Woodcutting
The first player to reach 99 Woodcutting in RuneScape was Everdred, who reached 99 on 28 August 2001. That's less than 8 months after RuneScape was released.
Changes To Woodcutting
In 2023, Jagex introduced Forestry
Forestry is a new woodcutting activity with forestry events and new tree mechanics.
Most trees were updated to have a time before they get cut down, whereas in the past, most trees would have a 1 in 8 chance of being cut down.
| Tree Type | Despawn Timer |
|---|---|
| Oak Trees | 27 seconds |
| Willow Trees | 30 seconds |
| Teak Trees | 30 seconds |
| Maple Trees | 60 seconds |
| Mahogany Trees | 60 seconds |
| Yew Trees | 1 min 54 sec |
| Magic Trees | 3 min 54 sec |
| Redwood Trees | 4 min 24 sec |
- The timer only starts when you receive the first log.
- You can continue chopping logs until the timer reaches zero, then when you get a log after zero, the tree gets cut down.
- So you can expect to afk for longer than the tree time since you spend time cutting the first and last logs.
- When cutting a tree, forestry events can spawn. There's 9 events, each with a unique xp rate and strategy.
- If you're paying attention and doing events efficiently, you can boost your xp rates by at least 40%.
- Additionally, chopping the same tree as another person gives you up to a plus 10 invisible woodcutting boost.
You get +1 boost for every person chopping the tree, up to 10.
Woodcutting Mechanics
- When you cut a tree, you have a chance of getting a log every 4 gameticks, or every 2.4 seconds.
- The type of axe you use, and your woodcutting level, both affect your chances of cutting a log.
- On average, a rune axe is 3 times better at cutting when compared to a bronze axe.
The best axe is the crystal axe, over 4 times faster than the bronze axe.
It is possible to tick manipulate to have a chance of getting a log every 3 ticks, 2 ticks or every 1.5 ticks, and the fastest woodcutting xp rate is possible with 1.5 ticking.
Axes & Equipment
You should always be using the best possible axe up to the dragon axe. It considerably boosts your xp rate to use a better axe.
- With song of the elves, you can use a crystal axe, which is about 4.5% faster than a dragon axe.
- The crystal felling axe is the best axe in the game for the fastest experience, although it requires crystal shards and rations.
- Felling axes are 2 handed axes which can be bought off the grand exchange, or created with an axe handle from the forestry rewards shop.
On average, felling axes are 10% faster than regular axes.
Felling Axes
- You need foresters rations, and you consume a ration every time you get an xp drop.
- Rations can be bought off the grand exchange, or ironmen can make them with leaves and cooked food.
- With felling axes, theres also a 20% chance to not obtain a log, making it more AFK since you wont need to empty your inventory as often.
- With 61 woodcutting and 85 firemaking, you can use an infernal axe.
These have a 33% chance of burning the log you receive from woodcutting, giving half of the firemaking experience.
Woodcutting Outfit
- The Lumberjack Outfit, is worth getting for both regular accounts and ironmen.
- It boosts your woodcutting xp by 2.5% with the whole set - and it takes around 30 minutes to get.
Where to Get
- The outfit is obtained from Temple Trekking, where you need to find the undead lumberjacks event, and Jagex recently increased the likelihood of that event spawning, so this should take less than 30 minutes.
Low Level Training
When you first start woodcutting, the first thing you need to worry about is axes.
You can buy them off the Grand Exchange as a regular account, and Ironmen can buy axes up to steel off Bob in Lumbridge. Defeating tree spirits is a decent way to get a high level axe, up until you reach 60 woodcutting where you can enter the woodcutting guild. In there, there's a shop that sells axes up to rune.
Questing
To skip the slower early levels of woodcutting, there's some quests you can complete.
- Monk's Friend
- Enlightened Journey
- Ribbiting Tale Of A Lily Pad
- Icthlarin's Little Helper
- Skrach Uglogwee Subquest
You can complete all of these quests to go from 1 to 28 woodcutting.
Some quests have fairly high requirements to complete, so instead, you can do the short quest: "Monk's Friend" to get from 1 to 14 woodcutting quickly. Then, cut 9 regular logs to get to 15 woodcutting so you can do the other short quest "Ribbiting Tale" for 2000 Woodcutting XP.
Regular Training
If you aren't into questing, you can train your woodcutting the normal way.
Level 1-15: Regular Trees
From 1 to 15, you'll need to cut 161 regular trees.
I would suggest training behind Lumbridge Castle, or on the outskirts of Varrock. If you're an ironman, its not a bad idea to light or fletch the logs you get, but if you're a main account trying to level woodcutting the fastest, you can just drop the logs.
