Part 2
Due to the size of this newspost we have had to split in two, Click here to head over to part 1 of these notes.
Magic
Style Core Changes and Identity
Magic as a style has had less changes than the others, its core play pattern was enjoyable and decently well structured, with Critical Strikes becoming the core build for the style, and a damage-over-time 'burn' build emerging.
Throughout the beta, our focus has been on reinforcing these identities and adding some structure to the style; several abilities have been adjusted to better support these two playstyles.
As with the other combat styles, Magic has also received structural updates to bring it in line with the unified combat framework.
Structural Changes
Core Magic scripts have been fully rewritten to modernise the style and remove legacy inconsistencies.
Magic abilities now use fixed impact timings.
Previously, (albeit infrequently) weapon type could subtly influence when damage was applied. However, more commonly, distance from your target would affect which cycle damage was applied on. This created edge cases in rotations and made certain setups feel inconsistent. Damage now lands at defined, predictable timings regardless of weapon or distance.
Like the other styles, Area-of-effect abilities have also been standardised. Magic AoE now calculates impact based on an NPC’s size and centre coordinate, rather than their southwest tile. This improves consistency against groups of larger enemies.
Rune Consumption and Resource Identity
All Magic abilities now require runes to cast. This reinforces Magic’s identity as a resource-driven style and restores clarity to its relationship with Runecrafting and the in-game economy.
Runes are consumed 20 percent of the time per ability cast. This establishes a predictable and consistent cost structure, while keeping overall rune usage manageable.
Under the previous system, rune consumption could feel inconsistent or bypassed entirely in certain setups. Standardising this behaviour ensures:
- Magic always meaningfully interacts with its core resource
- Rune sinks are predictable
- Magic is consistent with how many runes are consumed as you level through the style.
One-time activation spells such as Hex's (Vulnerability, Smoke Cloud) and utility spells remain unchanged.
This mirrors the ammunition changes made to Ranged, bringing parity between the two styles.
Unlock Order Rework
Magic’s unlock progression has been restructured to better reflect its core identity and to align with the pacing updates made to the other combat styles.
As with Melee and Ranged, a primary goal is to ease players into the style in a clear and structured way. Abilities are introduced in a deliberate order that teaches the foundations of Magic, first establishing its core damage tools, then layering in different interactions . This ensures that players understand the two playstyles before more complex combinations are introduced.
Rather than overwhelming players early with overlapping mechanics, progression now builds step by step. Unlocks reinforce key concepts, expand rotational options at the right moments, and make each new ability feel like a meaningful addition to your toolkit.
The updated unlock table is shown below.
| Ability | Level | Type | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic Attack | 1 | Basic | |
| Wild Magic | 3 | Enhanced | |
| Sonic Wave | 6 | Basic | |
| Omnipower | 12 | Ultimate | |
| Dragon Breath | 19 | Basic | |
| Runic Charge | 26 | Utility | |
| Impact | 31 | Basic | Second Charge at 54 |
| Combust | 38 | Basic | |
| Chain | 51 | Basic | |
| Asphyxiate | 59 | Enhanced | |
| Concentrated Blast | 66 | Basic | |
| Corruption Blast | 70 | Enhanced | Requires Codex |
| Smoke Tendrils | 75 | Enhanced | Requires Quest |
| Sunshine | 76 | Ultimate | Requires Quest |
| Magma Tempest | 85 | Enhanced | Requires Codex |
| Tsunami | 90 | Ultimate |
Magic Basic Abilities
Sonic Wave
Sonic Wave see's some big changes; instead of granting accuracy/damage it now reduces the adrenaline cost of your next ability. The intent behind Sonic, is to try to level magic out a little, getting some power out of the standard sunshine rotation and into the rest of the rotation, rewarding frequent use of spenders by making them consistently cheaper to cast.
- New: Reduces the adrenaline cost of your next ability by 10%.
- Greater Sonic Wave: 20%.
