Prayer

RSCRS

This article is about the Prayer skill. For information on training Prayer, see Prayer training (F2P) (P2P).

Prayer
Also known as	Pray
Release date	4 January 2001 (Update)
Members only?	No
Players with 99	34,373 as of 20 April 2019
Players with 200M XP	46 as of 20 April 2019

Prayer is a non-members combat skill. Prayer is trained by burying bones, using them on an altar in a player-owned house, by praying at the Ectofuntus with bonemeal and buckets of slime, or by killing reanimated monsters summoned via the Arceuus spellbook. Different bones give different amounts of experience.

Prayers are unlocked as the level in the skill goes up, which are used to aid the player in combat. The prayers can help with Attack, Defence, Strength, Ranged, Magic, and Hitpoints; among other uses. When prayers are activated, they drain the player's prayer points until the prayer is turned off or all prayer points are used.

Most prayers can be activated immediately before the attack hits and promptly deactivated in order to gain buffs and/or protection with minimal to no expenditure of prayer points. This is called prayer flicking.

Prayer level-up music (link)

The first music that can be played when levelled up.

Prayer level-up music (link)

The second music that can be played when levelled up.

Recharging points

The Prayer interface.

The player can recharge all of their prayer points to full by praying at an altar, which are most often found in churches.

Praying at these altars will recharge the player's prayer points above the maximum:

• The Altar of Nature in the Nature Grotto
• The Edgeville Monastery (requires Level 31 Prayer)

In addition, consuming prayer potions, Super restores, and Sanfew serums will recharge prayer points proportional to the player's Prayer level, and consuming Jangerberries restores 1 prayer point each.

Quick prayers

The quick-prayers interface

On 6 February 2014, data orbs were added and has given the Prayer icon the ability to select your quick prayers. It can be left-clicked to activate, or deactivate, a group of prayers preselected by the player simultaneously. You can select which prayers are activated by right-clicking the button and choosing the "Setup quick-prayers" option. Before the addition of this function, players had to, sometimes frantically, locate the prayer tab and activate them one by one. This function allows players to place many of the most useful prayers on immediate standby. It is very useful for prayer flicking. Quick prayers can also be used as an easy way to turn off all prayers by double left-clicking it (to turn quick prayers on, then off).

Prayers

The prayer tab contains all of the available prayers. To activate a prayer, simply click it. This will show a whitish circle around each active prayer, and will start to drain prayer points.

All prayers up to Mystic Might are available for free-to-play players, but prayers from Retribution onward require the player to be on a members' server. Additionally, Chivalry and Piety require completion of Camelot training room, and Preserve, Rigour, and Augury must be unlocked through prayer scrolls from Chambers of Xeric.

Prayer		Level	Effect	Drain Rate	Drain Effect
	Thick Skin	1	+5% Defence	1 point per 12 seconds	3
	Burst of Strength	4	+5% Strength	1 point per 12 seconds	3
	Clarity of Thought	7	+5% Attack	1 point per 12 seconds	3
	Sharp Eye	8	+5% Ranged	1 point per 12 seconds	3
	Mystic Will	9	+5% Magical attack and defence	1 point per 12 seconds	3
	Rock Skin	10	+10% Defence	1 point per 6 seconds	6
	Superhuman Strength	13	+10% Strength	1 point per 6 seconds	6
	Improved Reflexes	16	+10% Attack	1 point per 6 seconds	6
	Rapid Restore	19	2 x Restore rate for all skills except Hitpoints and Prayer	1 point per 36 seconds	1
	Rapid Heal	22	2 x Restore rate for Hitpoints	1 point per 18 seconds	2
	Protect Item	25	Player keeps 1 extra item when they die (must be activated before death to occur)	1 point per 18 seconds	2
	Hawk Eye	26	+10% Ranged	1 point per 6 seconds	6
	Mystic Lore	27	+10% Magical attack and defence	1 point per 6 seconds	6
	Steel Skin	28	+15% Defence	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Ultimate Strength	31	+15% Strength	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Incredible Reflexes	34	+15% Attack	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Protect from Magic	37	Protects against magic attacks	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Protect from Missiles	40	Protects against ranged attacks	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Protect from Melee	43	Protects against melee attacks	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Eagle Eye	44	+15% Ranged	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Mystic Might	45	+15% Magical attack and defence	1 point per 3 seconds	12
	Retribution	46	Deals damage up to 25% of your Prayer level to nearby targets upon the user's death	1 point per 12 seconds	3
	Redemption	49	Heals the player if they fall below 10% health	1 point per 6 seconds	6
	Smite	52	Removes 1 prayer point from an enemy for every 4 damage inflicted on the enemy	1 point per 2 seconds	18
	Preserve	55	Boosted stats last 50% longer	1 point per 18 seconds	2
	Chivalry	60	+15% Attack, +18% Strength, +20% Defence	1 point per 1.5 seconds	24
	Piety	70	+20% Attack, +23% Strength, +25% Defence	1 point per 1.5 Seconds	24
	Rigour	74	+20% Ranged attack, +23% Ranged strength, +25% Defence	1 point per 1.5 Seconds	24
	Augury	77	+25% Magical attack and defence, +25% Defence	1 point per 1.5 Seconds	24

