Magic

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Magic is a very multi functional skill, it can be used to make money, to kill other people or NPC's and many more things. The spells you can do can be divided into 2 categories, each with with sub-categories. The two categories are harmful and non-harmful spells. The harmful spells are used to kill people or NPC's and the non-harmful ones to make your Runescape life easier. The harmful spells are divided into several categories; strikes, bolts, blasts, waves and some other special tricks. The non-harmful spells exist of teleport spells, alchemy spells, enchanting spells and some other sneaky things. What all these spells do, how you're are able to cast them and many more things about magic are all in this guide.

The runes

First we start with runes, in order to cast a spell, you need runes in your inventory which will be used to cast the spell. I'll start with a list of all the runes, where they respawn and how they look like;

There's three shops in Runescape that sell runes, you could also try  them or buy them from fellow players. A lot of NPC's also drop a good amount of runes when you kill them. But one of the best ways is, like I said, buying runes from one of the stores. One of them is Aubury in Varrock, a bit behind the east bank. And the other one is Betty in Port Sarim. There is also the shop in the Mage Arena, available to members only.

Note: The rune prices depend on how many runes the owner has in stock. The more runes s/he has, the less they cost.

Also there's a third shop that sells runes, but that one is members only and is inside the magic guild.


The spells

Now that we know where to get our runes, we need to know what we can do with them. Here's a list of all the spells in Runescape, with their effect and the amount of runes they cost.

Experience points

Each spell will earn you a certain number of experience points towards your Magic skill when cast. These are displayed below. However, with Strikes, Bolts, Blasts and Waves it isn't as simple as that, because you can also inflict damage. There is a base amount of xp you will always recieve when you cast the spell, even if you fail it and see a splash, and this is the value quoted in the table below. But you also receive extra Magic xp and Hits xp depending on how much damage you inflict.

• For every damage point you hit your opponent, you recieve 2 Magic xp.
• You also recieve 1.33 Hits xp for every damage point you inflict.

There are a few special spells that you need certain staves for, you might've seen them already in the list above. Let's start with the spell called Iban Blast; Not only do you need level 50 magic for it, but you also need to complete the Underground Pass quest before you can cast this spell. When you've done that quest you'll get a special staff, called the Iban staff. This staff will last for 20 spells and then you'll need to recharge it at the Underground Pass, you can do this by using it at on the Flames of Zamorak (the big bowl right after paladins). It's not a very effective spell to train your magic with obviously, but you could use it to duel other players.

If you lose your Staff of Iban, you'll have to kill one of the Zamorak disciples in the underground pass cave, get the borken staff they drop, and then go to Lucien (located in West Ardougne) who will fix it for 200,000gp.

Then there are 3 other staffs, all from the same mini-game, called theMage Arena. You have to finish this game before you can choose one of these staves. Once you've completed the game you can pick either the staff of Guthix, Saradomin or Zamorak. Each spell costs different types of runes and have different effects on other players. Before you can use these staffs and the spells outside that Mage Arena you need to cast the spell that belongs with your staff 100 times in the Arena. This will cost you 200 bloods runes + the other runes involved, if you don't have the money, don't bother.

There's actually two kinds of staves, the staves that everyone can use and the stavess that are members only, which are called Mystic Staves. The staves that everyone can buy can be bought in Varrock, from Zaff's staff shop.

As you can see, there are several kinds of staves. The staff for only 15gp doesn't add anything to your magic skill, pretty useless. Then the magical staff, it boosts your magic a bit and that's it. Then the staves of air, water, earth and fire. That's what we need. Each of these staffs boosts your magic and when you wield them, they'll serve as an unlimited supply of that certain rune. So a fire staff will let you use spells where you need fire runes for, without having the fire runes! And the same goes for the other staffs.

Then there are also battlestaves, which are members only and cannot be bought in their full glory at Zaff's shop. Battlestaves need to be made with a certain crafting skill, read more about that in the  Guide. When battlestaves are made and enchanted, they become; Mystic fire/earth/water/air staves. Also they will have the same fighting stats as a rune long sword and will also do the same asthe other staves; It lets you use fire/earth/water/air runes unlimited, depending on what battle staff you have. As I said, battlestaffs can't be bought from a store, you have to buy them from players or get them from NPC's.

