Runescape Game Play

I am often asked what is the cheapest way to train a certain skill, this is not as straight forward as it sounds, for example you may think that big bones are cheaper to get 99 prayer because they are cheaper than dragon bones, willows are cheaper to train fire making than maples, yews or magic logs or cooking trout is cheaper than cooking lobsters or sharks, this may well be the truth but there is a lot to take into consideration before you decide the cheapest route.

You need to work out what the most expensive commodity in Runescape is, this is not as straight forward as it might seem, if you have low level stats then it is generally the best thing that you can make or collect, if you have medium to high level stats the the most expensive commodity is often time.

Let me explain, these examples are made up numbers used to demonstrate my reasoning but they are not far off being correct at current prices.
Willows cost 22gp and maples cost 40gp you need 130k willows to get to 99 and 90k maples to get 99 firemaking, now you may think it is cheaper to use willows because 130k Willows cost 2.86m to 99 FM, maples cost 3.6m to get to 99, so by burning willows you are saving almost 1m.
Look at it another way, you need to burn an extra 40k willows to get to 99 fm, how long will it take to burn 40k willows? its a long time, how many nats can you make in that time? how many yew logs can you chop in that time? how many monkfish can you catch in that time? its going to be a fair few, if you spend the time that you would be burning those extra willows doing a good money making skill you can easily make more than the 1m that you save by burning willows, the cheapest apparent method is not necessary the cheapest way to train, in this scenario its cheaper to burn the more expensive log because it gives you more time to train money making skills.

Its the same with bones for prayer, fish when cooking and many other skills, you need to way up the costs per xp and quantity of items that the different training methods need, there is also the enjoyment factor to count in, if you like burning logs then willows would be fine for you, you may lose more money but its a lot easier if you enjoy it.

Unfortunately I can not say what is good for who, every player is different and stats for other skills pay an important part in your training method, all I am saying is consider the time taken in your cost to train calculations.

I just wanted to put up a post about the Bork boss, I am too busy now with my new businesses to play much Runescape or to update my blog regularly, sorry folks should be back when it is in full swing.

I did the mini quest "The Hunt for Surok" when it first came out, I quite enjoyed it as I love the chaos tunnels but it would have been nice to get some hunter xp after tracking him down.

When ever I am on I go to do the fight again, its very easy and I only need to take a few sharks as the noob Surok likes to take a pop at me occasionally hitting as much as 25, I start to attack Bork with protect melee not sure if he hits hard melee but I cant see any point in wasting sharks, he is a bit easy so I attack the little guys he calls up and collect their charms, I also thought it would be fun to have a pop at Surok, he has an attack option but no combat level.

He uses some form of magic melee protect spell to save him, I couldn't do any damage so I just killed his pets.

Still the xp and drops are good from the boss Bork and a few charms from his familiars is not to bad, well worth a daily visit.

There seems to be a lot of controversy whether summoning should be allowed in Pest Control or not, unfortunately there has been inconsistencies in Jagexs' game plan that are fuelling the debate, here are my opinions, not necessarily the answer but a look at the various espects to be taken into consideration.

The first thing to say is Summoning is a combat skill! that is a fact it adds to the combat level so it is without question a combat skill,

Should it be a combat skill? well lets look at the facts, if you are a 138 and you go to duel arena with nothing equipped and nothing in your inventory, full summoning points and prayer points will you have an advantage over a 126 without summoning? the answer is no you are exactly equal and just rely on the laws of Jagex random on the outcome, you are totally reliant on the pouches to help you fight with summoning.

So does that means it is not combat skill? again look at the facts, a mage goes to duel arena and has an empty inventory if he is a non summoning 126 and the other player is a non summoning 126 who is going to win the melee fighter or the mage, unless the mage resorts to melee he is going to lose because he has no runes to fight using magic, so magic isn't a combat skill it is totally reliant on runes to fight mage.

The difference between mage and summoning is magic you use to kill monsters and summoning you use it to help you fight monsters, therefore magic is used for combat a definite combat skill summoning is an aid to fighting so in effect a weapon not totally dissimilar to chinchompa's.

