OSRS Prayer Guide: Level 1-99 Fast & Efficient Training Methods

Welcome to the ultimate Old School RuneScape Prayer guide! Whether you’re aiming for level 99 Prayer, or just trying to unlock protection prayers at level 43 or all prayers at level 77, this guide covers everything you need to know. We’ll explore the most effective and efficient prayer training methods in OSRS, compare their costs and XP rates, and even delve into the newest techniques introduced with Varlamore, including the bone shards method.

Table of Contents

• Understanding Prayer Mechanics
• Prayer Training Method Overview
• Cost and XP Rate Comparison
• Bone Shards Method: Varlamore’s New Prayer Training
• Gilded Altars: The Classic Fast Prayer Training
• Chaos Altar: High Risk, High Reward Prayer Training
• Ensouled Heads: Affordable Prayer Training with Combat
• Offering Spells: Magic and Prayer Combined
• Passive Prayer Training Methods
• Ironman Prayer Training Strategies
• Free-to-Play (F2P) Prayer Training

If you prefer learning visually, a video version of this guide is also available. Otherwise, continue reading to get the complete written guide.

Understanding Prayer Mechanics {#understanding-prayer-mechanics}

Before diving into training methods, let’s understand how Prayer works in OSRS. Prayer is a crucial skill that enhances your combat prowess and survivability.

• Combat Level Boost: For every 8 Prayer levels you gain, your combat level increases by 1. Reaching level 99 Prayer will boost your combat level by a significant 12 levels, making it a valuable skill for any combat-focused player.

• Potion Effectiveness: Higher Prayer levels improve the effectiveness of prayer restoration potions. For instance, Prayer potions restore 25% of your prayer level plus an additional 7 prayer points. This means at higher prayer levels, potions become much more potent.

• Prayer Bonus: Prayer bonus, obtained from certain gear and weapons, directly impacts your prayer drain rate. Every 30 points of prayer bonus effectively halves your prayer drain, allowing your prayers to last twice as long. This is essential for extended combat situations and conserving prayer potions.

Prayer Training Method Overview {#prayer-training-method-overview}

For main accounts in OSRS, there are six primary viable methods for training Prayer. Each method offers different balances of cost, XP rate, and activity level, catering to various preferences and budgets:

• Bone Shards: A new method introduced with Varlamore, offering a safe and relatively fast training option, especially beneficial for Ironmen.
• Gilded Altars: The gold standard for fast prayer training, utilizing player-owned houses for boosted XP.
• Chaos Altar: A cheaper alternative to Gilded Altars, located in the Wilderness, offering a bone-saving effect but with inherent risks.
• Ensouled Heads: A more economical method that involves reanimating monster heads and defeating them for prayer experience.
• Offering Spells: High-level magic spells that consume bones or ashes for prayer and magic XP, providing a fast but rune-intensive method.
• Passive Training Methods: Incorporating prayer training into other activities like Slayer or Woodcutting for incidental XP gains.

Ironman accounts have additional training methods tailored to their self-sufficient playstyle. These include:

• Ectofuntus: A classic Ironman method that involves grinding bones into bonemeal and worshipping at the Ectofuntus for free prayer experience.
• Forthos Dungeon: Utilizing the altar within Forthos Dungeon as a safe way to train prayer while obtaining dragon bones.

For Free-to-Play (F2P) players, options are more limited, but still viable:

• Burying Bones and Scattering Ashes: Combining burying big bones with scattering vile ashes simultaneously is the most efficient F2P method.

Cost and XP Rate Comparison {#cost-and-xp-rate-comparison}

The cost and experience rates for prayer training in OSRS are directly correlated – generally, the faster the XP rate, the higher the cost. Superior dragon bones offer the absolute fastest XP in the game, but require level 70 Prayer to use effectively. Bone shards, while offering less XP per bone than a Gilded Altar for regular bones, can provide more XP per bone when using higher-tier bones like dragon bones.

The Chaos Altar stands out as a cost-effective method due to its 50% bone-saving chance. However, this comes with slower XP rates compared to Gilded Altars, especially if you’re banking after each inventory. Offering spells are best utilized with ashes, as bones are generally more efficiently used at altars.