Dragon Breath
Dragon Breath and Combust thematically are nice together, but payoff wasn't present until Kerapac's Wristwraps, we're adding synergy that in the early and mid game gives players a clear reward for properly sequencing their abilities.
- Now deals 25% increased damage to Combusted enemies
Combust
The movement requirement in Combust created a lot of encounter-dependent value. We’ve shifted that power into reliable baseline damage.
- Now deals 30% average damage per hit over 10 hits (300% total).
- No longer deals increased damage when the target moves.
Impact
- The knockback effect from Horror is now unlockable via Scare Tactics and can be toggled on/off within Impact.
- Now gains a second charge at Level 54.
Chain
Chain’s baseline felt incomplete without its Greater upgrade. We’re baking in its core functionality so it feels good to use at all levels, while keeping Greater as a meaningful AoE amplification tool
- Now includes the previous Greater Chain effect by default.
- Initial hit now deals 80% average damage.
- Greater: 90%.
- Now shares 30% of your next ability’s damage with secondary targets.
- Greater: 50%.
Concentrated Blast
The gap between Concentrated Blast and the Greater version was massive, we're pushing some of the power into the baseline version and the Critical Strike bonus.
- Now channels over 1.8 seconds. (matches greater concentrated blast)
- Now deals 35% average damage per hit (105% total).
- Greater: 45% per hit.
- Now grants 5% stacking critical strike chance per hit.
- Greater: 7% per hit.
- Critical strike chance now applies to the next ability, not the next hit
- Example: Both hits of Wild Magic benefit.
Magic Enhanced Abilities
Wild Magic is magic's signature spender. Lowering the cooldown allows it to remove some reliance on special attacks, and lets it interact more frequently with Sonic Wave.
Wild Magic
- Now deals 140% average damage per hit (280% total).
- Cooldown reduced to 5.4 seconds.
- Now costs 25% adrenaline.
Asphyxiate
- Now costs 25% adrenaline.
Smoke Tendrils
We're lowering the cost of Smoke Tendrils so players without all the Crit boosting gear have a reliable way to get payoffs with Tsunami.
- Now deals 60% average damage on the first hit, increasing by 12.5% average damage per hit (315% total).
- Now costs 0% adrenaline.
Magma Tempest
We're balancing Magma Tempest and Corruption Blast out of the basic ability slot, so it's clearer that they excel in AoE situations, and reduce their impact in core rotations.
- Now deals 40% average damage per hit (320% total).
- Now costs 20% adrenaline.
Corruption Blast
- Now deals 100% average damage on initial hit (300% total).
- Now costs 20% adrenaline.
Magic Ultimate Abilities
Omnipower
Omnipower like the other damaging ultimates is intended to be a big payoff for building up to it, however it's always fallen short without the Zuk cape upgrades.
We're moving the reduced cost into the core of the ability so it feels better to use before reaching the endgame
- Now deals 460% average damage.
- Igneous Kal-Mej: 135% average damage per hit (4 hits, 540% total).
- Now costs 60% adrenaline.
Magic Utility Abilities
Runic Charge
Runic Charge is Magic's new ability, it sits in the Utility part of the ability book. The ability is quite unique in that it neither applies the Global Cooldown, nor does it use or gain adrenaline, meaning it can be cast instantly to gain its effects:
When cast it improves your Sonic Wave, Concentrated Blast or Dragon Breath ability.
- Sonic Wave: Further reduces the adrenaline cost of your next ability
- Concentrated Blast: Further increases your critical strike chance
- Dragon breath: Vastly increases the damage it deals.
Additional Changes
Removed Abilities
As part of the changes we are removing a number of abilities from the above styles.
From a game design perspective, maintaining a healthy combat system is not just about adding new tools. It is also about knowing when to remove or consolidate existing ones. Over time, each of the styles accumulated several abilities that overlapped in function, were heavily outclassed, or no longer fit cleanly within the identities we want the style to emphasise.
