Last updated: Jul 3 2024

OSRS Prayer Training Guide 1-99 Fastest & Cheap methods

OSRS Prayer Training Guide 1-99 Fastest & Cheap methods

Prayer is a non-member combat skill, which is very important because of its use in PVP and PVM. Several prayers are unlocked as a player’s prayer level goes up; they can help players boost their attack, or provide immunity against different combat styles. Prayer is also well known to be expensive to train due to the high cost of bones and remains required. 


Quests that Offer Prayer Experience

Players should start with quests with little to no requirements that give prayer experience, these include: 

The Restless Ghost: It offers a. 1,125-prayer experience

Priest in Peril: It offers 1.406 prayer experience

Recruitment Drive: It offers 1,000 prayer experience

Holy Grail: It offers 11,000 prayer experience


For a total prayer experience of 14,531. Which would get the player from level 1 to level 30 prayer. Other quests give prayer experience, but they have relatively higher requirements or are difficult to complete. Some of these quests include Swan Song, The Great Brain Robbery, Ghost Ahoy, Spirits of Elid, and a few others. If you have the requirements to complete any of these quests, it is recommended you also complete them first before using the training methods listed below



Gilded Altar

gilded altar

These can be built in the altar space of the chapel in a player-owned house, it gives 250% prayer experience when a bone is used on it but if one incense burner is lit, it gives 300% prayer experience. When both incense burners are lit, players who use the gilded altar will get a 350% prayer experience. Building a gilded altar requires level 75 construction, players who don’t have the construction level can use the altar of a house party host for free by using the official worlds listed below. 


Official worlds to find Gilded Altars

W330 (United States east), W426 (Australia), W465 (Germany), and W512 (United Kingdom)


Menu Entry Swapper plugin

The Menu Swapper plugin is available on the RuneLite client. It allows you to change the default left-click and shift-click options when you put your cursor over any in-game NPC, object, or item. This plugin is quite useful when training prayer in Gilded or Chaos altars as you won’t need to right-click the bones in your inventory to use them on the altar.


How to Use Menu Swapper Plugin for Prayer

1. Turn on the menu swapper plugin on RuneLite

2. Click the setting icon left of the menu swapper and ensure bury is ticked as shown below

enu entry swapper


When this is done as shown above, you will be able to click to use the bone on the altar without having to right-click.


Tip: When using RuneLite, hold alt and move the inventory interface close to the altar so you quickly use your bones on the altar.


Fastest Methods of Training Prayer 

Offering Bones at a Gilded altar

Players can get the fastest prayer experience by offering bones at a gilded altar in a player-owned house. While using superior dragon bones is the fastest method of training prayer, it is also the most expensive. Using alternatives like dragon bones is less expensive and also gives high experience rates 


How to train Prayer at the Gilded Altar

1. All the bones you wish to train prayer with should be noted and brought to Rimmington.

2. Phials can be used to un note all the bones before you can use them on a gilded altar; this is quite simple, just use your noted bones on Phials then click exchange all for the bones to fill your inventory.


training prayer at the gilded altar


3. After un noting the bones, click the structure shown below to view the house advertisement and find a house with a gilded altar.


training prayer at the gilded altar


4. Use all your bones on the gilded altar using the menu swapper, and also move your inventory interface closer to the altar to make it easier. Then, repeat the process, note that after going to a player’s house once, you can right-click the structure to enter the house you entered most recently. You also use the Menu Entry Swapper plugin to change the left click to enter the last house to make it faster and easier.


Experience rates at the gilded altar vary depending on the bones the player uses. Players can manually use the bones on the gilded altar to get better experience rates; using this method; players can use 2,550 bones per hour on the altar if the process is done smoothly.


How to get to a Gilded Altar in a Player-owned House

1. The fastest method to get here is through a house teleport if your house is located in Rimmington 

ship to brimhaven

2. Players can also take a boat from Ardougne to Rimmington and then run west.


The fastest experience rates can only be obtained when using certain bones. The bones that offer the fastest experience rates and costs are listed below


Offering bones to the Chaos Altar 

chaos temple

The Chaos altar in the wilderness is more risky than using the gilded altar to train prayer, but it is a cheaper alternative, The Chaos temple is a temple found in level 38 wilderness, west of the Lava Maze as shown. 


How to get to the Chaos Temple

How to get to chaos temple

Ghorrock teleport: the fastest method to get to the Chaos temple is by using a Ghorrock teleport and then running south, 

Burning amulet: you can also use a burning amulet’s teleport to the Lava Maze entrance and then run southwest.


Using this temple to train prayer is quite difficult and even worse during peak hours due to the PKer activity because of how close it is to the Revenant caves and King Black Dragon Lair. The Chaos altar offers 350% experience per bone, which is the same as a gilded altar, but it’s cheaper because there is a 50% chance for the bone to not be consumed; this doubles the amount of experience received per bone; therefore reducing the cost.


Strategies to train prayer at the Chaos Altar in the Wilderness

The strategies aim to help you minimize risk at the Chaos altar and as a result, improve your experience rates:

Logging out method

Players can bring a couple of noted bones if they can do this method properly. To do the logging out method, you would need to leave the logout menu open with the cursor over the logout while paying complete attention to the surroundings. As soon as another player shows up, you should log off. Using the player identification plugin on RuneLite is also quite useful in this case to help you notice players faster.


This method is significantly slower since players would be unable to manually use the bones on the chaos altar since they need to leave the logout menu open.


Suicide method

Newer players are advised to minimize risk by traveling to the bank for every inventory of bones used on the Chaos altar. Die in the wilderness back to get to the bank faster. Although this method is beginner-friendly and reduces the risk of bringing noted bones, it is quite slow.


