Pay-to-play Woodcutting training

Introduction


This guide describes the most effective pay to play methods to train the Woodcutting skill. Woodcutting is a gathering skill which typically involves collecting logs from different types of trees. Additionally, while cutting ivy or trees which grant logs players have a chance of spawning a bird's nest. Bird’s nests can contain rings, bird's eggs, raven eggs, tree seeds and fruit tree seeds and they can also be crushed to obtain a crushed nest (worth coins). Chopping crystal trees gives a chance of obtaining crystal geodes which can be shattered to obtain gems, crystal triskelion fragments and crystal weapon seeds. Hatchets are required to chop wood. Levelling up the Woodcutting skill increases the rate at which players gain resources and experience while woodcutting. As players level up they are also able to use hatchets which woodcut at a faster rate. To gain the best experience rates possible, players are strongly recommended to use the highest level hatchet available to them. The experience rate estimates in this guide assume that the best possible hatchet is being used for the stated Woodcutting level and do not incorporate the use of any experience boosting items or bonus experience.

Hatchets


In addition to Woodcutting level requirements, hatchets require certain Attack levels to be wielded. However players are able to use a hatchet without equipping it, as hatchets held in the inventory or tool belt are automatically used to cut wood. To save inventory space, players are strongly advised to add their hatchet to their tool belt or equip it. Once a hatchet is added to the tool belt it cannot be removed, but players can add a higher level hatchet to their tool belt if the hatchet currently stored in the tool belt is inferior to the one being added. Players can add hatchets which they do not currently have a high enough Woodcutting level to use to their tool belt. If the hatchet stored in a player's tool belt requires a higher Woodcutting level to use than the player currently possesses, the hatchet will function as the best available hatchet at the player's current Woodcutting level.

Lumberjack clothing


Pieces of lumberjack clothing give a percentage increase in the amount of base Woodcutting experience gained. They require level 44 Woodcutting to wear and can be obtained as drops from killing undead lumberjacks during the broken bridge event in the Temple Trekking (and Burgh de Rott Ramble) minigame. Pieces are dropped in the order: boots, hat, legs and top. If all pieces are worn then an additional set effect is given.

Lumberjack auras


Lumberjack auras increase a player's chance of chopping wood by a percentage while they are activated. These auras' effects last for one hour after they are activated. Players may use 5 or 10 vis wax to extend a lumberjack aura’s duration by 50% or 100% (costing or  coins) once per day. This effect must be applied before the aura is activated. Once a lumberjack aura has been depleted the player must wait 3 hours before using it again. They also work when woodcutting crystal trees and ivy, increasing the frequency of experience being gained by the stated percentage. These auras do not affect woodcutting in a clan citadel. Lumberjack auras can be bought using Membership loyalty points. All lower tiers of the aura must be owned before a higher tier can be purchased.

Woodcutting urns


Urns can be used to gain additional Woodcutting experience while training. When held in the inventory, urns are filled as the player woodcuts. Only base experience counts towards filling the urn. Full urns can be teleported away to receive additional experience, equivalent to 20% of the woodcutting experience gained while filling the urn. Only one urn is filled at a time, though players may own up to a total of 10 full urns. If a player owns 10 full woodcutting urns they must teleport at least 1 away before they can fill more urns. Urns are only tradeable in their (nr), non-runed, forms. In order to use a woodcutting urn the player must add an earth rune to it; this makes the urn untradeable. Woodcutting ivy or crystal trees does not fill a woodcutting urn.

Perfect juju woodcutting potions


When the perfect juju woodcutting potion's effect is active the player has a 5% chance of getting two logs at once when woodcutting, doubling the experience received. The perfect juju woodcutting potion also affects ivy and crystal trees, giving a 5% chance of receiving double experience when woodcutting. Each dose of the potion lasts for one hour. The potion can be bought from the Grand Exchange or created by adding harmony moss (costing coins) to a juju woodcutting potion (3) (costing  coins) with level 75 Herblore.

