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Training by Cleaning Grimy Herbs Making Super Fishing Explosive

Herb tars, which are made from swamp tar and one of four low-level herbs, are peripheral Herblore products and not what most players think of as prime training materials. One of them, though, turns out to be a very competitive training option, and it is particularly attractive because making herb tars is less work than cleaning herbs or making potions.

In Table 32 I show the four herb tars and the items they use, along with GE market costs at the time I wrote this article, and the items’ skill activity ratings. These are based on being able to make 1,560 sets of 15 per hour, as I have previously measured. To determine if there is any point in using herb tars for training, we need to see how much they sell for, and compare that to the cost of the ingredients used. It turns out that the three lowest-level herb tars sell for such low prices that making them involves big economic losses, so they aren’t worth pursuing. Harralander tar, however, is often worth making, depending on current market prices.

You can see that all four options offer pretty decent amounts of XP per hour, but guam tar, marrentill tar and tarromin tar incur enormous losses, resulting in the worst SAV values—by far—of any items mentioned in this guide. There’s a glut of the cheaper herb tars on the market, and even though they use cheaper herbs than harralander tar, you only use one herb for every 15 tars. When you’re paying 206 gp for swamp tar but your finished product is worth half or even a quarter of that, you’re going to lose millions.

There’s absolutely no point in making guam, marrentill or tarromin tar. You can level faster and lose less money by cleaning grimy herbs, making specialty items like Serum 207 or unfinished Guthix balance pots, or even making regular strength potions.

The situation with harralander tar is different, because this is the highest-level salamander fuel, and is quite useful in several situations. High-level mages can actually consistently hit over 20 with a black salamander and harralander tar, so there is considerable demand for it, and its price is usually higher than the going rate for “raw” swamp tar. This difference is usually less than 1/15th the cost of a harralander, so you do lose money, but since other options also mostly lose money, it is competitive.

Here’s a time value equivalent of harralander tar compared to making super restores, using the values for the latter from Table 27:

TVE [harralander tar compared to super restores] = ( (159600 / 113100) * -761 - (-1421) ) / (159600/113100 - 1) = 844 kgp/hr

So in this situation, with harralander tar selling for 25 gp more than swamp tar, harralander tar is a more cost-effective option than super restores unless your time is worth more than 844k per hour.

I’ve seen the differential as high as 50 gp—in which case this is a great training method, as it nearly breaks even—and as low as 10 gp—at which point you start to lose a lot of money. So, as with many other methods, the key is to watch the markets and take advantage of situations that present themselves.

I should also point out that the market for harralander tar is often rather volatile, and there don’t seem to be many sellers. Don’t be in a big hurry to dump your harralander tar at the minimum price in the GE—try listing it for a few gp below the average price and it will likely sell over a period of an hour or two. The only time this usually doesn’t work is if the market is truly in the dumps—but in that situation raw swamp tar should also be at the bottom of its range, so you usually can make out pretty well.

(Of course if too many people read this guide, all bets are off. J)

Training by Cleaning Grimy Herbs Making Super Fishing Explosive