OSRS Ironman Combat Training 1–70: Quest XP, Bone Crossbow, Library

Ironman Combat Training 1–70: the Short Answer

An ironman cannot buy arrows, runes or the next weapon from other players or the Grand Exchange, so the best route to 70 is the one that burns the fewest supplies you have to make yourself. Quests come first. Their rewards put Attack at 45, Strength at 44, Defence at 42, Ranged at 32 and Magic at 35 before you train a level on purpose, and every total below is added up from the reward on each quest's wiki page.

After the quests, each style has one cheap engine. Melee goes to the Gemstone Crab or ammonite crabs and then Slayer. Ranged runs on the Dorgeshuun crossbow and bone bolts from Nardok's shop, which the wiki puts at around 7 hours from 28 to 55 at the Gemstone Crab. Magic runs on the Arceuus Library, where each book pays 15 times your Magic level and costs no runes: about 800 books take you from 35 to 70.

Before You Start: Unlocks and Account Choices

Get these unlocks in roughly this order. None of them is a grind by itself, and each one removes a supply problem rather than adding a little XP. The restrictions behind all of this are on the wiki's Ironman Mode page: no trading, no Grand Exchange except bonds, and no picking up other players' drops.

Settle two things first. Defence is permanent, so decide whether this account wants it before the quests hand you 42 of it; our pure builds guide and Defence guide lay out what each cap costs you. Second, plan your first runes. The wiki's ironman Magic page points to the 10,000 coins from the Stronghold of Security and an elemental staff from Zaff's Staffs, and the UIM page adds that the magic combat tutor in Lumbridge gives out 30 air and mind runes every 30 minutes.

Pick Your Method: Ironman Training Methods Compared

The rates below are the ones the wiki publishes. Where it gives none, the row says so rather than guessing. Supply cost is shown in items, because an ironman pays in bars, feathers and shop coins rather than Grand Exchange gold.

Pick the Gemstone Crab if you want to watch something else: no food, no aggression reset, and a two-click restart when it burrows. Pick ammonite crabs if the crab worlds are packed or you want the numulite and fossils. Pick the Library for Magic whenever you can reach it, since every other early Magic method spends runes you had to buy or craft. Pick sulphur naguas from 55 melee once Perilous Moons is started.

Quest XP for Each Combat Skill (Correct Totals)

Quest rewards are the cheapest combat XP an ironman will ever get. The figures here come from the Quest experience rewards list and each quest's own page, and the levels come from the experience table. Two totals that get passed around are wrong, and the callouts below explain both.

Melee quests

Ranged quests

Magic quests

Ironman Melee Route: 1 to 60, Then On to 70

The wiki's ironman melee page runs the quests in an order that keeps a fresh account alive, and it is worth following even on a regular iron.

1. 1

   Get a few Hitpoints and Fire Strike, then do Witch's House for 6,325 Hitpoints XP.

   The last two forms of the experiment can be safespotted with Magic.

2. 2

   Do Waterfall Quest.

   Nothing has to die, but you walk past level 86 fire giants with no equipment, and the wiki recommends 17 Hitpoints so one hit from full cannot kill you. You come out at 30 Attack and 30 Strength.

3. 3

   Do Death Plateau and Vampyre Slayer.

   Death Plateau also unlocks climbing boots, an early boot with a Strength bonus.

4. 4

   Safespot Tree Gnome Village, Fight Arena and The Grand Tree with strike or bolt spells.

   That leaves you at 45 Attack.

5. 5

   Pick up Holy Grail, Dragon Slayer I and Haunted Mine as their requirements fall into place.

The weapon matters more than the level. The wiki notes that Waterfall Quest plus The Feud lets you start with an adamant scimitar, which drops from the bandit champion during The Feud. From 40 Attack aim for a rune scimitar: fire giants and Zamorak warriors drop it, and both can be safespotted with Magic or Ranged. Then finish Monkey Madness I for the dragon scimitar.

Train at the Gemstone Crab. It has no Defence, so accuracy barely matters there; stack Strength bonus instead, and keep a low prayer like Burst of Strength running, since it always raises your max hit and drains very slowly. Our Gemstone Crab guide covers the three nest locations and the caves between them.

