Kicking off the new year comes the new skill Invention. The track record of new skills has been dodgy to say the least with the last three skills that came out; Divination being a lack luster skill that had as much to it as Firemaking, Dungeoneering which people today still call just a minigame, and Summoning, which changed the way bossing and combat in general functioned. This skill is a refreshing new look on not only how skills function, but the complexity and setup of level gaining.

I have to say that the giant updates from Jagex over the last two years have not really disappointed. Invention is a complex skill that follows the rail pattern of other skills where gaining a level unlocks new items; however, it takes it further by introducing a crafting system that can make adjustments to armor and abilities that expand the feeling of accomplishment and pride over what is made.

Now I want to be clear; for anyone that has been paying attention since the skills release, the amount of items and money it takes to train this skill is insanely high. Runescape has not seen a money based skill in years so it was interesting to see how the game coped with the massive demand for specific items as the overall level of the community began to rise. I do not recommend training this skill right now if you value your GP. I spent several million GP getting my Invention to 30. Keep in mind that what I am talking about for this skill right now will most likely not apply a few months down the road. You can expect to see me have a follow up article in the last quarter of the year.

So what really is Invention and how do you train it? The first thing to note before even starting this skill is that examining items for their break down components is key to getting good items to work with. As you level you will unlock high level items ranging from common to uncommon and rare items. I will go over these more later.

You start by creating blueprints that requires inspiration to create. Inspiration is something that you gain more of the higher your Invention level becomes. You will regain inspiration while training and spending time in game. I feel that this screen, although is necessary to hold true to the feeling of Invention, is rather bland and forced.

Moving on, putting the pieces together to actually make that invention requires the items that were broken down. There are good items that I found for breaking down in order to specifically make gizmos which will be important for good xp. Breaking down magic shield bows and adamant hatchets, have a very good percentage for getting items and they give all the items needed to make the gizmos. If these are too expensive to buy in bulk, you can tier down and your chance of getting the items is only slightly decreased.

Once the gizmos are created at the workbench you fill them with other items, this is where the real inventing takes place. There are so many combinations that each item made can truly feel unique to the player. They all have positive and negative effects when put together. Once again this is where most of the exp comes from at the early levels. The secret that is quickly becoming commonly known is that the more rare the materials are that are placed into the gizmo, the more exp the player will receive when filling it. At my level using medium items, I was getting around 3k exp per gizmo. This raises substantially when using rare items where each gizmo gives around 16k exp. Another important part is that you can have an inventory of 28 gizmos and fill them all. This is the main reason players were achieving level 120 within 48 hours of release. With this in mind the skill really takes on a summoning like role where you get quick bursts of exp while saving up the resources to get there takes the most time.

With that in mind, here are my training tips with the skill having been out for close to 5 days.

• Always inspect the items if the result of breaking them down is unknown. It can save a player a lot of money.
• Stock up on broken down items while making sure there are abundance of parts for gizmos. By doing this early on, players can get their Invention up several levels before even starting gizmos.
• Use medium parts sparingly. The higher tier the players go early on the more expensive things will become and players will thank themselves at higher levels when they can gain exp at a decent rate similar to saving blue and crimson charms.
• Research! Look carefully at what other players are doing as there is a good reason they are doing it.
• Patience is virtue! If players don’t want to brave the sold out stock of popular items in the GE then wait a few months and train when the dust has settled and better methods have appeared.

This is the joy of a new skill, especially from a skill that is so unique. This skill is doing a lot for the game and it noticeable with the economy already. Prices have shot up making crafting skills such as Smithing, Crafting, and Fletching more profitable while also providing a reason to train the skill past 99 if a player wants to save money and create the items on their own.

It’s important to note that this is a standalone skill, this is not the Mining to my Smithing or the Fishing to my Cooking. This is an elite skill with high requirements and fairly high cost. I will be really interested to see where this skill goes and what it will bring to the game once players start to pay more attention to what the effects of these inventions can do for them over getting the exp.

I hope you found this both informative and enjoyable to read and I look forward to another good year of RuneScape with everyone.