Prayer bonus

Prayer bonus can be viewed in the Equipment Stats window. Here, players can see all of their bonuses, including prayer bonus. A higher prayer bonus will cause prayer points to drain at a slower speed.

How prayer bonus affects prayer drain

Each point of prayer bonus slows the drain rate by 3.33% of the regular drain rate of the prayer(s). A general formula for the time (interval) between dropping prayer points with a given prayer bonus is:

$interval_{modified} = interval_{original} \times (1+\frac{bonus}{30})$

Where the drain interval is the number of seconds per point (i.e. 1 point per x seconds).

For example, if a player uses the "Protect from Melee" prayer with a prayer bonus of 0, their prayer points would drain at a rate of 1 point every 3 seconds. If that player then equips armour giving a prayer bonus of +15, the drain rate of this prayer is slowed by 15 / 30 = 0.5, so the drain interval becomes 3 × (1 + 0.5) = 4.5, or 1 point per 4.5 seconds instead of 1 point every 3 seconds.

To generate a prayer bonus, players must equip certain types of armour, clothing, weapons, and jewellery. See Prayer items for more information.

Prayer bonuses, however, do not help to stave off the side-effects of locations and monsters that drain Prayer.

The maximum prayer bonus is 63 wearing the following gear:

• God mitre ⁽⁺⁵⁾
• Ardougne cloak 4 ⁽⁺⁶⁾
• Dragonbone necklace ⁽⁺¹²⁾
• God crozier or Void knight mace ⁽⁺⁶⁾
• God book, Broodoo shield, or Falador shield 4 ⁽⁺⁵⁾
• Proselyte hauberk ⁽⁺⁸⁾
• Proselyte cuisse/Proselyte tasset ⁽⁺⁶⁾
• Holy wraps ⁽⁺³⁾
• Holy sandals ⁽⁺³⁾
• Ring of the gods (i) ⁽⁺⁸⁾
• God blessings ⁽⁺¹⁾

Using the "Protect from Melee" prayer with this gear would result in 1 point drained per 9.3 seconds.

Prayer drain resistance

Players have a prayer drain counter, which starts at a value of 0. Additionally, each prayer has a prayer drain effect variable, and the sum prayer drain effect of all prayers currently activated is the total drain effect. For every game tick that a prayer is activated, the player's prayer drain counter value increases by the total drain effect of the prayers that are activated on that tick. Players also have a prayer drain resistance, which can be displayed by the formula:

$drain_{resistance} = (60 + ({bonus}\times{2}))$

Whenever a player's prayer drain counter value exceeds their prayer drain resistance, one prayer point is removed from that player's prayer points, and that player's current prayer drain counter value decreases by their prayer drain resistance. This can occur more than once per game tick. This can result in prayer points being lost, even though a prayer may not have been consecutively active for its drain rate.

