Quick answer: The Varrock Achievement Diary has four tiers, completed in order. Counting the full quest chain (not just the named quests), Easy needs 1 quest, Medium 10, Hard 16 and Elite 24. Elite also asks for 85 Combat and high skills — Cooking 95, Herblore 90, Smithing 89. The headline reward is Varrock armour: a passive 10% chance to mine two ores and smelt two bars at once, scaling up to any ore and bar at Elite.
The Varrock Achievement Diary is one of the most worthwhile early-to-mid game diaries in Old School RuneScape — it hands you the Varrock armour (a passive mining and smithing double-resource perk), a free 2,500 XP lamp, a daily battlestaff money-maker from Zaff, and a higher Skull Sceptre charge cap. This guide breaks down every requirement, the full quest chain behind each tier, and exactly what each reward does. Figures verified against the live game as of June 2026.
Why complete the Varrock Diary?
Most diary rewards are quality-of-life. Varrock’s are unusually practical, and a couple of them pay for themselves:
- Varrock armour — a 10% chance to mine two ores at once and smelt two bars at once (Edgeville furnace). The ore/bar ceiling rises with each tier, up to any ore and any bar at Elite.
- Zaff’s daily battlestaves — after the Easy tier, Zaff sells you 15 noted battlestaves a day for 105,000 coins as a single stack. Reselling them on the Grand Exchange is a small but low-effort daily profit.
- Skull Sceptre — each tier raises its charge cap. From a base of 10, completing Easy, Medium, Hard and Elite lifts it to 14, 18, 22 and 26. The Easy tier also gives an extra bone fragment per component when you build one.
- A 2,500 XP antique lamp usable on any skill of at least level 30.
Varrock Diary requirements at a glance
Four tiers, completed in order. The “quests to finish first” column is the part most requirement lists get wrong — see the note below the table.
| Tier | Quests to finish first | Highest skills | Combat / QP | Reward |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 1 (Rune Mysteries) | Fishing 20, Mining 15 | — | Varrock armour 1 |
| Medium | 10 | Firemaking 40, Crafting 36 | 40 / 32 | Varrock armour 2 |
| Hard | 16 | Farming 68, Hunter 66 | 40 / 32 | Varrock armour 3 |
| Elite | 24 | Cooking 95, Herblore 90, Smithing 89 | 85* / 32 | Varrock armour 4 |
*No Varrock diary task itself checks more than 40 Combat — Medium and Hard require 40 directly, and Elite’s 85 is inherited from its prerequisite quest Dream Mentor (the first OSRS quest with a Combat-level requirement).
About that quest count: the in-game Elite tier names only a handful of quests directly, but several of those have their own quest prerequisites. Counting the full chain, you actually need 24 completed quests before Elite is reachable. The per-tier lists below show the complete chain, not just the headline names — so there are no surprises three quests deep.
