Members Prayer training

Prayer is a slow and expensive skill to train just by the burial of bones; however, there are other ways to gain Prayer experience - without the use of bones or coins.

Prayer training table

 * To see the cost efficiency and GP/XP of bones and ashes, see Calculator:Prayer/Bones

Note: Some Prayer experience boosting items do boost prayer experience at Player-owned house Altars, but do not boost prayer experience at the Ectofuntus. This counts for the following:
 * Any form of Bonus experience
 * Clan avatar 3% or 6% skilling bonus
 * First age outfit giving a 1% bonus xp, as well as additional 1% for the complete set. (totaling in a 6% bonus)
 * Brawling gloves (prayer)
 * Auras: wisdom, prayer auras (all tiers of corruption, harmony and salvation) and certain time-limited auras (Festive aura (December only) and Enlightenment aura (June, July, August only))
 * Perfect prayer potions 5% xp boost for 1 hour

Player-owned house
With the release of the player-owned altars, members have the option to build an altar to their respected Gods in their Chapel. This method provides an additional 100% to 250% increase of experience gained depending on the altar, with an additional 50% to 100% increase for lighting one or both burners. Prayer training in this form almost always involves using the highest boost; players gain 350% of normal experience when using a gilded altar with two incense burners lit (or 367.5% with the use of perfect juju prayer potions).

Items needed for this method:
 * 2 [[File:Clean marrentill.png]] clean marrentills - Used as incense for lighting the burners.
 * Bones or demonic ashes - to use on the altar.
 * Optional: [[File:Harmony aura.png]] Harmony/Salvation/Corruption Auras - 1%, 1.5%, 2%, 2.5% bonus xp depending on tier, small, but it saves a lot of money in the long run. Alternatively or in sequence use Wisdom aura, Festive aura, Enlightenment. None of these work with the Ectofuntus, and probably not with ashes.
 * Optional: Any pieces of the first age outfit that one may own - Each part gives a 1% experience bonus.

Lighting candles or torches in your altar will NOT provide any bonuses. Incense burners and marble burners both provide the highest bonus; the more expensive marble burners provide no further reward.

There are several methods to obtain additional bones after using them. The fastest options without much running is to use an equipped ring of duelling, amulet of glory, ring of kinship, or a TokKul-Zo to teleport to a bank, then teleport back to your house using a house teleport tablet or the teleport to house spell. An alternative way to teleport to a bank is to use an Amulet of glory mounted in a Quest hall, or a portal room. You could also have your house located in Yanille and just run to and from the bank, but teleporting proves faster.


 * The fastest way is to have runners, players who run to and from a bank to a house, hand you unnoted bones for noted bones, but they wouldn't be providing their services without any compensation so it would be difficult to find anyone to run for you: On 1 February 2011 the re-release of free trade and wilderness was added and players are able to pay others for this without the hindrance of a trade limit.

It is recommended to maximise the number of bones that you take with you. This can be done by using a Beast of burden, such as a War tortoise or Pack yak. When using a War tortoise, the burning time of the burners just about equals the time to offer all bones. It is possible to have a friend run back and forth from the bank to get bones to sell to you.

It is possible to use the gilded altar at another player's house. There are often several players hosting an open altar at Yanille and some may even offer free doses of perfect juju prayer potion, referred to colloquially as "sips". The official world for this is world 31. By moving their player-owned house to Yanille players are able to teleport directly to the house portal by changing their Teleport to House location to 'At portal' in the house options. With the introduction of vis wax, players can use quick-teleports in the Lodestone Network to quickly return to Yanille.

When a player offers a type of bone to an altar, all bones of the same type in the player's inventory will automatically be offered. Using the TokKul-Zo as a means of banking and with a War tortoise familiar for its extra capacity, a proficient player can achieve roughly 33 trips per hour (provided that the gilded altar is located immediately adjacent to the house portal), which translates to an hourly experience of approximately 374,220 using dragon bones, 727,650 using ourg bones and 935,550 using frost dragon bones. If players do not have access to the TokKul-Zo the next best option is to utilise a mounted amulet of glory to teleport to Shantay Pass.

Please note that it is fallacious to decide on what type of bones (or ashes) to use based on only the cost per hour or the total cost involved (please refer to the efficiency article for more information).

