Ultimate Ironman - Getting Started (2024)

Introduction

You're fresh off tutorial island, you have a fancy white ironman helm by your name, you've taken the plunge and joined the ranks of the elite, now what? There are a lot of questions when you first get to the mainland. What should I level first? Should I just skill one at a time? How do I manage my inventory now that I can't bank? What is important to do early? Let's take a look at what provides you with the most early game advantages and go from there.

Death

The first thing we will cover are the death mechanics for UIM. Death you say?! I don't want to die and lose all my items! Relax, relax. You aren't going to lose your items(probably). First and foremost, let's cover the basics.

• When you die you will drop EVERYTHING except untradeables.

• Protect item prayer does NOT work.

• Your items will stay on the ground for 1 HOUR before they disappear(They will not appear to other people and will just disappear after 1 hour).

• There are items that will disappear on death no matter what. They are covered here.

• If you die in an instance, you will lose everything that is dropped onto the ground

Normal and Ironman accounts are all protect by "safe deaths". Meaning, there are activities in which you die that do not count as a death, therefore, they will not cause your items to be dropped. The full list can be found here.

• Duel Arena
• Castle Wars
• POH Deaths
• Clan Wars
• Fight Caves
• Fight Pits
• Pest Control
• Random Event Areas
• Barb Assault
• Nightmare Zone
• Fishing Trawler
• Magic Training Arena
• Rogues' Den
• Fremennik Trials - Thorvald the Warrior's - 4th phase ONLY
• PvM Arena
• Zulrah - Elite Diary Resurrection ONLY.
• Lunar Diplomacy dream section
• Knight Waves Training Grounds

Storage

I'll go ahead and state the obvious, non-inventory storage is probably one of the best things to aquire on an Ult. We do not have a bank so every space we can save is a huge help in the progression of your account. Some of the options have high requirements and will not be available to you at the beginning. Let's look at some of the helpful storage available.

• Looting Bag - Obtained from low level mobs within the wilderness. Most common place is from Thugs in Edgeville Dungeon. They can be killed in level 1-3 wild, have 18 hitpoints and a 1/30 drop chance for Looting Bag. In order to be able to deposit items into the bag, you must 1) Be in the wildy(level 1 is fine) and 2) You can only store tradeable items. As a side note, the Looting Bag can be acquired early, however, early game focus will mostly be on questing and a few key skills. You won't have a bunch of items to store and may not need a Looting Bag right away. In order to withdraw items from the bag, you must suicide to break the bag, then go farm another bag from wildy mobs. There is no other way to retrieve your items.
• Item Noting - I'm going to put this one in early to avoid confusion. You CANNOT note items. However, there are some exceptions. Anything that can be grown with farming, you can note on the Tool Leprechaun. Herbs, Watermelons, Strawberries, Papaya, Pineapples, etc. The only other thing that can be noted are unfinished herb potions. In order to have Noted(unf), you must complete the Desert Hard Diary and pay 200gp per (unf) potion to Zahur. Any other items you wish to have noted must be acquired in their noted form.
• Unnoting - Unnoting items is pretty straight forward. Using a noted item on either a bank booth or Banker will give you the option to unnote at no cost. This will unnoted as many as you have the inventory space to hold. If you only need two herbs but have four open inventory spaces, simply remove worn items to fill in the extra inventory space. There is also an NPC named Phials that can unnote items for you. He has a small fee of 5gp per item. Although he charges for unnoting, albeit fairly cheap, he has two things that make him stand out. For starters, he offers an unnote X option which is not available in the banks. He is also located in Rimmington which is only a few steps away from the house portal.
• Zulrah - Yes, Zulrah will hold items for you if you are killed by it. However, ZULRAH IS NOT A BANK. If you die while the priestess is holding your items, YOU WILL LOSE THEM. There seems to be a big misconception that Zulrah behaves like a bank. That simply is not the case. Zulrah is used for full inventory wipes when it is required to skill or go places you cannot take your items. I would advise against long term storage at Zulrah. All it takes is a disconnection while slaying or a single PVM combo and *poof* all your Zulrah items are gone. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
• STASH - Aka Hidey Holes. These are the emote clue storage containers that can be built at the emote locations. There are 5 tiers of them that correlate to the difficulty level of the clues. Each tier has its own requirements. You can find them here. There aren't a lot of good ones for early levels but one stands out. Rune axe storage on white wolf mountain is only a Hard Stash and can be built at 55 construction. If you look down through the list, you will notice some are absolutely amazing. Slayer Helm/Dragon Defender/Dragon Battleaxe and Full Barrows Set just to name a few.
• Player Owned House - Ah, construction. It offers a lot of great storage options. Void, Graceful, Skilling outfits, Mage armor, Farming tools, crafting tools, Treasure Trail rewards, and other things I'm probably forgetting. Leveling construction early is a huge advantage. You can store graceful at only 42 Construction! See the Construction section below to delve into the ins and outs of the skill.