When too many abilities compete for the same space, several problems emerge:
- New players struggle to understand which abilities are core and which are situational
- Some abilities become “noob traps” that look viable but are mathematically inferior
- Action bars become cluttered with options that rarely justify their slot
By removing underused, redundant, or confusing abilities, we create space for the remaining toolkit to feel sharper and more intentional. Each ability that remains should serve a clear role within the styles. This improves readability, makes progression easier to teach, and ensures that new unlocks feel meaningful.
The following abilities have been removed from Melee:
- Balanced Strike
- Blood Tendrils
- Cleave
- Decimate
- Destroy
- Forceful Backhand
- Kick
- Sever
- Slice
- Stomp
- Smash
The following abilities have been removed from Ranged:
- Tight Bindings
- Dazing Shot
- Demoralise
- Rout
- Needle Strike
- Fragmentation Shot
- Salt the Wound
- Unload
- Incendiary Shot
The following abilities have been removed from Magic:
- Detonate
- Wrack
- Metamorphosis
- Deep Impact
- Shock
- Horror
Auras
As outlined in our Aura Overhaul blog, a number of combat-focused auras are being disabled.
With the increase to level 120 for Magic, Ranged, Attack, and Strength, alongside broader systemic improvements to those styles, much of the power previously granted through auras has now been integrated directly into the core combat kits. Rather than relying on external buffs to reach competitive performance, that strength now exists within the baseline progression of each style.
Auras that do not directly impact player power, such as Vampyrism, will remain available until they are addressed in the wider Aura Overhaul update.
The following auras have been disabled and can no longer be purchased:
- Knock Out
- Brawler
- Runic Accuracy
- Sharpshooter
- Ancestor Spirits
- Berserker
- Maniacal
- Reckless
- Dark Magic
- Regeneration
- Aegis
- Mahjarrat
- Inspiration
- Equilibrium
- Invigorate
Necromancy Adjustments
While Magic, Ranged, Attack, and Strength have received level cap increases and systemic improvements, we recognise that removing combat auras could leave Necromancy comparatively behind at the highest level of play.
To mitigate this and preserve Necromancy’s endgame power, we are making the following adjustments:
- Death Skulls cooldown reduced from 12 seconds to 10 seconds while inside Living Death
- Impatient perk now also works with Basic Attacks
- Fury of the Small relic now also works with Basic Attacks
These changes are intended to:
- Make triple Death Skulls rotations inside Living Death more consistently achievable, offsetting the previous reliance on the Invigorate aura
- Slightly increase the overall Adrenaline generation available to Necromancy
- Improve consistency by ensuring Basic Attacks are treated as 'Basic Abilities' appropriately and properly interact with Adrenaline-supporting effects
The goal is to maintain parity across all four combat styles while moving away from aura-dependent gameplay.
Food Changes
We have made two important changes to how food functions in combat.
First, food no longer scales its healing based on Constitution level. It now restores its full listed value regardless of your level, making its effect consistent and simple to understand.
Second, eating food now drains 3 percent Adrenaline, reduced from 10 percent.
The previous 10 percent drain disproportionately punished early and mid-game players who rely on food more often. Endgame players, with access to sustain tools such as Soul Split, were far less affected. Lowering the drain, while not removing it entirely, preserves the intended tradeoff between healing and damage output without trapping players in situations where repeated eating prevents them from building enough adrenaline to use meaningful abilities.
Perk Adjustments
Some changes to abilities, or their removal resulted in a number of perks being redundant or needing changing to have more purpose, with that in mind, we're making the following changes:
Energising
- Now grants +50 accuracy, plus +25 per rank.
Lunging
- Now increases the damage of Dismember and Combust by 10% + 3% per rank.
Caroming
- Now increases the copied damage of Greater Chain by 5% + 5% per rank.
- Now grants Ricochet +2.5% ability damage as bonus on-hit damage per rank.
Ultimatums
- Now affects all Ultimate abilities.
- Grants 3% + 1% damage per rank.
