Complete 1-99 Hunter Guide (Post Varlamore Update) - OSRS Guide (2024)

Hunter is a fun skill that can be highly profitable and fast to train.

In this 1-99 Hunter Guide, I’ll teach you everything you need to know to get started and also show you my recommended way to train the skill as well as a faster more active method.

Navigation:

1. Passive Hunter Training
2. Hunters Rumours
3. Recommended Hunter Path
4. The Fastest way to train hunter
5. Alternative Training Options

How hunter works

The hunter skill involves setting up traps or using equipment to catch creatures in designated hunter areas.

As you progress your hunter level, you unlock new creatures, new training methods (e.g. Herbiboar) and you can set up more traps.

There are currently 3 ways to train hunter:

• Traditional hunter training
• Passive hunter training
• Hunters rumours

Traditional hunter training involves repeatedly hunting one creature in exchange for experience.

In 2017, a new method of training hunter was released with the arrival of Fossil Island. This method involves training hunter passively via birdhouses.

And then in 2024, with the arrival of Varlamore, we got yet another hunter method: ‘hunters rumours’ where you get a task assigned in which you hunt for a rare creature. This new method feels similar to the task system in the Slayer skill and offers more variety to active training.

Hunter Traps

Most hunter methods involve setting up a trap and waiting for a creature to get caught.

Every 20 hunter levels, you unlock one extra trap.

So at level 1, you can set up only 1 trap, at level 20, you can set up two and it tops out at level 80 when you can set up 5 total traps.

Examples of traps are bird snares, box traps, and net traps.

You can buy these traps from hunter shops or the Grand Exchange.

Hunter Equipment

Aside from traps, some hunter activities require you to use equipment to hunt creatures. E.g. using a net to catch a butterfly or impling.

Examples of equipment are the noose wand, butterfly nets, falcons, and drift nets.

Hunter areas

The easiest way to travel to hunter areas is to use the Fairy Ring network, so it’s helpful to unlock that first.

Otherwise, teleport scrolls (bought from the Grand Exchange) can be handy to teleport to hard to access locations such as ‘Piscatoris’ and ‘Feldip Hills’.

Passive Hunter Training

Birdhouses allow you to train hunter passively while you focus on other activities in the game.

During a birdhouse run, you install 4 birdhouses, add seeds, and return after 50 minutes to collect your experience. And you don’t even need to be online for your birdhouses to fill up. You could be at work, and log in every 50 minutes to collect your AFK experience.

Each birdhouse run will give you between 1120 – 4800 experience, depending on the birdhouse used.

So if you were to log in every hour while at work, for example, you could collect between 9-38K XP for doing 8 birdhouse runs, which only take about a minute max.

That’s an extreme example of course, but it’s just to illustrate how good passive hunter really is!

Birdhouses are unlocked once you get access to Fossil Island, an area that’s locked behind the Bone Voyage quest.

If you want an in-depth guide on how to set up birdhouses for the first time, continue reading here. Or check out my 3-minute tutorial below!

Hunters Rumours

The arrival of Varlamore, gave us a brand new activity: hunter’s rumours, a way to train hunter as if it were slayer!

The concept is familiar: you head to the Hunters Guild, and speak with a hunter master to collect a ‘rumour’. The hunter assigns you a rumour that you then hunt until you find a rare piece.

Once you have the piece, return it to the master for your reward experience, and continue.

Completing a rumour takes an average of 8 minutes.

Doing hunters rumours is (in my opinion) a more fun way to train the hunter skill than the conventional training methods, as you don’t just hunt one creature over and over to level up.

You can start Hunters Rumours as early as level 1 hunter.

To get juicy exp rates, I recommend you hold off until 72+ hunter, at which point you can complete ‘Expert Contracts’ and set up a nice block list to further enhance your exp/hr.

Check out my Hunters Rumours guide for more info.

Recommended Hunter Path

Here’s what I consider the ‘ideal’ Hunter path, in which you train the skill passively over time using birdhouses:

• Levels 1-9: Varrock Museum Quiz
• Levels 9-72: Birdhouses
• Levels 72-99: Birdhouses + Hunters Rumours

Set a goal of doing 2 birdhouse runs per day (e.g. once in the morning, once in the evening) and you’ll get to level 72 hunter in about 4 months.

