Can you really earn through alching?
Mages learn High Alchemy at level 55. With the spell, they can convert items into OSRS gold. The conversion is about 60% of specialty store prices or 150% of the Low Alchemy prices. Using the spell is one of the better ways of leveling up Magic. However, if you’re looking to earn OSRS gold, there are better options than Old School Runescape High Alching.
What Can You High Alch for Profit?
There are two criteria for OSRS items to be profitable with the spell. First, the item should be easy to farm. You should be able to procure the item easily with minimal expense. Second, its OSRS High Alch conversion should be greater than its GE value. Why should you alch an OSRS item that’s worth more if you sell it on the GE?
Unfortunately, very few OSRS items fit these two criteria. That makes the spell an inefficient method to profit from. You can use the spell on a Dragon Platebody, receiving 1.2M gold in return. However, its listed price in the Grand Exchange hovers at around 2.4M gold! That’s double what you get for Alching it, so you’d just have wasted your chance of getting twice the coins.
If you’re focused on leveling up skills, however, you can multitask and hit about three birds with one stone. Smithing is a prime example of this. First, you make Rune Armor for Smithing XP. Then you use OSRS High Alch on the equipment, and you get Magic Xp and some gold. Alching Rune gear gives enough gold to cover the Nature rune you used and give you a bit of pocket change.
Small things accumulate and become big things, so eventually, you’ll earn much OSRS gold in this way. It will take a long time before that happens though. You might have maxed out your skills before there’s any substantial increase in your earnings.
Be careful that you only make the items that have a conversion higher than the price of the materials. Otherwise, you’d be losing money instead of earning. Also, use a Staff of Fire so you only have to worry about Nature Runes.
Why Use OSRS High Alch Then?
It is a good way to level up Magic. Some even use it to level to 99 as soon as they learn the spell. Theoretically, you can earn up to 78K XP per hour using this spell. All you need is your stock of Nature Runes, a Staff of Fire, and all the OSRS items you want to use the spell on.
Other than that, it has limited use. There are calculators out there you can use to figure out which OSRS items give the most profit. Though, you can earn more OSRS gold selling stuff on the GE than High Alching them.
At any rate, it’s good if you have many OSRS items to use it on, so you don’t have to spend OSRS gold buying stuff for what is likely to be a loss of profit. There is a way to completely disregard the need for runes while casting this spell. However, it’s not recommended for two reasons.
One, you won’t get any XP casting the spell there. Two, it’s located in the Wilderness. That second reason should discourage you since one mistake can result in even greater losses. Sure, can teleport straight to it, but getting out is a different matter entirely. You can use teleports in the area, but you can’t use one that will get you out of the Wild. Use this method at your own risk.
At any rate, OSRS High Alchemy may be slow in accumulating your wealth, but it will provide a consistent source of Magic XP. At the same time, you don’t have to worry much about your Nature Runes or spending too much. With the right OSRS items to practice on, you don’t have to buy OSRS gold to spend on runes. You won’t be able to quickly amass a fortune, but at least you won’t end up begging on the streets.
Keep enjoying Old School Runescape!
