Magic



Magic is a versatile skill that uses elemental energy released from runes for a variety of subjects such as combat, enchantments for certain items, teleporting, and to turn items into money via alchemy spells. 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 level alchemy and various teleports. Magic can also be used by many different monsters in the game.

Players who employ the tactics of Magic as their primary arsenal are often referred to as "Magicians" or more commonly, "mages". Once players reach level 66, they will be able to access the Wizards' Guild that is located in Yanille.

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

Spells


Magic is used almost exclusively through casting spells on another player or non-player character, on oneself (reflexively), or on an item.

There are three kinds of Magic in RuneScape: standard (commonly called "modern" or "regular"), Ancient Magicks, and Lunar Spells. Each has a different spellbook and typically only one can be used at once (for an exception to this rule, see Spell Book Swap). The special spellbooks are only available on member worlds, with the completion of their respective quests.

To cast a spell, a player must choose the wanted spell from their spellbook. To access the activated spellbook, click on the spellbook icon in the game's interface.

Ancient Magics
The Ancient Magics contain some of the most dangerous offensive spells. These spells can only be used after completing the fiendish and long Desert Treasure quest. These consist of the following types of spells: Ice, Smoke, Blood, Shadow, Miasmic, and Teleportation.

Ancient Magick spells are capable of bringing in some of the best experience for Magic; however, the high price of Runes used in Ancient Magick spells makes this a very expensive way to train. This is comparable to using Chinchompas for Ranged.



Lunar spells
The Lunar Spells are useful for helping training your noncombat skills and other players for example in PvP situations (with the exceptions of Vengeance and Vengeance Other), and require the Lunar Diplomacy quest before being usable. A spellbook extension becomes available after completion of the Dream Mentor quest.

Many of these spells make other skills easier to train; for example, the Plank Make spell provides an alternate, faster way of making planks rather than using the sawmill.

Standard spells
The standard spells are activated on any new character's account and they are available on all worlds. There is no prerequisite to using the standard spellbook, although some spells are only available on member worlds and others require completion of certain quests or tasks. As with other skills, new capabilities require higher skill levels.

All spells yield their associated amount of experience when cast; combat spells give additional experience directly related to the amount of damage caused to the opponent(s).

In the standard spellbook, spells fall into one of several categories: combat, curse, teleportation, alchemy, and enchantment.

Teleportation spells
Teleportation spells are divided into two categories: the Teleother and personal Teleport spells. The latter is most popular with all players, free and member alike, as teleportation spells save lots of time when travelling around the world.



Combat spells
The maximum hit using a combat spell in the standard spellbook is 30 (any of the God Spells used in conjunction with Charge). This is currently causing a lot of rancour among magic since rangers and warriors have a much higher maximum hit and is the subject of much ranting in the forums. Jagex has yet to take action in response.

Splashing
Combat spells will occasionally splash upon contact with a target (i.e. they will do no damage). When splashing, the caster will receive only the base experience for that spell and no additional experience. As a result, there is no physical difference between splashing with a spell and hitting a 0 with the same spell. The splash rate depends on eight things:
 * The caster's Magic level
 * The Magic attack bonus of the equipment the caster is wearing
 * Any Magic prayers the caster has activated.
 * The target's Magic level
 * The target's Defence level
 * The Magic defence bonus of the equipment the target is wearing
 * Any Magic prayers the target has activated (including Protect from Magic)
 * Any Defence prayers the target has activated.

Curses
A curse spell is any spell that causes a negative effect to its target other than damage, usually reducing a stat.

Alchemy
All alchemy spells use nature runes to transform items into coins, or ores into bars. Particularly note High Alchemy in this section, as it is probably the most widely used spell in the game, but is usually considered a somewhat expensive training method at higher levels because of the accumulated money lost.

Enchantments
All Enchantment spells uses Cosmic Runes to improve an items abilities.

Standard spellbook
On the 27 January 2009, the way you could order your spells was altered. You could have teleportation spells first, combat spells, or just the normal level orders. The way you could change the order was by clicking on one of the three icons in the bottom right corner of the spellbook .

Runes


All spells (except Home Teleport) require the use of runes as a consumed resource. It's recommended to craft your own runes rather than buying it unless you can find a good way to make money. Runes are commonly traded stackable items which are obtained by various methods. For hints on obtaining runes, see Runes: Obtaining runes.

Elemental staves
The requirement for certain runes in a spell can be removed if the player wields an Elemental staff corresponding to an elemental rune. As an example, wielding a Fire staff allows a player to cast High Level Alchemy using only one Nature rune.

Players who are lucky enough may obtain a combination staff. This is a staff with more than one rune's power. So far, the only existing combination staffs are the lava battlestaff (which is fire and earth), mud battlestaff (which is water and earth), and the steam battlestaff (which is water and fire), and their mystic counterparts.

Various magical staves are available in RuneScape. In the list below are all the free-to-play staves, which can all be obtained at Zaff's Superior Staffs! store in Varrock. The main effect of a staff or magic staff is to boost magic attack and defence, while elemental staves provide unlimited amounts of their elementary rune in addition to the boosts provided by a magic staff. There are many members-only staves such as battlestaves, mystic staves, the Slayer staff, the Lunar staff, the Ancient staff, and God staves.

