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TruthScape Skill Secrets - Herblore - Training Techniques and Strategies Strategies and Methods for Efficient Training with Potions

It’s rather common for someone I don’t know to ask me for advice on how to train a skill. Unfortunately, most of the time, I really can’t help them much, at least until I understand better what it is they are trying to accomplish. There’s no one way of doing anything in life that is best for everyone: it really depends on what your goals are. And so it is with training Herblore: the best approach depends on your priorities.

Just some of the key questions you need to ask yourself:

• Am I interested in leveling the skill as fast as possible, or just training it casually?
  
  
• If I want to train quickly, how much am I willing to spend to reach my goal?
  
  
• Am I trying to reach a particular Herblore level, or just to train up as high as I can?
  
  
• Do I feel okay about buying materials I need for training, or do I want to gather all the necessary resources myself?
  
  
• Will I want to train Herblore in conjunction with other skills?

Below I have outlined a few general models for how to train the Herblore skill, which represent the most typical approaches that players take to leveling the skill. You may find that one of them appeals to you, or maybe even more than one. On the other hand, perhaps none really represent what you’re after. If so, I encourage you to take bits and pieces of the information you find here and use it to develop a training program that best suits your requirements.

Note that these approaches reflect the inherent trade-offs that exist between training speed and cost in most skills. I discuss this and other related issues in my general skills guide, which you may wish to refer to if you have not already read it

Powerleveling generally refers to training a skill as quickly as possible, even if it means spending a great deal of money to do so. While not all skills are amenable to powerleveling, Herblore definitely is. The main reason is that you can get a lot of XP per hour once you have the necessary materials, and most of the materials can be bought from other players, so you don’t need to spend time collecting them yourself.

If you have the money and want to get XP as fast as possible, then you can go “all out” and choose high-speed powerleveling. This generally involves purchasing large quantities of water vials, herbs and secondary components and making thousands of high-level potions. You can speed up the process even more by buying unfinished potions.

With this method, you can get Herblore from a beginning state up to level 99 in only a few hours a day for a couple of weeks—provided that you’re willing to lose as much as 100 million gold in the process! This approach is somewhat controversial, and many players are resentful of those who “buy their skills”. But in the end, the decision of how to develop your character is yours, and yours alone.

Incidentally, even if you aren’t the sort of person who would want to powerlevel all the way to an Herblore skillcape, there can be cases where short-term powerleveling makes a lot of sense.

If you want to train Herblore quickly without spending the kind of money needed for high-speed powerleveling, you can take a more moderate approach. This still involves buying the components to make potions and losing money on each one, but instead of saying “damn the torpedos” and absorbing losses of millions per hour, you select potions that provide the best XP return for the amount of money you lose. You also make use of alternative methods that provide decent XP—if not at the highest possible speed—but lose much less money. Examples include making super weapon poison and unfinished Guthix balance potions, and cleaning grimy herbs at a loss.

For many players, this is a nice compromise between super-fast, super-expensive methods of buying the skill, and much slower methods that seem to just take too long to get to their goals.

As mentioned above, the items needed to train Herblore are really the “gateway” to getting XP in the skill. Rather than powerleveling by buying the herbs and other items needed to train, some prefer to combine Herblore training with skills and activities that yield these necessary ingredients, and then use them up as they are gathered.

For example, players may choose to train combat in part by fighting monsters that drop herbs, and also Farm herbs both for Farming XP and for future use. When they have saved up enough herbs, they gather or buy secondary ingredients and make potions from the herbs already owned; the potions can then be used or sold. Alternately, the herbs grown and gathered can be sold for money that is then used to buy herbs players prefer for making potions.

This is a much slower pace of training than powerleveling, of course, but remember that not everyone is in a hurry. Some find this way of going about the skill to be much more rewarding, especially if they value self-sufficiency and don’t want to rely on buying herbs and seconds from other players.

The opposite end of the training spectrum from high-speed powerleveling is a casual approach oriented towards making practical use of the skill. Many players, especially once they have reached a level they are comfortable with, no longer pursue training as a separate goal, but rather focus on using the skill only when needed. They make potions and other products for their own use, and slowly gain XP over time in that way.

This is an approach that I have used myself much of the time recently. Since I got to level 82 Herblore, I realized that I can make any potion I want now (except for two barbarian mixes, which aren’t that important.) I don’t care about getting levels for their own sake, so I see no real purpose in expending a great deal of effort in training. Yet if there’s a potion I need for my own use, and it isn’t a potion that loses a ton of value in the making, I will make it. I also make harralander tars for my own use, for additional XP.

Again, training is very slow with this approach, so it’s only for those who aren’t in a hurry. I’ve gotten from level 82 to 85 over the last year or so, and that’s good enough for me—at least until Jagex gives me some reason to want a higher level! J

This is an approach that is perhaps even further away from powerleveling than making potions for your own use. The idea is to get “bonus” XP from the skill in a variety of ways without active training, by taking advantage of opportunities that arise in the course of gameplay.

For example, if you like to farm herbs to raise your Farming level, then you can get small amounts of Herblore XP without it seeming to take any effort, just by cleaning the herbs before storing them. You can also use methods like making Serum 207 and harralander tar in dungeons, effectively getting free Herblore XP from products that would otherwise go to waste. These are both methods that I use myself.

Of course, watching out for and exploiting these and other possibilities is something you can do in combination with any of the other general approaches outlined above.I also watch for other opportunities that present themselves. For example, I don’t like to spend hours cleaning grimy herbs, but I don’t mind doing it once in a while if I find grimy herbs selling cheap on the Grand Exchange, and realize I can clean them, get XP and make money in the process.

TruthScape Skill Secrets - Herblore - Training Techniques and Strategies Strategies and Methods for Efficient Training with Potions