Members Prayer training

Prayer is a difficult 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.

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% percent 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 way almost always involves using the highest boost; players gain 350% of normal experience when using a gilded altar with two incense burners lit.

Items needed for this method:
 * Clean marrentill - Used as incense if you light the burners.
 * Tinderbox - To light the burners (Can be stored on toolbelt)
 * Optional: Dwarven Army Axe - Can be used as a tinderbox.
 * Bones - to use on the altar.
 * Optional: Harmony/Salvation/Corruption Auras - Gives a little bit of bonus xp, but it saves a lot of money in the long run.
 * A tinderbox in player's Toolbelt may be useful as it saves inventory space.

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, as of today, provide no further reward.

There are several methods to obtain additional bones after using them. The fastest option without running is to use a worn 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 the old Runescape free trade and wilderness was added and players are able to pay others for this without the hindrance of a trade limit.

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. This decreases training speed since you will have to teleport to your house then type in the persons' name before entering. Although now there is an option that can let you enter the last house you visited.

After the prayer update allowing players to use a X-number of bones on an altar, when using the Teleport to House spell, and the Ring of duelling teleport to Castle Wars, and a War tortoise to bring extra bones, a player will get approximately 230,000 experience and lose about 2,346,000 coins per hour (10.2 coins/Experience) with Dragon bones (450,000 experience per hour using Ourg Bones - not recommended because of its cost which is a whopping 17,955,000 coins every hour, or 33.9 coins per experience gained). It is also worth noting that ourg bones no longer give the most experience per bone, with the release of Frost dragons). These calculations ignore the costs of teleports and summons.

In a non-rigorous test with the following set-up: dragon bones, a "Greater Harmony" aura, a "War Tortoise", teletabs, and the POH with the exit portal and quest hall (with an amulet of glory) adjacent to the chapel (with a gilded alter) were used, resulting in an average of over 284,000 experience per hour was achieved. Each trip took about 2 minutes and used 43 dragon bones. The aura saved about 23,500 coin per hour in bones not used. This would be a truly significant savings going from level 80 to 99. Experience could be increased using a more powerful aura and/or a pack yak, for those with high enough summoning skill.

Guide
This short guide is meant to balance cost with time used on the bones. For a more detailed analysis, consult the prayer calculator.
 * Level 45: This gives you access to all of the basic free-to-play prayers. You should use babydragon bones for these levels, as you will only need 586 bones to reach this level from level 1. This will cost you.
 * Level 52: This gives you access to Smite, a prayer commonly used in player killing. You will only need 592 babydragon bones to reach this level from level 45, with a cost of.
 * Level 70: This level unlocks Piety, the most powerful melee prayer. It is recommended to start using dragon bones after this point because by now the time saved will probably be paid for in money earned elsewhere. Additionally, it will be far less boring. To get to 70 from 52, you will need 20407 babydragon bones, which will cost you.
 * Level 82: This level will unlock all of the major leeches in the ancient curses. To reach this level from 70, you will need 6681 dragon bones, costing you.
 * Level 92: This level unlocks Soul split, a powerful curse that restores your health as you damage your target. You will need 16,255 dragon bones (worth ) to reach level 92 from 82.
 * Level 95: This level unlocks Turmoil Anguish Torment, the most powerful curses. To get to this level from 92 will require 8946 dragon bones with a cost of.
 * Level 99: Achieving skill mastery from level 95 will require 16,917 dragon bones with a cost of.

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.

In comparison to using bones on a gilded altar, the Ectofuntus will give ~14% more experience per bone, but is far slower. Conversely, 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.

Items recommended for the Ectofuntus method:


 * Ectophial for teleportation to the Ectofuntus; requires completion of Ghosts Ahoy
 * Ring of Duelling, Games Necklace, Amulet of Glory, Ring of kinship, TokKul-Zo, or Drakan's medallion for quick banking


 * Weight-reducing equipment such as:
 * Boots of Lightness
 * Spotted Cape or Spottier Cape or Wicked Cape
 * Penance gloves
 * Agile top and Agile legs
 * Or alternatively Wicked robes
 * As many pots and buckets for bones as you wish to use.
 * An inventory with one Ectophial, 9 bones, 9 pots and 9 buckets will allow the most bones used without banking.
 * Some prefer to make separate trips to grind bones, fill buckets and worship the ectofuntus
 * 58 Agility to utilise the shortcut.
 * A Beast of Burden familiar for trips to grind bones
 * Dragon bones are recommended, with 288 xp per bone.

