Method Description, Instructions and Tips for Success

General Description

Mighty banshees are a tougher version of regular banshees, which are one of the best money monsters in the game. You gain access to them during the Smoking Kills quest, and can fight them any time thereafter as long as you wear either masked earmuffs or a Slayer helmet (if you've learned how to make one). Like their lower-level cousins, they are a great source of herbs and noted pure essence, and add to that cosmic runes, chaos runes and more.

Mighty banshees are located in a multicombat area, so you need to be careful fighting them -- they can hit pretty hard and are aggressive. The easiest way to fight them is to use prayer, but since the goal here is to make money, I describe a technique that uses armor and food instead.

With monsters that drop a large number of herbs, there are trade-offs between keeping all the herbs or leaving the lower-valued ones so you can try to get more of the ones that cost more. There is also a trade-off between using a beast of burden to get more herbs per trip, or summoning a macaw for its herb enhancing benefit, because the macaw increases the percentage of good herbs (ranarr and above) by a hefty 40%. The key factors that determine the best approach are the number of herbs you get per hour from the monster, the distance to the bank (and thus how much time you waste per hour banking if you take more trips) and the value of non-herb drops.

Mighty banshees drop large numbers of herbs, and they are extremely easy to get to -- only 30 seconds using a ring of slaying teleport to Sumona. For this reason I recommend using a macaw over a beast of burden, and keeping all of the herbs you get as drops.

Specific Method Details

Equip yourself at any bank, remembering to wear your enhanced Salve amulet and a ring of duelling. Take out from the bank a 2-dose super set and macaw pouch and summon the familiar. Then withdraw 8 strawberry baskets and 16 salmon (or other cheap food) to fill your inventory.

Use the ring of slaying to teleport to Pollnivneach and run south to the dungeon entrance. Go in and head just to the north and the mighty banshees are right there. Take your super set doses, summon the macaw and start fighting. Choose a spot that lets you trap some of the banshees along walls and obstacles, to try to ensure only one can attack you at a time; if you let them pile on you, they can do a lot of damage quickly. Eat the salmon first, then empty strawberry baskets and eat those as needed; if you get lucky with lots of herb drops you may need to juggle food in your inventory a bit, or even leave behind lesser valued herbs. Take the second half of your super set after about 7 or 8 minutes and keep fighting until your inventory is full or you are out of supplies. Remember that you can use protection from melee if you get into trouble.

Each trip should take around 16 to 18 minutes. When done, use the ring of duelling to teleport to Castle Wars, bank and repeat.