Magic Guide

Intro

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.

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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;

The runes
Pic	Name	Description	Respawn location
	Fire Rune	This is one of the elemental runes.	The cave on Karamja & Scorpion pit.
	Air rune	This is one of the elemental runes.	Lumbridge swamps & Banana field on Karamja.
	Earth rune	This is one of the elemental runes.	Varrock sewers & forest north of Varrock castle.
	Water rune	This is one of the elemental runes.	Scorpion pit.
	Body rune	Required for curse spells.	Upstairs the Al Kharid scimitar-shop, Varrock sewers & west of Varrock castle.
	Mind rune	Required for strikes.	Inside Lumbridge castle ∓ Varrock sewers.
	Cosmic rune	Required for enchanting spells.	Top left corner of the wilderness (level 48), guarded by Ice giants and Ice warriors.
	Chaos rune	Required for bolts.	Level 37 wilderness, guarded by Moss giants.
	Nature rune	Required for alchemy spells.	Level 45 wilderness, you need to use telekinetic grab to get them.
	Death rune	Required for blasts.	South of Yanille, in the area with all the ogres.
	Law rune	Required for teleport spells.	-
	Blood rune	Required for waves.	Wilderness at the poison spiders south of Greaters.
	Soul rune	Required for high level curse spells.	Can only be bought from the magic guild or from fellow players.

There's three shops in Runescape that sell runes, you could also try runecrafting them or buy them from fellow players. A lot of NPC's also drop a good amount of runes when you kill them, try searching in the monster database, look for fire runes for example. 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. Here's a list that'll show you the different prices in the 2 shops:

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

Rune Prices
Pic	Name	Aubury in Varrock	Betty in Port Sarim	Mage Arena shop
	Fire Rune	4-24gp	4-24gp	7-27gp
	Air rune	4-24gp	4-24gp	7-27gp
	Earth rune	4-24gp	4-24gp	7-27gp
	Water rune	4-24gp	4-24gp	7-27gp
	Body rune	4-18gp	4-18gp	upto 20gp
	Mind rune	4-18gp	4-18gp	upto 20gp
	Cosmic rune	-	-	28-58gp
	Chaos rune	60-90gp	4-90gp	upto 73gp
	Death rune	60-180gp	4-180gp	upto 117gp

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

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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;

