Summoning

[Moarmurdah]

Okay So i have read as much as i can about summoning, And im still rather confused by it. Do you get more exp per certain skill based on what summon you have out? what other purpose do they serve? And is it worth raising?sorry if this question has been asked/answered somewhere else. Thanks in advance! =)

[Baffler]

Each familiar serves a different purpose, some offer invisible boosts to skills, some will carry stuff, some will spawn stuff, others will fight for you, others will heal you and so on.

 

The summoning guide lists these in the abilities column (http://www.tip.it/runescape/?page=summoning_guide.htm#familiar).

 

They also have scrolls which can be used, which offer other uses too.

[Powerfrog]

Summoning is awesome.

 

You do not train summoning by having a summoning... Summoned. You get xp by converting charms (Those things almost all P2P monsters drop) into pouches. Because of the slow speed of collecting charms it can be a very difficult skill to train, but just do whatever combat you feel like doing and remember to pick up all the charms you see and you won't have to go out of your way to train it. The quest required to unlock summoning is a good tutorial on how you create pouches. So i won't bore you with the details, go do the quest!

 

http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Summoning_familiars

 

is a good page as you can see all the different summonings you can get, what level is needed to use them, and what they do for you.

[Sy_Accursed]

Summoning is awesome.

 

You do not train summoning by having a summoning... Summoned. You get xp by converting charms (Those things almost all P2P monsters drop) into pouches. Because of the slow speed of collecting charms it can be a very difficult skill to train, but just do whatever combat you feel like doing and remember to pick up all the charms you see and you won't have to go out of your way to train it. The quest required to unlock summoning is a good tutorial on how you create pouches. So i won't bore you with the details, go do the quest!

 

http://runescape.wikia.com/wiki/Summoning_familiars

 

is a good page as you can see all the different summonings you can get, what level is needed to use them, and what they do for you.

 

There is no quest required to unlock summoning.

This got changed (alongside herblore) with the Burthorpe update.

 

But Wolf Whistle does still offer a nice tutorial on summoning and a good starter pack of charms.

 

But as others have said summoning has no 1 singular use, it's why you see different ones all over the place. Eg farmers using giant ents and stranger plants, hunters using arctic bears, fishers using granite lobsters and ibis, miners using lava titans, some skillers and fightings using war tortisies and pak yak for inventory space, people using unicorns and bunyips to stay alive, people using titans to fight etc.

[TheKoolKandy]

As others have said, summoning is great but can take a bit to collect all the charms. If you want to know how to use your charms most efficiently use this:

 

http://users.telenet.be/glodenox/Charms/CharmPattern.html

 

You put your charms and starting xp in there and it will tell you how many of each familiar you need to make to get the most xp out of you charms. This is mostly useful for when you're using large amounts of charms and getting a number of levels. You can also choose to omit some pouches if you go into the settings, which can be used if you know there's a pouch you do not want to make (Too exspensive, seconds are untradable/hard to come by etc.).

[Quyneax]

Familiars have four main purposes:

Carrying items

Fighting

Boosting a skill

Healing

 

For example, the steel titan is level 230 combat, has over 5000 lp, hits over 240 max and has a special attack that hits four times (up to 4*244 total damage).

The pack yak carries up to 30 items and it has a special move that allows it to bank an item, up to 150 items per hour, instantly, anywhere on RS.

The lava titan boosts your mining level by 10, which increases xp rates by a lot.

The unicorn heals you for 15% of your health, 90 times per hour.

 

Some familiars have other powers, for example the graahk teleports you fairly close to the nature altar, ents and wolpertingers increase some farming harvests etc.

[Troacctid]

Familiars have four main purposes:

Carrying items

Fighting

Boosting a skill

Healing

 

For example, the steel titan is level 230 combat, has over 5000 lp, hits over 240 max and has a special attack that hits four times (up to 4*244 total damage).

The pack yak carries up to 30 items and it has a special move that allows it to bank an item, up to 150 items per hour, instantly, anywhere on RS.

The lava titan boosts your mining level by 10, which increases xp rates by a lot.

The unicorn heals you for 15% of your health, 90 times per hour.

 

Some familiars have other powers, for example the graahk teleports you fairly close to the nature altar, ents and wolpertingers increase some farming harvests etc.

Don't forget "generating items"--granite lobsters generate sharks and swordfish, fruit bats make papayas, spiders make red spider eggs, magpies give you gems and jewelry, etc.

[Quyneax]

Well, I consider those a side purpose because the items they generate are not or barely worth the time it takes to bank them/sell them on the GE. Fruit bats are the exception when it comes to grenwall hunting, I suppose, even if it's more healing than a bunyip. Every other familiar is basically useless (e.g. spawning cheese or spider eggs is low gp/hr) or not the main purpose (granite lobsters).