How to Reduce the Cost of Training Herblore in RuneScape Using Tasks, Distractions & Diversions and Cheap Potions

Training Herblore in RuneScape can be expensive. There are a number of ways of helping to reduce the cost of training Herblore. You can help reduce this cost using Distractions & Diversions, the Task System and with potions that are cheap to make.

Distractions and Diversions

Distractions & Diversions are a game feature that was released on 2nd September 2008. There are fourteen in total, and some of these have a possible use for training Herblore.

Ancient Effigies

Rarely dropped by monsters, Ancient effigies allow experience to be earned in one of two skills. You need a minimum of level 91 in the skill to earn the experience, and at each stage until the effigy becomes a Dragonkin lamp, the skill choice changes as does the required skill level. Not a particularly effective way of earning experience, and totally random as to whether it will be in Herblore, but usually worth banking until you reach the required level.

The Dragonkin lamp can grant experience in any skill, and the amount of experience given is dependant on the level of the skill.

A recent update has limited the number of effigies you can have at the same time to five. Once that threshold is reached, monsters will stop dropping effigies, although if you had more effigies than five before the update, the existing ones do not vanish.

Effigies can be nourished using the Assist System. The experience from doing this is gained by the assisting player, not the player who owns the effigy, although the owner will get the bonus from the Dragonkin lamp when the effigy finally becomes one.

Alternatively, Historian Minas on the first floor of the Varrock Museum will exchange effigies for 5,000 experience in any skill over level 50.

Penguin Hide & Seek

Penguin Hide & Seek can be started after talking to Larry near the penguins in the zoo in East Ardougne. After the Hunt for Red Raktuber, instead of Larry, you talk to Chuck the polar bear in his cage in the zoo. There are ten penguin spies to find, plus a polar bear agent.

The penguins are in a number of diguises that move around RuneScape, such as bushes, crates, mushrooms, rocks, cacti and barrels. These depend on the spawning location of the penguin. During holiday events, the penguins will use pumpkin disguises around Halloween and snowmen at Christmas.

There is no official world for Penguin Hide & Seek, but an unofficial one is World 60, with a number of friend chats, World60pengs, W60pengs and W60pengu. Join one of these to find where penguins are in world 60.

Some penguins may be in areas that require quests to either be completed or started to enter. Some may even be in the Wilderness, so watch out for player killers. Penguin locations reset every week on Wednesday, between 0:00 and 1:00 GMT.

After completing Cold War, five of the ten penguins will give two Penguin Points, not one, and after completing the Hunt for Red Raktuber, you will be able to spy on the polar bear agent. After completing these two quests, you can earn a maximum of sixteen points per week. Larry and Chuck will only keep track of up to fifty points, so exchange your points before you reach this or the remainder will be lost.

Points can be exchanged for money or experience. Experience is recommended in most cases, and may be spent on Herblore, although you may prefer to spend on another skill. Summoning, Prayer and Construction are also expensive to train, and are also usually more time consuming.

Shattered Heart

This D&D results in Strange rocks being found when training skills. There are fifteen skills which will produce rocks, inlcuding Herblore, and you can find two rocks per skill. If you speak to Barnabus Hurma in the Varrock Museum, he will give you a Statue collection bag to place the rocks into, saving bank space.

You can take these rocks to the Varrock Museum, and use the pairs of rocks on the statue plinth, gaining experience in the relevant skill each time this is done. The amount of experience awarded varies, and is dependant on the level of the skill. Once all fifteen pairs of rocks are added to the statue, it will explode, and Barnabus will give you a Replica statue piece. The replica pieces are added in pairs to a replica statue you can build in your Study in a Player Owned House.

Once the Museum statue has been completed, you can start finding Strange rocks when training skills again. You may only rebuild the statue again after a week has passed.

Even after the statue in the Player Owned House is completed (which requires thirty replica pieces), it is still possible to find new Strange rocks, which will constantly provide a free boost to experience. The only difference is that you will not get replica statue pieces after completing your replica statue.

This is a completely passive way of training, and can be done whilst performing normal training. If you find a piece whilst training Herblore, for example, by cleaning a herb, and lack space in your inventory for the piece, you will lose the herb being cleaned and it will be replaced with a strange rock. Be careful when cleaning expensive herbs that you don't lose one by having a full inventory. If you have the Statue collection bag in your inventory, any Strange rocks found will be automatically added to it.

Tears of Guthix

Available once the Tears of Guthix quest has been completed, this D&D requires to collect blue tears weeping from the wall, whilst avoiding the green tears. You have an amount of time to collect the Tears determined by the number of quest points you have. At the end of the allocated time, you will receive experience in your lowest skill determined by the number of Tears collected and the skill's level.

