Free-to-play Smithing training

Smithing in Free to play worlds can be a somewhat tedious skill to train. This is due to the low yield of experience per item smithed when smelting or having to use make items with single bars. Although a very distinct power levelling method is possible, it sacrifices large amounts of money in contrast to its money-earning nature. Many players give up on training to higher levels due to being satisfied by the profit gained at lower levels. Below is a guide on how to train Smithing effectively and discussion about balance between experience and profit.

One of the best methods that strikes a balance between experience rate and profit is banking the ore from mining (for mining XP + magic XP if Teleporting), Superheating the ore at a bank (Smithing and Magic XP) and then Smithing at Varrock West Bank (Smithing XP).

Bashing things with a hammer (as opposed to smelting) is by the far the fastest for gaining XP. The items that use the most bars (e.g. Platebody) will give the fastest experience rate. For example, it takes 1 minute to smith 25 iron daggers whereas it only takes 15 seconds to smith 5 Platebodies. Both of these examples yield 625 experience.

Experience Gained Per Bar

 * The number of bars refers to how many bars it takes to produce an item. For example, it takes 1 bar to make a dagger and it takes 5 bars to make a Platebody.
 * The XP refers to how much experience you receive per bar, not per item. So you would receive 5 times this much experience for making a Platebody which requires 5 bars.
 * For Spears/Hastas you receive the same experience as smithing something which requires two bars. For instance, a steel Hasta would give you the same experience as a steel scimitar.

Beginners
Below is a list of things for players to do before they can power level themselves effectively or even make some modest profit.

Knight's Sword
Knight's Sword is a free-to-play quest which gives 12,725 Smithing experience upon completion. If you were to complete this quest at level 1 you would immediately achieve level 29. This is ideal as it allows the player to start making profit or faster experience from steel with very little effort required. The only downside to the quest is that you have to be capable of defending from Ice Warriors whilst mining the blurite ore.

Level 1-14
For beginners not willing to complete Knight's Sword, they can only smelt and smith bronze. There are two main methods available for you at this point. You can either mine the required ore, smelt it and smith it into bronze weaponry, or you can buy the required ore on the Grand Exchange, smelt it and sell it back on the Grand Exchange for profit.

Mining, Smelting and Smithing.

There are two mines which are best suited to mining the ore which you require.
 * East Varrock Mine
 * West Varrock Mine

Once you are at the mine you will want to mine an equal number of Copper Ore and Tin Ore. If you are unsure which rocks are copper ore tin, right click on them and click "prospect".

If you are able to wield your pickaxe you should be able to mine 14 of each ore. If not, you will be able to collect 13 of each ore.

'''Buying, Smelting and Selling. (Recommended for profit and experience) '''

To use this method you have to have a reasonable amount of money (ideally 50k or more) to begin with.
 * First of all, you need to go to the Grand Exchange and buy an equal number of Copper Ore and Tin Ore.
 * You then need to travel to Al-Kharid for the smelting stage. You will withdraw 14 Copper Ore and 14 Tin Ore from the bank. You will then walk to the nearby Furnace and smelt 14 Bronze Bars.
 * You will then travel back to the grand exchange and sell the Bronze Bars for profit (as well as faster experience at this level).

Due to the high demand for Bronze Bars for people power-levelling smithing, you can make a large profit marging from buying the ore. The only downside to this method is the slow experience rate. However, at this stage it actually works out quicker than if you were to mine the ore, smelt it and smith it.

Level 15-29
Profitable Method:

One method for raising smithing at this point is to smelt Iron Bars from Iron Ore. This yields faster experience than bronze as well as larger profits margins. However, there is not a 100% success rate with Iron. The success rate for iron is 50% when you are level 15, however the success rate for smithing iron increases 1% everytime you level past 15, maxing out at level 45 with 80%.

Faster Methods:

Another method is to buy Iron Bars on the Grand Exchange and smith them into Iron weaponry at Varrock West Bank. This method is greatly faster than the method above but unfortunately consumes a very large amount of money in the process.

The magic spell Superheat Item (which you can cast at level 43 magic) allows you to always successfully smelt iron. The downside to this method is the cost of the runes to cast the spell, which make it unprofitable.

Level 30-50
Level 30-50 At level 30 you unlock the ability to smelt Steel Bars which is a very common method for raising smithing in Free-to-play. The reason behind this is that you can make money faster than most other Free-to-play money making methods.

Profitable Method

If you want to make a profit from smithing at this stage you should be smelting Steel Bars. To do this you need the following:
 * 1 Iron Ore


 * 2 Coal

It is recommended that you buy these Ores rather than mining them due to the fact that you make a profit regardless

If you wanted to mine the ore, the recommended spots would be:
 * Iron Ore = East Varrock Mine
 * Coal = Mining Guild

If you were to buy the ore, smelt it into Steel Bars and sell it back on the Grand Exchange you would make a profit of:

GP per bar.

Fastest Method

At this level, the fastest method would be to either start producing Iron Platebodies, this actually works out as faster experience than producing Steel Equipment due to the number of bars the Platebodies use.

