In depth Ironman guide (2024)

Auroresta said:

Greetings random person on the internet.
This thread is a guide on how to efficiently play the ironman gamemode as well as some tips for progressing that normal players can benefit from too.
Since the whole thing is gonna be incredibly long, i'm going to cut it in parts with spoilers for the detailed explanation (or maybe not).
Enjoy! also i may put a tldr at the very end if i haven't fallen asleep.

0) Introduction: what is ironman?
Ironman is a gamemode that you can enable upon creating your profile that stops you from trading with players, using the auction house and the bazaar, and in general just stops you from interacting with the "normal player" economy. Keep in mind you still play with normal players, on their servers, you can still chat with them, party them, play dungeon, dragons, and kuudra, etc. It will just stop you from trading, and using bazaar and auction house.
I) Ironman disclaimer (before you start an ironman profile):

a) I'm new to the game and heard about ironman, seems rather fun!
First off, if this is your first time playing the game, please don't start an ironman profile. Ironman progressions can literally not happen if you have no idea what you're doing (being stuck with the exact same items and money for dozens/hundreds of hours). This can more then easily disgust you from playing hypixel skyblock which I think of as a game that isn't for everyone but deserves a chance.

b) Ok, then what should i ideally have before playing ironman ?
These are by no means a requirement, but they're good to have.
Playing ironman requires dedication, patience, and often feels frustrating, as items that other can buy for cheap requires dozens of hour for you to obtain. However, the sense of achievement when you complete certains of your objectives is insane as you are aware that you deserve every ounce of your sucess.
Now to the interesting part: what are good to have for starting an ironman player? Well, these are:
- good general knowledge of the game as well as in depth awareness of at the very least the base mechanics (i would say upwards of 150 hours of actually progressing and you should be good to go, though that is by no means a requirement);
- a good fame rank: the higher the better. Due to how annoying it is to get money early-game and the fact that you can't buy bits items from the ah (for example builders wand will require you to buy 2-3 cookies assuming an "average" fame rank). If you don't know what a fame rank is, then you aren't fit to play ironman (not meant as an offence) and should spend some time playing the normal game, or on the wiki or on youtube.
- decently geared friends: they're useful to have around. I'm not talking about people that will spend hours carrying you. I'm talking about people that will gladly do a small service that is basically free to them but will spare you a lot of time grinding (for example unlocking the viking shop).

See Also

Guide - [EXTREME EFFORT] The Great Ironman Progression GuideGuide - A Detailed Ironman Progression GuideGuide - Iron Man Guide for Beginners!

c) What types of people play ironman?
From personal experience, people who have an ironman profile are generally people who fall in one of the following categories:
- having a rather maxed normal account and wanting a harder challenge
-being disgusted by the economy
-false ban/wipe for "boosting" (for example buying a duped gdrag)
-"I was bored so i decided to create an ironman profile lmao"

d) When is a good time to start my ironman profile?
Surprisingly enough, some times are better then others for starting an ironman. Ideally, you want to start it a few days before Jerry, and get mineral armor during Jerry. Otherwise, do it a few days before Cole, and get mineral armor during the fiesta. Mineral armor is extremely important early game (and in other parts of the game too).

II) What do I do when I start the game?
Please keep in mind these are only tips/general guidelines for progressing and also constitute more or less the min/max method. Feel free to play your own way; however this is the most efficient, though not necessarily the most enjoyable.

First off, warp to the hub. Head over to Jamie and claim your rogue sword (they buffed it to 50 speed/50 mana/5 seconds/not stackable) and with the coins he give you buy a rookie hoe. Use this hoe to punch wheat, then get harvesting 5 on the hoe (recipe in wheat collection, sell seed sand wheat for money to buy exp bottles). Now, use your money to buy golden pick.
Mine till level 1, head to gold mines, get lazy miner's pick, mine till lvl 5, head to the deep cavern. COMPLETELY IGNORE THE MOBS. THEY ARE UNIMPORTANT (yes, lapis armor garbage). You want to fill in your minion slots with mining minions (at least coal, lapis and redstone, plus another ressource). Place the minions down. Don't go for slots yet.
Head over to the spider's den. You want to get enough money (from the spooder relics) to buy a raider's axe. Once that's done, buy an axe, get foraging levels, then get som1 to unlock the viking shop for you and buy your raider's.
Now use your money (from farming wheat or relics) to buy an eff 3 golden shovel. Mining should have given you a little bit of vanilla exp, buy the rest from librarian. Use the shovel to mine in the desert island until you reach mining 12. Then, pickup the stuff from your minions (except coal) and grind the rest of the ressources needed for Rhys manually (10 e redstone, 10 e lapis, 10 e of something else; redstone and lapis because they drop several).
You have now entered the dwarven mines! Now head to the ice walker area and start farming them with your pickaxe. You can use blocks to block glitch into the spot, fight them normally if you're a giga chad or use the "SimplySample's spot". Remember to go back to your island regularly to empty your minions, and to use the experience you gained form slaying walkers to enchant your raider's axe. This will level up your enchanting enough so that by the time you are finished (assuming you had rng thats not godly tier) you should have a high enough enchanting level to use the growth armor. Once done farming armor, head back home and enchant it. Now, empty your coal minion, and head over to the blacksmith. He asks for 10 coal for your first reforge, but you can actually infinetly spend 10 coal so long as you don't exit the menu, so take off your armor, fill your inventory with coal and start reforging raider's and armor. The resaon you want to do this is because otherwise it would cost 2.5k per armor reforge roll.
Killing the ice men should have given you at the very least combat 12, maybe even combat 24 if you were unlucky. Whatever the case, it is now time to do your fairy souls (i can already hear you groan, but trust me, now's the best time to do it). Once you have them all (except maybe crimson island, fishing and dungeons), you should do revenants until you get a wand of healing. You are now ready to do dungeons!

