Ironman is a game mode where Auction House, Bazaar, and trade are all disabled, and it has a different progression line from regular profiles. I've been playing on my ironman profile for around 8 months and I've learned a lot during the process. I'm sharing some of my experience and thoughts down below and I hope it can help out others who are newer to this game mode.
Starting out: From AOTJ and no armor to AOTE and full dragon armor
Item progression line: AOTJ -> rouge sword -> rookie hoe -> farm suit + bee pet + golden shovel -> artisanal short bow -> Squire set -> Mercenary set -> talismans from adventurer -> wand of healing -> grandma wolf pet -> radiant orb -> zombie pickaxe + lapis armor (for xp) -> grappling hook -> Dreadlord sword -> Ender armor -> AOTE -> dragon armor (add golden axe and a fishing rod somewhere)
After spawning on the island, you can cut down the tree, make some wooden tools, build a dirt bridge, collect the chest and cobble minion, and craft an aspect of the jerry (why not). After all of that, head into the portal and the journey begins. After talking to all 12 villagers, you'll have a weapon upgrade (rouge sword). Harvest some wheat and sell them to an NPC for coins so that you can get a rookie hoe. Then, you can keep farming wheat until you get a full set of farm suit armor and enough coins to buy a bee pet. You can also harvest potatoes, carrots, and nether warts in the hub and level up those minions a couple of times. Make sure to place down as many minions as you can and collect your minion from time to time.
After reaching the farming level required to enter the farming islands, you can visit those islands to unlock the collections. Before heading to the mushroom desert, craft a golden shovel and enchant it at the librarian so that you can get sand. You can farm a bit too if a crop is easy to farm. Also, make sure to kill enough farm animals of each type so that you can at least craft the tier 1 minion of each kind. Killing those animals gives you combat XP so this is the safest way to get the first couple of combat levels. The XP dropped from the farm animals should be enough to bring you to at least combat level 5, and you can buy an artisanal short bow from the weaponsmith. Similar to the juju short bow and terminator, this bow is very powerful for its cost. After getting the bow and some arrows, visit Rosetta and buy a set of Squire armor and a Squire sword (you can skip to the Mercenary set directly if you farmed more crops and farm animals for a higher combat level (9) and more money (210k)). Don't waste your money on the mage sets. Both wands do low damage, and their mana cost can't be reduced because they can't be enchanted.
Buy as many talismans as you can from the adventurer, and then the blacksmith to unlock reforge, and then reforge all armor pieces to fierce, bow to unreal, and the weapon to sharp. Reforge the talismans for damage too. Then, visit the librarian and enchant your items with the XP you got from farm animals (growth, protection, etc). Go through the dungeon hub portal to unlock the quick travel, and buy a decent dungeon pot. After all of this, you can visit Maddox, drink the dungeon pot, and kill 1 zombie slayer tier 1 boss and 1 tier 2 boss, and craft a wand of healing (1 more tier 2 boss if you don't get enough materials). After that, start a spider slayer 1 quest visit the spider's den.
After reaching the spider's den, visit the grandma wolf NPC and pick up the pet. Then, finish up the slayer with some weak spiders in the tall den. Switch to the Mercenary set if you haven't already. Go back to Maddox and start a tier 2 boss, and then kill it too. Both bosses are pretty manageable with the Mercenary set and a dungeon pot. After slaying the tier 2 spider boss, visit Maddox again and start a Sven 1 slayer. Tier 2 is harder than the other 2 tier 2 bosses, but it should be manageable with the current gear and the healing wand if proceed with care. Keep grinding Sven until you can get enough wolf teeth for a radiant orb, and get the Maddox batphone.
Craft a zombie pickaxe and enchant it at the librarian. Get it to efficiency V if you can. The XP from mining sand earlier should be enough to unlock the deep caverns or even the dwarven mines. Visit Rusty in the gold mine to add telekinesis to all of your weapons and tools. Keep mining cobble (or other ores) in the first level of deep caverns until you unlock the recipe for a creeper minion. Pick up a set of lapis armor in the lapis mine (useful for XP and therefore enchanting XP). Then, you can keep going down to unlock the lift and ore collections. Give the enchanted materials to Rhys to unlock the Dwarven mines (if you don't have enough, just buy some from NPCs, don't mine in the deep caverns because it's inefficient).
