Pay-to-play Magic training

Efficient ways of training Magic are typically mundane and usually involve repetitive clicking. However, many players find achieving the appropriate levels for teleports, high-level jewellery enchantments, combat spells, and improved magic defences well worth the time and monetary investment. Magic is relatively easy to train, but can be time consuming and expensive. This article will go over community favorites and efficient methods.

Level 1 - 13 – Combat
Cast the basic strike spells on monsters such as goblins, cows, and other weak creatures. You can also head to the Edgeville Monastery to train on Monks, as they heal themselves and do negligible damage.

Alternatively, 'splashing' Confuse or Weaken (-65 or less magic bonus) can be an effective option. This allows the spell to be cast repetitively without having to wait for the draining effect inflicted on the enemy to wear off, though it cannot be autocast. One recommended target for this strategy is the Monk of Zamorak behind Varrock Castle's staircase.

Players can complete the Imp Catcher and Witch's Potion quests for a total reward of 1,200 Magic experience. This allows players to quickly reach level 10 Magic without spending coins on runes.

Level 4 - 87/99: Enchant Crossbow Bolts (alternative)
The costs below have been calculated assuming that an elemental staff is used for each cast to replace the need of basic runes.

It is possible to do 1900-2150 casts an hour, so the calculations use an average rate of 2000 casts per hour.

Level 13 - 27 – Casting Fire Strike
Using Fire Strike on monsters is an effective and cheap training method. Make sure to equip either a fire or air staff, since they can autocast spells and negate some of the rune costs.

Alternatively, if wealth is not an issue, a player can simply use the best available bolt spell.

Good options for training include:
 * Flesh Crawlers and Chaos druids which commonly drop herbs.
 * Hill Giants which drop big bones and limpwurt roots, and can also be safe-spotted.
 * Lesser demon in Wizards' Tower which drops runes and other valuables. Note: Telekinetic Grab is required to collect the drops, so only collect items worth more than the Law rune required to grab it.

Level 19 - 45/55 – Splashing Curse
Starting at level 19, one could repeatedly 'splash' Curse to gain Magic experience. Note: If Curse lands on an enemy, it cannot be recast on that enemy until the effects wear off. 'Splashing' bypasses this timer, as the spell never landed on the enemy in the first place. Recommended equipment includes Staff of earth (or alternatively a Mud battlestaff) with armour that provides negative magic bonuses (ex. Iron armour or Dragonhide, and metal shoes). A magic bonus of -65 or lower is strongly recommended. Good spots to train with Curse include the skeletons at level 1 Wilderness, the caged Monk of Zamorak at Varrock Palace, or the caged Lesser demon inside Wizards' Tower, though with a magic bonus of -65, any monster that can be safespotted is suitable. If you cannot reach the -65 bonus, then places, where a large number of enemies can be safespotted, can be used to keep up constant casting, even if Curse does not splash. One example is the Barbarian Encampment, where you can stand in the middle of the rocks and cast Curse on the many Barbarians in the area.

To avoid killing your target, you can bring runes for Fire Strike and set it to autocast. Using a Smoke battlestaff is recommended for this method. This method allows you to train on weak monsters without safespotting, and it also allows you to temporarily idle while still gaining a small amount of experience, though less magic XP is earned for the money spent on runes.

Each cast of Curse yields 29 experience; this yields a maximum of 34,000 experience per hour.

Level 43 - 55 – Superheat Item
Use Superheat Item to create bars. Selling the bars could allow you to break even, take a loss, or make a little bit of money depending on the prices of nature runes and steel bars. This is a favourable option if you need to also train your Smithing skill. Optimal utilization of this method yields around 97,000 magic experience per hour.

Level 45 - 55 – Camelot teleport
Equip a Staff of air and hold about 1,895 law runes, then repeatedly cast Camelot teleport. Players receive 55.5 experience per cast, so assuming law runes cost 200 coins each, the price per experience point is approximately 3.6 coins. This will give you about 80,000 experience per hour.

Level 55+ – High Level Alchemy
Cast High Level Alchemy on various items for 65 Magic experience per cast. Popular items include those that other players massively generate through other skills, such as longbows, battlestaves, dragonhide bodies and platebodies. Buying limits and high prices limit the practicality on some of these, but yew/magic longbows and rune daggers are among the more popular items to alch. For macro efficiency, it is best to cast High Level Alchemy while training other skills, such as training Agility, low-level Hunter or doing farming runs.

It is common to lose money casting High Level Alchemy for the purpose of increasing experience, but astute players may break even or find profit in purchasing and alchemizing some items. Leaving offers on the Grand Exchange for long periods of time is productive to get the items cheaper if the player can afford not having the cash required available for the time being. Making gold bracelets from gold bars and alching them requires little initial investment and often breaks even, however this requires spending time which many find to be better used in other activities.

Cast High Level Alchemy on noted items whenever possible. Not only will this allow you to alch without constantly having to bank, but it also eliminates the risk of accidentally alching your worn equipment if you left-click 'wield' on an item you were trying to alch. Furthermore, it means that there is only one place in the inventory that you need to click. Place the noted items on the fourth row, all the way to the right, to eliminate the need of moving the mouse.

One may also consider participating in the Alchemist's room in the Mage Training Arena. Players receive bonus experience and are given a chance of negating rune costs when alchemizing certain items in the arena, although often with little monetary gain.

This method earns a maximum 78,000 xp/hour.

Level 55+ – Tele-alching
"Tele alching" is a method which combines the two elements of casting High Level Alchemy and teleporting. To do this, you will need to alch an item, teleport straight after, click the high alch before you spawn and click the item as soon as you spawn. This makes sure that you do not miss a tick when doing this. The teleport location to tele alch is Camelot, as the teleport icon is near the high alch icon giving you enough time to reach the other icon before the action is complete.