This may seem slow, but keep in mind that a single run only takes a minute at most, and you have plenty of other skills and quests to focus on! The more runs you do per day, the faster you’ll level. You can get to 72 in a single month by doing 8 runs per day.

At level 72 Hunter, you can start doing Expert Hunters Rumours, and of course, continue doing your birdhouse runs until 99 as well.

The Fastest way to train hunter

If you don’t want to train passively, here’s how you can quickly level up.

Want to speed up the process a little? Here are the fastest methods for each hunter level.

1-9 Varrock Museum Quiz

Skip the initial levels by doing a little ‘Museum Quiz’ in Varrock. After which, your Hunter, and Slayer levels will be bumped to level 9!

I have the answers to the quiz HERE so you can get through it quickly, takes only a couple of minutes!

9-29 Catching Feldip Weasels & Tropical Wagtails

Equip a Noose Wand, Ring of Pursuit (bring extra), and also bring 2 bird snares, and maybe some stamina/energy potions.

Catching Feldip Weasels while wearing a ‘Ring of Pursuit’ is the only way to get fast experience during the early hunter levels.

Rings of Pursuit can be bought from the Grand Exchange for 2k each and hold 10 charges each, good for 10 weasels per ring.

The rings basically ‘speed up’ the process of tracking weasels by revealing the right path right away as opposed to you being forced to actually track them. It’s not worth doing this method without them. If you don’t wanna spend money, catch Crimson Swifts in Feldip Hills instead.

Feldip Weasels are located in Feldip Hills, right next to the entrance of the ‘Red Chinchompa Hunting Caves’ on the map.

The easiest way to get here is to buy a ‘Feldip Hills Teleport’ from the Grand Exchange or teleport via the Fairy Ring network (code: A-K-S) or run here from Castle Wars.

The process is simple:

Inspect a burrow. (Make sure your ring of pursuit is equipped!!)

Then follow the trail until you find a bush where the trail ends.

Right-click and attack that bush to capture the weasel.

Now repeat!

Once you reach level 20 hunting, continue hunting Feldip Weasels and at this point, you can also set up 2 bird snares to occasionally catch the Tropical Wagtails nearby.

You can easily combine these two training methods as the Weasils (almost) always lead you in the direction of the Wagtails!

Continue doing this until 29 Hunter.

29-47 Swamp Lizards in Canifis

Bring 3 ropes & small fishing nets for the traps

Next, you can catch Swamp Lizards in Canifis.

This area requires completion of ‘Priest in Peril’, if you haven’t done the quest yet, do that first as it’s only a couple of minutes and unlocks the Morytania region.

For this method, you’ll set up net traps, which require a small fishing net and rope.

To set a trap click on one of these small dead trees in the hunter area.

You’ll only be able to set up 2 traps at first and once you reach level 40, you can set up 3.

You will catch 253 Swamp Lizards to reach level 43 Hunter.

47-60 Orange Salamanders

Bring 3 ropes & small fishing nets for the traps, + Waterskins & Desert clothing

At level 47 you can set up 3 net traps which will result in around 70K XP/hr at Orange Salamanders.

You can find these in the Uzer Hunter Area, use Fairy Ring code d-l-q to get there or use the magic carpet at Shantay Pass to ‘Ruins of Uzer’

Don’t forget to bring waterskins and desert clothing to combat the desert heat!

Alternatively, you can also hunt spotted kebbits at the Piscatoris Hunter Area. This will be slightly faster (about 8K exp/hr) than orange salamanders but is more click-intensive.

For info on Kebbits, refer to the alternative methods below.

60-70 Red Salamanders

Bring 4 ropes & small fishing nets for the traps

Red Salamanders are really good experience but only if you use the correct spot. Many players use the wrong spot (the one in front of the ZMI altar) but the good spot is the one behind the ZMI altar.

Using the good spot, you can get up to 110k XP/hr!

70-72 Black Salamanders

Bring 5 ropes & small fishing nets for the traps

For a fleeting moment, you’ll be catching Black Salamanders in the wilderness between levels 70-72 which will give you around 140k exp/hr.

