Wintertodt/Strategies Guide - OSRS - Old School Runescape Guides

The Wintertodt can be fought with 50 Firemaking, an axe, and a tinderbox.

Equipment

An axe is required to chop bruma roots. Players with at least level 46 Woodcutting can use as low as a steel axe and still maintain maximum cut speed.^[1]^[2]^[3] An inventory space is saved by wielding the axe.
A tinderbox or bruma torch is required to relight the braziers, and an inventory space may be saved by wielding the torch in either hand.
A knife can optionally be used to fletch the roots, yielding modest Fletching experience and more points when added to a brazier, at the cost of lower rate of Firemaking experience.
A hammer is required if the player intends to repair shattered braziers, which grants a fair amount of Construction experience. An Imcando hammer may be wielded in either hand to save an inventory space.
At least 4 pieces of warm clothing. The clue hunter outfit is an option easily obtained by any player. Pieces of the pyromancer outfit are preferred once the player has obtained them, as in addition to being warm clothing, they also offer an experience bonus.
Unfinished potions from the crates can be made into rejuvenation potions to restore warmth or heal the Pyromancers (only required by one or two people per brazier if playing in a large group).
Food is only necessary if not using rejuvenation potions to restore warmth.
Regen bracelet and/or Hitpoints cape for mid to late-game players (optional). Using both of these items in conjunction with four pieces of warm clothing can entirely cancel out the need to restore warmth.

Wintertodt’s attacks

The area safe from the Wintertodt’s attacks.

The Wintertodt has three attacks that can damage the player, as well as two other actions that interfere with defeating it:

Standard attack – All individual players will take periodic damage while outside of the safe area. The damage taken is based on the player’s total Firemaking level, and is drastically reduced while wearing warm clothing to a minimum of around 10-15% of the player’s warmth meter. This damage has a cooldown of 10 ticks (6 seconds). It will interrupt fletching and feeding braziers, but does not interrupt chopping bruma roots.
Area attack – Heavy snow will occasionally appear over a 3×3 area centred on a specific player as a warning, then fall to the ground causing damage to all players currently in the 3×3 area. This can be easily avoided by watching out for the snow and stepping out of the area. If not avoided, it will deal roughly double the damage done by the periodic standard attack. This attack cannot target any player that is standing next to an obstacle, though such a player may fall within the 3×3 range of someone else near them. There are also several spots (notably the ones next to the bruma roots) where a snowfall cannot occur due to not having a 3×3 space available.
Brazier heavy attack – Heavy snow will occasionally appear over a brazier as a warning, then the brazier will shatter. Players standing directly next to a brazier when it shatters will take the same amount of damage as if snow had fallen on them.
Brazier light attack – Light snow will occasionally appear over on a brazier as a warning, then it will extinguish. This does not cause damage.
Pyromancer attack – Light snow will occasionally appear over an individual pyromancer as a warning, then she will take damage. This is not dangerous to other players.

The area shown in the image is safe, and none of the Wintertodt’s attacks will damage the player within this zone. Players cannot fletch here; however, they can make rejuvenation potions.

The frequency of these attacks significantly depends on the Witertodt’s remaining energy. Standard attacks will happen a normal amount at first (100-60% energy), and then occur very rarely near the end of each round (20-0% energy). Brazier and pyromancer attacks will happen very rarely at first (100-80% energy), and then occur a normal amount near the end of each round (40-0% energy). Specifically:

When the Wintertodt attempts to do a standard attack, a random number between zero and the maximum energy of the Wintertodt is picked, which is then compared against its current energy. If the randomly picked number is lower, the attack will proceed, making them more frequent at higher energy levels.^[4]
When the Wintertodt attempts to attack one of the braziers or pyromancers, a random number is rolled up to the Wintertodt’s maximum energy, and compared against its remaining energy. If the randomly rolled number is higher, an attack against a brazier or pyromancer goes through, making them more frequent at lower energy levels.

The following formulas can be used to determine the amount of damage taken, rounded down.


Attack type	Formula
Standard attack	1×⌊(16−W−min⁡(2×B,6))×(100)FM⌋
Brazier attack	2×⌊(10−W)×(100)FM⌋
Area attack	3×⌊(10−W)×(100)FM⌋
FM = Base Firemaking level W = Number of warm items worn, where the maximum value is 4 B = Number of braziers lit, where the maximum value is 3

Wintertodt’s energy

The Wintertodt’s energy meter is lowered by the pyromancers sending green magic bolts from the braziers toward the storm in the center of the prison. Each pyromancer is capable of weakening the Wintertodt by 1% energy every 14 ticks (8.4s) for a total of 1% every 3.5 ticks (2.1s) on average with all four braziers lit. This would make a game take 3 minutes and 30 seconds if not a single brazier is ever attacked and extinguished (which is nearly impossible). You could equivalently imagine that the Wintertodt is a boss with 700 Hitpoints and each green bolt fired by a pyromancer deals 1 Hitpoint of damage. Fueling the braziers with bruma roots or bruma kindling does not cause the fight to progress any faster.

