Big barrows analysis

[Wachtwoord]

Barrows is usually seen as an outdated way to make money. Only used by the low(er) levels who don't have the levels to kill the large bosses yet and high level players who want a little change from their usual money making methods. So mostly, barrows has a bad image. However, because of the inflation, most items have risen quite a lot, so I decided to test how good it is now.

 

I used this outfit:

 

With that outfit, I can loot 17 chests per trip, which takes a little more then 2 hours. This outfit has quite a lot of pros. It's quite cheap, only spending 10K in supplies per chest due to cheap ammunition and only 1 prayer potion sip. But it's also reasonable fast (7.5 minutes per chest), mostly due to the very little banking involved with this method. I highly recommend this outfit to anyone with 85+ combat stats.

I ice barrage all melee brothers and kill then I kill them with my salamander one step diagonally from the brother. I hide behind the chest when they become unfrozen and freeze them again. I take one prayer potion sip to kill karil. About 50% I have quite some leftover prayer and use that to kill ahrim.

 

To get constant results, I tried to keep my killcount as close to 12 as possible all the time. However, I failed quite often because guthan's sometimes takes a long time to heal. :S

 

I didn't compare this method with any others, as my original goal was to know how much I'd earn with this outfit and I thought this outfit was superior to all others. I wish I tried veracs too though, but barrows is boring me now, so that won't happen any time soon. :P

 

Here are my results: On average, I gained 52K in loot from the chest without items. This leads to 42K profit per chest and 338 k/h profit without items. This figure surprised me quite a lot, as not too long ago, 300 K/h was pretty decent for low levels, of course the current inflation changed that.

 

I gained 26 barrows items, so that's got one item in 15 chests (not counting key halves and I didn't get any dragon meds), a little more then 1 item in 2 hours. My average item was worth 1700K. (Here are my items you can all drool on:)

 

However, my lucky 5 (!) veracs helm hugely buffed my average. The average barrows items is worth 1380K. After combining all these numbers, I personally gained a profit of 1244 K/h. Using the more reasonablee 1380K per barrows item, the profit is 1074 K/h. I was pretty surprised by getting more then 1M/h. With that, barrows falls in the same category as 91 RC, tormented demons, GWD and other, usually high level activities. If you somehow heighten the amount of looted chests per hour to 10, long term profit is increased to 1300K/h! I'm thinking of using extreme pots and not using guthans as a main healing source.

 

Thus in conclusion, barrows is an underrated minigame which pretty good long term profit. Another positive is you're less dependant on chance, like the usual monster hunting.

[D Jay99]

nothing :P

 

The profit/hour really surprised me, I will be trying this after I get extreme pots :shock:

Also, congrats on the 5 verac's helms :thumbup:

[Wachtwoord]

Ssst! You saw nothing! I use the firefox spelling checker tool, but apparently it doesn't work for titles. And my English sucks. :P

 

Yea, the profit/hour hugely surprised me too, that's why I posted it. :P

[i_D_r]

I like you, wanted to try barrows, because of new items etc. It's actually a pretty fun minigame.

 

Unfortunately, extreme potions and godsword still fail for the most part. On average, the black sally will kill brothers faster than godsword and extremes.

 

Although if you use piety, you do slice through them albeit expensive. I literally three-hit most of them.

 

Another problem is ahrim negates extremes every trip. So that's a huge con.

 

Your setup is really the best setup cost wise. Black Sally is EXTREMELY underrated. Not sure about maxes but from a few sample runs with it, my max is 24 with the mage. Now the max with slayer dart is 20ish, and costs about 300 gp more per cast.

 

Also it has been reported extreme magic pots do not work with black sally. I have not tested this, I believe people though. Makes sense.

 

Although I will argue that godsword/extremes/piety/bones2peaches (picking up bones as u run through the dungeon) is uber fast, although a lot more expensive, and you will have to bank more often.

