OSRS Ironman Herblore Guide

For many players, the toughest part of an Ironman run is the battles that you have to face. Leveling up your non-combative skills is the hardest part of an Ironman run, especially if the skill you're looking to level up abilities that heavily rely on item creation like Herblore.

Due to the limited availability of shops and resources for items, Herblore becomes relatively hard to train in an Ironman run. If you're one of those who are struggling to get to 99 on an Ironman account, then you've come to the right place as we've got the perfect guide for you.

What To Know Before Training Herblore In Ironman

According to many players, Herblore training is the hardest to do in an Ironman run. This is mainly because collecting herbs and other ingredients you need for leveling up is fairly limited. Collecting ingredients alone can take a considerable amount of time and effort already.

As this is the case, it's advised to use every experience lamp and book of knowledge into Herblore. If you complete all hard diaries and you've made all potions you've made along the way, you should end up at around level 67-69 Herblore which is a huge boost already. You're also allowed to make ranging potions by this level.

Before the actual guide itself, let's first talk about how you can source ingredients in an Ironman run.

How To Source Materials For Herblore Ironman Training

To gather Herblore ingredients effectively, explore three main avenues: farming, monster drops, and engaging in minigames, with Managing Miscellania being a notable example.

In the realm of farming, acquiring seeds can be accomplished through farming contracts and by pickpocketing Master Farmers. Prioritize daily farming contracts for substantial Herblore and Farming experience, making them your primary source of herb and tree seeds.

Additionally, during Slayer training, you'll come across numerous grimy herbs and secondary ingredients, contributing to your herblore supplies. Embrace these opportunities to bolster your Herblore resources while progressing through Slayer

Getting Herbs And Seeds

If you're a low-level ironman looking to kickstart your Herblore journey, consider obtaining your initial supplies from Wintertodt. Alternatively, target chaos druids or flesh crawlers, as they drop common low-level herbs.

For swift access to ranarr seeds crucial for prayer potions, your best bet is pickpocketing Master Farmers. This method not only yields ranarr seeds but also provides various other seeds for Herblore experience. To maximize efficiency, aim for a high Thieving level. You'll stop failing at pickpocketing Master Farmers at level 94 with the hard Ardougne Diary perk or at level 99 with the Thieving cape. Keep in mind that having at least 71 Farming is recommended due to changes in the Master Farmer's herb seed loot table.

For a comprehensive herb seed collection at any level, engage in farming contracts within the Farming Guild. Explore the Farming section for detailed information.

Additionally, if you're on the Slayer path, it's a primary source of herbs and herb seeds. Monsters like Nechryael, Aberrant spectres, and Dagannoths frequently drop assorted herbs. When focusing on herb seeds, prioritize completing Nechryael tasks in the Slayer Tower with melee over burst/barrage spells in the Catacombs of Kourend. This choice is recommended as Greater nechryael in the Catacombs don't drop as many herb seeds.

Farming Herbs

To optimize your Herblore progress, make it a habit to conduct frequent and consistent herb runs. Clean your herbs while moving between patches to save time for future runs.

Ensure you always use ultracompost on herb patches to minimize the risk of disease and guarantee a minimum yield of 6 herbs per seed when combined with magic secateurs. NPC gardeners won't protect herb patches, and seeds may be scarce, so invest in the best compost available.

Consider utilizing the Fertile Soil spell from the Lunar spellbook for herb runs, especially if you have 83 Magic. This spell eliminates the need to craft ultracompost, saving you valuable time. While obtaining the ash-covered tome for the ultracompost version may take time due to the Volcanic Mine's Kudos requirement, it's a worthwhile investment. Once you have access to Fertile Soil, conduct herb runs while on the Lunar spellbook, and use teleport tablets or Spellbook Swap for patches that aren't easily reachable with the standard spellbook. Having a Lunar or Occult altar in your Player-Owned House (POH) is recommended for swift spellbook switching. Alternatively, using Moonclan Teleport or Teleport to House can efficiently transport you to Lunar Isle.

