Summoning training can become very expensive and tedious, but familiars at higher levels make Summoning a rewarding skill. F2P Players can gain experience up to level 5 and continue to collect gold charms after level 5, which may be useful if you intend on becoming P2P eventually. All F2P parts of this guide will be shown with "(F2P)" beside it.

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Useful items

Spirit gems

Spirit gems can be used to save charms while infusing pouches. They can be obtained as a rare drop from many monsters or from Treasure Hunter or from gem rocks in Prifddinas. Depending on the tier of the gem, each gem has a certain chance of saving a charm while consuming a charge. After a certain number of charms are saved, the gem will be destroyed.

These gems prove to be very useful especially for blue charms as they are usually the hardest to obtain. For example, a spirit onyx has a 60% chance to save a charm when worn up to 60 times before it disintegrates, therefore saving more charms to use later.

Shaman's outfit

The Shaman's outfit is acquired via Treasure Hunter or Familiarisation. Each piece grants 1% bonus Summoning experience when worn. When all of the pieces of the set are worn, a 1% set bonus is added, providing a total bonus of 6%. Pieces of the outfit were previously created from items that could be won from the Squeal of Fortune initially.

Summoning cape perk

The Summoning cape's perk provides a 2% chance to not consume a charm when infusing Summoning pouches, which stacks with spirit gems and the modified shaman's headdress.

Summoning focus

A Summoning focus is a tradeable, stackable item that grants extra experience when creating pouches. It gives an extra 20% Summoning experience when making pouches at an obelisk. One focus is needed for each pouch made. They are currently worth 9,998 each.

Starting (F2P)

To begin training the Summoning skill, players may complete Wolf Whistle (not required anymore), which will grant 276 experience to Summoning (increasing the player's level to 4), as well as 275 gold charms (enough for level 16, or 5 on F2P). After that you will have to collect your own charms. Look below for information on how to do that.

F2P players can collect additional gold charms from collecting one free sample from Pikkupstix's store or by killing troll brutes and troll chuckers in Burthorpe.

Pouches (F2P)

The only viable way of training Summoning is to create Summoning pouches. To begin making a Summoning pouch, the following are required:

An empty pouch, which can be bought from Pikkupstix for 1 gp each. (Not required for Summoning within Daemonheim)

A quantity of charms, which must be collected by the player through monster killing and other methods. Good ways to do this are listed below.

A large number of spirit shards, which can be bought from Pikkupstix for 25 coins each or you can buy a set of 5,000 for 125,000. (Not required for Summoning within Daemonheim), spirit shards can also be bought at the Grand Exchange. Though the guide price is not always 25, it is rare that anyone will sell it for anything less than that. On the other hand, Spirit shards can be sold by pet store owners (such as the one in Taverley) in arbitrarily large amounts, so spirit shards are essentially equivalent to 25 coins.

A tertiary ingredient which is specific to the creature you are creating, similar to the secondary ingredients used in Herblore.

Use the attuned crystal teleport seed and teleport to Amlodd district, followed by a short run to the Summoning obelisk, then teleport to Trahaearn district to re-supply with bank preset and Beast of Burden (BoB) set-up. Exchange pouches for shards with Lord Amlodd if you feel like it.

Spirit shards

With the use of Bogrog or Lord Amlodd the pouches you make can be turned back into shards; the number of shards returned to you is 70% of the pouch cost. With this in mind, you can drastically reduce the number of shards you have to originally buy by continually converting the pouches you make back into shards.

Obtaining charms (P2P)

Players attempting to train summoning should kill monsters that drop lots of crimson charms or blue charms, as they are the best for experience.

Monsters vary greatly in the number and type of charms they drop.

Once weekly, the Familiarisation Distraction and Diversion can be done, which gives a reward of 40 minutes of triple charm drops. It is recommended to use this time by killing a monster that drops a lot of crimson charms.

If you have 21 Summoning and spent some time training Dungeoneering, you can buy a charming imp, which automatically picks up requested charms and converts unwanted charms into small Summoning experience. This can increase the rate of gathering charms significantly and it increases the amount of Combat or Slayer experience earned (per hour). It is highly encouraged to configure the imp to give the player all types of charms; the experience rewarded for converting the charms is much lower than the amount offered by using the charms to make pouches.

The Fang of Mohegan may also be used to provide a slight possibility of a double charm drop.

See here for a table of monsters which drop charms.

Slayer

The fastest way to level summoning is to camp at a monster that drops lots of charms, such as waterfiends or rock lobsters. However, it is also common for players to get charms from training Slayer rather than from camping at a specific monster. It is possible to get enough charms for 99 Summoning by getting 99 Slayer, although it depends on what tasks the player does. If a player is going for 99 in both skills, there is no need for them to camp at a monster specifically for charms. However, if a player does not want to do Slayer, or is unable to obtain all the charms that they want purely from Slayer, then there are several monsters that are very good to camp at for charms.

