OSRS Updated Skilling Guide 2024

There are lots of new content coming to OSRS this year and there are even a few being made to balance the game. Project Rebalance is the developer’s way of making progression and leveling more streamlined in OSRS. This means that some old Skilling and moneymaking techniques are no longer viable but that also means that there are new ones waiting to be discovered as well.

What Is OSRS Project Rebalance?

Announced last year during Game Jam 2023, this is a long-term project for OSRS that hopes to change up a few older game systems in OSRS. The focus of the project is on revamping combat, skilling, and many other systems that have been left untouched for years.

The initial task of Project Rebalance was to simply make the early game sections of OSRS and to make underrated content in the game, great again. Eventually, the developers of the game decided that the project would also address other concerns regarding progression. It seems as though they’ve done well as players are actually liking all the new additions.

OSRS 2024 Skilling Guide

Since there are many changes in Project Rebalance, we're going to discuss each of them per Skill.

Agility

When it comes to the sheer amount of changes, no other skill has received more than Agility in OSRS. With the new update, there are massive changes to Agility Courses, as well as the shortcuts in the game. Let’s talk about Agility Courses first.

Agility Courses

There are new XP rates for some of the Agility courses in the game. Don't worry though as they've actually been buffed and not nerfed. 

When you hit level 70 and move to the Pollnivneach course, the XP rate jumps from 52,300 to 60,000 XP/hr. Plus, you'll get better Marks of Grace than at Seers Village. This major increase makes Pollnivneach much more appealing and rewarding. As such, you might want to head to this course once its available to you.

At level 72, the first to third floors of the Hallowed Sepulchre are the next best option with a boosted rate of 71,000 XP/hr. This bump helps keep your training going strong in the mid-range line and you can easily get to level 80 Agility from here.

Once you reach level 80, the Rellekka courses XP rate goes has been changed to 65,000 XP/hr. To make things even better, it has better Marks of Grace than Pollnivneach. This substantial increase not only enhances your XP gain but also makes the Rellekka course more rewarding. While you can head to the upper floors of the Hallowed Sepulchre next, you might want to stick around for the Marks of Grace.

Speaking of the Marks of Grace, they've now been added to the following coursesa as well:

• Tree Gnome Stronghold
• Shayzien Basic
• Shayzien Advanced
• Barbarian Outpost
• Ape Atoll
• Werewolf
• Dorgesh-kaan

For level 82, you'll have to do runs from the first to fourth floor of the Hallowed Sepulchre which now gives approximately 81,000 XP/hr.

At level 90, head to the Ardougne agility course which now provides 70,000 XP/hr. As it as lower rates, you might want to stick to the Hallowed Sepulchre instead but keep in mind that the Ardougn course is much easier.

From 92 onwards, you might want to stick to the Hallowed Sepulchre's first to fifth floors up until you reach level 99 in Aglity. This offers the best XP rates out of all the courses and it’s still highly rewarding of course.

New Shortcuts

There are several new shortcuts in OSRS, thus making traversing the map a lot easier:

• 66 Agility: Jump the Taverley wall shortcut to quickly reach the tree patch.
• 71 Agility: Use the stepping stones in Pollnivneach to cross the river towards Nardah.
• 72 Agility: Jump over the western wall at Barrows for faster access from Burgh de Rott.
• 72 Agility: Navigate the stepping stone shortcut across the lava east of the Wilderness Chaos Temple.
• 77 Agility: Utilize the two tunnel shortcuts in the Wilderness Slayer Caves.
• 79 Agility: Climb the rock shortcut in the northeastern corner of Shilo Village.
• 81 Agility: Take the tunnel shortcut on Waterbirth Isle from the first Rock Crab room to the final room before the Dagannoth Kings' chamber.
• 82 Agility: Use the tunnel shortcut in the Asgarnia Ice Dungeon to move from the ladder to the main Skeletal Wyvern area.
• 84 Agility: Climb the rock shortcut on Crandor from the isle's peak to its southern side.
• 85 Agility: Navigate the rock climb shortcut south of the Waterbirth Isle teleport location. This allows players to bypass the main door without needing a Pet Rock or Rune Thrownaxes.
• 96 Agility: Use the Viyeldi Caves shortcut to bypass the "skill checks" in the main room once you've completed the Legends Quest.