Calculations based on using POH altar and 1400 bones per hour.

Players who value their time below per hour should use accursed ashes.

Players who value their time between per hour and  per hour should use dragon bones.

Players who value their time between per hour and  per hour should use airut bones.

Players who value their time above per hour should use rune dragon bones.


 * Note: there is currently no range in which any other type of bones or ashes are best to use although this may change and it is recommended to do your own research before deciding which bones to buy.

Ectofuntus
After the completion of Priest In Peril, players have the ability to worship the Ectofuntus. By doing so, the experience one would gain from burying the bones will be multiplied by four. An example would be for every dragon bone used in the 'worship', a player would receive 288 experience instead of 72. Although the process is slower than just burying the bones, the experience earned is far better than just by burying the bones. To make the use of the ectofuntus most efficiently, it is best to use ashes instead of bones.

In comparison to using bones on a gilded altar, the Ectofuntus will give ~14% more experience per bone (though aura boosts and sixth age boosts don't work on Ectofuntus, potentially narrowing the gap), but it can be slower. However, it is considerably more time-consuming to obtain the Construction level necessary to build a gilded altar than it is to access the Ectofuntus for worshipping, especially if monetary considerations are made. However, many players will allow their gilded altar to be used by other players in the Open Gilded Altars world.

Bones
Recommendations for the Ectofuntus method:
 * [[File:Ectophial.png]] Ectophial for teleportation to the Ectofuntus - requires completion of Ghosts Ahoy
 * ,, , , , , or  for quick banking

For the ashes method, infernal ashes are recommended. The time saved using ashes (not needing to grind the bones) results in much faster training.
 * Weight-reducing equipment, such as:
 * and
 * Or alternatively and
 * will allow a few teleports daily to the slime pit.
 * No empty pots or buckets are required. An inventory with one Ectophial, a teleport item, and 13 bones or ashes and 13 empty slots is most efficient. Now filled bonemeal pots will be replace bones at the bonecrusher, and filled buckets are provided by the slime pool. These are returned to the Ectofuntus after use.
 * Some prefer to make separate trips to grind bones, fill buckets and worship the Ectofuntus
 * 58 Agility to utilise the slime shortcut
 * A beast of burden familiar for trips to grind bones
 * Dragon bones are recommended, with 288 xp per bone
 * 58 Agility to utilise the slime shortcut
 * A beast of burden familiar for trips to grind bones
 * Dragon bones are recommended, with 288 xp per bone

To use the Ectofunctus to train Prayer, maximize the efficiency of each trip back and forth between the bank and the Ectofunctus:
 * 1) With an empty inventory, teleport to the Ectofunctus using the Ectophial.
 * 2) Go to the Slime Pool and collect an inventory full of Buckets of Slime.
 * 3) Teleport to a bank using the fastest means possible (for example, Burthorpe Lodestone Teleport).
 * 4) Deposit all Buckets of Slime into your bank.
 * 5) Withdraw 13 Buckets of Slime and 13 Bonemeal Pots.
 * 6) Teleport to the Ectofunctus using the Ectophial.
 * 7) Worship the Ectofunctus until your inventory is empty.
 * 8) Repeat steps 2-7 until there is at least as many Buckets of Slime in your bank as there are Bonemeal Pots.
 * 9) Collect Buckets of Slime and Bonemeal Pots at the bank and then use them at the Ectofunctus, until you have no Buckets of Slime or Bonemeal Pots left.

Ashes
An often overlooked but reasonably efficient prayer training method is to use infernal ashes at the Ectofuntus. These are cheaper experience than dragon bones, and although they give less experience each they are far quicker as you do not need to spend any time grinding them (collecting slime and praying are much quicker - grinding may take up as much as half your time at the ectofuntus). This makes them the best method to use when training at the Ectofuntus, and good for players who feel that using dragon bones at a gilded altar is a little too expensive, or do not have access to a gilded altar.

Using ashes instead of bones:
 * Ashes do not need grinding, and thus saving time per trip.
 * An inventory with an Ectophial and 13 ashes will allow the most ashes per trip.
 * Using infernal ashes will give 3250 xp per trip, while using dragon bones will give 2592 per trip if you grind the bones at the same time as collecting buckets of slime.