The next step is AOTE and full dragon armor, and this will mark the end of the beginning stage. A weapon upgrade is needed, and because of the competition in the end island, a weapon that deals ranged damage is preferred due to the low movement speed (no god potion or young dragon armor). A Dreadlord sword is the easiest weapon to go for at this stage. Firstly, go grind spiders slayers (slayer xp and money) to unlock the grappling hook recipe and get combat 15. Then, visit the catacombs entrance floor and try to kill a couple of Dreadlords. This can be done by attacking the Dreadlord from a distance with the artisanal short bow. Dying or failing the runs doesn't matter in this case since the only goal is to get a Dreadlord sword (it requires cata 1 which should be met when you get the sword). After obtaining a Dreadlord sword, you can reforge the Mercenary armor to wise, or use a different set with higher rarity if you have one. Then, visit the end and farm 4.5 k health endermen until you get a full set of ender armor and enough pearls to unlock the recipe and craft an AOTE.
After getting an AOTE, find all the fairy souls for the stats buff. You can also find all the relics in the spider's den. Then, there are two routes to take to get a full set of dragon armor: Keep farming eyes and leaching dragons in the nest, or keep doing catacombs entrance floor and floor 1. The leaching method requires less grinding but it takes longer. The dungeon method can get you full dragon during the first week of your ironman profile, but it requires long hours of grinding (Spam Dreadlord and artisanal short bow at the miniboss and tp away when it comes close, repeat).
For the rest:
Buy a fishing rod and then fish in the hub until you unlock the recipes for fishing minion and clay minon. Then place down those minions and don't fish until fishing 17 (werewolf) or even 19 (flaming worm).
Craft a golden axe and brew a haste pot, then you can visit the park and unlock the wood collections. Ideally, don't grind foraging at all before getting a treecapitator (use jungle minions and obsidian minions if you don't mind waiting).
Visit the nether island when you meet the level requirement, and then unlock the collections and minion recipes.
Make sure to get the ice collection and a winter rod on jerry's island.
Mining: The best money-making method on ironman
A somewhat profitable mining set should be in place as soon as possible so that the profile has a decent money-making method and can proceed with necessary but costly purchases and upgrades, such as booster cookies, god pots, a builder's wand, auto pet rules, dark auctions, and dungeon chests.
Item progression line: fractured pickaxe -> glacite armor -> titanium pickaxe -> armadillo -> yog armor and Bal pet (ruby drill) -> gauntlet -> divan's armor
Helpful mayors: Cole and Foxy (mining fiestas)
Dwarven mine is not only the place to mine mithril and titanium ores but also the best place to mine regular ores. There are lots of minecarts with different types of ores at different locations, and mining at minecarts is many times more efficient than mining in the deep caverns.
After reaching the dwarven mines, get a fractured pickaxe. Visit the kings and talk to them to get a king talisman. After that, it's basically hotm/mining XP grind and materials/items grind. I personally found it much easier to get hotm XP in the crystal hollows than in the dwarven mines, so I suggest going into the crystal hollows as soon as possible.
Since your mining speed is rather low when you first enter the Dwarven mines, commissions are slow to do, especially the mithril ones. A good way to get hotm xp is to participate in events like raffles and goblin raids. Try to do as many mob slayer commissions as possible and do the mining ones when the gone with the wind event is active. The first 4 commissions every day give a lot more XP so make sure to always do those. There are NPCs giving out powder and materials too so make sure to visit them.
