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Latest revision as of 09:32, 22 January 2020

Prayer is a slow and expensive skill to train just by the burial, offering or processing 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, please see Calculator:Prayer/Bones
Type Method
None Oak Teak Cloth Mahogany
(or Cremation)
Limestone Marble Gilded Chaos Altar Ectofuntus
Experience multiplier
1 2 2.1 2.25 2.5 2.75 3 3.5 3.5 4
Impious ashes 4 8 8.4 9 10 11 12 14 14 16
Normal bones 4.5 9 9.45 10.125 11.25 12.375 13.5 15.75 15.75 18
Accursed ashes 12.5 25 26.25 28.125 31.25 34.375 37.5 43.75 43.75 50
Big bones 15 30 31.5 33.75 37.5 41.25 45 52.5 52.5 60
Babydragon bones 30 60 63 67.5 75 82.5 90 105 105 120
Wyvern bones 50 100 105 112.5 125 137.5 150 175 175 200
Infernal ashes 62.5 125 131.25 140.625 156.25 171.875 187.5 218.75 218.75 250
Dragon bones 72 144 151.2 162 180 198 216 252 252 288
Dagannoth bones 125 250 262.5 281.25 312.5 343.75 375 437.5 437.5 500
Airut bones 132.5 265 278.25 298.125 331.25 364.375 397.5 463.75 463.75 530
Ourg bones 140 280 294 315 350 385 420 490 490 560
Hardened dragon bones 144 288 302.4 324 360 396 432 504 504 576
Frost dragon bones 180 360 378 405 450 495 540 630 630 720
Reinforced dragon bones 190 380 399 427.5 475 522.5 570 665 665 760
Searing ashes 200 400 420 450 500 550 600 700 700 800

Equipment

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:

Commonly used methods

Player-owned house

Main article: Player-owned house
Bones on Altar

A player using a gilded altar at a player-owned house (POH)

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). If you cannot make a gilded altar yet it is recommended to use someone else's house

Items needed for this method:

  • 2 Clean marrentill clean marrentills - Used as incense for lighting the burners.
  • Bones or demonic ashes - to use on the altar.
  • Optional: Harmony aura 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. Some of these might not work with ashes.
  • Optional: Any pieces of the first age outfit that one may own - Each part gives a 1% experience bonus. Total of 6% bonus if the full outfit is owned.
  • 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 you will need to pay them for their services.

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. If your house is located in Yanille you could get back by teleporting to the lodestone. It is not recommended to run back and forth from the bank in Yanille as teleporting proves faster.

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 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. Alternatively, all tiers of the Wilderness sword provide unlimited teleports to just west of the Edgeville bank.

You shouldn't decide 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 1,400 bones per hour at a gilded altar with both burners lit.

Players who value their time below 0 per hour should use accursed ashes.

Players who value their time between 0 per hour and 0 per hour should use infernal ashes.

Players who value their time between 0 per hour and 7,021,412 per hour should use dragon bones.

Players who value their time between 7,021,412 per hour and 27,248,900 per hour should use ourg bones (General Graardor).

Players who value their time between 27,248,900 per hour and 99,440,600 per hour should use frost dragon bones.

Players who value their time between 99,440,600 per hour and 863,286,200 per hour should use reinforced dragon bones.

Players who value their time above 863,286,200 per hour should use searing ashes.

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.

Killing Vyres with Sunspear

Players who have completed River of Blood and the Elite Morytania achievements, have level 92 Prayer for Soul Split, and who value their time at less than approximately 20,000,000 per hour can train Prayer by killing Vyrelords and Vyreladies in Darkmeyer with an augmented Sunspear and Morytania legs 4. Morytania legs 4 are not required, but increase Prayer experience gained by 50%. Soul Split is not strictly required, though players who cannot use it will need to pay much more attention, eat food, and bank more frequently.

Vyre training spot

A player standing on the correct square at vyres.

Players should stand between the building south of the bank and the tree immediately to its west, one square south of the corner of the nearby path (see image). In this spot, a minimum of 6 vyre spawns be within attack range. As vyres are permanently aggressive towards players who are not wearing a Darkmeyer disguise, players can pay very little attention, only needing to drink potions and drop an item below their character to area loot once every 90 to 120 seconds. Any of Sunspear's combat styles will work - players should use a Revolution ++ bar which includes all AoE abilities for their combat style: Chain, Corruption Blast, Dragon Breath, and Sunshine for Magic, Ricochet, Corruption Shot, and Death's Swiftness for Ranged, and Cleave, Hurricane, Quake, and Meteor Strike for Melee. Players using melee should be especially careful to stand in the correct spot, otherwise the vyres will not walk into melee distance and will drag the player around the area. Players using Magic or Ranged should add the Caroming 3 perk to their Sunspear in order to maximize damage output.

Using this method, players can expect to gain approximately 345,000 Prayer experience per hour with Morytania legs 4, in addition to 650,000 experience in their chosen combat style, 217,000 Constitution experience, 240,000 Firemaking experience, 140,000 Farming experience (if using Seedicide), and Invention experience from siphoning. Players should also reap approximately 5,000,000 in profit per hour from the vyres' consistent drops of Herblore ingredients, runes, and alchable Rune items. Though it has relatively high requirements, this method requires little effort for over 1.5 million total experience per hour, can be very lucrative, and saves a large amount of coins that would be required to train Prayer using other methods.

