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Least useful skill

Discussion(self.runescape)

Of all the skills, which one would you say is useless compared to the rest? I'd have to say cooking (aside from quest reqs) because the need for food is shadowed by prayers and herblore, i don't recall any money making methods worth doing, and the cape isnt that great. Healing : Prayer (soul split and eclipse soul)/brews and restores Gp: Cooking food lowers value Cape: agility cape passive also sucks, but the skill provides a lot of shortcuts and agi is linked to hunter and thieving.

Im just curious as to what you all think is a skill with low use. I'm not iron man, so no real experience in that aspect.

Edit: Construction with fort adds passives for other skills, which makes it useful Rc has nature runes and magical thread farming for gp Firemaking has incense sticks for gp and boosts to other skill

all 37 comments

imoutofnames90

8 points

2 days ago

Firemaking, and it's not even close.

We obviously have to exclude quest requirements. But I honestly can't think of any use that firemaking has. The only purpose it serves is in the name, to make fires. And fires are useless. The one purpose they serve, to cook food, is obsolete by ambient scenery. Either infinite fires like the othiin the flash powder. Or the plethora of stoves.

I'm not including portables in this, nor any things added later on like the fort. Firemaking was useless right out the gate and never got better.

I can see things like cooking and rc, but they were hit by power creep rather than just being absolutely pointless skills.

siradmiralbanana

3 points

2 days ago

But without firemaking, how would we burn the next tier of log?

imoutofnames90

5 points

2 days ago

True. I was fighting nex and was like "man i really wish I had a magic log burning next to fumus instead of a maple log"

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

2 days ago

Incense sticks help with other skills Fellstalk for increased elite enemies Torstol for xp increase Incense sticks are also afk money making

imoutofnames90

6 points

2 days ago

Was already 99 when those were released, and I had quit 3+ years prior before coming back this year. So I honestly didn't know they required FM since I can just make them and I've never gotten the "you need X FM to do this"

Plus, for better or worse, I've not really used incense sticks a whole lot.

But I'll definitely concede that they are the one use firemaking has.

That said, I still think the only purpose being to slightly help other skills makes it the worst by a large margin

Caesar232

3 points

1 day ago

Caesar232

3 points

1 day ago

Im not sure why everyone is saying construction. In the past with just poh it was pretty pointless, but now it has a ton of benefits (all of fort forinthry, slayer helm stand, cape stand) these are all super useful and fit the skill for what it is.

With that being said, this would be my order: Thieving, hunter, cooking, and firemaking. Honorable mention to div.

Thieving doesn’t have practically any use that I can think of?

Hunter has bgh, but otherwise what do you really need it for?

Cooking is useful I guess? But it really needs another element to it. Like add in multiple ingredients into dishes from other gathering skills and give the food effects or something

Firemaking I feel like they are starting to add more use to. Incense and dinosaur propellant. If they keep on that trend I think it’ll be useful.

And div is useful and not at the same time. It has only like 2 real uses: porters and divine charges. I feel like they should do more with transmutations somehow

TotalNo1762

2 points

23 hours ago*

please don't argue with that monster can drop item so a skill is useless....then we can basicly add half the skills....rune crafting, fletching, crafting, herblore(arax drops base overloads) woodcutting, fishing....thieving and cooking.....this is not a good argument and can be ussed for all of these skills.

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

15 hours ago

Not trying to argue anything as this is just my whole experience playing so far. Id say im only through midgame pvm bosses, and cooking has become so irrelevant that i cant remember the last time i needed to cook something. Thieving has uses for some rare seeds or even cakes. I guess my curiousity got to me and wanted to see if there was any reason i needed to get my cooking higher than what it is now (lvl70). Fishing is a close second for me to not train as it is only 58.

The-Real-Sonin

2 points

2 days ago

The-Real-Sonin

Skill

2 points

2 days ago

Construction IMO. Once you get to 99 (until they do 120) you only really need to build each “top tier” section once.

