What's going on guys, my name's Theoatrix, and welcome to my updated level 1 to 99 thieving guide.
GUIDE CONTENTS
In this guide, I'll teach you everything you need to know to train your thieving in old school. I'll start with some basics, then I'll show the fastest pathway to 99, along with some alternative methods. Let's get into it.
If you'd prefer to watch a video version of this guide, you can watch that below. Otherwise you can continue down the page to read the written guide.
Why Train Thieving
So why should you train your thieving? Leveling your thieving is essential for progressing your account.
A range of quests have a thieving level requirement.
Some important ones include The Legends Quest, Desert Treasure, Monkey Madness 2, and Dragonslayer 2.
You need level 64 thieving to get the Quest Cape, and level 91 for the Achievement Diary Cape.
At high thieving levels, you unlock some of the best-skilling money makers in the game, like pickpocketing elves for up to 3 mil per hour.
Overall, thieving is a fast and profitable 99, taking around 60 hours if you follow the fastest pathway that I'm showing.
Useful Unlocks
On your journey to 99 thieving, there's a range of useful unlocks that you should be taking advantage of.
The Ardy Diaries increase your success rate when pickpocketing, which overall increases your XP rate.
The Medium Diary gives a 10% boost within Ardy, and the Hard Diary extends this boost to everywhere in RuneScape.
With level 54 Hunter, you can wear Gloves of Silence, and these increase your pickpocketing success rate by 5%.
This effect does not stack with the Ardy Diary though, so you should only use the gloves if you don't have the diary completed.
Dodgy Necklaces are another essential when it comes to pickpocketing.
When worn, the necklace gives a 25% chance to avoid getting stunned when you fail to pickpocket, and this greatly increases your XP rates.
While pickpocketing, it's strongly recommended to use the Shadow Veil spell found on the Arceuus Spellbook.
While active, it gives a 15% chance to avoid getting stunned, stacking with the Dodgy Necklace.
To get the most out of thieving, players should obtain the Rogues Outfit from the Rogues Den minigame.
Wearing the outfit gives you a chance of getting double loot when pickpocketing, and the full set guarantees double loot.
Your Path to 99
So on your path to 99 thieving, you should follow the fastest pathway, while doing some of the alternative methods to switch up your training.
Fastest Pathway to 99
The fastest pathway requires a lot of focus, so that's why I suggest doing Ardy Knights and other profitable methods alongside the fastest pathway.
Questing is an efficient way to get your early thieving levels.
There are 26 quests in OSRS that give thieving XP as a reward.
Low-leveled players can get from level 1 to 20 easily by completing Biohazard, Hazeel Cult and Fight Arena.
These quests have little to no requirements.
Without questing, from level 1, you'll start off by pickpocketing men or women.
This can be done in many cities around RuneScape.
Some easily accessible ones can be found wandering around Lumbridge.
You'll need to successfully pickpocket 49 times to reach level 5, which should take around 10 minutes.
With pickpocketing, you should take advantage of the Menu Entry Swapper plugin on RuneLite.
With it active, if you hold shift and then right click an NPC, you can set the left click option to pickpocket.
At level 5, the best experience comes from bakery stalls at the Arty Market, and this is located in the far eastern region of Arty.
You should stand underneath the baker to avoid getting caught, and to get from level 5 to 25, it's going to take around 30 minutes.
From level 25, fruit stalls in the Hosidius House give the best XP per hour, until 45.
These stalls require 15% Hosidius House favour to steal from.
It's recommended to steal in the house to the far east of the Hosidius House.
Here, there are two stalls to steal from, and if you train by stealing from one stall, you can reach up to 35k XP per hour.
If you run between the two stalls, dropping fruits as you go, you can get over 40k XP per hour if you're focused.
Overall, it's going to take 1 and a half to 2 hours to get to level 45.
If you reach level 43, and you haven't completed the Feud quest yet, you should complete it.
Doing the Feud gives enough experience to go from 43 to 45, and the quest is required for the next training method, which is unlocked at level 45.
Levels 45 to 91 will be done blackjacking in Pollnivneach.
A fast way there is to use a redirected house teleport tablet, or alternatively, you can go through the shanty pass and take the carpet.
To blackjack, you need a blackjack of some sort, and the type does not matter.
You get one after completing the Feud quest, so you can just use that.
You should bring noted food with you, along with coins to un-note them at the exchange merchant.
Alternatively, you can just bring coins to purchase wines from the bar nearby, instead of bringing your own food.
But if you do bring your food, I would suggest bringing food that leaves an item behind in your inventory, like pies or stews.
It's useful to have a full inventory while blackjacking so that you don't accidentally pickpocket the thug while they're not stunned.
The game stops you because you can't receive the coin pouch with a full inventory.
While training, you should trap a bandit in a house so it doesn't move.
