Free-to-play Runecrafting training
- See also: Pay-to-play Runecrafting training
Runecrafting is quite a popular skill, mainly due to the release of Runecrafting Guild and the Runespan. Runecrafting used to be one of the hardest skills to train before the Runespan update. Runespan is used by almost all players now but some players still runecraft at the altars for profits, even though the profits in F2P are much lower than P2P.
Beginners
- First thing to remember: Weight is vital to fast Runecrafting.
- Second: Runecrafting will kill your bank if you are power levelling.
- Third: If you're like most players who train it for a profit then do not make tiaras.
- Fourth: If you wear an Explorer's ring 2, Explorer's ring 3, or Explorer's ring 4 whilst Runecrafting, you'll gain more runes when making Elemental runes.
Rune Mysteries
This quest is useful to players if they want to train runecrafting at altars instead of the Runespan or if they want to know the history of Runecrafting. The quest has no requirements. When you finish the quest, you will be allowed to enter the Rune Essence Mines, where you may mine your essence. If you do not finish Rune Mysteries, you can still access the Rune Essence mines by right-clicking on Sedridor in the Wizard's Tower or Aubury in Varrock and selecting "teleport", you will just have to purchase the Talismans (one is a quest reward from Rune Mysteries). The quest Rune Mysteries begins by talking to Duke Horacio in Lumbridge Castle. An air talisman is also given as reward for the quest.
Mining essence
Critical to training this skill is to have an ample supply of essence, free players can only use rune essence, while members can use pure essence as well, see article for more details. Essence is the material which is used to create the magical runes used in Gielinor. Upon completion of the Rune Mysteries quest, you have the option of being able to visit the Rune Essence mine, where you can extract this substance. There are no requirements to mine rune essence.
There are two NPCs in a Free-To-Play world which will teleport you to the Rune Essence Mine mine:
- Aubury, located at the east side of Varrock just south of the east bank.
- Sedridor, located at the basement of the Wizard's Tower, south of Draynor Village.
Of these, Aubury is the closest to a bank.
Mining essence is a little bit different than mining normal ores, as you only have to click once on the essence rock to slowly fill up your inventory. It is also something that can be done with a Mining level of 1, but like other skills more experience will help you to extract the ore faster, as will more advanced pickaxes. It is strongly recommended when extracting rune essence that you wield the pickaxe, as that gives you one extra slot in your inventory whilst banking your essence. Advanced pickaxes do, however, require higher levels of the Attack skill if you choose to wield them. Some runecrafters choose to simply have the pickaxe in their inventory and not train attack to remain a pure skiller as a play style, but that is a personal choice and it does involve more trips to the Rune Essence mine over time.
This can also be a useful way to train the lower levels of mining, as you do not have to compete with other players for rocks, and you can rise through the lower levels of mining rather quickly. For higher level miners, it becomes very tedious for training as it only yields 5 mining experience points per essence extracted, and is not recommended except to collect essence for personal use or to earn extra money from the sale of Rune essence.
Running
In worlds such as: Air Runes-Running, some people pay for the essence inside the altar instead of getting it themselves. So if you have a big amount of money, you can just stay in the altar and wait for people to give you essence. Do not accept the trade if they do not give 25 essence or noted essence. Say "Open #k" so people will sell essence to you. Try to make the money you give them the highest of other people but not too high, for a example, it wouldn't be reasonable to give 25k for 25 essence.
As always, be wary of scammers.
Assisting
Some people say:"Assisting #x each" which means they are assisting you. So if someone was runecrafting level 99, you will make 10x each rune essence, please note that the player who assists you gets the experience, not yourself. Being an assister will be easier if you have higher Runecrafting, as you will just need to stay in the altar and wait for others to require your level.
Grand Exchange
Grand Exchange prices does not effect players training in the Runespan.
One alternative to mining your own rune essence is to simply purchase it from other players. Currently, rune essence can be purchased for Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". coins per essence from the Grand Exchange, which is also the rate for a balanced trade when obtaining this item via a direct player to player trade. Keep in mind, you will need thousands of essence in order to get your Runecrafting level high enough to start earning money from this skill, so it would be useful to have some alternative money making method in place if one chooses to use this method to obtain your Rune essence or Pure Essence.
The price of Rune essence or Pure Essence on the Grand Exchange also can fluctuate dramatically from one day to the next, and over the course of weeks or months it can go up or down sometimes as much as 50% in either direction. It certainly would be useful to watch the price of essence as you train, and pay close attention to market swings so you can purchase the essence for a more reasonable price. This can also fluctuate from day to day even if your character does not advance to a new Runecrafting level, so it is useful to watch the price of all runes to see which one would be the most profitable at the moment.
It is also worth watching the price of runes and to compare them to what your current Runecrafting level is at. Due to the ability to craft multiple runes at higher levels, no single method of Runecrafting training is necessarily the most profitable for all players.
