OSRS Strength Guide 1–99: Fastest Strength XP by Level

How to Train Strength Fast in OSRS

The fastest Strength XP in OSRS comes from fighting on the aggressive style, which puts all 4 XP per damage into Strength. From 75 Attack, maniacal monkeys on Ape Atoll give 200,000 XP an hour or more, and the wiki puts strong setups near 300,000. Before that, sulphur naguas (from 55) and the Gemstone Crab carry most accounts, with quests covering the first 30 or so levels.

Strength raises your max hit, so it is the melee stat that speeds up every other kill you do. The wiki's advice is to keep your melee stats balanced until you can use your best weapon and armour, then take Strength to 99 first, Attack second and Defence last.

In hours: 75–99 at the monkeys is about 39–59 hours on the wiki's rates, and 70–99 on an AFK Nightmare Zone rumble is about 117–123. At 60 Attack and Defence, the budget obsidian setup out-hits a dragon scimitar, as the comparison below shows.

Strength 1–99 Level Path

The rates below are the ones the OSRS Wiki's melee training guide lists for each spot. Strength level drives them, because it drives damage.

Pick Your Method

Rates are wiki figures for efficient play, from Pay-to-play Melee training, Nightmare Zone/Strategies and the Pump page. Costs are what you burn or earn, because GE prices move every day.

Short version: quests to 30, the crab or naguas to 75, then monkeys for speed or NMZ for AFK. Slayer covers the same levels more slowly but pays for itself.

Obsidian Armour vs Dragon Scimitar at 60–80 Strength

This is the budget question at 60 Attack and 60 Defence. Obsidian armour needs 60 Defence, and with the helmet, platebody and platelegs all worn, obsidian melee weapons get 10% more accuracy and damage. The berserker necklace adds 20% damage, again only with an obsidian weapon, and the wiki's max hit formula treats the full combination as ×1.3.

Without an obsidian weapon none of that applies. The armour is then just +7 Strength over three slots, and the necklace still costs 10 in each melee attack bonus and 20 in every defence. The wiki is blunt about it: if you cannot use all five pieces, do not use the Toktz-xil-ak.

The full obsidian sword setup beats the scimitar by 2–3 per hit at the same 4-tick speed, and the half setup loses to it. The maul hits hardest but swings every 7 ticks, and the wiki notes slower weapons almost always give less XP against low-defence monsters, so it is a PvP pure's weapon rather than a training one.

Where it fits: Nightmare Zone and the Gemstone Crab. For NMZ absorption rumbles the wiki lists obsidian as the next best option after Dharok's and Blood Moon, and at the crab it calls it the strongest set outside those two, with no hourly cost. The same crab page puts Blood Moon at about 100,000 and Dharok's at about 22,000 coins an hour (Gemstone Crab/Strategies). Obsidian does not degrade, so you can sell it on when you move up.

Buying it: mains take all five pieces off the Grand Exchange. In the TzHaar city, TzHaar-Hur-Zal sells the helmet, platebody and platelegs for 84,480, 126,000 and 100,500 Tokkul (310,980 in total, 269,516 with Karamja gloves), but his store is in the inner city, which needs a fire cape. The Toktz-xil-ak is sold in the outer city by TzHaar-Hur-Tel. The dragon scimitar side needs Monkey Madness I and 100,000 coins at Daga; the Arkan blade from The Final Dawn has very similar stats and the same speed (Dragon scimitar).

Hours to 99 Strength

Each line is the XP between the two levels on the wiki's Experience table divided by the wiki rate for that method.

The monkey range depends on gear and how well you stack them; a crystal or dragon halberd special adds upwards of 50,000 XP an hour there (Maniacal monkey/Strategies). For the shortest 99, the monkeys are the only route here under 60 hours.

Best Strength Weapons and Gear by Level

Most of the big Strength upgrades are gated by Attack as well, so check both numbers before you buy.