It’s crucial to note that OSRS item prices fluctuate. For the most up-to-date cost analysis, I’ve created a Prayer calculator on theoatrix.net that updates hourly, reflecting current Grand Exchange prices. This tool will help you make informed decisions about the most cost-effective method at any given time.

For F2P players, burying big bones and scattering vile ashes simultaneously yields around 100k XP per hour, but reaching level 99 this way is a significant investment, both in time and approximately 180 million GP.

Bone Shards Method: Varlamore’s New Prayer Training {#bone-shards-method-varlamores-new-prayer-training}

Let’s delve into the newest prayer training method: Bone Shards, introduced with the Varlamore expansion. This method is a welcome addition, especially for players seeking a safe and reasonably fast way to train Prayer.

Requirements:

• Completion of the Children of the Sun quest to access Varlamore.
• Completion of Twilight’s Promise quest to enhance the method’s speed.
• Completion of Perilous Moons quest (optional) to unlock bone shard mining.
• Level 30 Prayer to participate in the method.

Acquiring Bone Shards:

There are multiple ways to obtain bone shards:

• Mining: Mine bone shards in Varlamore after completing Perilous Moons. This can yield up to 45,000 Mining XP per hour, making it a decent way to gather shards while training Mining.

• Varlamore Activities: Bone shards are obtained as rewards from various activities within Varlamore.

• Chiseling Blessed Bones: Chisel blessed bones into bone shards at the temple in Ralo’s Rise. The number of shards obtained scales with the tier of bone, with superior dragon bones providing the most shards. An NPC nearby can un-note bones for convenience.

Training Process:

1. Bless Wine: Bless jugs of wine at the same temple in Ralo’s Rise. Sunfire shards can be added to create Sunfire wines for a small prayer XP bonus during creation.

2. Libation Bowl: With blessed wines and bone shards in your inventory, go to the northernmost house in Ralo’s Rise and interact with the Libation bowl. You can AFK for a relaxed experience, or spam-click the bowl for the fastest XP rates.

XP Rates:

This method can achieve over 1 million Prayer XP per hour when actively spam-clicking, although this doesn’t account for shard acquisition time. If you mine your own shards at level 99 Mining, expect 45-50k Mining XP per hour. Factoring in mining time, the overall Prayer XP rate ranges from 20k to 30k per hour, depending on the wine type used.

Gilded Altars: The Classic Fast Prayer Training {#gilded-altars-the-classic-fast-prayer-training}

Gilded Altars remain a cornerstone of fast Prayer training in OSRS. This method utilizes player-owned houses (POHs) and offers significantly boosted XP rates.

Method Overview:

Using bones on a Gilded Altar in a POH, especially when two incense burners are lit, provides 3.5 times the base prayer experience compared to burying bones.

Accessing Gilded Altars:

While you can build a Gilded Altar in your own POH at level 75 Construction, it’s more convenient and efficient to use altars in public POHs. World 330 is the designated POH world, where players often open their houses for public use and have incense burners lit.

Step-by-Step Gilded Altar Training:

1. Bone Selection and Purchase: Choose your bones based on your budget and desired XP rate. Dragon bones, wyvern bones, and superior dragon bones are popular choices. Purchase bones in bulk from the Grand Exchange.

   • Bones Needed: Here’s an approximate quantity of popular bones needed to reach level 43, 77, and 99 Prayer:

     Bone Type	Lvl 1-43	Lvl 1-77	Lvl 1-99
     Dragon Bones	~350	~2,300	~13,400
     Wyvern Bones	~350	~2,300	~13,400
     Superior Drag Bones	~230	~1,500	~8,800

2. World 330 and Rimmington: Withdraw bones noted, along with at least 50k coins and a teleport to Rimmington.

3. Un-noting Bones: In World 330, use Phials in the Rimmington general store to un-note your bones.

4. Finding a POH: Click ‘View House’ on the house advertisement board near the portal in Rimmington. Select a house with a ‘Y’ in the ‘Gilded Altar’ column.

5. Using the Altar: Enter the POH and go to the altar room. Use bones on the altar. The Menu Entry Swapper plugin in RuneLite is highly recommended to swap the left-click option on bones to ‘Use’ for faster interaction.

