RuneScape/Skills/Herblore

Herblore is a members-only skill in RuneScape which allows players to make various potions. It is considered one of the harder skills in the game, as it is quite expensive to level up, and herbs (if gained through combat) are relatively hard to come by. Herblore is not a great skill to make money with, if herbs are bought, as most potions cost little more than the herb required to make it.

For players to actually start herblore, they must do the Druidic Ritual Quest, boosting their herblore level to level 3, thus allowing them to identify the first herb, Guam Leaf. Herblore consists of two major parts - identifying herbs, and making the potions themselves. Herbs, when gotten from creatures, are known as 'Unidentified Herb', and they must be identified before potions can be made with them. Certain levels are required to identify each different herb, and experience is given when players are able to identify a herb, and they identify it. If unable to identify a herb, players will be informed that they require a higher herblore level to do so.

To make a potion, a herb, water filled vial and the corresponding secondary ingredient is required. The required level for the specific potion is also required. Firstly, the herb must be used on the vial. This results in an 'Unfinished Potion'. Then the secondary ingredient is added to result in a potion (Potion depending on the herb and secondary ingredient used). Potions made are always 3 dose, except for weapon poisons, which are all 1 use.

Popular potions to make are:

Prayer Restore Potion - great for experience, secondary ingredient easy to get, minimum loss for those wishing to level up. They sell like crazy, especially in Edgeville because of the pkers hanging around there.

Super Sets (consists of Super Attack Potion, Super Strength Potion, Super Defence Potion). - not too hard to sell, yet losses are hard to avoid. Super Attack and Super Strength potions are easy to sell to pures, and thus Super Defence Potions are usually avoided.

Tools
To practice herblore, players will want:


 * A mortar and pestle as this is necessary to prepare a lot of the secondary ingredients.


 * Vials of water (preferably players should make them on Entrana and fill them in the fountain there before returning to the mainland).

Identifying Herbs
Zahur in the city of Nardah will identify herbs for players in return for a fee.

Acquiring Herbs
Herbs can primarily be acquired in three ways: killing monsters, farming, or trading with other players. Slayer monsters are typically good monsters to kill in order to gather herbs. Banshees are fairly low level and reasonably close to the bank in Canifis. Chaos druids also drop herbs.

Herbs can also be acquired by gathering Gout Weed in Trollheim and trading it to Sanfew in Taverly.

Herbs can also be acquired in Miscellania after completing the Throne of Miscellania by having the citizens of Miscellania gather herbs for the player. However, this technique does not seem to be cost effective.

Tips

 * Players can use a Greenman's Ale to briefly gain herblore levels. These can be bought at the bar in Yanille.


 * When making potions players want to keep for yourself, it is a good idea to make them in sets of four and then combine them into 4-dose vials. These save inventory space and let players keep one more vial for further herblore training. Also, players should make sure they do not have different doses of the same potion in their bank, these swallow space for no reason.


 * For eyes of newt it is best to buy them in Port Sarim and bank at Draynor. Players should bring exactly 84 coins (3 coins each for a full inventory), the stock is so large the price shouldn't increase. An easy method is to buy 27, drop one, buy one more, pick up the one that was dropped and go back to the bank.


 * Obtaining unicorn horns for antipoison potions gets hard sometimes as most unicorn spots will already be crowded. Players should try going to Entrana if they can take on a unicorn without weapons, there are four of them on the northern part of the island. There are also two black unicorns in the forest in relekka. Please note that unicorn foals do not drop horns.


 * Cave Bugs, found in the Lumbridge slayer caves, are easy to kill (5 hitpoints) and drop herbs frequently. Roughly half the kills may drop a herb, and roughly half of the herbs will be Guam leaves.


 * Cave Crawlers, found in the same caves or in the Slayer dungeon east of Fremennik village, take a little longer to kill (level 23), and drop herbs less frequently. However they have the advantage of also dropping vials which are necessary to make potions.


 * Banshees, found in the Slayer castle northwest of Canifis, aren't too hard to kill (level 23) and drop herbs or rune essence (13 noted) about 50% of the time. The herb drops seem to be less heavily weighted toward Guam leaves. If players wear earmuffs and good magic defence armor (blue dragonhide or above) they may be able to kill them and be forced to bank due to an overstuffed inventory without ever having to eat.

Quests
The following quests give herblore experience.


 * Eadgar's Ruse - 11,000 exp
 * Zogre Flesh Eaters - 2,000 exp
 * Shades of Mort'ton - 2,000 exp
 * Digsite Quest - 2,000 exp
 * Heroes Quest - 1,825 exp
 * Recruitment Drive - 1,000 exp
 * Jungle Potion - 775 exp
 * Druidic Ritual - 250 exp