Raw lobster



A Raw lobster is a type of fish that can be caught with level 40 fishing, giving 90 experience. They are popular on free-to-play servers because they are easy to acquire, give quite a bit of Cooking experience, and many people buy them after they are cooked. Raw lobsters can be cooked with a Cooking level of 40 or higher, granting 120 Cooking experience. Players may accidentally burn lobsters while cooking until they reach a Cooking level of 74 (or 68 while wearing Cooking gauntlets). They are one of the most common ways for players to train Cooking.

Levels 1 to 99

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Levels 100 and above

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Acquiring Raw lobsters
Fishing is by far the most popular way to acquire raw lobsters. Players with level 40 or higher in the Fishing skill can fish for lobsters with a lobster pot. Doing so yields 90 experience for each lobster fished.

Players can thieve raw lobsters from the fish stalls in Rellekka and possibly bank them with Peer the Seer if the player is wearing Fremennik Sea Boots. This method requires 42 thieving.

Though it is an inefficient way to acquire a large number of raw lobsters (500+), some monsters also drop them.


 * Dagannoth
 * Giant Rock Crab
 * Brine rat
 * Waterfiends

Raw lobsters may also be obtained as a reward from the Temple Trekking activity in amounts depending on the reward token colour.

Fishing locations

 * Free-to-play players can fish for lobsters on Karamja or in the north eastern corner of the Wilderness. Using Stiles to note your fish for free on the south coast of Karamja is a helpful tool for power fishing large quantities, without losing time running around.
 * Pay-to-play players also have the option of fishing lobster in Catherby, Rellekka, Jatizso, and Piscatoris Fishing Colony. Players with level 68 or higher (65 or higher with a fishing potion or 63 or higher with an admiral pie) may also fish for lobsters in the Fishing Guild.

Uses
The only uses for raw lobsters are to sell them or cook them. (You can also use them with your kitten for food like other types of fish) Players with level 40 or higher in the Cooking skill can cook raw lobsters to turn it into a lobster and gain 120 Cooking experience. If the player is unsuccessful, they will create a burnt lobster instead, and gain no Cooking experience. The higher the player's Cooking level, the lower the chance of them burning them up until level 74 when the player stops burning them completely. Using a range or wearing cooking gauntlets are other ways of decreasing the odds of burning lobsters. When wearing cooking gauntlets, a player only needs 68 cooking to stop burning the lobsters.

2010 Price Crash
Lobsters experienced a large price crash in the weeks and months following the update of 21 April 2010, which made banking lobsters much easier than before for F2P players. In the ten weeks after the update, the price of Raw Lobsters fell by about 40%, from around 450 coins each a few days before the update, to around 260 coins by the end of June. While the F2P community welcomed the update, it was met with very hostile reception from members (especially skillers), and protests have been held on the forums as well as at popular P2P fishing locations such as the Fishing Guild and Catherby.

The price of Raw Sharks was also affected, as many members switched from lobsters to sharks in the weeks following the crash. Prices for Raw Sharks fell by about 40% as well, from 1750 coins before the update to around 1000 coins by the end of June.

2011 Price Crash
In the update that brought back free trade and the wilderness, there was a dramatic shift in prices across the board. Lobsters were just one but experienced a price drop to 90-150gp per lobster due to a surge of Real World Trading, even with Raw Lobsters dropping in price F2P players can still earn a higher profit from Fishing Lobsters than some other F2P skills such as cutting Yew trees.

Trivia

 * With the introduction of Stiles on 21 April 2010, free players can fish and bank lobsters between 3 and 4 times faster than before. This has led to a substantial increase in the supply of raw lobsters and therefore a dramatic decrease in their price.
 * Lobsters are the only free-to-play fishing catch other than Crayfish and Pike that are never caught with any other fish. (e.g. Anchovies are caught with Shrimps.)
 * In the earliest years of RuneScape, raw lobsters had a bright red colour that dulled to brown when cooked, contrary to real-life behavior, where raw lobsters are naturally brown and bright red when cooked.
 * When a lobster is cooked, instead of saying "You cook the lobster." the game will say "You roast the lobster." instead. This is the only food in the game that can be "roasted".