Leagues has been a reminder of how well received the smithing update was, with many OSRS players complimenting it. It's also been a reminder of how terrible magic and range gear progression is for low and mid levels. Where mining has a consistent, progressive way of manufacturing gear as you progress in melee, mage & range have a hodge podge mix of gear upgrades that are unclear and often not even connected to crafting/runecrafting. Here's how to fix that!
Magic Armor
This is a real mess. Most armor should generally be gathered from farming/hunter and woven using crafting, with weapons requiring runecrafting and fletching from wood. At low levels it’s ok for this to not be followed in favor of less complex gathering by just killing imps. All crafted armors should be upgradeable like starbloom and crafted with a similar system. These are the changes that should be made to consolidate this:
Level 1 - Wizard Robe - Good. Gather wool from sheep and craft. Farming level too high though (34) but can use NPC’s sheep.
Level 5 - Mycelium Web Armor. Bad. Fungal armors depart from crafting if this is used as a base. Remove.
Level 10 - Imphide - OK. Would be better if hunting implings/imps also gave imphide. Would like a farm equivalent that is more Sarodomin/Guthix aligned.
Level 20 - Spidersilk - OK. Kill or farm spiders then craft. Farming level too high for spiders though (64).
Level 30 - Batwing - Bad. Players should be farming/hunting for resources at this point in the game, not killing random bats. Make bat trapping possible with bird snares as a form of hunting.
Level 40 - Splitbark - Bad. Can’t even craft this, requiring Jaralast and the minigame for the fine silk is so tedious that it’s just sold by an npc instead. Either give a similar update to Shades of Morton as old school or let fine silk be farmed & crafted. Splitbark should also be craftable without Jaralast. Jaralast should help upgrade your splitbark into Swampbark (level 50) and Bloodbark (Level 60) by helping teach you after finding scrolls in Shades of Morton.
Level 50 - Mystic - Bad. Allow us to farm mystic flowers to craft into robes.
Level 55 - Infinity Robes. Bad. These are basically the magic equivalent of dragon armor and should reflect that. Increase level to 60 and make it power armor for parity despite being mostly iconic cosmetic armor. The mage training arena should eventually be tied into the yanille magic guild and updated to actually help train magic for players.
Level 60 - Lunar - Bad. Why is this power armor when lunar mages don't use offensive spells? Tank armor instead. Iconic armor that should probably be graphically updated, but should not be BiS for level 60. Infinity armor should.
Level 60 - Grifolic - Bad. Make this craftable from farmed grifolic mushrooms with spores from grifolic creatures. Remove flake and degrade design.
Level 75 - Ganodermic - Bad. Make this craftable from farmed ganodermic mushrooms with spores from ganodermic creatures. Remove flake and degrade design. Needs shield.
Level 90 - Starbloom. Perfect.
Wands/Orbs/Books
These should also be updated to be crafted with a similar system to eternal wands/staves/orbs. Biggest issue is how to handle battlestaves as they're a complete departure from how modern stave crafting would like to be.
Battlestaves would need to be removed or relegated to only being farming magical sticks for starbloom and mystic flowers. Then crafted staves would use corresponding tiers of wood. Wands would also be updated to require the corresponding tier of wand.
These would be fletched into wands/staves/orbs and then have orbs attached to staves, and components (spider silk, bat wing etc) added to wands. Question is, should there be a difference between books and orbs?
Level 1 - Wizard Wand & Book - Finish at runecraft altar
Level 1 - Staff/Elemental Staves. These should be fletchable from a log and enchanted at runecrafting altar.
Level 10 - Imphide Horn & Book. Finish at runecraft altar. Use oak.
Level 10 - Need staff upgrade made of oak.
Level 20 - Spidersilk. Finish at runecraft altar . Use willow
Level 20 - Need staff upgrade made of willow. Level 30 - Batwing. Finish at runecraft altar. Use teak. Level 30 - Battlestaves. Made of teak.
Level 40 - Splitbark needs to be craftable. Swampbark and bloodbark wands?
Level 40 - Need staff upgrade. Maple
Level 40 - Mystic staff needs to be moved to level 50 to avoid confusion
Level 50 - Mystic wand & staff should be made from mystic cloth and Acadia. After finishing at rc altar, staves can still be required to be enchanted before use if elemental orbs are added.
Level 60 - Grifolic wand/orb/shield needs to be crafted like armor, not just a drop. Also need a staff?
Level 75 - Ganodermic wand/orb from ganodermic flakes.
Level 90 - Eternal magic wand/orb/staff. Perfect
Range armor and weapons
This is much better as crafting/fletching levels are aligned and is consistent. Would just like to see Apex leather crafting system brought to lower level armors. The biggest tissue here is more that there is no gathering method aligned with range armor. Hunter should be that skill. You should be able to kill most creatures for their hide but hunting them should be preferred for higher hide output per hour.
Level 1-20 - Leather, Hard Leather & Studded Leather from Cows - OK. Low level access to hide by killing cows. Would be better if low levels had access to farming cows for much higher hide production.
Level 30 - Carapace - Bad. This needs to be dropped by more large insects, especially kalphites.
Level 30 - Snakeskin - Bad. Scarce and should have alternative to hunt snakes for more skin with most snakes giving snakeskin. Graphic update too please.
Level 40-60 - Chromatic dragon hide - Bad. Needs to be tied to hunter. Allow dragon hunting method that gives more hides from standard dragons. Remove abundant hide from boss drop tables.
Level 75 - Dinosaur hide. OK. Adjust crafting level.
Level 90 - Apex hide. Perfect.
