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Rubium

This article is compiled from the videos of GnomonkeyRS. It records what Gnomonkey said, with sources, not verified game fact. See About.

Rubium

Rubium
Type Item
Videos 2 (first 2026-05-22, latest 2026-05-26)
Main source RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS)

Rubium is an item topic that Gnomonkey covers in 2 videos between 2026-05-22 and 2026-05-26. This article is a stub: his statements are grouped by type, repeated ones merged.

Contents

Requirements

  • Mining Rubium requires 60 Sailing, which makes it a bit harder to access than Granite.1

Stats and numbers

  • Before the nerf, tick manipulation on Rubium mining reached around 133k Mining XP per hour when combined with various mining enhancement effects, matching granite's maximum of about 134k XP per hour.2
  • Access to Rubium requires 60 Sailing and about 48 Mining, and that it gives the same XP as granite and a ton of valuable resources.3
  • At level 96 Mining, 1.5-tick mining with all enhancers gave 133k XP and 4,700 splinters per hour; after the change fairly AFK Rubium mining gives 63 to 75k XP per hour and 2,100 to 2,500 splinters per hour, and Gnomonkey also quotes a proposed range of 51 to 60k XP per hour and 6,300 to 7,500 splinters per hour.4
  • Rubium geodes must be cracked open individually with no crack-all option, but it is quick, so players could spam-click the last geode in the inventory to make splinters.5
  • Rubium initially gave basically the same mining XP per hour as Granite and had almost the same Mining requirement, which Gnomonkey says is 47 for Rubium versus 45 for Granite.1
  • Unlike Granite, Rubium is a useful resource used to make incendiary cannonballs, while Granite is basically worthless even if banked; Gnomonkey says Jagex nerfed Rubium because it was better than Granite in every way.6
  • Rubium is not stackable when mined, so it clogs the inventory like Granite.6
  • The original incendiary cannonball smithing method gave about a full minute of AFK time and roughly 250k Smithing XP per hour, as an extremely expensive method; he does not remember the exact cost per XP.7
  • Gold bar smithing gives about 350k XP per hour for a reasonable player, around 500k with trading, and he says gold bars are cheap, usually only one to five GP per XP by his recollection.7
  • Making incendiary cannonballs requires Rubium, so reducing the Rubium obtained means fewer cannonballs: slower collection on Ironman and higher prices on a main account.8

Gnomonkey's opinion

  • Gnomonkey says Rubium was effectively granite where you do not have to drop anything and the ore is a useful stackable resource, which he says would make granite so much easier.9
  • Gnomonkey likes the increase to AFK time but wishes Jagex had not turned off tick manipulation, because he likes emergent engaging methods, as he loves in PvM.5
  • Gnomonkey says he is partly going back on his first video: he does not think the Rubium smithing method, at 250k XP per hour, was broken, since it is AFK but costs a lot, or on Ironman takes hours of collecting to do one hour of training.10
  • Gnomonkey thinks Jagex should have waited a few weeks to see where Rubium prices and the meta settle before nerfing the smithing, since it was not actually broken at release.11
  • Gnomonkey says a worse Rubium mining method means fewer miners and a lower supply, which raises the price of Rubium and cannonballs.8
  • Gnomonkey does not understand the claim that smithing XP per bar needs to be in a much healthier spot, and thinks the smithing should have been left alone for a month to see if it was a problem.12

Events

  • Jagex said that if Rubium mining remained the best mining XP method, Rubium splinters would become far less valuable over time and incendiary cannonballs would become the default for main accounts and iron accounts.13
  • Jagex is preventing tick manipulation from working on Rubium.14
  • Jagex is reducing the base Mining XP from Rubium by 20%, from 30 to 24 per action.14
  • Rubium rocks will always last at least three successful mining attempts, previously two, before their one in six depletion chance can start, and splinters received scale up with Mining level, up to three at level 96.14

Revision history

Date Video Change
2026-05-26 RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS) Added: 11 statements (opinion, requirement, stat)
2026-05-22 HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS) Page created: 10 statements (event, opinion, stat)
## See also

References

  1. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 1:35 ↩↩

  2. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 2:04 ↩

  3. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 3:41 ↩

  4. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 5:13 ↩

  5. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 5:46 ↩↩

  6. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 2:05 ↩↩

  7. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 5:03 ↩↩

  8. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 6:35 ↩↩

  9. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 2:36 ↩

  10. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 5:37 ↩

  11. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 6:07 ↩

  12. RUBIUM NERFED AGAIN (OSRS), 2026-05-26. ▶ 7:07 ↩

  13. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 3:09 ↩

  14. HUGE RUBIUM AND SMITHING CHANGES (OSRS), 2026-05-22. ▶ 4:40 ↩↩↩

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