TruthScape.com  9  TruthScape Skill Secrets       9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Herblore            9  TruthScape Skill Secrets - Herblore - Introduction, Overview and Training Basics

Why Train Herblore? Advantages and Benefits A Big-Picture Look at Herblore Training

Having examined the reasons to train Herblore, we must now also consider the downsides. There are four major ones, and unfortunately, they are pretty significant…

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, Herblore is now mainly a money-losing skill, because the value of the inputs that go into most potions exceeds the value of the output. In some cases this potion-making loss is fairly modest, but in others it can be very substantial.

For example, at the time I write this, the Grand Exchange cost to make a prayer potion is 93 (vial of water) + 5,649 (clean ranarr) + 411 (snape grass) = 6,153, while the selling price of a prayer potion is 5,296; the net result is a loss of 857 gp (14% of costs) in exchange for 87.5 Herblore XP. But to make a restore potion, the cost is 1,272 and the pot itself goes for only 137: that’s a loss of 1,135 gp (89%!) for just 62.5 XP.

The money loss problem is so bad now that it is, in many cases, actually more cost-effective to train using disposable potions than it is to make real ones and sell them. Even now, there are certain potions that sell for less than the cost of a water-filled vial—or even an empty vial!

This issue is the number one reason why many players have now lost interest in Herblore. The truth, however, is that even though you may lose money making potions relative to what you could have made selling their ingredients, it is still quite possible to combine skills so that your net cashflow is positive while still training Herblore. I discuss this issue further as part of my look at the economics of the skill, and of course, the techniques themselves are explored throughout this guide.

To add insult to injury, not only do you lose actual gold when you make potions, remember that you also lose the time that you spent making them. This is time that could have been used on a more interesting activity, or one that is at least rewarding. And as I said in my explanation of the concept of opportunity cost, money is replaceable but time is not.

What this means is that, with the current market, you must really consider if training this skill—beyond what you need for quests—is worthwhile. That’s especially true once you get to levels above 70 or so, when the skill starts to really get slow and/or expensive.

Yes, I said in the prior topic that some people find it fun to work on this skill, but really, most do not. Let’s face it: what is particularly interesting about mixing ingredients together in little glass vials? It gets old pretty quickly. The skill also has little variety: there are many potions, but making all of them is pretty much the same. Only a couple of other products exist that you can make with the skill, and they aren’t exactly interesting either.

To make matters worse, there really aren’t any ways to get Herblore XP in any reasonable quantities other than making potions or other products. Where certain minigames are sometimes designed to give XP directly in particular skills, most Herblore-related minigames instead give herbs as rewards, not Herblore XP. This is nice for players who like making potions, but a disappointment to those who do not.

Finally, the skill has a fair bit of gruntwork associated with it: activities that are dull and provide no XP themselves. Examples include gathering materials from spawn points, grinding ingredients like bird’s nests and unicorn horns, and combining 3-dose potions into 4-dose potions. Some of this can be avoided through purchasing, but that just adds to the money loss problem mentioned above.

There are many skills where, once you get to the high levels, you get some sort of obvious reward for your effort. Some skills let you access rare and valuable resources, such as runite ore at level 85 Mining, or abyssal demons at level 85 Slayer. Others are designed so that you get incremental value every time your skill level goes up: burning less food with Cooking, hitting harder with Strength, and so on.

With Herblore, when you get to the high levels your reward is: pretty much nothing. At level 82 you do get access to what now must be considered something of a reward, since it’s the only potion you can actually sell for a small profit: super weapon poison. But it is incredibly slow and tedious to make. There is nothing above 82, so there is little point in leveling the skill above that figure unless you want higher total level. (There are a couple of barbarian potions at level 83 and 85, but they are rarely made.) And you get no inherent skill benefit from having a higher Herblore level.

It’s been years since Jagex updated this skill in any meaningful way for high-level players—and it shows.

Why Train Herblore? Advantages and Benefits A Big-Picture Look at Herblore Training