Tiaras
It is highly recommended to buy a tiara that corresponds to the altar you are going to craft runes in. This way, you can train more efficiently. Players may simply wear the tiara on their heads. Players not only have an extra position in their inventory for bringing essence, but also have one fewer click to make when trying to enter into the altar on subsequent trips. Tiaras can also be made for altars using their respective talismans. Due to the value of talismans greatly exceeding that of tiaras, rather than making the tiara, players should buy the respective tiara from the Grand Exchange or from other players.
Prior to the release of the Runecrafting Guild, one of the more unusual training opportunities for Runecrafting involved purchasing talismans and converting them into tiaras. Enterprising Runecrafters could buy these talismans and convert them to tiaras for a slightly more expensive but substantially faster means of earning experience points in Runecrafting. 14 tiaras and 14 body talismans give players a total of 525 experience points per trip, far more than the typical 210 experience points that a full load of body runes will bring to you. Even crafting earth runes with Runecrafting gloves only gives players 364 experience, so this is even faster experience than Runecrafting gloves.
Unfortunately, training Runecrafting in this manner is very expensive, as the introduction of the Runecrafting Guild brought considerable demand for these talismans, and players' discovery of this training method. Body talismans currently sell on the Grand Exchange for Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". coins each and Body tiaras, if you can sell them at all, only sell for Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". coins. A load of 14 body talismans and 14 tiaras will cost you Expression error: Unexpected < operator. coins for each trip to the altar. Training in this manner from level 20 to level 50 (to enter the Runecrafting Guild) would require 185 trips and cost players Expression error: Unexpected < operator. coins. Some players do have this kind of money, so it is not completely unreasonable to power level in this manner, but this is expensive and consumes a lot of your coins.
By way of comparison, training by traveling to the air altar and crafting only air runes (perhaps one of the best money making methods for F2P using this skill), will require 692 trips in order earn the experience from level 20 to level 50, note that there is no level requirement for turning talismans into tiaras. This is about quadruple the time that players will have to spend training Runecrafting with essence. On the other hand, by training via the air altar, players will have produced at least 83,608 air runes from 19,376 rune essence. Assuming that players both purchased this rune essence and sold the air runes at the Grand Exchange at current market rates, this will have earned them Expression error: Unexpected < operator. coins by training Runecrafting.
Most players would choose to train Runecrafting in the Runespan because it's free and great xp. This xp is good but this method is also very expensive and most non-members don't have the money for this training method.
Runespan
Training in the Runespan is considered to be the best Runecrafting training method. Since its appearance on April 30th, 2012, the Runespan, located at the Wizards' Tower portal entrance, can give an average of 20,000-50,000 xp per hour depending on your Runecrafting level. The Runespan is totally free and is available to all players, starting from level 1. Not considering extra features exclusive to members, training for free players is still efficient here.
Past level 60, it is recommended to siphon the highest nodes possible and the lowest levelled esslings possible when essence is needed. Fleshy growth nodes are the best, followed by Fireballs, then Vines, and then Fire storms. Nodes lower than these should not be siphoned. If possible, when siphoning esslings try to find one that is already being siphoned, so you get essence faster. Staying on one island is the most efficient, especially popular islands such as 5 on the second level. The more players siphoning the same node, the longer it will last. Unless the yellow wizard is on the second floor, it is usually not worth finding him.
The recommended nodes to siphon in descending order:
- Level 1-5 - Mind storms, Cyclones
- Level 5-9 - Water pools, Mind storms, Cyclones
- Level 9-14 - Earth fragments, Water pools, Mind storms, Cyclones
- Level 14-17 - Fireballs, Earth fragments, Water pools, Mind storms, Cyclones
- Level 17-33 - Fireballs, Vines, Earth fragments, Water pools, Mind storms, Cyclones
- Level 33-99 - Fleshy Growths, Fireballs, Vines, Fire storms, Earth fragments, Water pools, Mind storms, Cyclones
If you become a member, more advanced modes are available after 33 Runecrafting.
Altar hints
For players who are power-levelling air runes to earn money while also earning experience while Runecrafting, it is strongly recommended that they complete the Medium or Hard Lumbridge and Draynor Tasks in order to obtain the Explorer's ring 3 or 4. It is also recommended for players to bank all of their armour and equipment except for the tiara of the respective altar they are crafting at and the Explorer's ring. Other zero weight items like an Amulet of power could be worn if there is concern about some slightly more dangerous areas, such as traversing the wilderness to access the Mind altar.
Air rune
Air runes can be crafted once the Rune Mysteries quest has been completed, as these can be crafted at level 1. The air altar is located about half-way between Varrock and Gunnarsgrunn.