[Danqazmlp]

I agree with you. I've always found barrows to be great money. It's very reliable as you make average money even without getting items. The items I've always seen as bonuses.

 

It is always fun to go there with 99 defence and no prayer tank dharok. People are always so scared of him, once you conquer the fear, he is just a [kitty]cat.

[Wachtwoord]

i_D_r, if you bring karils he doesn't lower your stats all that much. In more then 50% of the times, I killed karil with my dagger specials before my prayer was drained by the tombes. So, I could use my leftover prayer on Ahrim (using piety and mage prayer, the drain by the tombes came before my prayer ran out), usually killing him without any drain or damage.

[i_D_r]

Yeah very true. :P I mean, ahrims doesnt totally mess yer stats up, but he usually gets 1-2 drains in on me per kill.

[bedman]

So you ice barrage the melee brothers and then diagonally kill them? Never tried sally's seriously personally because I haven't really barrowed since they came out, and when I went, I tried veracing or godswording (to see if my new higher melee stats would make it better).

 

I did realise it was pretty good yes. I think I made like 400k or so just on runes/racks and was pretty lucky to get a few drops in a short time, including a verach helm.

 

With a verac setup and a mix of baskets of strawberries and monks I last 4 chests and use maybe 2 or 3 doses of prayer in total + 1 pure set. Where do you use your dose of prayer if you say you no pray dharok?

[Wachtwoord]

So you ice barrage the melee brothers and then diagonally kill them?

Yes

 

Where do you use your dose of prayer if you say you no pray dharok?

Karils. You'd be surprised how accurate he hits even on full guthan with 92 defence. That's also why I carry the extra prayer potion. I use it if he's my tunnel. It's possible to first heal up, kill karils and heal 60-75 points again, but I found it too slow and tedious.

[Ermy]

Argh this is one of those threads that you read then you want to go do, and for that i hate you right now.

 

I'll definetly have a go at this one day, even if it's not profitable barrows is a pretty fun area.

[Range_This11]

I've been tossing the idea of going back to Barrows after I'm done with my mining goal. Probably will now.

[Slayer_Jesse]

full on guide please.

[ddaanniiellh]

Kinda makes me want to go again...but I almost expect to be disappointed again when I don't get an item (Currently nearing 80 chest dry streak).

~Dan

[Wachtwoord]

full on guide please.

Want me to make a full guide? There isn't much special that I haven't already told. Freeze the melee brothers, stand one step diagonally and mage 6 times with your salamander (4 times if using blitz), hide behind a coffin, or something else, wait a few second, repeat. Kill karil with DD specs and piety + protect from ranged prayer. If you kill him in 6 or less blows, you'll have a lot of leftover prayer, use this to kill ahrim (mage protect + piety). In the tunnels, heal with guthan. If you have a dangerous melee brother left (mostly dharok), use the chest the same way as you used the coffin in the tombs. If you do this right, you won't have to use food.

[Obtaurian]

I just started doing barrows again this morning. Nice to know that I made a decent decision. :thumbup: Torag's helm so far.

[Aneron]

huh maybe I should give this a shot.

 

I messed around with COG + extreme magics awhile ago; it was pretty fun but I only did 4 chests/trip because you have to tank the brothers and I didn't use guthans. didn't calc profit/hr but it wasn't too cheap lol. then again, you kill them so fast you really don't use many more bloods than you get back. valuing extreme potions is kind of complicated since it's hard to figure out exactly how to value the time that's required to make them, and the experience you get. I might do a large trial though and see what happens. in the meantime some showing off/eye-candy :P

 

killing starts a bit before 2 minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwN8NHoTB48

 

edit: did some math and assuming your chest values are correct this way is faster money (for anyone who can use it, lol), although it's pretty close because extreme potions are expensive, and it uses 22k/chest in claws casts alone

[Wachtwoord]

valuing extreme potions is kind of complicated since it's hard to figure out exactly how to value the time that's required to make them

True, especially because most of the extreme pots are horrible xp/gp wise. For the sake of easiness, I'd just calculate the costs of the ingredients and rate the time it takes to make them the same as the xp you get for making the.

