Summer Sweep Up - Hunter & Skilling

We're picking up where we left off with the Summer Sweep Up 2026! The first round and second round of changes have already been released, and this week brings the improvements to Hunter, Guardians of the Rift, Tempoross, Coral and more...

If you read our initial Sweep-Up blogs then you'll have been anxiously awaiting this one, but today marks a number of changes to Birdhouses to reduce their Hunter XP output and bolster their Bird nest output, in an effort to make them feel a little less mandatory for Hunter training. The original blog contains a much more detailed rationale, but the headline here is that Birdhouse runs account for ~80% of all Hunter XP gained from level 30 to 80, one of the most skewed for any skill in Old School. When one method proves this dominant, it makes it harder for us to add new methods in the middle-ground or improve existing methods. This is particularly problematic for Birdhouses because they more closely resemble Farming than Hunter and strip the skill of its unique thematic and identity while reducing all of the methods that feel like Hunter to the 'dead content' pile for many players. With improvements to other Hunter methods coming in today's blog, we think this is the perfect time to put Birdhouses into a healthier spot, where they're still decent XP but feel more like an activity that you might opt into for some passive Bird nests (which still sell for a pretty penny) rather than an activity that you have to do to level Hunter. Enough talk, it's time for numbers, here's what's changing today!

• •Bird Nest Changes (buffs)
• •Number of rolls for nests from all tiers of birdhouse lowered from 10 to 5.
• •Success rate on any given roll for a nest is tripled.
• •These changes amount to a ~50% increase in the number of nests obtained, and should make the quantity you obtain more consistent and less 'spiky' so that you're not overfilling your inventory on some runs but leaving empty-handed on others.
• •XP Changes (nerfs)
• •Regular birdhouse XP decreased by 60%.
• •Oak birdhouse XP decreased by 60%.
• •Willow birdhouse XP decreased by 60%.
• •Teak birdhouse XP decreased by 60%.
• •Maple birdhouse XP decreased by 55%.
• •Mahogany birdhouse XP decreased by 50%.
• •Yew birdhouse XP decreased by 40%.
• •Magic birdhouse XP decreased by 15%.
• •Redwood birdhouse XP unchanged.

Let's take a look at how we're improving other Hunter methods to compensate.

Engaging in falconry through Matthias has just got smoother:

• •You will no longer be held in place while the falcon is chasing a kebbit, meaning you can now reposition or walk around while the falcon chases its prey.
• •You can now ask your falcon to catch a kebbit even if your inventory is full.
• •Excess resources are discarded to avoid cluttering the floor, except Hunter Rumour items (these will go on the floor if your inventory is full).
• •Furs will only be discarded if both your Fur pouch and inventory are full.
• •If your inventory is full but you have a Bonecrusher or Bonecrusher necklace, bones will continue to be crushed for Prayer XP. If you're wearing a Bonecrusher necklace, your Prayer points will also continue to be restored.
• •You'll no longer be interrupted while walking towards Matthias if he sends or receives his falcon.

We've streamlined Aerial Fishing to allow for lower click intensity while allowing more downtime and making interactions feel smoother. If you're a player who enjoys high-intensity Aerial Fishing, then the first change on our list should make that rapid-fire catching more reliable to keep chaining together!

• •Increased the distance at which you're able to perform 'quick' catches from a 5x5 area to a 7x7 area. In effect, this means you're more likely to chain together back-to-back catches every tick if you'd like to play at this level of intensity.
• •You can now unlock a toggle by speaking to Alry the Angler that allows your cormorant to eat fish in your inventory if you don't have any appropriate bait. This reduces the need for you to make fish offcuts as you go and makes the activity considerably less click-intensive.

• •Occasionally, a larger fish pool will now spawn that your cormorant will travel back and forth to several times without additional interactions. This adds a little downtime or periods of lower intensity to break up the rapid pace.
• •Increased the chance of you obtaining Molch Pearls by ~50%.
• •Lowered the Molch Pearl cost of some rewards (listed below). Those who already purchased the Fishing Sack before today's update will be refunded the difference of Molch Pearls, but not the Angler's Outfit (since we can't differentiate whether or not it was obtained from here or Fishing Trawler)
• •Fishing Sack from 1,000 down to 500.
• •Angler's Outfit pieces from 100 down to 50.
• •Added the Shark lure pack to Alry the Angler's shop, which contains 100 Shark lures inside and costs 1 Molch Pearl.