If all four braziers are allowed to go out, the Wintertodt will restore energy at a rate of 1% every 35 ticks (21s) beginning with a random delay. For example, it could gain 1% energy 2 ticks after the final brazier is extinguished, and then every 35 ticks after that. If at least one brazier is lit, the Wintertodt will not restore any energy.

Each time a brazier is relit or a downed pyromancer is healed, there will be a short random delay (roughly 1-5 seconds) before the pyromancer resumes attacking. An active pyromancer can safely drop to 0 health as long as she is healed on the same tick as she takes the damage; this can roughly double the amount of healing for each dose of rejuvenation potion if timed perfectly. If she is allowed to have 0 health for one or more ticks, there can sometimes be another short random delay (roughly 1-5 seconds) before she resumes attacking.

General efficiency tips

A burning brazier.

No matter what your strategy is, lighting braziers is always worthwhile in both Firemaking xp and points, even if it means interruping root cutting or fletching to run over and light it. Multiple players can repair or light a brazier at once, and all players who begin the animation before the brazier changes state will receive the full xp.

When going for maximum Firemaking experience by feeding bruma roots to the brazier without fletching, taking a rejuvenation potion with you for a quick 75 points per dose healing a pyromancer can be very helpful to make sure you hit the 500 point mark when rounds go fast. Note that unlike fixing braziers, only one player can heal a pyromancer, so you will be competing with others to do so.

While relighting or repairing a brazier takes 4 ticks, other actions can be started before the animation has completed. For example, you can begin repairing the brazier and then click on food to heal during repairing the brazier, or relight the brazier and immediately use a knife on a log to fletch. You can also click to begin moving early on the final tick of repairing or lighting a brazier. The brazier can be repaired or lit during the final tick of movement towards it, so standing 1 square away (or 2 while running) is no less efficient than standing directly next to it. Using both of these tips, the time to light a brazier is effectively cut in half (to 2 ticks) when running from a bruma root and then back again.

You can fletch while running, combine rejuvenation potions while running, or have Brew’ma instantly combine all potions in your inventory at once.

Using tick manipulation you can speed up the first log received from bruma roots: for example, click to run toward the roots from the brazier, then immediately use your knife on some teak logs, then click the roots again and your first log will be instant.

Large groups

Equipment

It is preferable to equip four warm items in slots that will not interfere with other useful equips. If available, you should bring any pieces of the pyromancer outfit to increase experience and a bruma torch to replace your tinderbox. You should equip a wieldable axe that will get you closest to maxing out your cut speed on the bruma roots (note that the Infernal axe counts as a warm item and will not use charges on bruma roots). Health regeneration boosts, such as from a regen bracelet or Hitpoints cape, or prayer gear to increase the duration of the Rapid Heal prayer will aid in passive warmth regeneration.

Strategy

During the fight, pay attention to your warmth meter and the area around you, making sure to eat food or drink a rejuvenation potion if your warmth gets too low. The Wintertodt can perform a powerful snowfall attack in a 3×3 area, which deals high damage to your warmth. If snow begins to fall, be sure to avoid the affected area.

Upon entering the Wintertodt lobby, if you did not bring your own food to restore warmth, take one or more rejuvenation potions (unf) from the crates and bruma herbs from the sprouting roots found on the east or west walls of the lobby area. If you have Druidic Ritual complete, combine unfinished potions with the herbs to make rejuvenation potions; otherwise, go to Brew’ma to make them for you. Restock on potions from the lobby or food from the bank chest outside Wintertodt during the respawn timer between games.

Immediately when the Wintertodt’s energy bar turns green at the start of the fight, light one of the braziers with a tinderbox (you can immediately do so when the respawn timer hits 0:00). This will start off the fight with 25 points towards the 500 required. You will also receive Firemaking experience (Firemaking level * 6) which is more efficient than simply chopping more logs. The brazier should be relit immediately any time it is extinguished while you are nearby, as the points and xp are always worthwhile (even if it interrupts cutting or fletching) and an unlit brazier will make the round last longer.

When your inventory is full of roots, either fletch them or begin adding them to the lit braziers. Each root added to a brazier will provide 10 points and some Firemaking experience (Firemaking level * 3).

