complete the quest requirements for these transportation methods.
  • Charter ships are available from the start of the game, for a hefty gold price. The price can be reduced by completing Cabin Fever and further by wearing a ring of charos (a).
  • Following completion of A Taste of Hope, Drakan's medallion provides unlimited teleports to Ver Sinhaza. The arrival point is close to the bank, and players can use the nearby Theatre of Blood to restore stats. The medallion is comparable to a ring of dueling, but has unlimited uses.
  • The log canoe stations might be helpful early on in the game before you can afford teleportation because of the law runes, or even lack of magic level, either way it can save you a lot of run energy going back and forth from Lumbridge to Varrock for instance.
  • In the early game players can buy a chronicle from Django in Draynor village for 300 coins and fill it with charges. Charges are 150 coins each. A charge can teleport you to the Champions' Guild near Varrock. It's helpful for players starting out as they don't have Varrock teleport unlocked or access to a lot of Law runes.
  • One more thing to consider is the grouping teleport. Under the group tab you can select a minigame and pick teleport. It's got a 20 minute cool off timer. This can really save you some runes or jewellery. For instance it can take you to Barbarian assault (you will need to finish the tutorial before it can take you there).

Teleport spells

Each magic spellbook has a number of useful teleport spells, all of which require law runes. For early-game Ironman accounts, the best source of law runes is to purchase them from shops. However, at 240+ coins per law rune, they are somewhat expensive. Law runes become much more readily available at 54 Runecraft and after completion of Troll Stronghold, when they can be runecrafted at the Law Altar. Alternatively, players can participate in the Guardians of the Rift minigame for a steady supply of law runes and various other runes.

For teleport spells that are used frequently, it is worthwhile to create one or more portal chambers and direct the portals with those spells. House Teleport's rune requirements are fairly cheap, so for any spell that uses multiple law runes or any expensive runes, it will pay off over time to use House Teleport and take the portal. The portals can later be upgraded to a portal nexus, however this increases the cost per teleport spell from 100 times the runes required, to 1,000 times.

Player-owned house

The player-owned house has many hotspots for teleportation features. When fully expanded, it is the game's premier teleportation hub. As Ironman accounts can't access other players' houses, training Construction is important for upgrading the house's available features.

Among the available teleport methods within a player-owned house:

Moneymaking

High Level Alchemy is a staple in an Ironman's moneymaking plans.
Main article: Ironman Moneymaking Guide

Making money on Ironman accounts is fundamentally different from regular accounts. Ironmen have to do activities that specifically generate coins in some way, as they cannot use the Grand Exchange to simply trade the items in exchange for coins. For example, a regular account could kill Zulrah, receive a tanzanite fang and then sell it to the Grand Exchange for 6,311,076 and the player would have that amount in coins, but an Ironman would only get 66,000 coins from its High Alchemy value.

Most money making methods typically involve casting High Level Alchemy to convert items into coins. Players should alch the items while doing other activities which can be done on the normal spellbook, do not require full inventory and have some downtime to cast the spell. Such activities include farm runs, bird house runs, questing, training Agility, training Hunter and melee combat.

At very low levels, players can sell various alchable items to shops. The General Store in West Ardougne can be used, which buys items at 55% of their value instead of 40%. Shops like Martin Thwait's Lost and Found pay the full High Alchemy value. Once the player has the money to buy the nature runes and cast High Level Alchemy themselves, it is recommended to alch the items as it generates more profit and it can be done in "zero time". Setting level 55 Magic as a short-term goal is therefore recommended for low-level Ironmen.

Another very common moneymaking technique for early game ironmen is to make use of the thieving skill. Blackjacking and stealing valuables are two common methods used to obtain relatively early money, requiring 45 and 50 thieving respectively. Blackjacking is generally more profitable and rewards more experience but also requires much more attention. Stealing valuables, while slightly less efficient, requires significantly less attention while still boasting good profit, experience and minor passive prayer experience in the form of blessed bone statuette.