Tele alching at Camelot gives 120,000-130,000 experience per hour and is the cheapest of the two requiring a single law rune per teleport. Tele alching at Ardougne is 152,000 experience per hour, but is a lot more expensive at the cost of an extra law rune per teleport. Additionally, if you have completed Eadgar's Ruse, have fast enough speed and good enough precision, you may consider tele alching at Great Kourend at level 69.

Level 56/60/63/66+ – Charging orbs
At these levels, charging water/earth/fire/air orbs becomes an option. While it is slower and more attention intensive than alching and possesses a few small risks, it does not cost money (outside of a small investment to get started) and can even make a profit, as the price of a charged orb is approximately two to three times the combined price of the Cosmic runes and the unpowered orb, returning an approximate 1000 gp of profit for each orb. Remember to use the appropriate elemental staff to eliminate the need for extra runes to save money and inventory space.

It should be noted that the path to the obelisks to charge the orbs are somewhat dangerous, as the path to fire and water obelisks in the Taverley Dungeon requires the player to pass by Blue and Black dragons, Black demons and Poison spiders, and the path to earth and air obelisks requires the player to go through low-level Wilderness in Edgeville Dungeon (player killers are common in this area) and a couple of Black demons. Due to this, a decent Defence level and a lightweight shield is recommended. When using the Taverley Dungeon, a crossbow with a mith grapple is recommended for easier banking at Catherby and going back to the dungeon, and when using the Wilderness obelisks, it's recommended to keep a few charged amulets of glory in the bank and use them to teleport back to Edgeville. When low on health, the player could eat some food while banking. Weight-reducing gear is also recommended as lots of running is required. One could also equip the Ardougne cloak for a quick trip to the Ardougne Monastery to recharge prayer points before taking an amulet of glory back to Edgeville; this will allow you to have protection prayers on while travelling to the obelisks.

Level 70+ – Ice Burst
Casting Ice Burst on maniacal monkeys at Ape Atoll, which requires Ancient Magicks and having started chapter II of the quest Monkey Madness II, is a very fast but expensive way to train Magic and Hitpoints. Maniacal monkeys frequently drop 1-dose prayer potions which can negate the cost of using Protect from Melee. Players who don't have access to maniacal monkeys can alternatively burst skeletal monkeys in the Ape Atoll Dungeon, however, this is slightly slower and more expensive compared to maniacal monkeys.

Players can also cast Ice Burst on certain Slayer tasks, such as dust devils and Greater Nechryaels in the Catacombs of Kourend. In addition to having access to 15% accuracy and damage boost of Slayer helmet (i) while on task, both monsters frequently drop valuable items, making bursting aforementioned monsters significantly cheaper than maniacal monkeys.

Players can also use this method in Pest Control. As of 18 December 2014, Pest Control gives full experience from casting spells.

Level 78+ – Tan Leather
Alternatively, players that have access to the lunar spellbook and have completed the Hard Fremennik Diary can use Tan Leather that grants 81 experience points per cast and can tan up to 5 leather. It is suggested to have 25 spaces open for the leather, 2 for the runes, and any item to fill up the last inventory slot to prevent the extra loss of gold from runes. With this technique, it is possible that the player can gain very small profit if using dragonhide to tan. It is recommended to be at the Grand Exchange while doing this technique to constantly buy leather and to sell them. This technique can gain over 120,000 experience per hour or even higher if focused.

Level 80+ – Stun-alching
At level 80 Magic, Stun-alching becomes available, but does cost much more than high alchemy which is generally free or low loss. The player is to cast High Alchemy, then cast Stun on an NPC, and repeat until desired. For this, you'll want a mud staff (provides free earth/water runes), a tome of fire (provides free fire runes when charged), then find a suitable NPC to safespot. Experiences rates of 184,000 per hour are possible.

It is possible to add in a teleport to this rotation without missing any game ticks. Using Ardougne Teleport as your choice keeps you within the range of a guard at all times to stun, and with this experience rates of up to 256,000 per hour are possible. This method is immensely click intensive, so it may not be desirable.

Level 80+ – String Jewellery
Alternatively, players who have access to the lunar spellbook can cast String Jewellery. The spell takes 1.8 seconds per amulet strung, or 48.6 seconds for an inventory, and gives 4 Crafting experience and 83 magic experience per amulet. Once clicked, it will string each amulet one by one in your inventory, giving you experience for each amulet strung. Using a mud battlestaff is recommended.

Experience rates peak up to 150,000 Magic (along with 6,265 Crafting) experience per hour.

Level 82+ – Magic Imbue
At level 82, a player unlocks Magic Imbue on the Lunar spellbook. High efficiency players use this spell to train magic while doing other activities. The benefit of this spell is that it only requires one inventory space and an equipped steam battlestaff to be cast. The downside of this spell is that it may only be cast once every 12.6 seconds. A player can cast it for example when changing fishing spots or while running to a bank.

Level 86+ – Plank Make
One may begin casting Plank Make spell from the Lunar spellbook at level 86 Magic. The spell turns one log at a time in the player's inventory into planks, though coins are also required. To access the spell player must complete Dream Mentor in addition to Lunar Diplomacy, however. With decent concentration, players can achieve 166,000 experience per hour, and using mahogany planks may even yield slight amounts of profit.

Level 94+ – Ice Barrage
At level 94, players can cast Ice Barrage on maniacal monkeys at Ape Atoll, similar to ice bursting. However, it is better to stick with Ice Burst unless you have plenty of money to burn, as Ice Barrage is much more expensive.