 

But I saw your video earlier and I wondered how good extreme magic would be with my method. Care to give it a try? Although, the problem is most of the time is lost in the tunnels, not at killing the brothers. Another option is to use b2p tablets, but as you can see this method leaves little room for the peaches. Conclusion: I'm puzzled of how to improve this.

[AnneFrank]

romantic makes me want to barrow.

[Gwasha]

It seems to me that there are two real options for barrows:

 

1: This one, where you spend a minor amount of money, which adds up over a long period of time.

2: J35u5 M4's "Void GS" method, where you spend money only on food and a teleport out.

 

Both of these are fast, and allow great profits to be reached.

[Aneron]

valuing extreme potions is kind of complicated since it's hard to figure out exactly how to value the time that's required to make them

True, especially because most of the extreme pots are horrible xp/gp wise. For the sake of easiness, I'd just calculate the costs of the ingredients and rate the time it takes to make them the same as the xp you get for making the.

 

But I saw your video earlier and I wondered how good extreme magic would be with my method. Care to give it a try? Although, the problem is most of the time is lost in the tunnels, not at killing the brothers. Another option is to use b2p tablets, but as you can see this method leaves little room for the peaches. Conclusion: I'm puzzled of how to improve this.

 

calced everything up and it came out to your method being better (if you're sure your chest runs take 7.5 minutes, which would make mine a pretty minimal improvement despite all the high hits). assuming I didn't mess up somewhere in the labyrinth of math. it really isn't too shocking as even with COG I only averaged 16 damage/hit. possibly because I had a bad magic bonus.

 

I tested this the day I got 92 herblore, extreme potions are not compatible with salamanders. :|

 

guthans probably doesn't help much because you really don't take damage from the melee brothers. and you take damage while you're healing. idk the impact of increasing p pot usage but it might be worth it to pray through all ahrim and karil, then you'd only be taking damage from raising KC. perhaps substitute SGS for DDS? using 2 p pot doses should eliminate the need for it. banking only wastes 2 minutes so going from banking every 16 trips to every 8 trips shouldn't be too bad

[Wachtwoord]

I'm too poor for a SGS, so I already used a DDS. (Well, not anymore, because of this barrows test, but I still think it's too expensive.) I like your praying on ahrims idea, so next time I'll try that too. You still could easily do 12 chests per trip that way. I still wonder how melee (with extreme pots) is. I tried normal whipping on torag the last few chests because I ran out of tar and I was pretty surprised by how often I hit. Yet again, the few extra hits on the brother, isn't a big time waster.

[Aneron]

I veracced it once with extreme att/str, it wasn't bad but I didn't time it. did get guth helm though :thumbup:

 

to piety or not to piety is an interesting question.

[stonewall337]

In over 300, probably nearer 400 chests looted, I have only gained 5 items, all of which were under 305k. Barrows is still based on luck.

[bedman]

bobthesock, I wouldn't value those extreme pots too high since they give experience too, and in a fast way. So if you are using extreme magic potions, which has a cheap second (or has it risen that much), you pay like 5k for your pot, but making that pot gave you 230 xp or so, which is valued around 4k if you would get it another way, which leaves you at 1k which is dirt cheap.

 

The only real expensive one this way is extreme str because of the 7k dwarf weeds. (and extreme def, but who uses these?)

[Gailnico321]

At what time do you use a dose of your super attack/super strength potions? Can't figure that out.. :unsure:

 

I've been doing something similar to this for a little while, and this helps me refine my setup pretty well.^^

 

Edit: Ignore the previous question, say you open Karil's sarcophagus...and it's a tunnel? Does that mean the dose of prayer potion will be wasted, or do you just use the prayer potion after you know he's in it..?