For players who are struggling to reach 55 Magic and/or who have difficulty with blackjacking, completing the Agility Pyramid provides 10,000 per artifact collected when sold to Simon Templeton at his tent near the entrance; while this course becomes available at 30 Agility, it is highly recommended that players train Agility to at least 60 on the Rooftop Agility Courses while collecting Marks of Grace to purchase pieces of the Graceful outfit before attempting this as a reliable source of income, as Agility level and player weight impact your failure rate when attempting to cross obstacles. This is a very lucrative starting point for low-level Ironmen, as it requires very little for you to be able to start making a considerable profit with which you can fund the training of your other skills. Continuing to train Agility from 60 to 99 using the Pyramid will earn millions of gold without having to collect or expend other resources beyond some food and waterskins.

Coins that Ironmen earn are typically spent on buying skilling supplies from NPC shops, particularly for Construction, Smithing, Crafting, and Magic. Coins are also used for miscellaneous purchases, such as completing the Family Pest quest or upgrading Iban's staff. At high levels, Ironmen spend gold to repair degradable equipment.

Early skill training

Completing quests is the most efficient way for Ironmen to level skills in the early-game. This saves time by avoiding very slow training methods. For example, instead of killing chickens with a bronze dagger, the player can complete Waterfall Quest and The Feud to be able to start training with an adamant scimitar before even touching a monster. Because many quest bosses can be easily safespotted, a player can make very quick early-game progress by completing quests.

When skilling, Ironmen benefit from considering the full range of uses for the supplies and resources produced. For example, one popular Mining training method is to mine iron ore. For the highest rate of Mining experience per hour, some players drop the ore after mining it. However that ore can be smelted with coal in the Blast Furnace to produce steel bars and Smithing experience. The bars could then be smithed into many useful things, such as dart tips for Ranged training, nails for Construction, cannonballs for Slayer, or platebodies to be sold or alchemised. Because Ironmen can't simply purchase skilling supplies through trading, much skilling will follow a similar progression.

Multi-skill methods

Wintertodt

Subduing Wintertodt has very few requirements, and offers decent starting cash and skilling supplies for low-level Ironmen. While players will miss out on most of the better loot with low stats, the rewards benefit much more at lower levels. Getting at least level 60 Woodcutting (achieved at around level 88–90 Firemaking) is recommended for access to the Woodcutting Guild, where players can buy axes up to rune. This way, players do not have to waste time killing monsters for an axe upgrade from steel. Experience gained here scales with the player level in each corresponding skill. It is recommended to both unlock and raise skill levels such as Construction prior to spending an extended amount of time there, as this can dramatically increase total experience gained.

Barbarian Fishing

In addition to Fishing experience, Barbarian Fishing gives small amounts of passive Agility and Strength experience. If done early, it allows players to bypass a significant amount of Agility and Melee training if done for a long period of time. However, this does take a long time and may become too boring for many players.

Training from 58 to 99 costs a few hundred thousand gold to buy all the necessary feathers for bait. This can be compensated by cutting the fish with a knife, which often provides fish offcuts that work as bait and nets a small amount of Cooking experience.

Players will get around level 74 in Agility and Strength if training Fishing from level 58 to 99. However, if players do not wish to train Fishing for a long period of time, there are a few good stopping points:

  • Level 74 Fishing for level 50 Agility and Strength.
    • Level 50 Agility is required for the Rogues' Den minigame for the rogue equipment, and is also a reasonable level for doing Agility Pyramid.
  • Level 84 Fishing for level 60 Agility and Strength.
  • Level 91 Fishing for around level 67–68 Agility and Strength.
    • At level 91 Fishing, players can +5 boost for the Morytania Diary elite task requirement.
  • Level 94 Fishing for level 70 Agility and Strength.
    • Allows access to the Pollnivneach Rooftop Course.
    • Unlocks most of the useful shortcuts (such as the one to blue dragons in Taverley Dungeon).
    • Level 70 Strength unlocks the Warriors' Guild as soon as the player reaches level 60 Attack.

After finishing Barbarian Fishing, it is recommended to train Agility on the Rooftop Courses and get the graceful outfit for questing. Having a high Agility level combined with the graceful outfit ends up saving a lot of time, as players have very limited access to run energy restoration.

Tempoross

Tempoross is another fishing option beginning at Level 35. In many cases Tempoross is preferred to barbarian fishing due to the consistent rewards to include unenchanted jewellery, multiple types of fish scaling with your Fishing level, rune items, certain rares, planks, and uncut gems to include dragonstone which will come in handy later. Utilizing this method one can expect to also gain passive Cooking, Strength and Construction experience if cooking the harpoonfish, using bare-handed fishing and fixing totems and masts as they break.

