Hellhounds are not popular slayer monsters because of their drop table. Except for having a lottery-like chance to obtain a Smouldering Stone at a drop rate of 1 in 32k, they only drop vile ashes and hard clue scrolls. However, the drop rate for the hard clue scrolls makes them popular for higher-level players who want to solve hard clue scrolls. The drop rate is 1 in 60 or 1 in 30 if you’ve completed your hard combat achievements.
Slayer Masters in OSRS
Slayer masters will assign different hellhound quantities, and you will likely receive a hellhound slayer task from any of them based on the task weight system.
- Vannaka 40-80
- Krystilia 75-125
- Chaeldar 110-170
- Konar 120-170
- Nieve 120-185
- Duradel 130-200
Hellhounds Task OSRS Strategy
Hellhounds can be killed using any attack style, but since melee hits for the most, it is often wise to use melee when killing them. Many locations will allow you to bring a dwarf multicannon, speeding up your kills. Hellhounds only attack with melee, so using the protect from melee prayer will prevent you from taking any damage. If using the dwarf multicannon, you should bring your best gear, prioritizing either your melee or range accuracy.
OSRS Melee Setup for Slaying Hellhounds
For the melee setup, you can prioritize your strength or prayer bonus. The budget pick is a rune or dragon scimitar, and if you managed to get an abyssal whip, that’s all you need to be efficient against them. However, you will get even faster kills if you can access more expensive weapons, such as the Osmumten’s Fang or Siche of Vitur. It is highly not recommended to use Arclight even though they are vulnerable to it, simply because it is relatively time-consuming to obtain ancient shards to charge this weapon.
You can use a combat bracelet, barrows gloves, or the ferocious gloves in your hand slot and a berserker's ring, imbued berserker ring, or an Ultor ring if you have one for the ring slot. However, if you don’t have any, you can bring a ring of life or an explorer's ring. If you're killing hellhounds in the Wilderness, you should use an imbued ring of wealth since it will almost double the chance to get a hard clue scroll with a modified drop of 1 in 32 kills.
You can bring rune, dragon, or primordial boots for the feet slot, but if you want to prioritize the prayer bonus, you should bring holy boots. For the chest and legs, bring your best strength bonus gear such as the dragon armour, the fighter's torso, or Bandos chestplate and rune or dragon legs or plateskirt, and you could also bring the Bandos tassets if you have them. To maximize your prayer bonus, you should bring the Propylite armour instead and a pair of Holy boots.
Your ammunition slot should hold a blessing; get the best defender you own for the offhand slot, and for the neck slot, use an amulet of glory, amulet of fury, or amulet of torture. For the head slot, you should always wear a slayer helm when on a slayer task or an imbued slayer helm.
OSRS Ranged Setup for Slaying Hellhounds
If you choose to train your range skill alongside slayer skill when on a hellhound task, then you can do so with a rune or dragon crossbow. Alternatively, you can use a blowpipe since the damage output is higher. Bring a range off slot such as a D'hide shield, odium ward, or the Dragonfire ward if you're using a crossbow. For the ring slot, you should bring an archers' ring, imbued archers' ring, or venator ring, and for the hand slot, you can bring d'hide vambraces or barrows gloves.
Use a D'hide armour and legs should you have the ranged level for the legs and chest slot. Alternatively, if you own the Armadyl chestplate and the Armadyl chainskirt, they will speed up your kills, but keep in mind that the best cost to power armour for hellhounds is the blessed d'hide armour since it will also give you prayer bonus. Karil’s armour also works well.
For the neck slot, an amulet of glory (but if you’re an ironman who doesn’t yet have access to one, bring an Amulet of power, which is far more easily obtainable than glory). If you’re using the Blowpipe, bring a blessing in the ammunition slot. Otherwise, you’ll be carrying the bolts. While using range, the basic slayer helm won’t do much for you, but once you imbue it, it will become your best in slot headgear.
