Ironman Guide/Prayer (2024)

Ironman Guide

Prayer is a slow skill to train for ironmen due to having to obtain every bone. Ideally, it is best to use every bone on an experience boosting altar, such as the Chaos Altar, Ectofuntus, or with high Construction, a gilded altar in the chapel of your player-owned house. A bone crusher or ash sanctifier can be used for passive experience while training when the bones dropped are not worth picking up.

Level 43 Prayer is a common early-game goal for Protect from Magic, Protect from Missiles and Protect from Melee.

Early training: Quests[edit | edit source]

Early levels can be skipped by completing quests that reward Prayer experience. Notably, Holy Grail has minimal requirements and grants 11,000 Prayer experience, enough to go from 0 experience to 28 Prayer. Completing all of the following quests will reward enough experience for 36 Prayer:

• The Restless Ghost rewards 1,125 Prayer experience.
• Priest in Peril rewards 1,406 Prayer experience.
• Recruitment Drive requires Druidic Ritual and Black Knights' Fortress, rewards 1,000.5 Prayer experience.
• Rag and Bone Man I rewards 500 Prayer experience.
• Ghosts Ahoy requires 25 , 20 , Priest in Peril, and The Restless Ghost, rewards 2,400 Prayer experience.
• Making History requires Priest in Peril and partial completion of The Restless Ghost, rewards 1,000 Prayer experience.
• Spirits of the Elid requires 33 , 37 , 37 , 37 , rewards 8,000 Prayer experience.
• Another Slice of H.A.M requires 15 , 25 , rewards 3,000 Prayer experience.
• His Faithful Servants rewards 20,000 Prayer experience.

Fastest Experience[edit | edit source]

Method	Experience	Notes
Chaos altar	700%[i 1]	Available immediately, but risky, since the altar is in the Wilderness.
Gilded altar	250-350%	Requires 75 Construction. 3.5× is achievable with both incense burners lit.
Ectofuntus	400%	Available early, after Priest in Peril, but is quite slow.
Libation bowl	399-500%[i 2]	Available early, after Children of the Sun and 30 , but is slow and requires jugs of wine. 479-600% is achievable using sunfire splinters
Offering spells	300%	Requires access to a steady source of wrath runes. Provides a multiplier of only 3×, but can be used without requiring trips to and from the bank.

Levels 1–99: Chaos altar[edit | edit source]

This is a dangerous activity. On death, Hardcore Ironmen will lose their status. Unprotected items will be moved to a grave.

Offering bones at the chaos altar in the Chaos Temple, located in level 38 Wilderness, is the most efficient way to train Prayer, and should be used whenever possible.

The altar grants 350% experience per bone with an additional 50% chance that the bone offered at the altar will not be consumed. If you keep offering bones until they're consumed you should expect 700% experience per bone on average. This method is riskier but notably faster overall than offering bones at the gilded altar considering the time it takes to gather the bones.

The altar can be reached by a Ghorrock Teleport ideally, or alternatively a Cemetery Teleport or burning amulet.

It is recommended to 3 or 4-item with cheap gear that has high defensive stats. Bring some high-healing food in case player killers attack. A stack of noted bones can be brought and unnoted at the nearby Elder Chaos druid (NPC), which is a riskier, but faster method. Resupply by running south below level 20 Wilderness, teleport to a bank, such as Edgeville. Lumbridge and Camelot teleports are near banks on PvP worlds.

Alternatively, bring one inventory of bones at a time and suicide on the nearby wine of Zamorak spawn or the Chaos Fanatic to the north. Expedite this by self-damage items, such as an enchanted symbol, locator orb, or a dwarven rock cake.

Around 500,000 Prayer experience per hour should be possible even during peak times, but the number of player killers encountered varies. Change respawn points for more efficient runs.

Levels 1–99: Gilded altar[edit | edit source]

Offer bones at your player-owned house gilded altar, requiring 75 Construction, for 2.5× experience with no incense burners lit, 3× experience with one, or 3.5× experience with both lit. If not unnoting bones at Phials in Rimmington, a PvP world can be used with Camelot Teleport to use the bank chest near Camelot castle for fast banking.

