Prayer

Prayer is a skill that allows players to use prayer(s) to generate advantages in combat. The ability to do so is achieved through evoking the power of certain gods of RuneScape. All players start with limited access to the Prayer skill. As one's Prayer level increases, they gain access to new prayers. As players traverse the land and complete many adventures, they find themselves presented with the opportunity to gain the prayers and blessings of various gods such as Zaros, who is related to RuneScape's deep past, and Saradomin, the god of order.

According to Zamorak the God of Order deals with prayers, "so that when you give the dead an honourable burial in his name it strengthens the bond between you, allowing him help you out in little ways that others such as Guthix won't notice." The Lumbridge Prayer Tutor, Yauchomi, also states that burying bones raise your Prayer level by increasing your 'holy energies'.

Prayer, unlike most skills that are directly related to their name, cannot be trained just through the act of "praying." In fact, Prayer almost completely relies on the act of burying bones to gain experience (there are certain ways to gain Prayer experience without burying bones, but those are covered later in this article).

Prayer is currently the slowest skill (according to player polls) to raise as a free player. However, its benefits in combat can be exceedingly useful, especially amongst members. Through various members' benefits, Prayer can become much faster and easier to raise on member servers. As of 13 March 2010 there are 15,115 who have achieved level 99 in Prayer.

As of 25 March 2009, the Prayer icon next to the minimap had a function added, expanding on its function as a simple meter. This new function was christened "quick prayers". It can now be left-clicked to activate, or deactivate, a group of Prayers preselected by the player simultaneously. You can select which prayers are activated by right-clicking the button and choosing the "Select quick prayers" option. (You can do the same with curses; the option changes to "Select quick curses". Quick curses and quick prayers are saved separately.) Before the addition of this function, players had to (sometimes frantically) locate the Prayer icon and activate them one by one, this function allows players to place many of the most useful Prayers on immediate standby. However, many players use the button simply to turn off Prayers when accessing Prayers through its tab, by double left-clicking it to turn off all prayers. This was the official release of the "quick prayers" function, as provided by Jagex:

''"The fourth upgrade for this week will save you valuable seconds in times of need. The Prayer button near the minimap has undergone an overhaul so you can now set a Prayer, or group of Prayers, before you go into action, and activate or de-activate it with one click. The button will also indicate the loss of Prayer points by gradually fading out – similar to the behaviour of the Hitpoints button. This should help prevent you accidentally running out of Prayer points, and finding yourself suddenly vulnerable to your opponent's attacks." - Jagex''.

History and origins


Prayer is one of the older skills in the game, dating back to early Runescape Classic. As with (good and evil) Magic it was then made up of two skills in RuneScape Classic: PrayGood and PrayEvil. Earlier than this, Prayer was known as Necromancy - the reason this was changed is probably because the term Necromancy was the moniker given to the Magic Class (back when the game had classes).

Prayer was the last of the original skills in which players were able to reach the maximum skill level of 99. Before any of the "Prayers" were made available (the only reason why people choose to train this skill in the first place), players could still gain Prayer levels through burying bones and completing The Restless Ghost. While Prayer did not have any uses, the Prayers used to exist in the Good Magic and Evil Magic skills simply as a "moral compass" of sorts. Although burying bones may not seem to have much to do with prayer, it has been said in Postbag from the Hedge that although Saradomin condems violence, he does like the player to bury the body honorably. This, and Zamorak's statement above, would indicate that prayer is more closely related to Saradomin then to any other Gods.

Overview of how Prayer works
Increasing a player's Prayer level is generally done through various uses of bones, with non-members limited to burying them. Members have other options that are faster, such as offering bones to the gods at a Gilded altar constructed using the skill Construction, or worshipping at the Ectofuntus.

To use a Prayer, players can click on the Prayer menu and Prayer spells that the player has access to will be listed. Spells that are highlighted with colour can be used by the player, while Prayers unavailable are darkened. When a player clicks on a spell, a lighted circle will appear around it, indicating that they are utilizing it.

