OSRS 1-99 Runecrafting Guide
- Theoatrix
- 5 days ago
- 15 min read
Updated: 19 hours ago
What's going on guys, my name's Theoatrix and welcome to my updated Runecrafting guide. This guide will teach you everything you need to know to effectively train your Runecrafting in OSRS.
Guide Outline
If you would prefer to watch a video-version of this guide, there is a video below. Otherwise keep scrolling to read the written-version of the guide.
Changes To Runecrafting
In recent times, Jagex has added a range of new training methods…
In march of 2024, they added sunfire runes, which currently bring in over 1 mil profit per hour.
A few months later, jagex introduced aether runes, which broke metas, with xp rates nearing 500k per hour with runners…
This sped up the overall time required for 99 runecrafting, where its now possible to reach 99 in only 35 hours…
Then, in November of 2024, Jagex updated the guardians of the rift minigame with some quality of life improvements, overall making the minigame a smoother experience…
Why Train Runecrafting
With the runecrafting skill, you unlock some of the best skilling money makers in the game … like, with 77 runecrafting at the true blood altar, you can get close to 2 mil profit per hour. Then at 95 runecrafting, wrath runes currently bring in 2.5 mil an hour.
Money aside, runecrafting can be used to passively train other skills…
You gain around 1 million mining and 1 million crafting xp on your journey to 99 runecrafting on zeah…
Or you could gain about 1.5 mil mining xp from the daeyalt essence to reach 99.
There’s also a lot of magic xp gained from teleporting for certain methods as well, which does add up.
Another reason to train runecrafting is to complete quests, and there are currently 7 different quests with a runecrafting level requirement, with the highest being desert treasure 2, at level 60.
This means, you need level 60 runecrafting to get the quest cape, and you need 91 runecrafting for the achievement diary cape.
Important Unlocks
When training runecrafting, theres a range of important unlocks that will greatly benefit your levelling.
The first unlock is essence pouches where these allow you to carry more essence per inventory, and these can be obtained in 2 different ways.
One way to get them is by defeating monsters in the abyss, and this requires the rune mysteries quest and the enter the abyss miniquest.
I'd suggest fighting abyssal leeches in the abyssal area near the ALR fairy ring, and these leeches have a 1 in 42 chance of dropping a pouch, dropped in order from smallest to largest.
The other way to obtain essence pouches is by completing the guardians of the rift minigame, where you get them from looting the reward rift..
When using an essence pouch, it degrades after some usage.
To repair the pouches, you need to talk to the dark mage located at the centre of the abyss.
But with lunar diplomacy and 67 magic, you can cast the npc contact spell, which allows you to speak to the dark mage from anywhere to repair your pouches.
There’s a range of other useful unlocks from the guardians of the rift minigame... and in order to access guardians, you do need to complete the temple of the eye quest. It’s one of the more efficient runecrafting training methods in the game and mixed with the rewards, its strongly recommended to train here for at least some of your journey to 99.
With that, you can get the raiments of the eye set by trading in pearls, and wearing the entire robe set gives you 60% more runes when runecrafting, essentially boosting your gp per hour by 60%.
From guardians, you can also get the abyssal needle, which is used to make the colossal pouch, and this item no longer has an 85 runecrafting level requirement, and now instead scales to your level. Level 25 runecrafters can benefit from 8 extra essence, scaling up to 40 essence at level 85 plus. At this level, it essentially combines all of the essense pouches plus holds an extra 10 essence, making it an essential unlock for most runecrafting methods.
Another very important runecrafting unlock, is the ability to use daeyalt essence. This essence can be used to get 50% extra xp compared to regular essence, although to access the daeyalt mine, you do need to complete the sins of the father quest, and you also need 60 mining.
As a whole, using daeyalt essence means less clicks for 99 runecrafting since mining daeyalt is very afk, with 60 second afk intervals. But, it does take slightly longer to reach 99 runecrafting when using daeyalt, but not that much longer, although the main difference is the AFK aspect of it.
But with that, you can get very high runecrafting xp rates, like when doing solo lavas with daeyalt, its possible to get around 150k xp per hour. But the most efficient use of time is using daeyalt at the ourania altar since it gives more xp per essence, where its possible to get up to 115k xp per hour.
The daeyalt essence mine is located underneath darkmeyer, and here there are 3 rocks.
Only 1 rock is active at a time, and you can tell from the aura that is coming off the rock.
Mining that rock will give you daeyalt shards, which you then take to noranna tytanin who converts the shards to essense and sends them to your bank..
