Tutorial:Ironman Guide

Preword
An Ironman profile is an alternative, but harder way of playing Hypixel Skyblock.

Ironman profiles have several differences compared to a normal profile:
 * The Bazaar (except for booster cookies) and the Auction House are both disabled.
 * You cannot trade with players that are not in your Co-op (if you have one).
 * Drops from people that are not in your Co-op can't be picked up.
 * However, you may still pick up drops from mobs that other people killed, or from blocks mined by other players. However, you still cannot pick up items that have a pick up priority for another player.

These challenges are intended to make Skyblock closer to an actual MMORPG, where you have to grind everything by yourself.
 * The ♻ icon will appear next to your name while on an Ironman profile. This also appears on the player list menu when pressing tab.

This guide is only a suggestion on how to play the Ironman gamemode. Feel free to play however you want, it´s for fun after all.

The Deep Caverns
When you first start your Ironman profile, you should get yourself any pickaxe, and an Undead Sword, which you can reforge for 10 Coal. Enchant your Undead Sword with Smite, then, you can either go for Mushroom Armor, Lapis Armor or normal Diamond Armor. I would personally recommend Mushroom Armor due to how good it is during the night. Then, mine until you reach Mining V. Travel to the Deep Caverns and mine enough Coal, Redstone, Diamonds, Emeralds, and Lapis Lazuli to craft their respectable Minions. Deploy these Minions and mine the ores they place to get a lot of Mining XP and experience points to further enchant your Undead Sword and choice of armor. After you have mined all the ores the Minions placed, unlock different Collections to get more Minion slots (I would start in Farming). Do that until you unlock access to the Dwarven Mines. You can give the same material multiple times to unlock the Heart of the Mountain. You only need to switch servers.

The Dwarven Mines
Here, you can get yourself Glacite Armor by killing Ice Walkers at the Great Ice Wall with your pickaxe. Once you have a few pieces, enchant them with Growth 5 and Protection 3. You should also reforge them as Pure or Fierce, since Glacite Armor will be your main combat armor until you actually have some decent armor. So, just keep on grinding Ice Walkers until you have the full set.

If you have 10,000 Coins, you should consider buying a Fractured Mithril Pickaxe to mine Titanium. Then, you should start doing your Daily Commissions. The first four Daily Commissions give an extra 900 HOTM XP, which is good for getting to Heart of the Mountain 3, which unlocks the Crystal Hollows.

Early-Game Weapons
There are a selection of weapons, which may be useful to you in the early stages of the game. This is the best weapon to start killing Zealots, having great Stats and being fairly easy to acquire for 200k coins. This should be your first real weapon. Combine this with Ender Armour and the Ender Equipment ,then you should be able to 1 shot Zealots fairly Easy
 * -|Void Sword=


 * -|Tactician Sword=This sword is SEVERELY UNDERRATED if you are not rushing the End content. Costing only 35.000 coins it´s almost free for how good it is.

When you have 6 Combat Collection over Level 7 it is better then the Endstone Sword.

Once you reach Combat Level 24 this sword is comparable to an Aspect of The Dragons.
 * -|Endstone Sword=One of the easier weapons to 1 shot Zealots with having Decent stats and a ability which may save you in a pitch as well as being VERY USEFUL FOR ALL SLAYERS, since Zombie and Wolf Slayer have a frenzy phase which does a lot of Damage in a short time.

(You need 17.500 Kills to max out this weapon as well as 50k Wood Collection) The only positive of this weapon are the additional coins you gain from kills.
 * -|Raiders Axe=A beloved Weapon of the Community for good reason, but it requires a lot of time to get the maxed stats so generally not worth to max out.


 * -|Emerald Blade=One of the best swords for all stages of the game got nerfed to almost being unusable, but it can have some uses.

This weapon is still one of the better options to 1 shot zealots and to kill Slayer Bosses, due to it´s decent Base Damage. Grinding Summoning Eyes in the End is completely save if you have a Remnant of the Eye in your Inventory saving you, and your coins.


 * -|Aspect of the End=The BEST ABILTY IN THE ENTIRE GAME, it also has decent base Damage and strength, so it can be used to kill Zealots but generally not recomended.

'''Get this purely for the utility of Teleportation. '''

Once you have acquired your weapon of choice, you will need need to enchant it.
 * -|Dreadlord Sword=A very good weapon for starting Mages in Dungeons, it has comparable Damage to Bonzo Staff in Lower Floors, due to the lower Mana cost of Dreadlord.