For some Prayers, such as Protect from melee, the Prayer is indicated by a small icon above the player's head, to further delegate the source of the player's Prayer when in Combat or in PvP worlds.

Using a Prayer spell drains the player's Prayer energy at varying speeds, and once this energy is depleted, Prayers can no longer be used; therefore, use of any and all Prayers is temporary. To slow the rate of drain, players may increase their Prayer level or equip items that add Prayer bonuses, such as a blessed holy symbol or priest robes, which reduces the drain rate by increasing Prayer bonuses.

Once the player's "Prayer points" reaches zero, all Prayers will deactivate and no Prayers will be able to be in use until the player recharges their Prayer points, through various mediums.

To recharge, players usually pray at an altar, commonly found in various cities and towns and also small villages and abandonments, scattered all across RuneScape. There are other, less commonly used and/or known methods for recharging Prayer though, however, these methods are usually either expensive or unwieldy. Drinking Prayer potions, for example, is a fast and effective way to recharge Prayer, however, it can sometimes be expensive if used in large quantities over a period of time.

Subsequently, if a Holy wrench is in a player's inventory, an additional 1-2 Prayer points is added when drinking a Prayer potion. The Box of Health (which is the reward on the third level of the Stronghold of Security) not only fully restores your life points but also completely restores your Prayer points when opened, however, this only works once upon completion of the Stronghold level.

The Falador shield from the Falador Achievement Diary, which is accessible to only members, can also restore your Prayer points by increasing amounts, depending on the shield, but may only perform this function once per day. The Ancient Mace and the Saradomin godsword also have Prayer-restoration properties as well.

While activating Prayers are the main and most commonly known way of draining Prayer points, certain NPCs can also do so, such as the Sea Troll Queen, Damis, Glod, Nezikchened and Shadow spiders, just to name a few.

Certain locations in RuneScape (mainly P2P), such as the Abyss and the Entrana dungeon, also contain this Prayer-draining effect. Other NPCs can directly lower your Prayer level (temporarily, of course), as well as other stats, instead of just draining your Prayer points, such as certain Mourners and Broodoo victims.

Prayers are excellent in combat because they give players certain advantages. For example, some Prayers improve a player's combat skills, while others can protect them from damage, and others can damage opponents.

Players with level 70 or greater Prayer may also bless the gravestones of others, sacrificing Prayer points to increase a gravestone's lifespan, up to an hour, though one's Prayer will never be wholly drained.

Prayer bonus
Prayer bonuses can be viewed in the Equipment and Stats window. Here, players can see all their bonuses, including Prayer. Prayer points will drain slower or quicker, depending upon the amount of Prayer bonuses a player has. Players who have a positive Prayer bonus will drain slower Prayer points than usual. The higher the Prayer bonus is, the slower the player's Prayer points will drain when using Prayer.

Prayer bonuses, however, do not help to stave off the side-effects of locations and NPC's which drain Prayer. Each point of Prayer bonus slows the drain rate by 3⅓% of the regular drain rate of the Prayer(s). A general formula for a Prayer's drain rate with a given Prayer bonus is:

modified drain rate = Prayer drain rate × (1 + (3⅓% × Prayer bonus))

Where the drain rates are the number of seconds per point (i.e. 1 point per x seconds).

For example, if a player uses the "Protect From Melee" Prayer with a Prayer bonus of 0, their Prayer points would drain at a rate of 1 point every 3 seconds. If that player then equips armour giving a Prayer bonus of +15, the drain rate of this Prayer is slowed by 0.035 × 15 = 0.5, so the drain rate becomes 3 × (1 + 0.5) = 4.5, or 1 point per 4.5 seconds instead of 1 point every 3 seconds.

To generate a Prayer bonus, players must equip to wear certain types of armour, clothing, weapons, and jewellery. See the Equipment section for more information.

Prayers


This is the list of all Prayers that players begin the game with access to. As a player's Prayer level increases, more of these Prayers will become available for usage.