Gelatinous Abomination

Gelatinous Abominations have around a 44% charm drop rate. They drop gold charms at a rate of around 41%. The Gelatinous Abominations have only 150 life points and are level 6 so they are really quick and easy kills. The only equipment required is spiked gauntlets, which can be purchased at any Slayer Master. These monsters are found in the Taverley Slayer Dungeon, south-east of Turael (or Spria) in Taverley. Killing these are a great way for anyone to obtain gold charms, but no drops of great value can be obtained, and the combat experience gained is little.

Rock Crabs

Rock Crabs have a 13% charm drop rate, 10% of which are gold charms. This can be an efficient way for lower levelled players with some extra cash to obtain charms, and get decent experience. You should also run around and activate all the crabs since they don't attack and won't be able to be attacked unless someone runs next to them. If they stop attacking you, just run south of the crabs, right past the helmet shop and then run back up. This can be a great way for lower levels to obtain charms and get ranged experience. You can get around 3-5 charms per minute if done correctly.

This is not recommended unless you don't mind spending money to buy cannonballs, since they are very expensive.

Moss giants

Moss giants are great for gold charms, about 40% drop rate. They have very low defence and slow attack speed making them easy to power through even at low levels. North West of Ardougne has 4 moss giants and it is, more often than not, empty. Other popular places include the Varrock sewer system and moss giant island. For almost guaranteed seclusion (as well as a pretty view) there are also some moss giants on Crandor. Finally, a decent amount of moss giants can be found in Brimhaven Dungeon (requires 875 coins to enter). This area will almost always be empty.

Ice giants

Ice giants are great for gold charms, about 55-57% drop rate for charms. They have relatively low defence and slow attack speed making them easy to power through even at low levels. Two places to find ice giants are in the ice mountain dungeon and in the Asgarnian Ice Dungeon. There is also a location where they spawn next to the western wilderness wall and the members' fence line. Although being in the deep wilderness it is not recommended.

Goblins

Goblins have an 11% gold charm drop. The best way to kill goblins is to go to the goblin hut in Lumbridge. It is a bad idea to bring a slow weapon like a godsword, battleaxe, or 2H, as you cannot hit very quickly, resulting in slow progress. A weapon like a whip, scimitar, dagger or claws is ideal so you can do 20-30+ goblins and obtain 2-3 charms per minute. If you camp for an hour, you can easily get 50+ charms. This is not recommended if you cannot frequently hit 50-120 damage.

The goblins across the River Lum near the Al Kharid gate have 67 LP, keep that in mind when choosing what weapon to use to get one-hit kills (scimitar works best most of the time). The goblins found in the Goblin Village do not drop any charms at all, so it is not advised to go there.

Giant rock crabs

Giant rock crabs can be the best monster to get gold charms from. They drop three of these at a time quite frequently. The giant rock crabs are just located in the Chaos Tunnels, near the entrance southwest of the Wilderness Volcano. It is recommended to use Magic to kill giant rock crabs, since it is their weakness. Bring a few pieces of food, runes for the spell you'll be using, and also some runes for telekinetic grab (if using the standard spellbook). There's a safespot by the stalagmites in the northeast corner of the room.

Another fantastic area to kill giant rock crabs is in the Waterbirth Island Dungeon. There is a multitude of them in the north area beyond the gate. Keep in mind, you will have to run past many Dagannoths in the main part of the first level before entering the rock crab area.

Walk near a boulder and it will transform into a giant rock crab. Lure it to your safespot so it gets stuck and you can safely mage it. When near death, the giant rock crab will attempt to flee. Once the crab is dead, it's recommended to use telekinetic grab on the charms so you won't put yourself at danger by going near some other crabs.

Ice Burst or Ice Barrage can be used effectively here. Use Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee and gather all the crabs at a spot so that you can burst or barrage them. This method gives the most charms per hour.

A disadvantage of killing giant rock crabs is that the charms gained are mostly gold, which are the lowest level charm. Comparatively, the charms that can be gained in a given time period from killing giant rock crabs will not give as much summoning experience as the charms that can be gained in the same time period killing a monster that drops mainly higher level charms, such as waterfiends or rock lobsters. Giant rock crabs should only be killed at low-level summoning when gold charms are most useful, and even then, it is important to realise that since charms can be saved up, it probably would be more worth your time to just start at a monster that drops primarily crimson charms right away, since you will end up getting gold charms to make it through the low summoning levels anyway, at the same time as you save up tons of crimsons to use later.