Also, its very important to be using the best axe possible at all times since it dramatically increases your chop rate:
- Level 1: Iron Axe
- Level 6: Steel Axe
- Level 11: Black Axe
Level 15-35: Oak Trees
- Once you reach level 15, you can cut oak trees, which are the fastest experience until around level 35.
- With oak trees you can partake in forestry, and to do that, you should go to world 301 to Draynor and chop the oak to the east of the bank.
- For regular training though, you can cut the oak trees near Varrock west bank.
Level 30+: Willow Trees
- At level 30 woodcutting, you do unlock willow trees, but oak trees are better experience until level 35. Going from 15 to 35 at oaks, you'll need to cut 534 oak logs.
- Once you reach 35, you unlock teak trees, which are one of the fastest methods in the game, and that leads us to the next section, the fastest way to 99 woodcutting.
Fastest Way To 99
On a fresh level 3 account, the fastest way to train woodcutting is by completing the Monk's Friend quest like mentioned earlier. Completing the other quests for xp will take longer than regular training, but if you are going for the quest cape, doing the quests is an efficient pathway.
- Level 1-14: Monk's Friend Quest
- Level 14-15: Regular Trees
- Level 15-35: Oak Trees
- Level 35-99: Tick Teaks
Without questing, the fastest is just regular trees, then oak trees, just like I explained in the low level training section.
But… for the fastest experience at level 15, you can 2tick oak trees. This gives over 100k xp per hour at higher levels.
To do this, you need to lure two rats from Falador farm all the way to the Falador city entrance. Then once they are alternating their attacks, you click the tree, then the ground, and repeat after every attack. This caps out at 111k xp per hour above 60 woodcutting with a rune axe. At that level, you have a 100% success rate when cutting oaks.
Teak Trees
As a woodcutting training method, I personally don’t recommend doing these methods over forestry or AFK woodcutting since these methods are extremely click intensive. But if you want the fastest possible experience, this is your best bet.
With teaks, theres 3 different ways you can tick manipulate. There's 3 tick, 2 tick, and 1.5 tick. I'll be explaining all three, starting with 3 ticking.
3-Tick Teaks
With a 3 tick action, like using herbs on tar, you can speed up your woodcutting training by 33%. You have to start the 3 tick action every 1.8 seconds, then click the tree, and repeat.
Experience Per Hour (3 Tick Method):
- Level 35: 34k xp/hr
- Level 41: 42k xp/hr
- Level 50: 46k xp/hr
- Level 61: 65k xp/hr
- Level 71: 74k xp/hr
- Level 80: 80k xp/hr
- Level 90: 87k xp/hr
- Level 99: 93k xp/hr
At level 35, it provides competitive xp rates, and it reaches up to 93k xp per hour at 99.
Overall, for a 33% xp increase, its not really worthwhile for all of the extra clicking, and I would really suggest 2 ticking over 3 ticking.
At Priff or Soul Wars Island, you'll find groups of people cutting teaks on the Forestry Worlds, and if you 3 tick here, you can boost your xp rates because of the forestry events that spawn.
But… you can 3 tick on a Forestry World for high xp rates.
2-Tick Teaks
Mechanics
Two ticking doubles the speed at which you woodcut, since normally it’s a 4 tick action. Two tick teaks works similarly to 2 tick oaks, where you need an NPC hitting you every 2 ticks, so you can get two 4 tick mobs attacking you, and have their attacks alternate. Every time you get attacked, it resets the 4 tick woodcutting action and allows you to get a log on the next gametick. To do this method, you need to equip any shortbow with no arrows equipped, and you need auto retaliate on. This allows you to retaliate and reset the ticks.
Where to Go
The best place for this method is done in the Ape Atoll Jungle, by tagging 2 birds. You can use a fun weapon, or a spell like confuse or weaken to get the agression of the birds. Then you move them around to ensure theyre attacking every 2 ticks.
Overall, 2 ticking is probably easier than 3 ticking. It does require you to click every gametick, but there are less clicks when compared to 3tick.
Easy 2 Tick Method
However… there is an easier 2 tick method.
If you plant your own teak trees, you can 2 tick just by moving every time you cut. This is because the game gives you a chance of cutting 2 logs at a time.
So this is essentially still 4 tick woodcutting, but you get 2 logs, making it 2 tick.
So basically, you click the tree, then click a tile away, and click the tree, and repeat.
With both of these 2 tick methods, you can get up to 215k xp per hour at high levels, and at level 35 when you unlock it, you'll already get 78k woodcutting xp per hour, which is high for such a low level method.