Quests

Some people hate them, others wish we had hundreds more. Personally, I hate questing on a regular account, let alone an ult. Sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and get them done. Here we will look at some that you need to do ASAP as well as a few that aren't required, but highly recommended to get done sooner rather than later. We will break down the quests based on their criteria.

First, let's look at the two quests that need either a clean inventory or no items at all.

• Recruitment Drive - No items equiped or in inventory. Must be a female to finish the quest.
• Fremennik Trials - Peer the Seer requires no items on your person. Thorvald the Warrior requires no armor or weapons.

Next we will look at the quests that need you to enter a restricted zone.

Glarial's Tomb - No Weapons/Armor/Runes/Rune pouch. As close to no items on person as you can get without being no items on person.

• Waterfall Quest
• Roving Elves

Entrana - No weapons or armor. Graceful is allowed but generally anything that gives offensive bonus' is banned from the island. The full list of banned items is available here.

• Holy Grail
• Enlightened Journey
• Lost City
• Hand in the Sand
• Heroes Quest
• Devious Minds
• Desert Treasure
• Monkey Madness II

That will wrap up the restricted items quests. Some of them are not completable early game. There are ways to do these quests later in the game once Zulrah is unlocked(after more questing, yay) but it is best to do the easier ones as early as you can. Now let's take a look at some of the other quests that offer big incentives to get done early.

Transportation - One of the bigger limiting factors of early game ults is the ability to move around Gielinor. Nobody wants to do the White Wolf Mountain walk of death. Pesky wolves! Here are the quests that will offer other modes of transportation that will help you immensely.

• Tree Gnome Village - Unlocks Spirit Trees.
• The Grand Tree - Unlocks Gnome Glider
• Fairy Tale Part 1 - Needed to Unlock Fairy Rings
• Fairy Tale Part 2 - Doesn't need to be completed but needs to be started. Can be done without quest reqs.

Those are the big ones to bring up. They all have reasonable requirements and you shouldn't have too much trouble completing them. Although not quests, there are a few more modes of transportation I feel is important to mention.

• Canoe - Canoes are available on the River Lum and will take you from Lumbridge to the Wilderness and has a total of 4 landing points. Lumbridge, Champion Guild, Edgeville and near the Black Salamanders in the wilderness.
• The Chronicle - Purchasable from Diangos Shop in Draynor for 300gp. It is equipable in the shield slot and will teleport you to the champion guild, right next to the Canoe station. Holds 10 charges and you can purchase recharge cards from the same shop for 150 gp each. Limit of 10 recharge cards per day.
• Ardy Diary Cape - The easy diary reward offers unlimited teleports to the Ardougne Monastery. You can recharge your prayer points at the altar as well as having a Fairy Ring and Spirit Tree just a short run from the teleport location.
• Minigame Teleport - Availiable at level 3. It has a 20 min cooldown but offers a lot of great teleports for free. Some of the locations have to be unlocked but most are available right off the bat. Castle Wars for example is available from the beginning but for Nightmare Zone, you must first unlock the ability to enter NMZ before you are able to use the Minigame Teleport to that location.

