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TruthScape.com 9 TruthScape Skill Secrets 9 TruthScape Skill Secrets - Herblore 9 TruthScape Skill Secrets - Herblore - The Best Methods for Obtaining Herbs 9 Alternative Methods for Obtaining Herbs |
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Using the Macaw Familiar and Herbcall Scrolls
Upon reaching level 41 in the Summoning skill, you gain access to a creature that could rightly be called the herblorist’s best friend: the macaw. For starters, the macaw has the ability to improve the quality of herb drops; that alone makes the macaw worth using, but the value of the familiar doesn’t stop there. You can actually use it to generate herbs for you while doing nearly any activity—literally out of thin air! J
The macaw’s special move scroll is called Herbcall. Each time you use the scroll, you’ll see your character do that little “throw an orange ball of energy in the air” animation, after which your macaw will fly up and away. A couple of seconds later, you may (or may not) see an animation nearby that looks like an herb floating to the ground, at which point you’ll find an actual grimy herb that you can pick up. This will be one of the standard 11 grimy herbs provided by the majority of herb-dropping monsters.
This really is as handy as it sounds: you might say that for herblorists, it’s like manna from heaven! In fact, it is so good that Jagex had to put a few limits on it to prevent abuse.
First of all, there’s a limit of how often you can use it. The Herbcall scroll only uses 12 special move points, so in theory you could do it five times in a row—except Jagex implemented an extra timer on this particular special move. If you try to use a scroll within 60 seconds of the last one, you get a message saying the macaw is “too tired” and that you should try later.
Second, you don’t always get an herb. In my tests I’ve found that I get one around 50% to 70% of the time. Pretty good, but not ideal, since of course you do use up scrolls for this move.
Third, the chance of success seems to be a function of where you are located when you use the scroll. I have had far better luck outside than in banks or dungeons, and that’s what the percentages mentioned above are based on.
Location and inventory space are the two factors that most influence where you should use Herbcall. First, as mentioned above, they work better outside. And second, you don’t want to use them in a place where you are already tight on inventory space, or where will you put the herbs you get?
Here are a few sample ways to use the macaw and its scrolls that I think work pretty well:
- Shark Fishing in the Fishing Guild: Shark
fishing is slow, so a few extra spots for herbs is no problem (Figure 193).
You’re also very close to a bank, and there’s a small Summoning
obelisk right next to it!
- Cutting Magic Trees: Same basic deal as
shark fishing, in terms of having inventory space to take the herbs,
as long as you cut near a bank.
- Farming: I sometimes use a macaw while
on Farming runs.
- Thieving: Some thieving activities involve
lots of running around outside while pickpocketing or thieving stalls,
and sometimes the items being stolen aren’t ones you want to keep
(such as silk) or ones that stack (coins, runes).
- Firemaking: Your inventory will be decreasing
as you burn logs, so you can use the scrolls pretty much at will.
- Combat/Slayer: Training or doing a boring
Slayer task on a critter with no real drops to speak of? Bring a macaw
along! J
Figure 193: Fishing for... Herbs?
Not quite, but using a macaw while fishing lets you get a good number of grimy herbs while reaping the sea’s bounty.
You can also use the scrolls while you have a macaw out to enhance herb drops in combat against herb-dropping monsters. This isn’t ideal, since you’re usually in a dungeon, and it’s possible that this will make you run out of inventory space faster. But it’s certainly an option, especially if you are planning to only keep the best herbs—it gives you more chances to get good ones.
I summoned a macaw while shark fishing and recorded the results. Over the span of 35 minutes until the macaw disappeared, I used 28 scrolls and got a total of 17 grimy herbs: 5 guam, 2 marrentill, 2 tarromin, 2 harralander, 3 ranarr, 2 irit and 1 cadantine. This is about typical, I’d say, except that the 3 ranarr was probably just good luck—don’t go expecting that or you’ll be disappointed!
You may have noticed that I said the macaw stuck around for 35 minutes even though it is only supposed to last 31. It seems the game pauses the timer while using special moves; either that, or there is some other inaccuracy at play here.
There are a few disadvantages, or at least trade-offs, to consider before using this approach:
- Inventory Space: The scrolls take an inventory
slot (and you can’t use non-combat scrolls in Summoning headgear).
- Slowdown: Your character will pause briefly
to execute the special move. This won’t interrupt activities like
Fishing or Woodcutting, but stopping to go pick up an herb obviously
will do so.
- Scroll Cost: The scrolls aren’t free
(though they effectively are if you leveling up by making them
in the first place.)
- Opportunity Cost: You need to consider what you could have been using instead of a macaw scroll. For example, while I mentioned using a macaw while fishing for sharks, it might be better to use one of the Fishing-specific familiars like the ibis or granite lobster instead.
In addition to the Herbcall scroll, the macaw also adds yet another capability: herb foraging. This is not nearly as good as the foraging abilities of other familiars, though—perhaps that’s because the macaw is already such an herbal powerhouse anyway. In my 35-minute test the macaw didn’t forage anything; in earlier tests I seemed to get about one foraged herb per hour. Not great, but hey, it’s on top of all the herbs you get in other ways. And it does seem to be entirely random, because on a different occasion my macaw foraged a nice grimy lantadyme within five minutes of my summoning it (Figure 194).
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