• •Increased deadfall trap limit from 1 to 2, with the exception of Maniacal Monkeys which retain a one trap limit. (Kruk would never double trap, so you'd blow your cover otherwise!)
• •Deadfall traps now have a 75% chance to preserve your log when placing a trap, so you can cut down on cutting down trees.
• •Deadfall traps now begins catching 8 ticks (4.8s) after being placed, down from 15 ticks (9s).
• •Significantly increased Wild and Prickly Kebbit catch rate.
• •Lowered the XP given by Wild, Barbed, & Sabre-toothed Kebbits and Pyre Foxes by ~20%. Lowered the XP given by Prickly Kebbits by ~27%. Despite this, all the other changes here still math out to a significant increase in XP/hr from these creatures.

• •You can now place two traps starting at level 1 Hunter, rather than level 20.
• •Killing a Chompy Bird now grants 30 Hunter XP.
• •The Ring of pursuit is now able to reveal full tracks even after one's already been started.
• •Improved the drop rate and pity rate for butterfly and moth Hunter Rumours.
• •Drop rate from 1 in 75 to 1 in 40.
• •Pity rate from 150 to 80.

• •You can now purchase the Abyssal Needle for 750 Abyss Pearls.
• •The Abyssal Lantern now also functions outside of GOTR if it's burning logs that provide some effect beyond the activity. This means Normal, Oak, Maple and Yew logs doesn't have any function outside of GOTR, but Willow, Blisterwood, Magic and Redwood will. Note: rune-boosting effects like the Blisterwood logs will only apply to the base runes crafted, so will not boost extra runes gained from things like Scar Essence extracts or Blood essence.
• •The Abyssal Lantern is added to the Temple Supplies shop.
• •The Guardian's Eye now unlocks a permanent metamorphosis on the Rift Guardian, rather than taking up space in your bank.
• •If you already owned the Guardian's Eye before this update, this metamorphosis will be retroactively unlocked for you. So if you're wondering where your Guardian's Eye went, that's because the unlock has been activated!
• •If you had any dupe Guardian's Eyes, you will be refunded their cost.
• •You can also permanently unlock the other colours for the Rift Guardian by taking it to the respective Runecrafting altars.

• •The Fish Barrel and the Tackle Box can now be bought for 6,000 Spirit Flakes each, from a Spirit Angler by the reward pool.

• •Increased the harvest lives of Corals to 6, up from 4.
• •Chance to obtain Coral frags from their associated Thieving chest reduced to 1 in 20, down from 1 in 15.
• •The yield has been slightly increased at lower Farming levels, and reduced at higher Farming levels. You can check out the original blog for more detailed numbers.

The 'quick' version of these changes is that if you're farming Coral at lower Farming levels, you'll see higher yields than before, but you'll see lower yields than before at higher Farming levels. If you're invested in this change, we'd really recommend checking out the original blog!

• •Removed the Herblore level requirement on the Reagent Pouch.
• •Buffed the Elite Clue rate from Heroes by 25%, from 1 in 1,200 to 1 in 900.

• •Updated the Venator Bow to take advantage of new engine capabilities, allowing it to find new targets more reliably. This is difficult for us to put into words, so if you notice anything feeling off or unusual then let us know, particularly in places where the Venator Bow enjoys current usage, such as the Fortis Colosseum.

• •Early-game Run Energy improvements:
• •Completing a quest now fully restores your Run Energy, and cures any damage-over-time effects like poison.
• •Added 1- to 3-dose Energy potions to a variety of early game loot tables at a fairly common rate. These can drop from:
• •Dark Wizards
• •Goblins
• •Molanisks
• •Desert Lizards
• •Banshees
• •"Human" NPCs such as men, women, Al Kharid warriors, Rogues, etc.
• •Cave Crawlers
• •Cockatrice
• •Crawling Hands
• •Killerwatts
• •Buffed Energy potions to restore 15% Run Energy per dose, up from 10%.
• •Giant Squirrel pet drop rate for the Colossal Wyrm Agility Course has now been increased to match the longer duration following last week's update.

We still have a handful of smaller Sweep-Up changes to make that we didn't have time for this week, those are currently pencilled in for release on September 2nd (two weeks from now), so if you're still waiting on a specific change then you've not got long to go until it'll be live!