Log-splitting scrimshaws


Log-splitting scrimshaws can be activated to give players a chance of destroying a log while woodcutting, granting additional Woodcutting experience. Log-splitting scrimshaws can be activated and deactivated when the player chooses, provided a 10 second cooldown has passed. The inferior log-splitting scrimshaw gives a 15% chance of splitting a log to gain more experience and requires level 70 Woodcutting to use. The inferior scrimshaw is tradeable, costing coins, and lasts for 3 hours. The superior log-splitting scrimshaw gives a 20% chance of splitting a log for more experience and requires level 80 Woodcutting to use. The superior scrimshaw lasts for 4 hours but it is untradeable. Players who have level 85 Fletching can unlock the ability to make superior log-splitting scrimshaws by gathering all 4 fragments of the Log-splitting scroll in Player-owned ports. The superior scrimshaw can then be crafted from 10 ancient bones. Log-splitting scrimshaws do not affect the experience gained from ivy or crystal trees.

The additional experience gained from the scrimshaw destroying a log is equivalent to a proportion of the experience that is normally gained upon receiving logs during woodcutting, and varies depending on the type of log destroyed. Inferior and superior scrimshaws award the same amount of additional experience when destroying a log. When woodcutting teak logs, a log-splitting scrimshaw would give approximately 2,000-3,000 additional Woodcutting experience per hour at level 35-40 Woodcutting and around 4,500-6,500 additional Woodcutting experience per hour at level 99 Woodcutting.

Beaver familiars


Having a beaver familiar summoned invisibly boosts the player's Woodcutting level by 2. This does not give the player to access higher level content, but allows them to chop at a slightly faster rate. Level 33 Summoning is required to summon a beaver from a beaver pouch (which costs coins). The beaver familiar has a duration of 27 minutes.

Skillchompas


Skillchompas are items that can be used instead of a hatchet when woodcutting, giving a woodcutting speed equal to that of the type of hatchet they are equivalent to. When equipped and used to woodcut, they are consumed each time the player's character attempts to woodcut even if the action is unsuccessful. If a player successfully gains experience while woodcutting with a skillchompa then they receive an additional 10% of the normal base experience. Each time a woodcutting attempt is unsuccessful a player gains 5% of the bonus experience that they would have received if the attempt was success. For example when woodcutting teak trees players gain 85 experience for successfully cutting teak logs when not using skillchompas; using skillchompas grants 93.5 experience upon successfully cutting teak logs and 4.25 experience each time the player is unsuccessful in cutting a teak tree.

At level 99 Woodcutting using crimson skillchompas at crystal trees gives around 146,000 experience per hour when using no other experience boosting items (compared to 110,000 experience per hour using a crystal hatchet). In an hour of woodcutting using this method around 1,400 crimson skillchompas are used, costing coins.

Volatile clay hatchets


Players can use reward points from the Stealing Creation mini-game to purchase proto-tools and volatile clay tools. These items can be transformed into a selection of skill related tools, including sacred clay hatchets and volatile clay hatchets. These hatchets can be right-clicked to grant Woodcutting bonus experience (it is not necessary for the hatchets to be equipped to gain bonus experience). Players are advised to play Stealing Creation with a group of players co-operating in non-combat games to deplete all sources of clay available more quickly. Once all the clay available in a game has been depleted the game will end early, allowing players to gain reward points in shorter amounts of time.

Both proto-tools and volatile clay tools cost 20 reward points per tool to purchase. When converting a proto-tool the player can chose which skilling tool it will become, but converting a volatile clay tool creates a random skilling tool. A volatile clay hatchet grants 29,340 Woodcutting bonus experience, while sacred clay hatchets grant 24,450 Woodcutting bonus experience. A skilling tool created from a volatile clay tool can be reverted back to the volatile clay tool and then converted again to potentially give a different tool. This may be done up to 10 times (the volatile clay tool is destroyed upon the 10th reversion); each reversion causing the tool formed from the volatile clay tool to have 10% less bonus experience available to be granted. Both sacred clay and volatile hatchets retain their form after being drained of bonus experience, and players can then use 20 reward points to recharge the depleted tools rather than purchasing new tools. Because of this players can maximise the amount of Woodcutting bonus experience they obtain from their reward points by initially purchasing a volatile clay tool and then transforming and reverting the skilling tools created until a volatile clay hatchet is obtained. Players can then continue recharging the volatile clay hatchet and claiming 29,340 Woodcutting bonus experience from it each time they obtain 20 reward points.

Players with at least level 80 in Woodcutting, Hunter, Fishing and Mining will be able to gather clay from all possible locations in a game of Stealing Creation. With these levels players can gather enough clay during a game of Stealing Creation to gain 24 reward points per game that they play. Assuming games of Stealing Creation are completed in around 12 and a half minutes, players can complete 4.8 games of Stealing Creation per hour and earn 115.2 reward points per hour - enabling them to obtain 140,832 Woodcutting bonus experience an hour.