Prayer flicking

A skilled player may "prayer flick" by turning prayers on right before their effects are required, and turning them off immediately after. This will stop the prayer from continuing to drain Prayer points in between attacks.

For prayer flicking involving Protection prayers, for example, the player will activate the prayer just before they are about to be hit, and turn it off immediately after the hit lands. This uses very few prayer points, and you can even avoid using prayer points at all if done quickly enough. Although it requires timing and skill (the game allows for some leeway on the timing), doing it successfully can save prayer points and allow a player to continue fighting monsters for much longer, or increase damage rates with offensive prayers. If done perfectly, no prayer should be consumed regardless of how long you do the trick. However, most players will not have absolutely perfect timing. Wearing gear with a high prayer bonus will help you prayer flick much longer. Flicking is considerably easier when fighting a monster that matches your weapon's speed, and/or when playing with sounds on. Many of monsters attack at the standard attack speed, which is the same as that of many popular weapons such as the abyssal whip.

The only disadvantage to prayer flicking is the high click intensity associated with constantly turning prayers on and off.

How to prayer flick

Flicking Protect from Melee against monsters with a very slow attack speed.

To prayer flick, one must activate and deactivate a prayer so it is active on the needed game tick. If flicking a combat prayer, this is the tick you attack; if flicking a protection prayer, this is the tick your enemy attacks (which is not necessarily the tick in which you appear to take damage). TzTok-Jad is an exception, as his attacks are instead calculated soon after the start of the attacking animation, in order to give the player a chance to pray accordingly.

If flicking against monsters, the player will have to study their attack speed first, and then flick as you would auto-attacks.

Some tips for timing:

• If trying to learn prayer flicking for the first time, it is easier to learn against a monster that uses melee, instead of magic or ranged. Activate the protect from melee prayer just before the hit splat appears on your character, and turn it off as soon as you see the 0 hit splat.

• If using a standard speed weapon (4 ticks, most commonly abyssal whip/scimitars) and praying offensive prayers, turn your prayer(s) on just as your hitsplat disappears and turn it off as soon as you see the prayer(s) light up. Alternatively if you are fighting a monster with an attack speed of 6 (4 ticks) with a normal retaliation time (2 ticks, therefore does not include any range/mage monster, killerwatts etc.), turn your prayer(s) on just as their attack animation starts and turn it off when you see their hitsplat land on you.
• If using a slow speed weapon (5 ticks - e.g. All magic spells) and praying offensive prayers, turn your prayer(s) on after your hitsplat disappears and turn it off as soon as you see it light up.
• If using a very slow weapon (6 ticks - e.g. Godswords) timing becomes a little difficult for offensive prayers. Your prayer(s) must be on 2 ticks (1.2s) after your hitsplat disappears. An alternative visual cue is useful if fighting speed 6 normal retaliation monsters - after your initial attack, turn on your prayer(s) as soon as the monster's hitsplat on you disappears, then again as soon as the monster's third attack hitsplat lands on you.
• Praying defensively against standard speed normal retaliation monsters, turn your prayer(s) on just as their hitsplat on you disappears. Alternatively, if you are using a standard speed weapon, turn your prayer(s) on after you see your hitsplat on the monster appear. This is most likely the most useful visual cue as it works for ranging/maging monsters too, such as aberrant spectres; however it requires that your attacks be synced correctly.
• Praying defensively against monsters with a very slow attack speed (trolls, suqahs) is trickier. Activate Protect from Melee when your first hitsplat on the monster disappears. Your character will attack again right after being hit. Then, time your next prayer flick to be active right between your next two attacks. When the hitsplat from your second attack disappears, activate Protect from Melee as you did in the first step, repeating the cycle.
• If both you and your target have an attack speed of 6 (4 ticks), by switching to a weapon with an attack speed of 5 for the first hit and immediately switching back to your main weapon, you can alternate between offensive and defensive prayer flicks. For this to work, auto-retaliate must be on, and you must land the first strike.
• If you have your settings configured so that experience drops show up on your screen, the time to activate stat boosting prayers is just before the experience for the hit appears.