While Members have the ability to be granted access to all 27 Prayer spells (depending upon their preferences), free players cannot use the last five as well as Protect From Summoning, due to P2P quests being required. Prayers can be activated in the Prayer List interface.

Players can also use some Prayers at the same time with others, though doing so will compound the drain rate of these Prayers. Some Prayers cannot be used simultaneously and are marked in the table with the same background colour. For example, activating the "Smite" Prayer while the "Protect From Melee" Prayer is active will automatically deactivate "Protect from Melee" as they are incompatible Prayers.

Notes:
 * + These Prayers will not stack with other versions of themselves (e.g. no Rock Skin + Steel Skin)
 * % These Prayers cannot be used at the same time
 * ~ Hold time is not reduced against Ancient Magick ice spells.
 * & These Prayers have no restrictions, can be used with any others.
 * = Protect from Summoning can't be used at same time as Smite, Redemption or Retribution, but stacks with any other Protect Prayer.

Ancient curses
Ancient Curses are the prayers of the god Zaros. They are high-level prayers that are accessed after The Temple at Senntisten. They are only available to members. Similar rules from the regular Prayer list apply: sap curses cannot be used with leech curses. Deflect curses cannot be used together, except Deflect Summoning can be used with another deflect curse.

Notes:
 * + These curses can be used with the Deflect, Wrath, and Soul Split curses, and others of the same type (e.g. Sap Warrior and Sap Mage), but Sap and Leech curses cannot be used at the same time, Turmoil follows the same rules except it cannot be used with Sap or Leech curses.
 * = Deflect Summoning can be used with other Deflect Curses, but not with Wrath, or Soul Split.
 * % These curses cannot be used at the same time
 * & These curses can be used with any others

Formula
The formula for protection Prayers used against players is:


 * Melee, Ranged, Magic, and Summoning attacks:  
 * For example, if 40 damage were inflicted to you, the damage would be reduced to 24 damage (i.e. for every 5 damage that you normally take, only 3 damage is dealt instead.
 * If you were to take 3 damage for example, the result would be rounded off as follows:


 * Magic bind spells:  
 * For example, a spell that would normally hold you for 10 seconds, would be halved to only hold you for 5 seconds. However this shorter holding effect does not work for Ancient Magick ice spells.

Earning experience

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


 * Pay-to-play Prayer training for quick information on training Prayer.

Burying bones
Many types of bones exist that players can bury for Prayer experience. However, most of them are available only to members. To bury bones, simply left-click on the bone you wish to bury.

Worshipping the Ectofuntus

 * See RuneScape Knowledge Base for further information.

Completing the Ghosts Ahoy quest allows players to learn how to worship the Ectofuntus in Port Phasmatys. At the Ectofuntus, players use ground-up bones and Ectoplasm to receive four times the normal experience they would receive from burying those bones regularly. It is a somewhat slow method, but the experience earned is much better than burying bones.

NOTE: Completing the Ghosts Ahoy quest gives players the ability to use the Ectophial, which helps significantly when worshipping the ectofuntus. Also, achieveing level 58 agility allows a player to use a shortcut within the Ectofuntus which saves a considerable amount of time while gathering ectoplasm.

Shades of Mort'ton
After completing the Shades of Mort'ton quest, players will then be able to cremate Shades to earn some Prayer experience and other rewards. To learn more, see Shades of Mort'ton (minigame).

Ghasts
After completing the Nature Spirit quest, players can kill ghasts and earn Prayer experience. Players will need a blessed Silver sickle and about 3 or 4 druid pouches. Ghasts are not corporeal until players use the druid pouch on them; thus, an empty druid pouch will not work. Ghasts can be found in Mort'ton and Mort Myre swamp. Killing a ghast earns 30 Prayer experience. Larger, more powerful varieties of ghasts that give more Prayer experience can be found during Temple Trekking.

Player-owned houses
Members can also offer bones to their Altar in the Chapel room of a player-owned house (built with the Construction skill).