Some members magic staves can increase the power of combat spells by 10% if they are wielding it. The staves which fall into this category are: Ahrim's Staff, Ancient Staff, Master Wand, Void Knight Mace, Zuriel's Staff and Corrupt Zuriel's Staff.

Robes and armour
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: Magic armour article.

A player's maximum magic attack bonus is +152, and the maximum magic defence bonus is +196.

How to successfully fight as a mage
A player who is a mage is weak against Ranged and strong against Melee fighters. When attacking others, a mage should use a combination of curse spells (Bind, Snare, Entangle, Ice spells in Ancient Magicks) and highly damaging combat spells such as Fire Wave, or the Mage Arena spells. Curses tend to be underused, but do not underestimate them. When fighting monsters, using battle tactics helps, such as staying in a safe spot. Most undead creatures and demons are weak to magic attacks. This will provide an advantage over these creatures. One should take note of a monster's weakness to a particular element (wind, water, earth, or fire).

A little known fact about Magic is that as a player's Magic skill level increases, so does their defence against magical attacks. Magical defence is calculated from 70% of a player's Magic level and 30% of their defence level. Thus, even if a player doesn't care to use Magic too often, having a high Magic skill can help to protect them.

Training magic
Generally, the fastest way to obtain runes is to buy them. If money is tight, it is recommended that a player uses the Runecrafting skill to make runes for magic training. Alternatively, a player can play Fist of Guthix for free runes, although these cannot be taken from the arena. Using magic this way is the fastest and cheapest way to use magic, while also gaining the Fist of Guthix tokens to purchase items. You could also make teleport tablets, gaining money and experience at the same time.

Certain locations such as the prison in Port Sarim and the demon's cage atop the Wizards' Tower can prove to be useful when training magic because of the safespot which leaves enemies unable to retaliate.

Organising your spells into the proper category may maximise your training and lower the amount of time needed to cast each spell.

Recently, an achievement diary was added as a new kind of quest. For free players, finishing the 2nd part of the Lumbridge/Draynor diary gives you an upgrade to your explorer's ring, giving you the power to make 30 low level alchemies a day. This is easy experience, that if you take a few minutes each day to do it, you can level up your magic very quickly. The easiest but not the most profitable way to level your magic up using this method is to head to a field of crops (ex. potatoes, cabbage) and pick up 30 of them and then using the ring power of low level alchemy on them all. Each cast is 31 experience, so for one day, you can get 930 experience in a few minutes. It may not be a lot, but it literally takes minutes, even though you must wait a day to repeat it.

Temporary boosts


A Magic potion temporarily boosts a player's magic level by 5. . Alternatively, a Magic essence potion boosts Magic by 3.

Three Prayers can boost Magic. These are Mystic Will, Mystic Lore and Mystic Might, which boost magic by 5%, 10%, or 15% respectively for as long as they are active. These boosts do not increase damage, nor do they affect the player's actual level. Jagex has confirmed that these prayers only help your magical accuracy and magical defence.

Wizard's mind bomb is a type of beer that increases magic by 3 or 2 (if the player's Magic level is below 50). Players can brew it themselves at level 34 Cooking, or buy it at the pub in the Burthorpe Games Room or the Rising Sun Inn in Falador.

Red spicy stew can has the potential to give between +6 and -6 Magic boost. .

An extreme magic potion boosts the magic stat by 7.

Trivia

 * The Magic Skill Cape is the only skill cape to have gold under the shoulder pads and on the back. On all the rest of the skill capes, they are coloured grey.
 * Magic in RuneScape Classic was very different from its current incarnation:
 * There were two magic skills, Good Magic and Evil Magic. When the current Magic system was released, the player's Magic level was set as whatever their highest old magic level was.
 * Spells were all a simple flying blue star, which proved difficult to distinguish from arrows, which were green stars.
 * Melee armour offered no Magic attack penalties, leading to a massive imbalance in favour of high-level mages.
 * Spells gave the fixed experience using the formula 2 * spell level + 20. Jagex explains that the reduction of Magic experience in RuneScape 2 was due to the fact that runes were easier to obtain on the new version.
 * Spells were sometimes failed, which did not use any runes, but stopped players from using any magic for 20 seconds.
 * Combat spells cast on Dummies do not give Hitpoints experience.
 * Ever since RuneScape HD's release, failed spells will sometimes fly straight up instead of splashing and disappearing as usual.
 * If a player is far enough from their opponent, their spells will take longer to reach their opponent than an attack cycle, leading them to fire another spell before the first spell hit. This sometimes leads to a spell being in the air when the opponent dies.
 * Projectile spells will change directions to hit players that teleport.
 * Before the Autocast update on 9 September 2009, spells could only be autocast if wielding staves, and even then only certain spells could be autocasted.
 * Players can choose the option to train Magic and Defence through selecting Defensive casting.