Black demons

With the introduction of infernal ashes, killing black demons became another reasonable method of gathering crimson charms. The ashes cover the cost of the cannon balls and other consumables. At higher levels, such as with 70 agility, 52/68/96 summoning, a chaotic weapon, and 80+ combat stats, a player can amass profit above 200k per hour on top of the crimson charms. High ranged levels help too, as demons are weak to bolts.

Rock lobsters

Killing rock lobsters is often considered to be the fastest way to train Summoning, although waterfiends can actually be faster than bursting with the optimal levels and equipment, including 99 Summoning for a Steel Titan. Rock lobsters do not require a high Summoning level to kill quickly.

The best way to kill rock lobsters is to use Ice Barrage or Ice Burst since they are aggressive. There are many different ways to do this successfully, most of which involve luring 9 rock lobsters towards you while using Protect from Melee or Deflect Melee, moving to a safe spot, then casting the spells to kill them. Armour that gives high magic and/or prayer bonuses is recommended. Most of your inventory should be Prayer potions, but you will also want runes for ice spells, and a few blood spells (to heal, as you can take damage from dagannoths using a ranged attack). Also, bring a teleport and a few pieces of food.

Due to an update, you can now reach rock lobsters without a partner.

Players attempting to use this method to kill rock lobsters should have 70+ (preferably 94+) magic, and 70+ prayer. They should also have a large amount of cash, as this method does cost a significant amount of money due to the runes and prayer potions used.

Ice bursting rock lobsters can give over 180 crimson charms per hour, whereas ice barraging can give up to 270 crimson charms per hour.

To further improve the number of Crimson charms players get and how many runes they use, many players choose to use damage increasing variables such as the staff of light, arcane stream necklace, arcane blast necklace or arcane pulse necklace as well as the wolpertinger special move, Magic Focus which gives the same boosting effects as the extreme magic potion.

Waterfiends

Waterfiends are a great source of crimson charms for mid-to-high level players. They are weak to bolts, and easy to kill with a royal crossbow or another tier 75+ range weapon. Waterfiends can be killed in the Ancient Cavern or in the Chaos Tunnels.

Waterfiends have a ranged attack and a magic attack. The magic attack is more dangerous. Players should use mage defence armour (Karil's or royal d'hide) and, if they wish to further reduce damage, the Protect from Missiles or Deflect Missiles prayer. The best weapons to use are the royal crossbow, dual chaotic crossbows, or dual ascension crossbows.

Mid-level players will find it easiest to kill waterfiends in the ancient caverns. Using a royal crossbow and a healing familiar such as a bunyip, it is easy to obtain about 150 crimson charms per hour.

Higher level players, with 95+ range and defence, will find that little healing is necessary. Such players may want to bring a combat familiar instead of a healing familiar. Using extreme potions and turmoil, high-level players can obtain about 225 crimson charms per hour in the ancient cavern.

For an even higher rate of charm collecting, very high-level players can choose to kill waterfiends in the Chaos Tunnels, where they are denser. Here, players should use Soul Split, an Iron or Steel titan loaded with the appropriate scrolls, extreme potions, and the highest level crossbow and ranged armour possible. If making full use of multi-target abilities, players can expect to earn about 300 charms per hour in the chaos tunnels.

Gladii

For higher level players with 81+ slayer, killing gladii at the Monastery of Ascension allows for a fast way to collect crimson charms while also serving as a money making method. Like other Order of Ascension members, gladii are weak against ranged weapons and have a weakness for any ranged attack type, and they are almost impossible to kill at any decent speed with magic or melee. At high range levels and using extreme ranging potions and a level 80+ weapon, over 150 crimson charms per hour can be obtained, making them only slightly inferior to waterfiends and rock lobsters for training. Unlike these monsters, gladii can also yield a significant profit of 2m+ per hour as a result of their valuable ascension keystone drops, as well as their frequent drops of noted resources and rune and adamant alchables, making them one of only a few ways to profitably and quickly train Summoning. To kill gladii, it is recommended to rely on some healing method other than food to lengthen trip duration, such as the bunyip or unicorn stallion familiars, or the soul split curse. Gladii are relatively safe to kill, as they do not inflict much damage, but they can inflict stuns and binds using their special attack, so usage of the anticipation and freedom abilities is recommended to not lose killing efficiency. Royal d'hide, Armadyl or Pernix armours should be worn to maximise kill speeds, and a ring of wealth to increase profits.

