krsrinTravel, Games and Mathematics

Farming Run Guide

  • runescape
  • skilling

Detailed post regarding my farming run setup. Just in case I quit Runescape for the 1,000,000-th time and need to figure out how to do it when I inevitably play again.

Specifications

  • Farming level: 83 at time of writing
  • Herb Patches (8)
    • Hosidius disease-free patch
    • Trollheim disease-free patch
    • Weiss disease-free patch
    • Morytania patch
    • Falador patch
    • Catherby patch
    • Ardougne (Ardy) patch
    • Farming guild patch
  • Fruit Tree Patches (5)
    • Catherby
    • Tree Gnome Stronghold
    • Tree Gnome Village
    • Lletya (Tirannwn)
    • Brimhaven
  • Others
    • Kourend Hard diary
    • Kandarin Medium diary
    • Magic secateurs
    • Ultracompost

Inventory & Equipment

inventory inventory

Inventory setup

  • 100K gold (Shilo Village cart to Brimhaven)
  • Ectophial (Morytania herb patch)
  • Teleport-to-house tablets (I have Catherby, Trollheim and Weiss teleports setup in PoH1)
  • Crystal teleport seed (for Lletya fruit tree patch)
  • Royal Seed Pod (for Tree Gnome Stronghold/Village fruit tree patch)
  • Skills necklace (Farming guild herb patch)
  • A low-cost but high-profit-yield seed (e.g. Kwuarm, Toadflax)
  • A high-cost but even-higher-profit-yield seed (e.g. Snapdragon, Ranarr)
  • Seed dibber, bottomless bucket, rake and spade should be stored at Tool Leprechaun

The reason why I have two different types of seeds is explained in Concepts section below.

Equipment setup

  • Xeric’s talisman (Xeric’s Glade teleport for Hosidius herb patch)
  • Ardy cloak (Ardy herb patch)
  • Explorer’s Ring (Falador herb patch)
  • Magic secateurs should be stored at Tool Leprechaun
  • Other slots: can fashion scape if want to be swag, or use weight-reducing equipment if want to tryhard

Concepts

  • The point is to make farm runs as time-efficient as possible.
    • Reduce number of teleports/running if doing consecutive runs
    • Reduce amount of time spent cleaning and noting herbs by using the run from the teleport to the herb patch to clean herbs. Try to only note herbs at patches where the Tool Leprechaun is close to the patch and the run from the teleport to the patch is far e.g. Hosidius, Catherby
  • Herb patches make most of the money. Fruit trees are icing on the cake and are a bit more annoying to do.
  • Bottomless bucket should be filled with Ultracompost

Herbs

Currently I farm Snapdragons for high-cost seed, and Kwuarm for low-cost seed.

  • You can harvest fast by double-clicking on the herb patch the moment a herb is harvested from a patch.
  • Cleaning the herbs and then Use-ing the herb on the Tool Leprechaun will note herbs
  • ALWAYS use Ultracompost (via Bottomless bucket) on herb patch whenever a herb seed is planted. Recommended to plant the seed first before using Ultracompost to reduce chance of weeds from appearing (not a big deal but annoying if it happens)
  • Magic secateurs USED TO BE required to be equipped in order to get the increased yield, but now it seems it is no longer needed. Still equip it though to save inventory space.
  • Herb harvesting
    • A fully grown herb patch has three “harvest stages”
    • Everytime a herb is harvested from a patch, there is some probability that it goes down a stage. This probability is affected by a myriad of things such as farming level, whether you’re using magic secateurs, whether you’re wearing farming cape, whether you have completed a achievement diary tier for specific herb patches, etc
    • Without any compost, you can get a minimum of 3 herbs from a single herb patch regardless of which herb is planted
    • Different levels of compost allow for limited number of times a herb can be harvested with a 0% chance of the patch going down a stage. With Ultracompost, the number of times is 3. In other words, with Ultracompost, you can get a minimum of 6 herbs from a patch.
    • Example: a herb patch is fully grown and treated with Ultracompost. Say the probability of going down a level is XX%
      • Harvest 1: herb patch is at stage 3 (free stage from Ultracompost)
      • Harvest 2: herb patch is at stage 3 (free stage from Ultracompost)
      • Harvest 3: herb patch is at stage 3 (free stage from Ultracompost)
      • Harvest 4: herb patch is at stage 2 (XX% chance to go down a stage, I was unlucky)
      • Harvest 5: herb patch is at stage 2 (XX% chance to go down a stage, I was lucky)
      • Harvest 6: herb patch is at stage 1 (XX% chance to go down a stage, I was unlucky)
      • Harvest 7: herb patch is at stage 1 (XX% chance to go down a stage, I was lucky)
      • Harvest 8: herb patch is at stage 1 (XX% chance to go down a stage, I was lucky)
      • Harvest 9: herb patch is at stage 0 (XX% chance to go down a stage, I was unlucky, herb patch is now empty)
      • In total, I got 9 herbs
  • Herb Growth ticks
    • Herb growth takes four stages of ~20 minute intervals.
    • The intervals are dependent on server-timed “growth ticks”, happening at fixed times throughout the day e.g. 1:12am, 1:32am, 1:52am, etc.
    • Since the growth ticks are server-timed, if one plants a herb just before the next growth tick, the first growth stage can be immediate.
  • Disease
    • At every growth stage, the herb has a chance to be diseased.
    • Once the herb catches a disease, it will be “stuck” at the previous stage that it grew successfully at.
    • You can catch a diseased herb before it dies and cure it with plant cure, then will be available for harvesting once it finishes growing. It will revert to the previous successfully stage of growth, awaiting the next growth tick.
    • Dead herbs yield no herbs nor farming experience.
    • One can plant high-cost seeds at disease-free patches, and low-cost seeds otherwise so the cost of losing the seeds from disease is reduced.
    • If a herb is fully grown, it will remain as it is until it is harvested i.e. will never be diseased