Once you reach hotm 3, you can enter the crystal hollows with a titanium pickaxe and a set of glacite armor. The titanium pickaxe only has a breaking power of 6, so you can only mine ruby gems. However, commissions like collecting jade gems can still be done by killing team treasurite members and looting chests. In this stage, the most important thing to do other than cycling through easy commissions is to open as many chests as possible until you get a prehistoric egg. A picknoibus will help out a ton in this stage too. The armadillo pet is extremely powerful when your breaking power and mining speed are low, because it breaks blocks for you. Once you get an armadillo pet, you can do all commissions using the armadillo pet, because it allows you to break even the jasper gem while riding it and holding a titanium pickaxe (not sure whether it's intended or bugged). With the help of an armadillo pet, you'll be able to get hard stone collections very quickly and unlock the recipe for yog armor. During the entire process, make sure to always kill Bal when you find it, and probably also farm it many times for a bal pet and yoggies. Once you get enough yoggies and the recipe, you can upgrade to yog armor, and put topaz gems on them (topaz form armadillo mining). You can go for a ruby drill as well if you want to break most gems without using an armadillo pet, but a gauntlet is the main thing to go for once you get full yog armor.
After getting hotm 7 and a gauntlet, you can start upgrading to the armor of divan and start making a decent amount of money. The best locations to powder mine are the jungle and precursor ruins because they give sludges and automaton parts respectively. (The sorrow armor is not mentioned here, because you need a soul whip (fishing 26 + multiple rare drops) to get it efficiently, which is inefficient for the overall progression because getting divan's armor is easier than getting sorrow armor on a new profile).
Catacombs: The Challenge
The ironman experience in the catacombs really made me appreciate what I had on my regular profile a lot more. Playing in the dungeon as an ironman player requires a lot more planning and skills in addition to a lot of grinding compared to playing on regular profiles. In many cases, your play style and the class you play depend on what you are able to get and what you are able to do rather than your preference.
There isn't a need to go back to the catacombs too soon once you have a full set of dragon armor. However, since the majority of the most powerful items in the game are from the catacombs, you'll need to do dungeons at some point, unless you want to skip all those items. Before starting the grinds, there's an important question to consider: What's the plan if you don't get a certain drop after a certain number of runs? Some of the examples are: Do I keep doing floor 5 if I don't get a SA chestplate after 200 runs? How about no Giant's Sword after 500 runs of floor 6? (1k runs of floor 7 without a handle also falls into this category but it is a bit far for most people.) Something good to do is to work on a backup option as well in case that you don't get a dungeon chestplate from any floor after hundreds of runs (I got no chestplate after 200 floor 5 and 300 floor 6 runs (around 90% runs were S+) and finally got a wither CP at run #115.) Some options are: perfect chestplate and boots, frozen blase set with pet, or the superior dragon set.
Ironman players are almost always weaker than players on regular profiles in terms of armor and weapon. 3/4 SA armor isn't rare on floors 3 and 4 but they aren't obtainable for ironman until floor 5. Wither armor is rather common on floor 6 or even floor 5 due to their low price nowadays, but they are very difficult to obtain on ironman. For the same reason, it is very difficult to start doing floor 7 on an ironman profile without asking for a carry (which defeats the purpose imo, but people have different opinions). Due to all the limits ironman profiles have, there are limited options for the dungeon class and play style.
Archer
This class isn't a great option for many ironman players not because the gear is hard to obtain but because of the competition. Due to how OP a juju short bow is for its price and requirement, there are lots of juju archers around. It's almost impossible to play as an archer unless the team is ok with archer dupes, your cata level and gear are both much better than the other archer, you have a terminator, or you are the party leader.
Mage
This class is rather easy to play until floor 5. Early game mage weapons are easy to obtain and because they are ranged weapons, they can lower the armor requirements for mages. Dreadlord sword, Bonzo staff, and frozen scythe all work decently well up until floor 4. Then, they don't do enough damage if your cata level isn't too high for that given floor. The next weapon to go for is the spirit sceptre, which requires 3 rare drops from floor 4. This grind can take more than 200 runs, which is a lot considering the floor it is on. However, the major problem with mage class comes at floor 7, where 90% of the teams only want hype mages. It is possible to join a floor 7 party with only a spirit sceptre, but it's really difficult to contribute to the team. There are other viable options like yeti sword, mida staff, or LCM, but they each come with challenges and limitations. The yeti sword requires 6 stacks of enchanted packed ice. The mida staff can only be obtained when Scorpius is around, and most LCM options aren't good without the OFA enchantment.
