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Effective Combat Techniques for Fighting Primary Herb Droppers Cave Crawlers (Level 23, Slayer Level 10)

Chaos druids have always been considered the “go to” monster for herbs in RuneScape, so when I did my tests to find the best herb droppers in the game, I sort of considered them the “incumbent”. Well, the druids weathered the challenge very nicely, emerging victorious: they are the single best herb dropper in the game, capable of providing as many as 200 or more herb drops per hour!

Chaos druids look like old monks with gray hair and fancy brownish robes; they were recently redesigned graphically from their old appearance, where they wore plain red robes. For a while after this redesign, chaos druids were given a very slow and annoying death animation that took several seconds, greatly reducing the number you could kill per hour; this was, mercifully, removed after many people complained. They now drop quickly again, allowing you to kill them quite quickly: 500 or more kills per hour is possible.

Here’s a brief summary of the essential combat-related information on chaos druids:

• Name: Chaos Druid
  
  
• Combat Level: 13
  
  
• Slayer Level: n/a
  
  
• Hitpoints: 20
  
  
• Attack Style: Melee
  
  
• Maximum Hit: 2
  
  
• Combat Zone: Single
  
  
• Aggressive: No
  
  
• Special Attacks: Magic attack that lowers player’s Attack level by several points
  
  
• Special Defences: None
  
  
• Special Equipment Required: None
  
  
• High-Level Player Kill Rate: 500 per hour
  
  
• Herb Drop Rate: 200 per hour

Chaos druids are found in four locations; some of these are closer to banks than others, making them more attractive. The better locations have skill requirements to access them, which means some players can’t easily get to them; on the other hand, this also means they are sometimes less crowded.

Here are the details on the four chaos druid spots:

• Taverley Dungeon: Go to the dungeon’s entrance in Taverley, then down the ladder. Go north to the suits of armor and through the metal gate; proceed due east, past the giant bats, and go as far as you can. Then turn north, and you’ll find the chaos druids in an alcove in the far northeast corner of the dungeon, as shown in Figure 177.
  
  
• Edgeville Dungeon: Enter the dungeon south of Edgeville bank and go all the way north, then turn east and go through the gate there. Continue until you see the gate to the north that marks the entrance to the Wilderness portion of the dungeon. Go through, head north and then west past the thugs, and you’ll find the chaos druids.
  
  
• Ardougne Blood Tower: From Ardougne’s north bank, run west until you find the log spanning the river that bisects the town. Cross the log, then run west, go north on the path exiting town, and then northwest a short distance until you come to a tower; you’ll see four chaos druids milling about inside it. You must pick the lock to get into the tower, which requires level 46 Thieving; it often takes several attempts, so just keep trying.
  
  
• Agility Dungeon: There are two ways to get into this dungeon, both of which require fairly high skill levels. To get into the main entrance, teleport to the Watchtower (Yanille), then go to the ground floor and head east; you’ll find some webs blocking stairs leading downward. Slash them (knife or slashing weapon required) and head down. You must then cross a ledge Agility obstacle (level 40), which puts you in a room with chaos druid warriors. Head south, then east, then cross monkey bars (Agility level 57), continue south and then east to the chaos druids.
  
  If you have level 82 Thieving, you can take the shortcut. From the bank in Yanille, take a lockpick and go southwest to the building next to the anvil, and down into the basement. There you’ll find a door you can pick that takes you right to the chaos druids.
  

  Figure 177: Chaos Druids in Taverley Dungeon

  This is easily the busiest of the four spots, but if you choose a quiet world late at night you might get lucky, other people will leave, and you’ll have them all to yourself...

  
  

The Agility Dungeon location is the best if you can use the shortcut: this puts the druids there very close to a bank, so you can easily keep most of your better herbs; you can also use a macaw familiar to get better herb drops. If you don’t have level 82 Thieving but do have level 46, Ardougne is next best, but you may have to world hop for a while since there are only four druids there.

The Edgeville and Taverley locations are both significantly farther from banks. The Edgeville location isn’t very far into the Wilderness, but revenants are still a concern, while the Taverley location is often crowded since it’s the only spot not in the Wilderness that has no skill requirements.

These monsters are very easily killed, and melee is fastest and the recommended choice. You can also mage or range, but it will be much slower.

Bring your best weapon so you can hopefully get more one-hit kills to get faster drops. You don’t need much armor since they rarely hit all but the lowest-level players.

No supplies are really needed for chaos druids, but if you are mid-level or below then a super attack and super strength potion is a good idea to speed up kills (and even high-level players will benefit from them). I also recommend bringing a macaw or beast of burden pouch; for the latter, summon it only when your inventory is already full of herbs.

If you wish, bring with swamp tar and a pestle and mortar if you wish to make harralander tar, and ashes for getting XP from tarromins.

If fighting in the Edgeville Dungeon, I recommend a one-click teleport to escape in case of revenant attack.

Herbs are the highlight here, but chaos druids also provide decent (if unspectacular) numbers of various runes, coins, and a few mithril bolts. Here’s some figures I obtained in 30 minutes of combat, using a whip and rune defender, standard armor, and no potions, summons or other enhancers:

• 100% Drops: Bones
  
  
• Herbs: 23 guam, 21 marrentill, 10 tarromin, 19 harralander, 10 ranarr, 7 irit, 4 avantoe, 3 kwuarm, 2 cadantine, 2 lantadyme, 3 dwarf weed.
  
  
• Runes: 180 air, 48 mind, 26 law, 36 earth, 36 body, 3 nature.
  
  
• Gold: 325 coins.
  
  
• Other: 22 vials of water (unnoted), 91 mithril bolts, 1 snape grass, 3 bronze longswords, 1 uncut sapphire.

To save inventory space, store mithril bolts in your quiver (unless ranging with bolts or arrows). You can also put herbs into vials of water and finish them at the bank.

Here are a few extra tips to keep in mind:

• If you are fighting in Ardougne and have at least level 59 Thieving, here’s a multitasking option for you. When done with a session, keep two inventory slots open, or one if you are carrying any coins. Go down the ladder in the middle of the druid room, then head southeast and find the chests there. Check it for traps and you’ll get 2 blood runes, 500 gp and a free teleport back near the log to go back to the bank.
  
  
• If you go to the Agility Dungeon, you can combine fighting chaos druids with going after Salarin the Twisted.
  
  
• A fast way to get to Taverley dungeon is to use the balloon network node near Castle Wars.

Effective Combat Techniques for Fighting Primary Herb Droppers Cave Crawlers (Level 23, Slayer Level 10)