Lobster



A Lobster is a type of fish that players can use as food. They are considered to be one of the most popular healing foods in the game, especially on free-to-play servers, because they heal 12 hitpoints each and can easily be caught in bulk.

Back in RuneScape Classic, the colouration of the lobster was actually the wrong way around. Raw lobsters were a bright red colour when caught, and turned a deep brown when cooked. It was not until the implementation of the "RS2" upgrade that it was fixed.

Catching lobsters
Players require level 40 Fishing to catch lobsters, but doing so yields 90 experience points. Lobsters can be caught at any cage/harpoon fishing spot with a lobster pot.

On free-to-play severs, lobsters can be caught in northern Karamja near the banana plantation. They can also be caught in the north eastern corner of the Wilderness, but this is not recommended because a bank is far away, and the risk of being attacked by revenants renders it useless. Thus, it is usually deserted.

For members, lobsters can be caught at in Catherby, Relleka, and Jatizso. Players may also fish for lobsters in the Fishing Guild, but they need at least level 68 Fishing to enter.

Lobsters as food
Players require level 40 Cooking to cook a lobster, and gain 120 cooking experience. Players can eat a cooked lobster to recover 12 hitpoints.

Free-to-play popularity
Lobsters are popular to free-to-play players for training and were previously often used for player killing too. They are only the fourth highest-healing food available to non-members, after anchovy pizzas (at 18 hp) meat pizzas (at 16 hp) and swordfish (at 14hp). However, they were still the most popular food for player-killing, due to their lower price and the fact that they can easily be collected in bulk. More wealthy players will use lobsters while training on monsters as well.

It is also common for players to fish and cook lobsters on Karamja, use them to train on lesser demons in the dungeon and then repeat the cycle. Less wealthy players will find trout (7 hp) and salmon (9 hp) more cost-effective ways of training combat.

In free-to-play worlds, before the Grand Exchange was put up, lobsters were one of the most profitable commodities to players fishing for them as well as merchants in Edgeville. This is partly because Edgeville is the nearest town in the wilderness that has a bank where players of clan wars, player killers, and wilderness duelers prepare and these players are in need of food during battles. Traded in bulk, cooked lobsters could sell from 200 to 250 coins each and rarely can even sell for 300 coins each. Many players (buyers and sellers alike) were also scamming each other to profit even more. This practice died out when the Grand Exchange was set up Varrock and the december 10 updates (which puts up the 3000 coins trade limit difference between trading players, and the removal of player-killing feature in the wilderness).

Pay-to-play popularity
While lobsters are often used for training on pay-to-play servers, it is not recommended that they are used for player killing in Bounty Hunter. Instead, sharks or at least monkfish are recommended so that the player is not easily killed.

However, most members use lobsters for questing and training combat on low to medium-levelled NPCs.

Macros
Lobsters had been a popular item for macroers to produce, especially in free-to-play worlds at Karamja, because of the high demand of both raw and cooked lobsters, and they would sell for quite a good profit.

This was all changed by the "Trade and Drop Changes" game update on December 10 2007, which attempted to block all forms of real world trading from the game. As a result, lobster fishing macros are now rare.

Due to the disappearance of macros, the prices of raw lobsters begun to sky-rocket, rising to over 250 coins. After the release of the trading limit and the Grand Exchange, cost of lobsters are fixed at around 240 coins, which is still higher than the common prices in the past of 200 to 220 coins.

Scams
Players have been known to sell burnt lobsters as a "rare black lobster" for outrageous prices in the past. The term "rare black lobster" is now used as a term that makes fun of new players' gullibility.

Lobsters were also a target for the inventory scam, in which players are tricked into trading their inventory for some lobsters.