Equipment Adjustments
Like perks, some items required changes due to ability adjustments, with that in mind we're making the following changes:
Ek-ZekKil
- Some of the power from this has been redistributed into core abilities, or the affected abilities have been removed. As a result, the Ek-ZekKil no longer bolsters specific abilities.
- Pulverise → Adrenaline reduction effect has been made baseline
- Smash → Ability removed
- Quake → Ability removed
Blast Diffusion Boots
- Wild Magic now grants +8% Basic ability damage for 6 seconds.
Roar of Awakening & Ode to Deceit
With the removal of metamorphosis, along with changes to corruption blast, the Song of Destruction duo was falling a little short, we're injecting some extra power to let it ramp up faster.
- Corruption stacks required for bonus damage reduced from 25 → 10.
- Bonus damage from corruption stacks increased from 100% → 300%.
- Stacks required for adrenaline reduced from 50 → 25.
- Adrenaline gained per cycle increased from 0.5 → 1.
Igneous Kal-Ket / Kal-Mej / Kal-Xil / Kal-Mor
- No longer reduce the adrenaline cost of their related abilities, as those abilities now have their adjusted costs by default.
Asylum Surgeon’s Ring
- Now has a 10% chance to reduce the adrenaline cost of abilities by 15%.
Fleeting Boots
- Piercing Shot reduces the cooldown of Snipe by an additional 1.2 seconds per hit.
- Basic attacks now also apply the cooldown reduction effect of Piercing Shot.
Blightbound Crossbow
- Now has a 25% chance to prevent any Ranged ammunition from breaking (not limited to Bakriminel bolts)
Chinchompas
- Now deals damage based on the ability used against the primary target to nearby enemies; instead of duplicating abilities cast, one explosion per Chinchompa thrown.
Decimation
- Locate: Now hits up to 5 enemies within 3 tiles of the primary target.
Ammo
At the top end, Ranged gameplay became increasingly intensive, with frequent ammunition swapping required for relatively small gains. This created high input demand for limited payoff and made the style harder to optimise.
Our goal with these changes is to make specialised ammunition more reliable, easier to execute correctly, and faster to reach their intended payoff. The focus is on reducing friction while preserving depth.
Splintering Arrows
- All abilities now apply Puncture, storing 1% of ability damage per stack
- Maximum stacks reduced to 250
- Stacks now last 30 seconds
- Puncture now deals more damage upfront rather than primarily over time
These changes make stack building more consistent than the previous Dazing Shot variant, and places the ammo as a reasonable choice for long encounters where you can easily hit the stack cap.
Deathspore Arrows
- Effect now triggers on hit, rather than on critical strike
- Requires 12 stacks to grant the free ability cast
- No longer grants critical strike chance
- Cooldown is no longer reduced on hit
- Now has a fixed 30-second cooldown
This shifts Deathspore from a high-variance crit-dependent effect to a more predictable and controllable source, more in line with Ranged's identity.
Wen Arrows
- Maximum stacks reduced to 10
- Stacks can no longer be consumed before reaching 10
- Consuming at 10 stacks now grants +25% hit chance and +25% damage for 9 seconds
This ensures Wen's have a clear build-and-burst window, making it harder to misuse such as triggering a non-basic earlier than intended.
Bik Arrows
- Maximum stacks reduced from 200 to 150
- Poison damage increased from 2% to 3% per stack
This tightens the stacking window while increasing per-stack value, making ramp-up faster and more impactful.
Base Hit Chance
Base hit chance, commonly referred to by the community as “affinity,” is a core component of an NPC’s defence. Every creature has four base hit chance values that determine how accurate different combat styles are against them.
For example, consider a melee-based creature that has a weakness to fire spells:
- Weakest: When you use the creature’s specific elemental weakness (in this case, fire spells).
- Weak: When you use the same combat style as the weakness, but not the exact element (in this case, air, water, or earth spells).
- Same: When you use the same combat style as the creature (in this case, Melee).
- Strongest: When you use the combat style that is weak against the creature (in this case, Ranged).
What does this mean in practice?
