Instability

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Instability
Release								26 July 2021 (Update)
Members								Yes
Style								Magic
Target								Single-target
Adrenaline								-50%
								Fractured Staff of Armadyl
								130%
Cooldown								60 seconds (100 ticks)
Description
Launch an unstable blast at your target. 120-140% Magic damage. On critical strike: Launch a Lightning Surge at your target dealing 70-90% Magic damage. 30s (50 ticks) duration.
Animation
Advanced data
Links								? (edit)

Instability is the special attack of the fractured Staff of Armadyl. It costs 50% adrenaline, strikes the opponent for 120-140% ability damage, and has a 60 second cooldown between uses.

Additionally, activating the special attack grants the Instability buff for 30 seconds. While this buff is active, landing a Magic critical strike on the primary target will also fire a Lightning Surge, dealing 70%-90% ability damage and landing 1 game tick after the source hit. If the Lightning Surge lands as a critical strike, it will not generate further hits as to prevent a recursive effect.

The effect only works when using magic weapons (unequipping the staff does not remove the self-buff); while switching to non-magic weapons does not remove the buff timer, the special attack will not create additional attacks from non-magic critical strikes.

To maximise the usage of the special attack, players should increase the maximum critical strike chance possible in order to obtain these additional hits. The highest possible bonus requires using a Kal'gerion demon's scroll (Crit-i-Kal), an active Erethdor's grimoire, the Biting 4 perk, Channeller's ring or reaver's ring, and a set of elite tectonic or Tumeken's resplendence equipment (while in Sunshine). Using channelled abilities such as Concentrated Blast (or its greater variant while it is buffed by Runic Charge) and Smoke Tendrils allows for increased critical strike chance.

Channellers' ring is better than reaver's when using channelled abilities, while reaver's is better if accuracy is not an issue and using non-channelled abilities.

The special attack does not grant its critical strike effect in PvP scenarios but does not go on cooldown either.

Calculations

The expected damage for any single source hit while under the effect of Instability can be found by calculating

E=(1−p)⋅Snon-crit+p⋅(Scrit+T)

where

• E is the expected damage from the combined damage of the source hit and Lightning Surge hit
• p is the probability of the source hit landing as a critical strike
• Snon-crit is the damage from the source hit if it does not land as a critical strike
• Scrit is the damage from the source hit if it does land as a critical strike
• T is the damage from the Lightning Surge hit

A calculator for finding the probability of an ability or an auto-attack to land a critical strike can be found here: Calculator:Combat/Critical strike.

Weapons using this special attack

• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (Aurora)
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (Barrows)
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (Soul)
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (Third Age)
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (blood)
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (ice)
• Augmented fractured Staff of Armadyl (shadow)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (Aurora)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (Barrows)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (Soul)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (Third Age)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (blood)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (ice)
• Fractured Staff of Armadyl (shadow)

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included – see here for how to help out!

• update 9 March 2026 (Update):
  • Lightning Surge damage range: 90%–110% (100% average) → 70%–90% (80% average)

• hidden 27 May 2025 (Update):
  • Description text of Instability is changed. The 'time strike' is changed to 'Lightning Surge'.

• update 4 March 2024 (Update):
  • Damage range (initial hit): 49.6-200% → 120-140%.
  • Time strikes: 60-120% → 90-110%.

• patch 5 June 2023 (Update):
  • The Fractured Staff of Armadyl's special attack has been modified:
    • The buff on the player no longer fires an additional autoattack after landing a critical hit, instead triggering a time strike which deals 60-120% ability damage.
    • Critical hits caused by time strikes do not trigger further time strikes.

• patch 31 August 2021 (Update):
  • The Staff of Armadyl's special attack's initial hit will now deal 50-200% ability damage as stated in the tooltip.

• update 16 August 2021 (Update):
  • Restored the ability for auto attacks critical hits to fire off extra spell casts.
  • Fixed an issue where the extra spell cast from the staff was doing offhand damage if you were using dual-wielded weapons.
  • Extra spell casts can now only fire off if the critical hit is on the player's main target.

• patch 9 August 2021 (Update):
  • The Staff of Armadyl’s special attack is now affected by the Altar of War’s cooldown reset.

• hotfix 28 July 2021:
  • Changed the Staff of Armadyl's special attack to stop extra spellcasts firing off from non-ability based critical hits whilst we investigate and monitor the power level of the special attack.

• update 26 July 2021 (Update):
  • Added to the game.