That's sorted Summoning is no longer a combat skill but an aid, hmm not so straight forward, prayer is a combat skill how does this fit in? prayer is a good boost when you are fighting, piety can have some immediate and severe effects on monsters but you cant kill someone with prayer it is an aid, so prayer is now no longer a combat skill.

OK another way to look at it, summoning can be used to do other things besides helping you fight it can chop logs, fetch herbs, fish and mine for you so that is not combat, it is a non combat skill, but with magic it can enchant jewellery, turn items into gold, transport you and heal you using lunar so that is no longer a combat skill.

So we have determined mage prayer and summoning are all combat skills and also not combat skills for the same and different reasons, so why is mage and prayer trainable at Pest Control and summoning not, why is Summoning trainable at Tears of Guthix and Mage, Range, Attack, Strength,and Defence not?

Should Summoning be a combat skill and effect your combat level? should it be allowed at PC and not Tears?

I do not have any answers only questions, there is little consistency between Summoning and the previous combat skills, perhaps it is too complicated to put into just one category.

My opinion is as summoning is defined as adding to your combat level it should be raised with points from pest control however reduced as prayer is, I also think that familiars should not be allowed into Pest Control and the boat combat level requirement not take into consideration summoning gained levels.

I personally think summoning should not be classed as combat and not add to combat levels and my previous paragraph would be changed so that Summoning is trained with Tears and not PC.

I really welcome all views on this post, my brain went into melt down writing it and I would love to know my brain strain was appreciated.

When I started playing Runescape I trained mining and wood cutting a lot, the reason could have been because I kept dying when I was fighting, mining and WC was quite straight forward and leveled quickly, mining was the first skill I got to level 60, as I got more into the game and started to find my way around I realised what a pain mining was and it was neglected somewhat, in fact it remained at around 60 for months, I did not like the idea of hitting a rock or 28 banking and returning and repeating.

You will see on my stats that gathering skills that involve lots of walking are neglected, runecrafting being another one of my main hates.

Since the launch of the Visage the black dragons in Taverly are a no go area. too many low level players taking 20 minutes to kill them making a slayer task there impossible, I then had a brainwave (please note this it rarely happens), I remember doing a quest where I had access to a number of black dragons through the Evil Chicken Shrine, I couldn't remember how to get in there so I looked it up on the Internet and I needed a raw chicken and use it on the shrine, that would send me into the Evil Chickens Lair, I got my range gear and trotted off.

After completing my slayer task I saw the mining symbol so I thought I would take a look and see what was there, there was lots of gold and some iron 2 mith rocks and 8 coal, my brain started to work overtime and had another idea, If I got my goldsmiths gaunts and a pick and nats I could mine the gold smelt it with superheat and drop the gold bar, this would be cheaper than buying gold for 530gp smelting and selling for 200gp if I was lucky, obviously if I bought gold ore I could smelt near a bank make gold jewelry as well for an extra benefit but my crafting is a lot higher than my smithing.

I went to the bank got boots of lightness and spottier cape, anti fire breath shield 1k nats goldsmiths gaunts and a rune pick, the pick was in my inventory and I had a lava staff in my hand, I started to mine the gold ore and superheat and dropped the bar, my brain already in overdrive thought again, why don't I mine the mith ore and the coal superheat and bank the bars when my inventory is full, so I did I mined the mith ore mined the coal and superheated, by the time I had gone around the eight coal rocks the mith had re spawned, I continued like this for a while getting some quick xp and some valuable smithing material.

I did this for a few days and got 2 mining levels, in off peak times the respawn for the mith is too slow so I mined some iron that was next to it and dropped it while I was waiting.

Then the super dooper idea came to my head, some mathematics will be involved in this next paragraph or two, so be warned CSE3 maths here.

Because the mith was taking a long time to respawn on quiet worlds I thought I would use mith I already had and just mine coal then super heat, I did this and I ran out of mith ore so I did the same with my Addy ore, took a full inventory of addy ore minus 6 spaces for coal mined the coal and superheated on the spot, when I ran out of addy ore I went to jetizso (sp) to mine ore but it took so long I gave up.

I then went to GEbay and decided to buy the addy ore and did a bit of maths to see if it was economical.

