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More an different progress has been mad than this, but bite sized post: Training one of my least enjoyed skills, thieving, and have honestly not been hating it. Picked up my Rogue's outfit for double loots, xp rates at Ardy Knights becoming steadily faster, picked up a dragon spear and taught myself to trap the optimal knight to two tiles. (World hopping is restricted rn and I've had trolls intentionally despawn the knight, so I figured being able to trap him myself is ideal.)

72 Thieving last night for the Hard Ardy Diary Req.
Rest of Diary is Quest gated.

One Small Favour this morning. Felt a bit fed up with quests at the moment, decided to work on my Greater Demons task, got a Hard Clue Scroll which naturally I have to do annnnnd it's behind a quest wall.
Back to quests I guess.

Profited around 1.5m OSRS over the gold value invested into my last bond. Plus, misc account progress.

While cleaning I discovered a note from April of 2015 when I had just hit 76 mining on RS3 with (now known as) Nergal.
Another 55 thousand iron ore powermined and I'd be at 85 for runite. I was already playing bond by bond and if I recall correctly I was F2P at the time.
Watched a lot on Netflix in those days.

Woo-Wee, it's been a while! Something like 200 days since I had last logged into main.
Overstuffed bank in F2P? No MATTER! We shall liquidate!
Two Whole Bank Spaces to work with?! Start Crafting TONS of unstrung gold amulets while watching TV!
75 Crafting! Great, I can make Slayer Rings when I get membership again.
Plenty of GP to pickup a bond with, but did I leave myself with any bonds? F.F.S., I had 3 bonds this whole time?!
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Am I prepared for fight caves? yes. Will I rush to do them? mmmm, No.
80 range, 80 magic, 64 prayer, 76 mining, 65 Herblore, 69 Slayer, 84 Firemaking,
Unlock Make Slayer Rings, Unlock Lizardman Tasks,
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82 Thieving, 70 Strength, 65 Defence, 68 Attack
Some NMZ Points. Overloads and Prayer Gear mostly AFK Melee for hour+ runs easy.

6 Days of this bond's membership left:
Bought a Blowpipe, some scales, and a bunch of Addy Darts
Trying Fight Cave for the first time in a long time since EoC.

Super Scuffed run.
Get to Jad with no brews left, miss a flick after healers arrive because I was in inventory to sip a Super Restore (gotta keep prayer up) and couldn't switch back fast enough.

Improvements to make:
1) Configure Hotkeys for switching between [Inv] and [Prayer] menus; confident that I could have done it if I had set this up in the first place.
2) Grind out some extra Prayer Levels. (I took a lot of unnecessary damage while trying to conserve Prayer Points, plus I am going to be going for Piety in the future anyway). From 64 -> 68 means plus 1 point restored per Potion Dose.
3) Don't use first dose of Bastion Potion too early.
4) Stop trying to run THROUGH mages between their attacks, their melee hurts.
5) You've done this countless times before, get good.
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Off to the guilded Altars, up to 68 Prayer
Should have an extra 48 prayer Points in my next run, which is like an extra 5minutes camping protect from magic. (+1 point per dose) (4dose*16SuperRestores)
5 Days remain, but I work nearly all day for the next three days.

Bought Dragon Boots, +2 Strength over the Climbing Boots



Slayer - Unlock: Bigger and Badder

(Superior Slayer Monster Spawns)



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Fight Cave Attempt 2:

[80 Ranged, 65 Defence, 87/68 Prayer, 75 HP]



Got killed after pulling two healers to me this time.

Actually survived to Jad with a few Sara Brews and PLENTY of restores; think the extra Prayer helped a lot.

Ugh, next time for sure..

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66 Herblore



ping on 337 seems okay

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Failed attempt #3, did it while having a pretty strong mixed drink after a long work day, little buzzed, very tired.

Got to Jad w/ plenty of supplies but was just too relaxed.

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Formerly didn't want to do sub-optimal NMZ without a Firecape, but using Ardy Cloak and Prayer/Strength gear plus overloads and Prayer Potions, I found the experience pretty enjoyable.

Got 70 Attack

Imbued my Slayer Helm. Banked about 5hrs of Overload Doses and even cashed out some Herb Boxes.

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Did Tai Bwo Wannai Trio finally.

Went up to 80 Cooking on Karambwans.

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King's Ransom

Camelot Training > Unlock Chivalry

Few more Prayer and Def Levels and I will have Piety.

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Ectofuntus Dragon Bones from 68 to 70 Prayer, ectotokens run the bonecrusher in OSRS.