The spells
Pic	Level	Name	Description	Runes required
	1	Wind Strike	A basic Air missile	1 Air, 1 Mind
	3	Confuse	Reduces your opponents attack by 5%	3 Water, 2 Earth, 1 Body
	5	Water Strike	A basic Water missile	1 Water, 1 Air, 1 Mind
	7	Enchant Level 1 Jewelry	Enchants your sapphire amulets and rings	1 Water, 1 Cosmic
	9	Earth Strike	A basic Earth missile	2 Earth, 1 Air, 1 Mind
	11	Weaken	Reduces your opponents strength by 5%	3 Water, 2 Earth, 1 Body
	13	Fire Strike	A basic Fire missile	2 Air, 3 Fire, 1 Mind
	15	Bones to Bananas	Changes all held bones into bananas	2 Earth, 2 Water, 1 Nature
	17	Wind Bolt	A low level Air missile	2 Air, 1 Chaos
	19	Curse	Reduces your opponents defence by 5%	2 Water, 3 Earth, 1 Body
	20	Bind	Makes your opponent be unable to move for 5 seconds	3 Earth, 3 Water, 2 Nature
	21	Low Level Alchemy	Converts an item into gold	3 Fire, 1 Nature
	23	Water Bolt	A low level Water missile	2 Air, 2 Water, 1 Chaos
	25	Varrock Teleport	Teleports you to Varrock	3 Air, 1 Fire, 1 Law
	27	Enchant Level 2 Jewelry	Enchants your emerald amulets and rings	3 Air, 1 Cosmic
	29	Earth Bolt	A low level Earth missile	2 Air, 3 Earth, 1 Chaos
	31	Lumbridge Teleport	Teleports you to Lumbridge	3 Air, 1 Earth, 1 Law
	33	Telekinetic grab	Take an item, you can see but can't reach	1 Air, 1 Law
	35	Fire Bolt	A low level Fire missile	3 Air, 4 Fire, 1 Chaos
	37	Falador Teleport	Teleports you to Falador	3 Air, 1 Water, 1 Law
	39	Crumble Undead	Hits skeletons, ghosts & zombies hard	2 Air, 2 Earth, 1 Chaos
	41	Wind Blast	A medium level Air missile	3 Air, 1 Death
	43	Superheat Item	Smelt 1 ore without furnace	4 Fire, 1 Nature
	45	Camelot Teleport	Teleports you to Camelot	5 Air, 1 Law
	47	Water Blast	A medium level Water missile	3 Air, 3 Water, 1 Death
	49	Enchant Level 3 Jewelry	Enchants your ruby amulets and rings	5 Fire, 1 Cosmic
	50	Iban Blast	Missile attack that can do up to 25 damage	5 fire, 1 Death, Iban staff
	50	Snare	Makes your opponent be unable to move for 10 seconds	4 Earth, 4 Water, 3 Nature
	50	Magic Dart	A magic dart of slaying	Slayer Staff, 1 Death, 4 Mind
	51	Ardougne teleport	Teleports you to Ardougne (must do the Plague City quest first)	2 Water, 2 Law
	53	Earth Blast	A medium level Earth missile	3 Air, 4 Earth, 1 Death
	55	High Level Alchemy	Convert an item into more gold	5 Fire, 1 Nature
	56	Charge Water Orb	Needs to be cast on a water Obelisk	30 water, 3 cosmic, 1 Glass Orb
	57	Enchant Level 4 Jewelry	Enchants your diamond amulets and rings	10 Earth, 1 Cosmic
	58	Watchtower Teleport	Teleports you to the watchtower	3 earth, 2 law
	59	Fire Blast	A medium level Fire missile	4 Air, 5 Fire, 1 Death
	60	Charge Earth Orb	Needs to be cast on Earth Obelisk	30 Earth, 3 Cosmic, 1 Glass Orb
	60	Claws of Guthix	Summons the power of Guthix	4 Air, 1 Fire, 2 Blood, staff of Guthix
	60	Saradomin Strike	Summons the power of Saradomin	4 Air, 2 Fire, 2 Blood, staff of Saradomin
	60	Flames of Zamorak	Summons the power of Zamorak	1 Air, 4 Fire, 2 Blood, staff of Zamorak
	61	Trollheim Teleport	Teleports you to Trollheim	2 Fire, 2 Law
	62	Wind Wave	A high level Air missile	5 Air, 1 Blood
	63	Charge Fire Orb	Needs to be cast on Fire Obelisk	30 Fire, 3 Cosmic, 1 Glass Orb
	65	Water Wave	A high level Water missile	7 Water, 5 Air, 1 Blood
	66	Charge Air Orb	Needs to be cast on Air Obelisk	30 Air, 3 Cosmic, 1 Glass Orb
	66	Vulnerability	Reduces your opponents defence by 10%	5 Earth, 5 Water, 1 Soul
	68	Enchant Level 5 Jewelry	Enchants your dragonstone amulets and rings	15 Earth, 15 Water, 1 Cosmic
	70	Earth Wave	A high level Earth missile	7 Earth, 5 Air, 1 Blood
	73	Enfeeble	Reduces your opponents strength by 10%	8 Earth, 8 Water, 1 Soul
	74	Teleother Lumbridge	Teleports Target to Lumbridge	1 Soul, 1 Law, 1 Earth
	75	Fire Wave	A high level Fire missile	7 Fire, 5 Air, 1 Blood
	79	Entangle	Makes your opponent be unable to move for 15 seconds	5 Earth, 5 Water, 4 Nature
	80	Stun	Reduces your opponents attack by 10%	12 Earth, 12 Water, 1 Soul
	80	Charge	Temporarily increases the power of the three arena spells	3 Air, 3 Fire, 3 Blood
	82	Teleother Falador	Teleports target to Falador	1 Soul, 1 Law, 1 Water
	85	Tele Block	Stops your target from teleporting	1 Law, 1 Chaos, 1 Death
	90	Teleother Camelot	Teleports target to Camelot	2 Soul, 1 Law,

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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, Bolst, 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.