While most of the Agility shortcuts are great additions, one in particular that you should be mindful of is the one near Barrows. You'll need level 72 Agility for this. You'd want to angle your camera in a way that the wall is always visible. That way, you’ll just have to click the wall over and over to level up your Agility Skill. This method is completely easy to AFK.

Combat

The introduction of the Valamore region opens up a ton of opportunities for training various Skills. When it comes to your Combat Skills, in particular, there's one that you need to take note of. What makes this method quite effective are the new changes to an old mechanic in OSRS.

In almost all cases, your max hit for each of the monsters you face remains the same. However, the Sulphur Nagua is a bit different as you get a boosted max hit from them with a bonus of -4 flat armor. What this means is that you'll always do an additional of 4 damage against the Sulphur Nagua regardless of your max hit. This bonus is even more effective if you have a weapon that can hit twice. For this, you’ll need to have the following:

• Level 75 Strength
• Level 70 Attack
• Level 38 Herblore
• Level 43 Prayer

Additionally, you'll need access to the Neypotzli Dungeon which is where Sulphur Nagua's are. To gain access to this, you'll need to have finished or at least started the Perilous Moons quest which is particularly long.

For the fight, make sure you have your best Strength-boosting armor and a melee weapon. Particularly, one that can hit twice. For your inventory, make sure to have some pestle and mortar, as well as several vials of water. These items are important as you can make a potion that’s very overpowered while inside Neypotzli and you don’t have to bring much to do it.

Once inside the dungeon, head to either the Steambound or Earthbound Cave. Grab as many Moonlight Grubs as you can and crush them with the pestle and mortar. Mix the crushed moonlight grubs and mix it with the vials of water to create a Moonlight Potion. The potion provides buffs to your attack, strength, and defense, while restoring your Prayer Points at the same time.

Once you have your stock of Moonlight Potions, head to the Ancient Prison area. Use your potion and activate Protect from Melee. Once done, start fighting the Sulphur Naguas in the area. They respawn pretty quickly as well. What's great about this is that the method is completely AFK-able as well. With this, you can get at least 150k Strength XP per hour.

Mining

Mining had one of the most changes of all the Skills. For a short period, players were getting excessive amounts of Mining XP with the help of Mining Gloves. The developers have since retracted this change but they are still actively searching for ways to balance out the potential changes to make way for the future. For now, here’s what’s new in Mining.

Core Mining Changes

• Clue Geode rates have been increased by 30% whenever applicable.
• Amethyst Veins can be mined for at least 2 to 3 gems before they become mined out.
• To access the Gem Mine, you'll now only need the Medium Karamja diary.
• You'll now see a new message when using the Uncharged Amulet of Glory.
• New areas where you can mine Sandstone and Granite.
• Mining gloves now have adjusted prices:
  • Mining Gloves - 40 Unidentified minerals.
  • Superior Mining Gloves - 100 Unidentified minerals.
  • Combining the Gloves - 40 Unidentified minerals.

The mining gloves were reworked in an effort to make them worth using. With the update, the gloves can prevent a rock deposit from being destroyed. The success of this is dependent on the type of gloves you have. Additionally, the mines now work when you're mining Iron, Gold, Coal, and Silver. Each of these rocks will have a single guaranteed rock save with the gloves on.

With the Superior Mining Gloves, you can now use them on Adamant and Mithril. For these, you'll have one rock save, and at least two on the lower-tier ores. The expert mining gloves work on Amethyst and Runite, which both ores getting one rock save. There will be two rock saves for Adamant and Mithril, and three for the lowest tier of ores.

Next, here are the changes made to some popular mining training methods.

With the update, a lot of players actually spending most of their time on Zalcano. There's a new lucrative Mining training method that's also fairly easy to do. For starters, you'll need to do Song of the Elves, and have level 70 Mining for this method. It's a steep requirement but XP at this level is moving at a snail's pace. That said, this Zalcano trick is still worthwhile.

Once you're in Zalcano, talk to him. He'll ask you for your purpose in the area. You can focus on XP or focus on getting resources. For Skilling, pick the XP route. Even if it' focused on Mining XP, you're still getting pretty decent money off of this.

Choosing XP-focused will lock you out of all the loot in the Zalcano, except for crystal shards. Fortunately, these are the most valuable items on the area. While you can do Zalcano alone, it's much better to do it in a mass world as this makes the entire Skilling process go by A LOT quicker. You split the rewards with other players but the trade-off is much better.