If you want to grind Summoning Eyes, you will need to one-shot Zealots. Enchant your weapon with the following: Sharpness, Giant Killer, Prosecute, Enderslayer, First Strike, Critical, Venomous, and Fire Aspect. Once acquired, you need to reforge your weapon to Sharp or Odd to increase your Critical Chance, which makes your one-shot consistent. Other good enchantments you should get are: Vampirism, Life Steal, Looting, Scavenger and Luck. These enchantments however, don't increase your damage output.

As for your Dungeons weapon, you should enchant it with: Smite, Giant Killer, Execute, First Strike, Critical, Venomous, Life Steal/Syphon, and Vampirism for survivability, as well as Looting and Luck for more Dragon Fragments and random Dungeon Armor.

Fairy Souls
Ever since the Skyblock Level Update, it is not mandatory to get all Fairy Souls, so you can delay searching for them.

Talismans
You should always have a Redstone Minion running so you can unlock a bigger Accessory Bag in the Redstone Collection. The Accessory Bag holds your Talismans, while still giving you their stat boosts as well as the reforges on them. The Talismans should be correctly tuned to give Strength or Critical Damage, to further increase your damage output with melee weapons.

Easy Talismans to Get

 * Farming Talisman
 * Vaccine Talisman
 * Potion Affinity Talisman
 * Talisman of Coins
 * Magnetic Talisman
 * Zombie Talisman
 * Skeleton Talisman
 * Village Affinity Talisman
 * Mine Affinity Talisman
 * Intimidation Talisman
 * Shiny Yellow Rock (Romero and Juliette Quest)

Potions
Potions temporarily increase certain stats, making them very powerful while costing almost nothing. One good potion is the Dungeon 1 Potion, obtainable in the Dungeon Hub at Ophelia for 5,000 coins. The Spirit 1 Potion is obtainable during the Spooky Festival at the Fear Mongerer for 1 Green Candy. If you have the collection, you could also go for higher tier potions with Enchanted Glowstone Dust, such as the Strength 5 Potion, Critical 3 Potion, and the Spirit 3 Potion.

Combat Levels
Each Combat Level increases your damage output by a certain percentage, so Combat 1 usually means 4% more damage, making leveling up your Combat Skill very useful.

Getting Coins
Coins are an important part of Hypixel Skyblock, and are needed for many things. These include NPC shops, the Dark Auction, pet upgrades, damage for your Emerald Blade, and the Dungeon Reward Chests after killing a Dungeon boss.

Selling Minion Output to NPC
Deploying some Clay or Snow Minions with Diamond Spreading can make you around 1,000,000 coins per day. The main drawback is that you can´t use your Minions for item production.

Farming
When you have a Builder's Wand, you will be able to make gigantic farms on your island, and a produce a few crops like Sugar Cane and Nether Wart, which have decent NPC sell prices. In the beginning, this might seem like a good money-making method topping off at around 3,000,000 coins per hour, but this requires a lot of dedication to achieve. Since Sugar Cane has to be placed by hand, it takes time and effort to even get started. It can take hundreds of hours of harvesting to even hit Farming 45. However, if you do plan on using this method, a Legendary Elephant is a must, since it gives more Farming Fortune, almost doubling your output. The only problem is that the Elephant costs around 12,000,000 coins.

Mining
Mining, by far, takes the longest time to get going. It takes hundreds of hours to get enough Powder to get a decent HOTM, or even HOTM 7. The main advantage is that it tops off at around 30,000,000 coins per hour. That's ten times as much as farming does. Of course, it does take almost five times as long to get there, but with the ever-rising inflation, farming isn´t enough anymore. I will describe how to really get going with mining in the 'Mining' part.

Grinding Dungeons
''' IF YOU WANT TO RUSH, SKIP TO MIDAS STAFF. '''

Now with a decent money-making method, you can start buying expensive Dungeon loot such as Recombobulators, to further strengthen your gear and Talismans.

Ever since the Life Steal nerf, Dungeons are now harder to survive. You will need to build a potato farm or deploy a Potato Minion, because all the gear you want to use has to be Hot Potato Book'ed. Hot Potato Books give you so much more survivability; it's a necessity.

In the following, I will rate the classes for lower-level Dungeons:

Mage: The best class for lower-level Dungeons by far.

Berserker: Not as good as Mage by a long shot, but is 100% viable.

Tank: Good with a group of friends, but not with a party from the Partyfinder.

Healer: You can play Healer in the Entrance to gain more Survivability, or in parties where your team is missing Survivabilty.

Archer: If you don't have a Juju Shortbow, don't bother with it.

Best Gear for Each Class

 * -|Mage=Start out with Heavy Armor or Skeleton Armor Starred and reforged to Wise/Smart with Dark Goggles and a Necromancer Sword, to a Bonzo Mask reforged to Necrotic (for clear and as a saving grace).