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Pickup a Whip and do NMZ for Defence

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Made more than enough to cover the Cost of my recently used Bond

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F2P Flipping for a Day while Woodcutting up to 80.

Was planning on staying F2P for a bit because I was expecting to be working on a big work contract but that was postponed until after Thanksgiving.

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Activate another Bond.

Do some Farm Runs. Need a few levels for the <hard> Kourend Tasks. I want those done to use my newly Imbued Slayer Helm on the Lizardman Shamans, currently on a Lizardman Task.

Do a Hespori kill, no White Lilies ....a Yew Seed though



Killed a Spiritual Warrior in the Wildy G.W.D.



Some NMZ for Defence, up to 69 and out of Overloads for that dream.

Daily Ectofuntus exchange with Robin, followed by some fletching of the Yews I had AFK'd while F2P yesterday.

Do Dream Mentor Quest
Unlock some extra Lunar Spells, decided to parley with those unlocks for the time being.
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Grind out 70 Defence in NMZ.
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Unlock Piety.
Finish Morytania Hard Tasks.
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Finish Kourrend Hard Tasks
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Regicide
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Roving Elves
#########
Some Cooking Training, Plus 75 Farming
Throne of Miscellania
Fremennik Hard Tasks
Tai Bwo Wannai Cleanup 100% Favor
Contact!

Played enough Trailblazer League to get T3 Relic
It's okay, but I started a bit late and became bored of it for reasons which I had anticipated before beginning.

Go back to main profile, realize that, in the process of doing NMZ for my SlayerHelm (i), I had achieved 70 Attack which was my last holdout stat on using one of my alltime favorite weapons: the Black Salamander.
No, it is not a META weapon by any means but I see no end of amusement in kidnapping lizards and feeding them hotsauce and using these tiny dragons as flamethrowers.

I also realized that at level 80 Magic I am within boosting range to setup a Barrows Portal in my PoH.
While it takes a little longer to teleport to house and load house to use the Barrows Portal, House Tabs cost like 1/5 as much as Barrows Tablets do at this time, I've already used enough such that I've saved around 300k with the portal.
Plus my house has Special Attack and Run Replenish pool. Ferox Enclave doesn't return Special Attack, it would be nice to SKIP the [ DuelRing > Ferox Enclave (heal+Prayer and/or Bank) and/or ArdyCloak>Monestary (just need prayer)] but Upgrading my own Pool requires Construction Training which means MUCH money.
There are so many QoL upgrades which come with Construction though..... hrmmmmmm

65 Barrows Chests looted recently.
6 Equipment Pieces, 5 Unique (Double Guthan's Head)
1 Elite Clue, Dropped a Master which I cannot yet do.

Had a Quiz Master appear in my house while I was heading to the portal, played Fish or Not Fish and took the Mystery Box of Course.
Got a medium clue and thought hoo-hoo-hey that could be the Ranger Boots; but instead it was a MithKiteshield (g) an Addy Full Helm and some Alch Runes (9.7k)

I suppose I never explained WHY i have decided to do Barrows.
I enjoy unlocking my own upgrades rather than buying them outright, seeing those unlocks in the collection log is a thing of beauty.
I need any complete set of Barrows Equipment for the Elite Mory Diary.
It's consistently profitable, I can sell off excess runes and also duplicate pieces of equipment to maintain my account.
Nostalgia.

Additionally I am using primarily wines as food, saving most of the empty jugs, so long as they aren't in the immediate way of any loot from the chest; going to humidify all of them later for a little extra magic experience and then make more wines I think, lol.
Ended up doing 153 Barrows chests total and only recieved one more equipment piece beyond those I had mentioned, a karil's leatherskirt.

Killed Chaos Elemental for a Hard Wildy diary task.

Gained around 16m gp during the past 2 weeks, and 10m xp in the past month.
So much time was spent on my very dry Barrows binge and also Trailblazer League; however, I am also up to 76 Farming from 72 and I only need 83 to put a Spirit Tree into my PoH. Granted I need 95 Construction (less boosts) to have the FairyRing/Spirit Tree Combo, and that's some beeg money to get to.
Next few weeks IRL are gonna be pretty busy so we're holding off on our next bond.
Going to need to crunch some numbers before diving in too deep but I think I have the capital for 99 Smithing, lvl 85 right now..