Preparation:
 * 1) Withdraw 13 ashes and Ectophial.
 * 2) Teleport to Ectofuntus using Ectophial.
 * 3) Go down the trapdoor, take the agility shortcut if you can and go to the slimepit.
 * 4) Collect buckets of slime.

Training: (The worship-slime-bank trip may seem reverse, but it only needs two teleports per trip.)
 * 1) Teleport to Ectofuntus using Ectophial.
 * 2) Worship the Ectofuntus.
 * 3) Go down the trapdoor.
 * 4) Collect buckets of slime.
 * 5) Teleport to bank.
 * 6) Withdraw 13 ashes (use a load-out to save time.)
 * 7) Repeat.

Ecto-tokens
After the completion of the Ghosts Ahoy quest there is little purpose for ecto-tokens. This means you may drop them to save bank space unless you wish to buy ale yeast from the ghost under The Green Ghost pub. There is, however, always the possibility that a future game update will give more uses for ecto-tokens.

Types of bones to use
See the bone burial calculator for coins-per-experience-point analysis of bones using live data from the Grand Exchange Market Watch.

Big bones give 52.5 experience each when used on a gilded altar with both candles lit. They cost about 6.1 coins per prayer experience.

Babydragon bones are the most recommended to train prayer in P2P. Using them on a gilded altar costs coins per prayer experience, varying what the price of dragon bones are at the time. They give 105 experience each when used on a gilded altar. It takes 124,138 babydragon bones to go from 1-99 Prayer using a gilded altar. Although this is more expensive than using big bones, it is twice as fast, so depending on the market price it may be more efficient to use baby dragon bones and earn the extra cash needed in the time saved. Compared to big bones, using baby dragon bones saves 6.8 hours per million xp.

Dragon bones are most commonly used to train prayer in P2P. Using them on a gilded altar costs coins per prayer experience, varying what the price of dragon bones are at the time. They give 252 experience each when used on a gilded altar. It takes 51,724 dragon bones to go from 1-99 Prayer using a gilded altar. Although this is more expensive than using big bones, it is about 5 times faster, so depending on the market price it may be more efficient to use dragon bones and earn the extra cash needed in the time saved. Compared to big bones, using dragon bones saves 16.39 hours per million xp, and costs an extra gp per xp, so it is more efficient if the player can earn  thousand gold per hour.

Since they were released, infernal ashes have become a cheaper alternative to dragon bones offering almost the same experience rate. Compared to dragon bones, infernal ashes require 0.656 more hours per million xp, and save gp per xp, so they are more efficient unless the player can earn  million gold per hour. If used at the Ectofuntus, the ashes have the additional advantage of not needing to be ground.

Dagannoth bones give 437.5 experience each when used on a Gilded Altar, but cost 28 to 30 coins per prayer experience. Since this is much more expensive than dragon bones, dagannoth bones are rarely used. It takes around 34,000 dagannoth bones to reach 99 prayer using a gilded altar]].

Ourg bones are even more expensive than dagannoth bones and are even more rarely used.

Rune dragon bones are currently the most expensive bones, but also give far more experience than any other bone. Using the efficiency formula, it can be calculated that a player who can make over k per hour should use Rune dragon bones on a gilded altar rather than dragon bones.

A list of some good monsters to obtain bones from:

However, collecting a large number of bones to use for prayer can take an extremely long time, and it is advised to buy your bones as in the time you save you could more than make the extra money you have spent back.

Alternative methods
The following methods are less effective than the ones above. They are not recommended for training prayer because they are slower, more expensive, impractical or complicated.

Completing quests
Main article: Quest experience rewards - Prayer

Members have the luxury of being able to breeze through the low prayer levels simply by completing quests.

