Polypore staff

Polypore staff

Degraded
AKA?	PPS
Release date	28 November 2011 (Update)
Members?	Yes
Quest item?	No
Tradeable?	Yes
Lendable?	No
Equipable?	Yes
Stacks?	No
High Alch	120,000 coins
Low Alch	80,000 coins
Destroy	Drop
Store price	Not sold
Examine	Imbued with power from the fungi growing on it.
Weight	1.8 kg

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The polypore staff is a one-handed magical staff requiring 80 Magic to wield. It is created by combining 3,000 polypore spores and 15,000 fire runes with a polypore stick, meaning that 1 charge is 1 polypore spore and 5 fire runes. Doing so requires a minimum of 80 Farming, which can be assisted or boosted by items such as Garden pies. Both hands must be free in order to charge the staff.

The staff has 3,000 charges when fully charged. When the staff is used in combat, each attack the player makes with the staff uses one charge. The attack is a Magic attack and does not consume any runes, though the average price per cast is approximately   89, assuming that you sell the stick afterwards. The staff has a +20 magic bonus, a +13% magic damage bonus, and a magic defence of 20. It can hit over 700 damage on a Slayer task in Kuradal's Dungeon with the aid of Robes of subjugation, making it the highest-hitting magic-based weapon in the game (outside of special attacks). It also is tied with Toktz-mej-tal for the third highest prayer bonus of any staff at +5, behind only the animal staves (+6) and the third-age druidic staff (+7).

When a fully-charged polypore staff is used to make an attack, it becomes a 'Polypore staff (degraded)'. However, this is only a name change and no combat abilities of the staff are lost or changed. When all the charges are used up, the staff reverts to a polypore stick. The player can create the polypore staff from the stick by repeating the process that charged it. The player can also recharge a degraded polypore staff; this requires polypore spores, fire runes in proportion to how much the staff is degraded, and level 80 farming. For example, a staff that has used 2,000 of its 3,000 charges requires 2/3rds of the recharge materials: 2,000 spores and 10,000 fire runes. The staff may only be traded when fully charged. Charging the staff gives 0.1 farming XP per charge.

The staff can be cleaned using a right-click option - doing this will revert the staff to a polypore stick and give back ONLY the spores equivalent to HALF of the remaining charges.

Since the staff has a built-in spell, it can be used regardless of the spellbook the player is using. Due to the low price of each cast, the staff is a viable option for mages to use, especially ones on Lunar Spells who wish to use magical combat, as the Lunar spellbook has few damage-dealing spells. However, the spell used by the staff gives no base experience when cast, unlike conventional combat spells. Normal experience is given for damage done - 0.2 Magic and 0.133 Constitution experience per lifepoint done, or 0.1 Magic, 0.1 Defence and 0.133 Constitution experience per lifepoint done with defensive casting enabled. This can make it slower Magic experience than a conventional combat spell.

The creatures in the Polypore Dungeon have a weakness to magic, and they drop the spores needed for recharging the staff. This makes it cost effective, even profitable, to slay the creatures using the staff's innate magic attack, gain the spores to recharge the staff, and sell the other drops to purchase the fire runes needed for recharging.

As only the staff itself is required to cast spells, it has become a very popular one-iteming weapon for mages. When skulled only one item can be protected, and when using runes this means that the majority if not all of the runes will be lost, and possibly the staff.

The polypore staff is also a very popular Barrows weapon, being cheap to use, quite effective against all the melee-using brothers, and stronger than other popular magic weapons such as the Black salamander, as well as not needing space for runes. The max hit at level 99 Magic is 414 without any kind of potion.

The polypore staff can be a very effective weapon when engaging in a Slayer task because of its accurate hits and nominal cost. It can potentially be one of the most adequate weapons to use in Slayer, up there next to the Chaotic rapier.

One charge at current Grand Exchange prices costs   89.
The price to fully recharge the staff at current Grand Exchange prices costs   267,000.
The profit for selling a recharged stick at current Grand Exchange prices is   47,908.

After an update on 6 December 2011, the melee attack bonuses and an Attack level requirement of 80 were removed.

Bonuses

Hover over image for type												A player wielding a polypore staff. A player wielding a polypore staff.	A player wielding a degraded polypore staff. A player wielding a degraded polypore staff.
Attack bonus
0	-1	+8	+20	0
Defence bonus
0	+3	+2	+20	0
Other bonuses				Slot
+3.2	0	0%	+5
FastInterval: 3.0 seconds

A player charging the staff.

Spellcasting

While the polypore staff can be used to cast spells in the standard spellbook as well as Ancient Magicks and Lunar spells, it also has a built-in spell that can be selected via the combat styles interface. Rather than consuming runes, this spell consumes one charge per cast; each polypore staff can cast up to 3,000 casts of its spell before recharging. The spell has two available attack styles: Accurate and Long-range. These give Magic and Magic/Defence experience respectively.