Ahhh, Back to F2P, what to do, what to do?
Well what CAN I do, reasonably?
Combat Stats are all 70+ and I prefer to train via Slayer, so not combat.
Prayer or Runecrafting in F2P? Absolutely not.
Woodcutting? Yews are slow and not great money, maples are faster but no money; An option nevertheless.
Firemaking? Pass, I enjoy doing Wintertodt.
Fishing? Better off doing Barbarian fly-fishing OR the new skilling boss.
Cooking? Karambwan are fast and profitable, but P2P.
Crafting? Slow, but I can make some money, it's an option.
Mining? Power Mining Iron....? I kinda liked blast mining though and I believe there's a Mining Skilling boss in Prif when I unlock the area.
Smithing? Having 99 would be one of the most lucrative F2P money makers. Mith Platebodies are decent xp/hr but loses money HOWEVER Alching Adamant Platebodies breaks even atm and is actually marginally profitable? YES!

I was 85 Smithing when I returned to F2P.
I am up to 87 at the time of writing. Within the top 100k Smiths on the Highscores.
Alching the platebodies has trained my magic to 82, so far, and level 82 unlocks Ice Blitz meaning I have access to a 15 second offensive stun, ideal for taking out Scorpia which was my final holdout for completing the hard tier of the Wilderness Diaries.

88 Smithing today, we've moved onto Addy Platebodies.
That's going to be the fastest training as far as F2P goes, farewell sweet cash stack.
We shall meet once again 9m smithing experience from now.

Converted my idle Cash Stack, less 104 gp remainder, into platinum tokens; should make it a little simpler to track profit/loss while training.
I believe that, if I High Alch all of the Addy Platebodies I make going for 99 Smithing, I should have about 88 Magic by the time my F2P grind ends.
Moreover, if I were to use the Lunar Plank Make Spell on all of the Mahogany Logs which I need for 99 Construction I should end up around 98 Magic..
Although at 1700 planks per hour, it would take over 51 hours to MAKE all of those planks, it's not super profitable but it is supposed to be decent xp/hr...

mmm but up to level 90 smithing which is my first 90 in OSRS.

92 Smithing last night.
153.4k Barrows Full-Set Repair cost saved by using POH Armor Stand w/ a Dwarven Stout
@lvl 99 will save 165k, an extra 11.6k per full-set.
barrows gear is going to be my bread and butter for a long time,,,

93 Smithing today and my profit margin has shrunk to 6gp per platebody alched, from around 600gp; yikes, but we aren't negative yet and it's still the fastest smithing xp available to me in f2p.
Addy Bars price has been steadily increasing, even on the lowest trade volume days in the past 6 months at least 1m bars were traded per day therefore I don't think that the 55,000 (give or take) bars I have personally purchased in the past week should have had any significant effect on the market.
The prices have rebounded up to where they stood in June. Fewer bars coming into the game because people are on Trailblazer? Blast Furnace users moving onto Runite? Literally just people banking their skilling investments for the holiday play-season?
We cannot afford to bank the 99 Outright (would be 163.5m, which is about a year's worth of membership these days) while still profitable, however I can afford to take a gradual loss while training...

Pretty hectic few days at work, but still managed to Smith a few hundred platebodies in my downtime.
Eventually hit 94 Smithing.
Tried playing dual-logged with my alt which I have telegrabbing wines of Zamorak, found a world where I have decent ping and can thus react faster than the foreign gold-farmers and/or the less efficiently programmed bots; after getting a feel for the respawn timing it became pretty easy to dominate that single-server. World hopping would be better money IF you can find empty worlds consistently but while I was hopping around most were overrun, when I found mine I setup camp and most other players leave after watching me snag 2 or 3 wines in a row.
So telegrabbing while smithing was a little quirky because I run out of run energy and am walking eventually at times and it messes with my flow; i decided it is most efficient to reduce my main's smithing efficiency to ensure I maintain control of the wine of zamorak. Still maintaining over 100k smithing experience per hour pretty easily.
Upon running out of bars it was time to start alching, this was really easy to get the timing down for; telegrab on alt, 8 high alchs and input buffer the 9th and then switch back to alt because the wine will respawn at any moment. Again, priority is maintaining control of the Wine Spawn so if I see other players log in I will only do 8 alchs, forget trying to buffer, and hover the spawn to click it asap.
In about 2 hours of telegrabbing I only wasted 3 casts because I was slower than someone around me, wasted a few more because my inventory was full but that's a different story.. (and surprisingly gives Exp anyway).

While it IS easier to time my telegrabs while alching, I kind of prefer alching by just spam clicking in place while I watch television.

Hit 96 Smithing last night.
Finished watched two TV shows which I was in the middle of as well.
At 94+ without any options to boost the experience rates, you really start to feel the grind...
My experience rates are much lower while I am distracted watching tv, but it does help pass the time.