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Primary Herb Droppers Specialty Herb Droppers

When I was researching monsters to put together this part of the guide, I came across quite a few that were very good in terms of dropping herbs, but didn’t quite achieve the level of the primary herb droppers. Many of these monsters fall short simply because they take longer to kill and so provide fewer herbs per hour than the primaries. In other cases, they may be a bit more difficult to get to, have odd requirements, or involve other limitations that make them not as good as the “big five”.

That said, while these secondary herb droppers aren’t as ideal as the primary monsters, they are still a decent to good source of herbs. While I wouldn’t recommend that most players choose them over the primary droppers, there are situations where some players may find fighting these advantageous:

• Several are very low level, and may be better suited to new players who might not be ready to kill chaos druids en masse.
  
  
• Some are monsters commonly used for training.
  
  
• A few are alternatives when the primary droppers get crowded.
  
  
• Some of them are Slayer monsters, and knowing that they drop herbs might be a factor in deciding whether or not to “Burthorpe” them (switch tasks).

The secondary herb droppers are listed in order of increasing combat level. Note that to keep the playing field level for comparing across monsters, all combat tests were conducted using fairly mundane melee gear when possible (no godswords or fancy Bandos armor, or even Barrows equipment was used); no potions or enhancing prayers were used either. Obviously, low-level players cannot reach the drop totals I can, but remember that the point here is to compare between monsters.

These are one of the first NPCs that many RuneScape players use for training, having only 7 HP, and they are a surprisingly good source of herbs. They also drop decent numbers of runes, coins, bronze bolts and other items low-level players can use.

In a 30-minute test, I killed 164 of these and got 29 herbs, following roughly a typical distribution: 6 guam, 5 marrentill, 5 tarromin, 2 harralander, 4 ranarr, 3 irit, 2 avantoe, 1 lantadyme and 1 dwarf weed. Of course, a new player could not get nearly so many in the same time frame, but they’ll still get a few while earning those important early combat levels.

Men and women are found in lots of places around RuneScape. I did my test in Al-Kharid, in the area near the silk trader and Ali Morrisane, where there plenty of them around. You don’t need anything special to kill them; the only hassle with them is that they are spread out and move a lot. Only very low-level players will need food, and they are close to a bank.

One of the newest monsters in the game, these were introduced with the dungeon under the new Stronghold of Player Safety. They are very low level, have only 11 hitpoints, and drop tons of herbs, making them easily the best herb-dropping monster in the game for new players. You can find them all over the Stronghold dungeon, but I think the best location is in the corridors and rooms in the northwest corner of the level that has the muggers in the southwest corner.

In a 30-minute test I was able to kill a whopping 243 of these, during which time I got 42 herbs. They also drop noted coal, small numbers of red spiders’ eggs and limpwurt roots, and air, water and fire runes.

Banking is not far away in Edgeville using the “crevice” shortcut. Very low-level players will need food for these, while I recommend that mid-level and high-level players bring with a couple of energy potions as you’ll do a lot of running around because of how quick they go down.

These are easy targets found in the castle in the center of Al-Kharid. They’re a popular training choice for low-level players because of their special behavior: any warrior who sees another warrior get attacked will join into the fight. The area is multicombat, so you could find yourself fighting more than one at a time, but this saves time compared to having to hunt them down, so you kill them faster. They rarely hit, except for low-level players, and have 19 HP.

In 30 minutes I killed 239 of these monsters and got 47 herbs—a very nice total that’s almost at the threshold for being a primary herb dropper. Unfortunately, their other drops are mostly junk, and the area is often crowded. For those who can handle them, though, they are much better choice than level 2 “men”, as they are located in tighter groups so there’s less running.

These monsters are located in the Edgeville Dungeon, just north of the gate that divides the Wilderness area from the rest of the dungeon. While I normally don’t advocate fighting in the Wilderness, because of the risk of revenants, these monsters are literally only steps into the Wild, and so you’re generally pretty safe there.

Thugs have 18 HP and are quite easy to kill using standard melee. One benefit of them being in the Wilderness is that they are aggressive to all levels—this saves you time having to run around attacking them. In a 30-minute test I got 45 herbs, along with a decent number of nature runes, a few chaos and cosmic runes, and 26 Summoning charms (mostly gold). This isn’t bad, but on the other hand, they are not nearly as good as chaos druids, which are located literally in the room right next door...

These monsters are part of the quest What Lies Below, and hang around in a spot near Varrock, just southwest of the Grand Exchange. I had heard they had good herb drops and so I had to check them out. I fought them with standard melee and they didn’t do much damage to me, though I did get hit a few more times than when fighting the even lower level monsters mentioned above.