Voidwaker needs only 75 Attack and is the wiki's pick for the best non-degradable Strength training weapon at that level. Piety (70 Prayer, 70 Defence, King's Ransom and the Knight Waves Training Grounds) adds 23% to Strength and 20% to Attack, which is a bigger jump than most single gear upgrades.

Fastest Strength XP Methods

Aggressive style on the best weapon you can use is the default. Controlled style splits each hit into 1.33 XP for Attack, Strength and Defence, so use it only when you want all three rising together.

Maniacal monkeys stack up in multi-combat, which is why halberds and multi-target weapons do so well there. Hallowfell, a 75 Attack two-handed sword dropped by the Mad Angel on Wyrmscraig, is the wiki's first melee pick there, and its passive can hit up to two extra enemies standing near you. You need to be partway through the grandmaster quest Monkey Madness II to get in.

Dharok's in Nightmare Zone is the old favourite. The wiki now lists it only as a reasonable choice for hard mode, and the set degrades after 15 hours of use.

Cheapest / Budget Approach

Slayer is the cheap long-term route because the drops pay for the supplies. Gargoyles in the Slayer Tower (75 Slayer, a rock hammer and Priest in Peril) are listed by the wiki as making upwards of 700,000 GP an hour, at noticeably lower XP than the methods above.

The Gemstone Crab costs nothing to train on. Its max hit is 1 and it attacks once every 7 ticks, so leave the food in the bank. Our Gemstone Crab guide covers the spots and the team mechanics.

Spend on gear that raises your max hit on tasks you already do. Sulphur blades or glacial temotli do about 10% less XP an hour than the dual macuahuitl at sulphur naguas, so a cheaper weapon there costs less than you might expect.

For AFK training at 60 Attack and Defence, the cheapest strong kit is the obsidian sword setup from the comparison above: no hourly cost, and it resells.

AFK & Lower-Intensity Options

Nightmare Zone, north of Yanille, is the most AFK melee training in the game, with a single click resetting the 20-minute timer. Expect to need super combat and prayer potions for your first few dreams before you have points.

On an absorption rumble the wiki's NMZ strategy page gives up to 100,000–105,000 XP an hour and 3–6 hours per session. Our Nightmare Zone guide covers the rumble setup and how it compares with Slayer.

The Gemstone Crab is the other idle choice and needs only Children of the Sun. The crab burrows about every 10 minutes and you follow it through the caves.

AFK to a breakpoint such as 75 for the dual macuahuitl or Blood Moon armour, then go back to Slayer or the monkeys for speed.

Strength-Only XP: Bludgeon vs Blast Furnace Pump

Both keep your XP on Strength, but they suit completely different accounts.

The pump is slow by design: 60 to 80 Strength at its best rate is about 143 hours, and the wiki says that rate is rarely reached because XP stops whenever the furnace runs out of coke (Pump). The official client also logs you out after 5 minutes unless you change the setting. The Abyssal bludgeon is a 4-tick crush weapon with +85 Strength, and our Abyssal Sire guide covers the grind.

Strength Training Tips

• Max hit thresholds are better goals than round numbers. A level that adds one to your max hit with your current weapon is worth more than one that does not.
• Pair Strength with Attack so accuracy is not left behind; the dual macuahuitl, soulreaper axe and scythe all need Attack too.
• The Warriors' Guild in west Burthorpe opens at a combined 130 Attack and Strength, or 99 in either, and is where you farm defenders from the cyclopes.

Ironman Notes

Strength is the melee stat that most changes what an iron can kill, and it comes mostly free from Slayer and quest rewards. Grinding it in isolation is one of the more common early-Ironman mistakes.

Where it does deserve attention is around specific gear thresholds, meaning the levels that unlock a weapon or an armour set you can obtain without a Grand Exchange. Train to those, then get back to content.

A concrete iron route, from the wiki's Ironman melee guide:

1. 1

   1–30:

   Waterfall Quest has no requirements and gives 13,750 Strength and Attack, enough for 30 in both.