Two methods (or a hybrid of the two) are possible:
 * Withdraw bones, empty pots and empty buckets in equal quantities from the bank. (Nine of each can be used with no Beast of Burden familiar; more can be used with one (e.g War Tortoise can carry an extra 6 of each). Use Ectophial to teleport to the Ectofuntus. Go upstairs to the bones grinder. Following an update there is no longer any need to right click on the bones. Simply left click on the grinder. Once all your bones are ground into bonemeal, use Ectophial to teleport back to Ectofuntus (or run back down the stairs). Go down through the trapdoor, and fill your buckets with the slime (using the Agility shortcut can greatly reduce your trip time). Use the Ectophial to return to the Ectofuntus and click on it to worship it. Speak with the Ghost disciple to collect your Ecto-tokens. Use a teleport method to return to a bank and withdraw bones, then repeat.
 * Begin by withdrawing bones and empty pots in equal quantities from the bank. (Thirteen of each can be used with no Beast of Burden familiar; more can be used with one.) Use Ectophial to teleport to the Ectofuntus. Go upstairs to the bone grinder. Left click on the grinder. Once all your bones are ground into bonemeal, return to the bank. Repeat until you have ground all the bones you plan. Withdraw twenty-seven empty buckets and return to the Ectofuntus. Go down through the trapdoor, and fill your buckets with the slime (using the Agility shortcut can greatly reduce your trip time). When your buckets are filled, use your teleport method to return to the bank. Withdraw more buckets and repeat the process until you have all the buckets of slime that you plan to use. (Given the time to get to the slime pool, this method is faster than just refilling 13 buckets at time, the number that one can have in an inventory when worshipping at the Ectofuntus and not using a beast of burden.) Then withdraw thirteen buckets of slime and thirteen pots of bonemeal and return to the Ectofuntus. Click on it to worship it. When all your pots and buckets are emptied, speak with the Ghost disciple to collect your Ecto-tokens. Teleport back to the bank and withdraw thirteen buckets of slime and thirteen pots of bonemeal, then repeat this portion of the process until all are used.

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 keep going to Dragontooth Isle (to hunt penguins, for example) or buy Ale yeast from the ghost under The Green Ghost pub. (There is, however, always the possibility that a future quest or game upgrade will give more uses for Ecto-tokens. For example, at one time players could collect frog costumes tokens as part of a random event, but only one could be exchanged for a costume. Many players dropped the tokens after getting the costume. However, when the random event system was upgraded, players who saved their tokens received valuable random event gifts for them.)

An often overlooked but reasonably efficient prayer training method is to use infernal ashes at the ectofuntus. These are cheaper/xp than dragon bones, and although they give less xp 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 one of the best methods at the ectofuntus, and good for players who feel that using dragon bones at a gilded altar is a little too expensive, or have not got access to a gilded altar. All in all, more xp per trip, faster trips, and more economical xp.

Using Ashes instead of bones:
 * As many buckets as ashes that you wish to use.
 * Ashes do not need grinding, and thus don't need a pot to hold them
 * An inventory with one Ectophial, 13 buckets and ashes will allows 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

Type 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, 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 7.4 to 10 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 10 to 13 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.

Frost 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 frost 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.

Urns & ashes 

Urns were added on February 15, 2011. 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, and when full can be teleported for bonus experience, there is a urn for each type of ashes (Impious, Accursed and Infernal). Each Urn can be made with the Crafting skill. Each type of ashes can be spread, like bones on Gilded Altars.