Lastly, let's talk about the "good" quests. Quests that you don't have to do but offer some very nice quest rewards for their completion.

• Vampire Slayer - Attack xp.
• Fight Arena - Attack xp.
• Waterfall - Strength/Attack xp.
• The Knights Sword - Smithing xp.
• Witch's House - Hitpoints xp.
• Druidic Ritual - Unlocks Herblore.
• The Lost Tribe - Ability to buy and use the Bone Crossbow.
• Death to the Dorgeshuun - Access to HAM Storeroom. Power Ammy.
• Ghost Ahoy - Unlocks the Ecto for use.
• The Feud - Needed to unlock Ali Morrisane rune shop.
• Spirits of the Elid - Nice chunk of prayer xp.
• The Eyes of Glouphrie - Big boost in rc xp. Crystal Saw for +3 construction boost.
• Monkey Madness - Dscim. LOTS of combat xp. Can be done as soon as you have 43 prayer. (Start Zogre Flesh Eaters to receive two Super Restore Potions. These can be used to complete MM)
• Watchtower - Yanille Tele. Mage xp.
• Death Plateau - Requires 21 open inventory spaces.
• Mage Arena - Technically a miniquest but in the deep wildy. Can be done early to avoid risking untradables.
• Recipe for Disaster - This should be one of your goals. Barrows gloves are good!

Early Skill Focus

Now that we have the important quests out of the way, let's talk skills. No matter the account type, early game skilling is not the most enjoyable thing to do. I would advise doing some of the easier quest's above for the early game advantages. Getting 5,000 smithing xp at level 10 smithing could be a few free smithing levels. If you wait until 40-50 smithing to collect the quest rewards, that same 5,000 xp won't even get you a level. To view the quest rewards for specific skills, head over to the Quest Experience Rewards page and have a look at what would help you early game.

Agility

As an ult, you are going to run around a lot. Either running to different shops to get the items you need, or getting to locations for quests or skilling. Agility helps you recharge run energy faster. This is super beneficial in the long run. Not only will Agility help you with run energy, it also unlocks some of the best shortcuts and there is even a money making method with low'ish requirements. Below we will cover some of the benefits of leveling agility early.

As for the methods, agility is pretty basic. After completing Recruitment Drive, you will only need 154xp to get to level 10 agility. If you did not do the quest, just do the Gnome Agility Course until level 10 then switch to rooftops. There isn't a big master plan for training on the Rooftop Agility Courses. Start as soon as you can and move up on the courses as you get the agility requirement to do so. Once you get to the Canifis agility course, it is recommended to stay there from 40-60 agility. If you are planning to go for 60+ in one grind, you can switch to Falador Rooftops at level 50. Doing so will increase the xp/hour by around ~6k xp but you won't get as many marks. Now that you have the gist of agility, I would like to bring up some of the breaking points, level wise.

Level 57-63 - This is the level range you can expect to complete your Graceful outfit. Depending on a few factors, such as collecting all Marks of Grace without the need to drop any, switching to Falador or staying in Canifis.

Level 65 - This is the minimum recommended level to start doing the Agility Pyramid for gp. Although you can start the pyramid at this level, your trips will not last as long. You will have to replace some waterskins for food because you can still fail the obstacles therefore it is a direct impact on the profit per hour. However, it is possible to do it at this level and you may need to for some quick cash. If you want to do this for an extended period of time, get 72 agility first.

Level 70 - Do you remember getting your first Dusty Key? You teleport to Falador, run all the way up to the Taverly Dungeon, walk all the way around, then head south, kill one guard to get a key, then enter the jail cell to get the Dusty Key, then backtrack to get to the correct route, follow this around past poisonous scorpions and lesser demons, to finally arrive at blue drags? Now, imagine you had to do that every time you want to get deep into the dungeon. If you buckle down and grind out 70 agility, you will never have to do this again. It's worth it even if the shortcut had 80 as a requirement. It will save so much time if you unlock this shortcut early. Also needed for prayer training after the questing xp rewards run out.

