Polypore staff

The polypore staff is a magical staff requiring 80 Magic to wield. It is constructed by growing 3,000 polypore spores on a polypore stick, with 15,000 fire runes to imbue it with power. Doing so requires a minimum of 80 Farming, which can be assisted or boosted by items such as Garden pies.

The staff has 3,000 charges once created, and can be recharged using polypore spores and fire runes, at the same rate required to create it. The staff can hit up to 672 damage on a Slayer task in Kuradal's dungeon, making it the highest-hitting magic-based weapon in the game (outside of special attacks). It also has the third highest prayer bonus of any staff at +5 behind the animal staves which have +6, and the third-age druidic staff, which has a prayer bonus of +7.

Players can also use this staff to cast other spells (such as Ancient Magicks), however the staff will become "Polypore staff (degraded)" - it will still have all of its charges left.

The Polypore spell can be used on any spellbook, and due to the low price of each cast, may make it a viable option for Mages in the future, when prices settle down.

It is also possible to gain polypore spores from slayer tasks, which can be used with a Farming level of 80 to recharge the staff, thus making it free (or cost very little) to use it to train mage on slayer. At the prices fire runes and polypore spores buy for it currently costs in the range of 140-180 gp per spell.

One charge at current Grand Exchange prices costs . However, Polypore Spores can currently be bought for much lower than Grand Exchange prices, and the cost ends up being much closer to 200 coins.

After the update on 6 Dec 2011 the attack bonuses have me removed.



Spellcasting
While the polypore staff can be used to cast spells in the standard spellbook as well as Ancient Magicks 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 Longrange. 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.

It is worth noticing 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 350. 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. In Castle Wars with proper damage boosting equipment (including Profound equipment) a max hit of 812 has been achieved.

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

Trivia

 * Because the staff does not cast an actual spell, no base experience is gained per cast; experience is only gained for damage dealt. For this reason, it may be slower to train Magic using the polypore staff than conventional spells.
 * There is large amount of controversy over the staff's 80 Attack requirement. Many feel that since it is impossible to attack with Melee with the staff, the staff shouldn't have a Melee requirement. However, it has been confirmed that the Attack requirement will be removed, and the melee bonuses will be reduced.
 * Despite its melee attack bonuses, this staff cannot be used to melee since the staff's two attack options both use its built-in spell.
 * A small recent test showed that it is common to receive 3k polypore spores anywhere between 200 and 700 spells, thus making recharging relatively easy.
 * The Polypore Staff changes colours at different stages of degrading.
 * Despite being a magic weapon, when fighting either of the Dagannoth Mothers it acts as a range attack style and as well as a melee attack style, making this weapon effective because no weapon style change is needed between the two color changes. This may be due to the fact that the attack styles are based on the ranged weaponry as well as the weapon requiring no ammo, so the attack itself can be considered Melee.
 * It's currently unknown whether these Ranged and Melee abilities apply anywhere else besides on a Dagannoth Mother.
 * The staff is also similar to the one that the Lumbridge Sage is wielding.
 * Probably due to its unique attacking style, the dragonfire shield special cannot be activated while the polypore staff is equipped.