The final important unlock may be the most important of them all, and that is quests that unlock new runes to craft. There’s a range of quests, like mournings end part 2 is required for death runes, and the sins of the father is required to runecraft blood runes, but is not required to make blood runes on zeah.
Pathways To 99
Alright, now im going to show you some example pathways to 99 runecrafting, then ill explain in-depth how to do each method…
Starting off, the fastest pathway to 99, with and without runners. Firstly, with runners, its possible to reach 99 in 35 hours but at a huge cost of 2.8 bil. The pathway involves making tiaras until level 23, then lava runes with runners to 90, then aether runes with runners to 99.
It’s obviously very very expensive, so the fastest pathway to 99 without runners is this…
Its quite similar to the fastest with runners, except the xp rates are about a third of the rate. Also, aether runes arent as fast as solo lavas, so youll spend the entire time from 23 to 99 doing lava runes. Overall, 99 is going to take 137 hours, and thats the fastest possible way to 99 runecrafting without paying runners. In total, the cost for 99 this way is about 1 mil, so much much much cheaper…
So those were the 2 fastest pathways to 99, but runners are expensive, and solo lavas isnt the most enjoyable method, so here i have my recommended pathways to 99, with guardians, ourania, and zeah runecrafting. Guardians is going to take a minimum of 230 hours for 99, with a decent profit too, whereas daeyalt at the ourania altar takes 150 hours of runecrafting and about 100 hours of mining daeyalt, for a total of 250 hours for 99. Or at 77, you unlock semi-afk zeah blood runecrafting, which is going to take around 300 hours from 77 to 99 doing bloods then soul runes, and it also brings in the most profit out of these methods.
Its also worth noting that there are some profitable pathways to 99 runecrafting as well, including making true bloods to 99, or death, aether or wrath runes. All of these methods will bring in over 100 mil in profit on your journey to 99, and ill go into more depth about each method shortly…
Low Level Training
Lets circle back and talk about some low level runecrafting training methods, and the best way to train runecrafting from level 1 is by questing.
Completing rune mysteries then the enter the abyss miniquest gets you from level 1 to 9 runecrafting… then you need level 10 to be able to do the temple of the eye quest, so i would recommend completing a quest that gives an xp lamp reward, and using that xp lamp on runecrafting. So then once youre at 10, completing the temple of the eye will get you through from 10 all the way to 27 runecrafting, and also unlocks the guardians of the rift minigame.
However, questing isnt actually the fastest way to level up from level 1. And the fastest is making tiaras. Tiaras can bring in about 50k xp per hour which is very fast for such a low level…
From level 1, you can make air tiaras, which are most quickly made by using a ring of the elements teleport. To make tiaras, you bring a regular silver tiara and a talisman to the runecrafting altar, then you use the talisman on the altar repeatedly to create tiaras.
The air, water, earth and fire altars are all easily accessed with the ring of the elements teleports, and the ring can be bought off the grand exchange for about 500K. But once you reach level 2 runecrafting, you can also make mind tiaras, and on the grand exchange, they sell mind altar teleport tablets, which takes you right next to the altar. So this is the fastest way to train from a low level, repeatedly making mind tiaras, although water, earth and fire are still a decent option with the elements ring. In terms of cost, youre going to spend 200 to 400k getting to level 23, which unlocks the next fastest method, which is lava runes.
Fastest Methods
And that leads me onto the next section of this video, where i explain how to do the fastest methods in the game…
And firstly, the absolute fastest, which is hiring runners, involves standing at the runecrafting altar, with players trading you essence as fast as possible.
It currently costs 10 to 15 mil per hour per runner, and to get the fastest xp rates in the game, youre looking at over 40 mil an hour with 4 runners.
Here are the xp rates of using at least 3 runners for lava, aether and astral runes, where most notably, aether runes with 5 runners nets over 400k runecraft xp per hour.
To train with lava and aether runes, you do need magic imbue to get these xp rates. Magic imbue requires lunar diplomacy and level 82 magic. Then you get ready with the runners at the fire altar, and it involves casting magic imbue, then trading the runners for essence, and using the earth rune on the altar. Its strongly recommended to use the Essense Running runelite plugin, which includes a range of helpful features.
For aether runes, you meet at the cosmic altar, and for these you need aether catalysts plus soul runes, and you do the same, where you trade essense from the runners, cast magic imbue, but this time you use the soul runes on the altar. Its better to use 4 or 5 runners for aether runes, otherwise youre better off going to lavas.
So those were the fastest ways to 99 runecrafting, but that was using runners, and it costs a lot of money, so the fastest without runners is traditionally runecrafting combination runes solo.
