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Magic

Magic is a skill that is used in combat, to enchant crafted items, to transport quickly around the world via teleports, and to gain money via alchemy. It is probably the largest source of coins in the game. While it is possible to play the game without being skilled in Magic, it is a considerable advantage to be able to use many spells, especially high level alchemy and the teleports.

Runes[]

Main article: Runes

All spells (with the exception of Home Teleport a.k.a. Lodestone Teleport) require the use of runes as a consumed resource. Runes are stackable, commonly traded items which can be obtained in a variety of ways.

Elemental staves[]

Main article: Elemental staves

The requirement for certain runes in a spell can be removed if the player wields an Elemental staff corresponding to an elemental rune. As an example, wielding a Fire staff allows a player to cast High Level Alchemy using only one Nature rune.

Standard spellbook[]

Main article: Standard spellbook

The standard spells are activated on any new character's account and they are available on all worlds. There is no prerequisite to using the standard spellbook, although some spells are only available on member worlds and others require completion of certain quests or tasks. As with other skills, new capabilities require higher skill levels.

In the standard spellbook, spells fall into one of several categories: Combat, Curse, Teleportation, Alchemy, and Enchantment. All spells yield their associated amount of experience when cast. Combat spells additionally give experience related to the amount of damage caused to the opponent(s).

Combat[]

Mages are weak against Ranged and strong against Melee fighters. When attacking others, you should use a combination of Entangle like spells and highly damaging spells. Curses tend to be underused, but do not underestimate them. When fighting monsters, hiding behind a rock or other object is very useful. Also most undead creatures and demons are weak to magic attack. This will provide an advantage over these creatures. However, you must be careful because certain monsters are weak to certain elemental attacks (air, water, earth, fire).

A little known fact about Magic is that as your Magic skill increases so does your defence against magical attacks. Your defence against magical attacks is determined 70% by your magic level and 30% by your defence level. So even if you don't care to use Magic too often, having a high Magic skill can help to protect you.

Magical staves[]

Main article: Staff (weapon type)

Various magical staves are available in RuneScape. In the list below are all the free-to-play staves, which can all be obtained at Zaff's Superior Staffs! store in Varrock, with the notable exception of gravite, which can be purchased from the Dungeoneering rewards trader in Daemonheim. The main effect of a staff is to boost magic attack and defence, while elemental staves effectively provide (for spellcasting purposes) unlimited amounts of their respective rune.

Item Attack Defence Strength
Crush Magic Stab Slash Crush Magic
Staff Staff 7 4 2 3 1 4 3
Magic staff Magic Staff 10 10 2 3 1 10 7
Staff of air Staff of Air 7 10 2 3 1 10 3
Staff of water Staff of Water 7 10 2 3 1 10 3
Staff of earth Staff of Earth 9 10 2 3 1 10 5
Staff of fire Staff of Fire 9 10 2 3 1 10 6
Gravite staff 15 15 2 3 1 15 7

Magic armour and robes[]

Main article: Armour#Magic armour
Maximum Mage Bonus - f2p

Maximum Bonus for f2p mage

Most mages wear robes, although some light armour is available that is made from special material and does not hinder the wearer's ability to perform magic attacks.


A free player's maximum magic attack bonus is +55, and the maximum magic defence bonus is +42.

This was achieved with Combat robe top, Combat robe bottom, Runecrafter hat, Swanky boots, Arcane blast necklace(15.5k tokens at dungeoneering), Explorers ring (2), Gravite staff (40k tokens at dungeoneering), and the Tome of frost (43k tokens at dungeoneering). The tome of frost provides unlimited water runes, but is held in the offhand slot and can also be combined with a elemental staff reducing costs for several spells.

Training magic[]

If money is tight, it is recommended that you use the Runecrafting skill to make plenty of runes for your magic training, or you can play Fist Of Guthix for free runes. If you have money to spend, buy your runes instead.

Certain locations such as the prison in Port Sarim and the demon's cage in the Wizards' Tower can prove to be useful when training Magic.