Questing

For an efficient guide to Ironman questing, see the Optimal Quest Guide / Ironman.

Many low- and mid-level quests award access to new areas, skilling methods, or items that are of great importance to Ironmen. Some of the most important unlocks are noted below.

Mid-game

There is no universal consensus concerning the point at which an Ironman account progresses from "early-game" to "mid-game." Different players assign different criteria to these stages; for example, some players consider an account that has completed Recipe for Disaster to be ready for the mid-game. Other players may disagree with this assessment. In general, an Ironman account is considered mid-game once it has addressed basic concerns such as game world transportation, money-making, and collecting equipment and supplies for efficient combat training.

Slayer training

In Ironman mode, the core of the mid-game stage of account progression is training Slayer. Slayer training provides a wealth of benefits to Ironmen, including combat experience, gold, skilling supplies, and equipment upgrades. Many critical weapon upgrades, such as the abyssal whip and trident of the seas, are accessed by leveling Slayer. See the Slayer guide for more information.

The highest Slayer level to unlock an equipment upgrade is 95, for the alchemical hydra, which drops components for the dragon hunter lance.

Slayer skip/PvM rush

Alternatively, players may opt to skip the mid game slayer grind in favour of a more PvM focused progression. A guide on this can be found at Ironman Guide/PvMRush.

Barrows

The Barrows minigame may be worthwhile to play in order to earn Barrows equipment. In particular, Dharok's set and Guthan's set are useful for combat training and some PvM activities. Karil's armour and Ahrim's robes have high offensive and defensive stats. Karil's crossbow offers higher damage per second than the rune crossbow or crystal bow, bridging the gap between those weapons and the toxic blowpipe.

Note that it may take hundreds of Barrows completions to finish a single set, or obtain the specific desired pieces.

Access to Barrows Teleport will significantly increase the efficiency of Barrows runs. At 78 Magic, Barrows Teleport can be added to a portal chamber in the player-owned house while boosting with a red spicy stew.

Additionally, completion of the hard Morytania Diary is recommended to get 50% more runes from the Barrows chests, and for a teleport to Burgh de Rott, if Barrows Teleport hasn't been unlocked.

Finally, completing the medium tier Combat Achievements significantly eases the difficulty of the minigame as equipping the rewarded Ghommal's hilt 2 prevents the Barrows prayer drain effects.

Midgame Bossing

Scurrius offers an opportunity to practice high-level mechanics with a less punishing boss, boasting competitive combat xp rates as a reward.

Sarachnis can be tackled with a mid-game crush weapon such as Dragon mace, Leaf-bladed battleaxe or Zombie Axe.

Giant Mole is time-consuming to kill before completing the Hard Falador Diary, but afterwards can be farmed consistently for nests.

For non-hardcore and non-ultimate irons willing to risk being PK'd, wilderness bossing is an option. Certain wilderness bosses like Crazy archaeologist and Calvar'ion have a low barrier to entry, even when bringing only three valuable items in case you are killed by PK'ers.

The journey to access Dagannoth Kings can be challenging for players attempting it for the first time. With some preparation however, mid-level players can reliably set up a safespot for Rex in order to obtain the Berserker ring for melee training.

Midgame irons who have completed Beneath Cursed Sands can start attempting Tombs of Amascut at low invocation settings, especially when guided by more experienced players. Irons receive rewards normally from raids, unlike other group combat encounters.

Approaching late-game

Approaching the late-game stage of account progression, irons can tackle the game's greatest challenges, including bossing and raids.

Quest point cape

The quest point cape, earned by completing all quests, is desirable due to its unlimited teleport to the Legends' Guild and a fairy ring. Note that Desert Treasure II can pose a considerable challenge to players unaccustomed to bossing. However, the The Forgotten Four are designed so that their early phases teach players what to expect in later phases, and detailed guides exist to walk players through the difficulty curve.

Bossing

Desert Treasure II will give players a solid foundation for endgame bossing mechanics. After completing this quest, players who have not done so may choose to unlock Boss slayer and pursue the medium and hard combat achievements. These will give the opportunity to learn the specifics of individual endgame bosses.