In terms of the fastest solo runecrafting methods, its lava runes from 23 all the way to 99.
Your xp rates scale from around 35k per hour all the way up to nearly 100k xp per hour, and thats with regular essence..
With daeyalt essence, you earn 50 to 150k xp per hour during the time that youre runecrafting, but do keep in mind that it takes time to gather enough daeyalt for an hour of runecrafting…
To get the max xp rates with this method, it really requires the larger pouches or the colossal pouch. The method involves using the ring of the elements teleport to go to the fire altar, then you use magic imbue with a binding necklace to create lava runes.
There are a range of other combination runes, similar to lava runes, which provide very high runecrafting xp rates, including mud, smoke, steam, mist and aether runes…
Mud and smoke runes both cap out at about 84k xp per hour, and bring in up to 500k gp in profit per hour.
Steam and mist runes are a bit faster in terms of xp, and also provide even higher profit rates, where its currently possible to make 1.5 mil per hour with mist runes.
Aether runecrafting nets nearly 40k per hour as well, and this is also highly profitable at this point in time…
So those were the solo essence runs, but theres one more method i havent explained that definitely fits into the fastest methods section of this video, and that is making eternal boots.
This requires 60 runecrafting and 60 magic, and the entire method involves using an eternal crystal on infinity boots. For every eternal boots that you make, you get 200 Runecrafting xp, but it can be a massive loss in GP depending on how patient you are with the grand exchange.
As a whole, i dont recommend this method at all, and its also very hard to maneuver since the GE buy limits dont favour it, but it is possible to get 350k runecrafting xp per hour this way.
Recommended Methods
Now lets move into the next section of this video, which is the recommended training methods to 99 runecrafting… And in this section, ill talk about guradians of the rift, the ourania altar and zeah runecrafting…
Firstly, guardians, and you can first partake in the minigame by completing the temple of the eye quest, and this boosts you from 10 to level 27 runecrafting.
Having a higher agility level can boost your overall output at gotr, where having level 56 agility allows you to access the main starting rock to the east.
Your mining level does not affect how fast you mine at gotr, but mining boosters, like varrock armour or the celestial ring do work here.
In summary, gotr is a non-combat runecrafting minigame, where you help the great guardian seal an abyssal rift. Abyssal creatures come out of the rift, and attack the guardian, but by providing guardian stones and shielding the guardian, you can successfully close the rift.
The main steps of the minigame involve firstly mining guardian fragments, then you chisel those fragments into essence, then you craft runes at the altars provided.
Within the minigame, you gain points for crafting runes and handing in guardian stones.
You get elemental points for making the elemental runes, and catalytic points for making catalytic runes. To roll for a reward within the minigame, you need 1 elemental and 1 catalytic reward point per roll.
Throughout the game, yellow portals will appear where you can enter them to mine essense, and to know when those portals are coming, plus for a range of quality of life improvements, you should install the guardians of the rift runelite plugin.
In terms of items required, all you really need is a pickaxe, but it does help to have essence pouches, along with a rune pouch with runes for npc contact.
Wearing a celestial ring can increase your mining speed for guardian essence, and if you have it, you should bring along varrock armour which also speeds up your mining. You can optionally bring binding necklaces and earth runes to make combination runes for more xp, and if you have an abyssal lantern, you should use yew logs for the point boosting effect.
You can expect decent xp rates at guardians of the rift, ranging from around 20k to 70k xp per hour. At the same time, you get up to 6k crafting and 3k mining xp per hour too…
The next recommended training method im going to cover, is the ourania altar, or also known as Z M I.
This actually has no requirements, other than being a member, but it is recommended to have a decent defence level, and also having access to the lunar spellbook helps dramatically. and, completion of the kingdom divided quest, and with 96 magic, this method becomes a lot better, with spellbook swap into the vile vigour spell.
In terms of xp rates, the ourania altar is similar to guardians of the rift, with xp rates ranging from 20k to over 70k xp per hour. But, you can also use daeyalt essence at ourania, which boosts your xp rate while runecrafting, to 30k to over 110k per hour.
From level 60 runecrafting, all the way to 99, youll need around 570 thousand daeyalt essense, which will take a bit over 100 hours to mine.
While training at zmi, if youre using the ourania teleport spell, along with npc contact, you get around 4 thousand magic xp per hour.
In terms of items, you need essence pouches, your rune pouch, and for runes, you need a dust battlestaff, with cosmic, astral, soul and law runes in your rune pouch if youre using vile vigour, and without vile vigour you can replace the soul and cosmic runes with just mind runes. And the mind runes or the cosmic runes are used to use the bank at ourania. To set up an auto payment, you can talk to the banker and pick a rune from there…
You should bring the raiments of the eye set if you have it, and wearing a defensive shield is helpful here since you do get attacked while running the fastest way.
