Saradomin sword


 * For the godsword with a Saradomin hilt, see Saradomin godsword.

The Saradomin sword is a two-handed sword which can be obtained in the God Wars Dungeon. The sword is a possible drop from Commander Zilyana and her bodyguards in the Saradomin area. It requires 70 Attack to wield. Its special attack, "Saradomin's Lightning," adds 50-160 extra magic-based melee damage to the standard melee attack and raises the maximum inflicted damage by 10-20. Players receive magic experience for using this special, but only for the magical hit. Essentially, the special deals two attacks: the melee attack that the player would normally have hit (with its maximum inflicted damage raised by 10-20 however) without the special, and an extra magical attack that can deal 50-160 (or 90-200 with ferocious ring) damage. The bonus from a hexcrest or full slayer helm on a slayer task is applied to this magical attack. The special attack drains 100% of the special attack bar. The Saradomin sword's overall stats are the 6th best for a two-handed sword, surpassed by all four godswords, and the dragon 2h sword although the Saradomin sword is much faster than all of them. Saradomin swords are very popular for training strength among players because they are faster than godswords and hit as high as an abyssal whip. Even though the Saradomin sword and the abyssal whip have almost identical stats, the Saradomin sword can hit up to 790 with the special attack while the whip can only seem to hit up to 560 (in Castle Wars under perfect damage boosting conditions, including castlewar brace and Vesta's armour, before the release of the turmoil prayer and extreme potions).

Use
The Saradomin sword gives the same strength and slash bonus as the abyssal whip, but it offers an additional crush and prayer bonus and the ability to train strength by using an "aggressive" attack style, as opposed to the abyssal whip's "controlled" attack style. The sword also attacks at the same speed as the whip. However, since the whip is a one-handed weapon and can be wielded with a shield or a defender, and due to the far cheaper price of the whip, some players consider the whip to be the better option.

The sword is also commonly used for slaying waterfiends due to its crush bonus and balance between strength and speed. This balance makes the Saradomin sword more useful for killing waterfiends than godswords; its faster speed is often more efficient in dealing damage, despite its lesser strength bonus. The godswords' higher damage potential is often wasted when attacking waterfiends when they have only small amounts of health remaining, but the multi-special attack on the Saradomin sword deals a large amount of damage to them.

The Saradomin sword is often used and seen in Pest Control, due to its usefulness and the crush bonuses that it offers, since the portals are weak to certain attack styles, one of them being crush.

These are more often used than whips for higher level strength pures who don't want to have to train strength using the controlled attack style. It's a very practical weapon for a pure because the only worthwhile shield at 1 defence is a book, which only offers the +8 attack bonuses and +5 prayer bonus. By losing a little bit of accuracy a pure can keep his attack at 70, while a whip would give attack xp. The aggressive style also slightly increases damage.

In Bounty worlds (+1 item) the Saradomin sword is an excellent weapon against player killers who have strong melee armour, because the magical hit from the sword's special attack can cause some serious damage on top of the melee damage dealt.

Combat styles
Market History Saradomin swords were worth as much as 25m in the months following their release. However, in early 2009, Saradomin swords were only worth 6-7m. Their all time low was reached during a crash in May 2009, where they reached around 5.4m. Since then, the price has risen to over 10m for the period of December 2009, mostly as a result of coins coming into the game from PvP worlds and alching.

Trivia

 * The Saradomin sword has Saradomin's symbol as a hilt, similar to the Saradomin godsword.
 * The blade of the sword itself seems to resemble a gigantic metallic feather, probably because the Icyene who made it are themselves winged humanoids.
 * In the Brazilian worlds, both the Saradomin sword and the Saradomin godsword used to share the same name. This has since been fixed.
 * The Saradomin sword is the fastest two-handed sword in the game. The Zamorakian spear shares the Saradomin sword's speed, but provides slightly higher attack bonuses along with a lower strength bonus.
 * The Saradomin sword also resembles the weapon held by many of the Barbarians near the Barbarian Outpost.
 * The Saradomin sword was the longest two-handed sword in the game, until the new release of Dungeoneering, where all the two-handed swords are the same length as the Saradomin sword.
 * Elite black knights appear to be wielding Saradomin swords, but oddly enough, they are devout worshippers of Zamorak. This is proven when they say "Curses! Zamorak has abandoned me." when their Prayer runs out.
 * The staff of light appears to be a combination of a Saradomin sword and a Saradomin staff; however, this is simply a matter of appearance, you cannot combine the two to create a staff of light.