Magic in RuneScape: Dragonwilds serves as both a combat option and a practical tool. You can use it to defeat enemies or grant your character special abilities.
To use magic offensively, you need a Wand or Battlestaff. However, utility spells do not require a specific weapon.
Regardless of whether you use magic for combat or utility, casting spells consumes runes. Even if you don’t plan to specialize as a mage, magic is an essential part of Dragonwilds experience. Let IGGM.com walk you through how the system works.
Spells and Magic Weapons
You can view your available spells in Spellbook. Some spells let you jump higher, leave a decoy when dodging, or even turn trees into bones.
Utility spells do not require a Battlestaff or Wand, so every player can use them. You unlock these spells by leveling up various skills, including Woodcutting, Cooking, and Mining.
However, if you want to use magic offensively, you must equip a magic weapon, either a Battlestaff or a Wand. Utility spells primarily consume Astral Runes, while Battlestaffs and Wands use Air Runes, Water Runes, or Fire Runes.
How To Get Rune Essence?
Whether you specialize as a mage or simply want to use utility spells, you’ll need plenty of runes. To craft them, you first need Rune Essence.
Rune Essence primarily comes from Geysers, which appear as enormous, glowing, floating rocks. Use ranged attacks to knock them down, then equip a pickaxe and strike the rocks as you would when mining to collect Rune Essence.
You can also find Rune Essence in Goblin Packs, but you’ll need to defeat the goblins first.
Inventory Management
Rune Essence is heavy. After gathering it, it’s best to return to your base and store it in Chests. You can still use Rune Essence at a Rune Altar while it’s stored in a Chest, so there’s no need to carry it around.
Runes themselves, on the other hand, have no weight and occupy a separate section of your inventory. They won’t take up regular inventory slots, allowing you to carry virtually unlimited runes without becoming overburdened.
How To Craft Runes?
There are two ways to turn Rune Essence into runes. The first is to find Anima vents scattered across the map. Each vent has a color corresponding to a particular rune type.
Approach a vent and hold the extraction button to convert Rune Essence into the corresponding runes. You’ll also gain a substantial amount of Runecrafting XP. Vents spawn at fixed locations, so a particular Fire Rune Vent, for example, will always appear in the same area.
The second method is to build a Rune Altar at your base. This is more convenient than searching for vents, but it provides significantly less experience.
As your Runecrafting level increases, you’ll unlock more rune types. Initially, you can craft Air Runes, Water Runes, and Astral Runes. Simply select the rune type and quantity, then choose Autocraft.
How To Get Magic Weapons?
There are two magic weapons available early in the game: Ash Wand and Ash Battlestaff.
Both weapons unlock once you craft Coarse Thread for the first time. They require Ash Logs, Rune Essence, and Coarse Thread, although Ash Battlestaff requires more materials.
Picking Flax for the first time unlocks Spinning Wheel. Once you’ve built one, you can process Flax into Coarse Thread and use it to craft a Wand or Battlestaff.
The next tier consists of Oak weapons, but these take considerably longer to unlock. During the early game, an Ash Wand or Ash Battlestaff is more than enough to get started with magical combat.
Mage Armor
Before you start casting spells everywhere, it’s a good idea to prepare some mage armor. Apprentice Armor unlocks when you obtain Coarse Thread for the first time, but crafting the full set requires a substantial amount of it.
You’ll therefore need to gather plenty of Flax or collect Coarse Animal Fur. If this process feels too tedious, there are many RuneScape Dragonwilds items for sale.
Equipping all three pieces grants Three-Piece Class Bonus. Your Stamina Regeneration decreases, but your Magic Attack Speed increases by 10%, and your Magic Critical Chance increases by 15%.
Offensive Magic
Air Magic is the first offensive magic type you’ll unlock, and it remains powerful even after you gain access to other elements later in the game.
Air Magic excels at single-target damage, offering the highest raw damage and the ability to stun enemies. Water Magic deals less damage but can heal both you and your teammates. Its four-hit combo ends by summoning a Tsunami. Defeated enemies also have a chance to drop Water Orbs, which you can use to restore health.
Fire Magic deals less direct damage than Air Magic but applies the burning effect. Its third attack can immobilize enemies, while its fourth summons a Meteor Shower, making it effective for clearing groups of enemies.
You can craft most runes as your Runecrafting level increases. Any runes thatcannot be crafted must be obtained by extracting them from their corresponding vents.
How to Increase Magic Damage?
As your Magic level increases, you’ll unlock new abilities, spells, and passive bonuses. However, leveling up does not directly provide a substantial increase to your damage.
Certain levels reduce the stamina cost of casting magic, allowing you to cast more spells and indirectly improve your DPS. However, the only direct way to increase your raw damage is to obtain better equipment.
Ash Wand has a damage multiplier of 1.9, while Oak Battlestaff has a multiplier of 2.8. Switching to a better magic weapon is therefore the most straightforward way to increase your damage. However, acquiring one involves a fairly complicated process.
You’ll need to craft a Furnace and then build a Smithing Table before gathering the various RS Dragonwilds items and materials required to make the weapon. This process takes considerable time, so you can treat upgrading your magic weapon as an early-game progression goal.
Combat Tips
As a mage, you’re essentially a glass cannon. The ideal strategy is to maintain your distance and defeat enemies before they can get close enough to attack you.
Air Magic is particularly useful because it can stun and knock back enemies. You can deal damage from a distance, then retreat before they have a chance to retaliate. Don’t forget to use Dodge when necessary, either. Mages can roll to evade attacks just like other characters.
Those are some essential tips for using magic in RuneScape Dragonwilds. IGGM.com hopes these tips will help players avoid unnecessary setbacks and enjoy a smoother, more efficient gaming experience.