Now, you could either grind the Bonzo Staff, or try getting your hands on a Fire Veil Wand.

The Fire Veil Wand is a Wand, so it can´t be enchanted (other then Ultimate Wise), but you can switch to another weapon to get the effects of the enchantments. The Fire Veil Wand can even replace the need for a Spirit Scepter for F5. I will explain later how to get the Fire Veil Wand. You can grind a Spirit Scepter In F4 with a Bonzo Staff/Fire Veil Wand. Once you reach Catacombs Level 15, you should replace your armor with Starred Dragon Armor reforged to Necrotic and the chestplate reforged to Loving, as well as upgrading your Goggles to Shadow Goggles. Get a Bonzo Mask for survivabilty once you reach Catacombs Level 16 get a Hyper Cleaver and upgrade your armor to Unstable Starred Dragon Armor reforged to Fierce. You will need to skip F4 since it is not balanced for Berserkers. (Reinforced comes from Rare Diamonds obtainable from mining Diamonds in the Deep caverns)
 * -|Berserker=Heavy Armor/Rotten Armor Starred reforged to Fierce/Pure. Your starter Weapon is a Supercleaver.
 * -|Tank=If you want to play as a full Tank you want to use a Zombie Heart or Revived Heart Starred as a helmet. Reforge it to Titanic/Reinforced

Tanky pieces like Heavy Armor or Skeleton Soldier Armor Starred can be used as the rest of your armor. So reforge them to Titanic/Reinforced.

Once you reach Catacombs Level 15 you can replace your armor pieces with Starred Dragon Armor (except the helmet). With this setup you should even be able to get into higher dungeons like f5/f6. It´s only a question of your Catacombs level, and other healing items you get on the way.

If you want to play as a good tank though you need 2 armor sets one for clearing and the other for the boss, but since that requires a lot of essence and Tanks aren´t appreciated in any normal Dungeons you are better of playing directly as Mage/Berserker. (The Mender Helmet is absolutely Garbage and should be avoided)
 * -|Healer=You want a setup from either Mage or Berserker once you unlock the Mender Fedora you can replace your current Helmet with it.
 * -|Archer= Juju Shortbow and Dragon Armor reforged to Fierce, with a pet of choice.

Notable items you should acquire for every Class Aspect of the End, Florid Zombie Sword and a Dungeon orb(Duh).

Mithril and Gemstone Mining 3-5
You have achieved HOTM 3, with your daily commissions now it is time to enter the crystal hollows and get a few Gemstones for your Glacite armor. Jade increases your mining fortune and amber increases your mining speed, which both increases your yield. To get these Gemstones easily it is advised to do a Crystal Nucleus run.

''Tips for the Crystal nucleus run: Before going for the Topaz crystal you should have a few water Bottles in your inventory to drink to prevent overheating in the Magma field. There are servers like Ironman Sweats who frequently Ping Robotor Parts in public chests, so that you can get them.''

Daily Mining
With the the few Gemstones you got with Crystal Nucleus run you can now Unlock a few of the Fortune And Mining Speed chambers of Glacite. With this you will have to keep doing dailies till you have HOTM 6.

Crystal Hollows Commissions
For this you will need either a Gemstone Drill or a Pickonimbus and preferably a Armadillo to make it more efficient.

Gemstone Drill
To quickly acquire the 6 fine ruby gemstones you can grind the boss Bal, which drops flawed Ruby and Topaz as well as an item called Yoggies for your Yog Armor, with a slight chance for a Bal Pet, which is essential for Topaz mining and later Ruby Mining.

Pickonimbus
The Pickonimbus is respected as a good mining tool due to the insane 1,500 Mining speed, while other pickaxes in the same prize class barely come over 400 Mining Speed. The main drawback is that it breaks after 5,000 uses, but it can be repaired with other Pickonimbuses keeping the enchantments and reforges, this might come in handy once you hit Heart of the mountain 6 and want to Ruby Mine for a Gemstone Gauntlet.

Armadillo Mining for Yog
If you get lucky and get a Prehistoric Egg in a chest or in the nucleus, you can go for a Jungle Pickaxe. The Jungle Pickaxe can be traded in the jungle Village for 200 Sludge Juice. Once you have it you can hold your Jungle Pickaxe, while you mine Hard Stone with your Armadillo in the jungle, giving you Hard Stone and Sludge Juice. This is incredibly effective for grinding the 150,000 Hard Stone collection at some point, because Yog Armor is the easiest armor to get the pristine slot, which is the most important for Gemstone Mining.