2. 2

   Passive Strength:

   Barbarian Fishing. Fishing 58–99 lands you around 74 Strength and Agility; 74 Fishing is roughly 50 Strength, 84 roughly 60 and 94 roughly 70.

3. 3

   30–55:

   the Gemstone Crab, or sand crabs if Varlamore is not open yet.

4. 4

   55–75:

   sulphur naguas. Sulphur blades drop from the naguas and the glacial temotli from frost naguas nearby, and moonlight potions are made inside Neypotzli, so it needs no outside supplies.

5. 5

   70+:

   NMZ for imbue points. The wiki expects about 70,000 XP an hour with mid-game iron gear (zombie axe, dragon defender, fighter torso), up to 85,000.

6. 6

   Obsidian is a post-fire-cape upgrade:

   the armour store is in the inner TzHaar city, which needs a fire cape, and the berserker necklace means enchanting an onyx necklace yourself with Lvl-6 Enchant at 87 Magic. Our fire cape guide covers the first part.

Hardcore Ironman: the wiki suggests training Hitpoints and having Fire Strike before the early quests, starting with Witch's House. The full combat order for irons is in our ironman combat training guide, and the gear order in the ironman equipment progression guide.

Pure Strength Notes

Pures that keep Attack at 1 are what the wiki calls maulers or strength pures. They rely on weapons with no Attack requirement, like the Tzhaar-ket-om (60 Strength only) and the dragon warhammer (Combat pure).

Most pures cannot wear obsidian armour, which needs 60 Defence. With only the maul and berserker necklace the bonus is ×1.2, which works out to a max hit of 25 at 60 Strength and 31 at 80 under the table's assumptions with nothing else worn.

To keep Hitpoints and combat level down, the wiki lists the Blast Furnace pump at 12,000 Strength XP an hour with no Hitpoints XP. The bludgeon needs 70 Attack, so it is no use to a 1 Attack build. Even at 99 Strength, a 1 Attack pure can only take Ranged and Magic to 67 without raising its combat level. The full builds are in our pure builds guide.

Common Mistakes

1. 1

   Buying the Toktz-xil-ek.

   That is the obsidian knife (+39 Strength). The Toktz-xil-ak, the obsidian sword (+49), is the one every wiki training setup uses.

2. 2

   Running half the obsidian setup.

   Armour or necklace with a non-obsidian weapon gives no bonus, and the sword with only the armour hits 19 at 60 Strength against the dragon scimitar's 20.

3. 3

   Training on controlled when you only want Strength.

   Controlled splits each hit into 1.33 XP for Attack, Strength and Defence; aggressive puts all 4 into Strength.

4. 4

   Taking obsidian on Slayer tasks.

   The helmet takes the slayer helmet's slot and the necklace drops every defence by 20. The wiki keeps obsidian for low-defence targets like NMZ and the crab.

5. 5

   Pumping on an empty furnace.

   The Blast Furnace pump only gives XP while the furnace has coke, and the default client setting logs you out after 5 minutes.

When Paid Training Makes Sense

The Strength levels worth paying for are gear tiers: Blood Moon armour and primordial boots at 75, the soulreaper axe at 80 and the scythe at 90.

If you do order it, specify the route as well as the level range. Monkey stacking, Slayer and AFK Nightmare Zone are different jobs on this skill, with different timelines and different supply bills for the same 99. Our Strength page lists what we need from you, and the work is played rather than botted.

FAQ

Still stuck on a mechanic? Ask the team on our Discord, it is free.

Final Takeaway

Quest to 30, use the Gemstone Crab or sulphur naguas to 75, then take the monkeys for speed or Nightmare Zone for AFK. At 60 Attack and Defence the full obsidian sword setup beats a dragon scimitar, but only with all five pieces.

Browse Strength training, more skill guides, or the full blog for related progression help.