Bork

Bork can be killed once per 24-hour period beginning at 00:00(UTC), and has guaranteed charm drops. The minimum he will drop on death is 5 blue, 7 crimson and 2 green charms. Wearing a ring of wealth adds 3 crimson and 1 green to the base total, and completing all of the hard Varrock Tasks leads to the base charm drop being doubled. The Familiarisation D&D will not triple these charm drops.

As Bork can be killed daily, the number of charms that slowly mount up can significantly enhance the pool of charms that a player may amass through other methods, or even become the primary source of charms for players that only want to train Summoning on a casual basis.

Tormented demons/Glacors

Tormented demons are excellent monsters for obtaining blue charms. On average, around 3 charms per 2 kills will be obtained. A strategy guide can be found here.

Glacors are also excellent monsters for obtaining blue and crimson charms. They drop 3 per kill and have roughly the same percent chance of dropping blue or crimson. A strategy guide can be found here.

Greater demons

Using a dwarf multicannon on the 10 greater demons in the Forinthry Dungeon can net 200+ crimson charms an hour. It is recommended to bring Prayer urns to collect the mass amount of Accursed Ashes that will be dropped, which will give prayer experience as well as greatly cleaning up the drops on the ground. The Forinthry Dungeon is in the Wilderness, the greater demons within located in level 20-24, so if using this method, it is recommended to have a teleport item handy (such as an amulet of glory), and do not bring anything you are not willing to lose.

Dying in the Wilderness will cause you to drop all of your items if you are skulled.

Hellhounds

Hellhounds, while not advised for green, crimson or blue charms, have a 68-69% drop rate for gold charms and can be safespotted in most of their locations. If you have high enough ranged or magic skill to swiftly kill them, you can quickly collect gold charms in safety. Another great method is to use a Guthan's set, a bonecrusher and a bone necklace in combination with the Piety prayer. Unfortunately, hellhounds have very poor drops and aren't profitable (not counting the rewards of any possible clue scrolls you may find). An alternative for gold charms are fire giants with around 55% drop rate for gold charms and they are much easier to kill with additional good loot.

Cave bug

Cave bugs have a 40% green charm drop rate, the second highest in game after mithril dragons. They are level 12 and fairly easy to kill. Only the level 12 ones drop charms, level 8 cave bugs drop no charms at all.

With dragon or better armour and an abyssal whip, one can easily achieve 40+ green charms an hour at levels 70 attack and 70 strength. One place to kill them is the Dorgesh-Kaan South Dungeon, where there's a convenient fishing spot where you can fish for frogspawns and a fairy ring nearby. Another is in the Chaos Tunnels.

King Black Dragon

With high melee stats (preferably 90+, Turmoil, Soul Split, and unicorn stallion) it is possible to obtain over 115 crimson charms an hour from the King Black Dragon, while making about 350-500k an hour profit. This can be a rather attractive way to obtain charms for high-levelled players as the charm-obtaining rate is very good while are making profit rather than losing a lot from bursting rock lobsters.

However, this method requires the ability to make super antifire potions, so that players can use an off-hand weapon or 2h weapon rather than a dragonfire shield in order to increase its efficiency.

Kalphite Queen or Exiled Kalphite Queen

With high combat stats, it is possible to obtain a decent amount of charms per hour from the Kalphite Queen/Exiled Kalphite Queen, while making a profit of 600-800k per hour. This is helpful as the queen drops various charms, with the exiled version dropping much more than the regular variant. The regular Queen drops 6 charms, while the exiled one drops 9.

However, the queen is very tough and has several guards, so players may need to rebank much more often.

Exiled kalphite guardians

Exiled kalphite guardians drop blue charms at a very high rate. This makes it incredibly fast and easy to obtain blues without completing high-level quests for tormented demons or glacors. However, the Exiled Kalphite Marauders provide a slightly better rate for blue charms and can be killed while AFK at higher levels.

Troll brute and Troll chucker (F2P)

The Troll brute and Troll chucker are the only two monsters that drop charms on non-members worlds. They only drop Gold charms on these worlds, and rarely drop green, crimson and blue charms on members worlds. They are only level 2 monsters which make them ideal for lower levelled players. Average and high levelled members have much better ways to get charms.

Ascension members

The Slayer creatures in the Monastery of Ascension come in four varieties. Each one is dominant in one type of charm, with another charm being an uncommon drop.

Rorarius - mainly drops gold charms.

Capsarius - mainly drops green charms.

Gladius - mainly drops crimson charms.

Scutarius - mainly drops crimson and blue charms.

Legiones - mainly drops crimson and blue charms.

Firemaking

When adding logs to a bonfire, fire spirits sometimes arise from the flames. A common reward for freeing them is charms of all four types. Free players cannot obtain any charms, not even Gold, from bonfires.