Take a Hill Giant as an example. Based on its stats:
- Using a level 22 Magic weapon and targeting its elemental weakness (e.g., air spells) would give you a 90% base hit chance.
- Using a level 22 Melee weapon instead would result in a 60% base hit chance.
We’ve adjusted the default base hit chance of many creatures to improve hit chance throughout the early and mid-game experience. The updated values are listed below.
New Default Values:
| Affinity | Live | New |
|---|---|---|
| 'Weakest' | 90 | 90 |
| 'Weak' | 65 | 70 |
| 'Same' | 55 | 60 |
| 'Strongest' | 45 | 50 |
Bosses, however, use custom hit chance values to preserve their intended balance and unique mechanics. In some cases, these have also been adjusted where appropriate.
For example:
- At Kree'arra, players typically have limited access to accuracy-boosting effects.
- At Amascut the Devourer, players have access to a wide range of tools such as specialised ammunition, special attacks, and familiars that significantly increase accuracy.
These contextual differences are taken into account when setting affinity values to ensure each encounter remains balanced and rewarding.
| Creature | Change | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kree'arra, General Graardor, Commander Zilyana, K'ril Tsutsaroth (God Wars Dungeon 1) | Defence: Level 75 → Level 60 Armour: Level 65 → Level 60 Affinities increased to match the new default affinities listed in the table above |
For being the first foray into 'sustained' bossing, the God Wars bosses had reasonably high defence and armour. We've lowered this to be around the gear level where you'd be looking to go there for an upgrade, to make the progression feel a little more reasonable. |
| Helwyr | All affinities: 40 → 60 | |
| Gregorovic | All affinities: 40 → 60 | |
| Twin Furies | All affinities: 40 → 60 | |
| Vindicta & Gorvek | All affinities: 40 → 60 Second phase: Defence: Level 80 → Level 75 Armour: Level 80 → Level 75 |
|
| Kalphite Queen | 'Weakest' affinity: 60 → 90 'Weak' affinity: 60 → 70 'Same' affinity: 40 → 60 'Strongest' affinity: 45 → 50 Defence: Level 70 → Level 60 Armour: Level 70 → Level 60 |
|
| Araxxor | Defence: Level 85 → Level 80 Armour: Level 90 → Level 80 'Weakest': 55 (Melee form) 55 (Ranged form) → 60 (Matches Magic form) 'Weak': 55 (Melee form) 55 (Ranged form) → 60 (Matches Magic form) 'Same': 50 (Melee form) 45 (Ranged form) → 45 (Matches Magic form) 'Strongest': 40 (Melee form) 50 (Ranged form) → 40 (Matches Magic form). |
Araxxor was a bit of an odd case, whereby their affinities didn't necessarily match up, and felt excessively worse to use any style but Ranged. While this made sense around release, nowadays you're as likely to go to Araxxor with any style to get your next upgrade - so we've relaxed those differences, and reduced their defence to reduce how ineffective T80/T85 weapons are when you're looking for your upgrade. |
| Araxxi | 'Weakest': 55 → 60 'Weak': 55 → 60 'Same' 45 → 60 |
Araxxi felt disproportionately worse to do with Magic due to her lower 'same' affinity - we've normalized each of these so that Araxxi doesn't feel notably and surprisingly harder based on which style you choose to bring. |
| TzTok Jad | All affinities: 40 → 55 | Jad holds a milestone place due to the value of the fire cape (and by extension the Tokhaar-Kal capes from the Fight Kiln and the Igneous capes from TzKal-Zuk), but accuracy can feel a little unfriendly due to his low affinities. |
| King Black Dragon | Affinities increased to match the new default affinities listed in the table above | Early to Mid game players already suffer through needing to use an antifire shield (or a super antifire potion if they're aware of it!) so we've increased his affinities across the board to use the default affinities. |
Bug Fixes/Changes
- Fixed an issue where Masuta would randomly nullify incoming damage.