From 55 Attack, sulphur naguas are the step up if you have started Perilous Moons. The wiki gives 75,000 XP an hour at 60 Strength and up to 130,000 at 75 with the Blood Moon set and Piety, and moonlight potions brewed on the spot cover your prayer. Sulphur blades drop from the sulphur naguas themselves, while the glacial temotli comes from frost naguas in the Ruins of Tapoyauik. Past the mid-50s most melee XP should come from Slayer, because the whip, dragon boots and the trident are all locked behind Slayer levels for an ironman.

One passive source is worth starting early: Barbarian Fishing gives about 9,000 Strength XP for every 100,000 Fishing XP, and those levels count most at the bottom of the curve.

Ironman Ranged Route: Bone Crossbow, Bolts and Darts

Quests take Ranged to 32 if Shadow of the Storm's lamp goes there. Without it you sit at 23, so throw darts or fire a shortbow at a crab until 28. Then buy the crossbow. The ironman Ranged page builds levels 28 to 55 around it, and the item page explains why:

• It needs 28 Ranged and is sold by Nardok in the Dorgesh-Kaan mine after The Lost Tribe, not Death to the Dorgeshuun. That second quest only unlocks the Snipe special attack.
• It is one-handed, so the shield slot stays free.
• Attack speed is 5, one tick faster than most crossbows. Only Karil's crossbow and the hunters' crossbows are quicker.
• It has +42 Ranged attack, the same as an iron crossbow, and it is the only crossbow that fires bone bolts. It also takes metal bolts up to iron.
• At 2.267 kg it is the lightest crossbow in the game, and its base price is 2,000 coins.

Bone bolts have +49 Ranged strength, stack, and need 28 Ranged to equip, which is unusual for ammunition. Nardok keeps 1,000 loose bolts at a base price of 3 coins each and 80 packs of 100. Buy the packs: the loose price climbs quickly as you empty his stock. The wiki puts non-stop use on rapid at 1,500 bolts an hour, and the faster attack speed makes their damage comparable to a normal crossbow firing steel or even mithril bolts.

Do Animal Magnetism the moment you have 30 Ranged. Below 50 Ranged it gives Ava's attractor: 60% of shots come back on their own, 20% drop to the floor and 20% break. At 50, Ava upgrades it to the accumulator for 75 steel arrows plus 999 coins or the attractor, and that version returns 72%, drops 8% and still breaks 20%. A metal torso stops either one from working.

That makes the ammo bill easy to plan. At 1,500 shots an hour, 20% breakage destroys about 300 bolts, or three packs. Leave the floor bolts lying with an attractor and it is about six packs an hour. Ironmen also cannot pick up the pile of other players' ammo under the Gemstone Crab, so collect your own.

Darts are the other route if you train Smithing anyway. At the Gemstone Crab, steel or mithril darts outperform shortbows thanks to their speed, and the wiki's strategy page puts 5 to 46 Ranged at around 5,000 darts with an attractor. Without a device a fifth of your arrows are lost and the rest land on the floor for you to pick up, so arrows are far easier to run once Ava's is on your back.

From 55, chinning is the fast lane if you have started Monkey Madness II. The wiki's UIM table lists 412,000 XP an hour at 55 and 483,000 at 65 with red chinchompas and Eagle Eye on, and you catch the chins yourself at 63 Hunter after Eagles' Peak. Without it, stay on bone bolts or darts and push Slayer. The rune crossbow needs 61 Ranged and no quest. Avoid the dwarf multicannon as a Ranged trainer: the wiki counts about 35,000 steel cannonballs from 40 to 70.

Ironman Magic Route: Quests, Then the Arceuus Library

Quests take Magic to 33, or 35 with Horror from the Deep. From there the Arceuus Library beats anything that costs runes. Each book you deliver gives 15 times your current Magic level, so a book is worth 525 XP at 35 and 1,035 at 69.

Three customers, Sam, Professor Gracklebone and Villia, each ask for a book. Biblia on the top floor narrows down the floor and section it is in. Book locations differ between worlds and shift every 80 to 100 minutes, and a quiet world keeps them in place longer. With the Kourend Library plugin on RuneLite, the wiki says efficient players collect upwards of 120 books an hour. Bring graceful or stamina potions, and use fairy ring CIS to get there.

If you would rather cast, use strike spells, because mind runes are the cheapest to keep stocked. Pick the crab by weakness: sand and rock crabs have a 20% earth weakness, and frost crabs in the Ruins of Tapoyauik, reached after The Heart of Darkness, have a 100% fire weakness. The Gemstone Crab with autocast is AFK for 10 minutes at a time, though its strategy page calls Magic inefficient there at every level.