After an hour, you can get around 80 or so Crystal Shards at maximum efficiency. You can sell the shards directly but if you can, try to turn them into Super Combat Potions and sell them for a higher price. The Crystal Shards will net you around 1 million gold per hour, while beating Zalcano will net you at least 50k Mining XP.

Slayer

One of the key changes when it comes to the Slayer skill is that you don't need to cancel your current task if you want to take on another. It's now a lot easier to swap out existing Tasks with those that you have in storage. This feature is very helpful but keep in mind that you'll have to pay a one-time fee of 1,000 Slayer Points.

There are a few other minor changes worth noting. Mazchna, Vannaka and Chaeldar are no longer giving out specific Slayer tasks listed below.

Now, in terms of Skilling, there's a new and lucrative way to grow this Skill. The update also included a change in which there's now a minimal loot table for Fever Spider. While this might be a small change for some, it's actually one of the easiest and most lucrative ways to train Slayer right now.

Fever Spiders have a level 42 task requirement which is very low. The spiders themselves are very easy to kill so you shouldn't have trouble taking them on. To make the fight easier, make sure to wear Slayer Gloves to avoid getting diseased. Fighting the spiders requires you to start the Rum Deal quest. You can use a dwarf multicannon to aid you in the fight.

Once all of the above are completed, head to Braindeath Island and start farming the spiders there. Your goal is to get grimy kwuarm. The supplies considered, you can still earn 1.9 million gold per hour and 70k combat XP.

Thieving

Training your Thieving Skill has become a lot easier with Project Rebalance. The changes are geared towards Pickpocketing and Stalls in particular.

Pickpocketing

The update has made the pickpocket failure rate of Gnomes, Paladins, and Heroes lowered so getting the goods off of them has become a lot easier. Additionally, the developers have made Medium Clue Scrolls become an uncommon drop in Gnomes, Hard Clue Scrolls a rare drop in Paladins, and Elite Clue Scrolls a very rare drop for Heroes.

While this is a good thing for players, what makes Thieving a lot easier to train are the changes made to stalls.

Stalls

With the update, there are better respawn timers and XP rates for certain stalls. To be more specific, the stalls' XP have been buffed two to three times more. Those stalls being:

• Crafting (Amulet Moulds, Bracelet Moulds and Gold Bars added as drops)
• Crossbow (Mithril Crossbow Limbs and Mithril Bolts added as drops)
• Fish
• Fur
• Gem
• Magic (Nature and Law Runes added as a drop)
• Monkey Food
• Monkey General
• Ore
• Scimitar (Adamant and Mithril Scimitars added as a drop)
• Seed
• Silver (Tiaras and Silver Bars added as drops)
• Spice
• Tea
• Wine

For the new Skilling and moneymaking method, you're going to want to focus on Gem stalls. Here, you'll need level 75 Thieving and completion of Children of the Sun.

While you can do this at any gem stall, we've found that the best place to do it is in the Civitas Illa Fortis bazaar. There are two gem that are close to each other. To make this process more efficient, make sure to have a gem bag with you.

The gem stalls are in the southwestern corner. To avoid getting discovered by guards, make sure that you always do this method at the far end of the stalls. Steal from both of the stalls, and then hop worlds. Do this for an hour or up until you've gotten what you want from them. With this method, you're getting 200k Thieving XP per Hour. At max efficiency, you can get 490 Gems. You can do as you please with this or you can sell it immediately for profit.

Woodcutting

New Thieving Leveling Method

There's another highly lucrative and easy Thieving Skilling trick that you can now do. For this method, you'll need 50 Thieving, 55 Magic, and completion or at least starting the Children of the Sun quest. This training method is done in two steps.

Start by going to Varlamore and then steal the keys from the wealthy citizens in the area. When doing this, make sure to wait until the citizens are completely distracted by the children running around. This will keep them preoccupied during which, you can pickpocket them without risks for 15-20 seconds at a time. While waiting for them to get distracted, you can use high alch to level up your Magic skill at the same time. With this method, you can get around 70k Agility XP per hour and 60k Magic XP per hour.

More Training Methods To Come

There are most likely tons of other training methods we've yet to uncover in the new update for OSRS and hopefully, we get to share more of those with you soon. For now, make sure to consider these training methods above so that you can start getting stronger and richer fast.