Summary
See here to calculate how many logs will be obtained during training.

1-15 regular trees


At level 1 Woodcutting, players should begin training on regular trees. Between level 1 and 15 Woodcutting, players can gain experience at a rate equivalent to 14,500 experience per hour cutting regular trees. However, as only 2,416 experience is needed to achieve level 15 Woodcutting, a player starting with no Woodcutting experience can expect to achieve level 15 after around 10 minutes of training. This experience rate assumes the player is using a Dwarven army axe to gain additional Woodcutting experience. Regular trees are located throughout RuneScape, but they are one of the few types of tree that are cut down after only one log has been obtained from them. To avoid having to wait for trees to respawn while training, players should train in locations with many regular trees available (such as south-west of the Grand Exchange in Varrock, west of the Cooks' Guild). Players wishing to obtain more logs could use a Seers' headband 1 (or better) which gives a chance of obtaining two logs at once when cutting regular trees, though this does not give any additional experience. The Seers' headband is obtained from completing the easy tasks in the Seers' Village task set.

15-30 oak trees


At level 15 Woodcutting players can start training on oak trees. Between level 15 and 30 Woodcutting, players can gain experience at a rate equivalent to 19,000 experience per hour at oak trees. As a total of around 10,950 Woodcutting experience is needed to advance from level 15 to 30 Woodcutting, players should be able to achieve these levels in approximately 35 minutes. This experience rate assumes that the player is using a Dwarven army axe between levels 15-20 and then using a mithril hatchet at level 21 onwards. Oak trees are found in many locations throughout RuneScape, but an example of a good place to woodcut them is just south-west of Varrock's west bank (south of the Grand Exchange and just east of Gertrude's house). Here players will find 3 oak trees located close to the bank, with a further 3 oak trees located south of the first group.

30-35 willow trees


At level 30 Woodcutting players should begin training on willow trees. Between level 30 and 35 Woodcutting players can gain around 27,135 experience per hour cutting willow trees. One of the best locations to cut willow trees is just south-east of the bank in Draynor Village, where a large group of willow trees can be found on the coastline.

35-94 teak trees


At level 35 Woodcutting players are able to start training on teak trees. Around 41,000 experience can be gained per hour training at teak trees with level 35 Woodcutting and up to 92,000 experience per hour can be gained at level 99 Woodcutting. Cutting teak trees remains the most effective method of gaining experience up until level 94 Woodcutting. While woodcutting teak logs players have a 2.5% chance of obtaining a special teak log, granting the same amount of experience as woodcutting regular teak logs. Special teak logs are untradeable items that can used in the Construction skill to convert teak logs into teak planks in place of the usual fee or traded to the Sawmill Operator for 1,300 gp each.

The best place to cut teak trees is the Hardwood grove near Tai Bwo Wannai on Karamja. The hardwood grove contains 9 teak trees and has no requirements to access, except a payment of 100 trading sticks (which may be purchased from the Grand Exchange for coins each) each time the grove is entered. Players with a combat level of 10 or less will be attacked by level 5 snakes within the grove while woodcutting here. The closest method of banking to the hardwood grove is via Rionasta, who is located west of the hardwood grove. Rionasta will transport items, including logs and nests, to a player's bank for a fee of 10 trading sticks per item. Rionasta is located far from the grove and so banking from this location significantly decreases the rate at which Woodcutting experience is gained. Therefore, these experience rates assume that logs are not being banked by the player.

Players using the Evolution of Combat mode can drop teak logs as they are cut by adding teak logs to their action bar and then right-clicking the icon to drop the logs. As opposed to dropping logs directly from the inventory, dropping logs via the action bar does not interrupt woodcutting. Special teak logs have a right-click option to destroy the logs rather than to drop them and so they cannot be removed from the player's inventory in this way. Instead, players can right click special teak logs in their inventory to destroy them using the "destroy all" option.

Players with at least level 6 Divination could alternatively use signs of the porter to bank their teak logs (see this calculator to calculate the cost of using signs of porter to send teak logs to the bank. Signs of the porter cannot be used to bank special teak logs but will send bird's nests to a player's bank if the player picks them up. Players should be aware that, as logs are obtained at a frequent rate when woodcutting teak trees, they may need to often leave the hardwood grove to get more signs of the porter. This is especially the case if the player has a high Woodcutting level, is using a low tier of sign of the porter or has reduced inventory space due to using items such as woodcutting urns. Additionally players cannot use log-splitting scrimshaws at the same time as using signs of the porter, as both items must be equipped in the pocket slot.

For players wishing to manually bank teak logs, a better location to cut teak logs and bank them can be found on Ape Atoll - if the Deadliest Catch quest has been completed. Completion of Deadliest Catch unlocks a deposit box, near to the group of three teak trees on the south-eastern part of Ape Atoll, which players can use to bank teak logs more efficiently than it is possible at the hardwood grove. Starting the Monkey Madness quest is a requirement to access Ape Atoll.

Alternatives: willow trees (35-68) and ivy (68-94)


As a less intensive alternative to teak trees, players could continue cutting willow trees from level 35-68 Woodcutting. This gives between 27,000 Woodcutting experience per hour at level 35, and 45,000 Woodcutting experience per hour at level 68.

At level 68 Woodcutting players are able to begin training on ivy. Chopping ivy gives around 65,500 experience per hour at level 68 Woodcutting and 81,000 experience per hour at level 99 Woodcutting. As with willow trees, cutting ivy requires less effort and attention than cutting teak trees and so proves popular with some players. Cutting ivy grants no items. It can be found in several locations in RuneScape, though players who have access to Prifddinas are recommended to train at the ivy located in the Crwys district to take advantage of the Voice of Seren's effect. When the Voice of Seren is active in the Crwys district, base experience gained from Woodcutting ivy there will be increased 20%.

94-99+ crystal trees
At level 94 Woodcutting players can chop crystal trees, which give at least 90,000 experience per hour, at level 94 Woodcutting, and up to 110,000 Woodcutting experience per hour, at level 99 Woodcutting. There are 7 crystal trees in RuneScape, of which one at a time is active and can be cut. Players may locate the active crystal tree by travelling to any of the crystal trees and using the right-click option "Look at Crystal tree". This will inform the player of the direction that they need to travel in to find the active tree. Alternatively, players who have access to the Max Guild's garden in Prifddinas (requiring at least one level 99 skill or ownership of a quest cape) may attune one of the skill portals found there to transport them directly to the active crystal tree. The active crystal tree can be identified by it having a square of crystal shards around its base: these shards are chopped by the player to gain experience. As with ivy, crystal trees require little attention to train on and give no products to the player. The location of the active crystal tree changes approximately every 2 hours.

Completing quests
See here for a list of quests that grant Woodcutting experience on completion.

Clan citadel


Players who are members of a clan can gain Woodcutting experience while gathering timber from a Woodcutting plot in their clan citadel. It is possible to gain around 96.5k Woodcutting experience an hour collecting timber from a tier 7 Woodcutting plot with level 99 Woodcutting and rank 3 fealty. Rank 3 fealty is achieved when a player is a full member of a clan and has collected a full cap of resources during the previous week's build tick. Players are able to collect resources in their clan citadel until they have reached their resource cap, once per weekly build tick. Around 2,185 resources can be gathered per hour of skilling at a tier 7 Woodcutting plot with level 99 Woodcutting. Therefore, a player may spend up to 1 hour and 15 minutes a week woodcutting in their clan citadel, to gain up to 120,500 experience in total.

Having a higher level hatchet does not improve the rate at which experience is gained from the skill plot, as all players automatically use the hatchet provided by the clan citadel. The amount of experience gained from skilling at a Woodcutting plot can be increased by wearing items from the lumberjack outfit. Lumberjack auras and perfect juju Woodcutting potions do not affect the rate at which experience gained from skilling at the Woodcutting plot. An additional benefit of collecting resources in a clan citadel is that it makes the player eligible to receive bonus experience from their clan's Quartermaster. Players with level 99 Woodcutting and rank 3 fealty can claim 38,173 bonus experience in the Woodcutting skill, if they chose this skill from the options available at the Quartermaster. Bonus experience can be claimed after collecting half of the resource cap in the citadel.

Complexity 2 Woodcutting


Players who are familiar with the Dungeoneering skill can gain Woodcutting experience by chopping branches from trees while completing dungeons. To do this more effectively players should complete small solo dungeons with the dungeon complexity setting set to 2. With these settings, dungeons will contain large numbers of trees and also be more straightforward to complete than dungeons of a higher complexity. While completing a dungeon players should open rooms as usual, but take time to deplete all trees that are encountered. Once the player has opened all rooms in the dungeon and depleted all available trees, they should leave the dungeon (without killing the boss and ending the dungeon).

