I still needed quite a few farming levels. Thankfully I ran into a quest along the way to help speed things up. I then went off and farmed multiple different kinds of trees. That gave me enough experience to pick up the money boat and the fine art of herb farming.
Quest: Forgettable Tale
While I've been having a blast farming trees. It just so happens I ended up running a quest that rewarded a nice fat 5k farming experience. That is a decent boost to meeting some goals I had for farming.
I swear every time a quest involves a dwarf and booze there are two things I'm expecting from that quest. That it is going to be somewhat or rather strange. The second, it’s going to be long. This one counts as a quest from a dwarf. Even more so since they have a pop-up text about different chapters as you are working on it. I knew I was going to be in for a long one.
The nice thing about this quest starting near Kelagrim is the fact it is just a quick minecart away from the Grand Exchange. One of the steps of the quest requires you to get a random item and bring it to a dwarf. Thankfully I got something that was cheap and easy to just buy from another player.
After that, it was time to get out of here. They would be sending me under the White Wolf Mountain. You would not think one would be traveling under a mountain to acquire a seed. This was however the case.
Then there was the waiting around. As I was expecting to grow a seed. Seems perfect that they are offering so much farming experience for this one. This quest likes to make you wait around for things to grow. Almost a reminder of when I first start out farming in this game.
As far as why I needed to grow my hops? Well, I'd be making a stout. One that I then had to brew next. It's a good thing I usually carry around some spending money. I needed to buy yeast to get things going in the process. Then there was a little waiting around for the stout to brew.
It was then no shock to me. The very stout I brew I was going to use on an already drunk dwarf to get information out of him. If he was not already a dozen drinks in and had destroyed the bar he was in. This might have been a futile attempt.
For a quest that has so much drinking one tends to sober up rather quickly when having to deal with one of the puzzles. I ended up getting a closed mineshaft reopened for minecart usage. The trouble was this led to quite a giant maze of tracks.
In a lot of the dead ends of those tracks were items I was tasked with acquiring. I guess some daft was thinking this would be a good way to hide things. I found it annoying after the first couple let alone like a dozen different tracks, I ended up going down.
I tell you what. It all would have been worth it. I was going to uncover something massive. So massive I ended up getting ganked and beaten silly. My character was so silly in the end when questions about what he was up to he kept commenting how he wanted kebabs. Perhaps all the tree farming was starting to get to his head. The only cure for that is naturally more tree farming.
At least his one had some decent experience in the end. I even picked up on top of the 5k farming the same amount for cooking as well. At some point, I'm going to have to grind the daylights out of cooking. So far, I've been rather lucky and avoiding doing that.
Further Tree Farming
It was then time to go back to farming more trees again. While the quest experience was nice. Farming was even better. Quite a few oak trees run later I ended up hitting level 30 farming. With that, I could start planting willows. At the time this ended up working out quite well for me. I had several other skills like fire making and fletching that would be needed at one point or another willow trees.
Willow trees also take four hours to fully grow. A bit longer than the oak trees I was used to. This however I felt was even better. As I was rarely ever running off on my tree route the moment I could harvest oak trees anyway. Even more so if I logged off for the night.
These were also a bit of a jump in price to plant. While I never had a shortage of people selling willow saplings on the market. When I was not feeling lazy. I'd go through the same process as I would to make oak saplings. Expect this time with willow regarding filling with dirt empty pots, planting the seed, then watering them. There would then sometimes be a bit of a wait for them to mature into willow saplings if it did not instantly happen.
Willows also provide quite an interesting opportunity in themselves. This would not be something I'd realize for quite some time. It was not until I needed willow branches for a quest that I realized what could be done. Normal willow trees in the wild you can’t prune for branches. However, the ones you grow you can.
There is however a bit of a catch. The timer for when the branches start growing on the willows will not start till you have inspected the tree for the experience you get from growing it.
Then the timer for a branch to grow every five minutes till it reaches six starts. if you chop the tree down to its stump the timers all reset and you get nothing till, they regrow again. Which is perhaps why I never realized it before. Along with needing to use secateurs to collect them.