Quests
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:


 * Restless Ghost (1125 experience)
 * Priest in Peril (1406 experience)
 * Making History (1000 experience)
 * Recruitment Drive (1000 experience)
 * Mountain Daughter (2000 experience)
 * Ghosts Ahoy (2400 experience)
 * Rag and Bone Man (500 experience)
 * Swept Away (10 bowls of Goulash granting 10x current prayer level)
 * One Piercing Note (Ability to make Illuminated Prayer Books for 10k experience each, and retrieve a Holy Cithara for 50k experience)

More difficult quests

 * Holy Grail (11k experience)
 * Spirits of the Elid (8000 experience)
 * Missing My Mummy (6500 experience)

High-level quests

 * Blood Runs Deep (450k experience However: requires at least 75 Prayer)
 * Troll Stronghold (2x 10k experience from Experience Lamps, 30 prayer needed)
 * The Temple at Senntisten (10k experience, and potential extra 23k with experience lamp; 50 Prayer needed)
 * Rag and Bone Man wish list (5000 experience)
 * Swan Song (10k experience)
 * The Void Stares Back (100k if your prayer is 75 or higher)
 * Nomad's Requiem (70 zeals from rewards can be used to train prayer)
 * Ritual of the Mahjarrat (potentially 240k exp if your prayer is 72 or higher)

All of these together (except for The Temple at Senntisten, Nomad's Requiem and Blood Runs Deep which have requirements to either use the reward or start the quest.) are enough to bring a player from 1-40 prayer, and each of these quests is relatively quick and easy. In total, it is possible to reach level 47 prayer solely through quest rewards with no additional training; a great way to save money and pad your quest points at the same time.

You may get a lot of experience from directly the quests themselves, but if you want to really boost your experience, complete quests that offer Combat Lamps or Skill Lamps for skills over 30 or 50, you could really boost experience in Prayer.

Auras
Several Auras are helpful in prayer training. Corruption, Greater Corruption, Master Corruption, Supreme Corruption, Salvation, Greater Salvation, Master Salvation, Supreme Salvation, and Wisdom all have effects that slightly increase the amount of prayer experience gained while training. Wisdom gives the highest 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 a little bit less than 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 since prayer is an expensive skill. This method costs almost nothing and gives a decent amount of experience. This method gives more experience the higher a players prayer level is. This makes it a better option for high level players.

For tips on penguin spotting, see Penguin Hide and Seek.

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.

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.

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
 * 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.

Vyrewatches
Vyrewatches may not be a bad option for those who want to make money while training prayer. Cremating the corpses will give 79 prayer xp and can result in valuable items. Wearing Morytania legs give more experience.

Urns
Urns can be filled by killing certain demonic creatures and collecting their ashes, for example, Imps, Lesser demons, or Black demons. They give a 20% increase of xp instead of scattering the ashes, needing 25 ashes to fill.


 * 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 Guide explains how to play and the rewards you can receive.

Prayer Brawling Gloves
Prayer brawling gloves are a possible drop from killing revenants. Players using them in the wilderness will gain 4x the normal experience; however, the risk of dying and losing supplies (and possibly gloves) is high. 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). The use of the brawlers on a gilded altar along with both burners lit will result in a higher rate of experience than normal. The brawlers don't increase the experience gain of ectofuntus.

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 1000 Prayer experience 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 10,000 prayer experience. There are also many other quests that reward a good amount of prayer experience that are much less difficult.

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, this gives around 10,000 experience per hour if each boss takes 5 minutes. It is possible to earn a profit from the rewards chest while using this method.

Bonecrusher
Having a bonecrusher, bought from the rewards trader using tokens from Dungeoneering, while killing monsters. This item automatically transfers dropped bones into prayer experience. Fighting baby blue dragons is a great way to use this item. The bones they drop give a decent amount of experience and they are also easy to kill. The bonecrusher is very useful but it takes a while to get 34k worth of tokens and a level of 21 to buy in both Dungeoneering and prayer (Getting the tokens takes you past 21 Dungeoneering).

The bonecrusher and baby blue dragon method is complemented with a split dragontooth necklace as it restores 20 prayer points per kill without the time spent burying the bones.

One fairly effective method of getting prayer experience with the Bonecrusher is to use a cannon on the Dagannoths underneath the Lighthouse. While this isn't particularly cost effective, it trains range and prayer 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.

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 Baby blue dragons or Dagannoths indefinitely with a fast weapon or cannon for Dagannoths, switching to and occasionally healing as needed with Guthan's set, Enhanced excalibur or a Saradomin godsword. An advantage to killing Dagannoths is they have other drops where as Baby blue dragons do not. 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 value 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.

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 lost popularity in recent months 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 loses 0 coins for every blessed spirit shield created, meaning the cost is about 0 per experience point. This is about three times as costly as using dragon bones on a gilded altar, which is by far the most popular training method, but is likely faster.