The chance of a fire spirit appearing is quintupled when using either a crystal tinderbox or an augmented crystal tinderbox. When burning maple logs, this allows the player to gain an average of 44 gold charms, 144 green charms, 18 crimson charms, and 9 blue charms per hour.

Hunter

There are three ways to collect charms using the Hunter skill: spirit implings, which require level 54 hunter, charming moths which require 88 hunter and 83 agility, and charm sprites, which require 72 hunter. Spirit implings are hard to find and only gives charms some of the times as they also give other summoning supplies, primarily tertiary items. Charming moths have a high gold/green charms output and are slightly faster than charm sprites (340 charms per hour versus roughly 300 charms) with a chance to get crystal triskelion fragments but require higher levels and are located in the wilderness meaning a high risk of being killed. Charm sprites are notable for giving a high blue charm output compared to the total number of charms, and provides a good alternative to skillers.

Thieving

Pickpocketing Amlodd workers in Prifddinas requires 94 Thieving and the Plague's End quest. All four charms are common loot.

Which pouches to make

Perspective one: maximising experience per charm considering only reasonable cost per pouch

In this subsection, we provide the pouches that maximise experience per charm using only tradeable tertiary ingredients and within reasonable cost. However, it also includes pouches created with obsidian charms, which are untradeable.

The number in parentheses is the number of pouches it takes for the experience between those levels. However, the number of pouches required between each level can be reduced by roughly 17% by using Summoning focuses. If in your inventory while making pouches, the focuses will be consumed and grant an additional 20% bonus experience. One focus is needed for each pouch.

These are only recommendations, you should be very careful when deciding what pouches to make for summoning, as prices change, and some pouches may only be good to make at certain times.

If you can, save blue charms until levels 89-90 and make geyser titans, since they give the most experience per blue charm.

Some people choose to stop using gold charms at around level 66 because the experience rate is around 230,000-240,000 experience per hour which makes it expensive for the experience gained and not worth the time.

Some people choose to stop using green charms at around level 80 because the experience rate varies from 370,000-420,000 experience per hour which is expensive for the experience gained and not worth the time.

If players have the right Divination levels, they can transmute lower-tier charms to higher ones. This is generally not recommended at a lower level, but at higher levels, when low-tier charms give only a small amount of xp/pouch, it can be worth it to transmute them to a higher tier. Players can then transmute the charm again for an even better charm.

Wolpertinger pouches require two tertiary ingredients, wolf bones and raw rabbit, which results in roughly half the xp/hr when compared to swamp titans. You will need to decide whether the extra experience granted and cheaper tertiary ingredients used when making wolpertingers over swamp titans are worth the extra time.

Perspective two: Opportunity costs of similar pouches

This subsection presents a counterpoint to the previous section and argues that one should not always make the pouch that maximises experience per charm. Instead, Sacrificing a somewhat small amount of experience per charm in favour of slightly higher cost-effectiveness can imply an unexpectedly large savings of coins per experience point. This is a rather subtle consideration and has its share of limitations, as does the perspective in the previous subsection. Again, we ignore pouches that use untradeable ingredients for simplicity, but in practice, these pouches can make a difference in training.

Similar pouches using blue charms

We now compare two pouches with similar levels that use the same charm and in which all components are tradeable. For example, consider the Fire titan versus the Geyser titan. Regardless of any spirit gem used, they use the same number of blue charms on average (1.0 to 0.4), so the opportunity cost of obtaining blue charms can be cancelled out, simplifying calculations. Additionally, the opportunity cost of making the two pouches is the same, so that can also be cancelled out.

Ignoring experience-boosting items, making a Geyser titan always grants 88 more Summoning experience. Making a Geyser titan costs -3,354 (a negative number denotes a loss), and making a Fire titan costs -887. Thus choosing to make a Geyser titan instead of a Fire titan costs the difference: -2,467, and the price per experience point is this divided by 88, or -28.03 per experience point.

Here is the central concept. It is reasonable that in a vacuum, one can accept the cost of making Fire titans of -1.28 per experience point AND also the cost of making Geyser titans of -4.28 per experience point. However, because both pouches are options, one should only prefer Geyser titans over Fire titans if one can accept a pure tradeoff of -28.03 per experience point. At current market prices, this is a rather expensive rate that many people would not accept if they realized it. If not, then one should always make Fire titans over Geyser titans.

A geyser titan has a higher level requirement, so this comparison is always valid. This is a pure, instantaneous tradeoff of experience versus coins which does not involve time. This is because the time-opportunity cost involved with gathering blue charms and making pouches can be cancelled out for this computation. On the other hand, this computation ignores the considerations of liquidity and transaction costs when buying items. This computation also ignores that when Summoning, many players only have a level goal in mind, rather than a charm budget. Thus one may dislike charm-gathering so much that the rather high price of about -28.03 (extra) / (extra) experience is acceptable.

