Talk:Spicy stew

Firemaking
Just checked that orange spicy stew affects firemaking even though the knowledge base has it listed under Brown. Chrislee33 16:53, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Brown spicy stew does not affect firemaking. Makes sense as firemaking is a manual skill rather than an earth skill. I have submitted this as a KB bug error to RS. Seems all the other fansite guides just got this info from the KB instead of actually using the stew. Chrislee33 23:12, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Skill gain or loss
Is the +6 Bonus extremely rare or something? I've gone through over 100 spicy stews with 3 doses of orange spice with the hopes of boosting my 89 construction to 95 for a steel dragon yet each time it never boosts more than 5. Tydude187 02:06, 28 October 2008


 * 1 in 30 chance of getting a +6 boost using a spicy stew. 1 in 10 chance of getting a +5 boost. u must just be unlucky not to have got a +6 boost after 100 stews.--Teblin1 16:49, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
 * It appears that the +5 boost is quite common but that the +6 boost is so rare that the effort of trying to obtain it is out of all proportion to any benefit it is likely to give. See my comment further down. --Clokwerk o 05:19, April 3, 2010 (UTC)

Degrade Time?
Can someone please post how long this effect takes to degrade? Does it wear off like a normal boost, one point every few minutes, or does it stop all at once?

Jimindc 18:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

It wears off like a normal boost. 17:29, April 11, 2010 (UTC)Shorty George

The write-up may be wrong: doesn't seem cumulative
If you drink a spicy stew to get a +4 bonus, for instance, drinking a 1-spice stew doesn't seem to ever do anything. This write-up implies that the bonuses would stack, rising or falling. They seem to only fall.

Can someone confirm that you can get, say, a +2 bonus from eating a single-spice stew, then raise that to +4 by eating another single-spice stew? That what this article implies. Nerlone 01:16, April 10, 2010 (UTC)


 * You can't do that, the boost doesn't stack. Btw it's eating not drinking -- 08:55, April 10, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi @Nerlone, when I rewrote the article I took great care to explain that rising boosts don't stack. Obviously when you read the article you thought it said exactly the opposite but I can't see what I did wrong. Perhaps other people are being misled too. Can I suggest the best thing is for you to make an edit to the article yourself so that you feel it says rising boosts doesn't stack? Clokwerk o 15:29, May 8, 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, I also understood from this article that the boost are cumulative. But I can't fix it, because if the boosts don't stack, then I have no idea what you meant at all when making that table about eating multiple stews. And saying that when new boost added to current boost exceed the maximum boost, it's ignored. Otherwise added. That sounds like describing a cumulative effect to me... --RoSe-BuSTeR 09:48, May 19, 2010 (UTC)

6 in all skills?
Does the +6 affect the skills so they add up to 6 or, for example, 6 go into herblore and 6 go into farming so it's 66/60 for farming and 66/60 for herblore? --Ofgs3 05:51, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * you can have +6 in more than one skill but not from drinking one 3 dose stew. Mojohaza1 11:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you can, but it's rare. But hey, getting +6 in óne skill is already rare, so in two skills would be very rare. . 12:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Spicy Stew Wearing Off
Must you wait for spicy stew to wear off before trying another dose?

Sea

How rare is the +6 boost?
I'm currently at 457 stews used and 29 +5 boosts, but still no +6 boost. At least not in the skill I want, I did get a +6 boost in runecrafting but none in smithing yet. Am I doing something wrong or am I just really unlucky?--[dj] 19:13, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * Each dose of spicy stew has 5 possible outcomes: -2, -1, +0, +1, and +2. As such there's a $$\frac{1}{5}$$ chance of one dose to give you +2. The chances of all 3 doses giving you +2 (+6 total) are $$\frac{1}{5} * \frac{1}{5} * \frac{1}{5} = \frac{1}{125}$$. That doesn't mean however that after 125 tries you're guaranteed a +6 boost. Far from it actually. The point is, I think your time would be better spent getting one more level and making use of a +5 boost. 19:31, October 24, 2009 (UTC)
 * It appears that the +5 boost is quite common but that the +6 boost is so rare that the effort of trying to obtain it is out of all proportion to any benefit it is likely to give. See my comment further down. --Clokwerk o 05:19, April 3, 2010 (UTC)

+4 boost
If i need a +4 boost, do u reccomend using 3 spicy stews or 2 spice stews?