Level 72 - As mentioned above, this is when you stop failing almost all obstacles at the Agility Pyramid. The gap jumps remain failable but is extremely rare to do so. Once you have 72 agility, you can safely head to the pyramid with a full inventory of waterskins as food will not be needed. As a bonus tip, if you have completed Icthlarin's Little Helper, you can run south of the pyramid to refill your waterskins within the city.

Level 76 - Here is when you unlock the Zulrah agility shortcut. Without it you must pay to charter a ship to the area. If you have Fairy Rings and the agility requirement, you are just a short walk from Zulrah's shrine. It allows easier access to Zulrah for collecting items and will offer a better means of farming Zulrah in the late game. Lots of ults stop at this level as most of the worthwhile benefits of agility will be available to you now.

Level 80 - This is going to be the last level I'll cover. Getting 80 has its advantages but it's not absolutely necessary to get this high right off the bat. You unlock the spike trap shortcut in taverly dungeon. It is helpful but not something I feel is worth the rush. At 80, the marks you will collect from Seers Village course will drop drastically. At this point you can either stop training agility until you have unlocked the Seer's Bank Teleport via Kandarin Hard Diary or move onto Rellekka Rooftops and continue leveling past 80.

Magic

I'm going to reference the transportation section here. Travel, as stated above, is crucial for ults. Magic is one of the easiest transportation methods. It might seem like you need to make money first to buy runes and that might put you off. You do need some money, but mind runes are cheap. Fire Strike everything that you can. Got a quest boss? Fire Strike. Need to get a few dragon bones to get that last little bit of prayer xp? Fire Strike. Want to grind out a Rune Scimmy? Fire Strike. I know it's a low level spell, but it is cheap, it is available almost immediately and the xp adds up over time. Fire strike coupled with the magic xp rewards from quests will boost this skill quite a bit. Besides the most obvious spells, i.e. Teleports, there are two other magic levels I want to touch on.

Level 55 - High Alching drops will bring in a steady flow of cash and passive mage xp. Anything that will cover the price of a nature rune is worth alching. Even without making much profit per alch, you will still gain free magic xp. You can get Nature Runes, at an inflated price, from Ali Morrisanes shop once you have completed the mini quest Rogue Trader. Before that, just collect the Nature rune drops that you get. Once you can access the Wizard's Guild, you can purchase Nature Runes for ~200 gp each.

Level 63(66) - To gain access to the Wizard's Guild, you need 66 Magic. It is a boostable requirement so you can get in as early as 63 with a Wizard Mind Bomb. The mind bomb will give you a +3 magic boost after level 50(+2 if below level 50 magic) and you can use this to get into the guild. Once you have access to the guild, you can use it to purchase Natures, Laws and other various runs for cheaper than Ali's shop.

Construction

Construction has to be one of, if not the best, skills for ults. The amount of storage you gain from this skill alone is more than all other storage methods combined. That's not even considering the other benefits of the skill. Teleport Portals save law runes and inventory space, the Tool Stores put tools just a mouse click away, pet storage, in house construction boosts via Tea, Restoration Pools, Fairy Ring, Spirit Tree. The list goes on and on. At first I wasn't sure how to break this down as there are a LOT of things to cover. Instead of putting all of of the information in this starter guide, I will cover some of the most used room as well as some of the easier methods to train the skill.

Methods

I'm not going to go into a ton of detail here. Construction guides are being worked on now and I will reference them once completed. Now let's get into the methods.

