Oï everyone!
I just thought I would create a new topic featuring all the unusual, unthought of, skilling techniques I often draw on. If you rely on some other unknown, ingenious methods yourself, feel free to post them below!
1) Magic Woodcutting : ! Warning : this method is not suitable for vegetarians !The first technique, which is also my personal favourite, allows you to gain some Magic xp (~4k to ~10k xp per hour, depending on the attention you pay to the game) while training Woodcutting; and this without losing the slightest bit of your optimal Woodcutting/Firemaking xp rate.
a) Location :- Here is the place where you want to be in order to practice this technique, and the way you want to position your camera in order to do it properly. I guess you all recognized the Crafting guild whereabouts.
- As mentioned on the screenshot, you want to stick to the two willow trees that are the closest to the cow pen, located right next to the guild.
b) Inventory and action bar setup :- The above screenshot also shows what your inventory should look like : bring ten woodcutting urns with you (one partially filled and nine totally empty). Note that, if you intend to stay there for more than an hour straight, you can also bring your clan vexillum with you, in order to replenish your urns stock more rapidly (in that case, teleport to clan camp as soon as you run out of urns, withdraw ten new urns and run back to the willows).
- Equip the mindspike
, and set "Air Blast" (or lower air spells if you don't have the appropriate Magic level yet) as your main spell. As you all know, the combination of these weapon and spell simply allows you to cast infinite spells without consuming any rune. Note that you can get a mindspike as a drop from troll shamans in Burthorpe's caves.
- Finally, make sure you activated the "Revolution" combat mode, and place the "Combust" ability
in the first slot of your action bar (you will understand why this is useful as you carry on reading).
c) The method proper :- When your character is chopping the southernmost willow tree, (s)he can hit the nearby cows without moving from his/her position at all :
- The same action can be performed when your character is chopping the other, northernmost willow :
- I guess you all understood by now what you should do : basically, you want to take advantage of the "blank times" (that is, the short intervals when you don't get willow logs immediately) and kill the cows from the distance using Magic. In other words, whenever you see that you don't get willow logs as soon as you started chopping the willow tree, quickly click the nearby cow (if there is one in your vicinity, of course), and then quickly click back on the willow. This is where the "Combust" ability proves useful (especially for players with a low Magic level) : in the event that you don't kill the cow in one hit, the "Combust" ability will make sure to deal with it while you carry on chopping your tree.
- Of course, the Magic xp you will get from using this method will be pretty marginal (again, the xp rate oscillates between ~4k and ~10k Magic xp per hour, depending on your attention and on the cows' movements). However, the interest of this method lies in the fact that you (slowly) gain that Magic xp while (efficiently) training other skills, thus taking advantage of "wasteful", unproductive times that are unavoidable when you are training Woodcutting. This is also the reason why I call such methods "side-skilling" or "marginal skilling" : a kind of "secondary", minor skilling you do while you are focused on another "primary", major skilling.
d) Other tips & tricks :- Instead of a mindspike, you could equip a quickbow, in order to obtain Ranged xp rather than Magic xp. While this is also a perfectly viable technique, I personally prefer to opt for the Magic xp, considering Magic is the slowest combat skill to train on an Ironman account. Hence, any additional, free xp is always welcome in that skill. Note that this observation is particularly true for the Magic levels prior to level 53 (i.e. before you are allowed to use the Nature staff) : this method can indeed be a pleasant way to make your way up these annoying "noob" levels up, when your Ironman is stuck with a spidersilk wand and orb.
- If you have a legendary pet, the small beastie can collect the cowhides, the raw meat or the bones dropped by the slain cow (provided that you let the pen gate open). You can then alch the cowhides using your explorer's ring, thus getting even more Magic xp. Furthermore, you could also cook the raw meat or cremate the bones on the fire you lighted, as soon as you're done burning all the logs you chopped. However, although this works perfectly well,
I wouldn't recommend doing it * : the annoying thing is that the pen gate automatically closes after a couple of minutes, thus forcing you to re-open it each time, if you want your pet to enter the cows area again. This would eventually inevitably make you lose some precious time.
* Edit : All things considered, this second tip proves to be pretty viable. Here is why :
As you can see, even though the gate will eventually close, in most situations, your legendary pet will remain stuck behind the fence, inside the cow pen. Hence, nothing will prevent your companion from picking up the cowhides, the bones and meat for you, and you won't have to worry about that rebellious gate!
2) Fishing & Woodcutting :This method is very similar to the one covered above, only, instead of getting Magic xp while training Woodcutting, you will get some Fishing experience.
[Under construction]
3) Magic (at Ankous) and Melee (at Hellhounds) ~ Twisted Birdskull Necklace and Amulet of Zealots combo :[Under construction]
Home 