Level 50+
Mithril bars can be smelted at this level, giving 30 experience. They sell for coins in the Grand Exchange, with the Mithril ore and coal costing 0 coins. You can make roughly 250 bars per hour, at a profit of coins per bar and 0 coins per hour. That's also 7,500 experience per hour.( 250x30 = 7,500 exp). Using superheat item, you make a profit provided you use a firestaff and purchase the nature runes.

Power levelling
Power levelling mainly uses metal bars for Smithing, raising a quick experience incurring a maximum loss of cash. Basically, players can select between speed or less cost, even in between these power levelling methods. All the power levelling loss is calculated by buying the bars at market price, smithing them and then selling the products at market price. If the products cannot be sold at GE the loss would be even more, up to 20% up.

Level 15
Iron equipments can be smithed. Iron equipments is currently the best way to power level Smithing for players except for very experienced smiths, for low cost of iron bars and high experience outcome. A list of loss per XP for individual equipment is obsolete because smithed equipments can rarely be sold properly.

Level 18
Bronze platebody can be smithed. The loss using bronze platebodies to power level is coins per XP.

Level 33
Iron platebody can be smithed. The loss using iron platebodies to power level is coins per XP. Iron platebodies are the most efficient way for lower level smithers to power level in F2P worlds. Using the Western Varrock Bank and the anvil just below it, it takes (roughly) 35 seconds to convert 25 bars to 5 platebodies for a total of 625 xp. One can gain plenty of experience in minutes by running to the bank and back for iron bars.

If one is power leveling and have money to burn for nature runes, simply use [Superheat Item] on the iron ore (this requires Level 43 Magic and Level 15 Smithing), then smith them into iron platebodies at level 33. One can also just buy the bars from the Grand Exchange.

Level 48
Steel platebody can be smithed. The loss using steel platebodies to power level is coins per XP.

Level 68
Mithril platebody can be smithed. The loss using mithril platebodies to power level is coins per XP.

Level 88
Adamant platebody can be smithed. The loss using adamant platebodies to power level is coins per XP. Adamant platebodies is the most efficient way to power level smithing in free worlds currently. The smithed platebodies may be high alched or sold to Grand Exchange.

Profit making through smithing

 * See this page for reference of profit gained using these methods to train smithing.

Smithing with profit always cause slow experience, mainly due to the low experience outcome smelting the bars alone, which is essential for profit making.

Smelting steel bars
At level 30, steel bars can be smithed using one iron ore and two coals. Various ways of obtaining the ores are available: mining, buying from GE or combination of them. Coal is mined much slower than iron, causing many players to buy both type of ores, or buying coal and mining iron ores. Smelting 100 steel bars yields 1750 XP, which is equivalent to smithing 14 iron platebodies.

Smelting other bars
Currently, smelting other bars is less efficient and doesn't yield a much higher experience compared to steel bars, but if you cannot use that method, iron or mithril is not bad.

Superheating bars
This is a combination method explained here. The requirement as mentioned, is 30 mining, 30-50-70-85 smithing for steel-mithril-adamantite-rune bars, and 43 magic. Coal is mined in locations abundant of coal and bars are superheated using the mined coal. This method yields the lowest smithing experience over time, though mining and magic experience are greatly raised.

Profit vs experience
For a player to train smithing repeatedly, switching between power levelling and profit is essential. While smelting steel bars can yield profit of possibly 80k in a few hours, money losing through power levelling is even faster, making this skill nearly impossible to train if not treated properly. It is not advised to directly make equipments using your own mined ores, since mining costs time and bars are difficult to be transported. The process should be split up to several parts, picking the most efficient ones, most probably would not match in the training process. For example, training by using iron bars and earning through smelting steel bars are not related at all, if you buy the iron bars, iron ores and coal separately (not using bought iron ores to smelt iron bars)

Determining profit
Ideally, gaining experience while making a profit is what players strive to achieve. If this is not possible, then players strive to minimise the loss involved. Therefore, some calculation is necessary to determine exactly how much money is gained or lost per experience gained, and to minimize the loss or maximise the profit.

Profit/loss for smelting bars
For a given bar, the price of the smelting the bar is simply the price of the individual ores, optionally added with the price of the nature rune if Superheat Item is used.

The profit then is simply the price of the bar minus the cost of the materials. If the profit is positive, then money is gained, and if it is negative, then money is lost. If it is zero, then you break even. If this value is p, then the profit or loss per experience is p/x where x is the experience gained by smelting a single bar.

Profit/loss for smithing bars
For a given item, let n be the number of bars required to make that item. If k is the cost of one bar and x is the price of the item made, then the profit is simply x − nk. If the profit is positive, then money is gained, and if it is negative, then money is lost. If it is zero, then you break even. If this value is p, then the profit or loss per experience is p/e where e is the experience gained by smithing a single bar.

Profit/loss for smelting and smithing bars
For a given item, let a be the number of bars required to make that item. If b is the cost of the ores required to make one bar, and c is the price of the item made, then the profit is simply c-ab. If the profit is positive, then money is gained, and if it is negative, then money is lost. If it is zero, then you break even. If this value is p, then the profit or loss per experience is p/(e+f) where e is the experience gained by smithing a single item and f is the experience gained by smelting a single bar.