You can only collect the Tears once per week, and you must have earned either 100,000 experience or one quest point since the last time they were collected. The experience is automatically assigned to your lowest skill, and you can't choose this, so this only works if Herblore is your lowest.

Task Rewards

Explorer's Ring

The Explorer's ring 3, gained as a reward from completing the Draynor and Lumbridge beginner, easy and medium tasks allows unlimited teleports to the cabbage field south of the Falador farming patch. This is useful for quick access to the herb patch at the farming area.

Ardougne Cloak

The Ardougne Cloak has a number of benefits. The Ardougne Cloak 1, obtained from completing the easy Ardougne tasks, allows unlimited teleports to the Kandarin Monastery south of Ardougne, close to one of the bush patches, the Tower of Life, and Fairy Ring DJP. Some drops in the Creature Creation activity will also be noted when the Cloak is worn. As the Cloak is upgraded by completing more task sets, more of the Creature Creation drops will be noted.

The Ardougne Cloak 2, the reward from the medium Ardougne tasks, allows one teleport per day to the Ardougne farm, north of East Ardougne, where there is a herb patch.

The Ardougne Cloak 3, rewarded for the hard Ardougne tasks, reduces the chance of being caught by pickpocketing anywhere on RuneScape, useful when pickpocketing Master Farmers.

The Ardougne Cloak 4, gained for completing the elite Ardougne tasks, allows unlimited teleports to the Ardougne farm.

Morytania Legs

Morytania legs, gained from completing the Morytania tasks, have a couple of uses that help with getting Herblore secondary ingredients.

Morytania legs 1, the reward for completing the Easy Morytania tasks, will double the number of Mort Myre fungi produced when Bloom is cast on logs in Mort Myre.

Morytania legs 2, the reward for completing the Medium Morytania tasks, will stop the Mushroom Patch west of Canafis from getting diseased. The legs do not need to be worn for this, as it is an automatic benefit.

Morytania legs 4, the reward for the Elite Morytania tasks, will double the harvest of any mushrooms from the Mushroom Patch.

Potions

Attack Potion

The lowest level potion there is, this potion is made at level 3 Herblore and can be made after completing Druidic Ritual.

Although the potion does not sell for much on the Grand Exchange, the ingredients themselves can be obtained cheaply enough to make a profit. Dirty guam is dropped by many monsters, although usually discarded by most players, or can be grown in a herb patch at level 9 Farming.

Guam seeds are also obtained as a monster drop, very cheaply from the Grand Exchange, or from pickpocketing Master Farmers. Many pickpockets tend to drop the Guam seeds obtained on the floor, so you can often get this just be picking up other players' discards.

The Scroll of cleansing does not work on Guam potion (unf).

The secondary ingredient, Eye of newt, is also available very cheaply from herb and magic shops, or not quite as cheaply from the Grand Exchange.

As long as you don't buy the Dirty or Clean guam, this potion will usually make a small profit.

Serum 207

After the Diary of Herbi Flax has been read during the Shades of Mort'ton quest, this potion can be made. It's a temporary cure for the afflicted, and using it on them will cause them to give you a reward, including possibly the items required to make it. This is the best method of getting rid of the potion after making it, as it is untradeable and cannot be withdrawn as a note, making disposal any other way very time consuming. It's also more profitable to dispose of it by using it on an afflicted.

Making it requires Clean tarromin, Ashes and a Vial of water and gives 50 Herblore experience. Ingredients can be obtained from the general store, once the quest is complete, using the serum on afflicted, chopping and burning nearby trees for Ashes or by killing afflicted. Empty vials can be refilled from the working sink in the village.

Usually a very cost effective way of training, but not very quick.

Creating Serum 207 will not result in Strange rocks from the Shattered Heart Distraction & Diversion.

Magic Essence Potions

Magic essence potions can be made during and after A Fairy Tale Part II. The potion is made by adding a Starflower, which can be picked (with level 49 Farming) on the Cosmic Plane (Fairy Ring CKP) to a Vial of water, then adding Gorak claw powder, got by grinding a Gorak claw with a Pestle and mortar. Gorak claws are frequently dropped by Goraks, which are found on the Gorak Plane (Fairy Ring DIR) or in the God Wars Dungeon.

Making these potions gains 130 experience when made and the only cost is that of the Vial of water. However, the ingredients cannot be bought and Goraks can be very dangerous, as they hit through prayer, although they can be safespotted and maged or ranged in a few places on their own plane. Still, if killed as part of an assigned Slayer task, using the dropped claws to make the potions can be a useful way of gaining some cheap Herblore experience. Dispose of the potions either by dropping, or possibly using the free low- and high-alchemy charges on the Explorer's ring. Magic potions are far better to use to boost magic in combat, although they are more expensive. 30 Day Membership: RuneScape 3 [Game Connect]
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