Following are similar computations for the other charms.

Similar pouches using crimson charms

For crimson charms, Pack mammoths are the clear best pouch to make, but they require 99 Summoning and may be hard to trade. Further calculations show that pack yaks are usually the clear second-best pouch to make, but they require level 96 Summoning. Further calculations show that the next-best pouches to make (from the perspective in this section) are the Brawler/Deacon demons, then Granite Lobsters, then Smoke devils, then Bloated leeches and finally Pyrelords. Other pouches may give more experience but are far outclassed by the next-highest pouch in the aforementioned list from the point of view of relative opportunity cost.

Similar pouches using green charms

For green charms, one may find that Fruit bat pouches are actually preferable to Unicorn stallion pouches. This is because the implied cost per experience of preferring Unicorn stallion pouches over Fruit bat pouches must be -94.37 per experience point.

Similar pouches using gold charms

For gold charms, if one uses them at all, one may find that Spirit terrorbirds are actually preferable to Barker toads. This is because the implied cost per experience of preferring Barker toads over Spirit terrorbirds must be 1.34 per experience point.

Further calculations

This article has omitted further comparisons such as Fire titans versus Rune minotaurs, etc. One will find that the implied cost to prefer Rune minotaurs over Fire titans is very large. This analysis easily extends to using Summoning focuses. Assuming that one uses Summoning focuses for two comparable pouches, the cost of using the focus is the same for each option, so its cost can be cancelled out as before. The only difference is that now, both options have their experience reward multiplied by 1.2, so the implied relative tradeoff is multiplied by exactly 5/6 or about 0.833.

Further limitations

These calculations are somewhat sensitive to small price changes. For example, a drop in the price of Water talismans by 2000 coins, or about 40 percent, changes the implied relative tradeoff rate to -5.31 , and perhaps many players would accept this new tradeoff.

, and perhaps many players would accept this new tradeoff. This method cannot be used to compare pouches used made with different charms.

This method also does not apply to pouches with a single nontradeable component.

This method cannot compare pouches that use two tertiary ingredients (such as Wolpertingers) with pouches which use only one tertiary ingredient (such as Swamp titans).

Often, when comparing two (comparable) pouches in this way, the higher-level pouch will be preferable because it might, for example, imply a relative cost of 5 coins per experience point, or maybe even a "negative cost" per point. Of course, this does not mean that one should always prefer to make the higher-level pouch because if ones current Summoning level is in between the two required levels, then one does not have any choice. However, this may serve as a strong incentive to reach the higher level without using any of that charm.

Example: best pouches if one accepts an implied relative tradeoff of 20 coins per experience point

The claims in this section are sensitive to price changes, so they can be out of date. This section does consider Summoning focuses. Their use can significantly change the following lists.

For gold charms, the only acceptable pouches are the Dreadfowl, Spirit spider, and Spirit terrorbird. All other pouches are unacceptable because the next-highest pouch in the aforementioned list yields an implied relative tradeoff of over 20 coins per experience point (and far more than 20 coins in some cases).

For green charms, the only acceptable pouches are the Desert wyrm, Compost mound, Beaver, Macaw, Ibis (Bunyip are barely worse than Ibises, subject to price changes), and Fruit bat. All other pouches are unacceptable. The fruit bat is far superior to the bunyip and only requires one higher level.

For crimson charms, the only acceptable pouches are the Spirit scorpion, Vampyre bat (barely not Honey Badger), Pyrelord, Bloated leech, Smoke devil, Granite lobster, the cheaper of Brawler / Deacon demon (barely not Spirit dagannoth), Wolpertinger, Pack yak, and Pack mammoth.

For blue charms, the only acceptable pouches are the Albino rat, Bronze minotaur, Iron minotaur, Spirit jelly, (barely not Steel minotaur), Karamthulhu overlord, Mithril minotaur, Adamant minotaur, and Fire titan.

How to make pouches

When making pouches, you should have the charms you are using, empty pouches, spirit shards, and 25 of the tertiary ingredient. Because these methods require a lot of running, you may want to have any weight reducing equipment you own equipped or use a spirit terrorbird for infinite run.

The simplest method consists of running between a bank and a summoning obelisk. The obelisks closest to a bank are in Taverley, Menaphos Merchant district (Menaphos is slightly closer and easier to reach), and in the Amlodd District in Prifddinas. The Taverley and Prifddinas bank locations are near a house portal, so you could set your house to be in Taverley or Prifddinas and use a house teleport to shorten your trips.