For these spells, there is also a maximum on how much damage you can inflict - and this number is in brackets after the spell name.

Experience gained from Spells
Level	Name	Exp gained	max hit
1	Wind Strike	5.5 +	2
3	Confuse	13	None
5	Water Strike	7.5 +	4
7	Enchant Level 1 Jewelry	17.5	None
9	Earth Strike	9.5 +	6
11	Weaken	20.5	None
13	Fire Strike	11.5 +	8
15	Bones to Bananas	25	None
17	Wind Bolt	13.5 +	9
19	Curse	29	None
20	Bind	30	None
21	Low Level Alchemy	31	None
23	Water Bolt	16.5 +	10
25	Varrock Teleport	35	None
27	Enchant Level 2 Jewelry	37	None
29	Earth Bolt	19.5 +	11
31	Lumbridge Teleport	41	None
33	Telekinetic grab	43	None
35	Fire Bolt	22.5 +	12
37	Falador Teleport	47	None
39	Crumble Undead	49	15
41	Wind Blast	25.5 +	13
43	Superheat Item	53	None
45	Camelot Teleport	55.5	None
47	Water Blast	28.5 +	14
49	Enchant Level 3 Jewelry	59	None
50	Iban Blast	42.5 +	25
50	Snare	60.5	None
50	Magic Dart	?	18
51	Ardougne teleport	61	None
53	Earth Blast	31.5 +	15
55	High Level Alchemy	65	None
56	Charge Water Orb	66	None
57	Enchant Level 4 Jewelry	67	None
58	Watchtower Teleport	68	None
59	Fire Blast	34.5 +	16
60	Charge Earth Orb	70	None
60	Claws of Guthix	35+	30
60	Saradomin Strike	35+	30
60	Flames of Zamorak	35+	30
61	Trollheim Teleport	68	None
62	Wind Wave	36 +	17
63	Charge Fire Orb	73	None
65	Water Wave	37.5 +	18
66	Charge Air Orb	76	None
66	Vulnerability	76	None
68	Enchant Level 5 Jewelry	78	None
70	Earth Wave	40 +	19
73	Enfeeble	83	None
74	Teleother Lumbridge	84	None
75	Fire Wave	42.5 +	20
79	Entangle	91	None
80	Stun	90	None
80	Charge	180	None
82	Teleother Falador	92	None
85	Tele Block	80	None
90	Teleother Camelot	100	None

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High Alchemy Spell

This spell can be cast once you have achieved level 55 magic and plays an important role in the RuneScape economy. Players often use this spell with valuable objects to convert it to gold (aka gp) to make significant profits. The best examples would be smithers high alching their final products (usually steel plate mail) and fletchers high alching Magic Bows. The strategy to use with idea is - if you can make an item cheaper than it's High Alch value then you will make a profit.

The most efficient system would be to make items from scratch yourself. Taking th example of Magic Bows - you would pick and spin the flax yourself, then chop a tree and fletch the log yourself, and finally runecraft the nature runes to use to High Alch the bow. Ofcourse this analagy can be used for other items which you can smith, craft and so on. Some players will buy some of the resources in order to save time and yet still make a profit, in our example the player might buy the nature runes instead of crafting them himself. Use our High Alchemy Calculator to help you out and see a list of High Alch values.

Top Tip: You can withdraw large amounts of an item as notes and alch them one by one while you don't have to be in a bank all the time.

