Hunter
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Hunter-icon.png Introduction

Hunter is by far one of the easiest and quickest skills to level. Most drops are only needed in double digits, and damage is rarely taken, this means that banking is not needed and trips last as long as you want. No other skills are required for Hunter, but having Magic greatly helps for teleports. Hunter is not an incredibly useful skill with the exception of being able to catch dragon implings and having access to items like the Spottier Cape, and Gloves of Silence; what is most useful from Hunter are things like Chinchompas, which provide good Ranged EXP. Because Hunter is a very straightforward and linear skill, not much is needed to know about the skill itself and strategy does not play a large role in leveling.

This guide is divided into two sections. The first section discusses typical Hunter training methods, and the second section briefly goes over the topics of implings and Puro-Puro, respectively.

Starting Out

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: The Varrock Museum Quiz has no requirements and catapults you to level 14 right off the bat.
For the more patient, waiting until you can fully complete the museum allows you to skip catching annoying birds entirely, skipping to Eagle's Peak which allows you to skip right to Ferrets or Swamp Lizards.

Recommended: Watch Tower and 58 Magic for Watchtower Teleport and Plague City for Ardougne Teleport

First thing first, go to Yanille and buy your tools. At least one of every item except for the Unlit Torch because it is useless, with multiple Box Traps and Butterfly Jars, you should also have at least 5 Rope and Small Fishing Nets in your bank for Salamanders.

Typical Leveling Methods

Methods are fairly straight forward, everything is just a time sink as this skill is very low investment with a high reward once you hit above level 70. Just have patience and reset traps when needed.

Level Creature Method Area XP Difference Experience Catches
1-14 Varrock Museum Quiz gives 2,250 Hunter XP
14-19 Cerulean Twitches Bird Snare Relekka Hunting Area 1,723 145.125 12
19-27 Tropical Wagtails Bird Snare Feldip Hills Hunting Area 5,757 214.200 27
27-31 Eagles' Peak gives 5,625 Hunter XP
31-39 Ferrets Box Trap Piscatoris Hunting Area 12,640 259.2 49
39-53 Swamp Salamanders Net Trap Canifis Hunter Area 101,946 342 298
53-60 Orange Salamanders Net Trap Uzer Hunter Area 138,148 504 274
60-83 Chinchompas Box Trap Piscatoris Hunting Area 2,399,372 446.4 5,375
60-99 Chinchompas Box Trap Piscatoris Hunting Area 12,760,689 446.4 28,586
80-99 Red Chinchompas Box Trap Feldip Hills Hunting Area 11,048,363 596.25 18,530
Feldip%20hunting.png

Levels 1-14 : Varrock Museum Quiz

Items Required: None

Make your way over to Varrock, to the Museum basement, and complete the quiz. Should take about 5 minutes for 2,250 XP.

Levels 14-19 : Cerulean Twitch - Bird Snares

Items Required: Bird Snare
Optional: Alching fodder while you wait for traps to activate

Make your way over to the hunting grounds north east of Rellekka. This is located on a snowy peninsula north of the Keldagrim entry cave. At 145.125 exp each, you will only need 15 minutes to trap 18 of these to proceed to the next tier bird.

Levels 19-27 : Tropical wagtail - Bird Snares

Items Required: Bird Snare x2
Optional: Alching fodder while you wait for traps to activate

Head over to the Feldip hunter area and see the map above for the location of Tropical Wagtails. At 213.75 exp each, you will only need to spend 15 minutes to get 27 successful snares and move on to the next stage.

Levels 27-39 : Eagles Peak and Ferrets - Box Traps

Items Required: See quest guide and also 2 x Box Traps
Optional: Alching fodder while you wait for traps to activate

Complete the Eagles Peak quest which will teach you how to catch ferrets. After that, continue catching them to 39.

At 259.2 exp each, it won't take too long to reach 39 here. Given the time taken to go to Feldip for Barb tail kebbits and then come back to Piscatoris for the next stage you should likely just stay here instead until you can unlock Prickly Kebbits, and then a little bit more to increase your success rates.

Levels 39-60 : Swamp Lizards/Orange Salamanders - Net Traps

Items Required: Ropes, Small fishing nets

There are four types of lizards/salamanders that can be caught. The general strategy is to find a spot with three small trees, and cycle between them.
Salamanders are fairly useless, just catch and release them unless you want to keep a unique gag weapon as a souvenir.

  • Swamp lizards can be found southeast of Canifis, and give 342xp per catch. These salamanders are caught near Mort myre swamp, so search around for a ghast-free spot to hunt in. After you reach lvl 54 or higher, you will want to move on to orange salamanders.
  • Orange salamanders can be found in the Uzer Hunter Area, north of the fairy ring DLQ, and give 504xp each. Bring several waterskins, proportional to the amount of time you plan on staying, and desert robes. 8 skins is a good place to start. You can also bring a knife (to use on nearby cacti) or the lunar spell Humidify so you can periodicaly refill your skins.

