Guide: Making profit from herb & hops runs

[Work In Progress]

I lost my bank to staking so I'm rebuilding to get my money back. One of the methods that I gain a lot of profit from is doing a herb and hops run. I'll be making this guide to help others that have also fallen victim to the sand casino. For those unfamiliar with what a herb run is, here's the rundown:

1. You plant herb seeds in herb patches located around Runescape. There are a total of 7 herb patches in which you can plant, although two are locked behind quests and another requires the Morytania Elite diary.

2. After about 80 minutes, the herbs will have fully grown. You then go back to the patches to harvest the herbs.

3. Replant the seeds and repeat. Easy!

You gain profit depending on how many herbs you're able to harvest in a run. For a hops run, you do the same thing with yanillian seeds which will grow into yanillian hops (used as payment for mahogany trees). Each herb run can net you around 100K-150K profit if you have access to 6 of the herb patches. Each hop run can net you around the same amount. This totals to about 200K-250K+ profit per run, which isn't bad considering that you don't spend that much time per run (5-10 minutes).

You can make a timer that goes off when your patches are done, but I find it more casual just to do a run and then remember to do another run 2 hours down the line after doing Slayer or whatever. This makes it more passive and less stressful as a money maker.

Requirements

- 32 Farming

This lets you plant and harvest ranarr weeds, which is usually the best profit for any seed depending on the market (snapdragons give almost the same profit but require 62 Farming).​

32 Farming is the only actual requirement you need if you want to just get started. This is because you can simply buy everything else for the herb/hop runs. If you want to make a decent amount of profit, here's a list that'll help with herb runs:

Recommendations

This section will be using the star rating system. Having more stars ★ means the task is more worthwhile to get/complete.​

The DIFFICULTY ratings are assuming that you don't already have completion of the tasks and don't have the skill requirements met for the quests (if the task requires it). Basically, I'm assuming you're a newbie and have never heard of the task.


- Completion of Priest in Peril
DIFFICULTY: Easy
RATING: ★★★★★

This unlocks access to a herb patch in Morytania.​

- Completion of My Arm's Big Adventure, Eadgar's Ruse, and 61 Magic
DIFFICULTY: Hard
RATING: ★★★★☆

The first quest unlocks an additional herb patch in Trollheim that will always be disease-free, meaning whatever seed you plant here will never die. Eadgar's Ruse unlocks the Trollheim teleport and requires 61 Magic to cast.
​

- Completion of Ghosts Ahoy
DIFFICULTY: Medium
RATING: ★★☆☆☆
SUBSTITUTE: Fenkenstrain's Castle teleport tablet

You gain an Ectophial as a quest reward, which teleports you near the Ectofuntus. This is near one of the herb patches. You can instead buy the Fenkenstrain's Castle teleport tablet (no requirements to use) to teleport near the patch.​

- Obtaining a Xeric's talisman from Zeah
DIFFICULTY: Medium
RATING: ★★★★☆

This is a rare drop from lizardmen, which require 5% Shayzien House favour to be able to kill. Without this, getting to the herb patch in Zeah won't be worth going for.​

- At least 50% Hosidius House favour in Zeah
DIFFICULTY: Easy
RATING: ★★★★☆

This is not required to access the herb patch in Zeah, but it causes the patch to become disease-free like the one in Trollheim. Note that if you're going to get both Hosidius and Shayzien favour, make sure to get 100% in one house so that you don't lose favour trying to gain favour in another.​

- Completion of Enlightened Journey
DIFFICULTY: Medium
RATING: ★☆☆☆☆
SUBSTITUTE: Explorer's ring 2/3/4 or a charged amulet of glory

This lets you gain access to the balloon transport system which is an easy way to get to the hops patch in Entrana. Alternatively, you can use the ring or glory to teleport you near Port Sarim and the ships that travel to Entrana.
​

- Obtaining the music cape
DIFFICULTY: End-game
RATING: ★★☆☆☆

The teleport on the music cape places you very close to the hops patch in Camelot. Getting the cape itself requires unlocking almost all the songs in the game, so unless you've been playing for a while, you don't need to worry about getting this.
​

- Completing the Morytania elite diary
DIFFICULTY: End-game
RATING: ★★★☆☆

You unlock a herb patch after this diary, but unless you already have the requirements for the diary (the highest being 96 Fishing or 91 with a boost), you don't need to worry about getting this.
​

- Completing the Ardougne hard diary
DIFFICULTY: Hard go figure
RATING: ★★☆☆☆
SUBSTITUTE: House teleport to Yanille or the minigame teleport to Nightmare Zone

The diary lets you configure the Watchtower teleport to teleport to Yanille and places you right next to the hops patch there.
​