Varrock west bank
| Altar - | Air altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Varrock west bank | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 75 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Most beginning players who train Runecrafting are suggested to start at the Varrock west bank. This is located just to the south-east of the Grand Exchange and west of the city centre at Varrock. Travel from this bank on your way to Gunnarsgrunn, you should see the altar just before the bridge. After crafting the air runes, return back toward Varrock, but make sure you stop and recharge your run energy from the nearby musician. Remember that the lighter you are the less you'll need to rest, so keep light!
Edgeville
| Altar - | Air altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Edgeville | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 130 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Edgeville is an alternative route for training Runecrafting, and certainly something that can be followed if trying to transition into making other types of runes such as Body runes or Mind runes. It is a bit further than Varrock, but the time to complete a circuit is fairly reasonable compared to other routes with other runes, even though the west Varrock bank is much closer in the case of air runes. The only annoying features of this route are dealing the border guards when crossing the River Lum and that there is no musician to help recharge your run energy while completing a lap.
Varrock teleport
| Altar - | Air altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Varrock west bank | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 58 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | 25 Magic Law Rune Staff of Fire | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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This route is for more experienced runecrafters, people should choose this method at level 55 to get fast experience and a little bit of profit. It is slightly faster then running back and forth from Varrock west bank, because the distance from Varrock Square and Varrock Bank is shorter then the Air Altar to Varrock Bank. What a player should do is withdraw the law runes for the varrock teleport, wield a staff of fire and have 27 rune essence in the inventory. This way, the air runes made complete the runes needed for the teleport. The player should run to the altar, use the teleport to Varrock, and run back the west bank.
You will make about 66 trips per hour at 55 seconds per run, using up 1782 rune essences per hour totaling, 1782 * 5exp/ess, 8910 exp per hour. You might reach the 9.57k exp in the left if you can cut each run to 51 seconds instead of 55 seconds. In addition, the 66 teleports to Varrock will earn you 35 exp per cast for a total of 2310 magic exp/hour.
If you are using the explorer's ring 2/3/4 10% boosting effect, the Runecrafting exp you gain should be about, 8910 * 1.10, = 9801 exp per hour. The magic exp should not change because the boost effect has no effect on the time taken for each crafting run.
Note - From 100% energy at the musician and 0-1kg weight, it should take exactly 2 complete runs (craft1-tele1-bank1-craft2-tele2-bank2-REST) to use up 94% energy. It is recommended you rest to 100% every 2 runs instead of getting 47% after each run, because the time it takes to sit down slows a run down by about 1-2 seconds. Over the course of 66 trips, the 2run-rest method will earn you an extra 30-40 seconds in an hour, which is almost enough for an extra trip.
Mind rune
Mind runes can be crafted upon reaching level 2 Runecrafting. The altar is located between the Goblin Village and the Black Knights' Fortress. To enter this altar, you need a mind talisman, or a mind tiara, both of which can be purchased from the Grand Exchange or obtained and/or manufactured from monster drops. A mind talisman staff is available to players upon reaching Runecrafting level 50 and participating in the Great Orb Project.
Falador west bank
| Altar - | Mind altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Falador west bank | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 88 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Many new players crafting mind runes will start at the Falador west bank and travel through the north gate on their way to the mind altar. While there are several creatures along this route, only a level 5 highwayman is aggressive. Along the route, there is a musician that is about a third of the way between Falador and the Mind altar (closer to Falador). It is recommended that you "listen" to the musician when going both directions to recharge your energy, and generally run both directions to maximise the production of runes.
Falador west bank via teleport
| Altar - | Mind altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Falador west bank | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 70 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Level 37 Magic Air staff or Water staff | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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To travel more quickly, a player can use the Falador Teleport when travelling back to the west Falador bank. While this does cut quite a bit of time from the journey, it does cost a Law rune together with either 1 Water rune or 3 Air runes on each trip, and you can only craft 26 essence on each trip instead of a full load of 28. With this method of crafting mind runes, it is also suggested to listen to the musician on the journey northward to the altar.
While players can earn experience points faster using this method, F2P players cannot craft Law runes, so you must either find those runes as monster drops or purchase them from other players. Law runes cost 149 coins each, generally turning this into an unprofitable method of obtaining mind runes.
Edgeville
| Altar - | Mind altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Edgeville | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 185 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Prepared to enter Wilderness | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Another method for crafting mind runes is to use the bank in Edgeville and travel west along the edge of the wilderness wall until you get to the point where the Black Knights' Fortress extends slightly into the wilderness. From here players have to cross the wilderness wall, and run (it is not recommended to walk this route) to the other side of the fortress, which is where the mind altar can be found. From here, players have to retrace their steps to travel back to Edgeville. There is no musician along this route to recharge your running energy, so you must either walk or rest at some point along the route to recharge your energy.