Low-level quests
Some low-level quests that give prayer experience:
 * Recruitment Drive (1,000 experience)
 * Making History (1,000 experience)
 * Restless Ghost (1,125 experience)
 * Priest in Peril (1,406 experience)
 * Mountain Daughter (2,000 experience)
 * Ghosts Ahoy (2,400 experience)
 * Rag and Bone Man (500 experience)
 * Swept Away (10 bowls of goulash granting experience that is the same as your prayer level)
 * One Piercing Note (Ability to make illuminated god books for 10,000 experience each, and retrieve a Holy Cithara for 50,000 experience once).
 * The Death of Chivalry (Kick the gilded cabbage 30 times for 10,000 bonus experience, lamp for 60,000 exp)

Medium quests

 * Rag and Bone Man wish list (5,000 experience)
 * Spirits of the Elid (8,000 experience)
 * Missing My Mummy (6,500 experience)
 * Holy Grail (11,000 experience)
 * Troll Stronghold (2x 10,000 experience from experience lamps; requires at least 30 Prayer)

High-level quests

 * Nomad's Requiem (70 Zeal can be used to buy Prayer experience from Soul Wars)
 * The Temple at Senntisten (10,000 experience, and potential extra 23,000 with experience lamp; requires at least 50 Prayer)
 * Swan Song (10,000 experience)
 * Plague's End (50,000 experience; requires at least 75 Prayer)
 * The Void Stares Back (100,000 experience; requires at least 75 Prayer)
 * Ritual of the Mahjarrat (240,000 experience; requires at least 72 Prayer)
 * The World Wakes (250,000 experience; requires at least 80 Prayer and 100,000 experience; requires at least 90 Prayer)
 * Blood Runs Deep (450,000 experience; requires at least 75 Prayer)

Auras
Several auras are helpful in prayer training. The Corruption, Salvation, Harmony, and Wisdom auras all have effects that slightly increase the amount of prayer experience gained while training. Wisdom gives the highest (equal to supreme) experience bonus and works for other skills besides prayer but takes a very long time to recharge. Jack of trades is an excellent source of prayer experience once per day. It gives between 99 and 9703 experience depending on your current level, which can save you very large amounts of money if you have a high prayer level.

Penguin Hide and Seek
Penguins can be spotted for penguin points, which can be exchanged for experience in any skill. Some people choose to use this experience on prayer as prayer can be a very expensive skill. This method costs almost nothing and gives a somewhat decent amount of experience. This method gives more experience the higher a player's Prayer level is, which makes it a better option for high level players.

Burying bones
Collecting bones and burying them for experience is not recommended. A maximum of about 2700 bones can be buried per hour, giving 2/7 the experience they would give if used on a gilded altar. As it is possible to use well over (2/7) * (2700) = 770 bones per hour on a gilded altar, using bones on a gilded altar will give faster experience per hour than burying bones, and cost far less. At this rate it would take around 75–80 hours of this method to obtain 99 Prayer.

If you are training a different combat Skill, like slayer, using a bonecrusher to bury bones can be a good way to make experience on the side. It is not however a fast way by any means, it just means free experience.

God Statues
Once per month the player can build up to five statues paying tribute to one of five gods at five locations. Building the statue to the god that the locals of that area worship will grant the same exp in prayer as a medium exp lamp.

Ghasts
This provides a player with an ability to obtain combat and prayer levels, as each Ghast slain provides 30 experience. Ghasts can be found in Mort Myre Swamp and Mort'ton. Completion of Nature Spirit is a prerequisite to obtain the Silver sickle (b) and druid pouch necessary to defeat the ghasts.

Inventory needed:
 * Silver sickle (b)
 * Druid pouch (or ouroboros pouch)
 * Some food

Remember that you must cast Bloom on logs in the Mort Myre swamp to obtain charges for your druid pouch. Ghasts will not become visible unless you have charges in your pouch. When a charge is used on a ghast, it will become visible. Upon dispatch, you will gain 30 prayer experience. Repeat as necessary.

The main issue with ghasts is they stop being aggressive, and running to them becomes too much of an overhead. Remember that casting Bloom spends Prayer points, so when you run out of points, recharge in the altar located in the grotto under the small island of the Nature Spirit.

The hassle of filling druid pouches makes ghasts impractical for prayer training, especially when one considers that the same 30 xp per kill can be obtained by killing baby blue dragons. However, as a reward from Temple Trekking, an infinite druid pouch can be obtained, making it a much easier option.

Vyres
Vyrewatches or Vyrelords may be good options for those who want to make money while training prayer. Cremating the corpses will give 79 prayer experience and can result in valuable items. Wearing Morytania legs gives more experience.