6. 1-Tick Prayer (Optional, Fastest XP): For maximum XP rates, utilize 1-tick prayer. This involves manually using each bone on the altar in rapid succession. Use the Entity Hider plugin in RuneLite to hide other players and reduce visual clutter. Resizable Modern layout and dragging your inventory over the altar while holding ALT can further enhance 1-tick speed.

7. Banking and Repeating: After using all bones, exit the POH portal, run back to Phials, un-note more bones, and repeat. Right-click the house advertisement board and select ‘Visit Last’ to quickly re-enter the previous POH.

8. Bone Runners (Ultra-Fast, Very Expensive): For the absolute fastest XP, hire bone runners. They will fetch and un-note bones for you while you continuously use them on the altar, maximizing your XP rate. However, this is extremely expensive and generally not recommended for most players.

Chaos Altar: High Risk, High Reward Prayer Training {#chaos-altar-high-risk-high-reward-prayer-training}

The Chaos Altar, located deep in the Wilderness, offers a cost-effective alternative to Gilded Altars. It provides the same 3.5x prayer XP multiplier but with a 50% chance of saving bones, effectively halving the cost of training. However, training in the Wilderness carries inherent risks due to player killers (PKers).

Advantages and Risks:

• Pros: Significantly cheaper due to the bone-saving effect.
• Cons: Located in the Wilderness, posing a risk of being attacked by PKers and losing your bones. Slower XP rates if banking frequently to minimize risk.

Bone Quantities (Assuming 50% Bone Save Rate):

Bone Type	Lvl 1-43	Lvl 1-77	Lvl 1-99
Dragon Bones	~175	~1,150	~6,700
Wyvern Bones	~175	~1,150	~6,700
Superior Drag Bones	~115	~750	~4,400

Note: These quantities are estimates and assume a perfect 50% bone save rate and no deaths in the Wilderness.

Safe Chaos Altar Training Method:

To train safely at the Chaos Altar, minimize your risk by dying quickly after each inventory of bones:

Requirements:

• Bones (noted is recommended for faster trips, but riskier).
• Teleport to the Chaos Altar: Burning Amulet or Ghorrock Teleport.
• Enchanted Symbol (from Mage Arena 2 mini-quest) for fastest suicide banking (optional, but highly recommended for speed).

Training Steps:

1. Inventory Setup: Withdraw one Burning Amulet or Ghorrock teleport and a full inventory of un-noted bones.

2. Teleport and Run: Teleport to the Lava Maze using the Burning Amulet and run west and slightly south to the Chaos Altar. Ghorrock Teleport places you closer to the altar.

3. Use Bones and 1-Tick: Use bones on the altar. 1-ticking is highly recommended to maximize XP rates.

4. Suicide Banking: Once your inventory is empty, use the Enchanted Symbol to quickly reduce your health to 0 and die. This respawns you at your chosen respawn point, ready to bank and repeat. Alternatively, without the symbol, you can click the wine jug near the altar to lower health, or run to the Chaos Fanatic to die, though these are slower and slightly riskier.

Risky Noted Bones Method (Faster XP, High Risk):

For slightly faster XP (comparable to bone runners at Gilded Altars) but significantly higher risk, you can bring noted bones and un-note them just outside the altar. However, this makes you a prime target for PKers and is only recommended for experienced players willing to accept high risk.

Ensouled Heads: Affordable Prayer Training with Combat {#ensouled-heads-affordable-prayer-training-with-combat}

Reanimating ensouled heads offers a more affordable prayer training method, albeit slightly slower in terms of pure XP rate compared to altars. This method combines magic and combat, making it a more engaging training experience for some players.

Method Breakdown:

This method involves using Arceuus spells to reanimate ensouled monster heads. After reanimation, you defeat the spawned monster to receive a significant amount of Prayer experience.

Requirements:

• Magic level to cast the required reanimation spells (varies by head type).
• Ensouled heads (obtained as drops from monsters or purchased on the Grand Exchange).

Getting Started:

Arceuus favor is no longer required to use the Arceuus spellbook. Simply speak to Tyss in the Arceuus House on Zeah after Tutorial Island to unlock the spellbook.

Training Guide:

1. Acquire Ensouled Heads: Purchase ensouled heads from the Grand Exchange. Due to lower trade volumes, consider placing overnight buy orders at market price.