Here are the steps to complete this method:

  1. Withdraw a full inventory of bones and teleport to the wilderness.
  2. Run to the Chaos temple and manually use the bones on the Chaos altar
  3. Run to the chaos fanatic to kill you, then run from the respawn point to a bank and repeat the process


Escaping PKers method

You are only able to evade PKers if your account is extremely low or high-leveled. Low-level players (combat level 3–20) can’t be attacked by most PKers allowing them to stay at Chaos altar for long periods without getting attacked. However, there is still a chance that low-level combat pure PKer will attack them.


Being high-leveled is advantageous in this situation since you can wear high-level defence to withstand the attacks of PKers. Bring along saradomin brews and Sanfew serums to get a better chance of escaping PKers. You can run to a multi-combat zone while trying to stay alive

 to get the PKers to stop attacking 


When starting, you should not risk too much especially if you are not good at PKing, however as you get better, you can start to risk a bit more by carrying more noted bones, The Elder Chaos druid just outside the temple can unnote your bones for 50 coins per bone.


It is recommended to wear defensive equipment so you can withstand the attacks of PKers long enough to use up all your bones at the altar. 


Just like in the Gilded Altar, experience rates vary depending on the type of bones being used. Here is a list of bones the one that can be used and the experience rates to expect.

Bones and prayer experience

Reanimating Ensouled heads

Reanimating ensouled heads and killing the reanimated monsters near the Dark altar requires Arceuus spellbook unlock and decent combat stats; this is a comparatively slower method of prayer training method; it can give only a quarter of the experience rates that can be gotten from the methods above, but it is the best alternative for players that are looking a cheaper way to train prayer while also getting decent prayer experience. 


The Dark Altar is located north of Arceuus as shown below, Reanimation spells can be cast on ensouled heads near the Dark Altar, this will reanimate the corresponding monster which can be killed for prayer experience. Four different reanimation spells are compatible with different ensouled heads.


Dark altar

Ensouled heads are items that are dropped by their respective monsters. They can be purchased from the grand exchange, but they have low trade volumes, so it is advisable to buy them in advance. With high combat stats, players can reanimate 220 ensouled heads per hour. Here are the experience rates to expect with different ensouled heads when this method is done properly:


Ensouled Dragon head: you can get 343,200 XP per hour, and it costs about 6.46 GP/XP

Ensouled Abyssal head: you can get 286,000 XP per hour, and it costs about 5.28 GP/XP

Ensouled Aviansie head: you can get 271,480 XP per hour, and it costs about 4.73 GP/XP

Ensouled Hellhound head: you can get 264,000 XP per hour, and it costs about 4.87 GP/XP

Ensouled Demon head: you can get 257,400 XP per hour, and it costs about 4.24 GP/XP

Ensouled Tzhaar head: you can get 242,880 XP per hour, and it costs about 4.13 GP/XP

Ensouled Bloodveld head: you can get 228,800 XP per hour, and it costs about 3.82 GP/XP


Cheap Methods of Training Prayer

Although not used by most players due to how slow they are, these methods can be used to train prayer at a cheap cost. If you are not willing to spend those high amounts of gold to get to 99 prayer, these methods are recommended for you


Picking bones in Bone Yard and using them at the Chaos Temple

The Bone Yard is located on level 32 wilderness, just like the name implies, it contains large amounts of bones and big bones. Due to how fast these bones respawn, it is a great way for players to get those starting prayer levels.

Bone yard


Level 25 skeletons are found in this location, low level players will need armour and food to withstand the attacks of these monsters when getting bones from this location. Players can expect 18,000 experience per hour when making frequent trips to the Chaos altar in the Chaos temple. F2P players can also access this spot, but they won’t be able to use the chaos altar; only about 9,300 experience can be obtained as a result.


Reanimating Cheap ensouled heads

Certain ensouled heads from monsters like dogs, chaos druids, or ogres cost less than ensouled heads of the monsters listed above in the fastest methods section for the same amount of experience, the methods below still require you to spend a considerable amount of GP, but it is about 1/3 of the cost of using reanimating heads from monsters that give faster experience per hour. Here are the experience rates to expect reanimating cheaper ensouled and their respective costs.


Ensouled dog head: you can get 114,400 XP per hour, and it costs about 2.08 GP/XP

Ensouled giant head: you can get 143,000 XP per hour, and it costs about 2.11 GP/XP

Ensouled Scorpion head: you can get 99,000 XP per hour it costs about 2.13 GP/XP

Ensouled Minotaur head: you can get 80,000 XP per hour, and it costs about 2.15 GP/XP

Ensouled chaos druid head: you can get 128,480 XP per hour, and it costs about 2.21 GP/XP

Ensouled ogre head: you can get 157,520 XP per hour, and it costs about 2.31 GP/XP


Offering Wyrmling bones to Chaos Altar

Wyrmling bones are the remains obtained from killing Wyrmlings, they offer the cheapest GP per XP ratio when training prayer in the gilded or chaos altar. Each Wyrmling bone gives 21 prayer experience when buried and 73.5XP when offered at a gilded altar with two incense burners lit or at the chaos altar.

training prayer with Wyrmling bones

Using the Wyrmling bones is generally cheaper, however, players who wish to save money using this method should ensure they use the methods we have described above to reduce the risk of getting PKed while using the Chaos altar




About Author

Petecleff13

Petecleff13 is a passionate writer who has authored hundreds of articles in many areas throughout the years. He has also played OSRS with several account builds for over 5 years. He uses his passion for playing OSRS and writing to provide informative guides for both novice and experienced OSRS players. He is originally from South Africa and joined LuckyCharmGold as an Author in 2020.

Back to Blog