 * i recommend using just 2 20:48, December 29, 2009 (UTC)
 * Going by the figures i've just posted, definitely 3 doses. With 3 doses you have a 2/11 chance, so on average you'll need 16.5 doses to get your boost. With 2 doses you have a 1/9 chance, so on average you'll need 18 doses, which is slightly more expensive. But as well as that, the 3-dose stew has a higher success rate per stew which means lower volatility, i.e. less risk, what you probably care about is not how many +4s you get, but whether you get any +4s, and with the safer 3-dose option your chance of drawing a big fat zero is less. Finally, this may or may not matter to you depending on why you want the stew, but with the 3-dose option there is a 50-50 chance that when you get your +4 it will actually be a +5, which means that even if you only needed +4 you will have that +4 for two minutes instead of one as your skill level decays back to normal. --Clokwerk o 05:26, April 3, 2010 (UTC)

+5 Herblore
Can a stew be used to get from 80 to 85 herblore and quickly make some super anti fires? I think it's possible, but do you need 85 herblore to use the potion or just make it?
 * A stew spiced with Brown spice can temporary boots/lower your Herblore up to 6 levels 18:47, January 18, 2010 (UTC)

+3 boost
After crunching some numbers, i came to the conclusion that a +3 boost is twice as common in a 3 dose stew as in a 2 dose stew. It might be worth it to mention this. This is because in a 2 dose you have 3/25 posibilities to get +3 (also including +4 thus) and in a 3 dose stew this is 20/125, which is higher.

+5 and +4 boost probabilities
what is the probability of reciving a +5 or +4 boost in a skill if 3 doses of stew are used?

+6 boost is rare or nonexistent
I've just given this page a big overhaul, but the most important thing I've done is to correct the probabilities of each boost, especially the one people care about the most - the +6 boost! I noticed that for some reason, the page just assumes the boost for 3-dose stew is the sum of three separate +2 to -2 boosts, but I knew otherwise as I'd tested this with 200 trials in 2007. I ran another big test today with 125 trials and got just the same results as last time, so nothing's changed. I want to post my results so other people can agree or disagree with the pretty dramatic change I've made and use or pick holes in my figures if they want. It's important, because the corrected figures show that collecting spices is a lot more worthwhile than previously thought. I have a total of 225 trials of 3-dose stew based on a +0 starting point. Note the phenomenon I mentioned in the article about how any result that would have taken you over the max boost the stew can give is replaced with a nil boost? Because of this, any trial with a starting point higher than +0 boost will give biased results. So I only include the results starting at +0. From -6 to +6, the frequencies of each of the 13 expected outcomes were: 0, 22, 16, 18, 25, 20, 35, 14, 16, 15, 17, 27, 0. I think it's pretty obvious from this that there is no +6 or -6 boost. I note that someone above did say he got a +6 out of 457 stews (457 stews meaning up to 2700 samples, if a stew can affect 6 skills?) I assume he means he only saw a single +6. It seems odd to me when the range is obvioously -5 to +5, that a single +6 would appear out of nowhere, but I can't explain this single +6 except that I would ask the guy (nicely!) if he is sure whether he definitely saw it. However perhaps there's another explanation: Looking at those results, the -5, 0 and +5 seem significantly more common than the others. It would need a much bigger sample to verify, but I wonder if there is some rounding, overflow or other artefact in JaGEx's formula for the stew boost that is causing half of the +6 and -6 results to be converted to +5 and -5, and the rest converted to zero? Just an idea... --Clokwerk o 05:53, April 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * I can confirm that i have had a 6+ boost on multiple occasions before to boost construction,So i can confirm it is possible for a 6+ boost.Battleben 12:08, May 4, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's really unexpected, but I'm glad you posted it. I guess we need to ask ourselves what's different about the circumstances you got the boost in, e.g. do you have a very high Construction level perhaps? Can you confirm you definitely saw your skill showing 6 points higher e.g. 80/74 or 73/67 on the skills tab? And roughly how many stews did you have to try to get all these +6 boosts? Clokwerk o 15:34, May 8, 2010 (UTC)


 * How long ago did you receive the boosts? I used to use them all the time (a couple times a week) for construction. Most of my house is built of +6 bonuses from spicy stews. About 2 years ago, after an update, I was unable to get +6 from spicy stews. I used to get about a 1 in 13 chance (guesstimated) but since the update I have never received a +6. I wrote to jagex about it, but they fobbed me off, clearly thinking I was just someone having trouble getting a +6 after trying 1 or 2 stews. My hundreds of stews experience would beg to differ. If there was a change in the probability, I’d be happy to know about it, but I’ve seen no such announcement, so I believe that someone has missed a +1, a -1 in a formula (I know how easy it is in probability calculations, I do them all the time for my own programs)
 * I would be very happy if this was returned to the original probability, or if there was some acknowledgment that there has been a deliberate change in the probabilities. Until then, I will be annoyed.


 * The other thing that bugs me about the stew is the firemaking (and possibly others I haven't tested). Why give us a firemaking boost at all if it doesn't do anything. Try it. Get a firemaking boost from orange stew and try lighting a fire between your normal level and your new one. I have tried the beacons and the new everburning fire from a fairy tale part 3. For some reason, the code always checks your base level, not your modified level. It just doesn't make sense

Loqk 16:26, May 13, 2010 (UTC)

Is +5 more common then+2?
I need 65 herblore for the quest "While Guthix Sleeps", and there's been a lot of talk about a +5 boost actually being the most common? So should I get level 63 for a +2 or level 60 for +5?