Catch rates are generally pretty low for salamanders, so you will want to be a few levels overlevelled when catching them. Despite this, they give generous amounts of xp upon successful catches and are much faster than their kebbit alternatives.

  • Red salamanders can be found near the Ourania Hunter Area, southwest of Ardougne. These give one of the fastest xp rates later in the game, but are typically ignored in favor of chinchompas which are more useful. Black salamanders are too sparse to be viable for training.

Levels 60-83/99 : Grey Chinchompas - Box Traps

Items Required: Box Traps x4

Head to the Piscatoris hunting ground and use your box traps to get about 5,375 grey chins to reach level 83, most players stop here just to finally catch Dragon Implings.

If you have that sweet neuron activating 99 in your sights you can move on to red chins, red salamanders, or just stick with greys until 99 as they'll be useful for levelling ranged later on and still offer very good XP rates. You'll need around 28,586 total grey chins from level 60 to reach level 99 from here.

Levels 80-99 : Red Chinchompas - Box Traps

Items Required: Box Traps x5

Head back to Feldip hunter area to the location shown on the map above to get Red (Carnivorous) Chinchompas. On the way to 99 hunter you will get loads of Red Chinchompas, which are one of the best ways to make money due to their use in ranged training, at Pest Control, and for Kree'arra.

Do not do these before level 80. Even at high levels, red chins have a miserable catch rate, limited spawns, and a respawn delay, so you will want to wait until lvl 80 for that fifth box trap. This is where patience is key as you will get bored with Chinchompas but must stay with them. Red chinchompas have a somewhat sparse population, a max of 3 spawns at any location, and if you set up too many boxes many will eventually fall over. A good rule of thumb is to set up n+1 box traps, where n = the number of chinchompas running around the area. Make sure to catch shaking boxes ASAP, as they won't respawn until they are caught or break free of the box.

At high levels, the most optimal way to catch these is to set 4 traps at once, check all 4 at once prioritizing the shaking boxes, then reset them while you wait for the chins to respawn. You'll need around 18,530 red chins to get from level 80 to level 99 here.

Other Methods

Levels 39-45/60 : Prickly Kebbits - Deadfall Traps

Items Required: Knife, Any Axe
Optional: Full inventory of logs to start with, 32 fletching and chisel

These can be found at the Piscatoris hunting ground, north of the Ferrets. Interact with the boulders to set up your deadfall traps using logs and chop the nearby trees as you need them.

If you started at level 37 when these first become accessible, about 1/5 will be caught successfully, so wait till at least level 39. Levelling 37-38 on Prickly Kebbits is slower than 41-42 due to the huge difference in success rates. Once you get 40 hunter, the majority of the traps should succeed.

The deadfall traps in here are spaced relatively far apart so there will be some running involved. You will want to fullscreen your game window to keep an eye on all 3 traps at once as you run back and forth between the traps. Here you will find that you won't be able to maintain constant uptime on the traps - the limiting factor will be the time it takes to chop the wood and run back .

If you have 32 fletching, bring a chisel so you can turn the kebbit spikes into a nice stackable bunch of kebbit bolts that you can drop all at once. Useless.

At 459 exp each, it will take about an hour and 61 Prickly Kebbits to reach level 45 for decent falconry success rates. Alternatively you can stay to catch 523 Prickly Kebbits to grind to level 60 for grey Chinchompas, or even better Falconry rates for getting the Spottier cape.

Levels 45-60/68 : Spotted Kebbits - Falconry

Items Required: 500gp

You need 2 free hands for falconry so unequip your shield, sword and glove slots and head to the falconry enclosure south east of the Piscatoris Fishing Colony. Pay the man 500gp for the falconry glove and simply click on the spotted kebbits in the enclosure to make the falcon attack them. It is recommended to bring a few multiples more than 500gp because you will lose the falconry glove every time you leave the enclosure or log out and need to pay again. There are only 6 spotted kebbits in the entire enclosure, so again, keep your game window fullscreen so you can spot your next kill and click to it for maximum efficiency.

You can take 2 spotted kebbit furs and 400 gp to the fancy dress shop in south east varrock to get a Spotted Cape. It requires 40 hunter to wear and reduces carry weight by 2.2kg. This might have some limited usefulness if you plan to do the agility pyramid.

Unlike prickly kebbits, having a full inventory doesn't prevent you from continuing, so this time you can keep hunting with a full inventory without needing to drop items. Otherwise bank them and pay the 500 gp to falcon man when you return. Everybody who has the required hunter level to wear the Spotted cape will already have one of their own, so banking more furs is a waste of time.

