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The Tears of Guthix cave and interface.

Tears of Guthix is a short minigame that players may use to gain experience in their lowest levelled skill without having to train that particular skill.

To participate in the minigame, players must have completed the Tears of Guthix quest. In addition, players may only play this minigame at most once every seven days and must have gained at least 100,000 total experience or one quest point since the last time they participated in the minigame.

To play the minigame, a player must travel through the Lumbridge Swamp Caves to the Tears of Guthix cavern and tell a story to Juna, the serpent guardian of Guthix's tears. Each time a story is told to Juna, players recount a story based upon a quest that they have completed.

Since the Swamp Caves are dark, players require a lightsource in order to play this minigame. Additionally, both hands must be free in order to wield the stone bowl that is used to collect the Tears of Guthix.

Checking eligibility

Juna lets a player through.

Players can find out whether they are eligible to play the game via one of two methods. The first is to go to Juna and try to play, and if the player is not eligible then she will tell them the requirements they need.

The second (more convenient) method is to use the Quest List of the interface, and choose Tears of Guthix. Players will be able to check how many days, and how many quest points (or experience points) are needed before being allowed to play the minigame.

The journal describes the time left in whole number of days, rounded down, until players are allowed to again access to the caves guarded by Juna. If a player can return within two days, the time until they can return is to the nearest hour (example: "1 day 7 hours"). If a player can return within four hours, the time remaining is given to the nearest minute (example: "2 hours 36 minutes").

Prior to the Level-up Messages update on 21 May 2008, the number of days until a player could collect tears was rounded up to the nearest day. For example, "Tomorrow" would mean a player could collect tears again within 48 hours, and similarly "Later Today" would mean tears could be collected again within 24 hours.

Also, players could visit Juna and collect tears up to an hour earlier than they were supposed to, i.e. 167 hours after they had last done so, rather than the 168 hours in a week.

Playing the game

A player collecting blue tears

Players need to collect the blue tears flowing from the inner walls, increasing their collected tear count. Players need to avoid collecting the green tears, as these decrease the tear count. The locations of the tears changes more quickly if there are more players in the game. Therefore, it is suggested to find a less crowded world. There are 3 spots with green tears and 3 spots with blue tears at all times .

The game relies heavily on the player's quest points. The more quest points a player has, the longer the player is able to collect tears, and therefore the more experience the player gets. The formula for the time a player has is thought to be the players Quest Points in Ticks which is 0.6 of a second, plus a certain amount of seconds which is the lowest limit (possibly 45 to 60 seconds). 43 quest points are required for the Tears of Guthix quest. A player with 291 quest points has about 3 minutes (or 180 seconds).

When playing the game, it is best to be calm as the tears tend to switch randomly quite fast and without warning which can be a bit frustrating. There is no known best strategy to get the most possible tears. When the tears switch to green, some players walk to the nearest blue tears (players cannot run in the minigame), regardless of which wall they are on. Other players believe that walking from wall to wall wastes time and it is best to stay at the same wall, waiting for any tears there to turn blue. When using the later strategy, when there are no blue tears on a wall, walking to the centre of the three sets of tears (without collecting them) positions the player for quickest movement when a set of tears on the wall turns blue. In either of these strategies, one tactic when changing spots is to click the floor in front of the spot the player wants to move to, rather than the tears themseves. This saves the player from collect a tear or two in case they change to green before the player gets there.

The interface shows the number of tears collected in the stone bowl, and a bar represents time remaining.

Rewards

After the minigame is complete, the player receives experience based on the number of tears collected. The maximum number of tears collected is reported to be around 210 (with 289 QP), disproving the belief that the maximum to be capped at 200 tears.

The experience is added to the skill with the least experience. The amount of experience per tear increases as the player's level increases, until they reach level 30. Once level 30 is reached, the player receives a maximum of 60 experience for each tear collected. That means, if the maximum number of tears recorded so far is 210, then the maximum number of experience you can get for a skill is 12,600.

The experience per tear is based on the current experience of the lowest level skill, and is calculated according to the following formula:

XP per tear = MIN((100 + FLOOR(current xp / 27)) / 10, 60)

The experience per tear is capped at 60.

Note: Experience in RuneScape is recorded to the 1/10th of an experience point, but players do not see the fraction part of the experience in the game interface.

Messages

Players receive a message indicating which skill they received the experience for.

Skill		Message
	Attack	Your aim improves.
	Strength	Your muscles ache.
	Defence	You feel more able to defend yourself.
	Ranged	Your aim improves.
	Prayer	You feel closer to the gods.
	Magic	You feel the power of the runes surging through you.
	Runecrafting	You gain a deep understanding of runes.
	Hitpoints	You feel very healthy.
	Crafting	Your fingers feel nimble and suited to delicate work.
	Mining	You gain a deep understanding of the stones of the earth.
	Smithing	You gain a deep understanding of all types of metal.
	Fishing	You gain knowledge about various sea creatures.
	Cooking	You gain knowledge about various cuisines.
	Firemaking	You have a brief urge to set light to something.
	Woodcutting	You gain a deep understanding of the trees in the wood.
	Agility	You feel very nimble.
	Herblore	You gain a deep understanding of all kinds of strange plants.
	Thieving	You feel your respect for others' property slipping away.
	Fletching	You gain a deep understanding of wooden sticks.
	Slayer	You gain a deep understanding of many strange creatures.
	Farming	You gain a deep understanding of the cycles of nature.
	Construction	You feel homesick.
	Hunter	You briefly experience the joy of the hunt.
	Summoning	You feel at one with nature.

Trivia

• The 14 July 2008 Tutorial Island Update gave every player one quest point, which counted toward the Tears of Guthix requirement.

• When your character tells Juna a story about Miscellania and Etcetaria, Juna says, "War, what is it good for?" to which your character will replies "Absolutely nothing!" These are lyrics from the Edwin Starr song "War".

• Players who have not completed the Tears of Guthix quest can play the minigame in the quest Death to the Dorgeshuun.

• When you are on a PvP world Juna says to you, "Your stories entertained me, but I will not permit any adventurer to access tears on such an unbalanced and violent world."
• In a Lores and History, it is revealed that it was Zanik who came up with the trial to get to the tears.
• The Ranged and Attack skills have the same experience message.
• In the book 'Runescape Betrayal at Falador' it is thought that Kara-Mir drank the tears of guthix in order to repair the ring.

See also

• Juna, the guardian of the minigame (dialogue available)
• Tears of Guthix quest
• While Guthix Sleeps a grandmaster quest related to Guthix.
• Fist of Guthix - another minigame related to Guthix
• Minigame - a list of all playable minigames