RuneScape Summoning Guide

RuneScape Summoning Guide by Zik

¤ The Basics of Summoning ¤
Summoning is like Runecrafting in some ways, Herblore in others, and even Construction. To get Summoning experience, you have to collect materials to create pouches, which house the spirits of familiars, but I’ll get to that later. After you have collected the materials to create a pouch, you have to make trips to an obelisk to create the pouch, then bank if neccessary, and then repeat if neccessary to create more pouches. You get experience for creating the pouches at an obelisk, but not for actually summoning a familiar. In theory, you can get 99 Summoning without summoning a single familiar, but I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to take advantage of a familiar’s abilities.

To create a pouch, you need 3 different items. You will always need one empty pouch, which can be bought from a Summoning shop for 1gp each, for each familiar pouch. You will need a certain amount of spirit shards as well. The number required varies between familiars. Finally, you will need a ‘secondary ingredient’ (this is where the Herblore part comes into play), which symbolizes the familiar in some way, to create the pouch. The pouches and shards are stackable, where as the secondary ingredient is not. This is why you have to make ‘summoning runs’, similiar to crafting runes.

Like all other skills, the higher your Summoning level is, the more pouches you can create and the more familiars you can summon. Familiars are all unique in their own way; some are good for combat, some for skilling. Familiars can be useful, and Summoning is definately worth training. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned anything about the Construction part yet. Yes, Summoning can be very expensive to train, costing about 1M just to get to 52 and then even 10-15M to 70. But in the end, I believe that it is worth the money and the time.

¤ Pouch Creation ¤

In this post, I will tell you about how you should go about with creating pouches. Obviously, you have go to an obelisk to turn materials into pouches.

These are most convenient obelisks to use while creating pouches. I will add more as they come to my attention.

1 = Pouches
2 = Spirit shards
3 = Charms
4 = The secondary item required to make the familiar
5 = House teleport tabs
6 = Tinderbox

Piscatoris Fishing Colony
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I prefer to use the one in the Piscatoris Fishing Colony for my pouch creation runs, since you don’t need to spend any money on teleporting. The obelisk is just outside the colony. Just climb down the ladder outside the gate to the colony, make your pouches, climb back up, go inside, bank, and repeat. However, you must have completed the “Swan Song” quest for access to the bank. If you have access to fairy rings, the code is AKQ. This is how your inventory should look like:

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Using this method, you can make a maximum of 25 pouches a run.

Taverly
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The obelisk in Taverly is only quick to access with the use of house teleport tabs and glories (equipped), while having your house in Taverly. Teleport to your house, exit, run east to the obelisk in Pikkupstix’s house, make your pouches, rub your glory, and teleport to Edgeville. Don’t forget to switch glories after they run out of charges! This is how your inventory should look like:

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Using this method, you can make a maximum of 24 pouches a run.

¤ Pouch Creation ¤

1 = Pouches
2 = Spirit shards
3 = Charms
4 = The secondary item required to make the familiar
7 = Empty slot

Castle Wars
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This method is also good if you have done the quest Enlightened Journey, which gives you access to the balloons. From Castle Wars, take an axe (equipped), a ring of duelling (equipped), and your summoning supplies, with one space open. Go outside of Castle Wars, chop down a regular tree, and take a balloon ride to Taverly. Make your pouches, bank at Castle Wars using the ring of dueling, and repeat. This is how your inventory should look like:

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Using this method, you can make a maximum of 24 pouches a run

Gu’Tanoth
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This one can be used in an efficient method with the use of rings of duelling. Simply walk east from Castle Wars, up the winding path south of Yanille, to the obelisk. Make the pouches, and then teleport back to Castle Wars with the ring of duelling equipped. (Thanks Transcendent for this info! ) Also, you can use the cave that you run by along the way to send you up near the obelisk.

That might save you about 5 seconds. This is how your inventory should look like:

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Using this method, you can make a maximum of 25 pouches a run.

¤ Pouch Creation ¤

1 = Pouches
2 = Spirit shards
3 = Charms
4 = The secondary item required to make the familiar
5 = House teleport tab

Brimhaven
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This is another good way if you put your house at Brimhaven. Like the Taverly method, you’ll need house teleport tabs and glories (equipped). Teleport to your house, and head west a bit and you’ll find the obelisk. Make your pouches, rub your glory, and teleport to Edgeville. Don’t forget to switch glories after they run out of charges! This is how your inventory should look like:

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Using this method, you can make a maximum of 24 pouches a run.

Spirit Kyatts
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This is the quickest method known so far, but is only available to those who have 57 Summoning. It uses the spirit kyatt’s special ability to teleport you to the Piscatoris Fishing Colony. Have your spirit kyatt out, and your inventory set up like the example below, with a duelling ring equipped. Click on your spirit kyatt, and select the teleport option. You will appear just a few steps south of the trapdoor leading down to the obelisk. Make your pouches, rub your duelling ring, teleport to Castle Wars, and repeat as needed.

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Using this method, you can make a maximum of 25 pouches a run. You can craft an easy 2k pouches per kyatt (49 minutes), and up to 3k pouches per hour, with this method.

¤ What To Do With My Pouches? *

What should you do with the pouches you make from Summoning? By far, the best way to trade the pouches in for shards with Bograg in Gu’Tanoth. This gives you about 60-70% of the money spent on the pouch back. The percentage varies because some pouches’ materials can be expensive.

> How does this method compare to other methods?

Selling the pouches on the GE only gives you about 50% of your money back, and alching even less at 40%. The reason why some would alch instead of sell on the GE is because not all pouches can be sold. Some pouches are considered useless by players, and therefore no one buys them.

In addition to that, you can take the shards you get back from Bogrog, visit a pet shop, and sell them all back for the same price you bought them for – 25gp. Thus, you’re really only losing 30-40% of the money you spent in the first place when you bought your materials.

> So how do you utilize this while training Summoning?

Simple. Buy all of the materials you need after you’ve calculated the required items that you need for your training session, if you have the money to afford to do so. Otherwise, buy as much as you can, or would like to spend at the time. It doesn’t really matter in the end.

In the case of spirit shards, let’s say for example you need 100,000 spirit shards for your training. Buy all 100,000, make the pouches, get the 70% back (70,000), and sell the 70,000 to a pet shop.

This used to be a lot messier of a situation, and required some mathematical calculations in order to save your money. The reason being that you couldn’t sell your shards to a pet shop, but now you can, which makes things a lot easier to everyone.