Apart from staves, there's also another thing that you help to increase you magic ability. That thing is magical armour, there's 3 good magical armour types. Every magical armour type is called a robe. So there's 3 kind of robes that boost your magic in a good way. To keep it simple; blue wizard robes, dark wizard robes and for the members; red wizard robes, which are also called Robes of Zamorak. But that's not it, you can also wear several amulets which will boost your magic, for the non members, the best amulet is a amulet of magic (made from a sapphire). And for the members, use the amulet of glory (made from a dragonstone.)
In the following table you can what the stat bonuses are;

So the best combination for non-members is a blue wizard robe, with the blue wizard hat and the amulet of magic. For members to get the best magic attack value, you could use the Robe of Zamorak (bottom) with the blue wizard robe and gnomes' hat, then wear an amulet of glory too. Don't forget your staff and god cape.

Dark wizards robes and hats can be gotten from killing Dark wizards, blue wizard robes and hats from Wizards. The robes of Zamorak can be gotten from killing Necromancers or from the Underground pass quest. You can buy the Gnomes' Hats from Rometti in the Grand Tree. You can obtain any one of the God capes after completing Mage Arena.


Training magic

When Jagex created the new Runescape they wanted magic to be a more independent skill, much more like ranging is and has been, and not something that just was used as an extra in melee combat. This change is reflected in the combat level change and, like ranging, you can no-longer cast magic and fight at the same time. Magic also has been changed so that it no-longer "fails", it now only misses like ranged attacks. When you miss with a spell it will be shwon as a "splash" animation. Magic attacks will normally only give you magic and hitpoint experience, however if you use a staff defensively you will also get a small amount of defence experience. So all of you who only wanted to play as a pure-mage, your wish has been granted and you will be just as effective as any other combat-type.

If you play it smart, you can train your magic without levelling your combat, so you're the ideal pk-er;

• If strength, attack or defence is your strongest combat ability, then your combat level is based on your strength + attack + defence + prayer + hitpoints.
• If your ranged level is your strongest combat ability, then your combat level is instead based on your ranged + defence + prayer + hitpoints.
• If your magic level is your strongest combat ability, then your combat level is based on your magic + defence + prayer + hitpoints.

Jagex also created a so called combat triangle, so that every kind of combat-type, so a mage, a ranger or a warrior, are very effective against one other type and not very effective against the other. The triangle looks something like the picture above, where the red lines means it's not very effective against the other and the green line means it's very effective.

You get magic experience points for what you hit, so it doesn't matter if you kill a monster or not. But of course if you pick a monster that's too strong, you will hit very low and the higher you hit, the more experience points you get. I reccomend attacking a monster that has a combat level about equal to your magic level and is in a place where he can't attack you, (behind a fence, gate or table). You could start off with killing chickens, then when you think you're ready you could move on to men or giant rats. Then monks, barbarians or guards. When you've reached around level 45 you could start on hobgoblins and black knights, when you've reached about level 60 you could start with the lesser demon in the Wizard tower (near Draynor village).

Now that you've trained your magic to your desired level, it's time to try it out on your fellow players, in the wilderness. When you go pk-ing you can pick choose out of two things, pk-ing with a weapon + runes or pk-ing with runes + staff. But you have to remember that you can't attack and use magic anymore, so make a choice on what you want to do.

If you're going to pk with a weapon + runes, you fight in melee with your fellow player and as soon as he starts to run, you can use spells like bind, snare and entangle to make him freeze so you can attack him either with your weapon or with powerful spells.

But if you want to attack with magic only, there's an easier option. Jagex made an option that you can automatically attack with spells, so that you don't have to press the spell over and over again. But that option is only possible when you're holding a staff, but since you were going to take that already, because else you use a lot more runes, it's no problem. However, it's only the strike, bolt, blast and wave spells you can use this way.

This is what you have to do;

• Click the button with the green square around it and the 1 next to, and select the spell that you want to be casted automatically (see picture above).
• Then click the button with the green square around it and the 2 above it, and it will turn red (see picture above).

Now, when you press attack on someone, you will automatically keep attacking him with the spell you selected. Which is very handy when you're already watching your prayer level or when you're also trying to use bind, snare or entangle on him. On the picture above you can see what I meant.

Note: Snare and entangle are members-only spells, bind on the other hand can be used by everyone.

Note: Beware, if you die, you will never keep items that are stackable (such as runes, coins etc.)!

Have fun using magic and try not to get killed!