Addy ore 1200gp
Nats 270gp
Total cost 1470gp

Addy bar 2300gp
Profit if selling almost 1k per bar.
Conclusion I get paid to mine and little running around from bank to guild, what a result.

Instead of selling I smith the addy into the best thing I can make and alch it, I lose the profit I get from mining but get smithing xp, smithing xp is one of the most expensive skills to train and I can train it for free, result number 2.

You can still make a profit using this method with steel and mith but obviously not as much.

I love mining now and only stopped for the new summoning skill.

Sorry I haven't written for a while, currently working on a new business venture and its taking a lot of my time, my notebook computer has also developed a fault that I can no longer connect to the Internet so my Runescape Gameplay has been severely restricted.

Anyway back to business, SUMMONING, regarding usefulness as a skill im not sure that I will be using it much I see it more as a skill for gaining level not so much to use the abilities of the familiars.

Summoning is easy to train, it is quick to train and if trained efficiently can be cheap or make money, the quick bit may only be because all my current levels are above 70 and the ones I enjoy training are over 90 this takes days to train for each level, with summoning everyone starts at level 4 and the gold charms supplied can get you levels in a few hours, I am currently 57 summoning but I haven't been training summoning at all, I have continued to train slayer and summoning is a free by product.

The best way in my eyes to train summoning is to not actively train it, as I said I train slayer and the charms I get are a by product, I never pick up coins training slayer, this will cost a lot of money in the long run, the problem with summoning charms is you need to check every pile for charms and you need to pick them up, this will slow down slayer training, so if you are seriously training slayer don't pick up charms or cash drops this will cost you a substantial amount of cash.

I am 96 slayer, I am looking forward to getting 99 slayer but not sure if I really want to get there, I love slayer and to be at a stage where I no longer need to train or get any level benefit is a scary thought.

Summoning is slower for the lower level (Combat) players, high level charms being less common in the lower level monsters reducing the opportunity to increase levels, the drawback is more than compensated by the fact that lower level players stand to benefit from being able to train more than one skill at the same time, they can train combat, slayer, summoning and also have the opportunity to get valuable drops.

I have 99 in all combat stats so I can not gain combat XP but as an extra motivation to train slayer summoning is a valuable skill for me, summoning increases your combat level im currently 133 but I fail to see why summoning should affect this, You can now look at players and wonder if they are a high level player or if some of their combat is made up of summoning.

Familiars
At 57 summoning I am not using any familiars regularly, mainly because they are not really worth it yet, I can take a steel minator and use it to help fighting, drawbacks are it takes a while to start to fight, most monsters are dead by the time that happens, he hits rarely and normally a 0, I need to keep topping up its timer or it goes away and it takes a lot of summoning power to refresh, the benefits are not worth wasting a spot for summoning pots that are over priced anyway due to the herb being so rare.

Beast of burden familiars may have a use but the drawbacks make them pretty unusable, they can only carry tradable items and you need to keep your familiar alive to carry for you so if you run out of summoning level the stuff gets dropped, with the great idea to make familiars unable to enter the banks in Fally and Varrock if you tele there you need to dismiss the familiar before you go anywhere.

In my opinion there are too many familiars I make the pouches to get xp the pouches sit in my bank or I sell them, I do not want to read the knowledge base or summon a familiar just to see what it does, there are more to come but I will have exceeded the level for some of them so chance is I will never try them.

I am enjoying training summoning because it is a fun skill to train, I cant see me using it to any great extent due to the fact that you need to recharge summoning and the summoning sites are in remote places, the effects look good but it is just too much trouble to keep them around when you are concentrating on other things.

Pets
The few days after summoning came out everyone had a pet, im not sure but I could have sworn it said welcome to Petscape when I logged on, I had a greyhound and grew it and had a gecko and grew it now comfortably in my bank until I alch them for more room, im sure it will be like the cats everyone has one then it sits in the bank for the rest of its life.

Conclusion a pretty update but too much trouble to be useful, however this may change as my level increases.

Things that I would find more useful to make summoning more usable.
a/ have a summoning recharge point in my house or as another option at church alters or at least as common as alters.

b/ auto renew timers or a bigger notification to see that they have reached 30 seconds.

c/ more monsters dropping the summoning pot herbs.