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.

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 Iron man Tutor on Tutorial Island before being teleported to the mainland.

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 diminish very quickly.

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 teleport 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.

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+ gold 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.

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:

• Portal chambers and the portal nexus, where most of the game's teleport spells can be imbued into portals that grant unlimited free access to the spells' destinations.
• The jewellery box.
• The superior garden, which can host a spirit tree and fairy ring.

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 4,897,937 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 also sell various alchable items to shops, but once the player can use High Level Alchemy and has the money to buy the nature runes, it is better 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 Ironman.

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 unlocking the fairy ring in Arceuus. At high levels, Ironmen spend gold to repair degradable equipment and to insure pets.

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. At low Hitpoints players are also able to heal effectively with low-tier food such as cakes or jugs of wine. 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.

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.

Player 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.
  • This allows access to the Seers' Village Rooftop Course, which is a significantly better option compared to the lower-level courses.
• 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 XP 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.

• Bone Voyage unlocks Fossil Island, which also unlocks bird house trapping for Hunter training, ultracompost for farm runs, and yields some tree seeds for Farming experience. Furthermore, Ammonite Crabs are an efficient low-level combat training method.
• Lost City unlocks access to Zanaris, which also unlocks fairy rings (after Fairy Tale I - Growing Pains), the dragon dagger, Chaeldar the Slayer master, and the Cosmic Altar.
• In Aid of the Myreque unlocks Temple Trekking, an effective source of multiple skilling resources. Temple Trekking is more efficient after finishing Darkness of Hallowvale.
• Some quests give cheap God Wars Dungeon protection. Horror from the Deep gives access to all god books with the Book of War being one of the easiest for Bandos alongside the Ancient Mace from Another Slice of HAM. If you side with the Guardians of Armadyl during the Temple of Ikov quest then you receive the Armadyl Pendant. Zamorak Robes are always dropped by Disciples of Iban during the Underground Pass quest. The disciples leave after you complete the quest so stock up while you can. Monks of Zamorak still have a 1/20 drop rate chance with a good spot near the altar north of Castle wars near the Red Salamander hunting spot.

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 Morytania hard diary is recommended.

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.

End-game

At the end-game stage of account progression, the Ironman is ready for the game's greatest PvM challenges, including bossing and raids. If desired, this is also the time to earn the max cape by leveling all skills to 99.

Obtaining useful items

Items for quests and Achievement Diaries

• A mithril axe is required for Animal Magnetism. One can be bought from the Woodcutting Guild, which requires level 60 Woodcutting and 75% Hosidius favour to access. Players who cannot access the Woodcutting Guild can either safespot blue dragons in the Taverley Dungeon, picklock the chest in the Isle of Souls Dungeon requiring level 28 Thieving, kill tree spirits in the Enchanted Valley, or smith one requiring 51 Smithing.
• Players must have a yew bow or better for Temple of Ikov quest. A yew shortbow, longbow or comp bow can be obtained from completing medium clue scrolls, and the respective magic variants from hard clue scrolls. A yew longbow can also be obtained as a very rare drop from a young impling. Alternatively, players can make a yew shortbow at level 65 Fletching.
• A mith grapple is required for various Achievement Diaries, and the best way to get one is to simply make it at level 59 Smithing and Fletching. The only way to get one without the Smithing and Fletching requirements is to kill various monsters (such as Barbarian spirits) in the Ancient Cavern. However, the drop rate is fairly low and the area is very dangerous for low-level players, but players may also get other useful items in the process, such as a yew shortbow for Temple of Ikov quest or a rune scimitar for Melee training.
• 16 magic logs are required for quests, namely for Desert Treasure which requires 12 magic logs. Wintertodt is one of the best places to get magic logs at lower levels and arguably the easiest one. Magic logs can also be obtained from nature implings at level 58 Hunter, or simply cut from magic trees at level 75 Woodcutting.
• A 4-dose Agility potion is required for Tai Bwo Wannai Trio. Players who do not have level 34 Herblore to make the potion can hold an irit leaf cleaned by Zahur in Nardah (for 200 coins), then wait for the Dr Jekyll random event, for which he will trade the irit leaf for a 4-dose Agility potion.

Items useful at lower levels

• The rune axe is very useful for Woodcutting, and one can be bought from the Woodcutting Guild, which requires level 60 Woodcutting and 75% Hosidius favour to access. Players who cannot access the Woodcutting Guild can get one by safespotting lava dragons in the Wilderness or killing tree spirits in the Enchanted Valley.
• The rune scimitar is useful for low-level Melee training. The fastest and the easiest way to get one is to safespot Zamorak warriors in the Ourania Cave. A rune sword could be used instead before the dragon scimitar becomes available, as it only has slightly inferior stats. Rapier could also be purchased instead after Cabin Fever.
• The amulet of strength offers a sizable +10 Strength bonus, which makes it the best amulet to wear for Melee against monsters with very low Defence (such as Ammonite Crabs), only behind the amulet of torture. A ruby amulet can be looted from H.A.M. Store rooms, which can then be enchanted into an amulet of strength at level 49 Magic. The trimmed version is also obtainable from medium clue scrolls. Players can also get an amulet of strength from Shades of Mort'ton silver key chests.
• An amulet of power is an uncommon reward from medium clue scrolls and Shades of Mort'ton silver key chests. The trimmed version is also obtainable from easy clue scrolls, although it is very rare. A diamond amulet can be looted from the H.A.M. Store rooms, which can the be enchanted into an amulet of power at level 57 Magic.
• A 1-dose superantipoison spawn can be found north-east of the Observatory (north of Castle Wars), near the entrance to the Observatory Dungeon. Simply hop worlds to pick up multiple doses.
• Boots of lightness offer free weight reduction, and they can be found in the cellar of the Temple of Ikov. Players do not need to start the quest Temple of Ikov to obtain the boots. A light source is needed to navigate to the basement, and a slash weapon or knife is needed to cut the web blocking the spawn.

Food

• Cakes can be stolen from bakery stalls in East Ardougne and Great Kourend. They heal 12 Hitpoints each (4 Hitpoints per bite) and serve as excellent food for low-level questing.
• The Shrimp and Parrot in Brimhaven sells various cooked fish, such as lobsters, swordfish and most notably karambwan.
• Potatoes with cheese (heal 16 Hitpoints each) and plain pizzas can be bought from the Warrior Guild Food Shop.
• Plain pizzas can be made into pineapple pizzas (pineapples can be bought from any Trader Crewmember), which heal 22 Hitpoints each (11 per bite).
• Fishing raw karambwan is the fastest way to get food and Cooking experience from Fishing once the player has completed the Tai Bwo Wannai Trio quest.
• Cooked manta rays (heal 22 Hitpoints each) are dropped by Zulrah and Vorkath.
• Frankie's Fishing Emporium sells various raw fish, including Raw shark requiring 100% favour with Piscarilius.

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 gp 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
	Construction
	Cooking
	Crafting
	Farming
	Firemaking
	Fishing
	Fletching
	Herblore
	Hunter
	Magic
	Melee
	Mining
	Prayer
	Ranged
	Runecraft
	Smithing
	Slayer
	Thieving
	Woodcutting