OSRS Ironman Herblore Training Level 1-99

Now, let's talk about what you're here for. Getting to level 99 Herblore on an Ironman account. As we've said, this is one of the more challenging skills to level up on such a playthrough but it's not at all impossible. It just requires a lot of know-how and hard work.

Early Levels And Questing

To unlock Herblore, begin with Druidic Ritual. Afterward, expedite your early levels by completing quests that offer Herblore experience. The cumulative rewards from Druidic Ritual, Jungle Potion, and Recruitment Drive provide a total of 2,025 Herblore experience, enabling you to reach level 13. Through questing alone, you can amass a total of 9,350 Herblore experience, propelling your Herblore skill from level 1 to 26. This grants you the ability to craft energy potions without having previously concocted any potions.

Here's a breakdown of Herblore experience rewards from specific quests:

• Druidic Ritual: 250 Herblore experience
• Jungle Potion (requires Herblore 3): 775 Herblore experience
• Recruitment Drive (requires Black Knights' Fortress, Druidic Ritual): 1,000.5 Herblore experience
• Zogre Flesh Eaters (requires Big Chompy Bird Hunting, Jungle Potion, Herblore 8, Smithing 4, Ranged 30): 2,000 Herblore experience
• The Dig Site (requires Herblore 10, Agility 10, Thieving 25): 2,000 Herblore experience
• Shades of Mort'ton (requires Priest in Peril, Herblore 15, Crafting 20, Firemaking 5): 2,000 Herblore experience
• Heroes' Quest (requires Herblore 25, Quest points 55, Cooking 53, Fishing 53, Mining 50, and more): 1,325 Herblore experience

Leveling Methods

Once you've done all of the quests, you can choose from a variety of methods to start gaining more Herblore XP. Here, we're going to detail the XP gain for both cleaning herbs and making potions. It's entirely up to you what method you choose. It will, of course, depend on what materials you have.

Cleaning Herbs

Potion Making

Of the two, we highly recommend potion making as a leveling method instead. This doesn't just grant you Herblore XP, it also gives you access to potions that are otherwise going to be very helpful in an Ironman run.

Quests That Need Herblore

As we've said a while back, training Herblore is hard but it's necessary if you want to proceed with some quests and blockades in the game. If you have a high level Herblore already, you might want to consider doing these quests as they often give either Herblore XP or valuable items for training Herblore.

Quests That Reward Herblore XP

Getting to level 99 is obviously tough work. To make it easier, it's highly advisable that you go through all of the quests that reward Herblore XP as well. In that regard, here are the quests that you shouldn't miss out on.

OSRS Ironman Restrictions

Although not a lot of Ironman restrictions directly affect your Herblore training, it's still best to know what the restrictions are. This will make it easier for you to carefully plan out and prepare for what you need to expect in OSRS on runs like these.

Standard Ironman

1. You cannot trade with other players. There are exceptions for certain quest items from quests like Shield of Arrav and Heroes' Quest. You are also allowed to receive bonds.
2. You cannot use the Grand Exchange for any kind of transaction except for bonds. For bonds, you can only purchase these but you cannot sell them.
3. You cannot pick up any loot from the PVE and PVP kills of other players. If you want to loot from other players or monsters, you have to kill the monster yourself. If the player or monster was damaged by another player during the process of being killed, you won't get killed.
4. You cannot gain any XP from PVP encounters. However, the base Magic XP from casting spells during PVP is retained.
5. You cannot use the Accept Aid feature.
6. You cannot enter another player's owned house.
7. You cannot buy items from other players by way of overstocked shops. Simply put, you cannot take advantage of higher sell prices from any understocked shops.
8. You cannot receive items from balloons in the Party Room in Falador.
9. You cannot join group activities in the Nightmare Zone. You also cannot get any resource rewards from the reward chest, with the exemption of the scroll of redirection.

As you can see, there are huge limitations in even the standard version of Ironman. Just the fact that you cannot trade with other players and use the Grand Exchange will already provide you with a ton of challenges. Now, let's move on to the Hardcore Ironman restrictions.