In spite of the length of time it takes to travel from Edgeville to the mind altar, this was formerly the fastest method of travel for crafting mind runes without casting teleportation spells before the introduction of musicians, and a commonly used route for many F2P players, even with the original role that the wilderness served in player vs. player combat. Often there would be players camped in the wilderness just outside of the Mind altar location, or along the route between the Mind altar and Edgeville. As it only gets to level 5 wilderness along this route, the levels of the players engaged in player vs. player combat had to be matched fairly closely, however.
Edgeville via Gunnarsgrunn
| Altar - | Mind altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Edgeville | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 135 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Prepared to enter Wilderness High combat level (60+) Skull sceptre | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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To shave off a few additional seconds in crafting mind runes, players can travel from Edgeville and through the wilderness, but to make the return trip from the mind altar players can teleport using the Skull sceptre to the Gunnarsgrunn and then travel back to Edgeville. After five trips to the Gunnarsgrunn, the sceptre will have to be re-assembled with its pieces, if a player has all of the parts in his bank account.
Considering the difficulty in obtaining all of the parts for this item, and that players have to kill creatures like Ankous and Catablepons in order to obtain those pieces, this is not really a very common method of gathering mind runes. These pieces and the Skull Sceptre are untradeable, so the actual cost is difficult to assess, but items like a Varrock teleport tablet sells for 709 coins as a comparison for what members are willing to pay for tradeable teleportaion object that has charges and is destroyed when used, or perhaps comparing to the ring of duelling which sells for 1038 coins. Surprisingly, this method of Runecrafting is even slower than simply using a teleport spell to Falador, so for the effort it is almost certainly is not worth doing. This method is being added in this list mainly to make it complete.
Water rune
Water runes can be crafted upon reaching Runecrafting level 5. Water runes are used in a great many spells, particularly on member worlds, and used for charging up the Enchanted water tiara. It is also a somewhat common rune for F2P players as well, so this can be a profitable rune to make. Due to perceived difficulty in travelling to the water altar, it is also a task that few players actually engage in. Crafting water runes can be assisted with water runecrafting gloves from Fist of Guthix to give double experience.
Crafting a water rune is also a task for the Lumbridge and Draynor Tasks, so knowing how to craft runes at this altar efficiently is also useful even for this task.
Draynor Village
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Draynor Village | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 135 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Beginning Runecrafters will likely be using Draynor Village for their initial crafting of water runes. The water altar is located about halfway between Draynor Village and Lumbridge, on the south-central end of the Lumbridge Swamp. There is a musician just outside of Draynor Village, but slightly off the shortest route between the Draynor bank and the altar. Whether or not to make the detour to recharge energy at the musician is a matter of personal choice – the time spent diverting to reach the musician is about the same as the extra time waited simply resting when you have no run energy.
Draynor Village via cabbage patch
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Draynor Village | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 105 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Explorer's Ring 3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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The primary difference between this method and the previous one is that as soon as a player crafts the runes, they engage the Cabbage teleport and travel to the Cabbage Patch near Draynor. This act puts the player considerably closer to the bank in Draynor for the next trip to the altar.
Draynor Village via cabbage patch & water teletab
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Draynor Village | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 55 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Explorer's Ring 3 Water altar teleport | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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For players who have spent time with the Great Orb Project, a few more seconds can be shaved off on the round-trip time by using the Water altar teleport teletablet. It is indeed faster, and takes off about 10 seconds per trip. As a method of rapidly earning experience, there is some value to using this training method. One drawback is that the musician along the regular route without the teletablets is no longer directly along the route with them, although the musician is still fairly close and worth the extra effort when your run energy is low to recharge there rather than simply resting in the bank or at the altar.
The profitability of using this method of Runecrafting is based upon the lost opportunity costs from buying talismans from the Great Orb Project and selling them on the Grand Exchange, and instead buying the Water altar teleports. Essentially, Runecrafting Guild tokens have a monetize value of about 90 coins each if they were sold on the Grand Exchange directly, and the 34 tokens spent on each water altar teleport is the equivalent of spending 3050 coins on each trip. For all but the highest level Runecrafters, this will result in essentially a loss of income for using this method of Runecrafting. However, if you take into consideration the XP gained when playing the activity, the loss is less significant.
Lumbridge
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Lumbridge | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 145 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Players can travel to Lumbridge for training Runecrafting from the water altar. Players can bank at the top floor of the castle and then travel south of Lumbridge through the graveyard. Navigating through Lumbridge Castle is tedious and the distance is just slightly further from the altar than it is from Draynor Village.
