Do you have any suggestions? I'll be happy to RuneScape gold take them. If you're looking for that 77 str to 80 or more, you won't be able to do it with a whip. I recommend a saradomin blade (ss) or, for those who don't have the cash, a scimmy/d defender combination. If you aren't able or unwilling to yet complete the monkey madness task, then i would suggest either a blade made of brac or a d-long if your really low on the funds.
Additionally, what are you going to be using this armour for? If you're training and not taking too much injury (pest control) I would not recommend using barrows. It is recommended to consider purchasing one of the fighter torsos for training because it's added 4 str. It can take a while to find but is enough, and the mini-game is amusing. If you're going to be slaying , or playing in a safe environment (castle wars, duels) then I recommend the armor in the above.
If you're able to spare 3-4 mil , buy the berserker rings (do this before buying an afury imo). You can't imagine how much people will do for an extra str (22 mil for a tassy with 2-Str). For 4 mil, one ring with four str is worth it.
Whips are going down while furys are in a tizzy with the dfs. These are just a few incidents I've observed in the past couple of days. Other items are decreasing at a faster rate than normal now. The bgs is in a state of crash too. Do I see things or is there a reason for these expensive arms and weapons to be breaking down? Even sharks are going down quite quickly, so i don't think it's just temporary items. Is this your opinion?
Why prices fluctuate, in this case , it's crashing. The majority of players now pk with fury-s and dfss-s, they drop as cheap OSRS gold loot and people sell them, in the event that there are more items than demand, the price can drop. Not all is dropping Look at the clue scroll rewards, most of them rised significantly higher than before. Some dropped, eg. rane god armors.