Free-to-play Runecrafting training

Runecrafting is a skill that has gained popularity in recent days, mainly due to the release of Runecrafting guild. In F2P worlds, runecrafting is straightforward to train, but it needs uses of resources and other skills, in some indirect ways. Runecrafting is only profitable at long run and a lot of cash and effort should be invested for training runecrafting efficiently.

Beginners
First thing to remember: Weight is vital to fast runecrafting. Second: Runecrafting would be disastrous to cash if used for power levelling. Below is a list of things a trainer should do before they can use runecrafting to make a living.

Rune Mysteries
Before starting to train runecrafting, the quest Rune Mysteries must be finished to gain access to the skill. A free air talisman is also given as gift from the quest, which can be useful for training Runecrafting afterward. A pickaxe is recommended to mine some essence just before the quest is completed. It would also be recommended to purchase a regular tiara, either from another player, the Grand Exchange, or crafted from silver bars (requires Crafting level 23 or higher and Smithing level 20 or higher if made from silver ore).

Mining Essence
Critical to training this skill is to have an ample supply of rune essence. This is the material which is used to create the magical runes used in this game. 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 two NPCs in a F2P world which will teleport you to this 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, near Draynor Village.

Of these, Aubury is the closest to a bank and is typically the NPC that most F2P users deal with when trying to mine essence.

Mining essence is a little bit different than mining normal ores, as you only have to click once on the essence stone to fill up your inventory, and multiple people can hit the same rock simultaneously. It is also something that can be done with a mining level of 1, but higher levels of experience will help you to extract the ore faster, as will more advanced pickaxes such as steel, mithril, adamant, and rune pickaxes. It is strongly recommended when extracting rune essence that you wield the pickaxe, as that gives you one extra slot in your inventory while hauling essence to the bank. 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 essence mine over time.

This can also be a useful way to train the lower levels of mining, as you don't 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 essence.

Grand Exchange
One alternative to mining your own rune essence is to simply purchase it from other players. Currently, rune essence can be purchased for 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 you chooses to use this method to obtain your essence.

The price of essence on the GE 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.

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 based on your runecrafting level, the price of essence, and how much you can sell the runes for on the GE. This can also fluctuate from day to day even if your character doesn't 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.

Tiaras
For beginning players, it is very useful to be able to bring as much rune essence as possible when crafting runes. One of the first things players ought to do when starting runecrafting is to purchase a tiara from either another player or from the Grand Exchange. These are produced in huge excess due to the relatively high number of crafting experience points gained from making this item. With the air talisman that is obtained from Duke Horacio, on the next trip to the air altar bring the talisman, the tiara, and extra essence (players are going to the altar anyway... might as well craft some runes). Click on the talisman first, and then click on the altar. When that happens, a player combines the talisman with the tiara, giving them 25 runecrafting experience points and a new item: an Air tiara.

From this point on, while players are crafting runes they can simply wear tiaras on their head. Players not only have an extra position in their inventory for bringing essence, but also have one fewer clicks to make when trying to enter into the air altar on subsequent trips. Other tiaras can also be made for other altars using their respective talismans. It should be noted that for every F2P talisman, players can also purchase the associated tiara for a much cheaper price on the Grand Exchange.

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. Many talismans, particularly body talismans (dropped by guards at Falador and Varrock... a common low-level training target and close to banks) sold almost as junk and most people couldn't even give them away. 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 point 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 with the introduction of the Runecrafting Guild brought considerable demand for these talismans, and player's discovery of this training method. Body talismans current sell on the Grand Exchange for coins each and Body tiaras, if you can sell them at all, only sell for  coins. A load of 14 body talismans and 14 tiaras will cost you 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 coins. Some players do have this kind of money, so it isn't completely unreasonable to power level in this manner, but this is expensive and consumes a huge amount amount of cash reserves.

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 via this skill) will require 692 trips in order earn the experience from level 20 to level 50. This is about 4x more time that players will have to spend training Runecrafting. 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 coins by training via Runecrafting.

Altar hints
For players who are power-leveling air runes to earn money while also earning experience while Runecrafting, it is strongly recommended that they complete all of the tasks of the Lumbridge and Draynor Diary in order to obtain the Explorer's ring 3. It is also recommended that when runecrafting to remove all of their armor and equipment (put it in the bank) 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 South-west of Falador south entrance and north of Malignius Mortifer. An air talisman or air tiara is needed to get in, and the closest direct bank is the Falador east bank.

Falador east bank
Most beginning players who train Runecrafting often begin by using the Faldor east bank. Travel is through the south entrance to Falador to the altar and back. This is tedious, but relaively uneventful, and sometimes you can pick up some little trinkets from players attacking the guards on the south gate or attacking the imp that sometimes show up in the area. Often there will also be players chopping down the Yew Trees that may make a few comments as you pass by. A musician can be found a little to the south-east of the air altar to help in recharging your run energy, but it is sufficiently out of the way to ignore most of the time when using this route.

Draynor Village
For players who have completed the Lumbridge and Draynor Diary, the option to save a few seconds on each trip to the bank exists by using the Cabbage teleport option of the gold Explorer's Ring. Combat level 10 or higher is recommended so you don't have to deal with the Highwayman who is found along this path. Starting at the Draynor Village bank with 28 essence, teleport to the cabbage field and run to the musician and click on "listen" to recharge your run energy. Travel to the air altar, but instead of clicking on the teleport disc to leave the air altar, simply use the cabbage teleport again to head back to Draynor Village.

