Confused about magic - spells vs abilities

[[AKn] Talsar]

Trying to get into runescape now its on steam but as a spellcaster i figured that my main focus would be casting spells using the rune system. However I gather that modern runescape has this weird ability system with a ton of auto rotating combat abilities. So far using these abilities seems infinitely more powerful than early game spells while also requiring no resources to cast. Are the rune based elemental spells even relevant anymore?

[Magic Spazm]

Some rune spells have gimmicks that help with specific things out of combat.

[Slayer Slayerson]

Think of rune based magic as your ammo, the higher tier, the higher damage.

[Aquasword480]

So it's broken down in a few ways but the short answer is yes rune based spells are very relevant. The long version...

The main idea behind EoC is you need to build up adrenaline this allows you execute stronger abilities called "Thresholds" which need you to be at X-adrenaline to use and consume a little when used. As well as "ultimates" which are very powerful abilities that require you to be at 100% adrenaline to use them and consume all your adrenaline when used.

The way to build up your adrenaline is using auto-attacks and "basics" which are abilities that don't consume adrenaline. Auto-attacks are exactly what they sound like, your classic spells being cast automatically consuming runes just as it has been for ages. Basics are more powerful than auto-attacks but basics like all abilities have cool downs even when they are short cool downs. During the period in which you can't fire off basics to build adrenaline the game will fire auto-attacks. Meaning you still consume runes just at a slower rate than you used to.

Now your spells also affect you base damage of your abilities. If you notice the attack abilities say stuff like "deals 200% of your ability damage" and so on. Each regular rune spell has an auto-attack damage and an ability damage. So essentially abilities are using your regular rune spells to calculate how much maximum/minimum damage they can do. Without the regular spells there is nothing for abilities to draw on which makes you unable to use magic abilities in battle.

Furthermore while we are talking about damage it is decided by a combination of weapon and spell. Let's take Air Surge this is a T81 spell meaning it will deal "tier 81 spell damage" however the Tier of your weapon also plays a role in this. If you are trying to cast a T81 spell but are using a T70 magic wand then the game will cap your spell damage at T70. Inversely spell damage can also scale all the way up to the max of its family if your weapon is high enough.

So take the surges the lowest is T81 at Air surge and the highest is T95 at Fire Surge. This means Air Surge can scale all the way up to T95 damage and be as strong as fire surge as long you have a high enough weapon equipped. So if you had a theoretical T95 magic wand equipped your air surge would scale up to T95 damage and be as strong as fire surge, I say theoretical because currently weapons only go up to T92 so we actually can't use the full power of surges yet.

If you are wondering then what should determine what spell to use if you had a T95 weapon since Air and Fire surge would be the exact same damage there are two things to consider. First various enemies have weaknesses to specific elements, it will be listed by their name as an image. When you use a spell that an enemy is weak against you will get higher accuracy with that spell meaning you land hits more often and deal more damage over time as a result. Now IF an enemy isn't weak to a particular spell element then it doesn't matter what spell you use in terms of damage, air surge and fire surge will have the same damage and accuracy. BUT Fire Surge has a higher rune cost so you most likely would opt to use Air Surge just because it costs less to use in terms of auto-attacks consuming your runes.

One final note on combat is that spells with special effects tied to them like those of ancient magics only have a chance to activate during auto-attacks not abilities. If you want to freeze enemies with ice spells, drain their health with blood, do both at the same time by dual wielding magic with ice in one hand and blood in the other, etc... then you will be relying on your auto-attacks. That's the trade-off where abilities won't use runes but they also can't use the effects of ancient spells.

Finally of course there is the matter that all non-combat spell take runes as well and so there is plenty of regular rune sink when you're using magic for anything but combat. The elemental runes actually can turn quite a tidy profit because of this, especially air.

[Reaper415]

Originally posted by Tommy Wiseau:

Magic was ruined with the eoc i dont even know how to use magic in combat anymore.

Because you haven't learned the game? The post above you explains everything beautifully. It's much better than the trash system that is legacy.

[A Ryan]

Originally posted by Tommy Wiseau:

Magic was ruined with the eoc i dont even know how to use magic in combat anymore.

You can always use the Legacy combat system. It's location in the game play settings. The spell system is just like how it was. Not just for magic, but melee and range. You can also use the Legacy interface with the new combat, to help you transition/get used to RS3 if you're coming from OS