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Secondary Herblore Ingredients Herblore Level Boosting Items

Don’t worry, we’re almost done looking at the items used to make potions and other products in the Herblore skill. J All that’s left now are a few oddballs, items that are generally used for making special potions and non-potion products, as well as one strange herb that is only traded for other herbs. Let’s take a look.

The main non-potion products of Herblore are the four herb tars—guam tar, marrentill tar, tarromin tar and harralander tar—which are made by blending the appropriate clean herb into a base of swamp tar. Making herb tars provides a pretty good amount of Herblore XP, and the resulting product is used as fuel for salamanders.

Swamp tar is obtained either by collecting it from spawns or by getting it as monster drops, primarily from cave slimes.

These special ingredients are used to make barbarian mix potions from regular 2-dose potions; I mentioned this feature in my look at Herblore skill synergies and recommendations. Roe is used only for low-level potions, while caviar can be used for both low-level and high-level ones.

Roe is obtained by using a knife on a leaping salmon or trout, while caviar comes from leaping sturgeon; all three are caught via barbarian fishing.

Goutweed is a technically an herb—NPCs in the game call it an herb—but from a gameplay standpoint it really doesn’t behave like one. It cannot be used in potions; instead, you trade it to Sanfew in Taverley, who will give you one random grimy herb for each goutweed you bring him. I believe these can be any of the standard “big 11” herbs, probably weighted towards lower-level ones.

There are two ways to get goutweed. First, if you’ve completed Eadger’s Ruse, you’ll remember getting a goutweed by navigating a maze in a storeroom while avoiding troll guards, to pick a goutweed from a crate; you can do this as many times as you want. Second, if you do the Tai Bwo Wannai minigame, there’s a possibility of unearthing a gout tuber, which can be used like an herb seed to grow goutweed via the Farming skill (level 29 required).

It’s not really worth doing either of these, however. The first method is slow as hell and really annoying; there are a zillion better ways of getting herbs. And the second is a waste, because gout tubers are rare items that can be sold for over 100,000 gold (since they are needed to complete the Karamja achievement diary.)

Making imp repellent for the Impetuous Impulses minigame involves a ridiculously complex process that starts with 8 anchovies. These must be cooked, ground using a pestle and mortar into anchovy paste, and then pressed through a sieve to yield anchovy oil. This oil is then combined with flowers—either farmed or grown from mithril seeds—to yield imp repellent. You can also buy flowers from the flower girl in Miscellania.

In practice, nobody bothers with this process—it’s much easier to get imp repellent from Elnock Inquisitor within the minigame—so I include mention of these items only for completeness.

Secondary Herblore Ingredients Herblore Level Boosting Items