Varrock Diary rewards by tier
Each tier upgrades the same rewards rather than handing you new ones. The Skull Sceptre starts at 10 charges before any tier. Here’s exactly what scales:
| Tier | Varrock armour — double mine / smelt | Skull Sceptre charges | Unlocked at this tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | up to gold ore / up to steel bar | 14 | 2,500 XP lamp (any skill 30+), Zaff’s 15 daily battlestaves, +1 bone fragment per sceptre component |
| Medium | up to Lovakite ore / up to mithril bar | 18 | — |
| Hard | up to adamantite ore / up to adamantite bar (a gem proc rolls the gem table twice) | 22 | — |
| Elite | any ore / any bar | 26 | — |
Varrock Diary Easy
- Skills: Fishing 20, Mining 15, Agility 13, Runecraft 9, Crafting 8, Thieving 5
- Quests: Rune Mysteries
- Other: 50 Kudos at the Varrock Museum
Varrock Diary Medium
- Skills: Firemaking 40, Crafting 36, Agility 30, Farming 30, Magic 25 (Ironman: 49), Thieving 25, Fishing 20, Mining 15, Herblore 10, Runecraft 9
- Combat / Quest points: 40 Combat, 32 QP
- Quests (full chain, 10): A Soul’s Bane, Creature of Fenkenstrain, Enlightened Journey, Garden of Tranquillity, Gertrude’s Cat, Priest in Peril, Rune Mysteries, The Dig Site, The Restless Ghost, Tree Gnome Village
- Other: 50 Kudos at the Varrock Museum; a Jagex Account (or the legacy Authenticator)
Varrock Diary Hard
- Skills: Farming 68, Hunter 66 (Ironman: 69 for the dashing kebbit), Firemaking 60, Woodcutting 60, Magic 54, Thieving 53, Prayer 52, Agility 51, Construction 50, Ranged 40, Crafting 36, plus lower requirements in Smithing, Fishing, Mining, Fletching, Herblore, Slayer and Runecraft
- Combat / Quest points: 40 Combat, 32 QP
- Quests (full chain, 16): A Soul’s Bane, Creature of Fenkenstrain, Death Plateau, Desert Treasure I, Enlightened Journey, Garden of Tranquillity, Gertrude’s Cat, Priest in Peril, Rune Mysteries, Temple of Ikov, The Dig Site, The Restless Ghost, The Tourist Trap, Tree Gnome Village, Troll Stronghold, Waterfall Quest
- Other: 153 Kudos at the Varrock Museum; a Jagex Account (or the legacy Authenticator). Building a Skull Sceptre is itself one of the Hard tasks.
Varrock Diary Elite
- Skills: Cooking 95, Herblore 90, Smithing 89, Magic 86, Fletching 81, Runecraft 78 (52 with two or more Raiments of the Eye pieces), Farming 68, Hunter 66, Crafting 61, plus Firemaking, Mining and Woodcutting 60 and a long tail of lower levels
- Combat / Quest points: 85 Combat, 32 QP
- Quests (full chain, 24): A Soul’s Bane, Creature of Fenkenstrain, Death Plateau, Desert Treasure I, Dream Mentor, Druidic Ritual, Eadgar’s Ruse, Enlightened Journey, Garden of Tranquillity, Gertrude’s Cat, Jungle Potion, Lost City, Lunar Diplomacy, Priest in Peril, Rune Mysteries, Shilo Village, Temple of Ikov, The Dig Site, The Fremennik Trials, The Restless Ghost, The Tourist Trap, Tree Gnome Village, Troll Stronghold, Waterfall Quest
- Other: 153 Kudos at the Varrock Museum; a Jagex Account (or the legacy Authenticator)
How to finish it faster
The Easy and Medium tiers are reachable for most accounts in a weekend. Hard and Elite are gated by skilling, not combat — the wall is Farming, Hunter, and the Elite trio of Cooking 95 / Herblore 90 / Smithing 89. A few pointers:
- Plan the skill grind, don’t eyeball it. Use our OSRS XP calculator to see the fastest method and the hours to each diary level. The diary’s heaviest skills have dedicated pages: Mining, Farming, Herblore, Cooking, Smithing and Runecraft.
- Knock out the quest chain early. Most of the 24 Elite quests are short and unlock useful content anyway (Desert Treasure I for Ancient Magicks, Lunar Diplomacy for the Lunar spellbook). Doing them before you chase the levels avoids backtracking.
- Farming and Herblore are gold sinks. Elite needs Herblore 90 and Farming 68 — both train fastest by buying supplies in bulk. If real-life time is the bottleneck, buying OSRS gold from Probemas covers the seeds, secondaries and battlestaff capital so you train at full speed instead of farming the funds first.
Once the armour is at tier 4, it stays useful for the rest of the account’s life — every future mining and smithing session quietly runs ~10% faster. For more diary and skilling walkthroughs, see our OSRS guides hub.