Gemstone Mining 6-7
Once you reached Heart of the Mountain 6, you unlock very powerful perks such as Mole and Treasure Hunter, making it possible to Powder Grind much more effectively than before. this strategy is essentially digging around until you find a treasure chest and opening it, This rewards incredible amounts of Mithril and Gemstone Powder, as well as the useful regions treasure drops the most important ones are the robotron parts in the precursor city and the Sludge Juice in the Jungle. With Heart of the Mountain 6 you also got access to Gauntlet and Divan Armor, which are very good mining equipment.

Getting a Gemstone Gauntlet
This is your first goal after getting Heart of the Mountain 6 if you do not have Yog Armor yet, you most certainly need it now, with a Gemstone Drill or Pickonimbus (or a Titanium Pickaxe). With this you drive around with your Armadillo and mine the Ruby you can find, while maxing out Mining Fortune and Pristine respectably. If you don´t know any Ruby Spots, here is a community post that mentions one, or you can just mine the rubies you find in structures.

Once you acquired a Gemstone Gauntlet, try to put on the highest Pristine Enchantment you can get on it. You should deposit Topaz Gemstone up to Flawless till you have Pristine 5, then you can replace the Flawless Topaz with Perfect Topaz.

Getting Divan Armor
Powder Mine for parts and Sludge Juice and take the gemstone you find with your Armadillo, and prepare for Multiple Crystal nucleus runs so that you can do them faster. You can have multiple pieces of the required Items for Mines of Divan, by putting the parts you find in your Ender Chest making it possible to find multiple of the same parts, making it possible to get the crystal very fast.

Chambers for Divan Armor
Try to get a Helix in the Crystal Nucleus and forge a Ammonite, with that, decent fishing gear, Fishing 19 and with Fish Baits you can go Lava Fishing in the Precursor Remnants. There is only a single mob you can fish up there and that is the Flaming Worm, which drops the Worm Membrane. The Worm Membrane drop chance is not affected by Magic Find, but is affected by Looting.

The most important chamber is the Pristine Chamber followed by The Mining Fortune Chambers and lastly the Mining Speed chambers. They are all very important except for the speed chambers, but it´s worth getting them.

HOTM 7 Gemstone Mining
Further upgrade your Gemstones in your Divan Armor and try getting a Artifact of Power for +1 Pristine. now you are mostly maxed out, With this setup you should make around 13-17m per hour in the Magma Fields, with a Legendary Level 100 Bal Pet.

HOTM 7 Mithril Mining
Just don´t if you are happy with 13m per hour, and don´t wanna spend double the time to make 30m per hour.

Midas Staff - The Mid-game Skip
This weapon is not designed to be balanced around Ironman, you can completely skip every part of the mid-game once acquired.

Usually, you needed to go grind dungeons to acquire good mid-game gear, but you can skip that with the Midas Staff.

Nether Update
With the help of your trusty Midas Staff and some cheap Mage Gear, you are able to kill nearly everything in the Nether as an EARLY-GAME PLAYER, even though this is supposed to be for late/endgame players. Most notably for you is that you can kill the Fishing Mobs, without huge effort. These Sea Creatures drop Armor pieces which can be Salvaged for a lot of Crimson Essence. Crimson Essence can be used to Star Equipment and Armor obtained from the Nether, this includes the Crimson Armor, which is obtained from Kuudra.

Kuudra shouldn´t be a big problem since you own a Midas Staff, get a halfly decent team and this shouldn´t bring you any problems.

Once you acquire Kuudra Follower Armor, you can start to Star it and Prestiging it to Hot Crimson Armor for example. This armor set is already better then Full Shadow Assassin outside of dungeons.

Optional: You can do all Slayer Bosses from Zombie, Wolf and Spider for additional combat xp gain, as well as opening all the important Slayer receipts for you.

Diana
You might need to go for Aurora Armor or any Dragon Armor to kill all Legendary Diana monsters, as well as Shadow googles for the increased Ability Damage. If you are unsure what reforge to apply, look at the Mage part for Gears for Starting Dungeons. (it is heavily recommended to Star your Shadow Goggles/Wither Goggles due to the Stars increasing the Ability Damage even outside of dungeons)

If you skipped the dungeons part of this guide, you will need to put Hot Potato Books on every single armor set/weapon from now on, so build a potato farm.

You can mine the 2 stacks of Enchanted Gold Blocks, with your Gauntlet and 2/3 pieces Mineral Armor in the Mines of Divan in around 3 Hours.

Once you have your Legendary Griffin, you should start to winmax your Magic Find. So, acquire at LEAST the following: God Potion, Booster Cookie, Level 80+ Legendary Griffin, and a Lucky Clover as a pet item for the Griffin. This should bring you to around 130ish Magic Find. Grind this event until you acquire a Daedalus Axe or how long you like.