Level Notes
All Levels The Dark Warriors' Fortress has an unlimited supply of Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Body, Mind and Chaos runes to use on the level 8 Dark Warriors.
All Levels The Fist of Guthix minigame gives you free runes that can be used only within the game. If you intend to get Fist of Guthix Tokens, it is recommended that your combat level is at least 30.
9 Cast earth strike on any monster that is weak to magic and cannot reach you. It also helps to attack monsters that drop good stuff, to partially or fully pay back the runes you used.
13 Cast fire strike on the monsters mentioned above.
19 Cast curse on a monster that cannot reach you. Put on metal armour, such as full iron, and try casting. You will fail, but still get experience, making it fast and relatively cheap. The best place is to cast it on dummies in Lumberbridge, but you will not receive any hitpoints exp.
33 Using Telekinetic Grab, in the west Varrock bank, use telekenetic grab to get the gold ore inside of the vault, then sell the ore for about a 100gp profit. Buy another law rune, and repeat.
43 Requires lvl 50 smithing. Purchase all ores required at the Grand Exchange to smith a Mithril, Adamantite, or Runite bar(s), equip a Fire Staff, and superheat bars. Fastest way to train Magic/Smithing simultaneously, with relatively little cost to small profit. A profit can only be made when smithing rune bars.
55 High Level Alchemy allows you to convert items that you possess into Coins. Most players owe their high level of Magic to this spell, at 65 magic experience per casting, using a fire staff so as to only consume 1 Nature rune per spell. Players with high Crafting or Smithing can turn the items they make into coins, thereby adding money to the economy or to their own wealth. You can put the items to alchemize at the same spot as the spot of the spell and use the accessibility options to click with the keyboard.

Temporary boosts[]

Three Prayers can boost Magic. These are Mystic Will, Mystic Lore and Mystic Might, which boost magic by 5%, 10%, or 15% respectively for as long as they are active. These boosts do not increase damage, nor do they allow you to perform spells above your current level. Jagex has confirmed that these prayers only help your magical accuracy and magical defence.

Wizard's mind bomb is a type of beer that increases magic by 3, but only by 2 if the magic level is below 49. Players can buy it from the Rising Sun Inn in Falador.

Trivia[]

  • In early 2001, there were two magic skills, Good Magic and Evil Magic. However, with the introduction of a new magic system, the latter skill was removed, and the former skill changed to Magic. For example, if the player had level 50 Good Magic and level 40 Evil Magic, he would keep level 50 Magic, and the experience for the Evil Magic was discarded. Because of this, some players were upset that they lost money for training their lower magic skill, and that the experience was thrown away instead of carried over. The evil magic spells were Confuse, Thick Skin, Shock Bolt, Elemental Bolt, and Fear, and the good magic spells were Chill Bolt, Burst of Strength, Camouflage, Rock Skin, and Wind bolt.
  • Prior to the introduction of RuneScape 2, in the 2-D game, spells were universally represented by a simple, flying blue star, which proved difficult to distinguish from arrows, which were green stars. Also, in the original RuneScape, players were capable of casting magic spells while wearing full rune armour, leading to a massive imbalance in favour of high-level mages.
  • In addition, in RuneScape Classic, magic spells could not be cast for long unless the target was occupied by a fight; the magic attack was automatically abandoned as melee combat began. Prior to the advent of multi-combat areas in RuneScape 2, high-level mages (as well as archers) would frequently steal the kills of lesser warriors by attacking while a melee fighter engaged the NPC in direct combat, leading to all experience and loot being taken by the mage. The mage remained safe the entire combat, and quickly moved on to the next fight without respect for the players whose battles they commandeered. Thus came part of the motivation behind making the experience gained based on the damage dealt in RS2, rather than on all experience going to the player who killed the NPC.
  • In RuneScape Classic, each spell gave the fixed experience using the formula 2 * spell level + 20. Jagex explains that the reduction of Magic experience in RuneScape 2 was due to the fact that runes were easier to obtain on the new version.

For free-to-play players the maximum magic bonus of 55 and best armour is with the following equipment:

Trivia[]

  • All spells cast to moving characters other than the caster will actually chase them, with speed lower than ranged attacks.
  • There is a glitch since the Runescape HD update, such that sometimes failed combat spells would fly to the sky upon hitting the target.
  • If the caster is default-casting and the enemy is killed by his missile, often the caster will waste an additional missile by casting it on the already dead character. The experience is equal to a spell failure.
  • All default-casting by players have attack speed of 1, which of NPCs is 9. Seemingly the attack speed is reduced by distance between the caster and target.
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