Berserk
This class deserves some love as it is a placeholder to avoid archer dupe in many cases. For ironman profiles, it comes with another question: what clearing weapon do you use? Fot isn't obtainable until floor 6. Soul whip needs cata 23 if converted. Maybe use a juju to clear? AOTS is considered as one of the class's main weapons, but it is only great if you swap it with a different weapon, not to mention that it needs 4 rng drops from rev 5 bosses. As for melee options, in the current damage system, weapons with an OFA enchantment usually do far more damage than weapons without it. With all the issues and limitations, this class feels more like an option to go when the archer is taken. Also, this class gets kicked a lot in floor 7 parties. Joining f7 parties as a berserk is almost as hard as joining them as a healer.
Tank
Playing as a tank on floors before floor 5 is not necessary and also not good. It's at a strange position on floor 5 because necromancer lord armor comes at floor 6. Tanks are wanted in most parties on floor 6 and floor 7, but it's not easy to be a strong tank. Reaper mask and legendary whale are basically required for decent tanks, and both require a large number of items and will take a long time to get even with many minions. The reaper mask requires 64 stacks of enchanted string and 36 stacks of rotten flesh. The legendary whale requires 8 enchanted cooked fish. A reaper mask + necromancer lord CP/perfect tier 12 CP + necromancer lord leggings and boots and a legendary whale is enough for a good tank on floor 6 as long as your cata level isn't too low. It is not easy to start off as a tank on floor 7, however. Firstly, most teams don't trust a tank without goldor armor, because it provides damage reduction against wither mobs and has a higher total EHP. Secondly, doing floor 7 without a wither cloak sword is a bit risky in general because it is possible to lag back into lava or even get stuck. With that said, the tank class is a very solid option for floor 7 and it is easy to get into parties.
Healer
I've seen lots of toxic comments towards the healer class saying healers just get carried in runs. This is not true, but the healer class does deserve a buff and some changes. The milestones are entirely based on healing which makes it hard to meet milestones when the party is strong. This class has the lowest gear requirement because it heals itself and therefore is ideal for ironman players. It's not too hard to get into parties as a healer before floor 6, but healers get kicked a lot in floor 7 parties. There are also lots of toxic comments towards healers and the overall experience isn't the best.
Low-level floors (1-4):
If you are playing with party-finder parties, the most important thing to do is to finish all the puzzles which can be failed before anyone else reaches the rooms, and do the trap before others too so no one will die to traps. After making sure puzzle rooms and trap room are good, working on secrets is probably the best thing to do. Other players in the team will likely have higher clearing power and worse secret knowledge, so doing secrets will speed up the run in most cases.
Floor 5
If the team has low cata, you probably still need to rush to puzzles and the trap room so nothing gets messed up. Other than that, this floor isn't that challenging if the team has a tank. Many of the early game items will not be able to do enough damage, but this can be solved by the livid dagger and shadow assassin armor dropped on this floor.
Floor 6
Don't join teams without a tank especially when you are new to the floor. If you can't survive with a tank, then try to join teams with both a tank and a healer, or play healer in a team with a tank. It's also a good floor to switch to the tank class, which is the easiest class to get into floor 7 parties for an ironman player.
Floor 7
It is going to be hard to start this floor even at cata 30 without the help of other people. Most parties will kick a player right after noticing that they don't have wither armor. SA armor is squishy for this floor even with a baby yeti, so risking it and playing archer or berserk (which get kicked a lot) is not a good idea. Playing tank is risky but it's worth trying. If the tank option doesn't work out, then playing healer is the way to go. Playing mage with a spirit sceptre or a mida staff can bring you a lot of toxicity, because the spirit sceptre doesn't do much damage and lots of people believe the mida staff blocks arrows.