If you dont have vile vigour, you do want to use stamina potions, and a ring of endurance and graceful does help here.
My final recommended method is runecrafting on zeah, with dense essence.
This requires at least level 77 runecrafting for blood runes, and 90 runecrafting for soul runes… and you also need at least 38 mining and 38 crafting.
In terms of xp rates, you can expect about 35k xp per hour with blood runes, and a bit over 40k xp per hour with soul runes…
Regarding items, all you really need is a pickaxe and a chisel, and the type of pickaxe does not matter. Bringing the raiments of the eye set will increase the overall profit, and this method is quite profitable, but ill explain more about that in the profit section.
Having a higher mining level decreases the chance of the mining rock depleting, and the medium kourend achievement diary gives a chance of mining double the essence.
Its also recommended to have at least 73 agility to be able to use the shortcut when accessing the dense essence rocks.
AFK Methods
Now time for the AFK section of this video, and in this section im going to explain the afk durations while runecrafting…
And first, the ourania altar has some afk aspects to it and is available from level 1 runecrafting… after banking for more essence, you can click all the way to the altar if you have a high render distance. Or alternatively, you can trade or use an item on a player in front of you to follow them all the way to the altar.
The afk time during this period is around 25 seconds, which isnt really that long, but its one of the longest afk intervals for runecrafting.
Secondly, mining daeyalt essence could be considered to be an AFK runecrafting method, where you get 60 seconds of afk time per rock, where it isnt directly AFK runecrafting but does speed up any future training.
Astral runes are similar to the ourania altar, where with a high render distance you can click to run directly to the altar from the bank. This gives an afk interval of 30 seconds, which is decent.
And lastly, arguably the most afk runecrafting method in oldschool, is zeah runecrafting, and during the dense essence gathering segment, its possible to afk for over a minute at a time, but it will sometimes be less than a minute, but sometimes even over a minute. So the afk time varies a bit but its still considered to be the most afk method in the game, but i personally would recommend daeyalt if youre looking to afk.
Profit Methods
Now lets talk about the profitable runecrafting methods, and most runecrafting methods are profitable, and it really comes down to profit and xp per hour. For these methods, its strongly recommended to have the raiments of the eye robes set from guardians, and this gives 60% more runes when runecrafting.
Runecrafting really starts to become profitable once you reach level 77, where runecrafting blood runes at the true blood altar can bring in close to 1.5 mil gp per hour. But that gp per hour is only possible if you have 93 agility for the best shortcut or 74 agility for another shortcut, and without the shortcuts, you can expect a bit under a mil an hour.
With 82 runecrafting, you unlock double astral runes, which dont have any catches like agility, and brings in 800k profit per hour, with about 42k runecrafting xp per hour at its maximum.
Then at 90 runecrafting, you can start making aether runes, and depending on the grand exchange prices, you can make a lot of money with these.
Double nature runes are excellent money as well, but to get the maximum profit rate, you do need the achievement diary cape for the teleport…
Once you reach level 95, you unlock the best runecrafting money maker in the game, which is runecrafting wrath runes. These bring in 2.5 mil gp per hour with the full raiments of the eye set, but you do need to complete dragon slayer 2 to be able to craft them…
Its important to keep in mind that methods like guardians of the rift, the ourania altar and zeah runecrafting all bring in a profit as well…
In terms of profit per hour, you can expect between 200k to 800k profit at guardians,
And 100k to 300k profit at ourania, and with zeah runecrafting its 400k for bloods and 900k for souls…
So overall, you are going to make more money runecrafting at the true blood altar and wrath runes on your journey to 99, but there are benefits to the other methods that dont bring in as much money…
Ironman Training
As an ironman, runecrafting training has a few key differences.
With the need to gather your own essence, there are a variety of ways to get a lot, mostly through bossing, like at zulrah, and through slayer and raids.
But theres also the scar essence mine for getting essence, and you can also get extracts which increase the amount of runes you get while runecrafting.
The training methods though, are much the same as the ones ive already shown in this video. Questing is still the fastest at a low level, and theres guardians, ourania or zeah dense essence. At guardians, you obtain essence throughout the activity, and the same goes for zeah bloods and souls..
As an ironman, theres more reason to do the royal titans bosses, and these drop the desiccated pages which each give 50 runecrafting xp. You can get up to 24 pages as a drop, which is 12 hundred runecrafting xp right there, but that does require 50 runecrafting…
