OSRS Magic Guide For Lunar Spellbooks & Fastest 1-99 Training

The fastest osrs magic guide method most players can actually run is bursting and barraging Ice spells on Ancient Magicks: roughly 200k to 250k XP an hour with Ice Burst from level 70, jumping to 300k to 400k an hour with Ice Barrage from level 94, once Monkey Madness II is done. A faster number exists on paper   1-tick enchanting dragon or onyx bolts can pass 500k XP an hour   but it needs tick-perfect clicking almost nobody sustains for long. Below is every method worth running, the real rates, what each one needs, and the mistakes that waste the most time and gold.

Quick answer. Bursting Ice Burst from level 70, then Ice Barrage from level 94, at the Monkey Madness II tunnels is the fastest osrs magic guide route a normal player can sustain, at 200k to 400k XP an hour depending on level and gear. High Alchemy is the free-to-play-friendly fallback at a fixed 78k XP an hour from level 55.

Why magic training actually matters

This osrs magic guide exists because magic training is not just an XP grind for its own sake, and it pays off well past level 99 in ways a raw rate table doesn’t show. Level 75 Magic gets you the Quest Cape, level 96 is the requirement for the Achievement Diary Cape, and several bosses, including Leviathan and Nightmare, are weak to magic specifically.

Level 99 also unlocks a real quality-of-life perk on the Magic Skillcape: swapping spellbooks up to five times a day without walking to an altar. None of that shows up on a bare XP-per-hour table, but it’s the reason most accounts push magic training well past the point where the raw rate looks exciting.

Every method compared

The table below is the core of this osrs magic guide, worth bookmarking before you commit to a route.

Method	Level	Rate (Magic XP/hr)	Cost to 99	Best account type
Quests (Imp Catcher, Witch’s Potion)	1	Flat XP lumps	Free	Everyone, do first
Low-level combat spells	1 to 24	13k to 27k	A few hundred gp/hr	Budget, ironman
Splashing	Any (needs -64 magic gear)	9k to 13k	Runes only, no return	Restricted accounts
High Alchemy	55	78k, fixed	Breakeven to profit	Everyone
Smoke Burst	62, needs Ancient Magicks	Below 200k, softer than Ice Burst	High, chaos/death runes	Early bridge option
Ice Burst	70	200k to 250k	High, chaos/death runes	Mid-speed route
Ice Barrage	94	300k to 400k	Very high, blood/death runes	Fastest sustainable route
Superglass Make	77	Moderate, plus Crafting XP	Cheap to moderate	Crafting crossover
Plank Make	86, needs Dream Mentor	Up to 90k, AFK	Often profitable	Profit while training
1-tick enchant bolts	49 to 87 depending on bolt	Up to 500k+	80m to 120m+	Efficiency-focused mains

The fastest route through this osrs magic guide, start to finish

1. Rush Imp Catcher and Witch’s Potion. Both hand in items rather than requiring combat, pushing you from level 1 to level 10 in minutes.

2. Cast Wind Strike or Fire Strike on weak monsters such as chickens or rats until level 24, where Curse becomes available for splashing.

3. Get to level 55 and start High Alchemy. It’s boring, but it’s close to free once you find a breakeven item, at a fixed 78k XP an hour.

4. Complete Desert Treasure I for Ancient Magicks as soon as your stats allow it, since the quest only needs 50 Magic to start. Finishing it early means the burst spells are ready the moment your level catches up, instead of losing time to the quest later.

5. At level 62, Smoke Burst becomes an early option at the Monkey Madness II tunnels if Desert Treasure I is already done. It hits noticeably softer than Ice Burst, so most players treat it as a bridge rather than a destination, worth using only if the wait to level 70 feels too slow.

6. At level 70, switch to Ice Burst, the point most players settle into bursting Maniacal Monkeys for real.

7. At level 80, add a Kodai Wand if you can afford one. It isn’t required, but its 15% chance to negate rune costs turns into real gold saved over a long burst or barrage grind.

8. Push to level 94 for Ice Barrage. This is the realistic ceiling for most accounts, at 300k to 400k XP an hour in a stacked spot.

9. Only consider 1-tick bolt enchanting if you already max efficiency elsewhere. The click rate is punishing, and almost nobody uses it start to finish, even though it edges out barraging on paper.