Mind rune
Mind runes can be crafted upon reaching Runecrafting level 2 skills. The altar is located between the Goblin Village and the Black Knights' Fortress. To enter this alter, 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.

Falador West Bank
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 alter. While there are several creatures along this route, none of them are aggressive. Along the route, there is a musician that is about a third of the way between Falador and the Mind alter (closer to Falador). It is recommended that you "listen" to the musician when going both directions to recharge your run energy, and generally run both directions to maximize the production of runes.

Falador West Bank via teleport
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 alter.

While players can earn experience points faster using this method, F2P players can't craft Law runes, so you must either find those runes as monster drops or purchase them from other players. Law runes cost coins each, generally turning this into an unprofitable method of obtaining mind runes.

Edgeville
Another method for crafting mind runes is to use the bank in Edgeville and travel west along the edge of the wilderness ditch until you get to the point where the Black Knights' Fortress extends slightly into the wilderness. From here players have to cross the wilderness ditch, and run (it is not recommended to walk this route) to the other side of the fortress, which is where the mind alter 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 alter, 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 alter location, or along the route between the Mind alter 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 Barbarian Village
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 alter players can teleport using the Skull sceptre to the Barbarian Village and then travel back to Edgeville. After five trips to the Barbarian Village, the sceptre will have to be re-assembled with its pieces, if a player has all of the parts in their 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. 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 traveling to the water alter, it is also a task that few players actually engage in.

Crafting a water rune is also a task for the Lumbridge and Draynor Diary, so knowing how to craft runes at this alter efficiently is also useful even for this task.

Draynor Village
Beginning runecrafters will likely be using Draynor Village for their initial crafting of water runes. The location of the water alter is about half-way between Draynor Village and Lumbridge, on the south-central end of the Lumbridge Swamp.

Lumbridge via Teleport
Similar in nature to crafting mind runes from Falador, Lumbridge can serve as a destination for traveling more quickly to craft runes. It is suggested that a player select either an Earth staff or an Air staff, based on which rune type is in more demand. Typically players will be using an Air staff. On F2P worlds, you need to climb to the top of Lumbridge Castle in order to deposit your runes and retrieve new essence.

Earth rune
Earth runes can be crafted if 9 runecrafting is attained. The altar is located south of Lumberyard near a yew tree, North-east of Varrock east entrance. The closest bank is Varrock east bank, though it is also next by Aubury's magic shop. Earth runes are profitable in long run and can minimise loss from bought rune essences. One may stay at earth runecrafting until 30 runecrafting. Either mining essence at Aubury's site or withdrawing the essence can be selected as methods to train runecrafting by this method. Remember the musician in between the altar and shop can be used to rapidly replentish the energy. you get 6.5 xp per rune essence or 183 per trip if u have a talisman in your inventory.

Fire rune
Fire runes can be crafted if 14 runecrafting is attained. The altar is located west of Duel arena, the closest bank being in the arena. Though with similar distance in trips as earth runecrafting, fire runes are experience-oriented and impossible to make profit, though fire runes can be used for fire missile spells. Duelling in the arena takes time, but can reward with completely replenished running energy. One may stay at fire runecrafting until 30 runecrafting. Rune essence must be already stored in bank to use this method.

Body rune
Body runes can be crafted if 20 runecrafting is attained. The altar is located west of long hall in Barbarian village, the closest bank being the Edgeville bank. Body runes give the best experience among all the runes without use of runecrafting gloves, has similar trip distance as earth runecrafting trip but not recommended. It is because body runes are sold as very low price and are nearly useless, except for mage pures than can make use of combination of earth and body runes, along with water staff, to train magic without hitpoint increase. Should one decide to train by crafting body runes, they should stop at level 30.

Runecrafting gloves
Many may wonder why level 30 is often mentioned to stop the original methods. This is because of the runecrafting gloves the minigame 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. 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 assisters. The power levelling cost is very large even with this 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:

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 with the results tabulated clearly in here.. For example, if the runecrafter has 37 crafting and his offer price is 3000 coins, the net loss per essence would be 12 =, rendering a power levelling loss of  gp per XP.

Water runecrafting gloves
This kind of gloves can be worn at 20 runecrafting, giving 12 experience per essence crafted. Generally speaking, water runecrafting gloves should not be bought because water runecrafting trip is not as efficient as earth runecrafting trip.

Earth runecrafting gloves
This 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.

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. Runecrafting gloves may also be used in the game, 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 and 3 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 minigame, 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 minigame. This can make runecrafting much faster as they teleport you right outside the altar. It works good with body altar tabs. Take the same amount of varrock teleports and Body altar teletabs, this will provide fast Runecrafting experience.

Explorer's ring
Explorer's ring 2 gives a 10% chance of crafting an extra rune per essence and also extra experience, only when crafting elemental runes, and do not stack with other bonus. For example, if you have 54 runecrafting, you will craft 3.1 erath runes for each essence at average, although the experience is only 1.1 times the crafting of earth runes. The Explorer's ring 3 gives infinite teleports to the Draynor cabbage patch, which can shorten time for travelling between air altar and Draynor bank.

Weight consideration and Musician position
Difference between 0kg and 1kg is not important in some conditions like water runecrafting trips, but vital in others like earth runecrafting trips. However, some trips is easily available to musicians, who can rapidly replentish energy, causing the weight possible to be larger for keeping running. For absense of musician it is adviced to have zero weight but a few kilograms is acceptable for presense of musician.

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.