Fungal mage

The fungal mage is a monster found in the Polypore Dungeon.

If players come within one square away from it, it will infest them, dealing fast hits of 15-17 life points. However, this can be prevented by using neem oil on it. This infestation does not reduce your Prayer points, contrary to popular belief. It should be noted that they are weak for their level, with a moderately low max hit and accuracy. Players with fair magical defence could tank their attacks with ease. Players with a low Magic level and poor magic defensive bonuses should not go near the fungal mage and allow it to infest them; it would be difficult to break even while using Protect from Magic/Deflect Magic, and the damage from infestation is much less than the attacks from the magic attacks themselves. It seems that even with good defence its normal magical attacks still cause more damage, but as the damage is small either way it is partially up to personal preference. If the player wishes to go for the infection method, they must stay in melee range and not use neem oil (Players should note that when neem oil is used on a fungal mage it stops attacking for a few seconds).

Melee and range attacks will be severely reduced to almost 1/10th of what the attack would have done, unless a dwarf multicannon is used, which is highly recommended due to the fact that it does a large amount of damage (maximum 300) and the mages seem to have an instant respawn rate.

Fungal mages can drop one unnoted Gorajian mushroom, which can extend trips. Depending on a player's magic level, they can kill 120-200 Fungal mages per hour.

Players can kill these without 50 Magic, but they will not get them as a Slayer task until they have the level. It should be noted that fungal magi are incredibly strong against melee and Ranged, as with all other creatures found in the Polypore dungeon. A good way of training on these if lacking coins is to use a Staff of air or equivalent, as it allows unlimited casts of Air spells, which are their primary weakness.

Killing fungal magi can be quite profitable, due to their valuable drops such as fungal flakes, potato cactus , snape grass , pure essence , chaos runes and seeds.

Strategies


Inventory should include some food or other source of healing, runes for spells, an emergency teleport, and a cannon/cannonballs if applicable. You may also wish to take a Prayer urn for collecting the ashes.

An easy way to get a few safe hits in on the mage is to attack him once, then immediately sprinkle neem oil on the mage. This will give you about three safe hits before the mage starts to attack you.



100% drop

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Essence and runes

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Seeds

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Other

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Trivia

 * They may be related to earth warriors, as their examine option states "A creature of animated earth infested by fungus", and the only animated earth monsters in large numbers are Earth warriors. However, they do drop Accursed ashes, which Earth warriors do not, suggesting that they could be some sort of demon.
 * When the fungal mage is assigned as a Slayer task, when you block it you can also choose the option to block all monsters in the Polypore dungeon.