Magic

Magic is one of the most important skills in Runescape. It is used in combat, it allows crafted items to be enchanted, fast transport around the world via teleports, and via high-alchemy, magic is probably the single most important source of coins to the game. While it is possible to play the game without being skilled in magic, it is a considerable advantage to be able to use many spells, especially high-alchemy and the teleports.

As with all guides in the Skills section, members only items are in italics.

Basics


All magic involves the use of Runes to cast spells. The separate article Runes should explain what all runestones and their general usage. For the spells, see the sections below.

You are provided with a small number of runestones on Tutorial Island when you start the game, but in order to progress further in magic you will need to obtain more runes. To obtain runes, you either need to kill various monsters, runecraft some yourself, or buy them from the various rune shops located around RuneScape.

Each spell gives a base amount of experience, while combat spells can give additional experience as described below. In RuneScape Classic, each spell gave the fixed experience using the formula 2 * spell level + 20.

Jagex claims that the reduction of magic experience on RuneScape 2 was due to the fact that runes were easier to obtain on the new version.

Runestone dropping monsters
Many monsters drop runestones in RuneScape, but some more than others.
 * Level 7 and 20 Dark Wizards south of Varrock or south of Taverley
 * Wizards in the Wizards' Tower south of Draynor Village
 * Infernal Mages in the Slayer Tower
 * Elemental Mage south of Falador
 * Dark wizards in Draynor Village.

Runecrafting
Our guide to Runecrafting should explain how and where to craft each rune. Essentially, you need to complete the Rune Mysteries quest first, and then you may mine (or buy) rune essences in order to turn them into runes for your own use and training magic.

Shops
There are several shops around runescape that sell runes which are identified with the magic shop  icon on the map.



Barrows
The Barrows also provides large amounts of combat runestones (mind, chaos, death, and blood) from the chest there, though magic level and preferably prayer needs to be fairly high to risk the Barrows.

Basics


All spells fall into one of several categories: combat, curses, teleports, alchemy, enchantments, and other.

All spells use runestones when cast, but for air, water, earth and fire runes, wielding a staff of the correct type negates the need for these runes. For example, if you're casting fire strike, you won't need fire runes if you have a fire staff wielded. Staves are covered further down.

There are currently 3 schools of magic on runescape - standard, ancient magicks and lunar magicks. You may have one of these selected at any one time. This article only covers the standard set of spells, there are separate articles for Ancient Magicks and Lunar Magicks.

Ancient Magicks
Our Ancient Magicks guide goes into this in more detail, but essentially, ancient magicks contains some of the most dangerous offensive spells. These spells can only be used after completing the fiendish Desert Treasure quest.

Lunar Magicks


Our Lunar Magicks guide goes into more detail for these spells. Lunar Magicks are mostly helper spells unrelated to combat, and require the Lunar Diplomacy quest before you can use.

Teleportation Spells
Teleportation spells are very popular with all players—free-to-players and members alike—as teleportation spells save lots of time from walking the whole time. Note that teleporting isn't possible north of level 20 wilderness.

Combat Spells
All combat spells have a minimum experience, but you also receive magic experience depending on how much damage your spells cause. Generally, most combat spells use some Air runes, and some other "Combat" runes as well, though there are exceptions with the special spells such as Magic Dart.

Curses


Curses are an underused part of Magic, mainly because spellcasters have little time to waste in casting damage spells. In long, prolonged fights, using a curse spell or two at the beginning may be a very good idea.

Alchemy


All alchemy spells use nature runes to convert some thing into some other thing. Particularly note High Alchemy in this section, as it is probably the most important spell in the game.

Enchantments


Enchant spells all use cosmic runes to make an item magical. For the enchant orb group of spells, you need to travel to the appropriate obelisk and cast the spell on that. Simiarly with the jewellery spells, you must have a piece of jewellery to cast the spell on.

Enchanted gold jewellery
Gold jewellery is made with the Crafting skill.

Full Spell list
This is a complete list of spells in the game, including ancients and lunar.

How to successfully fight as a mage
As a mage, you are weak against Range and strong against Melee fighters. When attacking others, you should use a combination of Entangle like spells (Bind, Snare, Entangle, Ice spells in Ancient Magicks) and highly damaging spells such as Fire Wave, or the Mage Arena spells. Curses tend to be underused, but do not underestimate them. Lunar Magicks appear to be helper spells for a team of pkers.

Magic Staves
''Main Article Weapons

Various staves are available in runescape. In this list are all the free-to-play staves, but there are many members staves such as battlestaves, mystic staves, slayer staff, lunar staff, and ancient staff. You can find a list of all the staves here.

Magic Armour and Robes
Main Article Armour

Most mages wear robes, although some light armour is available that is made from special material and does not hinder the wearer's ability to perform magic attacks. For the different sets of armour and detailed information on each piece, see the armour guide.

Training Magic
In general, magic is one of those skills that is so useful you often cannot help but train it. Most players reach level 55 and then most of their experience comes from High Alchemy thereafter.

Getting to level 55
If money is tight, it is recommended that you use the Runecrafting skill to make plenty of minds and airs to train magic. Buy a fire staff from Zaff's staves and cast Fire Strike on any monster that cannot reach you, such as the Hobgoblins near the Crafting Guild, the Skeletons in Varrock sewers, or if your level is low, Ducks in Lumbridge.

If you have money to spend, buy your runes instead, and if you have lots of money, use chaos runes for faster training. Alternatively, you may want to investigate the Magic Training Area where you can gain plenty of experience from non-combat spells.

High Alchemy
High Alchemy is the single most useful spell in the game. It allows you to convert items that you possess into Coins. Most players owe their high level of Magic to this spell, at 65 magic experience per casting, using a fire staff so as to only consume 1 Nature rune per spell. Players with high Fletching, Crafting or Smithing can turn the items they make into coins, thereby adding money to the economy or to their own wealth.

With Fletching combined with either Runecrafting (making the Nature runes), Woodcutting (cutting the logs) or Crafting (making bowstrings), it is possible to make large amounts of profit by using the High Alchemy spells on the completed bows.

Smithing and Crafting items may also be "alched" for decent amounts, if they are high level items.

Mage Training Arena
Our guide to the Mage Training Arena covers this in more detail, but essentially, you can gain excellent magic experience here, as well as gaining access to a new spell Bones to Peaches.

Barrows
Our guide to the Barrows covers this in more detail, but the barrows can be extremely good magic experience, mainly because you receive large amounts of runestones from the chest as a reward. It is profitable to train magic here, and is good experience at the same time.

Temporary boosts

 * Three Prayers can boost Magic by 5, 10, and 15%.
 * Wizard's mind bomb is a type of beer which increases mage by 3, but it only increases your magic by 2 if your magic level is below 49. It can be bought in Falador inn, as well as various places in the members world, and also brewed by players.
 * Magic essence potion made using the Herblore skill boosts magic by 3.
 * Magic Potion made using the Herblore skill boosts magic by 4.
 * Red spicy stew can boost magic by up to 6 or it can also decrease it by 6.

Trivia
In early 2001, there were two magic skills, Good Magic and Evil Magic. However, with the introduction of a new magic system, the lower skill was removed. For example, if the player had level 50 Good Magic and level 40 Evil Magic, he would keep level 50 magic, and the experience for the Evil Magic was discarded. Because of this, some players were upset that they lost money for training their lower magic skill, and that the experience was thrown away instead of carried over. There were also spells like Shock Bolt, Elemental Bolt, and Fear (caused enemy to retreat).