Levels 70-99: Offering spells[edit | edit source]

Demonic offering, a spell from the Arceuus spellbook, can be used to gain a 3× multiplier on ashes during a slayer trip without spending time banking the ashes - this is the only way to multiply experience from ashes. In addition, Sinister offering has the same trip-saving benefits as Demonic offering, and can be used to gain a 3× multiplier on bones. However, these spells require wrath runes, which require 95 Runecrafting - as such, this is not a method to be used early game.

Without wrath runes, Demonic offering can still be cast at the Fountain of Rune, which can be efficiently accessed using the Wilderness sword 3 once daily or the Wilderness sword 4 as often as the player needs. However, it's generally not worth going out of the way to bank ashes at tasks where extremely long trips are possible or inventory space is a concern - ashes might be banked at Tormented demons, for example, but probably not at Hellhounds or K'ril Tsutsaroth.

Other methods[edit | edit source]

Levels 1–99: Ectofuntus[edit | edit source]

The Ectofuntus outside of Port Phasmatys rewards 4× Prayer experience per bone. Each bone must be ground through the bone grinder and put into a pot, then offered alongside a bucket of slime for experience and ecto-tokens, which can be claimed from ghost disciples. It is a safe alternative to the chaos altar before having a gilded altar. Hardcore ironmen are recommended to use this instead of the chaos altar.

At 58 Agility, use the weathered wall when filling buckets of slime, then use the Ectophial teleport back up, which shortens trips dramatically. Buckets of slime can also be purchased from the Trader Crewmembers inside Port Phasmatys for 2 coins each, eliminating the need to gather slime.

After the completion of the medium Morytania Diary and higher, Robin will exchange bones for pots of bonemeal and buckets of slime daily.

Levels 1–99: Ensouled heads[edit | edit source]

With reanimation spells in the Arceuus spellbook, ensouled heads dropped by monsters can be reanimated and killed for Prayer experience. This method is slow and unpredictable, but by saving up heads to reanimate all at once, it can be good experience.

Levels 30-99: Libation bowl[edit | edit source]

Bones can be transformed into blessed bone shards at the exposed altar, then used with jugs of blessed wine (made by using jugs of wine on the exposed altar) on the libation bowl for 5x base prayer experience per bone. This is increased to 6x when using jugs of blessed sunfire wine instead, but this requires using sunfire shards.

Obtaining bones[edit | edit source]

Wilderness green dragons[edit | edit source]

Kill green dragons in the Wilderness, but beware of player killers. Use a looting bag for extra looting space and longer trips. North of the Graveyard of Shadows and east of Boneyard Hunter area are easily accessible via a games necklace teleport to Corporeal Beast's Lair, or a Ring of dueling teleport to Ferox Enclave, which also has a bank and the Pool of Refreshment and Clan Wars free-for-all portal to restore health and prayer. West of the Dark Warriors' Fortress is safer but can be crowded.

It is recommended to collect enough dragon bones for 70 Prayer quickly after getting high enough stats. Once the elite Wilderness Diary is completed, dragons drop noted bones in the Wilderness, greatly increasing trip length for up to 300–330 dragons per hour when using the dragon hunter lance. However, even early game with a dragon scimitar, dragon defender, antifire potions, Protect from Magic, and a looting bag, Wilderness green dragons are the fastest source of banked prayer experience available.

Myth's Guild green dragons[edit | edit source]

The fastest method of banking Prayer experience for hardcore ironmen is killing green dragons in the Myths' Guild basem*nt after completion of Dragon Slayer II. Kill the 2 green dragons then kill blue dragons while waiting for the green dragons to respawn. The hides can also be looted, though it does make for more trips.

Blue dragons[edit | edit source]

A very inferior way to get dragon bones early on that avoids the Wilderness (although death at green dragons is unlikely and not very punishing) is to kill blue dragons in the Taverley Dungeon with Iban's Blast, which deals high damage even at lower levels compared to other weapons and spells. Underground Pass can be completed quite easily without Protect from Melee. However, the Dark Mage must be paid 200,000 coins to increase the amount of charges Iban's Staff can hold to 2,500. The staff can be recharged for free by returning to the paladin's well (bow/arrow, rope, and spade are needed).

Despite green dragons having less hitpoints than blue dragons, their higher magic level results in a similar time-to-kill relative to killing blue dragons. Therefore, blue dragons are preferred for this method because of the ability to safespot them, the increased combat experience, and the ability to avoid the Wilderness. Unless you are a hardcore ironman, this method is not recommended.

