Pay-to-play Prayer training

Prayer is a widely used skill throughout Old School RuneScape. Despite the fact that training it can be quite costly, it is very important to higher-levelled players. Many quests recommend having 43 prayer, as this allows a player to use Protect from Melee, along with Protect from Magic and Protect from Ranged.

Training
The guide below will be helpful for ironmen or frugal players but also remember that the bones are purchasable from the Grand Exchange.

Burying Bones
The most basic way to gain prayer experience is to bury bones in the ground by clicking them. Each bone gives a certain amount of Prayer XP when buried, the more difficult ones to obtain typically give the most XP per bone. It would be better to take high-tier bones like dragon bones to an open gilded altar in a player-owned house or the Ectofuntus, however.

Worshipping the Ectofuntus
See Ectofuntus for a detailed explanation.

A less common way to train prayer is to use the Ectofuntus north of Port Phasmatys. This method includes grinding up bones, gathering buckets of Ectoplasm, then using them on the Ectofuntus to gain four times the amount of xp as burying bones. This method is very slow, but is the best xp per bone.

Player Owned House
The fastest method to training prayer in the game is to use an altar made in a POH. Using bones on a Gilded altar with two burners lit can give a maximum of 350% of the xp gained by burying bones. Despite the fact that even the best altar with two burners lit does not give as much xp per bone as the ectofuntus, many more bones can be processed in less time, making the xp per hour higher at a greater price to the player.

Players can un-note items in Rimmington by visiting Phials at the general store. He will un-note any item for 5 coins (per item), so it is recommended you use one inventory spot for money, one for noted bones and the rest filled with un-noted bones. This way you can go to and from the POH portal without needing to visit a bank.

Many players with a Gilded altar in their house will make this service available to anybody who wishes to use it by hosting house parties. This allows even players with low Construction to use this method to train. Currently this takes place on World 330 at the Rimmington house portal.

Reanimating ensouled heads
Players who have at least 60% favour in the Arceuus house can train Prayer by reanimating ensouled heads and killing the reanimated monsters near the Dark Altar. This method offers a slightly slower but cheaper alternative to offering dragon bones at a gilded altar. Players can quickly travel to the Dark Altar via nearby fairy ring, and teleport to Edgeville via amulet of glory to bank. Experience rates depend on player's combat level and type of head used, players can expect to reanimate around 150-200 ensouled heads per hour.

Currently training with ensouled bloodveld heads can give roughly 145,000-180,000 experience per hour depending on your combat level. In addition, this method can give up to 30,000 magic and combat experience per hour. With higher magic levels, upwards of 300,000+ prayer experience per hour can be achieved, along with the added magic and combat experience. The highest-tiered head is dragon, at level 93 magic, which including the cost of runes is still cheaper than dragon bones on a gilded altar, saving upwards of 30 million using current grand exchange prices. They are not very difficult for medium-to-higher level players to defeat as every reanimated creature has a fixed amount of health, between 5 and 35. With the added combat and magic experience, it is considered a very macro-efficient way to train, similar to how barbarian fishing is viewed, at the cost of being more click-intensive.

Experience per hour
The Prayer experience rate calculator attempts to calculate how quickly a player can "earn" experience points for each bone type, depending on the location where they are performing the task.

Assumptions

 * Bank
 * The player buries an average of 2,900 bones per hour.


 * Ectofuntus
 * The player has at least level 58 Agility to use the shortcuts to the slime pool. It will take the player longer if they do not use these shortcuts.
 * The player is able to acquire 900 Buckets of slime per hour, or worship 1300 times once they have enough slime and bonemeal banked.
 * When bones need to be ground, the overall rate drops to 270 bones per hour.


 * Player-owned house (POH)
 * The player makes approximately 40 trips per hour from the bank to the house, teleporting both ways using the Rings of duelling and PoH Teletabs.
 * The player does not manually use bones on the altar (which increases experience per hour) but rather the bones are automatically used on the altar.
 * If the player uses another a bone on the gilded altar right after it is automatically used, the experience per hour can be increased by up to 51%.