Hardcore Ironman

Now, in Hardcore Ironman ALL of the restrictions from the standard Ironman will carry over. However, what's different this time is that you only have one life. If you die during your Hardcore Ironman run, you'll be brought back to a Standard Ironman account. Additionally, all of your XP and levels on the Hi Scores table will be locked in.

There are a few activities from which deaths are considered safe. Dying from these minigames and activities below won't revert you back to Standard Ironman.

• Barbarian Assault
• Camelot training room
• Castle Wars
• Chambers of Xeric
• Clan Wars
• Dream World but only during Lunar Diplomacy
• Emir's Arena
• Fishing Trawler
• The Fremennik Trials but only 4th phase of the duel with Koschei the Deathless
• Inferno
• Last Man Standing
• Magic Training Arena
• Nightmare Zone
• Pest Control
• Death within a player-owned house
• PvM Arena
• Soul Wars
• TzHaar Fight Cave
• TzHaar Fight Pit
• Random Event
• Rogues' Den (maze)
• Zulrah - Resurrection reward from Elite Western Provinces Diary only

Hardcore Group Ironman

You don't need to tackle Ironman alone. In fact, players do it in a group as it's more fun to try and survive the perils of OSRS Ironman with a few friends. There are a few restrictions that are exclusive to Hardcore Group Ironman but the main limitations from the Standard Ironman and Hardcore Ironman apply here.

1. Each player in a Hardcore Group Ironman is given only one safe PVM death per player. All players will share a pooled number of lives which everyone will need to be mindful of. If there are three players in a Hardcore Group, then they all have three lives to use. Lives can be used by any player and a single player can use up multiple lives from the group. Once this is depleted, players will lose their Hardcore status.
2. In Hardcore Group Ironman, the safe deaths listed above are no longer considered as safe. That means dying from the minigames above will result in a lost life. The only exception here is the Fremennik Trials fight with Koschei the Deathless. With that in mind, Hardcore Group Ironman players need to be very mindful of their moves in minigames.
3. PVP minigames such as Castle Wars, Last Man Standing, and Clan Wars are considered as safe deaths for those in a Hardcore Group Ironman.
4. Lastly, Hardcore Group Ironmen cannot challenge members of the Nex outside their group. This is regardless of what Group Prestige you are in.

Ultimate Ironman

This is, of course, the penultimate challenge of OSRS. For starters, keep in mind that all of the restrictions you have in Hardcore and Standard Ironman modes apply here. Additionally, there are a lot of other restrictions to consider.

1. You cannot deposit, withdraw, or note items inside a bank. Banks are also not allowed to unnote any items.
2. You cannot create any item sets using the Grand Exchange.
3. You cannot receive any resources from Managing Miscellania or Bert who gives buckets of sand daily.
4. You cannot send items to banks using the following methods of transport: Coal Trucks, Dwarven Boatman, and Daeyalt essence.
5. You cannot send your Servant to any banks or the Sawmill.
6. You cannot put anything inside your seed vault.
7. You cannot store any duplicate items inside your POH Costume Room.
8. You cannot withdraw items before first depositing an entire set from which the item belongs to.
9. You cannot use the looting bag's mechanics on a PVP server that's outside of the Wilderness.
10. You cannot protect or safekeep your three most valuable items upon dying.
11. You cannot take advantage of the Protect Item ability in the Prayer skill line.
12. You cannot use graves. Items will drop directly to the ground instead.
13. Inside the God Wars Dungeon and Instances, items are still going to be inside graves and supplies are going to be on the floor.
14. All item retrieval services are the same except for the one at Zulrah.
15. Those in this difficulty can always get their items from Zul-Gwenwynig for free. They also don't have to use an interface to get their items from. This is as opposed to being given the item directly on a standard account.
16. Items that cannot be traded will be dropped upon the death of the player. In the Wilderness, most of the items you have will be turned into coins and given to the player who was able to kill you.

Patience Is The Key

Getting to level 99 in Herblore on an Ironman run is going to take up a lot of time. You'll need patience and a lot of luck to do this. With this guide, you at least know the best way to start leveling up your skill.