Learn the regular Gauntlet by separating two jobs: prepare a complete setup inside ten minutes, then keep Hunllef's attacks, protection prayer and floor hazards under control. A first clear comes from finishing those jobs reliably. You can practise without buying weapons or using your banked food because the equipment and supplies are made inside the activity.
This guide covers the regular blue Gauntlet and a straightforward two-weapon learner route. Start here before moving to the shorter preparation window and harder fight in the Corrupted Gauntlet.
Unlock the portal and understand the death rules
Complete Song of the Elves to access Prifddinas, then enter the Gauntlet portal in the north-west of the city. You cannot bring your ordinary equipment, food or potions into the challenge. Your carried items are stored for the attempt, and the activity supplies its own tools and starting weapon.
Combat levels still matter. Develop Ranged, Magic, Defence, Hitpoints and Prayer before expecting comfortable clears. Working toward combat stats in the 80s gives a learner more room, but this is a preparation goal rather than another entrance requirement. Rigour and Augury are useful upgrades if unlocked; a first attempt can use the offensive prayers available to the account.
Gauntlet deaths are unsafe for Hardcore status and HCGIM lives. Having no ordinary gear inside does not make death safe. UIMs must resolve existing item-retrieval storage risks before entering: a death here can destroy items held in an instanced retrieval service. Ordinary equipment storage during the attempt is a separate system.
Find the workshop before gathering
The dungeon is a random 7-by-7 grid, with the boss near the centre and your starting room beside it. The starting room contains the Singing Bowl for equipment, the range for cooking and a water pump. Look at these once before committing to a fast gathering route.
Use the supplied sceptre to reveal adjoining rooms. Your axe gathers phren bark, pickaxe gathers crystal ore, harpoon gathers fish, and linum plants supply the third armour material. Grym leaves are for potions. The starting teleport crystal returns you to this workshop once; save it for a useful return from an outer-room trip.
Since the July 2026 changes, ore, bark and linum stack, and shards from monsters enter the inventory automatically. The first low-tier bat, rat or spider killed guarantees a weapon frame. You can organise the route around these current rules instead of copying an older inventory-drop routine.
Choose the armour target and count the full cost
Weapons progress from basic to attuned to perfected, often called tiers 1, 2 and 3. Armour uses the same names. For a comfortable learning project, aim for a full attuned armour set and two perfected weapons in different combat styles. If gathering takes too long, practise the route in regular mode before reducing protection to chase a faster clear.
Equipment target | Materials collected in total | Equipment shard cost |
|---|---|---|
Full basic armour + two perfected weapons | 3 ore, 3 bark, 3 linum; two frames and the two weapon upgrade components. | 250 shards. |
Full attuned armour + two perfected weapons | 7 ore, 7 bark, 7 linum; two frames and the two weapon upgrade components. | 450 shards. |
Two three-dose Egniol potions | Two vials, two grym leaves and water. | 40 extra shards: 20 for vials and 20 crushed into dust. |
These totals use the current recipes and exclude extra purchases. The attuned-armour example with two potions therefore needs 490 shards. A replacement teleport crystal, extra potion or upgraded food changes the total. Armour upgrades consume their lower-tier pieces, so collect the total materials rather than making the basic set and assuming seven more of everything are needed.
At the bowl, a basic weapon costs a frame, an attuned upgrade costs 50 shards, and the perfected upgrade uses its special component. A complete basic armour set costs 150 shards; upgrading all three pieces to attuned adds 200. Check the actual recipe before spending the last shards on an optional item.
Make an early weapon, then search for upgrades
First reveal a short loop near the workshop, gather required armour materials and kill a weak creature for a frame. Return to make an attuned weapon when you have the frame and 50 shards. That gives the next gathering trip a useful combat tool instead of requiring every enemy to be fought with the starting sceptre.
A bow-and-staff pair keeps both styles usable from a distance. A halberd also works, but its shorter reach adds positioning decisions during the boss. Choose the pair around your account's combat strengths and the components found, keeping enough time to finish both.
