Runeology

Firstly you will never ever make money on outright buying Herblore. There is absolutely no way that you can make money with the GE now. This went downhill when Grimy Herbs were introduced, but the GE killed any profit after that update.

Herblore is easy, buy the first, buy the second, mix together, but there are ways to minimize losses. Buy at lowest, sell at highest times. Current prices quoted are current GE Prices. Prices subject to change etc etc.

The first thing is to decide just what level you want. Do you want 99? or are you looking for perhaps sara brew level, or ranging potions. Then you need to decide if you want it fast, or are happier to slow down and collect, or grow either firsts or seconds thus saving GeePees, and in some cases even making money.

Growing herbs can make herblore into profits, but it depends on your average crop yield versus the cost of the seeds. A quick example is Snapdragons. They make the potion Super Restore(3). So the cost of the seed is 28.3k per herblore patch. The herbs themselves sell for 6.8k each as clean herbs. So on average you need to get 4.1 herbs from the patch. Most give a yield of 5 minimum per patch, but zero if they die. More patches you grow, the more you can break down the average.
So lets say you got 6 from that one seed you then buy a vial of water, and the second to the herb (which is red spider eggs) and make up a Super Restore and then sell it at medium price on the Ge. Your total cost is 4717+454 (that's 4717 for the cost of the herb, and 454 is the cost of spider eggs and the vial) you sell at 5,412, your profit is actually 241 per pot. It's worth considering if you want to cover two skills in one, and don't want a huge loss whilst not minding a long wait to your level.

For the rest of this, we're assuming you're buying everything.

Consider now whether you want to do two actions per pot make, or one. Two being herb -> Vial of Water then 2nd - > unf pot and one being 2nd -> unf pot. Doing two actions reduces the loss more than doing one action. The choice is upto you. Most of my herblore levels came from two actions, although I did switch to doing one action the last few levels for laziness /wink.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=";)" border="0" alt="wink.gif" /> Whilst you can usually get unf pots at the minimum price, expect to increase the loss per pot a fair amount by buying unf's.

Prospective losses:

Surprisingly the pot with the less loss per pot is not always the best pot to make. Because you might need to make more of them, therefore increasing the loss even more. We'll assume you're going for 73 from level 66, as I'm sure you can find your way to 66 easily.
Commonly before the GE most people made super defence potions straight to 99, but is this still the best way now? I chose level 66 to do these comparisons from and I'll do a comparison for 73-83 (81 being sara brews), then 81 to 99.

In these comparisons we assume that you buy everything at mid, and sell at mid too, for these examples I will only cover 2 actions. Those being herb -> vial, unf -> pot.

Potion	Loss per Pot	Pots Req	Overall Loss 66 - 73
Prayer Potion	637	5,676	3,615,612
Super Strength Potion	1,235	3,974	4,907,890
Super Stat Restore Potion	1594	3,486	5,556,684
Super Defence Potion	1,289	3,311	4,267,879

So Prayer potions is by far the cheapest to make to get from 66 to 73, but you make a lot more of them. I'd suggest at looking at either super strength potions, or super defence potions. A reasonable loss compared to the number of pots you make. Currently super defence potions are favourable due to the pvp update, but they are not a popular potion usually and I found the loss to hover around 1500-1600 each. This would need to be checked if you decide to do them.

Now lets assume you are going from 73 which is ranging potions. this adds in a new potion to consider.

Potion	Loss per Pot	Pots Req	Overall Loss 73 - 81
Prayer Potion	637	14,285	9,099,545
Super Strength Potion	1,235	9,600	11,856,000
Super Stat Restore Potion	1594	8,421	13,423,074
Super Defence Potion	1,289	8,000	10,312,000
Ranging Potion	1,489	7,385	10,996,265

Okay, as you can see Prayer Potions are still the cheapest by 1.3M comparing them against super defence potions. But the downside is you make 6.2k more potions. This makes them unfavourable now. Consider doing ranging potions for a slightly bigger loss. Again Super defence potions are pretty favourable at this time, but expect the prices to change and the loss to climb. I'd recommend switching to Ranging potions for level 73-81.

Lets add in Saradomin Brews for 81-99.

Potion	Loss per Pot	Pots Req	Overall Loss 81 - 99
Prayer Potion	637	123,905	78,927,485
Super Strength Potion	1,235	86,733	107,115,255
Super Stat Restore Potion	1594	76,082	121,274,708
Super Defence Potion	1,289	72,278	93,166,342
Ranging Potion	1,489	66,718	99,343,102
Saradomin Brew	1,858	60,232	111,911,056

That 78.9m loss looks rather inviting doesn't it? Except consider that you are doing almost 124k pots. If you are not starting from unfinished potions thats almost 250k actions you will need to make. If you have the time to do that, great! It's worth doing, but for most people that number of actions takes prayer potions totally out of the equation.

Super restore potions are out of the equation too, due to being the most expensive loss.

Worthy pots to make from 81 are Super Defence Potions again, however the action between Ranging potions and Sup Defs are the equivalent of 11k more actions (5560 more pots), so this makes Ranging Potions a worthy candidate from 81. With a loss of just under 6m this is an acceptable extra loss for less potions.

To conclude all the way from 66 herblore the potion that is the less loss out of them all (and one that will sell, and that you can buy 1st's and 2nd's for easily), is Prayer Potions. I don't recommend these however.

For the next best loss (!) Super Defence Potions are recommended. However consider Ranging Potions from level 73. This is a reasonable additional loss, without having to go through more pot making. To get 99 herblore from level 73 you would need to make 80,277 super defence potions. To get it on Ranging Potions you need to make 74,102, 6.1k less, with an extra loss on top amount of about 7m.

The interesting thing about herblore is that the price is so subjective to time. It's subject to updates, good, or bad. Right at this moment Super Defence potions are the best way to get 99 herblore, however when I was getting 99 herblore the loss on Super Defence Potions actually made them unfavourable. PVP worlds coming has affected them, and actually made them worth more. Whether that will last beyond a month or two, who knows? Sara Brews are also taking a hit, and I found that the levels before 97-98, and 98-99 the loss was roughly 1600.

I will revisit this guide in a month or two and recalculate on Super Defences and sara brews, because of the PVP update having had a big effect on potions, but I would say to get 99 herblore right now look at prayer potions to 66, super defences to 73, then decide on ranging potions, or super defences to 99.

You should not rely on my calculations, alone, because they are all mid priced. A good example of this is my last two levels and Ranging Potions. I was frequently having to buy Wines Of Zamorak at max price to get them in at all, or get them in at a reasonable speed. This bumped up the costs. As I switched between Ranging and Saras to try and minimise losses, this also meant that I was buying toadflax unf's at max, nests at just a touch below medium, and selling brews at the bottom end of lowest-mid img src="http://www.runeology.org/forums/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad.gif" />

Which ever way you intend on doing it, I hope your pockets are deep. Current Guestimated loss from 66-99 is standing at 107.7m on Sup Defences, or doing mixed Sup Def's and Ranging from 73 is 114.6m

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