Experience Per Hour (2 Tick Method):
- Level 35: 78k xp/hr
- Level 41: 97k xp/hr
- Level 50: 108k xp/hr
- Level 61: 151k xp/hr
- Level 71: 172k xp/hr
- Level 80: 186k xp/hr
- Level 90: 201k xp/hr
- Level 99: 215k xp/hr
1.5-Tick Teaks
This can only be done on trees that you've planted with farming.
Experience Per Hour (1.5 Tick Method):
- Level 35: 93k xp/hr
- Level 41: 115k xp/hr
- Level 50: 126k xp/hr
- Level 61: 173k xp/hr
- Level 71: 194k xp/hr
- Level 80: 208k xp/hr
- Level 90: 222k xp/hr
- Level 99: 235k xp/hr
Essentially, this method involves 3 ticking while doing the second 2 tick method. You do a 3 tick action, then move for a chance at 2 logs. So you have a chance at 2 logs every 3 ticks, making it a 1.5 tick method.
Fast Methods
Forestry
Training with Forestry is an excellent way to level up, while having some periods of downtime.
Below is each tier of tree, with their average xp rates on a Forestry World:
- Level 15: Oaks - Max XP/HR: 40k
- Level 30: Willows - Max XP/HR: 60k
- Level 35: Teaks - Max XP/HR: 110k
- Level 45: Maples - Max XP/HR: 70k
- Level 60: Yews - Max XP/HR: 85k
- Level 75: Magics - Max XP/HR: 65k
At level 15, Oaks become the first tree you can partake in Forestry with. Most notably, teak and yew trees both give competitive xp rates if you do all of the Forestry events.
Here are the best locations to do Forestry:
- For Oaks , your best bet is either Draynor Village or at Varrock West bank.
- For Willows, Draynor is best.
- For Teaks, you can go near Castle Wars, to Soul Wars or Priff.
- Seer's Village is the best place for Maples.
- Yews can be cut outside of the Seer's Village church.
- Magics can be found near the Ranging or Myths guild.
Sullicuep Mushrooms
Since their introduction in 2017, Sullicuep Mushrooms have provided competitive woodcutting xp rates, and before forestry, provided the fastest xp rates without tick manipulation.
- They're unlocked at level 65 woodcutting, and you need access to Fossil Island to chop them.
- The xp rates range from 55k to over 100k per hour, and there are decent AFK intervals while training here.
Required/Recommended Items:
- rake
- axe
- prayer increasing items
- a strong defensive shield
- poison cure
- the best possible food.
You firstly need to find the active Sulliscuep Mushroom, then you cut it down, and move onto the next active mushroom, as shown on this map here. You'll repeat this pattern while you train here.
AFK Methods
If you want to train AFK, you do not want to use a Forestry World since the trees will chop down more randomly.
Woodcutting Guild
The woodcutting guild is an excellent area for afk training, since you get an invisible +7 woodcutting boost.
With the new tree despawn timers, higher level trees have longer afk times.
To view the despawn timer in action: you can install a Runelite plugin called Tree Despawn Timer which shows how long until the tree will chop down.
- A great middle-ground between xp and AFK time is cutting maple trees in the woodcutting guild. These provide 1 minute of afk, while having a high chop rate.
- Yew trees let you afk for around 2 minutes, and you can expect around 30k xp per hour when you unlock them.
- Magic trees let you afk for 4 minutes, and the most AFK woodcutting method in the game is unlocked at level 90, and that is redwood trees. These provide up to 80k xp per hour and you can afk for 4 and a half minutes at a time.
If I was to get 99 Woodcutting again, I would do Redwoods from 90 to 99, just because of how easy it is.
Blisterwood Tree
Another decent AFK method is chopping the Blisterwood tree in Darkmeyer.
Requirements:
- Sins of the Father Quest
Mechanics:
- These trees have the old school mechanics, where there's a 1 in 8 chance of stopping chopping. Depending on your RNG though, the afk interval will sometimes only be a few seconds, but can last over 40 seconds at a time.
Experience Per Hour:
- Blisterwood provides about 60k XP/HR at lower levels, scaling up to 80k at higher levels. But if you're above level 90, I would suggest redwoods.
Profitable Methods
The most profitable woodcutting method, in the entire game, is camping forestry events.
Camping Forestry Events
You can get over 2.5 thousand anima bark per hour if you're in the forestry chat, and you only complete the announced forestry events.
The method involves hopping between forestry areas constantly to become eligible for forestry event, then completing the event for the anima bark reward.
If you convert the bark to felling axes, it equates to over 700k GP/HR at higher woodcutting levels.
Mahogany Trees
Mahogany logs are expensive… so with that, you can chop mahogany logs for around 200k gp per hour. The best place to cut them is in Tai Bwo Wannai or in Prifddinas.