Urns
Urns can be a good way to get some additional Prayer experience. Some urns, such as infernal urns, can be used to give extra experience to prayer when killing different types of demons. They gather ashes automatically when having them in your inventory and killing creatures that drop ashes. When full they can be teleported for bonus experience. There is an urn for each type of demonic ashes (impious, accursed and infernal) and each urn can be made with the Crafting skill. Good monsters to kill for ashes are: The different urns are:
 * Abyssal demons (requires 85 Slayer)
 * Nechryael (requires 80 Slayer)
 * Lesser demons
 * Black demons
 * Imps
 * Impious urns give 120 prayer xp upon teleporting.
 * Accursed urns give 375 prayer xp upon teleporting.
 * Infernal urns give 1875 prayer xp upon teleporting.

Pest Control
Playing Pest Control and spending the commendation points earned there for prayer experience is a way to level prayer, with potential moderately fast prayer experience if the player's team wins most of the Pest Control games. The goal is to win almost all games quickly (two minute games are possible) and to use the lander that quickly fills, minimising the wait between games. The amount of prayer experience gained per point depends upon the player's level; see Pest control experience. Players gain an extra 1% experience when trading in 10 points at once and an extra 10% experience when trading in 100 points at once.

Playing Pest Control also gain experience in the combat skills the player uses in the game: the regular experience rate is gained for attacking the portals but only half experience is gained for attacking the Pest Control monsters.

A minimum combat level of 40 is required to play Pest Control. Some players believe that only high-combat-level players can effectively train prayer via Pest Control, but actually any player who can enter the game can train prayer effectively. As long as the player does the minimum amount of damage required in a game, the player will receive the commendation point award if the player's team wins.

Soul Wars
By spending zeals on Prayer experience, one can gain experience. The Soul Wars page explains how to play and details the rewards one can receive.

Prayer brawling gloves
Prayer brawling gloves are a possible drop from killing revenants, the Chaos Elemental or from the rare drop table. Players using them in the wilderness will gain up to 4x the normal experience, depending on how deep into the Wilderness they are. However, this comes with the risk of dying and losing supplies (and possibly gloves). Theoretically, this would be the fastest method to obtain 99 prayer with a sufficient amount of gloves.

Brawling gloves can also be used outside the wilderness on a normal world to gain 150% experience (1.5x). This stacks with the gilded altar in a player-owned house. Ectofuntus is not affected by any boosts to experience.

Skeletal horror
This method may be used after completing the second part of the Fur 'n' Seek quest. It involves fighting a reasonably powerful opponent once a week and gaining Prayer experience based on your level in Prayer and some Slayer experience as well. Unfortunately the difficulty of the skeletal horror means that for lower levelled players, the cost in food will be quite high, but for high level players this is a reasonably attractive option for a weekly bonus to your prayer training. The first time the horror is fought, it yields 7,000 Prayer and 10,000 Slayer experience. The skeletal horror can then be fought each week for several thousand Prayer and Slayer experience, with experience rewarded depending on one's levels in those skills.

Dominion Tower
Higher levelled players can fight quest bosses in the Dominion Tower for Dominion Factor. This can then be traded in for experience. At 90 Prayer, 1,000,000 factor would translate to about 100,000 experience. This can give over 30,000 experience per hour, although it depends on the bosses the player faces and combat levels. It is possible to earn a profit from the rewards chest while using this method.

Bonecrusher
This item automatically transfers dropped bones into prayer experience. Fighting green dragons with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped is a great way to use this item. This results in 144 Prayer experience per kill due to the Dragon Rider amulet's dragon bone experience boosting effect. The bonecrusher can be purchased from the rewards trader for 34,000 Dungeoneering tokens.

Another fairly effective method of getting Prayer experience with the bonecrusher is to use a dwarf multicannon in any area with blue dragons with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped. While this isn't particularly cost effective, it trains Prayer, Ranged and/or Defence at the same time and very quickly.

Alternatively, one may want to use bonecrushers on Slayer tasks, to get a slow but steady flow of experience while also getting combat experience, charms and potentially valuable drops.

There is also an equivalent item for ghost-like creatures called the Ectoplasmator, giving prayer experience upon killing ghastly creatures.