Lumbridge via teleport
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Lumbridge | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 100 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar in nature to crafting mind runes from Falador, Lumbridge can serve as a destination for travelling more quickly to craft runes. On F2P worlds, players need to climb to the top of Lumbridge Castle in order to deposit their runes and retrieve new essence. Use "home teleport" to save money. Also, it is very difficult to resist teleporting twice when doing this run... once from the altar and then again from the bank at the top of Lumbridge Castle that is required for the most efficient use of the time from using this method. It's a good way to make runes as quickly as most other ways but without other requirements such as completing tasks for the explorer's ring.
Wizard's Tower
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | None | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 230 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Pickaxe | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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While not exactly a bank, players can travel to the basement of the Wizard's tower with a pickaxe, extract rune essence by teleporting to the Essence Mine via Sedridor, and then bring the essence to the Water altar for Runecrafting. While this technically trains both Mining and Runecrafting simultaneously, it is a tedious method of training. Instead of going to a bank, players simply let the runes stack up as they go back to the essence mine to extract some more essence. This implies that only 27 essence are going to be crafted on each trip to the mine, but on the other hand a player does not have to purchase any essence while performing this training cycle. No musician can be found along this route, so either walking or resting without a musician is necessary for prolonged training using this method. Having minimised weight is strongly recommended, so a water talisman would help but it further decreases the slots available to 26.
Falador via teleport & water teletab
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Falador North Bank | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 30 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | *35  MagicWater altar teleport Law rune, Air staff | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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For players who have spent time with the Great Orb Project, this is the fastest way of training Runecrafting currently. Starting in the Falador North Bank, with law runes and an air staff equipped, plus essence, use water teletab. Craft water runes at the altar, then use a Falador Teleport to return the Falador North Bank.
The profitability of using this method of Runecrafting is based upon the lost opportunity costs from buying talismans from the Great Orb Project and selling them on the Grand Exchange, and instead buying the Water altar teleports. Essentially, Runecrafting Guild tokens have a monetize value of about 90 coins each if they were sold on the Grand Exchange directly, and the 34 tokens spent on each water altar teleport is the equivalent of spending 3050 coins on each trip. For all but the highest level Runecrafters, this will result in essentially a loss of income for using this method of Runecrafting.
Al Kharid
| Altar - | Water altar | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Al Kharid Bank | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 120 seconds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | N/A | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
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A recent update connects Lumbridge Swamp directly to Al Kharid through the Dungeoneering Fremennik. It is the closest bank to and from the Runecrafting altar.
Earth rune
Earth runes can be crafted upon reaching level 9 of Runecrafting. The altar is located south of the Lumber Yard near a yew tree, north-east of Varrock east entrance. Earth runes are profitable in long run and provide a good compromise between earning experience and earning money. Before the February 2011 update, the Earth altar was also located somewhat close to the Fist of Guthix activity, where players might earn some Runecrafting gloves, craft 1000 runes, and then travel back to the activity to earn some more tokens. However, the Fist of Guthix activity has been moved to the Gaming Grotto, so this is not a good option.
Varrock east bank
| Altar - | Earth altar | |||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Varrock east bank | |||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 90 seconds | |||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | |||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||
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Nearly all F2P Runecrafting for Earth runes takes place from the Varrock east bank, and travel is through the east entrance of Varrock toward the Lumberyard. The return is by tracing those same steps back. Very repetitive and uneventful, although a few coins, body talismans, and bones can be collected on the return trip from players who are training combat skills against the Varrock guards at the entrance to the city, or from players power-levelling their woodcutting skills on the many trees outside of Varrock. A musician is located fairly close to the altar, and he is certainly on the route. It is recommended that you "listen" to the musician as you approach the altar, but not when you leave as you should have enough run energy to get back to the musician to complete the full circuit. Alternatively, one could listen on the way back and not on the way to the altar. Run energy only needs to be recharged to about 90 or less depending on banking efficiency and routes. This is considered the best xp for non-members without using any assistance (teleports or gloves).
Varrock east bank via teleport
| Altar - | Earth altar | |||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Varrock east bank | |||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 75 seconds | |||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Level 25+ Magic Air staff Law runes Fire runes | |||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||
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For those wanting to shave off a few more seconds for runs to the Earth altar, it is possible to cast the Varrock Teleport spell from inside of the Earth altar crafting area immediately after creating the Earth runes. Players need to have a stack of Law runes and Fire runes, an Air staff, and bring 26 essence for each trip (the number of open inventory spaces remaining after holding Law and Fire runes). This can be costly, as Law runes are not craftable by F2P players, so they must be either found by monster drops or purchased by players. It is one method, however, of "power levelling" Runecrafting in a manner that can be purchased rather than purely earned. For an alternative teleportation use, use Earth tablets that can be bought in the Runecrafting Guild. Once you use the tablet to get to the altar, use cabbage teleport inside the altar and run to Draynor bank to restock on essence.
