Evil Tree



Evil Tree is a members-only part of Distractions and Diversions, released on 25 February 2009. This event can be done twice a day and helps players train their Woodcutting, Firemaking, and Farming skills. Most trees appear in waves every two hours, however trees still appear between waves, though it is at a much slower rate.

It is suggested that players join a clan chat dedicated to finding evil trees, as they are easier to find in groups rather being alone. These clan chats can easily be found by searching 'evil tree' on the Runescape forums.

 Warning:  If players interact with a tree at any stage of development including farming it as a sapling, it counts as one of their trees for the day - even if they do not have the required levels to chop or burn it. So even if a player receives no reward, it still counts as one of the maximum two daily trees. The counter resets daily at 00:00 GMT. However, players must LOG OUT before it resets their clock. Right clicking to inspect a full grown tree and check its health DOES NOT count as one of the daily interactions.



Skill Requirements

 * {|width="650" class="wikitable"

!colspan="2"|Evil Tree !Woodcutting Level !Farming Level !Firemaking Level
 * Normal Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:Normal_tree.gif|Normal Evil Tree]]
 * 1
 * 1
 * 1
 * Oak Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:Oak_tree.gif|Oak Evil Tree]]
 * 15
 * 7
 * 15
 * Willow Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:Willow_tree.gif|Willow Evil Tree]]
 * 30
 * 15
 * 30
 * Maple Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:eviltreemaple.png|100px|Maple Evil Tree]]
 * 45
 * 22
 * 45
 * Yew Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:Yew_tree.gif|Yew Evil Tree]]
 * 60
 * 30
 * 60
 * Magic Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:eviltreemagic.png|100px|Magic Evil Tree]]
 * 75
 * 37
 * 75
 * Elder Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:Elder_tree.gif|Elder Evil Tree]]
 * 85
 * 42
 * 85
 * }
 * Elder Evil Tree
 * align="center"|[[Image:Elder_tree.gif|Elder Evil Tree]]
 * 85
 * 42
 * 85
 * }
 * }

Item Requirements
These are items that are necessary for killing an Evil Tree:
 * Any hatchet (the higher, the better) to chop the tree. Machetes (including opal, jade, or red-topaz bladed ones, obtained from the Tai-Bwo Wannai Cleanup or bought in the Grand Exchange) can also be used, they work better than axes at cutting Evil tree roots (a Red topaz machete is better than a Rune hatchet for cutting the tree's roots, but not for cutting the tree itself). The game will automatically make you use a machete while cutting the roots if it is better than your axe.
 * A tinderbox to set the tree on fire.
 * Note that the leprechaun will give you a free hatchet and tinderbox; however, it will only be a Bronze hatchet and fairly ineffective at cutting the higher level trees. Bringing a tinderbox will save time if you intend to burn the tree, but this is not a requirement, and full reward can be received without one.

In addition, completion of Tree Gnome Village is strongly advised for the farming experience. Without the quest, finding a sapling will be very hard, unless you have friends who are willing to tell you its location.

Hints and signs
Evil trees are spawned similarly to Shooting Stars. Evil trees, however, spawn across Runecape worlds nearly constantly, with each world being 2 hours from the death of the last evil tree. They do not appear in waves. Different worlds spawn trees at different times, so it is possible for players to cut a tree on one world, then switch worlds to cut another. Please note, a player can only cut two evil trees a day. Be sure to find an Evil Tree that requires the best of your Woodcutting and Firemaking abilities to maximise the outcome of your rewards.

Evil Trees first appear as a sapling, which can be nurtured by players for farming XP. After a short while, typically a few minutes, the sapling will grow into a full Evil Tree. Players can tell that an Evil Tree or sapling is nearby because roots will shoot out of the ground near any player walking close to the tree. These roots can appear more than 10 paces away from the actual tree, and sometimes will appear in the general area of the tree, some examples being the Ape Atoll agility course, when the tree was in the south of Ape Atoll, on top of White Wolf Mountain when the tree was near the Dark Wizards' Tower, and south of the Seers Village church, when the tree was in McGrubor's wood.

Players who have completed Tree Gnome Village have their Evil Tree hunting made much easier with the use of Spirit Trees. Spirit Trees will do two things to aid players. Firstly they will tell you where you can find saplings. Their knowledge of human geography is limited, however, so they only give vague hints. The tree will only provide hints if a sapling is currently growing. If a sapling is not growing, as of 17 March 2009, the spirit trees will tell you how long until the next sapling sprouts. When a sapling is going to sprout in 5 minutes or less, the spirit tree says "Another strange sapling is about to sprout."