You will notice that unlike the previous stages and tiers, there isn't a large experience rate boost once you hit falconry as the Spotted Kebbits actually give less experience per catch compared to Prickly Kebbits, although they are faster to catch. Whereas all the previous stages of hunting went by fairly quickly and easily, once you start falconry there will be a very sudden and sharp incline into grinding territory. It takes about 3 hours from level 1 to get up to this point and another 8 hours to get to the next stage.

If you have spare logs in your bank, deadfall trapping prickly kebbits is much faster than falconry given the failure rates meaning you will have to click several times per spotted kebbit and lower exp at 234 Spotted Kebbit compared to 459 per Prickly Kebbit deadfall trap.
After enduring the falconry music looping for hours on end, you can move on to grey Chinchompas to finally start reaping the rewards.

If you are an Ironman, you should probably stay here until 68, catching Dark and then eventually Dashing kebbits for your Spottier cape.

Levels 80-99 : Imps - Magic Box Traps

Items Required: Magic Boxes

Catching imps — the same level-2 imps you killed as a noob — gives the fastest hunter xp in the game, at the cost of being fairly expensive. Next time you're in Yanille, be sure to buy an inventory full of these boxes (or bribe a newfriend to do it) and bank them. Once you've accumulated a few hundred of these, the best place to catch imps is just north of the Yanille bank, where there are three imps roaming around. Alternatively, you can crawl through the shortcut near the hops patch, drop all your boxes, and buy more from the hunter shop each trip, but this is wasteful and not recommended.

Each captured imp allows you to remotely bank up to 2 items, after which the imp is freed and an empty box is left behind. This effectively makes one inventory slot into 3 slots for long trips. This can be useful for saving Dagannoth King bones, or safely banking a valuable drop from a dangerous area. Does not work above level 30 wilderness or while the player is in combat.

Implings & Puro-Puro

Impling hunting in most areas of /v/scape is by no means whatsoever an effective way of levelling Hunter. However, spending some time at Puro-Puro (accessed via stepping into one of the whirling crop circles around the map or the one in Zanaris) can net you a bit of xp and access to crafting materials, rare armor, runes, and other gear. Catching experience is further reduced in the minigame, so don't expect any levels from implings.

Puro-Puro, the location of the Impetuous Impulses minigame, is home to every possible impling in /v/scape, although the more rare implings spawn…more rarely. See it's page for more details.

The implings that are actually worth catching are listed below, with the level required to catch each one. Keep in mind that you can re-use impling jars once or twice after releasing an imp from them before the jar breaks. Also, it's useful to keep a few ecclectic, essence, and nature imps in the bank to trade in for a new jar generator. On that note: making impling jars out of butterfly jars is NOT recommended since it's incredibly inconvenient compared to just getting and using jar generators.

Level 36 : Essence Implings

Required for trading in for a jar generator, these implings aren't good for much beyond that. Yes, you CAN get noted pure essence from them, but it isn't much. Their other drops are fairly mediocre amounts of runes, with the exception of their 2-digit stacks of death, law, soul, and nature runes, although these are rare drops (1/100).

Level 50 : Eclectic Implings

These odd fellows have an all-over-the-place drop table. The more useful items you can expect to recieve are: curry leaves, snape grass, oak planks, battlestaffs, adamant ore, wild pies, watermelon seeds, and diamonds.

Level 58 : Nature Implings

The quintessential mid-tier impling, natures are fairly common in Puro-puro and a great way to get your hands on some otherwise difficult to find items in /v/scape. Players with lower farming will rejoice (especially after the Great Nerfing of 2020) at nature implings' drop table, rich in seeds, herbs — post-nerf, they are by far the best source of Dwarf Weed (lmao) and Torstol seeds. Their coconut drop is a great way for lower-level players to gain access to the elusive, laxative-ridden tropical nut.

Level 65 : Magpie Implings

Magpie implings are where implings start to get good, like if-you-see-one-outside-puro-grab-your-net good. Their drop table not only includes pieces of mystic gear (again a boon for lower-level players looking to nab decent mage gear) but also black dragonhide, diamond jewelry, key halves, rune bars, and sinister keys. You might also land yourself some pineapple seeds or sweet sweet snapdragon seeds.

Level 74 : Ninja Implings

If you manage to spot one of these bad boys or the nest impling on the list, and you don't have the hunter level to catch it, ::yell about it and let other players know so SOMEONE can grab it. Tons of rune items, onyx bolt tips, prayer potions, snakeskin boots…all in all, a damn fine drop table. utter trash. Dimps > Magpies > Ninja implings

Level 83 : Dragon Implings

The god-tier impling and the reason to train Hunter to 83. Amulets of glory, dragon arrows, dragon bones, magic tree seeds, dragonstone… get hunting chins so you can nab one of these badboys. It's waaay worth it.

See the all implings' available drops at the impling drops page.

You've reached the end of this guide! Thanks for reading, and happy hunting!

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