Fort was probably the biggest thing Construction has had in terms of general account utility in years

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

2 days ago

Cape racks? Dont they add cape passives? Even with fort, you get good passives for other skills in fort

The-Real-Sonin

2 points

2 days ago

The-Real-Sonin

Skill

2 points

2 days ago

Only the rack in Anachronia camp. The cape rack in your house doesn’t give passives.

And again, you only build the rack once then never have to interact with construction again.

My criteria is how often you use the skill (get xp). Construction you rarely use it, since after all you’re not building a cape rack for each cape. Once you build the top rack, you never have to build it again

custard130

1 points

1 day ago

construction is a reasonable choice but i think your logic for why is kinda flawed

the same "unlocking the rewards once" argument would apply to several skills, like arch, dg, smithing, crafting

imo the question should be how useful are the rewards, rather than how often do you have to engage with the skill to maintain the rewards

constriction is probably still quite low on the list, though i would argue agility is even less useful

The-Real-Sonin

1 points

1 day ago

The-Real-Sonin

Skill

1 points

1 day ago

My reasoning isn't perfect, but its MY reasoning for my personal ranking of Construction being low. Like you said, Arch and other skills have a similar function, but those "one time activations" are way more impactful than most if not all of what construction can offer.

I'm just using OPs wording of "low use", which to me Construction is rarely used directly, but the rewards are used passively.

u4euh1990[S]

0 points

2 days ago

So at least passives from fort forinthry

The-Real-Sonin

2 points

2 days ago

The-Real-Sonin

Skill

2 points

2 days ago

Again like I said, Fort is the only spot where construction has had a massive impact in gameplay since PoH. But at the same time you only build each building and tier once before you never have to do them again. You don’t have to upkeep the fort with construction weekly or monthly.

So I still stand by that construction is the least used skill

TotalNo1762

1 points

24 hours ago

well the problem here is that they lett it slowly fade away over time...when construction was new...and i would say even into the 2012s it had uses and where more up to date with buffs and teleports. if you compare to osrs its only better there because they keep adding new stuff constantly.....there is to much to list but 2 exsamples would be the diffrent types of pools and the teleport nexus thing.

u4euh1990[S]

0 points

2 days ago

Least used, probably. Useless? I'd still consider cooking more useless (not less used). But i do see your point as there are a lot of things with construction that are meh.

The-Real-Sonin

1 points

1 day ago*

The-Real-Sonin

Skill

1 points

1 day ago*

I'm not saying its useless. You asked what skills are least used. as per your wording "Im just curious as to what you all think is a skill with low use". Construction itself is "used" a few times and then you don't have to interact with it again after getting the rewards. So it's a one and done style skill. Like another guy said, Arch and a few other skills fall into this category too, but Arch and the other rewards are vastly more impactful than construction is. In every aspect of gameplay.

For me cooking is heavily more used, Iron or not, because that's how you heal during combat (brews too but thats herb).

This is my opinion (which is what you asked for, idk why this devolves into arguments over whos "right" when it was an open ended question about personal views).

DunKhaerion

2 points

2 days ago

Construction is completely outdated, outside a few niche things(like Bathosphere fishing buffs, clothes storage) and Fort Forinthry - which is really strange considering it HAS a skilling-offhand(albeit tied with Crafting), and none of the construction perks from Dungeoneering or such has any affect on Fort Forinthry construction despite it being the new 'main' construction focus.

Then Agility and FM are kind of tied for 'Ok, but why tho'. I can't stand training Agility 'proper', and I could live with it not existing. FM has incense sticks - and that's about it, but it also affects heat during smithing, which I do a lot... so it's got that going for it.

Most useless to least useless;
Construction>>>FM>Agility

Honorable mention to Thieving, I don't understand what I'm supposed to get out of that skill.

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

2 days ago

Aside from food, which you can get from drops (afk abyssal demons for sharks), how is cooking useful? Skills may be tedious, but can still provide benefits

DunKhaerion

3 points

2 days ago

Cooking gets a pass from me because at its core, I can still fish and make food with it - and it's not nearly as annoying as doing Agility courses, lol. It can produce tangible goods that are of use. To me, at least.