Methods using special teleports

Above level 57 summoning, you can use a spirit kyatt to teleport near the Piscatoris summoning obelisk, and use a Tokkul-Zo or rings of duelling to bank. Using this method it is possible to make over 2700 pouches an hour, making it one of the fastest ways to train summoning.

Below level 57 summoning, you can use phoenix lair teleports and run north-east to the Piscatoris obelisk.

Should the player not wish to spend money on kyatt pouches, they can use the nature grotto in Mort Myre Swamp. This method requires a Tokkul-Zo, access to the Fairy Ring Network, and the Mort Myre shortcut unlocked from Temple Trekking (Total follower level 100). Start at the TzHaar Fight Cave bank, and use the fairy ring to Canifis (code CKS). Run south and go through the Mort Myre gate shortcut to the Nature Spirit grotto. Make the pouches in the grotto, and bank using the Tokkul-Zo. This method is slower than using a spirit kyatt, but faster than running to Pikkupstix's house in Taverley.

It is also possible to use the Balloon Transport System to make pouches in Taverley. Equip a ring of duelling and have one log in your inventory, take a balloon to Taverley, make pouches, then teleport to the bank at Castle Wars.

Methods using Beasts of Burden

With a great deal of effort and several requirements, the Spirit Kyatt method can be surpassed by normal bank running with Beasts of Burden. There is a specific order of actions needed when using Beasts of burden to make pouches. To set up, the stack of pouches, charms, and shards should be the last three items in the inventory. This method does not work if they are the first three items, for example. Also, the BOB's interface should be open on the "inventory" view, preferably separate from both the player's inventory interface and whatever teleport interface is needed. Here is the procedure for each trip.

Retrieve fill one's inventory and BOB's inventory with the tertiary ingredients. Run to the obelisk. Drop a number of tertiary items from ones inventory which is at least as large as the BOB's capacity. (This is not possible with a Pack yak or Pack mammoth, and indeed, one may only wish to use the first 25 slots of those BOBs.) Dropping should be performed with the action bar. Beware that some tertiary ingredients do not have "Drop" as their default option on the action bar. For such items, one must drop them by moving the action bar near the bottom of the client (but not snapped to the bottom) so that dropping can be achieved by alternating left and right clicks without moving the mouse. Retrieve all items from the BOB by clicking the appropriate button on the interface. (This takes a single click. If it does not, you have not done this step efficiently.) Click the obelisk to make the first batch of pouches. Deposit all items to the BOB by clicking the appropriate button on the interface. (This takes a single click. If it does not, you have not done this step efficiently. This requires charms, shards, and pouches to not be among the first several spots in the inventory. These three stacks might as well be last.) Pick up all of the dropped tertiary ingredients. This should be performed using Area loot so that picking up only takes one click and one keystroke. Make the second batch of pouches. Restock, possibly using a bank teleport.

Other tips:

Use the Surge ability on straightaways. For example, there is a straightaway north of the Ithell bank chest on the way to the Amlodd obelisk. Use the Mobile perk. With tertiary ingredients whose default option (on the Action bar) is "Drop," you can drag the item to multiple slots and bind them to nearby keys on the keyboard such as "Z, X, C" on a QWERTY keyboard. It is thus possible to drop 25 items in 2 Game ticks. Use a Bank preset which is configured to load the BOB at the same time. The combination of an Attuned crystal teleport seed and a fast bank teleport may improve this method. Swapping for shards with Amlodd can substitute for the complex dropping procedure. It is recommended to have completed the Hard Tirannwn Tasks. Of course, this is a very infeasible option for pouches such as the Spirit terrorbird pouch because their Grand Exchange value is far above their shard-return value.

This is a somewhat absurd procedure that is easy to mess up, but it can be significantly productive. With a War tortoise, Surge, "Drop-default" tertiaries, bank presets, no Mobile perk, and no Summoning focuses at the Amlodd district, 3400 pouches per hour is possible (but quite challenging). With a Pack Yak and the Mobile perk, 4200 pouches per hour may be possible. This method may also provide a small speedup below level 57 Summoning by using the Bull ant or Spirit terrorbird familiars.

How many spirit shards do I buy?

Since spirit shards can be sold back for the same price they were purchased for at a either a Summoning shop or the Taverley pet shop owner (who will buy shards in quantities larger than 500), it is simpler to take an educated guess at how many shards you'll need, and sell back any extras.

With the use of Bogrog, you can turn the pouches you make back into spirit shards; the amount of shards you get is usually 70% of the required shard number for the pouch. Utilising this, the number of shards you need to initially buy can be drastically reduced, however the effectiveness of this varies greatly with number of shards you initially have and the number of times you are willing to exchange your pouches. Also, some pouches may be worth more if sold rather than converted. See Calculators/Shard swap.