Clay Fireplaces

Requirements:

1. Level 3 Construction
2. Level 1 Mining
3. House portal in Rimmington
4. Either a Parlour, Dining Hall or Bedroom
5. A couple buckets OR Bracelets of Clay.
6. A Pickaxe

Strategy:

Mine clay in the Rimmington mine

Use buckets on the well in the center of Rimmington to make soft clay

Enter your house in building mode

Build and remove fireplaces as you gather the materials.

This is one of the easiest methods to get early level construction. It's not fast but it is free and easy construction xp and has very low requirements.

Entrana

Requirements:

1. Must be able to go to Entrana
2. Nails (You can buy them at the Lumber Yard)
3. Level 1 Construction
4. House Portal in Rimmington

Strategy:

Walk to the Port Sarim docks and take the free boat to Entrana.

Walk to where the Law Altar is on the east side of the island, then head slightly north west and there are two plank spawns here.

Hop Worlds together planks.

Walk back to the dock (or house tele if you can) and take the boat back to Port Sarim. Walk to the house portal and enter in building mode.

Build Crude Wooden Chairs until you are out of planks and repeat the process.

Again, not the fastest xp but it is free.

Balloon

Requirements:

1. Must have Enlilghtened Journey complete and unlocked the Lumber Yard Route.
2. 30 Woodcutting
3. Gold to pay for planks
4. An Axe
5. House portal in Taverly (10 Construction)
6. House teleports (40 Magic)

Strategy:

Exit your house portal and head south, then east. Next to the water, you will find a Willow Tree. Cut one log then head to the Hot Air Balloon to the east.

Right click the monk and select the fly option, then select the Varrock location.

Once there, cut whichever log you are using and/or have the money to make into planks. Under level 19 construction, you will need to make regular planks to build more chairs. At level 19 you can start making Oak chairs for more xp/hour and at level 33 you will switch to oak larders.

Once you have the planks, teleport to your house (set home tele to outside of the portal so you can right click and enter building mode).

Build as many chairs or larders that you can then exit the portal and repeat.

This is one of the more widely used methods. It has manageable requirements and you can get up to 41k construction xp/hour doing this method. It does cost you money so you may be better off doing the free methods in the early game.

Now that you have an idea on how to train construction, let's talk about why you should train construction. The Costume Room, The Portal Chamber and The Workshop.

Costume Room

In the costume room, you can store various armour, capes and Treasure Trail rewards among other things. The amount and type you can store is dependant on your construction level. Use the links to determine what you can store and which levels the storage is increased.

Treasure Chest

This is used to store Treasure Trail rewards. Most notably, Ranger boots can be stored by themselves after the second tier of the chest is built. This requires 66 construction.

Armour Case

As the name would imply, this is used for armour and works on a tier system. The higher level cases will offer more storage. Check the armour list to see what can be stored. Rogue, Void and Proselyte come to mind.

Magic Wardrobe

Like the armour case, the magic wardrobe also works on a tier system. Higher level wardrobes unlocks more storage slots. Notable items are Graceful, Mystic and Pyromancer outfit.

Cape Rack

The cape rack is a little odd. The first tier of cape rack is available at level 54 and will hold all capes EXCEPT skillcapes. Once you upgrade to higher tier racks, you will be able to store more and more skill capes. The Fire Cape and God Cape can both be stored at level 54.

Portal Chamber

The portal chamber seems like an obvious room you would want to have. Portals all over the world in a couple rooms, but it is so much more. Having this room in your house will directly save you inventory space. You will only need to carry Law runes, Air runes and Earth runes on you to get to any teleport location. No more carrying around all the different elemental runes or running to a rune shop to grab the ones you don't have. It also makes double law rune teles, such as Ardougne and Watchtower, only cost one law since you can now home tele and walk through the portal.

Workshop

I'm including the workshop as I feel it is a very underrated room. Not only do you get a discount(based on smithing level) when repairing barrows armour on the armour stand, you can build the tool stores. Tool stores do exactly what the name implies. Once these are built, you can withdraw various tools you would normally have to go to a shop to get. Crafting Molds, Hammer, Saw, Bucket, Knife, Spade, etc. And the best part? The supplies never run out! Grab a million spades if your heart so desires!