The branches themselves sell for a nice 2k gold each. When I needed twelve of them for some quest I was working on caught my eye. Even more so when I looked into the sales volume for these things. It looked like there be more than enough room for me to enter the market here or there.
More times than not I wanted to gain more farming experience than money. So, I was just chopping the tree down and planting a new one. Other times I needed a decent spot to farm the willow logs. Which again meant not farming for the branches.
Over time I ended up leaving up farming enough again to be able to plant maple trees. I decided for the time being it would be best to leave myself with at least one willow tree just in case I ever need more branches or a good spot for willow logs. I also rather preferred the price of planting willows over maple trees. Despite the maple trees being a better experience.
There also came a point where I was no longer as on top of my tree-farming route as I used to be. The level gap I needed between questing and what I could already do had grown quite large. It would take some time to get my level to what I needed to meet any quest that had a farming requirement.
Herb Farming
Looking back now it is a bit shocking I did not start farming herbs sooner. I knew every time I had to go level up herblore that these things were starting to get more and more expensive as the higher up the tier list I went. It however took me way too long to realize I already could farm for some of the best money gainers as far as herbs are concerned.
Even better there were a couple of herbs that had similar amounts of money to be made from. So, I ended up opting for the herb seeds that were quite a lot cheaper to reduce my risk of losing a bunch of money in the herb prices tank. They also had a lower chance of a seed shortage which is why they were a bit cheaper than the other herb I could end up farming for.
I ended up going with Toadflax over Ranarr. Toadflax is used in quite a few potions and the massive price difference I can get the seeds at was the major seller. Funny enough Toadflax is a higher-level skill but only level 38.
I almost wanted to kick myself once I realized I only needed level 38 to farm Toadflax. Even more crazy some herbs are double the level requirement only being worth a couple of percent more per run. So, unless I end up having issues selling them off or there is a price drop it looks like I'll be farming Toadflax herbs for the long term.
I ended up going out to quite a few patches that I have not farmed at forever. Some of them I had even raked the weeds out for some early experience. I was not back racking them again this time to plant something useful in them.
The nice thing about picking herbs is you are not just getting one of them. You get a random number. More time than not I'm getting something like five or seven of them. With them each going for about 3.6k gold. That starts to amount to a decent amount once you consider I'm farming five herb patches on my route. With another five from the looks of it, I could work on unlocking.
I’ve been rather lucky as well. As you can’t pay a gardener to protect them. Instead, all you can do is use ultra compost to increase the yield and hope for the best. I also have the magic secateurs that also supposed to increase my yield as well.
As far as my route goes four of the herb patches, I ended up using a fairy ring teleport to get to. The last one I go to I use the Falador tablet teleport and then run to the Grand Exchange once I'm done.
There is also a bit of an importance I put in on having close access to a bank. As two herb patches at the start of my run if I was super lucky can just about fill up my inventory between all the other stuff I have to bring along.
Perhaps the hardest and most annoying of all the spots is having to teleport to ALQ which puts you in the Morytania where creatures roam around near the fairy ring attacking you and keeping you from getting out. They also respawn rather fast there even if you kill what is attacking you.
After that, it is rather smooth sailing as I head off to Kandarin, which I need to look into unlocking a guild access to there. Right next to the teleport is a bank I can’t use. Thankfully the fairy ring in Hosidius Vinery has a bank close to the teleport ring. Then I have a bit of a run from the teleport to Avium Savannah before using my tablet teleport to Falador and heading a bit south from there.
Final Thoughts
Despite how many days it can take to get just a couple levels of farming. It still feels rather quick. It’s not like I'm grinding day and night the skill. More times than not if it was not for some quests rewarding farming experience, I'd just be off on some five-tree farming route and calling it good for a few hours.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape.
Oh so cool OSRS content on HIVE, first time seeing. Instantly followed you :)
I love playing Old School Runescape myself, I'm about to hit 99 ranged in a week or so.