Following on from the tip given above, below are some ideas for what to do while you are high alching away:

• Mine ores from slow spawning ores, such as Runite in the Heros' guild.
• Watch the duels in the duelling Arena and throw the occasional tomato.
• Thieve from slow spawning stalls and chests. Its' especially useful to steal from a nature stall.
• Buy stock that slowly spawns in certain shops. For example, buying runes in the Magic Guild store, or purchasing arrow heads in the Catherby archery store.
• Hang around in crowded merchanting hot spots and look out for good deals.
• Pick up and bury bones that spawn in the wilderness (death gorge - lvl 20 wild)

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Special spells

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 broken 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 the Mage 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.

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Staves

There's actually two kinds of staves, the staves that everyone can use and the staves 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.

Zaff's Superior Staffs!
Picture	Name	Price
	Battlestaff	7140gp
	Staff	15gp
	Magic Staff	200gp
	Staff of Air	1500gp
	Staff of Water	1500gp
	Staff of Earth	1500gp
	Staff of Fire	1500gp
	Lava Battle Staff	See note below

As you can see, there's several kinds of staffs; First of all there's the battlestaff, that's not of any interest to non-members. I'll tell more about battlestaffs in a sec.
Then there's the staff, for only 15gp, it doesn't add anything to your magic skill, pretty useless. Then the magical staff, it boosts your magic a bit and that's it, not really of our interest. Then, the staffs 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 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's also battlestaffs, which are members only and cannot be bought in their full glory here anyway. Battlestaffs need to be made with a certain crafting skill, read more about that in the Crafting guide. When battle staffs are made and enchanted, they become; Mystic fire/earth/water/air staff. Also they will have the same fighting stats as a rune long sword and will also do the same the other staffs; 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.

The lava battle staff can be obtained by killing the Kalphite Queen, Abberant Specters and Infernal Mages; for more information about them, visit our monsters database. The lava battle staff gives you unlimited earth and fire runes. It gets enchanted just like normal battle staves, see above for more information about this.

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Magical armour

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.

The robes & amulets
Pic	Name	Magic attack bonus	Magic defence bonus
	Blue Wizard Robe	+3	+3
	Blue Wizard Hat	+2	+2
	Dark Wizard Robe	+3	+3
	Dark Wizard Hat	+1	+2
	Robe of Zamorak (top)	+2	+3
	Robe of Zamorak (bottom)	+2	+3
	Wizard's Boots	+4	+4
	Gnomes' Hat	+3	+3
	God Capes	+10	-
	Amulet of Magic	+10	-
	Amulet of Glory	+10	+3
	Elemental Shield	-	+6
	Archer Helm	-5	+6
	Farseer Helm	+6	+6

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.

Mystic Robes
The best mage armour out there can be bought in the magic guild, if you go to the Robe Salesman on the first floor, you can buy your very own set of Mystic armour. It's quite expensive though. It will cost you a total of 235.000 gp, but it will give you +45 magic defence and attack.

Mystic Robes
Pic	Name	Magic attack bonus	Magic defence bonus	Price
	Mystic Hat	+4	+4	15,000 gp
	Mystic Robe Top	+20	+20	120,000 gp
	Mystic Robe Bottom	+15	+15	80,000 gp
	Mystic Gloves	+3	+3	10,000 gp
	Mystic Boots	+3	+3	10,000 gp

Splitbark armour
Some more effective mage armour, which has other than magic bonuses, is splitbark armour. This is a bit hard to make, so if you want more information about this, please visit our Shades & Splitbark guide.

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 shown 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.

So that means if you keep your magic level below either your strength, attack, defence or ranged level you can train magic without levelling in combat. Of course if you want to be the highest combat level as possible, this doesn't really matter.

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).

Note: The wizard mind bomb in the Falador bar will temporarily raise your magic 2 or 3 levels so you can practise with higher level spells and get faster experience points.

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Player Killing

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: Please be aware that, although items are stacked, each item in the stack counts as one item. Due to this, stacked items are often lost as they are of very small value. However, if you have a stack of items where the individual items are the most valuable in your inventory, you will keep three of the items in that stack.