That wraps up the Early Skill focus. Besides the skills listed individually, most of the early game grind will be for quest requirements in between questing itself. Just remember to check the Quest Experience Rewards if you are looking for xp in a specific skill!

Money Making

Everybody likes gold, but if we are being honest here, you don't need a lot to start out. While questing you will need some traveling money but you don't need millions at your disposal this early in your progression. You can get 10k gold by completing the Stronghold of Security and this will get you pretty far, or atleast headed in a good direction. Just in case you find yourself hurting in the finance department, we will explore some of your options.

H.A.M. Storeroom - After completing Death to the Dorgeshuun, you gain access to the storerooms. Once inside, you can pickpocket the guards for keys. In turn, the keys are used to open chests where you can receive jewellery ranging from gold, all the way up to Diamond Amulets. Personally, I would recommend doing these once you have high alchemy if you do not wish to do the Agility Pyramid. It is not as much money per hour but you can still get upwards of 100k+. If you do not have high alchemy and are just looking to make a little money, you can take the jewellery to Grum's Gold Exchange in Port Sarim and sell them to the shop.

Agility Pyramid - The premise of the Agility Pyramid is pretty simple. It is a tiered obstacle course in the shape of a pyramid. You traverse the obstacles and make your way to the top where you retrieve a Golden Pyramid. Once acquired, you can turn it in to Simon Templeton for 10k gp. The requirements for the pyramid are low, however, the amount of gp per hour is dependant on your agility level. Although the level requirement listed is 30 agility, it would be wise to wait until level 65 at the minimum. Even at this level, you will still fail some of the obstacles but you can complete it. If you are level 65 and need some cash, sure go ahead and run a few laps on the money triangle. If you intend to grind out mils from here, get 72 agility first. At 72, you stop failing all obstacles but the jump gap, and even then, you will rarely fail it. You can expect upwards of 200k gp/hour once you stop failing.

Userful NPCs

There are NPCs throughout Gielinor that can be very useful. I would like to take to the time to bring a few of these to the forefront. Either they allow you access to items that would otherwise take too long to obtain or offer a unique service.

Ali Morrisane - He has two requirements to fully unlock all of his wares. The Fued and Rogue Trader both need to be completed in order to access everything that Ali sales. His prices aren't the cheapest but he does offer items, more specifically non elemental runes, that otherwise are locked behind deep wildy (Mage Bank) or Wizards Guild (66 Magic).

Phials - Located in the Rimmington general store, he can unnoted your items for you. He offers an Unnote X option and is only a few steps from the house portal.

Perdu - Four locations. Lumbridge, Falador, Edgeville and Catherby. You can purchase quest and diary reward items back from his shop for a fee. Convenient for retrieving items you had to drop such as Explorer's ring and Ardy Diary Cape among others.

Rasolo - Sells various items found across Runescape but at twice their price. You won't use him much but some items he sells are more convenient to pay the extra gp.

Zahur - Can make you unnoted (unf) potions after the completion of the Desert Hard Diary. She will also clean herbs for you if you do not have the herblore level to do it yourself. This can come in handy for some quests that require clean herbs to be completed.

Conclusion

The beginning levels of UIM can be a daunting task. Especially if you aren't sure which direction to go. Hopefully this guide will help you find your rhythm and you can start working your way up the ranks. UIM offers very unique gameplay. We are playing a game that has been designed around having a bank, without having a bank ourselves. It offers a unique perspective on the game and forces you to think outside the box. You must be innovative in accomplishing tasks, play smart so you don't back yourself into a corner and most of all, just have fun. If you wanted to, you can throw this guide out of the window and get 99 agility on the gnome course. Play the way YOU want to play. I'm here to offer advice but this is not an end all, be all guide to UIM. If you have any questions, you are more than welcome to join us in "Ultimate CC". Good luck on your adventure!

-Acute Affect