Calculations
For information about the cost per experience, see Calculator:Prayer


 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! class="unsortable" | ! Bones ! Experience ! XP/hr (Bank) ! XP/hr (Ectofuntus) ! XP/hr (PoH) !GP/XP (Buried) !GP/XP (Gilded Altar)
 * [[File:Bones.png]]||Bones||4.5||13,050||4,320||17,010||
 * [[File:Wolf bones.png]]||Wolf bones||4.5||13,050||4,320||17,010||
 * [[File:Burnt bones.png]]||Burnt bones||4.5||13,050||4,320||17,010||
 * [[File:Monkey bones.png]]||Monkey bones||5||14,500||4,800||18,900||
 * [[File:Bat bones.png]]||Bat bones||5.3||15,370||5,088||20,034||
 * [[File:Big bones.png]]||Big bones||15||43,500||14,400||56,700||
 * [[File:Jogre bones.png]]||Jogre bones||15||43,500||14,400||56,700||
 * [[File:Zogre bones.png]]||Zogre bones||22.5||65,250||21,600||85,050||
 * [[File:Shaikahan bones.png]]||Shaikahan bones||25||72,500||24,000||94,500||
 * [[File:Babydragon bones.png]]||Babydragon bones||30||97,000||28,800||113,400||
 * [[File:Wyvern bones.png]]||Wyvern bones||72||208,800||69,120||272,160||
 * [[File:Dragon bones.png]]||Dragon bones||72||208,800||69,120||272,160||
 * [[File:Fayrg bones.png]]||Fayrg bones||84||243,600||80,640||317,520||
 * [[File:Lava dragon bones.png]]||Lava dragon bones||85||246,500||81,600||321,300||
 * [[File:Raurg bones.png]]||Raurg bones||96||278,400||92,160||362,880||
 * [[File:Dagannoth bones.png]]||Dagannoth bones||125||362,500||120,000||472,500||
 * [[File:Ourg bones.png]]||Ourg bones||140||406,000||134,400||529,200||
 * }
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.
 * [[File:Jogre bones.png]]||Jogre bones||15||43,500||14,400||56,700||
 * [[File:Zogre bones.png]]||Zogre bones||22.5||65,250||21,600||85,050||
 * [[File:Shaikahan bones.png]]||Shaikahan bones||25||72,500||24,000||94,500||
 * [[File:Babydragon bones.png]]||Babydragon bones||30||97,000||28,800||113,400||
 * [[File:Wyvern bones.png]]||Wyvern bones||72||208,800||69,120||272,160||
 * [[File:Dragon bones.png]]||Dragon bones||72||208,800||69,120||272,160||
 * [[File:Fayrg bones.png]]||Fayrg bones||84||243,600||80,640||317,520||
 * [[File:Lava dragon bones.png]]||Lava dragon bones||85||246,500||81,600||321,300||
 * [[File:Raurg bones.png]]||Raurg bones||96||278,400||92,160||362,880||
 * [[File:Dagannoth bones.png]]||Dagannoth bones||125||362,500||120,000||472,500||
 * [[File:Ourg bones.png]]||Ourg bones||140||406,000||134,400||529,200||
 * }
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.
 * [[File:Dragon bones.png]]||Dragon bones||72||208,800||69,120||272,160||
 * [[File:Fayrg bones.png]]||Fayrg bones||84||243,600||80,640||317,520||
 * [[File:Lava dragon bones.png]]||Lava dragon bones||85||246,500||81,600||321,300||
 * [[File:Raurg bones.png]]||Raurg bones||96||278,400||92,160||362,880||
 * [[File:Dagannoth bones.png]]||Dagannoth bones||125||362,500||120,000||472,500||
 * [[File:Ourg bones.png]]||Ourg bones||140||406,000||134,400||529,200||
 * }
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.
 * [[File:Lava dragon bones.png]]||Lava dragon bones||85||246,500||81,600||321,300||
 * [[File:Raurg bones.png]]||Raurg bones||96||278,400||92,160||362,880||
 * [[File:Dagannoth bones.png]]||Dagannoth bones||125||362,500||120,000||472,500||
 * [[File:Ourg bones.png]]||Ourg bones||140||406,000||134,400||529,200||
 * }
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.
 * [[File:Dagannoth bones.png]]||Dagannoth bones||125||362,500||120,000||472,500||
 * [[File:Ourg bones.png]]||Ourg bones||140||406,000||134,400||529,200||
 * }
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.
 * }
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.
 * It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.