Tanking at the Aviansies

After the last post, I went back to the Chaos Dwarf Battlefield a couple more times, then decided to go back to the Avies.  I'm not in the mood to camp out hoping for a spectacular drop.  I just want to keep a steady income from good drops, since my Grand Exchange flips aren't doing so well at the moment.  All the stuff I usually like to trade are changing prices to much in a short time.  Most of them I can sell easy enough, but have a hard time buying.  When I get a chance, I'll look around for something stable and switch over.  For now, the only thing that's still steady flipping is Yew Longbows.  They don't make much, usually about 50k, with occasional spikes that give me maybe 125k extra.  So I need the drops from the Avies to make up the difference until I can sit down and work out what to trade. 
As far as going after Avies, there seems to be 2 major schools of thought.  When I first started, I liked maxing out my prayer gear, using poisoned emerald bolts, and finding a quiet world where I could attack every Aviansie in sight, all at one time.  It's a great way to accelerate your drops, but it's hard to find a world where nobody's already there.  Eventually, I started tanking them.  No Prayer, just my best ranging armor, and the Bones to Peaches spell.  Plus the Enhanced Excalibur.  After getting the second enhancement on Excalibur, it's been very effective.  My Hit Points are 990, I heal with Excalibur at around 600.  Every now and then, I eat Peaches or the Swordfish they like to drop.  It's easy to stay as long as you want this way. 
There are plenty of guides showing how to get there, and how to fight them.  But I thought you might be interested in seeing what gear I wear and take with me.  So here it is:

In my worn equipment, you see:

Dragon Full Helm

Zamorak Cloak

Amulet of Fury

Broad-tipped bolts (several thousand)

Rune Crossbow

Armadyl Chestplate

Armadyl Plateskirt

Dragonfire shield

Saradomin Vambraces

Ranger Boots

Archers Ring

(GIVES +169 ATTACK AND +230 DEFENSE)

In my inventory I start off with:

Enhanced Enhanced Excalibur

Nature Runes (300)

Fire Runes (1000)

Water Runes (1000)

Earth Runes (1000)

A handful of Law Runes and Air Runes

The rest are things I've picked up from the Avies.

There's lots of different setups that work just fine, but that's what I like to take.

While I was writing this, I took a moment to adjust my GE flips.  Maybe things have stabilized a bit.  Not too sure, since there's a brand new grand-master level quest due out in a day or so.

Change of Pace - Trying out the Chaos Dwarf Battlefield

With Thanksgiving, time to do my usual routine is severely curtailed.  But I had my goal of re-purchasing my set of Armadyl armor by this weekend, as part of my Fight Caves attempt.  Lack of time to do my grand exchange flips slowed me down a lot.  And then, the market price of most things I like to flip had begun fluctuating wildly, making it hard to consistently profit from it.  So I pulled some of my G. E. orders until things settle.  And I spent that money on my Armadyl suit.  I know, bad budgeting.  Now I'll be forever building up enough gold to keep all six slots full with my grand exchange flips.  But... I got my armor!  You'd think I would dash straight to the fight caves and make some practice runs.  I almost did.  Then I decided to do some moneymaking activities.  I've been tanking Avies for a few days, that always goes well.  But I wanted a change of pace, and I'd seen on the Runescape forums where people were doing well on the Chaos Dwarf Battlefield.  I've never really gone back after the quest that opened it (Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf).  So I geared up, and went to the battlefield.  It lived up to it's name - chaotic!  But after a while, when they quit being hostile, it settled into a standard routine.  I was a bit of fun, but the best drops I got were ammo for the hand cannon, and muddy keys.  When I can play again, I don't know if I'll go back immediately.  The Chaos Dwarf Battlefield looks like more of a long-term commitment than a steady income, and I prefer the Avies for a good steady income while having fun. 
If you'd like to try the Chaos Dwarf Battlefield out for yourself (after all, it's the only place Dragon Pickaxes are dropped, which are worth 14 million) Wiki has a good guide to get you started:  Chaos Dwarf Battlefield Wiki
In the meantime, as much as I'm dreading it, the fight caves are looming closer and closer on my horizon.