But auro, won't i get destroyed? I'm in glacite and raider's with no talismans!!!

Not at all. Allow me to present to you the greatest thing that was ever done for ironman: the tank class. Paired with glacite armor, this significantly increases your ehp, allows you to get 20 sec invincibility with ultimate, grants you knockback immunity (don't switch armors midrun) and grants you the ability to aoe 1 shot mobs with seismic wave (rip 15 sec cd but whatever). You want to get carried in the lower floor with party finder (generally f1 to f3 theres som1 who can carry for some reason). You want to clear, then while your wave is on cd or there's no mobs, do secrets. You can get health pots which are 25k each. Rememmber to try to group the mobs together before using the wave (aka ghost farming, just circle around). The reason why you want to actually clear is to pickup the mob drops. They're incredibly strong for some reason. You're particularly interested in the heavy armor and eventually dreadlord sword right now. Also, tank milestone can also be reached with damage and for someone with your poop stats, seismic wave will do the trick.
ENABLE SOCIAL DISTANCING. By being tank, you also take your teammate's damage, so you want to be as unhelpful as possible, and be as far away as possible from them (great teamwork). At the beginning, stand on the opposite side of the room and let the others go in, then wait a few seconds and go in. Try to clear as far away as possible from your teammates (gj on repeating yourself auro).

Each time you reach the required cata level, switch to the next floor until f4. By now, you should have at least 2/4 heavy and maybe an uncommon griffin if Diana is mayor. Now, in floor f4 you want to target the master skeletons and the super heavy tanks.

Super heavy armor: incredibly tanky, useful later. 1% drop chance.
Earth shard: great early game weapon, grants a ton of defense which also increases seismic wave dmg, and reduces it's cooldown. Also epic weapon so better reforge.
Master skeleton armor: most underrated armor in the whole game for how easy it is to get. Despite having trash ehp, it gives you about 80% of the damage from shadow assassin and is epic rarity (we don't talk about ehp).

If you don't drop an earth shard, other good early game weapons include the hyper cleaver and the aote tho it has less damage.
Now is when it's your choice what you want to do. Once you have at least 3 pieces of master skele armor, you should try to get some more damage with tara helmet, more acessories, and a good damage pet (leg wither skele from minions, rare/epic tiger/lion, uncommon griffin, common enderman).
With master skeleton, god pod, wand of healing and half decent skills/pet you should be able to beat the first 3 tier 4 slayers, and breeze past enderman t1. If that is not enough, upgrade to wand of mending, get a radiant power orb, and more talismans.

The progression now is entirely up to you. The following parts are going to be detailed guides on how to do/cheese some relevant parts of the game.

Unsurprisingly, there aren't a lot of options.
1) Farming
Farming makes a decent amount and should be your first method for money. You can make up to a few mill per hours, enough to comfortably always be on a cookie if you play regularly. I recommand farming sugarcane for both money and exp, and doing warts only when you reach farming 42 and more (it's actually more worthwhile cuz mining fortune). Whatever you do, do it in this order: t2 hoe, leg elephant, t3 hoe, corresponding minion and maybe talisman. Remember to put cultivating as soon as possible.
The mooshroom cow does make slightly more but you're going to need a legendary elephant anyways for alchemy so... yeah just get one. Also mooshroom cow doesn't require 1.6k str to be as good as elephant. It requires 1.6k str to have the same farming fortune as elephant. If you're counting pure money, you actually need way less strength to make more money then elephant due to mushrooms.

2) Mining
This one is the best way to make money and it's also way harder to get into because ironman = pain but you know it by now. You will make the same amounts as a normal pf so for actual numbres look up on google, however getting to that gear will be harer. Theres a more detailed minin guide later in the thread.

3) Honorable mentions: aka not mining or farming
Fetchur is 20k/day. Relics are 230k 1 time use. Using raiders or killing a lot of mobs with scavenger makes coins. You can use minions to make money though i don't recommend it. Health potion from dungeons. Farming goblins, which is actually kinda good. You should use it for your first cookie probably.

On everything below, use spooky cupcake if your pet is maxed, it's the best pet item outside diana. If you're dying, get a healer or more cata levels. Skills don't really matter, talismans do kinda but not much. Put all your mp into health and if you're still dying change to some ehp acessory bag power. Until f6, use titanic, reinforced, heavy or perfect as armor reforge. If you are using whale pet prioritise titanic.