Shades of Mort'ton
Shade burning is another method of training your prayer which can also yield a significant margin of profits. You will also gain Firemaking, Crafting, and combat experience depending on what style you kill the shades with. Shade burning is a group activity so you will need to be in a party, fortunately there is a server dedicated to shade burning. This activity has declined in popularity, but is still an effective way to train your prayer. See the shade burning guide.

Blessing spirit shields
As a last alternative, at level 85 Prayer players can bless spirit shields which gives 1,500 experience per shield. This requires a vial of holy elixir and a plain spirit shield. Provided the player has sufficient money to buy a large amount of shields and elixirs, this is by far the fastest method of training prayer.

Currently, the player gains a profit of 0 coins for every blessed spirit shield created. However, note that both blessed and normal spirit shields have a Grand Exchange buy limit of 1.

Cleansing crystals
With the release of the Hefin Clan in the elf city of Prifddinas, players can go to the Hefin Cathedral and purchase cleansing crystals from one of the Hefin monks inside. Each crystal costs 110,000 coins and will provide 9,800 experience, a cost of 11.22 coins per experience. Unlike with offering bones on a gilded altar or the Ectofuntus, players do not spend time running to and from a bank. Each crystal takes 2 minutes to use up.

Nemi Forest
Main article: Nemi Forest

Each day a full run of Nemi Forest can be done to earn prayer xp. There is dedicated Friend chat.

Time estimates of some training methods
Using a bonecrusher or worshiping at the Ectofuntus are believed to be two of the faster ways to train prayer. (However, considerable time must be spent Dungeoneering to get a bonecrusher, and considerable time must be spent training Agility to be able to use the shortcut to the slime pool, which substantially speeds up using the Ectofuntus. Players who value Dungeoneering or Agility in themselves, however, need not consider the time spent at them as part of prayer training.)

Bonecrusher
A high-level player can kill green/blue dragons indefinitely with a fast weapon or a cannon, switching to and occasionally healing as needed with Guthan's set, enhanced excalibur or a Saradomin godsword. The following table has approximate xp/hr rates.

Ectofuntus
With the agility to use the shortcut to the slime pool, a player can use a fast Ectofuntus method. It takes about 4–5 minutes to use 13 bones with Ectofuntus, counting teleport times, crushing the bones, worshiping at the Ectofuntus, collecting tokens, and refilling buckets with slime. Dragon bones are good compromise to use at the Ectofuntus, providing good experience without the huge expense of more valuable bones. At 4.5 minutes per 'set', 13 dragon bones yields 3,744 experience, or 832 experience per minute (49,920 per hour). It should also be noted that you may use ashes at the Ectofuntus which do not require crushing or potting, cutting the time down considerably.

Pest Control
Prayer experience gained from commendation points in Pest Control depends upon the player's prayer level, so there is no particular experience-per-minute number applicable to all players. When using the novice lander (2 commendation points per win) on a busy Pest Control world, a Pest Control game almost always lasts 2 minutes and about 8–10 seconds is used in the lander waiting for the game to start. Every once in a while the player's team will lose (no commendation points), but for the novice lander this seems typically to be about 1 in 50 games (intermediate and veteran landers give more points per game but the loss rate is typically much higher). The player receive a 10% bonus experience when trading in 100 points, so this should always be done. Accordingly, a player would on average play about 52 novice games to get 100 points, for a total time of about 112 minutes (including lander waiting times), under near-ideal conditions.
 * At Prayer level 40, a player would earn 3,960 experience for 100 points, or 32.5 per minute (1,947.5 per hour).
 * At Prayer level 60, a player would earn 11,880 experience for 100 points, or 97 per minute (5,843 per hour).
 * At Prayer level 80, a player would earn 19,800 experience for 100 points, or 162 per minute (9,738 per hour).

If the player could use the veteran lander and could find a clan or world where high-combat-level players can consistently win Pest Control games, then the time to get 100 points would be halved (thus doubling the experience per minute and per hour rates). This win rate, however, has not been observed on any of the regular Pest Control worlds for the veteran lander due to low popularity, although during its bonus rotation the advanced lander has been observed to be filled with 200+ players that reliably complete the island in 2-3 minutes.