They're unlocked at only 50 woodcutting, and you can expect about 140k GP per hour at that level.
Cutting yew and magic logs can also be profitable. They both give roughly 150k in profit per hour, although provide slow xp rates compared to the other methods.
Forestry Guide
So partaking in forestry requires 15 woodcutting, to chop oak trees, and its also available to free to play players.
Forestry Basics
To get started, you firstly make your way to a friendly forester in either Draynor, Seers Village or Prifddinnas, and from them, you should grab the free forestry kit.
This stores items that you find while doing forestry.
To actually start forestry, you just start cutting a tree. To find other people, you should go to one of the official forestry worlds.
The most popular one at all times is World 444. As a F2P player, you should go to world 301. Forestry does not work in the Woodcutting Guild, nor with Blisterwood trees.
Forestry Locations
- Draynor Village
- Varrock West Bank
- Castle Wars
- Soul Wars
- Prifddinas
- Seer's Village
- Range Guild
- Myths guild
Forestry Plugins
There's a number of RuneLite plugins you can install to make chopping easier.
- In the default Woodcutting Plugin, you should turn on the notifications and highlights for all of the events.
- The tree despawn timer plugin can estimate how long a tree will stay up for.
- The "tree count" plugin shows how many players are chopping a tree, which is useful for getting the maximum woodcutting level boost. You can get up to a +10 woodcutting boost with 10 or more people.
- Lastly, entity hider is useful for being able to see and maneuver the forestry events.
Forestry Events
So while you're chopping, forestry events spawn nearby. There are 9 different forestry events, with some events giving rare rewards. By completing a forestry event, you're rewarded with extra woodcutting xp, further boosting your xp per hour.
Rising Roots
The rising roots event is where roots appear on the ground nearby. In this event, you should chop the root with green veins for the best xp and rewards.
Flowering Bush
The flowering bush event is where 8 bushes spawn, and only 2 of those bushes can trade pollen with eachother. You have to find the two bushes then repeatedly pollinate them. The bushes will change every so often, so you need to relocate the correct bushes.
Beehives
There is an event where you build a beehive, and for this, you click on the unfinished beehive and add logs to it for woodcutting and construction experience.
Struggling Sapling
For the struggling sapling event you need to collect 3 materials and feed it to the sapling. It takes a certain combination of materials, so for this, you should start by taking three from one pile to see if there are any matches. Then 3 from another pile, until you figure it out. You can also turn public chat on because people usually announce when they've found the right combination.
Poachers
Sometimes, poachers can spawn, and for this event, you have to disarm the fox traps that they place down. For this you get woodcutting and hunter experience.
Enchantment Ritual
There is also the enchantment ritual event, which is visible by the colored shapes on the ground. For this, you have to stand on the odd one out. So one of them will not share a color or shape with any other marking.
Friendly Ents
Sometimes, Friendly Ents can appear, and for this event you have to read what they are saying, and trim them accordingly. There are four different dialogues that the Ents can say, and on the screen are how you should trim them.
Pheasant Control
When nests and pheasants appear, you must take the egg from the unguarded nest (where no pheasant is on top of it) and take it to the Freaky Forester.
Leprechaun
The last forestry event is the leprechaun, who you can talk to to deposit your logs to the bank.
From events you get anima bark. That Anima Bark can then be spent at the rewards shop.
Forestry Rewards
There is a lot of different rewards at the rewards shop, and ill briefly take you through the most notable ones.
- The clothes pouch blueprint allows you to get the lumberjack outfit xp boost without wearing the outfit.
- Twitchers gloves increase your chance of getting a birds nest.
- The felling axe handle and the sawmill vouchers are both very useful for ironmen.
- If you have 99 woodcutting, the cape pouch can be a decent upgrade too.
F2P Woodcutting Guide
To finish the guide, I'd like to cover free to play woodcutting training.
Here is the fastest pathway from 1 to 99 woodcutting in free to play:
- Level 1-15: Regular Trees
- Level 15-99: 2-Tick Oak Trees
It's a lot different to members since free to play is very restricted with the types of trees that are available.
The fastest method in the game for free to play is 2 tick oaks, which I showed earlier in this video.
You can get over 100k xp per hour, although it does require a lot of focus.
Cutting willow trees with forestry, while 3 ticking, is another very fast training method for free to play.
You can get over 70k xp per hour doing this, which isnt quite as fast as 2 tick oaks, but its still great for free to play.
Maple trees recently got introduced to free to play, and are a great afk training option.
Anyway, that's my updated level 1-99 Agility guide for Old School. Thanks for reading! - Theoatrix
If you would prefer to watch a video version of this guide, you can watch that below:
