8 grindiest skills in Old School RuneScape

Old School RuneScape is notorious for being one of the grindiest games ever made. You’ll find very few gamers playing without a second monitor to watch something else at the same time.

Watching the XP number go up is what Old School RuneScape is all about, but some skills are slower than others. The grindiest skills in OSRS can take months to max out, even for the most dedicated players.

Agility

If you meet someone with an Agility skillcape in Old School RuneScape, know you’re dealing with one of the most patient individuals on planet Earth. Unlike some of the other grindiest skills in the game, Agility is the worst of both worlds. Not only is it difficult to AFK while training, but it’s also painfully slow and can take months of dedicated play to reach the maximum level.

If you manage to reach 99 Agility in Old School RuneScape without getting a repetitive strain injury, that’s an achievement in itself.

Fishing

Fishing is one of the Old School RuneScape skills that’s not too bad if you’re planning to AFK. Its XP rates are extremely low, but you only really have to click around once a minute to keep the numbers flowing. Due to the nature of the game’s fishing areas, it’s pretty social, too, so you can always speak to the people around you to pass the time. You can make Fishing faster through a technique called 3-tick fishing, but that makes it completely non-AFK.

99 Fishing isn’t the worst skill in Old School RuneScape to max out, but we wouldn’t go as far as to call it fun, either. At least you’ll make a ton of GP if you’re banking the fish.

Hunter

Hunter is an interesting case. It’s very profitable to reach 99 through hunting black chinchompas, and the XP is fine. The problem is that it can be faster. Much faster, in fact, using methods very few players are ever going to use. With tick manipulation and the use of an alt account, you can double your XP rates hunting black chinchompas, but realistically, who has time for that kind of palaver?

Don’t expect to be AFK while training Hunter, either. You’ve got to pay a ton of attention to this skill, and the fact you can interrupted by other players coming to your spot only delays matters further.

Mining

Mining is another skill with XP rates that will leave you wanting to tear your hair out. Some of the most efficient training methods can yield around 75,000 XP per hour, which doesn’t sound too bad, right? When you consider that players must earn just over 13 million XP to reach 99 in a skill, it suddenly feels a little more miserable.

Luckily, Mining is a pretty AFK skill, so it’s a good option if you’re looking to watch a TV series while you play. Still, expect to spend a long time grinding that coveted skillcape.

Runecraft

There’s no way around it – unless you’re filthy rich, training Runecraft is pretty laborious. At its most efficient with normal methods, you’ll earn around 100,000 XP per hour, making it a 130-hour grind to 99. That’s not 130 hours of AFKing, either. Oh no – if you want to get Runecraft maxed in such a short time frame, you’ll have to constantly dart from point A to B and back again to gather your resources for training this skill.

There’s a caveat here. You can pay other players to work as runners for these Runecraft resources. These can cost around 7 to 8 million GP per hour, which adds up quickly for the average player. It does, however, exponentially increase XP rates beyond that 100,000 per hour mentioned earlier, but unless you have more GP than sense, this probably isn’t worth it.

Slayer

Admittedly, Slayer is probably the least painful skill to grind on this list. It’s good to train passively while you max out your combat levels, but the XP rates in general aren’t pretty. Often, you’ll be stuck on a task that can take hours, and reward very little XP, while sometimes a task can take just minutes with the right setup. It’s total pot luck until you earn enough Slayer Points to ban the least efficient tasks.

Since Slayer involves combat, certain tasks can’t be AFKed. You don’t want to lose millions of GPs worth of equipment because you weren’t paying attention and died, do you? At least with Slayer, you’ll earn a ton of money on route to 99, so there’s a big silver lining with this one.

Thieving

With the Pyramid Plunder Old School RuneScape minigame, Thieving is actually not too slow to train. The reason it’s one of the grindiest skills in the game is that it isn’t AFK at all – it demands your full attention if you want to have anything resembling decent XP rates. It’s the same deal as stealing from Rogues’ Castle chests in the Wilderness – fast XP, but click-intensive and risky due to the risk of death by other players.

The issue with Thieving is that it feels as though there isn’t much variety on the route to 99. To be efficient, you’ve got to be comfortable doing the same thing over and over again.

Woodcutting

Point. Click. Wait. Repeat until your inventory is filled with logs. Bank. Do it all over again. This is the reality of Woodcutting in Old School RuneScape. You’re looking at 90,000 XP per hour here if you want to AFK it, although tick manipulation is possible to speed this up.

On the bright side, Woodcutting is similar to Fishing in that it’s quite a communal skill. You’re all in the grind together.