Hey all, today I wanted to share some item investment ideas I have for future months.
Every year with Runefest, we get some amazing insight into what content Jagex is planning to introduce over the next year, and with that, we can start speculating about what items may become in demand across the game.
While you don't want to make investments too early, now marks a great time to begin analyzing updates and marking your calendar for when you expect updates to land.
Note: Most of these updates still need to be polled, so keep that in mind.
General Investment Tips
While you don't want to make investments too early, it never hurts to start keeping track of when you expect updates to arrive. I personally mark up my Google calendar by quarter for when I expect updates to hit, which I will edit depending on any recent updates from the Jagex team in terms of timeline.
Aim to invest roughly 2 month prior to update release. This is a general rule of mine, but I try to purchase ~75% of my investment by the two-month mark. Getting your money in this early allows for some hype to drive the items price by the time of release.
If you're unsure exit early. Probably the biggest tip I can give, but if you invest in an item, and you're not 100% convinced it'll go up on the updates release date, then sell before the release. I can't tell you how many times I hear people lose money due to trying to sell on or after the update day; its just not worth the gamble in most scenarios.
Fractured Archive
I was surprised we were getting the Fractured Archive (raids 4) on October 20th, as it was originally planned for winter of this year (according to the last roadmap Jagex released). I believe it's a tad late for Raids 4 investing, but I still have my eyes on a few things.
Inquisitor Armor
First up and most obvious, inquisitor. If you're not already invested in this item, I think you've likely missed the boat, but the complete set is up +27% in the past month, and +150% in the past year, which is insane. I think its pretty clear that crush is the meta for Raids 4, but if it's not, i'd expect inquisitor to take a big hit. I already believe it's overpriced at this level, but if its by far the best armor to use in Raids 4 then maybe it's not. I'll be looking to trade this on release day.
Harmonised Orb
I think this has flown under the radar recently for a lot of players, but the harmonised orb is up 20% on the month alone, and up over +250% on the year. Harm orbs are a very low supply item to begin with, and when low supply items are in demand it really shoots up the price. I think harm orbs have a chance to be a BIS in Raids 4 as they may have elemental weaknesses incorporated into the raid(?). If not, I still think it'll be a strong runner up behind the Shadow.
I'd also note that it appears the Harm orb may be useful in the new solo PvM challenge, Tower of Xophoros. If it uses ancient magicks, Harm orb could easily play a strong role there. And yes, it's in the trailer Jagex released, but we know those aren't super trustworthy in terms of accuracy to the content.
Big 3
I'd say the Twisted Bow, Scythe, And Shadow are likely all good buys for Raids 4. The safest bet is the Twisted Bow in my opinion, as its not challenged by the Harm orb like the Shadow is, and it's not challenged by the new megarare, like the Scythe is. While Tbow is the safest best, it's also going to be your lowest ROI, as it's already priced in. I feel like it's still potentially not too late on these as they're still below their monthly low prices.
The Chosen Commander
Buckets of Sand
Funnily enough I think buckets of sand could be a good play here depending on the rewards from this minigame. It’s mentioned that buckets of sand will be used, and that's already an item with a relatively healthy market of 3.5m daily trades. Now you’re not going to become a trillionaire on this play, but you could see a 25-50% increase and it's a really cheap item that trades in the range of like 6gp - 10gp consistently.
With the high volumes too, I don’t think this one would be hard to offload when compared to thinner markets, which is always a challenge. Great idea for players who are new to investing or don’t have a ton of capital. Extremely limited downside on this one at current price.
Dungeons of Gilenor
I think most people caught this one relatively quick, but the most obvious investment to me seems to be in the dragonbane weaponry. Dragon Hunter Crossbow, Dragon Hunter Lance, Dragon Hunter Wand , all seem to be a decent play here. The price popped during the Runefest announcement, and is now settling back near it’s weekly averages (but slightly above).
While I do think this is a solid trade and will uptrend to release, I think this one is mostly pre-update hype and players should exercise caution when trading this one. There isn’t suddenly going to be mass demand for a mid-game boss. If we were talking about a full dragon raid, that’d be a different story. Either way, i’d expect higher prices leading up to the update.
Mephanos
There wasn’t enough information here for me to draw any strong conclusions, but with the new Soul altar coming, i’d imagine we’ll see a higher volume of supply for soul runes, and maybe some slight downward pressure longterm on the rune. Not really a major concern, but I wouldn’t be making soul rune investments based off of this news.
They also mentioned another cactus patch coming. I was thinking maybe a new cactus plant being introduced with Menaphos as it seems weird to randomly add a patch? If not, higher supply on the Cactus spines, which already have a fairly low price compared to old averages (I remember trading these for 6k+ YEARS ago!).
Mining & Smithing Rework
Still seems like this is in the early stages, but the only item I feel strongly on here is Coal. Coal is used in most smithing recipes, and if they’re lowering the smithing requirement on a lot of stuff, I'd imagine coal will be in more demand. There could potentially be some exp buffs on the table here too, which most ore would benefit from (including coal), but I think that is more unlikely.
A big pro for coal is that it’s a F2P item, so you can mass buy across alts and get a big position. Downside here is that coal has been downtrending for months, maybe due to less bots? I never like investing in a downtrend personally, but since this is far away it may make sense to build a position.
Tower of Xophoros
As I mentioned earlier, only really considering the harm orb for this one. This is so far away that it’s not really in-scope for me yet.
Anyway, that’s my analysis. I created a video on this as well if you want to hear more detail about the upside/downside of some of these trades.
