Ancient staff

The Ancient staff is a one-handed staff that, when wielded, increases damage done by magic spells by 10%. It requires 50 Attack and Magic to wield. This weapon can only be wielded after the Desert Treasure quest. The staff may be bought only once (after completion of the Desert Treasure quest) from Eblis, south of the bandit camp, for 80,000 coins. It is also dropped by mummies in the pyramid and the chaos tunnels.

This staff has the symbol of Zaros as its head. It is the fourth strongest in terms of melee bonuses, behind the Chaotic Staff, Staff of light, and the Toktz-mej-tal. This allows players with 50 attack and magic a better alternative to train with than rune weaponry, as it hits higher and is roughly the same speed. However, if a monster has high crush defence then it may be wiser to use a Rune scimitar or other high slash bonus weapons. On 2 September 2009, this staff was amongst the few to receive the ability to cause 10% more magic damage.

The Ancient staff has a relatively low price because it is easy to obtain one of them (except trading) however hard to obtain after then. This staff is therefore very commonly price-manipulated by price manipulation clans to make money.

Trivia

 * The Ancient Staff was one of three items that had a negative prayer bonus -- the others being Zanik's crossbow and the Amulet of zealots -- until the 12th November 2010, when it seemingly lost its negative prayer bonus.
 * When dropped on the ground, the head looks smaller than when it is wielded.
 * With the release of the Fist of Guthix activity, the demand of ancient staves sky-rocketed, as players are able to cast high level Ancient Magicks spells such as Ice Barrage without paying for the runes, since they are obtained for free during the game, and the crowded nature of the game makes it more efficient to autocast the spells rather than cast them manually. At that point, you had to be wielding the ancient staff to autocast Ancient Magicks.
 * The Ancient staff is an item which is said to be connected to the god Zaros.
 * If you talk to the Archaeological expert whilst wielding an ancient staff, he is surprised and asks if you've found out more about Zaros.
 * As of 12th November 2010, the Ancient staff seems to have lost it's negative prayer bonus. This was probably a glitch and has since been fixed.

Ancient staff Ancient Staff