The experience ranges from 100% to 250% depending upon the type of altar with an additional 50% or 100% for lighting 1 or 2 burners for a maximum of 350% for the best altar and burners.

Players need to use a marrentill on each burner to light it, while a tinderbox is in the inventory. The burners will stay lit for two minutes.

All incense burners will give the same bonus. Candles and torches do NOT give any bonus.

As of 25 March players can now right click on the bones icon over the chatbox and offer "X" amount of bones, making it easier to train Prayer. Some players disliked this update because the automatic pray-x function is not as fast as manual clicking was, but others considered it a trade-off since it caused less strain to their fingers.

Many players with a high Construction level choose to build a gilded altar with incense burners in their house as this is a much faster way to gain Prayer experience than any other. Although less experience is granted per bone than the ectofuntus, more bones may be processed in a shorter time span. Often the official forums are a good place to find other players who are happy to allow 'loan' of their altars for a short amount of time. Alternatively, one can go to a house party world, and at peak times many players advertise gilded altars.

Armour and weapons
Initiate armour, Proselyte armour, and white weapons and armour give small Prayer bonuses. However, they are only available to members. Initiate armour can be bought from Sir Tiffy Cashien after completing the Recruitment Drive quest, and Proselyte equipment can be bought after finishing Slug Menace, while white armour and weapons can be bought after completing the Wanted! quest. All white weapons and armour give a +1 Prayer bonus.

Maces
All maces also give small Prayer bonuses. However, the Granite Mace, White Mace, Dragon Mace, Ancient Mace and Void Knight Mace are only available to members.

Neckwear
Some of the more powerful amulets, as well as religious symbols, give Prayer bonuses.

Rings
Currently only one ring gives a Prayer bonus and can be used by both Free-to-play and Pay-to-play players.

Prayer books
Prayer books are wielded in the shield slot. Even with all the pages in the Prayer book missing, it will still give you 5 Prayer bonus.

Spirit shields
The Spirit shield is made available upon completion of Summer's End. The Spirit Shield can be combined with a Holy elixir to make a Blessed spirit shield. Once a spirit shield is blessed the shield can be further modified by attaching Spirit sigils to create enhanced spirit shields. All spirit shields require completion of Summer's End to wield.

''1. Players must use the elixir with the spirit shield at an altar of Saradomin, which requires 85 Prayer. If they lack the required skill level, they can alternatively talk to Brother Jered with a Holy elixir and a plain Spirit shield in their inventory. The monk will then bless the shield, while charging the player in a manner akin to Oziach making a dragon fire shield.''

''2. To attach a sigil to a Blessed spirit shield requires 90 Prayer and 85 smithing. If the player lacks the required levels, Brother Bordiss will attach sigils to a blessed shield for 1,500,000 coins.''

Gravestones
Prayer points may be used to repair or bless decaying gravestones. At Level 70 Prayer, a player may bless a gravestone.

When blessing a gravestone, up to 60 prayer points will be removed and the equivalent number of minutes will be added to the gravestone. When blessing a gravestone, the prayer points of the blessing player can not go under 10 in case of an emergency, and the time counter cannot go over one hour.

A grave can only be blessed once but repaired multiple times.

Training
The most common method of training is to bury bones, or play minigames and miniquests.

Free-to-play:

There are a number of bone respawn locations:
 * Wilderness Graveyard of Shadows/Forgotten Cemetery (level 16-21): ~10 normal bones respawn
 * Edgeville dungeon: 7 normal bones respawn
 * Wilderness Chaos Temple (Level 13) 10-13 normal bones respawn
 * Once you reach about Level 37, levelling up by using normal bones would become difficult. Consider Big bones.

Since the update on 10 December 2007, the bone yard is now defunct due to it being replaced by the Clan Wars arena, resulting in a loss of that source.

Players may also frequent popular training areas and gather the unwanted bones left behind by players that kill the monsters, or buy bones on the Grand Exchange (though this is quite expensive).

