Since the release of SOTE and prif, I have seen a lot of questions on the crystal tools if they are efficient and where to use them. You should find all your answers here!
I will talk about the 3 different tools, skilling methods and best ways to gather crystal shards. All the xp rates and shards/h are based on 99 in the skill. All calculations assume you are using a elven signet. (10% more charges)
Crystal shards
A crystal shard will provide 100 charges (111 with signet) for your cyrstal tool.
There are 3 efficient ways to gather shards.
A crystal shard can also be used to make divine potions. I believe the best one to make is the super combat one (97 herb). You can make 2,5 divine pots with one shard, doing so results in a profit of 17,5-20k gp per shard.
1. Prifddinas course – 15 shards per hour
2. 2t teaks in prif with infernal axe – 22 shards/h (1/85 per log cut)
3. The crystal tree – 8-10 shards per tree or 14-16 with ultra compost.
4. Pickpocketing Elves in Prifddinas – 180 shards per hour
Doing prif course for your shards is probably the best method because it’s currently the best xp/h, low effort course in the game. So you are getting good agility xp, a nice amount of shards per hour and you are able to play multiple alts to make gp on. You should expect to get a crystal shard per 4.3k agi xp.
The course itself is just like a rooftopcourse but with the addition of ‘portals’. These portals allow you to skip the next obstacle. Not only do they give more xp, the laptime also will be faster, resulting in more xp/h. There are 6 different portal spawns in total and they are not hard to miss. Only one portal can spawn per lap.
When going through a portal you have a chance of obtaining a crystal shard. The shards can be used to charge the new tools. You can run 48 laps per hour and with a chance of ~30% of obtaining a shard that results in ~15 shards per hour.
The course is just as easy as ardy, so multiple alts can be played while doing it.
2t teaks in prif is the most shards per hours of these three methods, but the downside of doing it in prif is that you can only two trees. which means your xp/h will be a bit lower than 2t on ape atoll or 1,5t on fossil island. You can get around 165k wc xp/h compared to 180k on ape atoll and 210k with 1,5t. So it’s a bit less efficient with 200m all in mind.
And at last but not least, the crystal tree. With this you can basically get 0 time shards because you already include it in your regular tree run, but you can also do it daily even if you are done with farming, only problem with this is that it can take a very long time to bank a skill purely from crystal trees, banking 200m fishing would take 800 days of 2 trees a day alone. Banking 99 fishing however is not that bad. Using super compost does affect your crystal shard yield.
because of the recent update that will allow you to trade in the crystal seeds for shards, a new method came to my attention. You can recieve up to 180 shards per hour with this by trading in the enhanced crystal teleport seed for 150 shards each. This is arguably the best method for shards.
The Tools
- Crystal Axe
The crystal axe is 5% more efficient than the dragon axe. You can get a bit more woodcutting xp/h. However missing out on the infernal effect makes the tiny xp/h increase not worth the lost firemaking xp. So only if you are done with your firemaking goal you should use the crystal axe.
- Crystal Pickaxe
The crystal pickaxe has a ¼ change of mining a rock 1tick faster, compared to the ⅙ from the d pick. This effect only has a use on non-tick manip methods like MLM, amethyst, VM and regular ores in let’s say the mining guild. It’s still better to use your infernal pick at 3t granite.
- Crystal harpoon
The crystal harpoon is 35% more efficient than a regular harpoon.
Probably the least used of the three. But technically the best buff over its dragon brother who only has a 20% buff over a normal harpoon. The harpoon performs best at 2t swordfish/tuna and is probably the only place it is used at other than a totus kid that is going for a big shark.
The methods
- Woodcutting
The crystal axe should be used in all places you would use a regular dragon axe in. It’s not worth for tick manipulation teaks, you should still use an infernal axe there. Only when you don’t need the firemaking xp you can use the crystal axe there, but keep in mind you need to drop more logs that way. Redwoods is also a good place for the c axe because the xp boost in wc gives you more ehp than the lost fm xp.
It is now also possible to use all trees in prif so the xp rates are almost the same as on ape atoll. 177k/h and 23 shards/h with infernal axe and 185k/h and 25 shards/h with a crystal axe. (profit of 4 shards/h with c axe)
A Crystal shard at teaks is worth around 9k woodcutting xp and 41k at redwoods.
Xp rate on ape atoll and prif doing 2t using inf axe vs. c axe
- Mining
Crystal pickaxe should be used at Volcanic mine and MLM for a slight xp/h increase. Expect an increase of ~5k+ at VM and around 3k at MLM. You can also use c pick at zalcano for more MVP’s.
A crystal shard is worth 36k xp at VM and around 8k mining xp at MLM
- Fishing
Only used at 2t swords/tuna. this can get up to 140k/h and IS more efficient than 3t barb, only by a small amount though. If you plan on doing the strength xp you missed out on from barb via 0time nmz, 2t swords becomes even more superior over 3t barb.
A crystal shard is worth 9,6k fishing xp at swords/tuna