Requirements and setup

This osrs magic guide covers exact levels first. You need level 55 Magic for High Alchemy, level 70 for Ice Burst, and level 94 for Ice Barrage. All three burst and barrage spells sit on Ancient Magicks, which only unlocks after finishing Desert Treasure I and needs a minimum of 50 Magic just to access the book at all   well below the 62 needed for Smoke Burst or the 70 needed for Ice Burst.

Gear. Bring a rune pouch, since blood and death runes eat inventory space fast. An infinity or ancestral top adds real accuracy once you can afford it. From level 80 onward, a is the single best upgrade for this grind: on top of unlimited water runes, it carries a 15% chance to negate the rune cost of any offensive spell entirely, which compounds into real savings across a full burst or barrage grind and often pays back its own purchase price before you hit 99. Before level 80 you don’t have that option, so budget rune costs as if every cast is full price.

Runes. Chaos runes power the burst multiplier, blood runes fuel Ice Barrage’s life-steal effect, and death runes are the base cost of every Ancient Magicks combat spell. Stock up on the Grand Exchange or by crafting your own supply if buy limits are throttling your session.

Total cost. Rushing 70 to 94 on Ice Burst and Ice Barrage runs into the tens of millions depending on current blood rune prices, before gear. Fund the grind through magic-weak bosses like Vorkath if your bank needs topping up along the way. Prices move daily, so check the Grand Exchange before committing to a big buy.

Method by stage

This osrs magic guide breaks the grind into seven stages so you always know what to run next.

Levels 1 to 24: quests and strike spells

Rate. 13k to 27k XP an hour. Requirement. None beyond a staff and a handful of runes. The catch. This phase is slow no matter what you do, so lean on the two quests first and treat the rest as a formality.

Levels 24 to 55: splashing or Sand Crabs

Rate. 9k to 13k XP an hour. Requirement. Full metal armour, or a Cursed Goblin Staff, to hit a -64 magic attack bonus. The catch. Splashing is genuinely tedious, and most players are better off at Sand Crabs or on strike spells instead. Plenty of accounts waste dozens of hours here before someone points out the faster option.

Level 55 onward: High Alchemy

Rate. A fixed 78k XP an hour at roughly 1,200 casts, since each cast takes exactly 3 seconds and gives 65 XP regardless of level. Requirement. Level 55, plus a fire staff to skip the fire rune cost entirely. The catch. Alch prices move fast, so check the Grand Exchange before buying a stack of anything.

Levels 62 to 69: Smoke Burst, an early bridge

Rate. Meaningfully below Ice Burst, since Smoke Burst hits softer   community reports put it well under 200k XP an hour rather than the 200k-plus Ice Burst delivers. Requirement. Level 62, Ancient Magicks already unlocked, same Monkey Madness II tunnels setup as Ice Burst. The catch. This stage only matters if Desert Treasure I is already finished.

Most guides skip it entirely and jump straight from High Alchemy to Ice Burst, which quietly wastes the several levels where Smoke Burst is already available. It’s not worth chasing if you’re only 5 or 6 levels out from 70, but it beats High Alchemy for anyone sitting well below it.

Level 70 to 79: Ice Burst

Rate. 200k to 250k XP an hour in a stacked spot such as the Monkey Madness II tunnels. Requirement. Level 70, Ancient Magicks unlocked, and enough chaos and death runes to sustain the session. The catch. You need a genuine multi-target spot to see these rates; casting Ice Burst on a single monster wastes most of the spell’s value. No Kodai Wand yet at this stage, since it needs level 80 to wield.

Level 80 onward: add a Kodai Wand if the grind gets long

Once you hit 80 Magic, a Kodai Wand becomes an option. Made from a Kodai insignia, a Chambers of Xeric reward, fused with a master wand, it gives unlimited water runes, a 15% Magic damage boost, and a 15% chance to fully negate the rune cost of an offensive spell. None of that is required to keep bursting, but on a long grind to 99 the rune savings alone can outweigh the wand’s Grand Exchange price.

Level 94 onward: Ice Barrage

Rate. 300k to 400k XP an hour, the fastest sustainable rate that doesn’t require tick manipulation. Requirement. Level 94 and a heavier rune bill, since barrage spells add blood and death runes on top of the chaos rune cost. The catch. If you’re getting well under this rate, it’s almost always the setup, not you, so double check your target spot before assuming the number is wrong.