The second way that spirit trees will aid players in hunting Evil Trees is, when a sapling becomes an evil tree, the spirit tree will teleport the player directly to the tree, but only if they have not reached the limit of 2 Evil Trees per day. This does not count as interacting with the tree, so it will not use up one of your two opportunities for the day. There is no way, however, to teleport back to where you came from, and players must make their own way back to civilization. However, if the Evil Tree has sprouted in a location that has a Quest Requirement to get to, you will not be able to teleport there. In some cases you can still walk there by foot if the quest is partially completed. For example, you may travel to Ape Atoll by means of the quest but the Spirit Tree will not teleport you there.

Evil tree Development
After sprouting, an evil tree must undergo four developmental stages before it is fully grown. Unfortunately, all evil tree saplings are visually identical.

During this time, players may "nurture" it, aquiring farming experience after each stage is completed. Nurturing an evil tree requires no items, just a farming level high enough to do so. Also, nurturing an evil tree makes your daily quota decrease by one, even if you don't cut the tree after it has developed.

It is possible to guess the type of Evil Tree you are nuturing by the number of farming experience points you gain as the tree grows from one size to another. See Experience later in this article for farming xp provided by each type of tree. The problem is, once you begin nurturing a tree, it counts as one of your 2 for the day, even if the subsequent tree is beyond your levels once it's grown.

Killing an Evil Tree


When confronting an Evil Tree, it shakes wildly, lashing out its branches. Evil Trees cannot deal any damage, but the roots may stun people. Players should start off by chopping the Evil Tree.

Periodically, a root will shoot out from the ground. If players are standing on top of an area where a root shoots out, they will automatically dive out of the way. Cutting the root down does not increase your reward percentage, however the player will receive an Evil tree kindling. The kindling may be used to set the tree on fire with a tinderbox. A player can set up to eight fires around the tree, one on in the middle of each side, and one on each corner.

In terms of rewards gain, it is best to light fires early, when the tree is still healthy, since the fires do damage over time (and the rewards are based on the damage done). Lighting all 8 fires can take quite a while, since the Evil Tree sprouts roots which block your progress. Because of this, if the Tree is almost dead, a player would be better off chopping the tree rather than trying to light fires. This is, of course, assuming the player does not desire Firemaking XP, and wants only to maximise their rewards % gain.

The mechanics of the tree's health and reward systems are not fully known, so many theories about them are unproven. Some of the theories/rumors are:
 * That lighting fires around the evil tree will result in a lower reward percentage for everyone other than the player who lit them, because doing so shortens the tree's life span.
 * That trees will stay up for a minimum time period regardless of their remaining health. This allegedly is the cause of evil trees which remain standing well after their health reaches 0%.
 * That the tree will remain standing until 3 people reach a 100% reward, even if the trees health is at 0%(this statement conflicts with the statement above).

Locations with hints

 * See Distractions and Diversions Locations for more information.

Hints are given by Spirit trees when an evil tree is a strange sapling just before it grows into an evil tree.

These are the 27 possible tree locations:

NOTE: All hints lead to at least 2 locations.

Experience

 * When the tree is still a sapling, Farming experience can be gained for nurturing it. No items are required to do this.
 * When the tree is fully grown, chopping the roots and the tree itself gains Woodcutting experience.
 * When a root vanishes, the player gains Evil tree kindlings, which can be used on the tree to set fire to a part of the tree. This awards Firemaking experience.

Note: the Ring of fire, Flame gloves and lumberjack clothing give no additional experience, and the Inferno Adze will not automatically light any kindling received.


 * {|class="wikitable"

!rowspan="2"|Evil Tree !colspan="4"|Experience !Nurturing !Firemaking !Chopping roots !Chopping tree
 * Normal
 * 20
 * 200
 * 3
 * 15.1
 * Oak
 * 45
 * 300
 * 6.5
 * 32.5
 * Willow
 * 66
 * 450
 * 9
 * 45.5
 * Maple
 * 121
 * 675
 * 11
 * 55
 * Yew
 * 172.5
 * 1,112.5
 * 12.5
 * 64
 * Magic
 * 311
 * 1,517.5
 * 15
 * 71
 * Elder
 * 687.5
 * 2,000.5
 * 17
 * 77.8
 * }
 * Elder
 * 687.5
 * 2,000.5
 * 17
 * 77.8
 * }
 * }