   • Heads Needed: Approximate quantities to reach level 43, 77, and 99:

     Ensouled Head	Lvl 1-43	Lvl 1-77	Lvl 1-99
     Monkey Head	~550	~3,600	~21,000
     Bear Head	~360	~2,400	~14,000
     Dragon Head	~140	~920	~5,400

2. Gather Runes: Collect the necessary runes for the reanimation spells. The specific runes depend on the ensouled head type.

   • Example Runes (for various heads):

     Ensouled Head	Spell	Runes
     Monkey Head	Reanimate Monkey	2 Nature, 2 Soul, 1 Body Rune
     Bear Head	Reanimate Bear	2 Nature, 2 Soul, 2 Body Runes
     Dragon Head	Reanimate Dragon	2 Nature, 2 Soul, 5 Body Runes

3. Combat Gear and Cannon: Bring combat equipment to efficiently kill the reanimated monsters. A Dwarf Multi-cannon significantly speeds up kills.

4. Bank Teleport: Carry a teleport to a bank for quick restocking.

5. Travel to Dark Altar: Go to the Dark Altar in the Arceuus House. Teleport options include Arceuus Library Teleport or C-I-S Fairy Ring. Run north and then east to reach the altar.

6. Reanimate and Kill: Cast the appropriate reanimation spell at the Dark Altar and click on an ensouled head in your inventory. A reanimated monster will spawn. Defeat it to gain Prayer XP.

7. Repeat and Bank: Continue reanimating and killing heads until your inventory is empty. Teleport to a bank, restock heads and runes, and repeat the process.

Offering Spells: Magic and Prayer Combined {#offering-spells-magic-and-prayer-combined}

Introduced after the Kingdom Divided quest, Demonic and Sinister Offering spells provide a fast method to train Prayer while also gaining Magic XP. These spells consume bones or ashes for prayer experience, making them efficient but rune-intensive.

Spell Details:

• Demonic Offering (Level 84 Magic): Consumes 3 ashes and provides 3x base prayer XP from the ashes, along with Magic XP.
• Sinister Offering (Level 92 Magic): Consumes 3 bones and provides 3x base prayer XP from the bones, along with Magic XP.

Training Guide:

1. Gather Supplies: Obtain bones or ashes in bulk. Ashes are generally recommended for offering spells as bones are better utilized at altars for faster overall prayer XP. Purchase supplies from the Grand Exchange, consider overnight orders for bulk purchases.

2. Rune Pouch: Prepare runes for the offering spell you’re using. Using a rune pouch is highly recommended to save inventory space.

   • Example Runes:

     Spell	Runes
     Demonic Offering	1 Soul Rune, 3 Fire Runes, 3 Blood Runes
     Sinister Offering	1 Soul Rune, 3 Fire Runes, 5 Blood Runes

3. Spellcasting: With a full inventory of ashes or bones, cast the chosen offering spell. Each cast consumes 3 items and provides prayer and magic XP. There is a short cooldown (4.8 seconds or 8 game ticks) between casts.

4. Repeat and Bank: Continue casting until your inventory is empty. Bank and repeat the process.

Efficiency:

Offering spells are generally recommended only when using ashes. Bones are more efficiently used at Gilded or Chaos Altars. However, with high-value ashes like infernal ashes, offering spells can be cost-effective and provide excellent XP rates (e.g., around 590k XP/hour with infernal ashes at ~12 GP/XP, which is cheaper than dragon bones at a Gilded Altar).

Passive Prayer Training Methods {#passive-prayer-training-methods}

For players looking to train Prayer incidentally while engaging in other activities, OSRS offers several passive prayer training methods:

1. Ectoplasmator: A reward from the Soul Wars minigame. When equipped, it grants Prayer XP for killing spectral creatures (e.g., Aberrant Spectres, Ankous, Barrows Brothers). While not a primary training method, it provides bonus Prayer XP during relevant activities.

2. Bonecrusher: Obtained after completing the Hard Morytania Diary. The Bonecrusher automatically crushes bones dropped by monsters and grants half the Prayer XP you would normally receive from burying them. Invaluable for Slayer training.

3. Dragonbone Necklace Synergy: Combine the Bonecrusher with the Dragonbone Necklace. The necklace restores prayer points while the Bonecrusher is active, creating excellent synergy, especially when area-of-effect training like chinning or bursting maniacal monkeys.