Aubury's Rune Shop
| Altar - | Earth altar | |||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Varrock east bank | |||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 190 seconds | |||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Pickaxe | |||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||
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Using Aubury's Rune Shop is similar to the method of training by crafting water runes from the Wizard's Tower, with the bonus that a bank happens to be along the path. By equipping a pickaxe, a player can mine the essence first, teleport out of the essence mine, travel to the Earth altar, travel to the bank in Varrock, and then head back to the mines for more essence. This is a rather effective way to combine both mining essence and crafting runes simultaneously, although the added weight from the pickaxe does tend to eat away at the run energy faster. In theory, it would be faster to simply mine the essence and bring it to the bank in Varrock, and then do the Runecrafting later. Still, for an impatient player it might be suggested to use this method as it does provide some more variety while doing Runecrafting. Also, by using this method of crafting runes, the products of the Runecrafting (the runes) is nearly pure profit if sold as the player has already put the effort in to extract the essence as well.
It should be noted that the time to complete this circuit is highly dependent upon the Mining level of the player, which is substantially different for somebody with a high level skills in Mining compared to that of a beginning miner.
One can also just go to the essence mine, then go to the earth altar, then back to the mine, skipping the trip to the bank. A stack of earth runes takes up just one spot in the knapsack. One saves the time of going to the bank and making a deposit over and over again.
Daemonheim via earth teleport
| Altar - | Earth altar | |||||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Daemonheim bank | |||||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 40 seconds | |||||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | Level 50+ Runecrafting Earth altar teleport Ring of Kinship | |||||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr (with gloves) | |||||||||||||||||
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This is one of the fastest methods of getting runecrafting xp. However you will lose runecrafting tokens that could have been changed for water talismans, so this method is not profitable.
First of all you will need to spend some time playing Great Orb Project so you can get the necessary tokens for the earth altar teleports. You will also need a ring of kinship. After you get all these, equip all the teletabs in your bag, the ring of kinship and all the essence. Then use the teletab, craft the runes, teleport to Daemonheim, bank the runes, withdraw some rune essence and repeat.
Remember to bring the Explorer's ring 3 or 4 so that you can craft more runes. You can also replenish your running energy with it. But if you run out of charges, it is recommended that you listen to the musician near the altar until your running energy gets full again.
Fire rune
Fire runes can be crafted upon reaching Runecrafting level 14. The altar is located west of Duel arena and to the north-east of Al-Kharid. A great many training guides suggest that crafting fire runes is the best and only way to train F2P Runecrafting, but such recommendations are usually based upon skills and options available only to members. It is noteworthy that, per essence, fire runes do give you more experience than any other elemental rune and if you are trying to minimise the amount of essence that you are using, creating fire runes is then perhaps a good training route. A significant problem with Fire runes is that it has the fewest number of multiple runes that can be crafted for any elemental rune, and historically the price paid for Fire runes on the Grand Exchange has been dismal as well. Typically, training the Runecrafting skill through the creation of making Fire runes will be a loss-making proposition when done by F2P players, although a player may break even or make a small profit beyond level 35. Also the Fire altar is the only elemental altar that has no runecrafting gloves which doubles the experience. Travel time can be reduced through the use of Fire altar teleport tablets possibly coupled with teleporting to Falador for faster banking. Travel time can also be significantly reduced by utilizing the home teleport to the Al Kharid lodestone, conveniently located steps from the bank, after crafting fire runes at the altar. This method is easily the most productive method of training runecrafting for F2P without incorporating runecraft-boosting items.
Al Kharid
| Altar - | Fire altar | ||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Al-Kharid | ||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 80 seconds | ||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | ||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | ||||||||||||||
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Most beginning Runecrafters will start in Al Kharid when starting to craft Fire runes. A musician can be found about half-way along the route to help recharge run energy, allowing a player to otherwise run continuously while making fire runes except for when you are listening to the musician. Utlizing the Al Kharid home teleport, each crafting cycle requires as little at 50% energy, allowing very short periods of rest. As Al Kharid is also useful for several other manufacturing skills such as Smithing, Crafting, Cooking, Fishing, and even Mining (at the Al Kharid mining site to the north), players wanting to have a little bit of variety while training can be done from this location. The bank is usually crowded and there are plenty of opportunities to socialise as well.
Duelling Arena
| Altar - | Fire altar | ||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Duelling Arena | ||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 135 seconds | ||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | ||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | ||||||||||||||
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Making fire runes from the Duelling Arena is more for the "serious" Runecrafter that is intent on trying to increase their Runecrafting skills. While technically closer to the Fire altar, it is not nearly as straight forward to get there as from Al-Kharid and there is not a musician available along the route to recharge run energy. As a result, it actually takes longer to complete a circuit from the Duelling Arena than it does to travel from Al-Kharid. In addition, a persistent warning screen shows up as you leave the Duelling Arena unless you have participated in several duels and have the Doomsayer help you to turn off the warning.