As with woodcutting outside of Dungeoneering, woodcutting inside dungeons requires a hatchet. Dungeoneering involves an alternative set of hatchets which can only be used while in dungeons and which may be stored in the separate Dungeoneering toolbelt. Completion of the medium tasks in the Daemonheim task set may be helpful, as this allows 40 law runes and 40 cosmic runes to be claimed from the Smuggler at the start of every dungeon. These runes can be used to create and teleport to gatestones for faster navigation inside dungeons.

A player with level 99 Woodcutting can obtain around 118,000 Woodcutting experience when woodcutting in c2 solo small floors, but this may vary. The trees spawned in a dungeon depend on the player's Woodcutting level: for example a player with level 99 Woodcutting completing a solo dungeon would find mostly grave creeper trees and entgallow trees. Therefore players with lower Woodcutting levels would find trees requiring lower Woodcutting levels to cut, which award less Woodcutting experience.

Players wishing to train both their Woodcutting and Fishing skills can use this method to obtain experience in Fishing and Woodcutting simultaneously. If wishing to obtain additional experience in Fishing, players should purchase feathers from the Smuggler upon starting a dungeon. Players who have completed tasks in the Daemonheim task set will receive rusty coins when a dungeon is started, which can be used to buy feathers. Players can then complete the method mentioned previously while additionally depleting all fishing spots encountered. Players with level 99 in Fishing and Woodcutting can gain around 80,000 Woodcutting experience and 82,000 Fishing experience per hour using this method.

Divine trees


Divine locations are items which can be made using the Divination skill. Divine locations can be placed to create a gathering hub from which players can harvest raw materials. Players can harvest from divine location even if they do not have the Divination level required to make it. A placed divine location lasts approximately 30 seconds before disappearing. Players can gain a limited amount of resources from divine locations per day, with the daily limit resetting at 00:00 UTC each day. A player's daily limit of resources is dependent on their total level, up to a maximum of 250 resources with a total level of 2,500 or more (see the daily limit calculator on the divine location page). 20 or 40 vis wax can be used to increase a player's daily limit by 50% or 100% once per day, costing or  coins. Gathering most resources contributes 1 resource towards the daily limit per item received, however some higher-level resources contribute more towards the daily limit.

As players may only create one divine location per day, it is beneficial for players to harvest from divine locations as part of a group so that they can gain access to multiple divine locations. Up to 5 players may harvest from the same divine location at once. When other players harvest from a divine location, the player who placed the divine location gains the benefit of a 40% chance of receiving additional noted items as they harvest from their divine location. Harvesting a noted resource awards the same experience and contribution to a player's daily limit as harvesting an un-noted resource. Harvesting noted resources allows a player to gain more resources from a single divine location and therefore reduces the number of divine locations that they must use to reach their daily limit of resources. A good place to find other players to harvest divine locations with is near Challenge Mistress Fara and the lodestone in Burthorpe on world 2, especially around the time of day when the daily limit resets.

Players can gather from divine trees if they have the required Woodcutting level. When gathering from divine trees players will gain logs that the equivalent tree in RuneScape gives. Logs are gained from divine trees at a rapid rate and grant experience equivalent to that which would be received if the logs were woodcut from a tree. Because of this, harvesting from divine trees can award players large amount of Woodcutting experience in a short amount of time. For example harvesting a full inventory of yew logs from a divine yew tree gives 4,900 Woodcutting experience in around 30 seconds. A player with a total level of 2,500 or more would be able to gain a total 43,750 experience per day harvesting from divine yew trees, without using vis wax to increase the daily limit. To gain the most Woodcutting experience possible from harvesting divine trees, players should harvest from the highest level divine tree available to them until level 62, when they can harvest from divine yew trees. Although players are able to gather from divine magic trees with level 82 Woodcutting, players should continue to harvest from divine yew trees. Harvesting magic logs counts twice towards a player's daily limit, while harvesting yew logs counts as one resource, so less Woodcutting experience is gained per resource when harvesting magic logs than when harvesting yew logs (a player with a total level of 2,500 or more would be able to gain 31,250 experience per day harvesting from divine magic trees, without using vis wax to increase the daily limit). Wearing lumberjack clothing increases the experience gained while harvesting from divine trees.