Having 70 Agility for the shortcut greatly speeds up the time to return to blue dragons, and saves an inventory slot that would otherwise be needed to hold a dusty key.

Without 70 Agility, the blue dragon in the Heroes' guild basem*nt can also be killed while banking at the Rogue's den, but this spot is more competitive.

With 66 Crafting, the blue dragonhides can be tanned, converted to blue d'hide vambraces, and converted to coins by using High Level Alchemy to make this method very affordable for early-mid level ironmen. Assuming nine casts per kill on average and high alching valuable drops, this method is breakeven in cost if a Tome of fire is used as the source of fire runes.

Red dragons[edit | edit source]

An alternative way to get dragon bones is to kill red dragons in the Forthos Dungeon. Although they have higher hitpoints and are more resistant to melee and ranged attacks, these red dragons are very close to the Sacred Bone Burner, meaning the player can continue to camp for longer periods of time without banking and can skip bringing their bones into the Wilderness. Note that the Sacred Bone Burner will not grant experience for the first 100 dragon bones offered unless the player has first placated Olbertus by giving him five Dragonstones, which can be difficult to acquire early on as an Ironman.

Slayer[edit | edit source]

Prayer experience can be gained through Slayer as well. Ensouled heads dropped by monsters can be reanimated and killed for Prayer experience. The dragon hunter lance makes blue dragon tasks worthwhile and makes unlocking red dragons an additional unlock that may be considered. Killing Vorkath on task becomes very efficient with the dragon hunter lance and high stats, as it is very profitable and Vorkath also drops a lot of useful supplies. Dagannoth Kings may also be killed on task for noted dagannoth bones after completion of the elite Fremennik Diary.

Prior to completing Dragon Slayer II, Slayer can be used to get 70 Prayer banked with bones and ensouled heads which will be around 80 Slayer. Blue dragons are not worthwhile to rush for blue dragon tasks as they are significantly slower to kill than green dragons.

Bossing[edit | edit source]

In mid and late-game, dragon bones are passively collected through bossing at Zulrah, Cerberus and Vorkath, which all drop significant amounts of noted dragon bones, and Alchemical Hydra drops two hydra bones per kill.

Token experience[edit | edit source]

Some methods, while not being particularly effective sources of prayer experience in themselves, are useful for other purposes and can provide small amounts of prayer experience as a byproduct.

Cutting sullisceps[edit | edit source]

Sullisceps, an effective method of woodcutting training that does not require tick manipulation, often drop unidentified fossils upon being cut. These fossils can be redeemed for prayer experience after calcification at the Mycelium pool with calcite and pyrophosphite, providing prayer experience at approximately a rate of one prayer experience for every 6 woodcutting experience. Calcite and pyrophosphite can be acquired at the Volcanic Mine, amongst other fossil island activities.

Hunter's Rumours[edit | edit source]

Hunter's Rumours, which unlock Quetzal feed to finish the Quetzal Transport System, the perfected quetzal whistle, the guild hunter outfit, and Quetzin, provide sun-kissed bones and blessed bone shards, which can be redeemed at the libation bowl for prayer experience.

Shades of Mort'ton[edit | edit source]

Shades of Mort'ton, which unlocks among other things bloodbark armour and zealot's robes, rewards small amounts of prayer experience when each Shade is cremated using pyre logs.

Stealing Valuables[edit | edit source]

Stealing valuables for thieving experience has a rare chance of rewarding a blessed bone statuette, which can be broken down into blessed bone shards and sacrificed at the libation bowl for prayer experience.

Calcified Rocks[edit | edit source]

At 41 and having started Perilous Moons, Calcified rocks can be mined for modest AFK Mining experience and blessed bone shards.

Rogue's Castle chests[edit | edit source]

At 84 and having completed the Hard Wilderness Diary, the chests in the Rogue's Castle in the Wilderness can be stolen from, providing amongst other loot and some of the best Thieving experience in the game a 1/22 chance of getting 18 Vile ashes. If offered using Demonic offering, this amounts to a ratio of roughly 1 prayer experience for every 7.2 thieving experience gained. However, there is a high risk of dying and losing ashes to player killers, so heavy caution is advised.