Fletching the roots into kindling is only recommended for gaining points and not Firemaking experience, because the amount of time it takes to fletch causes it to be slower overall experience. Fletching requires a knife and provides Fletching experience (Fletching level * .6). Adding the kindling provides 25 points and will give 30% more Firemaking experience than roots. The best place to stand while fletching is either hugging the wall right next to the bruma roots (to avoid the 3×3 attack) or 2 squares away from a brazier (so you can react quickly if it is broken or extinguished, while staying out of range from the shrapnel).

Broken braziers are fixed extremely quickly on Wintertodt worlds, so you will have to click on it quickly after it is broken if you want to gain Construction experience. It can then be relit after it is fixed (unless the pyromancer is down, in which case your best option is to heal the pyromancer yourself, run towards another brazier, or fletch while you wait for someone else to heal the pyromancer).

Make sure to gain at least 500 points during each round to be eligible for the reward and experience. The time to subdue on a Wintertodt world averages about 5 minutes, including both the fight and wait time between each round. The waiting time between each round is 60 seconds.

While waiting between rounds, some players may wish to train Agility by hopping back and forth across the pillars. With a flat 18 xp per hop, this would provide 36k Agility xp/hour, but because this method is only allowed during the 1 minute between rounds, the effective rate is 7k Agility xp/hour or less.

World hopping for maximum Firemaking experience

This method allows maximum experience rates to be achieved by taking advantage of the bonus experience awarded for successfully subduing the Wintertodt. After subduing the Wintertodt, world hop to the next available official Wintertodt world with 50% or more energy. (It is possible to achieve the minimum 500 points whilst starting from 40% energy, but not reliably. It is also possible to crash solo games instead of official worlds, but this will result in less xp per hour than playing normally.)

Chop roots as normal, and immediately fix/light the brazier if it is broken or extinguished. Fletch all available roots while standing at the brazier, burn the kindling, and repeat. Bonus experience does not scale based on points, so once you have reached 500 points, use the remaining time to either continue fletching and aim for more points (for additional reward rolls) or just burn roots (for maximum Firemaking experience).

Whilst this method requires more focus, with good world syncing and consistent successful kills, it is possible to achieve up to twice as many kills per hour compared to camping one world. The increased kills per hour and decreased downtime allows for significantly higher experience rates (up to 452k per hour at level 99). Reward rolls per hour are comparable with the solo method below.

These rates are only theoretical, as they are difficult to achieve reliably in practice. Depending on how many players are online, worlds may quickly become out of sync.

Players will gain up to 2,000 Construction experience an hour at level 99 Construction from fixing the brazier, scaling proportionally to player’s Construction level.

A player will need to subdue the Wintertodt around 670 times to achieve 99 Firemaking using bruma kindling (based on a player earning 800 points per kill). Comparatively, a player must subdue the Wintertodt roughly 540 times to achieve 99 Firemaking using bruma roots.

Experience

Group experience (no fletching)

Players can expect to earn 600-750 points per game with this strategy (not including any healing of pyromancers), resulting in at least 28 rewards per hour.

level	XP/h	level	XP/h
50	177,000	50	11,000
60	212,000	60	13,000
70	247,000	70	15,000
80	283,000	80	17,000
90	318,000	90	19,000
99	350,000	99	21,000

Group experience (fletching)

Players can expect to earn 850-1050 points per game with this strategy (not including any healing of pyromancers), resulting in at least 35 rewards per hour.

level	XP/h	level	XP/h	level	XP/h
50	146,000	50	6,000	50	12,000
60	176,000	60	7,000	60	15,000
70	205,000	70	8,000	70	17,000
80	234,000	80	10,000	80	19,000
90	264,000	90	11,000	90	22,000
99	290,000	99	12,000	99	24,000

Group experience (world-hopping)

These rates are only theoretical, as they are difficult to achieve reliably in practice. 24 games per hour at 500 points per game would result in 48 rewards per hour.

level	XP/h	level	XP/h	level	XP/h
50	228,000	50	8,000	50	15,000
60	274,000	60	9,000	60	18,000
70	319,000	70	11,000	70	21,000
80	365,000	80	12,000	80	24,000
90	411,000	90	14,000	90	27,000
99	452,000	99	15,000	99	30,000

Solo method

As compared to the group method, soloing the Wintertodt typically grants more reward rolls, more Construction xp, and less Firemaking xp per hour. It also requires less attention since action-interrupting standard attacks will occur less frequently, and games last much longer which makes the 500 point reward threshold more forgiving to interruptions such as stepping away from the keyboard for a few minutes. Mass worlds can also be distracting when playing on clients such as mobile that cannot hide other players.

Solo strategies can also be done in duos or small teams, which can improve Firemaking xp efficiency if not fletching, but can reduce points per hour if fletching and healing.