Summoning and Gold Charms

Ice Warriors on White Wolf Mountain

I’m not too fond of the Summoning skill. I don’t dislike it because its too expensive (which it is) nor because charm harvesting is too big a burden (which it is). The skill in and of itself feels all wrong.  It is like someone in the development department at Jagex had a burr on his butt to get this skill implemented without thinking it through and having it make any sense what-so-ever. The complexity of this skill really does boggle the mind.  Worse yet, the skill seems like it is ultimately more work than its worth.  For me, its only value to date has been allowing me to have a pet other than a cat.  But enough about my dislike for Summoning…

In Summoning there are four items that are needed to create pouches which in turn are used to summon the assistance of specific creatures which may or may not be of some additional value to the player.  Plain pouches can be bought fairly cheaply, but need to be infused to have any use. To infuse pouches you need shards that cost 25gp each (which at first seems inexpensive until you get over level 30 and start needing well over 1800gp worth of shards to infuse one stupid pouch for a piddly 60xp). Then a secondary ingredient is needed, like the bones of a specific creature, a bucket of sand, your first born (okay, maybe not that) or practically anything else in the Runescape world. The last item is one of four types of charms (gold, crimson, green, or blue) which can only be obtained by killing creatures and through certain limited kinds of thieving.  Charms are untradeable and not available for sale. Any charms you get, you get on your own and no amount of money will help.

A popular and cost effective way of low level training Summoning is by infusing Granite Crab pouches using seven shards, a gold charm, and an iron ore to gain a total 21 Summoning experience. Sure, a Mosquito pouch may only require one shard and one gold charm, but the Proboscis secondary ingredient is cost prohibitive at over 3000gp each for only 46xp.  What training Summoning boils down to is either a lot of combat to get a lot of charms, or a whole-hell-of-a-lot of money to buy the shards and still needing to use the hard to find charms. The problem with using a lower level xp technique to train Summoning is obviously a lot more time needed to obtain more charms and then the time needed infusing the pouches.  But this low xp technique does save money and only requires gold charms which are the most common to find.  I recommend Ice Warriors to anyone training Summoning and in need of gold charms.

Ice Warriors can be found in the Ice Caves south of Port Sarim or the Ice Plateau in the wilderness. My favorite spot, however, is on the top of White Wolf Mountain. There are two Warriors up there, and several more can be found in the dungeon below.  Remember to bring a Pick Axe with you to the mountain as you will need it to clear a rock slide to get to the Ice Warriors.  Also, the area sounds start out cool and creepy, but quickly become a little annoying, so you may wish to turn down or off the area sounds in this spot.

At combat level 57, Ice Warriors are not wimps, but most mid level players should have little problem with these guys given enough food. At my current 89 combat level I still require some food to harvest from the Warriors, but I usually only bring cakes I have thieved from the stalls in East Ardougne. Weaker players may need lobsters or swordfish. It should also be noted that the Ice Warriors on White Wolf are in a multi-combat zone and will gang up on players, but after fifteen minutes of constant fighting they will start to ignore you unless you attack them first.  I use a Dragon Longsword against these guys, but just for fun, every once in a while I will use my Rune Pick Axe with almost identical effectiveness.  So if you can’t wield Dragon, try a Rune Pick Axe.

Charms are the whole reason to fight Ice Warriors. More often than not they will drop charms, and most of those charms will be gold with an occasional crimson and very rarely a green or blue thrown in to mix things up a bit. Still, in my admittedly non-expert experience in Runescape, Ice Warriors are the most prolific and consistent droppers of gold charms.  Other than, and in addition to charms, they also drop a wide range of other mid value items. I like to think of them as the WalMart of Runescape. They tend to drop a lot of different types or herbs, seeds, and runes. Uncut gems and arrows are also fairly common. I even manage to get a half key every once in a while. You won’t get rich off Ice Warriors, but you will get the charms needed to train up summoning.  I mainly fight them for the charms, and once I deplete my food, which takes a good hour, I’m off to the Catherby bank to make my deposit and get more food. Typically I can get atleast 40 gold charms in an hour.

Ice Warriors: CL-57, HP-59