Body rune
Body runes are the most advanced and highest level runes that can be crafted by F2P players, which is at level 20 Runecrafting. The altar is located west of long hall in Gunnarsgrunn, just to the south of the Monastery and southeast of the Ice Mountain entrance. Body runes give the best experience among all the runes without use of Runecrafting gloves, and has similar trip distance as crafting Earth runes. Because Body runes are sold at relatively low price and are not useful, many players suggest that crafting Body runes is not worth the effort.
One use of body runes is for mage pures than can make use of combination of earth and body runes, along with water staff, to train Magic without increasing Constitution. Even so, the demand for body runes is rather low on the Grand Exchange and often a player cannot sell them in mass regardless of the price. Nearly a lifetime supply of body runes, as used by a typical player, can be crafted by a player in a relatively short period of time.
Edgeville
| Altar - | Body altar | ||||||||||||||
| Nearest Bank - | Edgeville | ||||||||||||||
| Travel Time - | 110 seconds | ||||||||||||||
| Requirements - | None | ||||||||||||||
| Exp per hour - | Expression error: Unrecognized punctuation character "[". xp/hr | ||||||||||||||
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The only realistic method of crafting Body runes is to travel between Edgeville and the Body altar. The trickiest part of this route is trying to find a path around the barrier between Edgeville and the Monastery, and to get through the walls of Edgeville that can be a bit of a maze. There is no musician along this route. The simplest method of getting around the barrier is to pass to the north of it just south of the wilderness wall. This route is longer, but there is a musician along the route, so it is the easier route for some players. However, it is still faster to travel through the south entrance to Edgeville and then west to the altar.
However, a recent update made it possible to travel across the wall between Edgeville and the Monastery, by having the player walk west towards the area south of the cooking room. Since the hill-like protrusion leading up to Oziach's house has been removed, this route may be faster than walking south.
Runecrafting gloves
Many may wonder why level 30 is often mentioned to stop the original methods. This is because of the Runecrafting gloves the activity Fist of Guthix gives as reward, which come in 3 variety: Air, Water and Earth, doubling experience for 1000 essence crafted using the specific kind of altar. They altogether give 10000, 12000 and 13000 experience upon full use. Each of them costs 75 Fist of Guthix tokens to buy, and any player can only keep one of each kind in the inventory. You cannot recharge the gloves--they simply disappear when fully used. If you are low combat and it would take you shorter time to craft 1,000 essence at the Air, Earth or Water altar than it would to get 75 Fist of Guthix tokens, it is best not to get the gloves until you're higher level or you're better at Fist of Guthix. Below are some explanations about different kinds of gloves:
Air runecrafting gloves
This kind of gloves can be worn at 10 Runecrafting, giving 10 experience per essence crafted. Air runecrafting gloves can be best utilised for a Runecrafter in air running process, but cannot be used for assisting. The power levelling cost is very large even with these gloves, which is depended on the offer price for noting the rune essence for runners, and their Runecrafting level for crafting multiple air runes. Below is a table for power levelling cost for Runecrafter in air running:
| Gloves | Offer price | Power levelling loss |
|---|---|---|
| Yes | 1000 coins | 4 coins per XP |
| 1500 coins | 6 coins per XP | |
| 2000 coins | 8 coins per XP | |
| 2500 coins | 10 coins per XP | |
| 3000 coins | 12 coins per XP | |
| No | 1000 coins | 8 coins per XP |
| 1500 coins | 12 coins per XP | |
| 2000 coins | 16 coins per XP | |
| 2500 coins | 20 coins per XP | |
| 3000 coins | 24 coins per XP |
The result renders being a Runecrafter in air running is unwise unless with these gloves. The specified offer price loss is added with the Air runes part of Multiple Runes calculator. For example, if the runecrafter has 37 crafting and his offer price is 3000 coins, the net loss per essence would be 12+Expression error: Unexpected < operator. = Expression error: Unexpected < operator. , rendering a power levelling loss of Expression error: Unexpected < operator. coins per experience point.
Water runecrafting gloves
This kind of gloves can be worn at 20 Runecrafting, giving 12 experience per essence crafted. Since the personalised shop update, the water rune price has boomed out and water running has been established. This kind of gloves will be the best friend for a Runecrafter wanting to gain maximum profit while maintaining good experience.
However, the price of water runes has dropped considerably, making this method considerably less profitable than when the personalized shop update first came into effect.
Earth runecrafting gloves
These kind of gloves can be worn at 30 Runecrafting, giving 13 experience per essence crafted. This is the ideal method to train Runecrafting normally, provided that the experience per essence is highest among all the methods and loss is minimal. These gloves also can yield some of the best Runecrafting Experience for Free-to-Play. It also gives the best runecrafting experience per essence in the whole game at 13xp/essence, while bloods give 10.5xp/essence.