Fruit trees

Currently I farm coconuts.

  • Once a fruit tree is fully grown, it will never become diseased
  • Ultracompost reduces chance of disease while the tree is growing, but will not affect fruit yield. Therefore ultracompost is not needed once the tree is grown
  • All fruit trees will yield a maximum of six fruit
  • A fruit regenerates every ~40 minutes. If doing herb runs at maximum frequency, you can do a combined herb+fruit-tree run, then two or three herb runs, then a combined run, etc

The Farming Run

  1. Set up inventory if not already
  2. Ardy cloak teleport to Ardy herb patch
    • If not already done, grab the spade, rake, seed dibber and magic secateurs. For MAXIMUM EFFICIENCY, take the magic secateurs last and equip it so it doesn’t leave a gap in the inventory. Equip magic secateurs
    • Harvest & plant low-cost seed (H1)
  3. Ectophial to Ectofuntus
    • Run west past the farm to the Morytania herb patch
    • Harvest & plant low-cost seed (H2)
  4. Xeric’s Talisman teleport to Hosidius herb patch (Xeric’s Glade)
    • LONG RUN TO HERB PATCH: clean herbs and note herbs here if needed while running to the patch
    • Harvest & plant high-cost seed (H3)
  5. Explorer’s ring teleport to Falador herb patch
    • Harvest & plant low-cost seed (H4)
  6. Tele to house → Weiss portal
    • Harvest & plant high-cost seed (H5)
  7. Tele to house → Trollheim portal
    • Harvest & plant high-cost seed (H6)
  8. Tele to house → Catherby portal
    • LONG RUN TO HERB PATCH: clean herbs and note herbs here if needed while running to the patch
    • Harvest & plant low-cost seed (H7)
    • Run to fruit tree patch to the east near the shore
    • Harvest fruits (F1)
  9. Royal Seed Pod commune → Tree Gnome Stronghold
    • Run out the door, go south and harvest fruits (F2)
    • Go to nearby Spirit Tree and teleport to Tree Gnome Village
    • Exit the central part of the village, Follow Elkoy to exit the maze
    • Harvest fruits (F3)
  10. Crystal teleport seed to Lletya
    • Harvest fruits (F4) to the east
  11. Now can pick between Farming Guild herb patch and Brimhaven fruit tree patch. If need to bank (e.g. to get a new skills necklace or crystal teleport seed), go to Brimhaven first. Otherwise, go to Farming Guild herb patch.
  12. Karamja gloves(3) to Gem mine (or to Duradel if have Karamja gloves(4))
    • Take the cart to Brimhaven (requires 200gp)
    • Harvest fruits (F5)
  13. Skills necklace to Farming Guild
    • Harvest & plant low-cost seed (H8)

Realistically, the run can be done in any order. BUT, I normally end at either

  1. Any patch with a bank e.g. Farming Guild
  2. Brimhaven fruit tree patch (because it’s the most annoying patch to reach)
  3. Ardy patch (because only 5 teleports a day with Ardougne cloak)

Other Notes

  • Skills necklace can be recharged at the totem pole in the Legends’ Guild for four charges. Can also be risky and charge it at the Fountain of Rune for six charges but it’s in the wilderness.
  • Crystal teleport seed can be recharged by Eluned in Priffdinas. It costs money. Should think about getting an Eternal teleport crystal.

Footnotes

  1. Player-owned house ↩