Additional rewards

 * If you didn't receive your reward from your previous Evil Tree, the next time you attempt to chop your Evil Tree, the leprechaun will stop you and give you your reward (you must have enough inventory space to do this). This only applies to the "Chop" option on the Evil Tree, chopping roots and other activities might not trigger the action for the leprechaun to give you your reward.
 * You can sell the Evil tree kindling to the leprechaun for 25 coins each, or choose to keep the kindlings to be used in future Evil trees (there is no difference between kindlings from each type of Evil tree, i.e kindlings that came from Evil Oak trees can be used to light Evil Yew trees).
 * Players may see their reward earned so far, and the remaining health of the tree by using the "Inspect" option.
 * Players can get the following items from the evil tree as a reward:
 * Noted logs of the same type as the tree (Note: Elder trees offer noted Yew, Magic, Teak or Mahogany logs)
 * Bird's nest - holds rings, tree or fruit tree seeds, or a bird's egg.
 * Level 1 Clue scroll
 * Key halves
 * Coins
 * Tree seeds
 * Fruit Tree Seeds
 * Can keep and bank Evil tree kindling for quick burning of the next tree you see
 * Significantly reduced chance of a tree being felled when a log is harvested
 * Significantly increased chance of having birds' nests fall out of trees during the time you have the log teleport magic.
 * Ability to have logs "magically escorted" to the players bank while Woodcutting if their inventory is full for 2-30 minutes.
 * This ability is ONLY active for Normal, Oak, Willow, Maple, Yew, and Magic trees.
 * Message: The leprechaun snaps their fingers, and you are granted a magical log-banking ability for the next x minutes.
 * If no room in bank: Your bank is too full to hold any more logs.
 * This works on all trees including normal trees, so players may collect more than one (or two with Seers' headband) from each tree.
 * This works on all trees including normal trees, so players may collect more than one (or two with Seers' headband) from each tree.

Log teleportation


Players wishing to take advantage of this feature should consider cutting trees which yield logs very fast. Logs cut, when having a full inventory, end up in your bank. The most efficient trees to chop for Woodcutting experience for the duration of the reward are Willow trees. Some of the best places to make use of the automatic banking are:


 * Willow trees outside Crafting Guild or Fishing Guild (using Skills Necklace)
 * Willow trees near the Lady of the Lake in Taverley (using Balloon transport system)
 * Willow trees near the Lumbridge Lake (Home Teleport)
 * Willow trees to the north of Seers Bank (Camelot Teleport)
 * Willow trees south of Draynor Village Bank (Amulet of Glory Teleport or Cabbage Port using explorer's ring 3)

Logging out pauses the remaining log teleportation time.

It is worth noting that the 'escorted log' animation is only seen by their respective player. You will never see the animation on another player with "auto-banking", only on yourself.

Maximum rewards
The following table shows the maximum reward possible (if 100% of the reward is achieved - a lower percentage reduces the rewards accordingly):

There is evidence that the number of noted logs you receive is based on their current market price. The total value of the noted logs is approximately 3 times the amount of gold coins you get.


 * {|class="wikitable"

!Evil Tree !Logs !Gold coins !Duration of log teleportation 50 Yews or 18 Magic
 * Normal
 * 12
 * 159
 * 6 minutes
 * Oak
 * 34
 * 309
 * 10 minutes
 * Willow
 * 94
 * 565
 * 14 minutes
 * Maple
 * 91
 * 1,103
 * 18 minutes
 * Yew
 * 13
 * 2,228
 * 22 minutes
 * Magic
 * 10
 * 4,472
 * 26 minutes
 * Elder
 * 153 Teak or 58 Mahogany or
 * Magic
 * 10
 * 4,472
 * 26 minutes
 * Elder
 * 153 Teak or 58 Mahogany or
 * 153 Teak or 58 Mahogany or
 * 8,132
 * 30 minutes
 * }

Music
Music track unlocked:
 * Trees aren't your Friends

Trivia

 * On the day of release, a Server blackout occurred. The Grand Exchange Database page was also affected. Players saw items rising over 200,000% in a day, but the actual price of the items were intact.
 * When right-clicking the music track "Trees aren't your Friends" in the Music list and choosing the "Unlock hint" option, the hint will state "This track was unlocked during The Evil Tree minigame." This might be an indication that the Evil Tree distraction was intended to be a minigame at first. The Evil Tree is also under the Minigames index in the in-game woodcutting guide.
 * With the release of Evil Trees, pures who had completed Monkey Madness gained the ability to travel to Ape Atoll through an evil tree teleport without receiving the experience rewards from Daero. This bug prompted Jagex to simply allow players to return to Ape Atoll normally without claiming the experience reward.
 * Originally, spirit trees would only mention evil trees after the sprout had already appeared. It wasn't until a few weeks after the original release that they began to give information on how long it would take for the next evil tree to sprout.
 * If an Evil Tree takes too long to die, it then gets struck by lightning from whatever its health is; down to 50% if above 50%, if between 25% and 50%, then it will fall to 25% and then die on the third hit if it does not die in time. This also has a lightning sound effect to go along with it.