Pay-to-play Prayer training

This article is about the pay-to-play guide. For the free players' guide, see Free-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.

Level	Subject	Notes
1-9 File:Prayer-icon.png	The Restless Ghost	Complete the Restless Ghost quest for 1,125 Prayer XP.
9-30 File:Prayer-icon.png	Bones and Priest in Peril	Bones spawn at the Chaos Temple in level 13 Wilderness, but it is patrolled by aggressive level 129 elder chaos druids on member worlds. Bones and big bones spawn at the Bone Yard in level 32 Wilderness, which is home to aggressive level 25 skeletons, so bring some armour and food. Always beware of PK'ers too! Priest in Peril yields 1,406 XP upon completion, if you can defeat both the Temple Guardian dog and Monk of Zamorak (both level 30).
30-45 File:Prayer-icon.png	Baby dragon bones or Big bones	It will take about 3,210 big bones, which are at the Boneyard, to reach 45 Prayer if buried. Alternatively, hunt down baby dragon bones if you can afford them, or kill Baby Blue Dragons if your combat level permits it. A combat level of at least 65 is recommended to kill them. You'll need to bury around 1,605 baby dragon bones, or take 402 or 459 of them to the Ectofuntus or gilded altar respectively.
45-52 File:Prayer-icon.png	Baby dragon bones or Dragon bones	Smite can be unlocked for an additional 518 baby dragon bones or 216 dragon bones if using the Ectofuntus. Otherwise, it would be 592 baby dragon bones or 247 dragon bones at a fully-lit gilded altar. The latter should be used instead of the former for faster training, especially if one possesses a minimum of 80 Combat for using melee on green dragons or 100 Combat for blue dragons. Don't forget to bring some sort of protection from dragon fire like an Anti-dragon shield! From a safe distance, 60 Magic is suggested for the Fire Bolt spell. Fire Bolt should only be cast on blue dragons since all other dragons are highly resistant towards magical attacks.
52-70 File:Prayer-icon.png	Dragon bones	Use 2,437 dragon bones on an open gilded altar. Go to a house-party world to find one, or search on the forums.
70+ File:Prayer-icon.png	Dragon bones	From Piety onwards, you'll need 48,797 dragon bones to achieve 99 Prayer.
1/30-70/99	Dragon bones or other bones that gives better experience.	You could also sacrifice dragon bones (or better) on gilded alter all the way to 70/99 if you want.  The table below shows the number of bones needed for different goals. Dragon bones needed Level range 2928 1-70 2875 30-70 51724 1-99 51671 30-99

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.

Bones		XP (when buried)	Dropped by or found at
	Bones	4.5	Many monsters, spawns at the Chaos Temple in level 13 Wilderness and Bone Yard in level 27 Wilderness
	Big bones	15	Hill Giants, Moss giants, Fire giants, Ice giants, Ogres, spawns at the Bone Yard in level 27 Wilderness
	Babydragon bones	30	Baby green dragon, Baby blue dragon, Baby red dragon, Baby black dragon
	Dragon bones	72	Green dragons, Blue dragons, Red dragons, Black dragons, KBD

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.

Altar	Construction Level	Experience
		0 Burners	1 Burner	2 Burners
Oak	45	100%	150%	200%
Teak	50	110%	160%	210%
Cloth	56	125%	175%	225%
Mahogany	60	150%	200%	250%
Limestone	64	175%	225%	275%
Marble	70	200%	250%	300%
Gilded	75	250%	300%	350%

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

File:Prayer-icon.png	Bones	Experience	XP/hr (Bank)	XP/hr (Ectofuntus)	XP/hr (PoH)	GP/XP (Buried)	GP/XP (Gilded Altar)
	Bones	4.5	13,050	4,320	17,010	19.78	5.65
	Wolf bones	4.5	13,050	4,320	17,010	107.11	30.6
	Burnt bones	4.5	13,050	4,320	17,010	51.11	14.6
	Monkey bones	5	14,500	4,800	18,900	72.8	20.8
	Bat bones	5.3	15,370	5,088	20,034	64.15	18.33
	Big bones	15	43,500	14,400	56,700	17.47	4.99
	Jogre bones	15	43,500	14,400	56,700	78.13	22.32
	Zogre bones	22.5	65,250	21,600	85,050	27.11	7.75
	Shaikahan bones	25	72,500	24,000	94,500	191.68	54.77
	Babydragon bones	30	97,000	28,800	113,400	29.13	8.32
	Wyvern bones	72	208,800	69,120	272,160	37.85	10.81
	Dragon bones	72	208,800	69,120	272,160	37.68	10.77
	Fayrg bones	84	243,600	80,640	317,520	45.35	12.96
	Lava dragon bones	85	246,500	81,600	321,300	55.53	15.87
	Raurg bones	96	278,400	92,160	362,880	65.83	18.81
	Dagannoth bones	125	362,500	120,000	472,500	68.84	19.67
	Ourg bones	140	406,000	134,400	529,200	184.49	52.71

It should be noted that although bank / PoH provide better experience per hour, the Ectofuntus is best for GP/xp.