Crystal ward

Beta

The Crystal shield is a powerful shield available after a player completes the Roving Elves quest, and a possible reward from this quest along with the Crystal Bow. To wield the crystal shield, a player must have 70 Defence and 50 Agility. It can be considered on a similar tier to the Barrows rewards due to its requirements and degradation.

Degradation
The crystal shield degrades over time. When a player obtains a new crystal shield, it will be a "New crystal shield". However, after 2500 life points worth of damage, it degrades into a "Crystal shield 9/10", and for every 2500 life points of damage taken thereafter it will degrade another 1/10th, until it reverts into a crystal seed after a total of 25,000 life points of damage taken.

Once a crystal shield runs out of charges, it turns back into a crystal seed, and must be recharged before it can be used again. Ilfeen will recharge crystal seeds into crystal shields or crystal bows. She can be found teleporting back and forth between two clearings in Isafdar; however, players who have completed The Prisoner of Glouphrie can also find her in the centre of the elven village Lletya.

Initially, Ilfeen charges 750,000 coins to re-enchant a crystal seed into a crystal shield. However, the price is decreased by 150,000 coins each time Ilfeen re-enchants a seed for a player, in the following manner, until reaching the minimum recharge cost of 150,000 coins:

Ilfeen is also able to re-enchant partially degraded crystal equipment, at a proportion of the cost. For example, a Crystal shield in '9/10' condition can be recharged back to full condition for 15,000 coins if the minimum recharge cost has already been reached. A recharge this way will also count towards reducing the cost for future re-enchantments.

It is important to note that the count of the number of times you have had an object recharged is shared between the crystal bow and shield. If you have had a crystal bow recharged twice, then a shield recharge would cost 450k, as if you had already recharged it twice as well.

As of the EoC update on 20 November 2012 the crystal shield DOES NOT degrade in combat, so far only know to work on degraded crystal shields, from 9/10-1/10. This might be intentional, or a glitch. No statement has yet been released. 11/26/12. UPDATE: 14/01/13 Patch notes state that Crystal Shields now degrade as intended. Update 25/1/13, The update is confirmed and the shield does degrade now.

Obtaining & trading crystal shields
A crystal shield with 2/10 charges is a possible reward for completion of Roving Elves. Additionally, players can buy new crystal shields from Islwyn for 750,000 coins each. Unlike Ilfeen's recharge price, the price of a new crystal shield does not decrease.

The distinction between a new crystal shield and a full crystal shield is important, as only new crystal shields are tradeable. A crystal shield that is bought from Islwyn is new; a crystal seed that is re-enchanted into a crystal shield by Ilfeen is full. Once damage is taken by a new crystal shield, it becomes a full crystal shield, and is untradeable.

As crystal seeds are tradeable, players can buy them from other players or the Grand Exchange and pay Ilfeen to re-enchant them into crystal shields.

Trivia

 * Even though it takes only 50 Agility to wield the crystal shield, an agility level of 56 (although temporary boosts may be used) is needed to complete the Regicide quest, which is a prerequisite to complete the Roving Elves quest. It is however, possible to buy the shield from the Grand Exchange at full charge, but it cannot be wielded until Roving Elves is complete.
 * If a player attempts to cast low level alchemy or high level alchemy on a Crystal shield, they will receive a message saying 'You can't do that to elven crystal!' because of a bug allowing you to alch recharged crystal armour and weapons in f2p worlds for 900k.
 * One could pay less for a crystal shield by degrading the partially damaged one you receive from the end of Roving Elves, selling the crystal seed on the Grand Exchange, and then buying a brand new shield from Islwyn with some of the money you received from the seed, thus saving about 200K. You are saving money because to recharge a crystal shield costs 750K, and you also must have a seed with you already. However this is a short-sighted strategy, since the cost of recharging the shield falls rapidly, whereas the cost of a new one stays the same.

Crystal shield Crystal shield