Greater runic staff

The greater runic staff is a reward from the Runespan. It costs 25,000 points and requires 75 Magic and 90 Runecrafting to wield. It can hold spell charges and absorb hostile spells. The staff can absorb all elemental spells, as well as all Ancient Magicks.

When the staff is charged with a spell, it casts the spell as if the runes are in your inventory. It is also possible to manually charge the staff with up to 1,000 casts of the chosen spell. Charging the staff will require players to use the exact type of runes required to cast it; combination runes such as dust runes, steam runes or lava runes will not work. The staff can save inventory space taken up by runes if you are willing to sacrifice the better accuracy of alternatives like the chaotic staff.

The staff can only be charged with one type of spell at a time, and must be emptied of its current charges in order to switch spells. Emptying the staff will return all the runes to your inventory. You must be on the same spellbook as the spell with which the staff is charged. The staff can also be manually charged with skilling spells and teleports, so it is potentially useful in certain situations in which inventory space is at a premium.

Once the staff is charged with runes for the chosen spell, the runes in the staff cannot be used to cast another spell; e.g. astral, nature and earth runes used to charge Fertile Soil cannot be used to cast Remote Farm even though they have the same required runes. However, players can simply uncharge the staff to retrieve the runes in order to do so if they wish.

When the staff absorbs a spell, the message "Your runic staff absorbs the spell, charging it slightly" appears in the chatbox.

Potential uses

 * NPC Contact - keep staff with you on slayer to get a new task upon finishing one, either saving two inventory spaces or saving time withdrawing runes; you only have to open your bank once between tasks.
 * Spiritualise Food - Prolong your familiar's timer without wasting space for the required runes.
 * High Level Alchemy - Turn mid-level drops that would otherwise not be picked up, into coins, without wasting inventory space for nature runes and fire runes.
 * Make Leather - Easily tan dragonhide while killing dragons, making more money per trip. The leather can be crafted into dragonhide bodies, saving even more space and granting Crafting experience.
 * Bones to Peaches or Blood Barrage - A one-slot infinite healing item. However, bones to peaches tablets also take up just one inventory space, albeit more expensive.
 * Cure Me - An expensive but endless way to cure poison. However, the anti-poison totem is free to use once bought with Dungeoneering tokens, and prevents poisoning completely.
 * Remote Farm or Fertile Soil - Cure disease or supercompost farming patches during a farm run when space is essential.
 * Repair Rune Pouch - Repair Runecrafting pouches up to giant without taking a break to withdraw the runes.
 * Space saving - For spells like Plank Make, Humidify or Superglass Make where a full inventory of spells are cast, the extra space from wielding the staff instead of holding runes in your inventory can save banking time. Still, this benefit is often less than the money saved from using an elemental staff.
 * No chance to cast the wrong spell—Because the staff can only be used to cast the spell that it is aligned to, you can not accidentally cast the wrong spell and waste runes or items; e.g. accidentally casting high alch on something you meant to superheat.
 * House Teleport for Construction training. Storing the runes for House Teleport can greatly speed up Construction training when paired with another teleporting method that's close to a bank, while also allowing a full inventory of 28 planks per trip.
 * House Teleport for Prayer training. Storing the runes for House Teleport can save two spaces (if previously wielding an Air staff or Earth Staff and carrying the opposite rune and Law rune) or one space (if previously using Teleport to house tablets) and a fair amount of coins. Having those additional spaces will increase bones per trip and expedite training.

Trivia

 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to create Tablets using the staff, you will get a message stating: "You need 4 Water runes to make this tablet." Or which ever respective rune you are not currently carrying and the spell will not cast despite the staff being aligned and charged to the spell.
 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to put the runes for the spell Air Bolt, you get a message stating: "You do not have the correct runes for any type of spell." but it will still work.
 * There is currently a glitch where if you try to put the runes for the Earth, Water, or Fire Wave, you get a message stating: "You do not have enough Air Runes to cast this spell." and it will not work in battle.  However, it appears that if you have the correct runes in your inventory and set your autocast to the spell you want, you can redeposit your runes and the staff will work correctly.
 * There used to be a glitch where the spell you have chosen (e.g. a teleport) will show you lack the runes to cast it, but will work upon clicking it. This was fixed on 21 January 2014.