- Completing Lunar Diplomacy
DIFFICULTY: Hard
RATING: ★★★★☆

The quest unlocks the Lunar spellbook which has access to spells that are great for use in herb runs such as Fertile Soil, Catherby Teleport, and Spellbook Swap (swapping to the Arceuus spellbook to use Resurrect Crops). Certain Magic levels are required for some of the spells with 96 Magic, 92 with a Magic potion boost, being the highest.
Having access to an Occult altar is highly recommended if you'd like use other spellbooks for things like Slayer or PvP, although using another player's altar is much easier to get to if you can't build one yourself. Go to the Taverley house portal in World 330 and you'll often run into others hosting their house that usually has everything already built inside, including the occult altar.​

Farming Patch Locations
(The OSWiki page for the patch locations can be found here.)

This section will be using the star rating system. Having more stars ★ means the task is more worthwhile to get/complete.​

There are 7 herb patches located around RuneScape:

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1. South of Falador/North-west of Draynor Village

​

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★★★☆
- Teleporting to the cabbage patch with the Explorer's ring 2.

The Explorer's ring 3 and 4 provide unlimited teleports while the tier 2 ring can only do 3 teleports a day. You may want to look into getting it if you do a lot of herb runs a day.
​

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
- Teleporting to Draynor Village through the amulet of glory.
- Planting/growing a Spirit Tree in the Port Sarim patch and teleporting to it.​

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2. North of Catherby

​

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★☆☆☆
- Using the Catherby Teleport spell in the Lunar spellbook.

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
- Using the Camelot teleport (standard spellbook) or breaking a Camelot teleport tablet.​

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3. North of Ardougne

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★★☆☆
- Using the Ardougne Farm teleport on an Ardougne cloak 2, 3, or 4.

The Ardougne cloak 2 and 3 only provide 3 daily teleports to the farm whereas the tier 4 cloak provides unlimited teleports. Getting the Ardougne cloak 4 requires completing the elite tasks in the Ardougne Diary which may prove difficult to achieve.​

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
- Teleporting to the Fishing Guild entrance through a Skills necklace or using the Fishing Guild Teleport spell in the Lunar spellbook.
- Using the teleport from the Quest point cape.​

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4. South-east corner in Zeah (Hosidius House)
Not recommended without a Xeric's talisman or access to the Tithe Farm minigame teleport.

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★★★★
- Teleporting to "Xeric's Glade" on a charged Xeric's talisman.

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
- Teleporting to the Tithe Farm from the Minigame Group Finder .
- Teleporting to your house if it is located in Kourend.​

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5. West of Port Phasmatys in Morytania
Requires completion of the quest "Priest in Peril".

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★★☆☆
- Using the Ectophial.

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
- Using the Fenkenstrain's Castle Teleport spell in the Arceuus spellbook or breaking the teleport tablet version of the spell.

The tablet is tradable and does not need any requirements to use/break other than having Priest in Peril done to access Morytania.​

- Using the fairy ring code a•l•q and running north.​

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6. Roof of Troll Stronghold
Requires completion of the quest "My Arm's Big Adventure".

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★★★☆
- Using the Trollheim Teleport from the standard spellbook or making your own tablets, which are untradable.

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
- Using fairy ring code a•j•r or teleporting to the Fremennik Slayer Cave with a Slayer ring (then exiting the cave), then proceeding to run towards the north-east paths inside the Troll Stronghold. This will also require wearing climbing boots to go over this path.​

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7. On Harmony Island
Requires completing the elite tasks in the Morytania Diary.

FASTEST TELEPORT:
RATING: ★★★★☆
- Using the Harmony Island Teleport spell in the Arceuus spellbook or using the teleport tablet, which is tradable.

OTHER TELEPORT(S):
The only methods that you should be using to travel to this herb patch are the ones mentioned above.

Don't worry about this herb patch as much if you aren't close to completing the Morytania Diary. I personally have it unlocked and it is definitely improved my overall profit, but getting the diary specifically for the herb patch doesn't seem worthwhile.
​

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-WIP-

I'll be working on this in the future. I know I haven't actually gotten into how to do a run, but hopefully you guys like what you see so far.

Note 2: I've been doing stuff IRL and I forgot to update the guide in the process, expect an update by the end of this month...or so.

I did stuff! Still a work in progress.

 

Nice amount of detail here, it looks like you put some good effort into this. I think those users who are new to doing herb runs will find this post really useful.

I look forward to reading the rest of what you add in the future.

 

Nice guide.

For the mortanya elite spot you can use the " Harmoney island teleport tabs" from the arceuus spellbook makes it one of the fastest patches

 

Nice guide man, herb runs are not as popular nowadays, but I still do them everyday.

 

wow, brilliantly explained. Thanks for the info! saves me loads of time

 

Added herb patch locations and descriptions on how to get to each one.