The formula which calculates the effective number of shards you own is as follows

$ \sum_{i=1}^{n}S\times0.7^{\ i-1} = S \times \frac{10}{3} \left(1 - \left(\frac{7}{10}\right)^n\right) $

S = initial amount of shards n = number of trips done to Bogrog i = parameter

The calculator below can be used for this summation for any integer S, 0 ≤ S ≤ 2,147,483,647 and any integer N, 1 ≤ N ≤ 100:

template = Calculator:Bogrog shards form = CalcForm result = CalcResult param = S|Initial shards|0|int param = N|Trips to Bogrog|1|int

Calculator requires JavaScript

This text will be replaced when you submit the form

However, it becomes tedious to recalculate this continuously to find the required number of shards you need initially. It is much easier to first decide how many trips to Bogrog you are willing to do as the amount of trips dictates what percentage increase you will ultimately get (regardless of initial count). The increases can be seen below:

Trips Percentage Increase Divide by 0 0% 1.00 1 70% 1.70 2 119% 2.19 3 153% 2.53 4 177% 2.77 5 194% 2.94 6 206% 3.06 7 214% 3.14 8 220% 3.20 9 224% 3.24 10 227% 3.27 15 229% 3.29 20 230% 3.30 25 231% 3.31 30 232% 3.32

The maximum possible number to divide by is 3 and a third (3.33). As shown in the table, to get close to this number requires many trips.

Let's say you needed 55,000 shards to attain a certain level, the first thing you do need to decide upon is how many times you would be willing to visit Bogrog which will usually be 10 times, any more than this the gain in shards is minimal; for example doing 20 trips instead of 10 when having an initial starting shard count of 100,000 only yields an extra 6,405 shards. The amount of trips you are willing to do is something you have to decide.

At 10 trips, the increase is 227% so the effective amount will be 327% of the initial amount, or 3.27 times the initial amount. You then divide 55,000 by 3.27 to get 16,820 (rounded up). Therefore, to effectively have 55,000 shards whilst willing to do 10 trips to Bogrog you only initially need to have 16,820 spirit shards.

Calculations can conveniently be performed with the software available on one's computer.

What to do with the pouches (F2P)

Some options only work well with some pouches, some only work well depending on prices. You should analyse the data and figure out what is the best option for you.

Method Benefits Drawbacks Sell to Grand Exchange. Works for almost every pouch and will generally get a fair price. Sometimes you may be forced to wait for pouches to sell. Trade to Bogrog for Spirit shards. (P2P) Can sometimes save you money over the Grand Exchange. Needs a higher level than what is required to make the pouch. Cast the High Level Alchemy spell on them. Can be a good way to train Magic cheaply. * Requires more effort and time that you can spend training Summoning. Many pouches make more cash by selling

Many other items are more profitable to alch than any pouch Use the pouches for skilling or combat. Often this will be a great way to make lots of money off training Summoning. * Takes a long time to pay out and will require a lot more capital invested in Summoning. Selling and employing the cash, then buying back when needed, may be more efficient. Make summoning scrolls from the pouches. You gain a slight bit more experience/charm. In many cases the given scrolls will also be worth slightly more than the pouches. The extra time required to turn pouches into scrolls may not be worth the trivially small extra amount of experience.

Alternative methods of gaining experience

Using levelling methods that do not require charms, allows players to save the most valuable ones for later use in higher level familiars.

Distractions and Diversions

Players may complete certain activities to receive Summoning experience, including:

Completing quests

Main article: Quest experience rewards - Summoning

Some quests grant Summoning experience. Refer to the main article for more details.

Other important information

Trivia

After reaching level 17 it is theoretically possible to get to any level (even level 99) in a single trip by making either spirit mosquito pouches or giant chinchompa pouches at the Feldip Hills obelisk. Both of these familiars require a stackable tertiary ingredient, allowing a player to collect all the required charms and seconds for any level within a single inventory. While technically possible, it requires immense amounts of preparation and time (includes getting all the blue charms, and buying a maximum of 10,000 pouches at a time from the Grand Exchange), and you would have to drop all made pouches or turn them into scrolls, and does not have much of a benefit, so it is not suggested. The player could also do this method by buying mithril seeds, picking the flowers and making praying mantis pouches. For the above to work, one must also make the pouches into scrolls or swap them for shards (with the required level), otherwise the inventory would fill up from pouches.

A way to avoid all the methods above is to have all the charms, pouches, shards, and noted secondary items at hand. Friends or people could trade you un-noted secondary items for noted items, although such an occurrence without reward is highly unlikely.