Since the introduction of PvP worlds, another viable training method is to wander around Lumbridge, gather bones, and bury them, though it is strongly suggested to carry very few, if not none, items and only items you are willing to risk.

A highly recommended way for free players to train Prayer is to bury Big Bones, as they give 15 xp, while normal bones give about 4.5 xp. If players have enough coins, they could buy Big Bones at the Grand Exchange. When burying large numbers of bones, you can cut the time spent in half with some timing. To do this, click any bone. About halfway through the animation, click another. You will have buried two bones while viewing the animation a single time. Players have also reported that it is possible to bury three sets of bones during a single animation using a similar technique. When simply burying bones after monster killing, Big bones are useful only if you can kill the monster faster than the time it takes to kill four Chickens.

Lamps
Methods to obtain experience lamps, even as a non-member, include speaking with Sir Vant in the basement of a Lumbridge house and offering to kill the dragon for him, which will prompt him to give you two lamps for your kindness; completing the entire Lumbridge Achievement Diary, where for each of the three parts you have completed you will be rewarded with lamps granting you increasingly higher amounts of experience for any chosen skill(s); and venturing north to the Barbarian Village, reaching the Stronghold of Player Safety and the Stronghold of Security, where the former will contain two antique lamps and the latter will give you in total of 10,000 coins and other handsome prizes.

Members:

Bones Cost Analysis

Cost of using a guilded altar in the table below excludes the cost of marrentills.

If all the bones used to raise Prayer are bought, and the player only used regular bones, a player will likely spend 408 million coins to buy them all.

Prayer flashing
Occasionally, some players may Prayer flash, which utilises one of the three protection Prayers. They will activate the Prayer just before they are about to be hit, and turn it off immediately. This uses almost no Prayer points. Although it requires timing and skill (the game allows for some leeway on the timing), doing it successfully can effectively save Prayer points and allow you to continue fighting monsters for much longer. This can also be used with the Chivalry and Piety Prayers to hit higher and more frequently as well as defend from blows. One technique for effectively Prayer flashing is using a weapon/attack type that is as fast as the monster's attack. Players can use the sound of their own attack to time their next attack. A good example is cockroach soldiers with a scimitar.

This was altered on 1 April 2009. Jagex made it so that the protection Prayer only activates when the icon appears above which had made it harder for players to kill TzTok-Jad, tormented demons and other strong monsters. This was fixed on 3 April 2009, due to complaints of players on the Official forums.

How to Prayer flash
Using Prayer flash requires that the protection Prayer to be activated right before the monster begins their animation to attack you. An example would be an aberrant spectre casting an attack on you, however if the aberrant spectre has already cast the spell and the projectile is in the midst of being shot and the player activates the protection Prayer, the protection Prayer will not protect the damage. The Prayer must be activated slightly before the monsters animation for attacking happens, it may then be deactivated as soon as the animation for attacking is complete, which means that the projectile doesn't even have to hit the player yet and the protection will be activated when off so as long as it was on for the entire attacking animation. This can also work for offensive Prayers like, Chivalry and Piety however they must be activated before the player swings the weapon. If using prayer flashing, it is recommended to watch and analyze the monster's attack speed before start prayer flashing, because some monsters have different attack speed from other monsters, therefore if the protection prayer is turned on late, then the damage will not be protected. An example would be that Aquanite, who uses magic attack would have a slower attack than a Gargoyle, who uses melee.

Where Prayer is a near necessity



 * Fighting in the higher levels of the TzHaar Fight Cave and TzTok-Jad.
 * The following quests: Desert Treasure, While Guthix Sleeps, Nomad's Requiem.
 * The following monsters/bosses: Corporeal Beast, Dagannoth Kings, Kalphite Queen, Tormented Demon
 * Fighting the Corporeal Beast is impossible without high Prayer and Constitution.
 * ALL God Wars Dungeon bosses (excluding Zamorak's General which doesn't have a multi target attack though his followers can still do some damage)
 * The Barrows Minigame
 * PvP Minigames (Castle wars, Soul wars, Stealing creation, etc.)