Specific combat style flicking

• Melee flicking: Right before the hitsplat is supposed to show up, you should turn on your prayer, and then turn it off again. The hit will always be a 0 if done correctly, but not deplete any prayer points due to it being on for just half a second. You will know that you executed it correctly if the blue hitsplat and your overhead prayer symbol appear at the exact same time.
• Ranged/Magic flicking: Right when the monster/player begins the attack animation (Ranged: Pulling up the bow, Magic: Putting hands together for the bolt to form) you should turn on your prayer, and then turn it off again. The hit will always be a 0 if done correctly, but not deplete any prayer points due to it being on for just half a second.

  Note: there is a slight delay between when you click the prayer and when it appears/takes effect. The prayer must be active at the beginning of the animation, meaning depending on your ping you may need to click even slightly before the animation begins.

• Damage flicking: This can also be done with any other prayer, so you could do it with prayers such as Ultimate Strength for example, to get the extra 15% bonus whilst not draining prayer points.

The aforementioned exceptions to the rule of initial-tick-counts is TzTok-Jad. He has distinctive attack animations which telegraph the nature of the next attack, but are not part of the attack itself.

For players who have never prayer-flicked before, the killerwatt plane is an excellent training ground. Killerwatts exist only in a single-combat zone (usually absent of other players) and are not aggressive until you attack them first, giving you ample time to prepare; their melee attacks are also fast enough that you don't need to worry about awkward timing. In addition to these advantages, killerwatt melee attacks are dangerous and accurate if your Protection prayers doesn't negate the damage, so it will be quite easy to tell whether you have mastered the skill or not. Killerwatts are very easy to flick effectively against with Protect from Melee, and once mastered, you will be able to apply flicking more easily to enemies with slower attack speeds (which, as mentioned above, are more difficult to flick accurately against). Note that killerwatts can attack with either melee or ranged attacks at will, but there is a way to prevent this: see the killerwatt wiki page for details.

Equipment that affects Prayer

See also: Prayer items and Armour/Prayer armour

Some equipment can bypass or disable overhead other players' protection prayers, as well as drain, restore or depend on Prayer.

Most of this equipment cannot bypass monster protection prayers, with the exception of Verac's set against the Kalphite Queen.

Special attacks

Weapon	Notes
Ancient mace	The ancient mace's special attack ignores Protect from Melee when used against players and drains their Prayer by the amount of damage inflicted, while restoring the user's Prayer by the same amount. It can restore the user's Prayer above their base level.
Dragon scimitar	The dragon scimitar's special attack is more accurate and will disable as well as prevent a player from using their overhead protection prayers if it is a successful hit, for 5 seconds.
Dragon sword	The dragon sword's special attack hits the target with 25% increased accuracy and damage, and ignores Protect from Melee when used against players.
Abyssal bludgeon	The abyssal bludgeon's special attack deals a hit with 0.5% extra damage for every prayer point the attacker is missing.
Bandos godsword	The Bandos godsword's special attack increases damage dealt by 21% and doubles the accuracy, draining one of the target's Combat stats by the amount of damage dealt, until it reaches 0. If the stat drained reaches 0 before all of the damage could be accounted for, another stat will be drained by the amount remaining. Stats are drained in the following order: Defence, Strength, Prayer, Attack, Magic, Ranged.
Saradomin godsword	The Saradomin godsword's special attack increases damage dealt by 10% and doubles the accuracy. If it is a successful hit, it restores the user's Hitpoints by 50% of the damage dealt (with a minimum of 10 Hitpoints) and Prayer by 25% of damage dealt (with a minimum of 5 prayer points).

