Staff (weapon type)

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Staves are magical weapons. Elemental staves are unlimited sources of certain runes when casting magic spells, depending on the element of the staff, and are popular because they save money spent on runes.

All staves give Magic accuracy as well as mediocre melee attack bonuses. Battlestaves are upgraded versions of normal staves with slightly better melee bonuses. Mystic staves are enchanted battlestaves that have better melee attack bonuses. Some battlestaves and mystic staves, specifically steam, lava and mud supply two kinds of runes instead of one. Water and fire for steam, earth and fire for lava and water and earth for mud. Staves became two-handed weapons following the Evolution of Combat update.

Since the Evolution of Combat, staves cast spells 50% slower than their 1 handed equivalent, wands, at an attack speed of 1 spell cast every 6 game ticks (3.6 seconds). In order to compensate for this reduced attack speed, they receive an invisible 50% damage boost. Magical weapons are unique in this manner when compared to range] or [[melee, in that their 1 handed weapons offer reduced accuracy, rather than reduced damage.

Some staves are required to cast certain spells. Examples of this are the slayer staff or the Staff of light, both of which cast the Magic Dart spell, and the Iban's staff, which is required to cast the Iban blast spell. There are also three staves called the God staves obtained from the Mage Arena minigame. The God staves allow the casting of the three God spells. There are also several miscellaneous staves in RuneScape. All existing staves are listed and linked in the table below.

With the exception of White staves, basic staves have no requirements to wield. White staves require the completion of the Wanted! quest as well as level 10 magic in order to wield them.

Rune-saving value
As elemental staves act as unlimited sources of elemental runes, some money can be saved by substituting elemental runes for an elemental staff. The following table displays the number of runes that must be saved by an elemental staff in order to break even.

Trivia

 * Many staves suffered from a glitch in 2012, of which the orbs on top of them disappeared. This is fixed as of patch note on 17 October 2012.
 * Many staves have a bug where if you attack an enemy with Lunar spells enabled, you will see a message saying you need certain runes to cast this spell.