Ganodermic armour

Ganodermic armour is a set of level 75 Magic armour that was released on 28 November 2011. It consists of five pieces, all of which require 75 Defence to wear: visor (head), poncho (body), leggings (legs), gloves, and boots. All five pieces may be obtained in one fashion or another from ganodermic beasts and ganodermic runts, with runts being found at the third and bottom floors, while the beasts can be found on the bottom floor. Both monsters require a Slayer level of 95 to harm.

Bonuses

Item		Main-hand			Off-hand			Attributes			Style bonus
		Style	Dmg	Acc	Style	Dmg	Acc
	Visor	-	-	-	-	-	-	338	0	0	-	-	-
	Poncho	-	-	-	-	-	-	389	0	0	-	-	-
	Leggings	-	-	-	-	-	-	372	0	0	-	-	-
	Boots	-	-	-	-	-	-	84	0	0	-	-	-
	Gloves	-	-	-	-	-	-	84	0	0	-	-	-
Totals		-	-	-	-	-	-	1267	0	0	-	-	-

Creation & degradation

The ganodermic visor, poncho, and leggings are degradable pieces of armour that must be made with the Crafting skill. Each is made by sewing a number of ganodermic flakes, which are obtained as drops from ganodermic beasts and ganodermic runts, to the corresponding pieces of mycelium web armour. The process requires a needle and thread, as well as different amounts of ganodermic flakes and different Crafting levels, as indicated on the table below. The Assist System may be used when creating or repairing ganodermic armour.

Piece				Flakes	Cost of Flakes	Mycelium armour		Cost of Mycelium	Cost of materials	Grand Exchange Price	Profit1
		Lv	XP
	Ganodermic visor	86	100	500	206,500		Mycelium visor web	553	207,053	172,947	−34,106
	Ganodermic poncho	98	1,000	5,000	2,065,000		Mycelium poncho web	1,290	2,066,290	2,106,825	40,535
	Ganodermic leggings	92	300	1,500	619,500		Mycelium leggings web	1,300	620,800	671,622	50,822
	Ganodermic boots2	N/A								93,620	N/A
	Ganodermic gloves2									92,619
Total:				7,000	2,891,000			3,143	2,894,143	3,137,633

1. This assumes you buy the flakes and Mycelium armour off the Grand Exchange, craft the Ganodermic armour yourself, and then resell it.
2. The ganodermic gloves and ganodermic boots differ from the other pieces in that they cannot be crafted by players, and they do not degrade. They must be traded for, or obtained as rare drops from ganodermic beasts and ganodermic runts.

When first used in combat, ganodermic visors, ponchos, and leggings will begin to degrade. After 30,000 charges of combat (a minimum of 5 hours), they will revert to mycelium web armour. Flakes can be added to partially degraded armour in order to restore it to pristine condition, and players can check the status of ganodermic armour pieces with the right-click Check option. Ganodermic gloves and boots do not degrade. When ganodermic armour degrades to 50%, its appearance changes slightly as the yellow spores that dot the pieces disappear.

Economic analysis

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Ganodermic armour, along with its sister sets grifolic armour and fungal armour, are unique among degradable armour sets. The most common method for repairing degradable armour is to pay a certain amount of coins in order to restore it to pristine condition. This is true of Barrows equipment, crystal equipment, Ancient equipment, and superior seasinger's equipment. These items are not destroyed when completely degraded, however. A Guthan's platebody that degrades to 0 is still a Guthan's platebody, albeit one that must be repaired with coins before it can be used.

This common method of item repair functions as a money sink - a mechanic that takes coins out of the game. However, it does not reduce the number of these items that exist in the game. If there is no widespread way of removing a given item from the game, its supply will tend to increase over time as more are brought into the game. Without a corresponding increase in demand, this supply increase will lead to a gradual price drop, oftentimes all the way down to its High Level Alchemy value. Non-degrading equipment such as dragon equipment, abyssal whips, and dragonfire shields are examples of this effect.

Ganodermic armour, on the other hand, is destroyed when fully degraded - it reverts back into mycelium web armour. It must be repaired not with coins, but with ganodermic flakes; this functions as an item sink for ganodermic flakes. The flakes are relatively common drops from ganodermic creatures, leading to a theoretical high supply and low price. However, flakes are constantly being drained from the game as players use them to create and repair ganodermic armour. This item sink keeps the price of flakes, and therefore the price of ganodermic armour, from consistently dropping over time.

Trivia

• Ganodermic armour is named for Ganoderma, a genus of polypore mushrooms popularly called shelf mushrooms or bracket fungi. However, while ganodermic armour is aquamarine and has a cap, real-life Ganoderma are known for their broad, thin, and red traits.
• Prior to the Evolution of Combat, ganodermic armour, particularly the poncho, was noteworthy for its exceptionally high defence bonuses against slash, crush, and Magic attacks. Defensively, it was the strongest Magic armour in the game, though it did not have the life points boost of Virtus armour, and required 85 Magic and Defence to wear. It also had extremely high damage soaking values against Magic attacks, which made it very popular for fighting boss monsters that use Magic, such as Nomad and the Corporeal Beast. However, the armour had virtually no defence against stab and Ranged attacks.
• Ganodermic boots and gloves did not exist until the Evolution of Combat.
• When first released, ganodermic armour pieces lasted 100 minutes in combat before degrading completely. An update on 6 December 2011 extended the duration to 10 hours and lowered all existing ganodermic items with greater than 50% charge to 50%, or five hours of combat.