At 55, start alching drops so the coins buy your runes; our alching guide lists what is worth it. The Mage Training Arena is the ironman's road to Bones to Peaches and the master wand. From 70, the wiki's UIM page recommends Ice Burst on Slayer tasks (Ancient Magicks, from Desert Treasure I), which turns Magic into a by-product of Slayer.

Where to Train: Gemstone Crab vs Ammonite and Sand Crabs

All crabs share one trick: they have almost no combat stats and a lot of Hitpoints. Normal crabs stay aggressive for 10 minutes, then you run about a minimap's length away to reset them. The Gemstone Crab never needs a reset.

The Gemstone Crab sits at one of three mines for about 10 minutes, then burrows, and a cave at every nest leads to its new spot. The 16 players who dealt the most damage can mine its shell for three uncut gems, which is free Crafting stock for an iron. It does not count for Slayer tasks and a cannon cannot be set up there. Wear Ava's device, but not a metal torso.

HCIM and UIM Notes

HCIM: one life

• Quest deaths are not safe deaths. Train some Hitpoints and get Fire Strike before Witch's House, and have 17 Hitpoints before Waterfall Quest. For Horror from the Deep the wiki strongly recommends 40 Prayer for Protect from Missiles against the Dagannoth mother.
• The Gemstone Crab is not risk-free. The wiki records 34 hardcore ironmen killed there by 29 August 2025. Range or cast from outside its melee range, and keep your Hitpoints up when you AFK.
• The Arceuus Library has no combat at all, which makes it the safest Magic XP on this route.
• The Nightmare Zone is on the safe-death list for hardcores (not for Hardcore Group Ironmen). Keep it in mind for melee after 70; our Nightmare Zone guide covers the setup.
• A rune crossbow drops from the Crazy Archaeologist in the Wilderness, and the wiki tells hardcores to be extremely cautious there. Runite limbs from iron and steel dragons are the safer road.

UIM: no bank

• Bone bolts stack in one slot, and the wiki's UIM Ranged page calls the crossbow the most convenient option at any level because it is cheap, easy to get and expendable.
• The Gemstone Crab needs no particular gear or inventory, so a UIM can fight it in whatever they are carrying.
• The Library takes nothing from your inventory, and nobody can bank the books anyway.
• Ammonite crabs are the wiki's top crab for UIM melee and Ranged. Their fossils feed Prayer training or pay for the Volcanic Mine's item retrieval.
• Do Barbarian Fishing early for the passive Strength. Our UIM guide and HCIM guide cover storage and death rules.

Hours to 70 for Each Style

Hours are the XP needed divided by the wiki's hourly rate, rounded. The wiki does not publish a melee rate for crabs, so melee uses sulphur naguas for the stretch it covers.

Attack 45 to 60 is 210,142 XP, and how long it takes depends almost entirely on your weapon and Strength bonus. Hitpoints needs no plan of its own: it rises with every hit in all three styles.

Common Mistakes

1. 1

   Waiting on Death to the Dorgeshuun for the crossbow.

   Nardok sells it after The Lost Tribe. The later quest only adds 2,000 Ranged XP and the special attack.

2. 2

   Wearing a metal platebody with Ava's device.

   Metal torsos cause interference, and the device stops collecting your ammo until you swap to a non-metal body.

3. 3

   Buying bone bolts one at a time.

   The price rises as Nardok's stock drops; packs of 100 hold the cost down.

4. 4

   Spending runes on early Magic before trying the Library.

   Every Library book is free XP, while splashing and casting spend runes an ironman has to earn.

5. 5

   Doing quest bosses on a hardcore with low Hitpoints.

   Witch's House first, 17 Hitpoints for Waterfall, 40 Prayer for Horror from the Deep.

Where Paid Help Fits

An ironman cannot buy supplies from other players, so the real cost of 1–70 is hours: the quest chain, the crab sessions and the trips to Nardok. If you would rather spend those hours on bossing or Slayer, our combat training service puts in the crab and Library hours by hand on your account, with no bots, and the account stays an ironman because nothing is traded to it. Hardcore accounts are accepted too; the only risk we flag is a rare disconnection or power-cut death, which you accept before the order starts.

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