If you right-click a bandit, you can lure them over to you, and then you can close the door behind them to trap them in.
If you fail to knock out the thug, it starts attacking you.
But if you switch to another weapon and try to knock out the thug again, it takes you out of combat, so I suggest bringing another weapon with you to do that.
You can also lure a thug to a room with a ladder, and go up and down the ladder if it starts attacking you.
The process of blackjacking is to firstly knock out the bandit, then you pickpocket them twice while they're knocked out, and then you repeat that process, pickpocketing twice each time.
So, from level 45 to 55, you can begin blackjacking bearded bandits in Pollnivneach.
These bandits are found in the northern region of the town, and I recommend luring them into one of these houses.
Here, you'll get around 100k XP per hour, and going from 45 to 55 will take about 1 hour.
At 55 thieving, you unlock the non-bearded bandits, also located in the northern region of Pollnivneach.
You can use the same houses that I just showed to trap them, and these give around 140k XP per hour, and will take around 2 hours for 65.
At level 65, you unlock Menaphite thugs, located in the southwest region of Pollnivneach.
I recommend luring and trapping the thugs in one of these houses.
The blackjacking process is the same again with these, and your XP rates will range from 200k to 250k per hour on your journey to level 91, and 91 is going to take 25 hours from 65.
From level 91, the fastest XP possible is obtained from playing the Pyramid Plunder minigame.
For Pyramid Plunder, you need to have started the Icthlarin's Little Helper quest to access Sophonim, or you can use a Pharaoh Scepter teleport to bypass that.
To get started with Pyramid Plunder, you firstly need to speak to Tarik between the two pyramids.
To start a game, you then need to find the Guardian Mummy in one of the entrances to the Northern Pyramid, or alternatively, a Pharaoh Scepter teleports you straight there.
You then begin a Pyramid Plunder game by talking to the Mummy, and once you're inside, there's 8 rooms, each with a Thieving level requirement.
At level 91, the strategy is to loot everything in the final room, and as much as possible in the second last room.
This means you'll be skipping the first 6 rooms, except for looting the Golden Chests in each.
This gets you 270k XP per hour, and going from 91 to 99 is going to take 26 hours.
So that was the fastest pathway, which in total takes around 60 hours to get to 99.
Alternative Methods
Blackjacking is highly click intensive, so there's some alternative methods that I suggest doing to switch up your training.
At level 49, and with 75% Piscarilius House favour, you can start stealing artifacts in the Piscarilius House.
Stealing artifacts is faster than blackjacking up until level 65, but only if you're efficient.
Beginners with this method are likely to get slower XP rates, but if you're looking to change up your training, it's worth a try.
The method involves firstly speaking to Captain Kaled to get a task, then you steal the artifact from the houses to the west.
You then need to evade the patrolling guards and return back to Captain Kaled.
You can get up to 150k XP per hour at 49, scaling up to 185k at level 65.
At level 55 thieving, you unlock Ardy knights, which require less attention when compared to the other training methods.
With Ardy knights, you can take advantage of dodgy necklaces and the shadow veil spell, and it's strongly recommended to have the Ardy diaries completed.
To find an Ardy knight to thieve, you can join a friends chat like Thieving Host or Splash Worlds.
These clans have someone splashing the knight at the bank, so you can thieve conveniently.
When you join their friends chat, you just look at the list of players to see what world they're mainly on, and that will be the world with a splasher.
Overall, I strongly suggest doing at least some of your thieving training at Ardy knights. They're far more relaxed than the other methods, and don't require your full attention.
Another alternative method worth mentioning is doing pyramid plunder from level 71. Pyramid plunder is slower than blackjacking, but it's still fast overall.
The strategy is the same as before, where you loot all in the highest possible room, and then as much as you can in the second highest room.
Profitable Methods
Now let's look at the profitable thieving methods, and these have decent XP rates as well, so they can be done to switch up your training.
At level 38, you can start pickpocketing master farmers.
They give a range of seeds as loot, with some high value herb seeds being the biggest profit At level 38, you fail to pickpocket the farmer a lot of the time, so I don't suggest going at level 38.
The master farmer really becomes profitable at level 94 thieving, where with the hard arty diary completed, you'll never fail to pickpocket.
With level 82 thieving, and completion of the sins of the father quest, you can start pickpocketing vyars.
These have a 1 in 5000 chance of giving a blood shard when thieved.
This drop is doubled with the full rogues outfit, so the outfit is almost essential for this method.
At 85 thieving, and with completion of song of the elves, you can pickpocket elves.
There's a 1 in 1024 chance of getting an enhanced crystal teleport seed, and once again, that's doubled with the rogues outfit.
The XP rates at elves are slower than vyars, because you fail a lot more.
Guide Recap
Anyways, that's my complete level 1-99 thieving guide.