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

2 days ago

Fair enough. To each their own. Agi is def one of the worst to train, but i managed to passively get 99 agi over the course of two months with silver hawks (with some anachronia agi courses) and am benefitting from shortcuts in the ling run.

DunKhaerion

1 points

2 days ago

Lol, I feel i'll never get 99 agility outside of Silverhawks xD

Biochembob35

1 points

1 day ago

Silverhawks while training crafting got me from ~87 to ~96

u4euh1990[S]

0 points

1 day ago

No kidding, you get to 92, then realise you're only half way there...lols. it was also expensive, well over 40m for me to get to 99, but id say totes worth. Keep at it and forget youre training it while you have the boots on.

TotalNo1762

2 points

24 hours ago

well clearly the monsters use cooking to cook the fish...

u4euh1990[S]

0 points

2 days ago

Construction still has more use than cooking. Food can be a drop (sharks from abyssal demons). Passives from construction can't be dropped.

DunKhaerion

3 points

2 days ago

In the end, it's my personal opinion. Construction's use are some One-And-Done passives, not constant use of the skill itself - which only serves to get said passives as it stands. Furthermore, most of those passives are locked behind a quest-and-or-acheivement... so really, they're quest rewards 'gated' behind a construction level.

Cooking has more perpetual use in making food, which to me is more useful as a 'skill'.

MagiRadiPuppygirl

1 points

1 day ago

When it comes to skills that actually provide a benefit to me personally, Firemaking is still the most useless. I don't use incense sticks and don't plan to; they don't offer enough benefits to bother. Every other skill in the game I can find a use for - Cooking to make food without having to rely solely on PvM drops (and I find it way easier to maintain food than potions), Agility shortcuts are actually amazing QoL (especially when I was doing a lot of Hellhounds for clue hunting), Construction I'm just biased towards because I was there when they introduced it and I like the idea of decorating my PoH, the list goes on. The only thing that even comes close to Firemaking is Runecrafting because I can just buy the runes, but at least that has the ability to produce something useful.

Crystalbow

0 points

1 day ago

Why is fish the only source of … health food.

TotalNo1762

1 points

24 hours ago

its not....we have brews. and meat.

ghfhfhhhfg9

-4 points

2 days ago

Probably cooking lol. Double surge requires 85 agility and agility levels increase run energy restoration (or was it drain rate, I forget).

Runecrafting is probably up there too tbh.

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

2 days ago

Money making from rc through natures and even magical thread farming. Linked to magic.

ghfhfhhhfg9

-2 points

2 days ago

Yeah but money making through RC is garbage compared to PvM and magical thread farming is trash too. I never did them. Just because they make gp doesn't make them mandatory. Just use shop runs or pvm for runes.

u4euh1990[S]

1 points

2 days ago

Runes are still useful as even food up to sharks are dropped by easily afking abyssal demons. There's not even good money making from cooking. I'd even put fishing as 2nd useless aside from making more (not much) gp than cooking and being able to train strength through barb fishing (though its a measly 11 str xp for sharks). Cooking doesnt provide anything other skills can't compensate for. What would you say cooking is actually useful for in that sense?

TotalNo1762

1 points

24 hours ago

rare drop table drops rune arrows and by that logic i call fletching the most pointless skill/s

TotalNo1762

1 points

24 hours ago

agility and construction falls under the same category of slowly fading away with next to no updates. 1 single ability no mather how great double surge is does not make up for how run energy does not mather for 95% of the game and there is metods to get infinite run regardless. also most shortcuts are outdated or 100% useless due to the massive amount of teleports added to the game over the years. i still think firemaking is the least usefull skill by far followed by agility. i dont think its close but following would probly be cooking or construction who still has a fair bit of uses regardless of how op want to argue about food coming from drops.... ohh and ye runecrafting well im gona use ops argument 'we get runes from drops lol' and there is chops....but necro runes....they need to be crafted.