Passive/set effects

Equipment	Notes
Necklace of faith	When the user is hit down to less than 20% of their maximum hitpoints (including being hit for 0), they will have their Prayer restored for 10% of their Prayer level, destroying the necklace in the process.
Sapphire bolts (e)	The passive effect of enchanted sapphire bolts causes the target to lose prayer points calculated as 1/20th of the attacker's current Prayer stat, and the attacker gains about half of them.
Sapphire dragon bolts (e)
Spectral spirit shield	The passive effect of the spectral spirit shield reduces the effectiveness of all Prayer draining attacks by 50%. This effect does not work against other players.
Verac's set	The set effect of Verac's has a 25% chance to ignore the target's Defence, armour and protection prayers.

Spells

Spell	Notes
Saradomin Strike	On a successful hit in PvP, lowers opponent's prayer points by 1.

Miscellaneous

Item	Notes
Prayer book	Right clicking the prayer book while wearing a Holy symbol allows the player to use prayer to heal poison at the cost of some prayer points.
Prayer cape	Restores 1 prayer point when equipped or operated. Can be done once every 60 seconds.

Monsters that use Prayer

Several monsters are able to make use of protection prayers.

Monster	Prayers	Notes
Kalphite Queen		Her first form will use Protect from Magic and Missiles simultaneously, while her second form will use Protect from Melee. Her prayers reduce damage against the respective style(s), not completely block. Verac's set works against her prayer during her second form.
Demonic gorilla		The gorilla will spawn protecting from a random style. After 50 or more damage has been taken, the gorilla will switch its protection prayer according to the style of the last damage it took.
Sigmund		Only when fought during Another Slice of H.A.M.. He will first protect against whatever style the player attacks him with, then Missiles to counter Zanik; once the player uses the ancient mace special attack against him at this point, his Prayer will be drained and he can no longer use it.

Quests rewarding Prayer experience

Quest	Experience reward	Prayer req.	Other requirements
Rag and Bone Man	500	-	-
Making History	1,000	-	-
Recruitment Drive	1,000	-	12
The Restless Ghost	1,125	-	-
Priest in Peril	1,406	-	-
Mountain Daughter	2,000	-	20
Ghosts Ahoy	2,400	-	25 , 20
Another Slice of H.A.M.	3,000	25	15
Rag and Bone Man II	5,000	-	40 , 20
The Great Brain Robbery	6,000	50	16 , 30
Rum Deal	7,000	47	42 , 50 , 40 , 42
Spirits of the Elid	8,000	-	37 , 33 , 37 , 37
Swan Song	10,000	-	100 , 66 , 62 , 62 , 45 , 42 , 40
Holy Grail	11,000	-	20
Total	59,431

Skill choice

Upon completing any of the following quests, players may choose to allocate experience to Prayer. These rewards usually come in the form of items, such as lamps or books, and are independent of any experience rewards directly received for completing the quest.

Quest	Experience reward	Skills available	Skill requirements
Client of Kourend	500 twice	Any	-
Fairytale II - Cure a Queen	2,500	Any skill above 30	49 , 57
A Tail of Two Cats	2,500 twice	Any skill above 30	-
The Great Brain Robbery	5,000	Any skill above 30	16 , 30 , 50
King's Ransom	5,000	Any skill above 50	65
Darkness of Hallowvale	2,000 three times	Any skill above 30	5 , 20 , 22 , 32 , 33 , 40
Curse of the Empty Lord (miniquest)	10,000	Any skill above 50	Some players will need 31
One Small Favour	10,000 twice	Any skill above 30	36 , 25 , 18 , 30
Recipe for Disaster (The final battle)	20,000	Any skill above 50	175 , 48 , 50 , 53 , 53 , 25 , 59 , 40 , 50 , 40 , 40 , 10 , 10 , 36
Legends' Quest	7,650 four times		107 , 50 , 50 , 45 , 56 , 52 , 42 , 50 , 50 , 50 , 50
Total	105,100

Trivia

• A Prayer bonus of +30 is required to halve the drain rate of prayers.
• In RuneScape 2, the Prayer icon colour was originally yellow, but Jagex changed the colour on 21 November 2006 when Hunter was released.