Greater runic staff

The greater runic staff is a reward from Runespan. It costs 25k points and requires 75 Magic and 90 Runecrafting to wield. It can hold spell charges and absorb hostile spells. The greater runic staff currently provides the highest Magic Defence held in the weapon slot at +22. The staff can absorb all elemental spells, as well as all Ancient Magicks other than miasmic spells, which require a zuriel's staff to cast. The staff can only be charged with one type of spell at a time, and must be emptied of its current charges in order to switch spells. Emptying the staff will return all the runes to your inventory.

When the staff is charged with a spell, it casts the spell as if you have the runes in your inventory. It is also possible to manually charge the staff with up to 1,000 casts of the chosen spell. Charging the staff will require players to use the exact type of runes required to cast it, combination runes like a dust rune, steam rune or lava rune will not work. The staff can save the inventory space taken up by runes if you are willing to sacrifice the better stats, especially magic damage, of alternatives like the staff of light or chaotic staff.

The staff can also be manually charged with skilling spells and teleports, so it is potentially useful in certain situations in which inventory space is at a premium. The usefulness of this, however, is limited by the fact that the staff must be equipped to cast the spell it is charged with unless you also have the runes for it in your inventory, and you must be on the correct spellbook to cast this spell.

Once the staff is charged with runes for the chosen spell, the runes in the staff cannot be used to cast another spell; eg: an astral, nature and earth runes used to charge Fertile Soil cannot be used to cast Remote Farm even though they have the same required runes. However, players can simply uncharge the staff to retrieve the runes in order to do so if they wish.

It should also be noted that upon death, if you do not keep the staff, it WILL NOT appear under your gravestone.

Note: You must be on the correct spellbook to cast the spell with which the staff is charged.

There has been much contemplation over the rate of absorption of the staff. As of right now, the rate is currently unknown; however, many players with 99 Runecrafting do not see a high occurrence of spell absorption. According to Mod Pi, the chances of absorption happening increases with higher Runecrafting levels. The staff will only absorb spells that are currently aligned to the staff.

When the staff absorbs a spell, the message "Your runic staff absorbs the spell, charging it slightly" appears in the chatbox.

Potential Uses

 * Spiritualise Food -- Prolong your familiar's timer without wasting 3 slots for the required runes.
 * High Level Alchemy - Turn mid-level drops that would otherwise not be picked up, into coins, without wasting two inventory spaces for nature runes and fire runes.
 * Make Leather -- Easily tan dragonhide while killing dragons, making more money per hide. The leather can be crafted into dragonhide bodies, saving even more space and granting Crafting experience.
 * Bones to Peaches or Blood Barrage -- A one-slot healing item similar to Guthan's equipment. However, bones to peaches tablets also take up just one inventory space.
 * Cure Me -- An expensive but endless way to cure poison. However, the anti-poison totem is easier to use, free and cures all poison.
 * Remote Farm or Fertile Soil -- Cure disease or supercompost farming patches during a farm run when space is essential.
 * Repair Rune Pouch -- Repair Runecrafting pouches up to giant without taking a break to withdraw the runes.
 * Castle Wars -- The staff's high Magic attack defence make it useful for both casting and avoiding Ice Barrage. Wearing other magic armour like Ganodermic will negate most of the Ice Barrages levelled against you.
 * Space saving -- For spells like Plank Make, Humidify or Superglass Make where a full inventory of spells are cast, the extra space from wielding the staff instead of holding runes in your inventory can save banking time. Still, this benefit is often less than the money saved from using an elemental staff.

Trivia

 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to cast Vengeance Group, you will get a message stating: "You do not have enough Astral Runes to cast this spell."
 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to cast Remote Farm, you will get a messsage stating: "You do not have enough earth runes to cast this spell." and the spell will not cast.
 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to create Tablets using the staff, you will get a messsage stating: "You need 4 Water runes to make this tablet." Or which ever respective rune you are not currently carrying and the spell will not cast despite the staff being aligned and charged to the spell.
 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to put the runes for the spell Air Bolt, you get a message stating: "You do not have the correct runes for any type of spell." but it will still work.
 * Oddly, despite being higher leveled than the other runic staffs, It is actually lighter than a normal or lesser runic staff.