And some skills are much harder to level than others. Some might take only a few days to max out, while others might take you months! But out of all the skills in the game, which ones are the hardest to get to 99? Which will take up the most of your time? And which are the most tedious? Let’s explore some of the hardest 99s to get in all of OSRS!
10. Magic
With 22 skills in OSRS, magic is in the goldilocks region: not too fast, not too slow.
That’s why it gets this position in our ranking.
I would tell players to expect about 50k-60k experience per hour training this skill, up until level 70. At that point (provided you have the funds) you can ice burst your way to 99 – which provides some crazy high experience!
But many players prefer to stick to high alchemy as it’s much more cost effective, albeit slower.
The only issue with ice bursting is that it’s very expensive and will put a big burden on your bank account.
9. Woodcutting
This skill can be quite slow and AFK, or quite fast and very click intensive.
I would estimate that 90% of players choose the slow and AFK method, because the high click intensity method is exhausting.
Getting woodcutting experience the slow way is about 40k-50k experience per hour.
Once you reach level 90 Woodcutting, you can chop Redwoods, and those offer a rate of 60k-70k experience per hour (which is much better!)
Players mostly like Woodcutting because it doesn’t require much attention. Just find a good spot and go to town – you can even train this skill while watching Netflix or doing something on the side.
The faster way to train this up involves tick manipulation at teaks, which can result in experience as high as 150k per hour – which is ridiculous!
However, you’ll be clicking constantly.
8. Attack
Attack can be very slow to train. Which is tough, because this is also one of the main melee skills in OSRS. Attack unlocks new weapon classes as you level up, and also determines how accurate you’ll be in a fight. The best way to start with this skill is to complete quests to get some easy attack levels quickly – such as the Grand Tree and Waterfall Quest, which can be done by novice players. Another great part of this skill is that it’s very versatile. Attack can be trained in a variety of places, and even in conjunction with other skills like Slayer! I personally recommend training it via Slayer. But if you want faster experience, you can head over the Nightmare Zone to AFK to 99 at a faster rate. I recommend using an Abyssal whip from level 70 to 99, as it’s the fastest way to get attack experience for that range.
7. Strength
Here’s another one of the melee skills, and strength is one of the most common 99’s to get. It determines your max hit in the game, which is a very important factor for combat. As with training attack, I recommend doing some early level quests for strength training. Namely Haunted Mine, Dragon Slayer I, and Waterfall Quest. All of those can offer some early game experience. Strength can also be trained in a variety of ways beyond early quests, including alongside Slayer! For gear, I’d say the Dragon Scimitar, Abyssal Bludgeon, and Saradomin Sword are all great weapons to train this stat.
6. Hunter
Players usually fall into two camps with training Hunter. Most people either find this to be extremely tedious, or to be very exciting. Either way, there are a variety of ways to get to 99 – although some are much slower and harder than others. This is a skill that can be highly profitable for slower experience, or fast with no profit at all. For example: birdhouse runs are a popular passive method of gaining hunter experience. However, doing this to 99 will take you literal months of training. You’ll make a nice amount of money doing this, though. One other great money making method is hunting for Black Chinchompas in the Wilderness. You’ll need to contend with Pk’ers and pay a lot of attention to the risks – however, you can make a lot of profit selling these afterwards. Some other less click-intensive methods include maniacal monkeys after the completion of Monkey Madness II, and Herbiboar, which has a chance at a pet drop!
5. Fishing
The rest of the entries on this list are the real tough skills, as the amount of experience you gain drops dramatically, and the level of intensity needed to train them goes up. So let’s dive into one of the tougher skills out there: fishing. Fishing is extremely slow and profitable, or “normal paced” and click intensive. On the money side you can fish for Anglerfish from level 82 – 99 at a rate of approximately 15k experience per hour. This would take you months to level to 99… but you would make more than 100m along the way! Minnows are a faster alternative, offering 40k experience per hour with a moderate level of click intensity. And with minnows you could expect make around 60-70m in profit. The fastest method, barbarian fishing, offers no profit incentive. It’s purely for fast experience. Doing this without tick manipulation yields around 50k – 60k experience per hour which is quite good for fishing, but still a hard one to grind. Ultimately, this skill takes weeks (if not months) to get to 99 no matter how you approach it.
4. Mining
Like most skills on this list, Mining has a fast click intensive method, and a slow AFK method of training. Starting with the fast method, players can mine Granite for an average experience of around 60k per hour, without tick manipulation. This yields no profit because you’ll constantly be dumping your granite on the floor. But any players looking to rush the skill often choose this method. The slower way is usually preferred in the community, as you can make a tidy profit along the way! The Motherlode Mine offers a decent balance between AFK and high effort, with an experience rate of roughly 50k per hour at best. This is honestly a very low amount of experience – but you’ll also make a ton of money off of the ores you mine, with an expected profit of 100k gp an hour at level 70 mining. Since you’ll be here for months, you can imagine how much money this adds up to in the long term.
3. Slayer
This is probably one of the most popular skills in OSRS, and easily one of the slowest! There are a ton of methods to train this skill up – but if you do it the old fashioned way, expect an average of 20k – 25k an hour doing slayer. Considering a level 99 requires about 13m experience, then you expect to be training this for a long time. Fortunately, it’s an exciting skill with many drops to look out for, cool bosses to slay, and great unlocks to choose from. It’s recommended to purchase a Dwarf Multicannon to increase the amount of experience you gain, and to ice burst certain tasks like dust devils.
2. Runecrafting
Runecrafting is so slow and difficult to train that having a low Runecrafting level has literally become a meme in the OSRS community. Levels 1 – 77 are an absolute pain in the butt. The experience is slow and painful to acquire. Generally speaking, experience going up to level 77 can be as low as 15k – 20k an hour. Once you get to level 77 the skill becomes much more bearable, with the ability to craft Blood Runes. This is a semi-AFK method to train, so it does get a tad easier at that point. To start this, you should get level 73 agility, have 100% Arceuus House favour, and have the Kourend diary completed up to medium. You can expect around 37.5k experience per hour here, and a profit of almost 180m if you do this to 99! Very slow, but insanely profitable. Once you reach level 90 in runecrafting you can upgrade to soul runes for less money, but more experience, at around 45k exp per hour. Early on I recommend dumping every single lamp you get into this skill, and questing your Runecrafting level up as soon as possible to try and get to 77. You can also use the mini-game Tears of Guthix to get this up passively once a week – provided it’s your lowest skill.
1. Agility
Agility and Runecrafting are often tied in terms of experience per hour, but Runecrafting is far more profitable. Agility also requires that you pay constant attention while training, as you’ll need to be clicking new obstacles every few seconds. As a result, this skill is by far the most painful to get to 99 out of anything else. I recently got level 99 agility, myself and it took me over 4 months of just agility training! The best method in terms of experience is to do rooftop agility. Just make sure you always do the best rooftop course available to you. From levels 80-99 on rooftops, expect to get around 50k – 60k experience per hour, maximum.