Phantom Muspah can be lucrative and gates equipment upgrades in the form of the ancient sceptre and eventually the venator bow. After gaining access to anti-venom, Vorkath and Zulrah become much more accessible and provide considerable upgrades such as Ava's assembler and the toxic blowpipe.

Irons can attempt God Wars Dungeon bosses for their useful unique drops, however soloing these bosses can be resource intensive without late game gear such as Justiciar armour for melee or Tumeken's Shadow for magic.

The Gauntlet

For a detailed dive, see the strategy article.

Many irons commit to mastering The Corrupted Gauntlet for end-game crystal equipment. For players who have never attempted it before, getting a single completion of the standard Gauntlet alone poses a steep learning curve, and its corrupted counterpart is even more punishing. Jumping into it blind is unlikely to succeed. However, attempting this challenge requires no resources, allowing players to get comfortable with different elements of the Gauntlet at no cost.

For the purposes of getting familiar with the challenge and its mechanics, players new to the Gauntlet can attempt to make stronger armour so as to adjust the difficulty of the fight. Wearing a full set of tier 2 or tier 3 armour lowers Hunllef's max hit considerably. The standard Gauntlet gives players a bit more time to prepare, making it more realistic to gather higher tier armour and weapons as well as more food and potions. If the current layout makes this difficult, players can leave and reset the challenge at zero cost.

The fight itself consists of multiple mechanics, namely the following: prayer switching, weapon switching, moving off the glowing floors, and dodging tornadoes. Popular guides and plugins exist to make learning considerably easier, such as calling the overhead prayers or visualizing the true tile when running.

Players who have completed the standard Gauntlet a few times, but have yet to succeed at the corrupted version, may choose to complete the standard gauntlet with lower tier armour or within time constraints, as outlined in the combat achievements. Players may choose to pursue some of the elite or master-level achievements for the Crystalline Hunllef in order to ramp up the challenge.

While extremely punishing, the Corrupted Gauntlet is a much more efficient way to obtain crystal equipment. Nonetheless, the standard Gauntlet can serve as a free training ground as well as a source of alchable drops and crystal shards.

Raids

Players can group up with other raiders on dedicated worlds, chat-channels, or searching online. Tombs of Amascut serves as the most accessible raid due to its modifiable difficulty settings. Chambers of Xeric scales with the highest level player in the raid, but the mechanics have a manageable difficulty curve with similarly leveled players and proper communication. Once they've dipped their toes in the water, players can consider the challenging but rewarding Theatre of Blood.

Maxing

If desired, this is also the time to earn the max cape by leveling all skills to 99 or Achievement diary cape.

Obtaining useful items

Items for quests and Achievement Diaries

Items useful at lower levels

Food

Managing Miscellania

After completion of Throne of Miscellania, Managing Miscellania is an excellent way to passively get various resources for skill training. However, players will need a relatively large amount of capital before investing into the kingdom, so it is recommended that one have a safe amount of coins and/or a consistent money-making method.

For the most effective yield from the kingdom, always put a maximum amount of workers on hardwood log production, generally teak logs for mythical cape racks. Mahogany logs are a good option if you find yourself with an excess of coins for construction training. You can also use mahogany logs from kingdom for birdhouse runs, if you do not have better logs from other sources. The remaining workers can be assigned to herb production.

Make sure that the maximum amount is withdrawn every day by having at least 500,000 coins or 750,000 coins after Royal Trouble in the coffers each day for maximum amount of rewards collectible.

The maximum amount withdrawn from the coffers each day is 75,000 coins after completion of Royal Trouble, making upkeep past the initial investment relatively easy for even low level Ironmen.

Skill training

Skill
Agility Agility
Construction Construction
Cooking Cooking
Crafting Crafting
Farming Farming
Firemaking Firemaking
Fishing Fishing
Fletching Fletching
Herblore Herblore
Hunter Hunter
Magic Magic
Combat level Melee
Mining Mining
Prayer Prayer
Ranged Ranged
Runecraft Runecraft
Smithing Smithing
Slayer Slayer
Thieving Thieving
Woodcutting Woodcutting
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