NPCs that use Prayer

 * Kalphite Queen
 * Sigmund
 * Zaromark sliver
 * Fistandantilus
 * Tormented demon
 * Elite black knight
 * Elite dark ranger
 * Elite dark mage
 * Elite dark warrior
 * Zanik

Temporary boosts

 * The altars at God Wars Dungeon (providing you are wearing a relevant god item).
 * Praying at the statue of the devourer in the Uzer Mastaba (this will drain several life points).
 * The altar in seers village (if the player has a seers headband 3).
 * The altar in the nature grotto (requires completion of nature spirit).
 * A yellow spicy stew can increase it by 2-6 levels (however it can also decrease it by 2-6 levels).
 * A Prayer skillcapes special ability will raise it from 99-100
 * An ancient mace's favour of the War god special attack will raise a characters Prayer level by whatever they hit.
 * The Sulphur Spring in Oo'glog will raise the Prayer level depending on what it currently is (at 50 Prayer it would be 57/50, at 70 it would be 78/70).
 * The Monastery's altar adds two onto a Prayer level, making it the best free to play altar.
 * Praying at the Altar of Zaros in the Senntisten Temple will boost Prayer by 15%.

Note: Boosting Prayer points does NOT enable a player to use Prayers above their original Prayer level.

Trivia

 * Approximately 12 combat levels can also be achieved from level 1 to level 99 Prayer.
 * A Prayer bonus of +30 is required to halve the drain rate of Prayers, which would allow all Prayers to last twice as long
 * For members, the minimum Prayer bonus is -5, due to Zanik's crossbow.
 * In the Prayer menu, Prayers that have a level requirement less than 10 appear as 01, 03, 07, and so on.
 * In the Fist of Guthix minigame, the most used Prayer is Protect from Magic, followed by Protect from Missiles and then Protect from Melee.
 * It is possible to obtain 137/99 Prayer with the effect of the Ancient Mace special attack (Absolute maximum of 380 at the moment).
 * It is possible to boost one's Prayer 5 points above their current level without using the Ancient Mace when praying at the altar found in General Kree'arra's chamber, while wearing the 5 pieces of Armadyl armour (Armadyl chestplate, Armadyl plateskirt, Armadyl helmet, Armadyl godsword, and the Armadyl pendant).
 * The Altar of Zaros will boost one's Prayer to 15% above his/her maximum
 * Previously there was a glitch causing players who have just reached 43 Prayer and 45 Prayer to "gain" the Retribution Prayer, although it cannot be used. This was fixed on 2 April 2009.
 * The Prayer icon colour was originally yellow but Jagex changed the colour on 9 June 2009.
 * When the QuickPrayer option was released, it enabled players to use Member only Prayers such as Smite and Piety in Free worlds, just by setting them and pressing the QuickPrayer button. It was soon fixed.
 * Prior to the removal of random events, a player could have a Shade or Zombie attack them whenever they bury a bone. Shade Robes can still be obtained by killing shades in the Stronghold of Security.
 * Before the random event update on 25 February 2009, Leo the Gravedigger only targeted players who buried a bone. Succeeding this date, he now goes after anyone randomly, not just when they bury a bone. For instance, he has been known to target players while they are training completely unrelated skills, such as Woodcutting and Cooking.
 * On 20 October 2009, the animation of burying bones received a hidden update, making the animation smoother.
 * On 9 November 2009 an update made it so Prayer icons should now be correctly removed if you run out of Prayer points in a random event.

Related links

 * Monastery Guide
 * Random Events
 * Crafting
 * Construction
 * Death to the Dorgeshuun
 * Ghosts Ahoy
 * Horror from the Deep
 * Legacy of Seergaze
 * Nature Spirit
 * Priest in Peril
 * Recruitment Drive
 * Rum Deal
 * The Great Brain Robbery
 * Zogre Flesh Eaters
 * Barbarian Training
 * Summer's End