The staff's spell is extremely powerful. With no other damage boosts aside from the staff's 13%, it is possible to hit as high as 355 damage at 99 Magic. Additionally, due to the fact that it does not require a specific spellbook to use, it can be combined with spells from any of the three spellbooks, such as Entangle from the standard spellbook or the Lunar spell Vengeance, or Ice Barrage from ancient magicks.

It is worth noting that the Celestial surgebox will not grant the wearer an additional splat every 5th successful hit.

A player casting the polypore spell

Not including the 13% boost, the max hit of the spell is equal to (5 * magic level) - 180. At level 106 (using an extreme magic potion or equivalent) the max hit is 410. With 99 Magic, an extreme magic potion or equivalent, an arcane stream necklace, a hexcrest, and a ferocious ring, it is possible to hit 672, which is the highest possible Magic spell hit, not including fire spells on ice strykewyrms and Glacors, or magic attacks while a lava crystal (magic) is in effect. In Castle Wars with proper damage boosting equipment (including Profound equipment and Castle wars brace) a max hit of 942 has been achieved.

Level	Damage		Level	Damage		Level ^	Damage
80	220		90	270		100	320
81	225		91	275		101	325
82	230		92	280		102	330
83	235		93	285		103	335
84	240		94	290		104	340
85	245		95	295		105	345
86	250		96	300		106	350
87	255		97	305		107	355
88	260		98	310		108	360
89	265		99	315		109	365

A notification appears in the chat box when the staff's charges are half way used up.

^ When boosting one's Magic level, the new level is calculated into the attack's base maximum hit. This carries over for any boosts that bring the level over 99. It is possible to achieve a +10 boost at specific bosses with the Dominion Marker 4.

Comparison with other magical weapons

	Name	Levels to equip	Cost	Damage boost	Magic accuracy	Notes
	Dominion staff	90	Free reward	15%	20	It does not require elemental runes to cast spells; only catalytic Degrades, based upon hits that you deal with it Shared highest magic accuracy (+20) Has no non-magic stats Cannot be used outside the Dominion Tower
	Chaotic staff	80 80	200,000 tokens	20%	18	Degrades after 10 hours of combat Decent crush and strength bonus Highest damage increasing staff outside Daemonheim
	Polypore staff	80	358,601	13%	20	No runes needed to cast its unique spell Shared highest magic accuracy (+20) Limited to 3000 charges of its unique spell (can be recharged) Has Prayer bonus (+5)
	Armadyl battlestaff	77 40	13,794,058	15%	10	Acts as Mystic air staff Casts Storm of Armadyl 20% faster
	Greater runic staff	75 90	25,000 points	10%	15	It can absorb up to 1000 casts of 1 spell, saving inventory space Provides +22 Magic Defence, highest of any in the weapon slot
	Staff of light	75 75	453,296	15%	17	Special attack: -50% Melee damage taken for one minute 1/8 chance to save all runes used to cast offensive spells. This chance increases to 1/5 when wearing Combat robes, and 1/2 when wearing Battle robes Acts as a Slayer Staff for the slayer dart spell Decent stab, slash and strength bonus
	Master wand	60	3,009,576	10%	20	Shared highest magic accuracy (+20) Has no non-magic stats

Trivia

• When attempting to craft the staff without the required fire runes, the game will display a message saying, "You require 5 fire runes for each polypore spore. The staff will not accept substitutes."
• There was controversy over the staff's 80 Attack requirement. Many felt that since it was impossible to attack with Melee with the staff, the staff shouldn't have had a Melee requirement. However, it was confirmed that the Attack requirement was to be removed, and the melee bonuses reduced. This update occurred on 6 December 2011.
• Upon reaching 1,500 charges (half the total charges) the Polypore staff changes appearance, losing much of its colour. A message will appear in the chatbox informing the player that the staff has partially degraded.
  • When recharging the staff, even if it is still below 1500 charges after charging, the staff is shown with the enhanced colours during the charging animation.
• The Polypore staff's attack has an attack range of 6 squares when on accurate stance and 7 when on long-range, while most magic spells have a range of 10.
• The Polypore staff's attack are similar to the Magic attack of the inhabitants of Polypore Dungeon.
• The polypore staff is the first piece of equipment to have a magic damage bonus that isn't a multiple of 5%.
• The Polypore staff's animation seems to be modeled after Kal'Ger the Warmonger's attack animation when he uses his Celestial catalytic staff.
• Polypore is a most common and widespread group of fungi or wild mushrooms. Thus, the Polypore staff and and Polypore dungeon consisting of fungi and mushrooms; it was given the name polypore.