In 30 minutes I killed 237 outlaws and got 51 herbs. That’s pretty good, but the other drops from these guys are awful: mostly rope, cabbage and copper ore (all unnoted). They also don’t give normal combat XP, so they are at best second rate choices. If you’re killing some time while hanging around near the GE, though, they’re an option.

These folks are all over Taverley; I fought them mainly near the fountain in the center of town. You’d think that with Taverley’s focus on Herblore, that druids would be excellent herb droppers, but in fact, they are only “decent” in that regard: in a 30 minute test I got 153 kills and 27 herbs. They also drop some limpwurt roots and herbs, along with empty vials you can fill in the fountain, and also a few Summoning charms (19 in 30 minutes, mostly gold and green).

Note that in addition to not being the best in terms of drops, they are also rather annoying to kill since they are spread out widely and have an irritatingly slow melodramatic death animation.

“Chaos druids on steroids”, these guys are found in the Agility Dungeon; you need an Agility level of 40 to reach them. They fight with magic and melee attacks, but only rather low-level players have much to worry about.

Chaos druid warriors have very similar drops to regular chaos druids, so some people like fighting them. You end up getting far fewer herbs per hour, though, simply because they take so much longer to kill (40 HP compared to 20 HP for chaos druids). In my 30 minute test I got 49 herbs, along with several snape grass, unicorn horn dust and white berries. They also drop vials of water, gems and runes like chaos druids.

I’m sure many of my readers will be surprised to see these listed here! J Killerwatts have an unfounded reputation as being bad monsters to fight. It’s true that they do hit rather hard, but they also have very good drops, including lots of herbs, alchable items, tons of runes and even oddities like fire orbs and cannonballs (Figure 172)! They are also one of the few monsters that drops appreciable amounts of herbs and also ashes, enabling you to easily make Serum 207 in the dungeon.

You need level 37 Slayer and insulated boots (from a Slayer master) to fight killerwatts, which have a very fast, accurate, magic-based attack. In my test I wore dragonhide instead of my normal armor, to increase magic defence; even if you do so, you need to bring food to fight these, even with high skill levels, unless fighting with prayer. They are located through the Professor Oddenstein’s rift in the top of Draynor Manor.

In 30 minutes I killed 113 killerwatts using up a full inventory of lobsters. I got 30 herbs, along with several staffs and battlestaffs, lots of coins, and nature, fire, air and other runes. They definitely are tough to kill, but if you get assigned them, I think they’re worth doing.

Basilisks are mid-level Slayer monsters found in the middle of the Slayer Dungeon in Fremennik Province. They are most easily accessed by fairy ring; dial in code “A J R”. You need a Slayer level of 40 to fight them, and must use a mirror shield to reflect their petrifying attack (which will otherwise do high damage and drain your skill levels). Other than the shield, standard melee gear is fine. I recommend bringing with food, as well, since they can hit mid-levels decently hard; high-levels need only a few pieces of food.

Basilisks are decent monsters in terms of the drops they provide, but at 75 HP they take a while to kill. In a one-hour test I got 42 herbs, which is obviously far from being as good as some other monsters mentioned here. On the other hand, though, basilisks have other really good drops: they are a great source for nature runes (over 200 in an hour!), water runes (75 at a time), coins, gems and Summoning charms. They also drop alchable weapons and armor like mithril spears and rune daggers.

This is probably another entry in this topic that some would view with surprise. Turoths are often the source of derision from slayers who hate getting them assigned because of the need to use special (slow) equipment to kill them. They actually have very good drops though; in fact, I sometimes call turoths the “poor man’s aberrant spectres”, because they both drop multiple herbs at once, herb seeds and mystic robe bottoms.

The original location for turoths is the second-last room in the Fremennik Slayer Dungeon, but there are also now some in the new chaos tunnels. You must fight them with a leaf-bladed spear, broad arrows or the Magic Dart spell using a slayer staff; all of the specialty gear can be obtained from slayer masters. I stuck with melee to remain consistent with the other monsters, and found that while the spear is hardly a great weapon, it isn’t that bad.

In terms of drops, I got 38 herbs in an hour doing the level 83 and 85 turoths, which are the fastest to kill. Not great, but I also got lots of other nice items: a variety of herb seeds (including two snapdragons), limpwurt roots, lots of nature runes, white mystic robe bottoms and more. They also drop decent numbers of Summoning charms.

With a Slayer level of 55 you are pretty close to the 60 needed for spectres, at which point turoths probably don’t make sense. Both of the turoth lairs are also pretty far from a bank, which isn’t ideal. But if assigned them, or if you’re interested in a change of pace, you could do worse.

Primary Herb Droppers Specialty Herb Droppers