Marking time and making money on Runescape... Jad and the Fight Caves

The last few days have been focused mainly on trying to recover some gold.  After buying the Armadyl Chestplate, it had left me pretty strapped for cash.  So I'm still flipping investments on the Grand Exchange, and actually have done pretty well.  I'm not a high-level investor, I just flip a few things when they're buying/selling well.  Like Pure Essence, that's always done pretty well.  As of tonight, I'm back up to about 8 million.  I've been supplementing my flips with trips to the Aviansies.  They may not be the fastest cash I could do, but they're reasonably fast cash, and fun.  If I really wanted fast, I'd make double natures.  I think that's probably the fastest skill I have for making money. 
Regardless, I'm working toward buying back my Armadyl armor.  It was sold to help level up a skill, and I want it back now because I'm going to do Jad at the fight caves.  I've never cared about the Fire Cape, and didn't want to be tied down for hours without being able to stop at my leisure.  Plus, I'm not very good at multi-tasking.  I think Jad will kill me many many times, because I don't think I'll be very good at prayer switching and keeping everything going all at once. 
But it's time to try.  All my combat skills, including ranging and magic, are maxed.  I've done all the quests.  My character has the levels to get me there, but I lack the real-time fighting skills.  If it weren't for the Elite Acheivement Diaries, I'd be happy just to let Jad live.  But I want all of the Elite rewards.  Not so much because they're cool, though some of them are.  But just because that's a goal I set for myself.  I got the Ardougne Elite Cape back when it first became available.  Then I got the Seers Village Elite, which gave me the double-enhanced sword Excalibur.  I really wanted that sword... healing 400 points and getting 15 extra defense every few minutes is a huge plus!  Then I got the Falador Elite Shield.  Now, I have all the required skills to get the Karamja Elite reward, but I have to actually beat Jad in the fight caves to get it.  Which leaves me where I am now, scrambling to get enough money to buy the gear I want to use. 
This is going to be tough, because I'm so bad at that kind of fighting.  Usually, I just bulldoze my way through things and hope for the best.  This time, it's going to take finesse.  I'll probably be down in the fight caves for months.  Wish me luck.  Oh, if you've got any advice, please share it with me!

Runescape Grand Exchange: Bad flip makes money after all... and experience!

Recently I made a bad decision with my Runescape investments.  I'm a low-budget investor who likes to flip commodities.  Usually make between one million and three million profit a day.  Problem is, outside of the gold I have tied up in flipping my investments, I keep spending as fast as I'm making.  It started when I decided to go for 99 Construction.  I nickeled and dimed my construction skill, until Jagex started hinting about their 2nd extra-experience-weekend.  At that point, I decided to jump into merchanting.  Took a 10 million startup, and began flipping.  By the time the weekend arrived, I had over 100 million gold (this is Runescape now, not real cash!)
That was just barely enough to buy all the oak planks I needed to dungeon-door my way to 99 Construction.  After that, I was too broke to build my dream home, so I kept investing in the grand exchange.  But before I got very far, they announced the Elite Achievement Diaries.  Well, I think of myself as a high-level player.  At least, my character is level 138 and most skills are decent.  So as a point of pride, I want to get ALL the Elite achievement rewards.  I had the Ardougne elite already, and decided the next thing I wanted was the super-enhanced Excalibur from the Seers Village elite tasks.  Problem was, my herblore level was abysmal. (Not abyssal... abysmal!)
It took weeks to make enough money to raise my herblore.  And even then, I Evil-Daved a skill-boosting stew for the last 5 levels worth.  Then back to home-building.  Still flipping on the G.E., and I'd started fishing and cooking Rocktails. 
It was the Rocktails that did me in.  I saw how well they sold.  Decided to take my current spending money of 20 million, and buy 10,000 Rocktail to flip.  Everything went well, right up till the time to sell them.  They sat for days, then the price starting tanking.  I didn't want to lose that much money.  So I pulled them out of the GE, and started cooking.
By the time I'd cooked 10,000 Rocktail, I wound up making a small profit, using some money to invest in Death Runes for flipping, keeping a few Rocktail for myself.  And with my current gold of 14 million, today I bought back the Armadyl Chestplate I sold for Herblore money. 
Yay!... I'm broke again.  Okay, so starting over. 
Oh, and cooking 10k Rocktail?  My cooking skill went from 95 to 97!  I guess it worked out okay after all. 
Bit of quick advice... for a small and steady profit, without a lot of risk, flip Maple logs.  I buy 25,000 at 2 gold below median, and sell it at 2 gold above median.  I make 100k Runescape money every buy/sell flip.  It may not be much, but it's an easy way to get started.  The risk is low, and they usually sell quickly for me (bearing in mind the GE 4-hour buying and selling delay.)