4. Ash Sanctifier: Rewarded from the Hard Kourend Diary. Automatically grants Prayer XP from monsters that drop ashes, giving half the XP of scattering them manually. Useful when fighting ash-dropping monsters during Slayer or other combat tasks.

5. On-the-Spot Reanimation: If a monster drops an ensouled head, you can reanimate it immediately for Prayer XP without needing to visit the Dark Altar. This offers opportunistic passive prayer training during combat.

6. God Eggs from Bird Nests: Obtain bird nests from birdhouse runs or woodcutting. Nests may contain God eggs. Exchange God eggs at the Woodcutting Guild shrine for a reward (usually bird nests) and 100 Prayer XP per egg. A minor but consistent passive XP source.

Ironman Prayer Training Strategies {#ironman-prayer-training-strategies}

Ironman accounts, with their self-sufficiency focus, require tailored prayer training approaches.

Early Ironman Prayer:

• Questing: Quest rewards are particularly valuable for low-level Ironmen prayer training. Complete quests with minimal requirements that offer Prayer XP to quickly reach level 30 Prayer.

  • Recommended Early Prayer Quests:

    Quest	Prayer XP Reward
    The Restless Ghost	1,125
    Priest in Peril	1,975
    Waterfall Quest	1,375
    Holy Grail	11,000
    Jungle Potion	1,250

• Early Training Methods: After questing or choosing not to quest, consider these early-game Ironman prayer methods:

  • Bone Shards: Safe and decent XP, especially for Hardcore Ironmen.
  • Chaos Altar: Faster XP, but riskier in the Wilderness.
  • Forthos Dungeon: Safe, with an altar near red dragons (safe-spottable).
  • Ectofuntus: Safe and free, but slower and requires collection of buckets of slime and bonemeal.

Mid-to-High Level Ironman Prayer:

• Gilded Altar (Self-Built): At level 75 Construction, build a Gilded Altar in your POH for fast, self-sufficient prayer training.

• Offering Spells (with Fountain of Rune): Ironmen can utilize offering spells. If rune access is an issue, the Fountain of Rune in your POH can help generate runes for spellcasting.

• Bone and Supply Gathering: A significant portion of Ironman prayer training is collecting bones.

  • Early Bone Collection:

    • Blue Dragons (Taverley Dungeon): Safe-spot blue dragons for dragon bones early on.
    • Red Dragons (Forthos Dungeon): Safe-spot red dragons in Forthos Dungeon, with an altar nearby for immediate bone usage.

  • Mid-to-Late Game Bone Collection:

    • Slayer: Train Slayer to obtain ensouled heads, bones, and ashes passively.
    • Myths Guild Dragons: After Dragon Slayer II, access Myths Guild dragons for more dragon bones.
    • Wilderness Green Dragons: Riskier but faster dragon bone farming in the Wilderness.
    • Bossing: High-level bosses like Zulrah, Cerberus, Vorkath, Alchemical Hydra, and Dagannoth Kings drop noted bones and high-XP bones, making bossing an excellent source of prayer supplies.

Free-to-Play (F2P) Prayer Training {#free-to-play-f2p-prayer-training}

Prayer training in Free-to-Play OSRS is notably slower and more expensive compared to members’ methods. F2P methods are click-intensive and lack the fast XP options available in members’ worlds.

Best F2P Method:

• Burying Big Bones and Scattering Vile Ashes Simultaneously: This is the fastest F2P prayer training method. By performing both actions at the same time, you maximize your XP per hour.

F2P Training Details:

• XP Rate: Approximately 100k Prayer XP per hour.
• Time to 99 Prayer: Over 110 hours.
• Estimated Cost to 99 Prayer: Around 180 million GP.

Given the high cost and time investment, obtaining membership might be a more efficient and enjoyable path for dedicated Prayer training if you are playing F2P.

Thank you for reading my comprehensive Osrs Prayer Guide! I hope this guide has provided you with valuable insights and strategies to effectively train your Prayer skill in Old School RuneScape. If you have any questions or want to connect with the community, join the Theoatrix friend chat in-game. As always, thanks for reading, and happy ‘Scaping!