As this is in the wilderness, you can setup one extra trap, allowing you to setup 5 net traps in total.

To get here, travel to the Ferox Enclave via a Dueling Ring and run east.

As you don’t need to risk anything (except some nets/ropes) you don’t actually have to worry about being in the wildy. PKers generally don’t come here and if they do they will likely leave you alone since you’re not risking anything anyway!

If you continue to train here, at level 80 hunter you can set up 6 traps which will boost your XP/hr with about 20K.

As this is one of the fastest methods to train hunter (slightly worse than Black Chins but more chill and no pkers), you can stay here all the way to 99.

72-99 Hunters Rumours

At 72 Hunter, ‘Expert Hunter Rumours’ is the fastest way to train hunter, but only if you have a proper blocklist.

Setting up a blocklist basically involves using other hunter masters to ‘hold’ certain tasks for you so your main hunter master cannot assign them. I’ve covered this process in-depth in my Hunters Rumours Guide so definitely check that out.

The process of creating a blocklist is a tiny bit tedious but it does massively impact your exp rates.

At 91+ Hunter, you can get up to 240K exp/hr with hunters rumours with a proper blocklist.

Check out my youtube video (linked above) or read my written guide to get started. Also learn how to setup a blocklist, to increase your exp per hour.

Whenever you need a break from rumours, hunt some Herbiboar for profit instead!

Alternative Training Options

43-72 Falconry Kebbits

Hunting Kebbits, otherwise known as Falconry, is a click-intensive hunter activity in which you use a Falcon to continuously catch kebbits.

All you need for this activity is 500GP so you can ‘rent’ a Falcon from Matthias in the Falconry area of the Piscaotris Hunter Area.

To get here, travel to the Piscatoris Hunter Area by buying a ‘Piscatoris Teleport’ scroll from the Grand Exchange or use the Fairy Ring code A-K-Q.

Here you can hunt Spotted (43 hunter), Dark (57 hunter) & Dashing Kebbits (69 hunter).

Dark & Dashing kebbits are also frequently assigned as Hunters Rumours tasks and should never be blocked as these tasks give really good experience and are over super quickly.

My preferred spot for hunting Kebbits is this southern spot in-between the trees.

If you stand in this spot, and mark the purple and black tiles as illustrated above, you can continuously catch dashing kebbits as soon as they spawn. Catch the dark kebbit while you wait for the other to spawn.

This strategy should give you the best possible exp/hr. It’s a little click-intensive but a great alternative training method.

80-99 Herbiboar

At 80 Hunter (or 77 with hunter potions) Herbiboar is not only great EXP, but it’s also a great moneymaker for regular accounts and a great source of herbs for ironmen!

Mains can easily make 500k GP/hr at Herbiboar while irons can collect about 20K worth of herblore exp per hour.

Here are some gear recommendations:

• Magic Secateurs give you 1 extra herb per harvest (increase profit)
• Graceful outfit helps you with run energy restoration
• Stamina Potions are essential for this method as it involves continuous running
• And a herb sack is handy to save inventory space

To get started with Herbiboar, travel to Fossil Island via your digsite pendant and take the mush tree to ‘Mushroom Meadow’.

Also, make sure you have the ‘herbiboar’ Runelite plugin turned on!

Inspect the first rock you see that is highlighted in the start color.

Now follow the trails (highlighted in white) to the next object, inspect this object again.

Repeat until you’ve reached a tunnel where the Herbiboar is located. This tunnel is highlighted in green.

Attack the tunnel and harvest the Herbiboar.

Now just repeat this cycle! Very simple!

You don’t have to return to the start point from earlier, there should be a nearby object you can inspect (highlighted in blue) to start your next track.

As long as you keep running (Graceful + Staminas) you should be able to track at least 60 herbiboars per hour. The exp you get scales with your level, with the minimum being around 130k/hr.

Wrap Up

That’s all I have for you on the Hunter skill!

I highly recommend following my recommended path and gradually level up via birdhouses. At level 72 Hunter, you can start being more active by doing Hunters Rumours on your quest to 99 hunter.

Have fun! And feel free to ask any questions in the comments below or mention your favorite hunter methods.