Polypore staff

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The polypore staff is a one-handed magical staff requiring 80 Magic to wield. It is created by combining 3,000 polypore spores and 15,000 fire runes with a polypore stick, meaning that 1 charge is 1 polypore spore and 5 fire runes. Doing so requires a minimum of 80 Farming, which can be assisted or boosted by items such as Garden pies. Both hands must be free in order to charge the staff.

The staff has 3,000 charges when fully charged. When the staff is used in combat, each attack the player makes with the staff uses one charge. The attack is a Magic attack and does not consume any runes, though the average price per cast is approximately, assuming that you sell the stick afterwards. The staff has a +20 magic bonus, a +13% magic damage bonus, and a magic defence of 20. It can hit over 700 damage on a Slayer task in Kuradal's Dungeon with the help of a set of subjugation robes, making it the highest-hitting magic-based weapon in the game (outside of special attacks). It also is tied with Toktz-mej-tal for the third highest prayer bonus of any staff at +5, behind only the animal staves (+6) and the third-age druidic staff (+7).

When a fully-charged polypore staff is used to make an attack, it becomes a 'Polypore staff (degraded)'. However, this is only a name change and no combat abilities of the staff are lost or changed. When all the charges are used up, the staff reverts to a polypore stick. The player can create the polypore staff from the stick by repeating the process that charged it. The player can also recharge a degraded polypore staff; this requires polypore spores, fire runes in proportion to how much the staff is degraded, and level 80 farming. For example, a staff that has used 2,000 of its 3,000 charges requires 2/3rds of the recharge materials: 2,000 spores and 10,000 fire runes. The staff may only be traded when fully charged. Charging the staff gives 0.1 farming XP per charge.

The staff can be cleaned using a right-click option - doing this will revert the staff to a polypore stick and give back ONLY the spores equivalent to HALF of the remaining charges.

Since the staff has a built-in spell, it can be used regardless of the spellbook the player is using. Due to the low price of each cast, the staff is a viable option for mages to use, especially ones on Lunar Spells who wish to use magical combat, as the Lunar spellbook has few damage-dealing spells. However, the spell used by the staff gives no base experience when cast, unlike conventional combat spells. Normal experience is given for damage done - 0.2 Magic and 0.133 Constitution experience per lifepoint done, or 0.1 Magic, 0.1 Defence and 0.133 Constitution experience per lifepoint done with defensive casting enabled. This can make it slower Magic experience than a conventional combat spell.

The creatures in the Polypore Dungeon have a weakness to magic, and they drop the spores needed for recharging the staff. This makes it cost effective, even profitable, to slay the creatures using the staff's innate magic attack, gain the spores to recharge the staff, and sell the other drops to purchase the fire runes needed for recharging.

As only the staff itself is required to cast spells, it has become a very popular one-iteming weapon for mages. When skulled only one item can be protected, and when using runes this means that the majority if not all of the runes will be lost, and possibly the staff.

The polypore staff is also a very popular Barrows weapon, being cheap to use, quite effective against all the melee-using brothers, and stronger than other popular magic weapons such as the Black salamander, as well as not needing space for runes. The max hit at level 99 Magic is 414 without any kind of potion.

One charge at current Grand Exchange prices costs .

The price to fully recharge the staff at current Grand Exchange prices costs .

After an update on 6 December 2011, the melee attack bonuses and an Attack level requirement of 80 were removed.



Spellcasting
While the polypore staff can be used to cast spells in the standard spellbook as well as Ancient Magicks and Lunar spells, it also has a built-in spell that can be selected via the combat styles interface. Rather than consuming runes, this spell consumes one charge per cast; each polypore staff can cast up to 3,000 casts of its spell before recharging. The spell has two available attack styles: Accurate and Long-range. These give Magic and Magic/Defence experience respectively.

The staff's spell is extremely powerful. With no other damage boosts aside from the staff's 13%, it is possible to hit as high as 355 damage at 99 Magic. Additionally, due to the fact that it does not require a specific spellbook to use, it can be combined with spells from any of the three spellbooks, such as Entangle from the standard spellbook or the Lunar spell Vengeance, or Ice Barrage from ancient magicks.

It is worth noting that the Celestial surgebox will not grant the wearer an additional splat every 5th successful hit.

Not including the 13% boost, the max hit of the spell is equal to (5 * magic level) - 180. At level 106 (using an extreme magic potion or equivalent) the max hit is 410. With 99 Magic, an extreme magic potion or equivalent, an arcane stream necklace, a hexcrest, and a ferocious ring, it is possible to hit 672, which is the highest possible Magic spell hit, not including fire spells on ice strykewyrms and Glacors, or magic attacks while a lava crystal (magic) is in effect. In Castle Wars with proper damage boosting equipment (including Profound equipment and Castle wars brace) a max hit of 942 has been achieved.

A notification appears in the chat box when the staff's charges are half way used up.

When boosting one's Magic level, the new level is calculated into the attack's base maximum hit. This carries over for any boosts that bring the level over 99. It is possible to achieve a +10 boost at specific bosses with the Dominion Marker 4.

Trivia

 * When attempting to craft the staff without the required fire runes, the game will display a message saying, "You require 5 fire runes for each polypore spore. The staff will not accept substitutes."
 * There was controversy over the staff's 80 Attack requirement. Many felt that since it was impossible to attack with Melee with the staff, the staff shouldn't have had a Melee requirement. However, it was confirmed that the Attack requirement was to be removed, and the melee bonuses reduced. This update occurred on 6 December 2011.
 * Upon reaching 1,500 charges (half the total charges) the Polypore staff changes appearance, losing much of its colour. A message will appear in the chatbox informing the player that the staff has partially degraded.
 * The Polypore staff's attack has an attack range of 6 squares when on accurate stance and 7 when on long-range, while most magic spells have a range of 10.
 * The Polypore staff's attack are similar to the Magic attack of the inhabitants of Polypore Dungeon.
 * The polypore staff is the first piece of equipment to have a magic damage bonus that isn't a multiple of 5%.
 * The Polypore staff's animation seems to be modeled after Kal'Ger the Warmonger's attack animation when he uses his Celestial catalytic staff.