M1-M3
It's not a great idea to play those floors if you don't have wither armor or a good party. Even though it's completely possible for a cata 30 party with no terminator or wither blade to get an M3 S+ run in under 15 minutes, it's not easy to get such a party because it requires good collaboration.
After getting full ender armor and an AOTE, join the entrance floor again and try to do the dungeon using the Dreadlord obtained earlier. Pick up all the armor pieces dropped from mobs and slowly upgrade your armor. Start doing floor 1 as a healer when you have 2 or more pieces of armor replaced by dungeon armor pieces and have a machine gun bow. You can switch back to mage when you get higher cata and better armor. Keep doing floor 1 until you get a full set of dragon armor (a mixture of young, holy, and unstable pieces). In this progress, pick up the Bonzo mask and maybe the Bonzo staff too from the boss collection.
Go to floor 2 and keep doing the floor until you get a Scarf's Grimoire. This floor is a great floor for ultimate wise books. After that, come to floors 3 and 4 and get completions. At this point, if your cata level is 15 or higher, convert your dragon set and go to floor 5. If not, then do more floor 4 and see your luck with spirit wings. If you get a wing quickly, then it's worth grinding for the other 2 and go for a spirit sceptre. If not, then don't risk it and go to floor 5.
Floor 5 is the place to grind for legion and overload books so you'll have to do a lot of runs (>150). Therefore, don't take the livid dagger from a chest unless you are very rich or don't have a melee weapon other than AOTE. Keep grinding this floor until you get enough books of each type, get a livid dagger from collection, or get full SA armor.
If you got a spirit sceptre earlier, then you can keep playing mage. Otherwise, switch to berserk or healer is likely better because the early game mage weapons don't do much damage on floor 6. You can replace your chestplate with a perfect chestplate for more EHP if necessary. It's safer to start off by playing in a team with both a tank and a healer. For ancient roses, if you don't get a single rose after more than 7 runs, then it's time to join a different party because someone in the previous party is going for them. Keep doing this floor until cata 30, and then it's time to consider floor 7.
It's almost impossible to get into a floor 7 party as an archer without wither armor, and berserk gets kicked a lot, so it's better not to try those 2 classes especially when SA armor is squishy. If you have a yeti sword, you can try to play as a mage, with a Bonzo mask and necromancer lord armor or perfect chestplate if you don't have necromancer lord CP. If you have a reaper mask, 3/4 necromancer lord and a legendary whale with high level, you can try joining parties as a tank and see how it goes. Getting kicked is likely because you don't have goldor, but it's still possible to get into parties. If you can't survive as a tank, then go healer. This is a difficult stage of joining all kinds of weak parties, until you get enough wither armor pieces to have the average gear of your class on this floor or find a nice party that wants to play with you. The floor 7 grind basically keeps going until you get a full scrolled wither blade. If you become bored of this process, you can visit M1-M3 from time to time and try to drop some master stars or skulls.
A party with a weak class combination or with weak gears can get good results in the end.
Teams with 2A1B1T1H - S+ in the end
Teams with 1A2B1T1H - S+ in the end
Berserk in adaptive chestplate - Died. The run also failed because the tank died too
Mage in full wise dragon armor - Failed the blaze puzzle and everyone left the run
Tank in superior dragon armor - Tank disconnected and people left
Tank in zombie soldier chestplate - Died in phase 2 and phase 4 and the run failed eventually
Archer in full fragged SA armor - Died right after reviving for many times, and the run failed too
Mage in zombie soldier chestplate with a spirit sceptre - S+ in the end
Tank in 3/4 necromancer lord with a mender crown - S in the end
Juju mage - S+ in the end
LCM with shadow fury - S in the end
Mage with yeti sword - S+ in the end
Mage with mida staff - S+ in the end
Berserk with a Hyperion who also happens to own a terminator (why?) - S+ in the end
This is just a list of what I've seen and it doesn't imply which gears or players are better than others. The purpose of this list is to show that a party with a weak class combination or with weak gears can get good results in the end.
MISC: Tips and tricks on other grinds, as well as some useful facts
I'll complete this section later. This is also where I add good ideas and tricks I get from comments.