Demi-boss | First relevant component | Perfected weapon |
|---|---|---|
Crystalline Dragon | Crystal orb. | Staff. |
Crystalline Dark Beast | Crystalline bowstring. | Bow. |
Crystalline Bear | Crystal spike. | Halberd. |
Search toward the outside of the grid. The north-, east-, south- and west-most rooms aligned with the centre each guarantee a random demi-boss; other edge and corner rooms can also contain one. The guaranteed room does not guarantee your preferred weapon type. Watch the map and remaining time before making a long detour for one particular component.
Turn raw food and leaves into usable supplies
Cook raw paddlefish at the starting range; a cooked fish heals 20 Hitpoints. For a first learning attempt, planning around roughly 20 cooked fish and two three-dose potions is a useful starting layout. Your damage, Prayer level and mistakes determine whether that reserve lasts, so review the first attempts rather than treating the example as a guarantee.
Create a vial at the Singing Bowl for 10 shards and fill it at the pump or a fishing spot.
Add one grym leaf to make the unfinished potion.
Use the pestle and mortar to crush ten shards into dust.
Add the ten dust to finish an Egniol potion with three doses.
Egniol restores Prayer and supports run energy. Keep the potions and weapon switch in fixed inventory positions. Clear finished gathering materials and spare tools as appropriate to make room for cooked food, while retaining anything still needed to complete preparation.
The ten-minute timer ends by transporting you into the boss room. It does not cook fish or equip the armour for you. Return with time to process supplies, equip all three pieces and check both weapons. You can enter manually once ready.
Hunllef has two separate switching cycles
Begin with Protect from Missiles: Hunllef starts with Ranged. It changes between Ranged and Magic after four attacks in its attack cycle, with a visual and audio cue before the change. Tornado summons and prayer-disabling attacks count in that cycle; a stomp does not. Enable useful game sounds and use the visible cue to recover if your count becomes uncertain.
Hunllef's overhead is a different decision. Attack with a style it is not protecting against, then change weapons when its protection changes. Six attacks made against an unprotected style trigger that protection change, including attacks that hit zero. Counting only damaging hits gives the wrong reference.
During Magic, a special attack can switch your prayers off. Restore the correct protection immediately, then the offensive prayer when you can. Correct protection reduces damage but does not eliminate all of it; armour and food are still doing important work.
Move through clear space during tornadoes
When tornadoes appear, choose a clear route and keep moving ahead of them. They last twelve seconds, but the useful action is watching their position and your next destination. A short click can end sooner than expected; prepare the next clear segment before your character stops.
Floor tiles warn in blue before becoming damaging orange. Read the next pattern while moving. Avoid running under Hunllef, which can stomp, and avoid turning back through tornadoes that are following the route you just used. As the boss loses health, patterns become more demanding and change faster.
During a difficult overlap, prioritise the correct protection and a clear movement path, then eat or attack when the route allows it. Losing a few attacks is recoverable. Spending the whole movement window trying to restore lost damage can leave both the floor and prayer unattended.
Review the first clear before increasing difficulty
Return with enough time to finish both weapons, armour, potions and cooked food.
Enter with the starting Ranged protection and an unblocked weapon style.
Respond to Hunllef's style cue and its separate protection changes.
Restore disabled protection and keep health and Prayer in reserve.
Navigate tornadoes and changing floor without crossing the boss.
After the clear, collect rewards from the lobby chest and review the limiting mistake.
If you need to leave the fight, use the barrier's right-click Escape option. The preparation teleport crystal returns to the workshop; it is not the same item as a separately crafted escape crystal.
A completed run can award seeds and crystal shards. Failing or leaving can give a small token reward, without a chance at the unique rewards. Treat enhanced seeds as a possible long-term reward rather than a scheduled outcome. For an Ironman, connect any seed target with the armour and shards needed to use the eventual equipment.
Move toward Corrupted once the regular preparation and final movement feel repeatable. If the limiting factor is damage or supply duration, use the Ranged or Magic training guide to plan the next account upgrade.
Independent guide: Onyx Services is an independent service provider and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Jagex Ltd. RuneScape and Old School RuneScape are trademarks of Jagex Ltd.