F1 to f4:
Heavy, super heavy or holy dragon armor paired with zombie, crystallized or revived heart, or with mender fedora.
Earth shard or some other weapon.
Wand of healing or better.
Any pet really, if you don't surive change party or level up cata.

F5:
At the very least cata 18.
3/4 holy armor with mender fedora (when using only 3/4th, holy has better ehp then protector old).
Ideally earth shard, otherwise other weapon.
Remember to use ultimate if you're close to dying.
Wand of mending or better.
Uncommon griffin or epic/leg whale.
If you don't have enough lifesteal try reforging your weapon to fast, or just any other weapon to fast if you're not using an earth shard (hit fast: more life steal since damage doesn't affect it.

F6:
3/4th shadow assassin armor (you heard me right, it actually gives more ehp then the rest of dungeonizable armor obtainable at that point) and reaper mask.
At least a livid dagger, hopefully a syphon soul whip.
Legendary whale pet, spooky cupcake if it's maxed.
Wand of atonement.
If not good enough get more cata.

F7:
Good party (no but srsly, you could lose without it being your fault).
3/4 giant necromancer with giant reaper mask.
Wand of atonement.
Legendary whale pet, spooky cupcake.
Soul whip for aggroing, otherwise maybe fot? your choice honestly.
Cata 28 should be able to do it just fine with half decent party.

Cheese class, get the same stuff as tank, but alternatively you can use werewolf armor, tiger pet and dirty ld. Remember to tether tank, place healing circle and use wish if he's dying.

This one is interesting. There are 2 pathways: wise dragon armor and not wise dragon armor.
If you want to use wise drag armor, do zealots until you get 3/4 wise not helmet. Otherwise, use reforged ehp armor (refer to tank section).
Obviously heroic and ideally ultimate wise 5 on weapon, wise on armor or necrotic and loving if you have that.

Use the goggles that befit your cata level, sighted power (from watchers, rather fast to get). If you're dying you can replace cp with ehp.
Legendary lvl 100 sheep pet (duh). To get it fast you can use sheep axe and grind them manually from your minions.
Weapon:
entrance and f1: dreadlord.
f1 to f4: either bonzo staff or frozen scythe. You can get fs by changing to taiga biome and making manual ice farm.
f5 to f7: spirit sceptre.

I have nothing practical to say about this class, everybody knows how to play it. Master skeleton armor and best weapon until f5, 3/4 sa and tarantula helmet or ghead with ld after that. maybe aots or fot for f7. As for pets, use baby yeti or wither skeleton. If you die blame on tank, if you die again, get better.

f1 to f5: 3/4 master skeleton and tarantula helmet. Juju and leg skeleton.
f5 and above: 3/4 sa and tara helm, juju and leg skeleton or baby yeti.

Either find yourself a setup that can do tier 2s, or do a lot of t1s. Get a few voidling t1 minions for the obby, then grind out either directly the null spheres for juju if you can do t2 consistently/do t1, or grind out 3/4th final destination armor. Mine the quartz manually, you should get the enchanted eyes of ender on the way and a bit of string from the spooders.
This grind, suprisingly, isn't hard; it's just quite long.
My setup for doing the tier 2s was legendary enderman, mana flux, wand of restoration, 3/4 fierce crimson and reinforced revived heart with life steal 4 livid dagger (the life steal 4 part is important).

Get the base pickaxe from bubu, do coms each day and get the new best pickaxe each time.
Use glacite armor and either silverfish, mithril golem or some other mining pet during that time.
Once you reach hotm 3, get a titanium pickaxe and grind for a ruby drill. You can get the treasurite from killing treasure hunters.
Once you have the ruby drill, put compact on it, and maybe you have mole by this time. If not rip but whatever. Slaught Bal several times until he drops baby (hurricane or runaan, otherwise just a lot of attack speed). Mine for flame breaker armor and kill Bal more times until you have yog armor. Put fine gemstones everywhere.
Now that you have some sort of gemstone mining setup, mine for the gauntlet. For the gold use mineral armor in royal or divan's mines.
Once gauntlet is achieved, put pristine 5 on it, then either upgrade the gemstones on all your stuff or go for divan's armor. Nothing much to say about it here.
You should powder grind as soon as you get hotm7. Use jungle pick for sludge juice, you're gonna need a lot for divan armor and power artefact.

Haven't tested any of this cuz diana isn't here, however this setup absolutely smacks epic griffin mobs, no idea for legendary.
The way to go here is mage with the crimson gear. You can do melee, but you'd have to be endgame and who has time to wait before getting a shelmet. Ok whatever.
Gear: 3/4 aurora with the goggles of your level, aurora staff, fire veil and maybe fire fury. Voodoo doll doesn't work on anything else then the cats. The cats can also drop all the pet items, so you can just kill the cats, which are extremely easy, and reset your burrow if you get anything else.

If you want claws, use your highest rarity griffin, if you want feathers, use common griffin, and big mana setup for aote spam.

It's not hard, it's long.

Hope this helped,

Sincerely,

Auroresta

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interesting
good guide