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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
Type Method
None Oak Teak Cloth Mahogany Limestone Marble Gilded Ectofuntus
Exp multiplier
1 2 2.1 2.25 2.5 2.75 3 3.5 4
Impious ashes 4 8 8.4 9 10 11 12 14 16
Normal bones 4.5 9 9.45 10.125 11.25 12.375 13.5 15.75 18
Accursed ashes 12.5 25 26.25 28.125 31.25 34.375 37.5 43.75 50
Big Bones 15 30 31.5 33.75 37.5 41.25 45 52.5 60
Babydragon bones 30 60 63 67.5 75 82.5 90 105 120
Wyvern bones 50 100 105 112.5 125 137.5 150 175 200
Infernal ashes 62.5 125 131.25 140.625 156.25 171.875 187.5 218.75 250
Dragon bones 72 144 151.2 162 180 198 216 252 288
Dagannoth bones 125 250 262.5 281.25 312.5 343.75 375 437.5 500
Airut bones 132.5 265 278.25 298.125 331.25 364.375 397.5 463.75 530
Ourg bones 140 280 294 315 350 385 420 490 560
Frost dragon bones 180 360 378 405 450 495 540 630 720

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:

Player-owned house

Main article: 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 form 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:

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 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. Make sure you've moved your house to Yanille, and have your teleporting house option set to At portal.

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 Frost Dragon Bones. Please note well 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 −6,945,018 per hour should use impious ashes.

Players who value their time between −6,945,018 per hour and 535,463 per hour should use big bones.

Players who value their time between 535,463 per hour and −2,152,168 per hour should use infernal ashes.

Players who value their time between −2,152,168 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.

Players who value their time above 27,248,900 per hour should use frost dragon bones.

  • Note: there is currently no range in which dagannoth or airut bones are best to use

Ectofuntus

Main article: 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, 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:

For the ashes method, Infernal ashes are recommended and the time saved using ashes (not needing to grind the bones) will make it a much faster training method

Two methods (or a hybrid of the two) are possible:

  • Method 1
    • 1. 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).
    • 2. Use Ectophial to teleport to the Ectofuntus.
    • 3. 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.
    • 4. Once all your bones are ground into bonemeal, use Ectophial to teleport back to Ectofuntus (or run back down the stairs).
    • 5. 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.
    • 6. Speak with the Ghost disciple to collect your Ecto-tokens. (Doesn't need to be done each trip but can be convenient)
    • 7. Use a teleport method to return to a bank and withdraw bones, then repeat.
  • Method 2
    • 1. 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.)
    • 2. Use Ectophial to teleport to the Ectofuntus.
    • 3. Go upstairs to the bone grinder. Left click on the grinder.
    • 4. Once all your bones are ground into bonemeal, return to the bank. Repeat until you have ground all the bones you plan.
    • 5. Withdraw twenty-seven empty buckets and return to the Ectofuntus.
    • 6. Go down through the trapdoor, and fill your buckets with the slime (using the Agility shortcut can greatly reduce your trip time).
    • 7. 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.)
    • 8. Then withdraw thirteen buckets of slime and thirteen pots of bonemeal and return to the Ectofuntus. Click on it to worship it.
    • 9. When all your pots and buckets are emptied, speak with the Ghost disciple to collect your Ecto-tokens.
    • 10. 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.

Ashes

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 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:

  • 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

Preparation:

  1. Withdraw 13 buckets, 13 ashes, 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. Fill buckets with slime.

Training:

  1. Teleport to Ectofuntus using Ectophial.
  2. Worship the Ectofuntus.
  3. Go down the trapdoor.
  4. Fill buckets with slime.
  5. Teleport to bank.
  6. Withdraw 13 ashes.
  7. Repeat.

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

Ectotokens

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.

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 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 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 4.6 gp per xp, so it is more efficient if the player can earn 281 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 -0.92 gp per xp, so they are more efficient unless the player can earn -1.41 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 7329k 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:

Regular Bones Big bones Baby dragon bones Dragon bones Wyvern bones Dagannoth bones Ourg bones Frost Dragon bones
Most monsters Giants Baby Dragons Dragons 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 as in the time you save you could more than make the extra money you have spent back.

Quests

Main article: 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

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.

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 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

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. 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

Main article: God Statues

Once per month the player can build up to four statues paying tribute to one of four gods at four 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:

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

Main article: Paterdomus

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

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 a urn for each type of 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:

Pest Control

Main article: 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

Main article: 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

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 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

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 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

Main article: 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

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 is very useful but it may take a while to acquire 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. It will also give prayer experience for killing 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 lost popularity in recent months but is still an effective way to train your prayer. See the shade burning guide.

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, note that both blessed and normal spirit shields has a Grand Exchange buy limit of 1.

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.

Monster XP/Hour Additional Info
Frost Dragons with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped ~108,000

300 kills

Each kill with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped rewards 360 Prayer experience.
Green/blue dragons with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped ~36,000

250 kills

Each kill with a Dragon Rider amulet equipped rewards 144 Prayer experience.
Baby blue dragons ~7,950

265 kills

Each kill rewards 30 Prayer experience.
Dagannoths ~3,938

875 kills

Several thousand cannonballs (~6,000-8,000) will be used, making this method not as cost effective. However, you can make some money off of seeds and possible clue rewards. Each kill rewards 4.5 Prayer experience.
Hill giants, Moss giants, Ice giants, Ogres ~3,000

200 kills

Each kill rewards 15 Prayer experience.
Armoured zombies ~1,013

225 kills

Each kill rewards 4.5 Prayer experience.

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.

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