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The ZMI Ourania Altar - Runecrafting Results and Analysis The ZMI Ourania Altar - Summary of Pros and Cons, Overall Assessment and Recommendations

Runecrafting by the traditional method—getting essence and walking to an altar to craft it—is an extremely slow skill to raise. It gives very little XP per essence crafted, so it takes a long time to gain levels. Players who want to raise the skill more quickly have been creative in coming up with methods that speed up the process, usually by taking shortcuts, sacrificing the money they could make if they crafted more valuable runes, or even hiring others to help them with the skill. In some cases, players have been known to spend millions on leveling Runecrafting.

Since some value XP over gold and some are the opposite, there are a variety of methods that basically fall into a spectrum. On the one end are methods that are slow but have little or no cost so you make you money; on the other end are those that are fast for XP but can be quite expensive. Of course, there are also some that fall in the middle. Let’s see where the ZMI Ourania altar fits in.

I conducted experiments where I measured the XP and time required to craft runes using a variety of methods. I was not going to spend hours testing every method possible, so I explored only some of the more common efficient techniques. This means that, for example, I didn’t bother testing out the making of law runes by walking to Entrana—it’s just flatly too slow.

Here’s a brief description of some of the methods I tested:

• Abyss Law Crafting: I tested making law runes by going through the Abyss from Edgeville. I wore only my boots of lightness, spottier cape, and an Amulet of Glory to teleport after crafting. I chose laws because they are worth more than natures and give more XP. The costs of this method are the pure essence, super energy pots and occasionally some food for healing (just like the Ourania altar). There’s no need to take a special trip to fix pouches when using the Abyss here, which saves time, but you do periodically have to recharge your amulets. And of course, there is always the risk of being PKed.
  
  
• Balloon Law Crafting: This method uses the balloon transportation network that becomes available after completing the Enlightened Journey quest, to travel from near Castle Wars to Entrana. You then run to the law altar, craft your runes and use a dueling ring to go back to CW. The costs are pure essence and super energy potions, and you needn’t worry about PKers.
  
  
• Abyss Double Nature Crafting: Once a Runecrafter gets to level 91, he or she can make double nature runes from each pure essence. This is the same method as regular Abyss law crafting, but the profits are obviously much higher.
  
  
• Fire Rune Powercrafting: This is one of the traditional methods of power-leveling the Runecrafting skill. You fill your inventory with regular essence (no pouches) and use a dueling ring to teleport near the fire altar in Al Kharid. You run to the altar, craft, then go back to Castle Wars, and repeat a zillion times. It is pretty good XP and regular essence is cheaper than pure essence, though the fires crafted are not worth much and you use up a dueling ring every four trips.
  
  
• Law Crafting Using Runners (World 66): This is a popular method of power-leveling Runecrafting for those with lots of money. In simple terms, the crafter stays at the altar and trades runners who bring unnoted pure essence and exchange it for laws and noted pure essence. The crafter then makes laws from the unnoted essence and repeats the process. This method requires no super energy pots, no pouches and is very simple for the crafter. The drawback? You guessed it: very expensive, as you give away about 3,000 pure essence per hour.
  
  
• Double Nature Crafting Using Runners (World 36/39): Level 91 Runecrafters who want faster XP can volunteer to do free double nature rune crafting for runners who want to get nature runes quickly. This is actually less XP per essence than World 66, but ends up being a lot faster per hour because all trades are conducted at the actual altar, whereas in World 66 most are done outside the ruins. Also, in exchange for giving double natures, the crafter doesn’t have to provide free pure essence so there is no cost.

Again, there are other methods, but I think those are representative.

In order to see how well the ZMI Ourania altar compares to the contenders above, I computed approximately how much XP each method gives, and how much profit or loss it entails. The calculations were done in the same basic manner that I used for the Ourania profit and loss computation, but I’m not going to bore you with the details on all of them.

You can find the XP and profit results from all the methods in Table 6; looking across each row will quickly help you decide which method best suits your particular requirements. For each entry, the top figure indicates roughly how much XP you can gain per hour from that method, and the bottom figure tells you roughly how much you will make or lose from it.

* Note that the issue of PKers on the way to the Abyss is not considered in this table. Get PKed even once, and the cost of losing items and the time to reacquire your pouches can take a huge bite out of the cost effectiveness of Abyss methods.

Some things become clear very quickly by looking at this table. Since the Ourania altar is our main topic of conversation, I’d say what strikes me immediately is how good its XP is compared to other options, for all the levels considered here. At level 75 it is actually nearly as good XP as using law runners at World 66, without the huge cost of that latter option. Even at level 60 it is better XP than conventional law crafting or fire rune powercrafting.

At the higher levels, the Ourania altar becomes incredibly useful, giving good XP and the chance to get decent numbers of high-level runes that cannot be made any other way. It becomes the classic “middle of the road” option for those who have hit level 91, where they can make money and get good XP without using either the Abyss or runners. If you go to World 70, it can also be a nice place to meet lots of other Runecrafters (Figure 35). J

For more analysis of where the Ourania altar fits into this skill, see the next topic’s recommendations.

The ZMI Ourania Altar - Runecrafting Results and Analysis The ZMI Ourania Altar - Summary of Pros and Cons, Overall Assessment and Recommendations