Cheapest route if you’re broke

High Alchemy is still the answer, and it’s the one method in this osrs magic guide that can genuinely pay for itself. Find a battlestave or dragonhide item trading below its alch value, cast from level 55 onward, and you train at 78k an hour while making back most or all of the nature rune cost.

Pair this with a run through the herblore guide for magic potions if you want a small accuracy boost without extra Grand Exchange spend. From level 80, Stun-alching (casting High Alchemy, then Stun on a nearby NPC, on repeat) pushes past 150k XP an hour, at a noticeably higher rune cost and a lot more clicking than plain alching.

Most AFK route

Splashing wins on pure attention: you can walk away for up to 20 minutes at a stretch once auto-retaliate is on and your gear hits -64 magic attack. It’s also the reason people burn dozens of hours for a rate that Sand Crabs or High Alchemy would beat without much more effort.

For something semi-AFK with a profit angle, Plank Make at level 86 (after Dream Mentor) converts logs into planks for up to 90k XP an hour with minimal clicking, and mahogany planks are usually the most profitable log to run through it. It sits on the Lunar spellbook alongside Superglass Make at level 77, which converts sand and soda ash into molten glass while handing over a small chunk of Crafting XP on the side.

Ironman and restricted account route

This osrs magic guide treats ironman as a first-class account type, not an afterthought, because ironman accounts can’t buy their way to 99, so the plan changes. Craft your own nature and blood runes rather than relying on drops, and lean harder on High Alchemy using loot you’d otherwise sell, since it’s free XP on items you already own.

Thralls from the Arceuus spellbook, unlocked from level 38 after A Kingdom Divided, are worth training early too, since a free extra hit every few seconds speeds up almost every other grind on the account. For gold to fund runes, an ironman money making route that doesn’t depend on the Grand Exchange keeps the whole plan self-sufficient.

Mistakes that cost people the most time

• Skipping the two early quests. Imp Catcher and Witch’s Potion take minutes and save hours of slow strike-spell grinding.

• Splashing past level 55. Once High Alchemy unlocks, splashing stops making sense for anyone who isn’t deliberately going AFK.

• Buying Ancient Magicks runes without checking prices first. Blood and death rune costs swing enough to double a session’s cost overnight.

• Training bursts on a single target. Burst and barrage spells are built for multi-combat spots; using them on one monster wastes most of their value.

• Assuming you need a Kodai Wand to start bursting. It helps at 80+, but it’s a rune-saving upgrade, not a requirement to unlock the method.

• Ignoring the Lunar spellbook entirely. Even players who never barrage benefit from Lunar Diplomacy, since the Lunar spellbook unlocks useful utility spells and is a quick win toward the Achievement Diary Cape requirement later.

The other spellbooks, in simple words

No osrs magic guide is complete without a plain-terms rundown of what each spellbook actually does. The standard spellbook is what every account starts with, mixing low-level combat spells with utility like teleports and High Alchemy. The Lunar spellbook unlocks after Lunar Diplomacy, requires 65 Magic and 40 Defence to cast anything from it, and leans on utility rather than damage: Superglass Make at level 77, Plank Make at level 86 with Dream Mentor, and NPC Contact for remote banking-style conversations with certain NPCs.

Ancient Magicks unlocks after Desert Treasure I, needs a minimum of 50 Magic to access, and is almost entirely combat spells, including Ice Burst and Ice Barrage plus a handful of teleports. The Arceuus spellbook needs Arceuus house favour and gives you Thralls, Dark Lure and a run of teleports, and it’s available to any member’s account without a quest gate, making it the easiest of the three extra spellbooks to unlock early.

If you’ve been sticking to the standard spellbook out of habit, you weren’t wrong exactly, it was simply the only option before you unlocked the others, and switching over is worth the short quest detour. Once you’ve unlocked all four, the Lunar spellbook in particular is worth revisiting even after you’ve moved on to Ancient Magicks for combat, since Plank Make and Superglass Make on the Lunar spellbook are two of the better semi-AFK earners in the game.

Final Words

Start with the two early quests, ride High Alchemy while your bank grows, and switch to bursting the moment Ancient Magicks unlocks. That single sequence carries most players from level 1 to a comfortable 90s Magic without wasted gold, and it’s the backbone this whole osrs magic guide is built around. Check the, fletching and fishing guide if you plan to enchant your own bolt supply, and the prayer guide if thralls are part of your ironman plan.

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