• •We've improved the Jeweller's Chisel to speed up bolt tip production, as polled:
• •The Jeweller's Chisel now cuts bolt tips from gems in 2 ticks instead of 5.
• •It also has a 1 in 10 chance of cutting 2 gems into bolt tips at once.
• •Aggy & Mr McGroot will now follow you without getting stuck.
• •Aggy no longer has a shadow underneath it.
• •Alchemy spells can now be used on the Jeweller's Chisel. A high-alch value of 60,000 GP has also been introduced for the item.
• •Fixed an issue where Hallowfell attacks could sometimes be treated as facing the wrong direction.
• •Fixed a bug where the Wyrmscraig Cathedral staircase was easy to misclick from outside the cathedral.

Additionally, we've identified some unintended interactions at Mortimer using Partner Slayer. With Partner Slayer, players used to be able to get more than 3 task choices from Mortimer between them and then share the most preferred one with each other. Also, players who had not unlocked Mortimer used to be able to get tasks with modifiers using this system. To address this, we've made the following changes:

• •You can no longer partner with another player if you have 'rolled' tasks with Mortimer and have not yet selected one yet.
• •If your Slayer Partner is offline when your tasks are 'rolled', they will no longer be considered your Slayer Partner.
• •Mortimer tasks can no longer be shared with other players that haven't unlocked Mortimer.

These changes ensure that Slayer partners can only pick from three tasks, rather than six, and that his tasks are only available to players who have unlocked them.

• •The new fishing spots where you can fish from your boat now have map icons.
• •Fixed a bug where Group Ironmen could use the facilities on other players’ boats without being subject to the usual Ironman restrictions.
• •Criminal gangs of Kourend no longer violate physical laws by standing on the sea; in other regards they remain rule-breakers as before.

• •Ever since Mortimer’s addition, the Slayer Tasks interface has had a scrollbar, meaning blocked tasks were no longer visible at a glance. To address this, the Slayer tasks interface will now automatically resize vertically - no more need for scrolling. Note that your client window must be large enough to accommodate the resized interface.
• •Increased the Vampyre Snail’s health scaling to better account for the additional damage dealt by larger groups. Good luck to any would-be snail masters.
• •Various Hunter saplings around Nardah, Great Conch, Charred Island and Ourania have been adjusted to stop players standing inside the saplings (this incidentally stopped the player from catching anything in that trap).
• •Fixed a bug where the Navigator track wasn't being unlocked after completing the Fremennik Trials in some niche cases. If you were affected by this, attempting to re-enter Swensen the Navigator's maze will now unlock the track for you.
• •Charges are now correctly consumed from the Bottomless Milk Bucket when a follower cat drinks from it while fighting Hell-Rat Behemoths.
• •Mahogany treasure chest is now listed in the Construction skill guide.
• •Corrected the Herblore skill guide icon of the Extended stamina potion.
• •To prevent accidental misclicks, the rocks around the Leprechaun near the Ardougne farming patch have now been made non-interactive.
• •Fixed a graphical issue with the Clue Hunter Trousers.
• •Fixed various steps across Gielinor from clipping with terrain.
• •More item names have had their capitalisation corrected, following last week’s changes to god-themed items. This round includes the Scythe of Vitur, Helm of Neitiznot, and various books.

The Voidwaker Metal Miniature Display made by AngelsScapes is a guaranteed hit for any collector! The perfect tribute to one of Old School RuneScape's most sought-after PvP blades... Crafted from black nickel with vibrant jelly enamel detailing, it comes mounted on a custom metal display stand. This 2.5D miniature is great to display on any shelf or desk! This is a special online store variant with distinct packaging to the version lucky VIP ticket holders received in their goodie bag at Deadman!

You can also get your hands on other new pieces from AngelsScapes: a keyring replica of the Voidwaker, plus the Bow of Faerdhinen and its corrupted variant. Get yours here: runescapemerch.com

Something slimy has stirred in the Sotfa Forest… Join us on 28 August 2026 | 15:00 UTC for a Vampyre Snail Mass with Mods Acorn & Lenny! We'll be live on Twitch and gathering for the fight over on World 520! Make sure you've got access to Vampyrium! Will you be the Snail master?

For more details on Organised Chaos check out our dedicated blog here.

The PvP rota has moved to Period B:

• •560 - (UK) - PvP World
• •319 - (US) - Bounty Hunter World
• •579 - (US) - High-Risk PvP World
• •561 - (UK) - Free-to-Play PvP World
• •580 - (US) - LMS Competitive

World 390 (AUS) for LMS Competitive has been de-activated with this rota. World 569 (AUS) for Bounty Hunter has been de-activated with this rota. The PvP Arena is using '1 Def Pure' loadouts in Ranked Duels and Tournaments this week.