- Kalphite King's Immortality is now triggered by Bombard, Pulverise and Tsunami. Instead of Unload, Frenzy and Smoke Tendrils
- Black Stone Dragon's 'Get Back, Hand' achievement is now triggered by using 'backhand'
- Fixed an issue where Flanking activated when walking underneath an NPC.
- The Quake ability overrides have been transferred to Meteor Strike.
Known Issues:
- VFX can appear detached from Roar of Awakening when performing older animations.
Animation, VFX, and Visual Improvements.
Alongside the gameplay updates, we are also improving the visual clarity of combat.
Many combat visuals have remained largely unchanged since the Evolution of Combat in 2012. As a result, some animations, visual effects, and ability icons no longer meet modern expectations for readability or polish. Clear visuals are critical in a combat system, not just for aesthetics, but for communicating timing, impact, and feedback to the player.
With this update, we are refreshing a number of ability animations, visual effects, and icons to improve clarity and overall presentation. In addition, the majority of ability animations have been migrated to our new animation system. This allows them to blend cleanly into one another, resulting in smoother transitions and a more cohesive feel during combat.
While not every ability has been updated in this release, improving the visual quality and readability of combat remains an ongoing priority for us.
Melee:
Hurricane
- Cleaned up animation
- New VFX
Flurry
- Cleaned up animation
- New VFX
Barge
- New Greater barge 'bleed' animation
- New VFX
Fury
- New animation
Dismember/Slaughter/Massacre
- New/Cleaned up animations
- New VFX
- New ability icon
Chaos Roar
- New ability icon
Meteor Strike
- New ability icon
Ranged:
Projectiles
- Default projectiles have a new VFX trail
Piercing Shot
- New animation
- New VFX
- New ability icon
Ricochet
- New animation
- New VFX
- New ability icon
Snipe
- New animation
- New VFX
- New ability icon
Snapshot
- New animation
- New VFX
- New ability icon
Rapidfire
- New animation
- New VFX
Deadshot
- New animation
- New VFX
- New ability icon
Death's Swiftness
- New ability icon
Magic
Basic Attack
- New cast animation
- Each of the base spellbook spells has new VFX (from Strike to Surge)
Sonic Wave
- New VFX
- New ability Icon
Concentrated Blast
- Cleaned up animation
- New VFX
Impact
- New animation
- New VFX
Chain
- New animation
- New VFX
Combust
- New ability Icon
Corruption Blast
- New ability Icon
Wild Magic
- Cleaned up animation
- New VFX
Asphyxiate
- New VFX
Omnipower
- Cleaned up animation
- New VFX
Detonate
- Ability has been removed as part of this update, like Quake we are moving its animation overrides to other abilities but we haven't finalized a decision on this just yet.
What's Next
As mentioned earlier, combat is one of the key parts of RuneScape, and it’s something we’ll continue to actively maintain. While this update is a major step forward, RuneScape is a living MMORPG with weekly updates, and that means we’ll always be refining and improving the core systems alongside adding new content and refreshing old favourites.
We’re committed to continuing this work, making combat better for everyone from brand-new adventurers to the most seasoned veterans.
Get involved with the Community
The community has been hard at work over the past few weeks, diving into the Beta, sharing feedback, and helping shape these changes into the best possible version of themselves. One group in particular has consistently been at the forefront of PvM knowledge, creating resources and guides that help players of all experience levels engage with combat and bossing.
With this being such a large-scale update to how combat works, the team over at PvMe have been using the Beta to put together early guides to help players get up to speed. They’re also using this opportunity to rebuild their guides from the ground up, with a renewed focus on making them useful for players of all skill levels.
The main guides will no longer revolve around complex ability spreadsheets, instead aiming to stay clear, simple, and informative. Advanced rotations will move into separate guides, tailored for experienced players who want to push their performance even further. Check out their website for astounding guides and helpful tools.
Importantly they are looking for more engaged players in the community to help contribute to these new guides and hunting down the best rotations! If you are interested in contributing to PvME and its resources, please join the Discord and lend a hand!