Good thing I can Cook Rocktail without Burning it!

My first post in this new hub involved a technique to cook rocktail without burning it, until I got to level 95 cooking.  Now that I'm 95, all I need are the cooking gauntlets, and I don't risk burning them.  Turns out, that was pretty good timing.  I've done pretty well doing small time flipping on the Grand Exchange, maybe making 1 to 3 million gold per day at it.  Recently, I bought 10,000 Rocktail, expecting to make a tidy profit... which never happened.  Those Rocktail sat in the GE for days, as I kept trying to adjust the price.  Finally, the price bottomed out so much there was no way I'd make a profit.  As a matter of fact it was going to be a pretty big loss.  So I decided to cook them.  Since I can use the Cook's Guild to cook/bank my rocktail, it's going very fast.  But fast or not, 10,000 Rocktail is still 10,000.  I've cooked about 2,000 so far.  And had 2,000 in the bank already.  So I've sold those, made a small profit over my investment.  But I can either use them, or sell them.  No real loss, just a momentary one. 
In the meantime, I was going to try and buy some Armadyl armor this weekend, but because I goofed up so bad, I don't have the gold.  I might go do some runecrafting to speed it up.  I can do double natures, so it's very profitable, but I don't really enjoy it.  Oh well.  Guess that's why our parents teach us how to be patient.

New Venue for my Runescape Blogs

You can find me around the internet as Crewman6.  That's not my Runescape name... I like a bit of privacy when I play.  I write a lot on Hubpages.  Also own the domain to Crewman6.com.  Nothing fancy there, but I've blogged it for a long time.  Started out just writing about everything on the one blog.  As time passed, Runescape turned out to be one of the 3 main subjects I blog about.  So here, after lots of wandering about, is where I'll be posting.

Just to get things started, I've been working on cooking.  After getting my fishing level high enough to catch Rocktail (from the Living Rock Cavern), and my cooking just barely high enough to cook Rocktail, I've been working at getting my cooking to 95.

What's so special about getting Cooking skill to 95?  Because that's the level when you stop burning Rocktail... as long as you're wearing cooking gauntlets.  There's a way to not burn Rocktail before that, but it's a lot easier at level 95 when you can just use the Chef's Guild and cook in the private Varrock Achievement Diary room.  It has a bank and an oven in the same room.  But until 95 cooking skill, here's the method I used:



The full guide is here (and it's free):  Runescape Cooking - How You Can Cook Rocktail Fish Without Burning From Level 93 to 95

If you're wondering... yeah, I wrote it.  My first guide.  I found this technique useful for a very specific niche, from Cooking level 93 to 95.  Since nobody had written one like it yet, I thought maybe someone else might benefit from it.  I know it's application is very narrow, but within that spread, it saved me money.  I never burned a single Rocktail.  Not ever. 
If you're thinking it's expensive, read the guide.  It includes a cost breakdown.  Using this method, my Cooking level is 95.  I had fun, got to use my Player Owned House kitchen, and leveled up very quickly.

That's good for my first post.  As time progresses, I'll add to it.  Sometimes just a bit of a progress marker.  Sometimes some hints or tips I've picked up; or a link to something useful.  If we're at similar levels, or working on the same goals, maybe you'll find this useful.

If you need some advice, post a comment.  Maybe I can help, or steer you in the right direction!