OSRS Magic Setup for Slaying Hellhounds
Even though it’s not a popular pick, if you’re training Magic on a Hellhounds Slayer task, it is only recommended to do so while slaying them in the catacombs of Kourend with burst or barrage spells. Not many players choose to kill hellhounds with magic for several reasons. For example, the max hit you can get with magic is lower than the max hit for melee and range, the charges on the powered staves are pretty expensive, and the runes for offensive spells are also pretty expensive, while there’s no real return from killing hellhounds.
Another big reason stands in the fact that many players choose to kill hellhounds in areas where they can use a dwarf multi cannon, and bringing magic would lower the cannon's accuracy compared to bringing melee or range since the cannon’s accuracy is directly related to your melee and magic accuracy. If you use a powered staff, your cannon will still consider your range or melee accuracy (whichever is higher). A non-powered staff or a wand will be considered melee, so your cannon's accuracy will be based on your melee accuracy.
If you have a hellhound task that you want to complete with Magic because you're close to your magic level goal or whatever other reason, you should burst hellhounds inside the Catacombs of Kourend, even though you will lose GP doing so. For this, you will need to be on the ancient magicks spellbooks, have the necessary runes for your chosen burst or barrage spells, and bring your best magic gear together with a weapon that can auto-cast ancient magicks and darts or a blowpipe to group them.
The weapons that can auto-cast ancient magicks are the ancient staff and sceptre and their upgrades, Ahrim’s staff if you're wearing the complete Ahrim set, the master and Kodai wands, the Thammaron's sceptre, and most of the versions of the nightmare staff (except the harmonized nightmare stuff). Using magic at lower levels is not recommended, and you should use melee or range instead.
Best Place to Kill Hellhounds OSRS
Hellhounds are found in eight places around Gielinor. That can make you face a hard choice regarding where to slay them unless you do it on a Konnar or Krystilia task.
- Near the Resource Area in deep Wilderness
- Wilderness Slayer cave
- Witchaven dungeon
- Catacombs of Kourend
- God Wars Dungeon
- Karluum Slayer Dungeon
- Stronghold Slayer Cave
- Taverley Dungeon
The best place to kill them depends on your gear and account progression, as well as what the reason for killing them is in the first place. If you want the best chance to get a clue scroll, you’ll go somewhere else than if you want to afk the task, for example.
Hellhounds Location OSRS for AFK Killing
The best spot for AFKing the kills is inside the Catacombs of Kourend. Even though scattering ashes won’t restore your prayer points like burying bones, maximizing your prayer bonus on your gear will ensure a decent AFK period, even with a lower prayer level. Another benefit of killing them here is obtaining dark totem pieces and ancient shards to charge your Arclight.
Best for Hard Clue Scrolls
The best location for hard clue scrolls is near the resource Area in deep Wilderness while wearing an imbued ring of wealth. Even though you might occasionally find other players here, they are generally there for other reasons than PKing. The other wilderness spot represents a real hotspot for PvP, so you will get less action here. While wearing an imbued ring of wealth, you’ll have a 1 in 32 chance to get a hard clue scroll from the wilderness hellhounds. The downside is that because it is the Wilderness, you still get the chance to get some PvP action.
Best for PvP Action
If you want to get some PvP action while doing your slayer task, you are likely to get this by going to the Wilderness Slayer Cave since this represents one of the hotspots in the Wilderness.
Fastest Task to Slay Hellhounds in OSRS
If you want to run through the task as fast as possible, take a dwarf multicannon and head toward the Karluum Slayer Dungeon. The strategy here is to place the cannon in the middle of the room with 12 hellhound spawns, then run in the corridor (also the place for safespotting) so that no hellhound is engaged in combat with you. Make sure to turn auto-retaliate off for this method. You will need to go back into the room and recharge the cannon. You can also use an expeditious bracelet if your goal is to complete the task as fast as possible.