Chaos Altar

Chaos Temple (Wilderness) map

Location of the Chaos Altar in the Wilderness

As of the Wilderness Improvements & Task Set update on August 8th 2016 the chaos altar now gives 350% increase for bones and ashes used on it. This puts it on par with using a Gilded altar in a POH. Located in level 12 multi-combat wilderness it is a method that does not come without its risks, the threat of PKers requires one to be alert and paying attention to the screen. It is recommended to bring a one click teleport in order to escape if need be.

Players can use Simon who is just on the other side of the temple walls to bank and restock on bones. Roughly 1,400 bones can be offered an hour without the need of a BoB using this method. This makes it about equal to using a pack yak in a POH. The use of any BoB will make it the fastest training method in the game, aside from using brawler gloves at the mage bank.

Players who have completed the hard Wilderness Tasks will be able to un-note bones from their inventory with Harrison who is located within steps of the Chaos Altar. Doing so will reduce time per run and increase the bones per hour to roughly 2000.

The Chaos Altar only works if you are logged into a Members World. If you are logged into a Free World, RS will display "nothing interesting happens" in your chat log when attempting to offer bones at the altar.

Ectofuntus

Main article: Ectofuntus
Ectofuntus Pray

A player praying to the Ectofuntus.

Another method is 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 because ashes do not need to be ground first.

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 method

In most cases it is more efficient to use the ashes method instead of the bones method.

Recommendations for the Ectofuntus method:


To use the Ectofuntus to train Prayer, maximise the efficiency of each trip back and forth between the bank and the Ectofuntus:

  1. With an empty inventory, teleport to the Ectofuntus 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 Ectofuntus using the Ectophial.
  7. Worship the Ectofuntus 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 Ectofuntus, 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.

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 3,250 XP per trip, while using dragon bones will give 2,592 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:

  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.

(The worship-slime-bank trip may seem reverse, but it only needs two teleports per trip.)

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 15.13 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 experience.

Dragon bones are most commonly used to train prayer in P2P. Using them on a gilded altar costs 8.48 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 4.6 gp per XP, so it is more efficient if the player can earn 428 thousand gold per hour to use dragon bones.

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 40 more minutes per million XP, and save -0.92 gp per XP, so they are more efficient unless the player can earn -2.15 million gold per hour. If used at the Ectofuntus, the ashes have the additional advantage of not needing to be ground.

A list of some good monsters to obtain bones from:

Regular bones Big bones Baby dragon bones Dragon bones Wyvern bones Dagannoth bones Ourg bones Frost dragon bones
Most monsters Giants Baby dragons Dragons Skeletal wyverns Dagannoths Ourgs Frost dragons
Any Level 28 and 42 48, 83 79, 83, 111, 131, 135, 152, 189, 227, 246, 276, and 304 198 (level 72 Slayer) 303 624 166 (85 Dungeoneering required to access)

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, in the time it would take you to collect the amount required to reach your desired level you could make more money than you would save.

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

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:

Medium quests

High-level quests

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.

With the use of an Auto-sanctifier, one can now achieve the same buff as the gilded altar gives, while still being near a bank.

Using reinforced dragon bones, it is possible to achieve upwards 4,500,000 XP/hr, making it one of the fastest methods in the game to train Prayer.

Urns

Main article: 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:

Prayer brawling gloves

Main article: 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.

Bonecrusher

Main article: 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 or Attuned ectoplasmator, giving prayer experience upon killing ghastly creatures.

The Auto-sanctifier is an invention device unlocked at 70 invention through the dwarven tech tree. It is a consumable device with 50 charges that increases the Prayer experience gained from burying bones and scattering ashes by 250%, giving the same experience as a gilded altar with both burners lit. Each bone buried or ash scattered consumes one charge. Once all charges are used, the auto-sanctifier is destroyed.

The following table has approximate XP/hr rates.

Monster XP/Hour Additional Info
Frost dragons with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped 300 kills

189,000 with Auto sanctifier

108,000 with Dragon Rider amulet

Each kill with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped rewards 360 Prayer experience, or 630 with an auto sanctifier.
Green/blue dragons with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped 250 kills

63,000 with Auto sanctifier

36,000 with Dragon Rider amulet

Each kill with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped rewards 144 Prayer experience, or 252 with an auto sanctifier.

Blessing spirit shields

Main article: Spirit shield

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 29,464 coins for every blessed spirit shield created. However, both blessed and normal spirit shields have a Grand Exchange buy limit of 1.

Cleansing crystals

Main article: Cleansing crystal

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. The use of a Perfect juju prayer potion or a Perfect plus potion rewards an extra 5% experience, and cleansing the crystal during the Hefin voice of Seren grants an additional 20% 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, resulting in up to 294,000 experience per hour without Voice of Seren nor other experience bonuses.

Timelocked methods

Nemi Forest

Main article: Nemi Forest

Each day a full run of the Nemi Forest can be done to earn Prayer experience. There is a dedicated Friends Chat.

Skeletal horror

Main article: 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.

God Statues

Main article: 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 experience in Prayer as a medium experience lamp.

Jack of trades

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

Main article: 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 to train. This method costs 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.