Due to the recent removal of macroers from the game, and the demand from players using these runes to cast Vengeance, the price of these runes has increased considerably, allowing players to make more money from this method of Runecrafting training. Do note, however, that the prices on the Grand Exchange may change at any time, and this increase in profit may not hold true.
Runecrafting guild
This guild requires minimum level of 50 to get in, achieved at 101,333 experience. The main feature of the guild, The Great Orb Project, allows quick earning of rune essence and instant crafting. Also you get twice the experience in crafting runes. Runecrafting gloves may also be used in the game, allowing you to have three times the amount of experience though it will be difficult to use gloves if you do not manage inventory space wisely.
Runecrafting gloves of all three kinds can be brought to enhance the experience gained while crafting, and Explorer's ring 2, 3, and 4 gives a slight advantage on crafting elemental runes, causing crafting fire runes slightly better, in case of 50-50 playing with the player playing the last 3 rounds.
According to the order of altars in the activity, at mind altar and body altar no essence should be crafted, and some essence can be saved on air, water and earth altar. Be careful of inventory space, one should craft fire runes if excess essences are available.
You can buy Runecrafting altar tabs with the points you get from the activity. This can make Runecrafting much faster as they teleport you right outside the altar. It works well with body altar tabs. Take the same amount of Varrock teleports and body altar teletabs, this will provide fast Runecrafting experience. Alternatively, you can use the dungeoneering ring to teleport to Daemonheim, which has a close bank, instead of Varrock teleports, as it requires no money to be spent on runes and saves inventory space.
Dungeoneering
Non-members can purchase Tangle Gum Staff from the Smuggler while in a Dungeoneering raid and craft Water Staves. Crafting a Water Staff in this way grants 5.5 Magic experience and 5.5 Runecrafting experience. It takes about 15000 gp (money is earned very quickly in Dungeoneering) to purchase a full inventory of Tangle Gum Staves and it only takes 60 seconds to craft a full inventory, making it an effective way to train Runecrafting, as it usually takes longer for a run to a Runecrafting altar.
Other useful information
How to make money off of rune running (Normal Essence)
Below is a detailed list on the formulas needed to figure out profit and or how many trips.
Process:
- (Runes per essence) x (Essence per trip) = Total runes per trip
- (Total runes per trip) x (Price per rune) = Amount of gold per trip
- (Amount you wish to earn)/(Amount of gold per trip) = Number of trips.
Profit:
- (Essence per trip) x (Number of trips) = Total number of essence
- (Total number of essence) x (Cost per essence) = Total cost of essence
- (Amount you wish to earn) - (Total cost of essence) = Profit
Weight consideration and musician position
The difference between 0 kg and 1 kg is not important in trips involving musicians like earth Runecrafting trips, but vital in others like water Runecrafting trips. Resting is fairly inefficient without musicians. With musicians, it has much less disadvantages to craft runes while wearing heavy equipments, like tiaras and pickaxes. Without that 0 kg weight is strongly recommended as the energy depletion relative to weight is critical in those trips. Zero weight can be achieved mainly by taking a talisman to avoid any weight, and not wearing any equipment except a ring.
Multiple runes
A detailed table about crafting multiple runes can be seen here, and a calculator for profit by crafting multiple runes can be found here
Teleportation/Tablet Quickly Runecrafting
This method is for very fast Runecrafting experience, in exchange of runecrafting tokens. You will need to have 50 runecrafting and 37 magic to use this method in its entirety. You will need the following: Air staff, Tiara (corresponding to runes you will be crafting), Runecrafting Tablets (obtained in The Great Orb Project), Law runes (the number of trips you will be making), Water Runes, and Rune Essence. The Ring of Kinship can be used instead of teleport runes, as it is a repeatable and free, as well as fairly close to a bank
Power Levelling Runecrafting
This method is proven to be one of the fastest means of training Runecrafting. Players will need to buy the Runecrafting teleport tablets of their choice from The Great Orb Project activity. Runecrafting gloves from Fist of Guthix and the Explorer's Ring 2, 3, or 4 also helps to gain experience more quickly. The idea is to teleport to travel to the altar, craft the runes, cast Falador Teleport, bank in the West Falador Bank and repeat.
Since the introduction of Daemonheim and Dungeoneering, runecrafters now can utilise altar teleport tablets more efficiently. Players can now use the Runecrafting teleport tablets to teleport to the altars and use the ring to teleport to the bank in Daemonheim. It is one of the shortest routes to craft all kinds of runes.
Besides the Law runes, teleport tablets and water runes, players will also need a Staff of Air and a Tiara of their choice to save air runes inventory space. Water runes will not be required when crafting in the Water altar. Fill in the rest of the inventory with rune or pure essence.
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