OSRS Prayer 1–99 Guide: Gilded Altar vs Chaos Altar

Overview

Prayer is a buy-it-with-bones skill, and almost every decision in it is about how much you are willing to pay per XP. The methods differ by speed, cost and risk rather than by mechanics.

It is also a milestone skill. Protection prayers, Piety, Rigour and Augury each sit at a specific level, and most accounts get more out of reaching one of those than out of finishing 99.

Three altars carry almost all bone training: the gilded altar in a player-owned house, the Chaos Altar in the Wilderness, and the libation bowl at the Teomat in Varlamore. Below them sit ensouled heads, the Ectofuntus, Pest Control points and passive XP from a bonecrusher. Pick the milestone first, then the altar.

Pick Your Prayer Training Method

Bone prices move every day, so the fairest way to compare cost is XP per bone: the more XP a bone gives, the fewer you buy. Hourly rates and XP per bone below come from the wiki's Pay-to-play Prayer training comparison, which assumes you use each bone on the altar by hand.

Rates are the wiki's figures for efficient play with no alt accounts or runners. Expect less if you click slowly, and more if you have help: the wiki puts the gain at 20–25% at a gilded altar and 40–45% at the Chaos Altar with a second account running bones. Pest Control rates come from the Ironman Prayer guide, and the free-to-play rate from Free-to-play Prayer training.

Libation Bowl vs Chaos Altar vs Gilded Altar

The gilded altar and the Chaos Altar both give 350% of a bone's burying XP. The gilded altar needs both incense burners lit to get there; the Chaos Altar gets there on its own. What separates them is the Chaos Altar's 50% chance not to consume the bone, and the same bone can be saved again on the next offering. The wiki averages that to twice the gilded altar's XP per bone, or seven times what you would get for burying it.

The libation bowl works differently. You bless bones at the exposed altar, chisel them into blessed bone shards, then sacrifice the shards at the libation bowl for 5 XP each with blessed wine or 6 XP each with blessed sunfire wine. A dragon bone breaks into 58 shards, so it is worth 290 or 348 XP, which lands between the two altars on cost and close to the gilded altar on speed.

The price of the Chaos Altar is the location. The Chaos Temple sits in level 38 Wilderness, west of the Lava Maze, in a multicombat zone, and player killers check it constantly because they know people are standing there with bones.

The practical rule from the wiki: if you move a goal from the gilded altar to the Chaos Altar, buying 53% of the bones you would have needed gives you about a 97% chance of getting there. That is the whole saving in one number, and it is why the Chaos Altar is the default for anyone who does not mind losing a trip now and then. Bring only the noted bones you are prepared to lose in one visit, keep a teleport ready, and let the druid un-note an inventory at a time.

For any altar, divide the current bone price by the XP column and pick the cheapest per point. Dragon and wyvern bones give the same 72 XP, so buy whichever is cheaper that day. Superior dragon bones give the most per bone but need 70 Prayer before you can offer them.

How the libation bowl works

1. 1

   Bring noted bones and a chisel to Virilis at the bottom of the exposed altar, south of the Teomat.

   He un-notes them for 10 coins each.

2. 2

   Bless the bones at the exposed altar, then break them into shards with the chisel. Using the chisel by hand is far faster than letting it run: the wiki puts active processing at about 4,000 bones an hour against 1,000 on auto.

3. 3

   Turn jugs of wine into sunfire wine with 2 sunfire splinters each and a pestle and mortar, then bless them at the exposed altar. Splinters cannot be added to wine that is already blessed.

4. 4

   Fill the bowl and sacrifice.

   Each action uses up to 100 shards and 2 Prayer points, so one jug (400 shards) costs 8 points. Click the bowl repeatedly to sacrifice faster than the 4-tick auto rate.

5. 5

   Recharge at the Shrine of Ralos in the southern building, or bring prayer potions so you never leave the bowl.

Blessed wine cannot be banked, so only bless as many jugs as you have shards for. A full inventory of 27 blessed sunfire wines covers 10,800 shards, which is 64,800 XP in about 65 seconds of sacrificing and 216 Prayer points drained. If your shards are already made, sacrificing alone runs at about 1,124,000 XP an hour with sunfire wine at 62–86 Prayer. Chiselling your own dragon bones roughly halves that, and the wiki's all-in figure is 591,600 at 1,700 bones an hour.

How to cut Chaos Altar risk

1. 1

   Suicide runs:

   carry one inventory of unnoted bones, offer them, then die to the wine of Zamorak on the table or to the Chaos Fanatic and bank from your respawn point. The wiki puts this at about 2,000 bones an hour, 500,000 XP an hour with dragon bones.

2. 2

   Noted bones:

   much faster, up to 860,000 XP an hour with dragon bones, but you risk the whole stack. The wiki only recommends it for very low combat levels (3–20), whom most PKers ignore, or for high-level accounts in tank gear.

3. 3

   Pray while you offer:

   the altar also recharges Prayer, so keep Protect from Magic up and top up at the altar between offerings.

4. 4

   Zealot's robes still work:

   they stack with the altar's save chance, and on a suicide run they go to your gravestone, so you can loot them back on the next trip.

Quest and Diary Unlocks That Change the Route

Prayer's unlocks are less about access and more about which prayers you get and how cheaply you can offer bones. Start with the quests: The Restless Ghost, Priest in Peril, Recruitment Drive and Holy Grail give 14,531 Prayer XP between them, enough for level 30, which is also the libation bowl's requirement.

Recommended Equipment and Boosts

Prayer has no combat gear requirement. The equipment that matters either raises XP per bone or reduces how many bones you need.

Ensouled Heads: XP per Head

Ensouled heads drop from many Slayer monsters. Cast the matching reanimation spell from the Arceuus spellbook, kill what rises, and the Prayer XP lands on the kill. Reanimated monsters count toward your Slayer task, except reanimated dragons, and you can cast on a dropped head without banking it.

Runes per cast: Basic is 4 body and 2 nature runes, Adept 4 body, 3 nature and 1 soul, Expert 3 nature, 1 blood and 2 soul, Master 4 nature, 2 blood and 4 soul. The 220 heads an hour figure assumes high combat stats and banked heads reanimated at the Dark Altar (fairy ring CIS). At that pace, 70 to 77 Prayer is 474 dragon heads, about 2.2 hours.

Level-by-Level Training Table

Prayer levels come from bones, so the route is really a choice of altar and bone tier. Pick the milestone you need first, then decide how you are paying for it.

Hours and bones to each goal

Hours divide the XP gap from the Experience table by the wiki's hourly rate for each altar; bones divide it by XP per bone, so quest XP and Zealot's robes bring both down. Chaos Altar bone counts are averages because the save is random. For comparison, Pest Control needs about 4,400 commendation points for 70 to 77, or about 22 hours at the 200 points an hour the wiki's UIM Prayer guide gives for the veteran lander with hard Combat Achievements.

Fastest Route

By the wiki's hourly numbers the gilded altar is still the fastest safe method, with the libation bowl about 8% behind it on dragon bones. The bowl needs about 28% fewer bones for the same XP, though, so it is the better buy unless an hour saved is worth more to you than the extra bones.

1. 1

   Reach 75 Construction and build a gilded altar, or use a host's altar on worlds 330, 465 or 512.

2. 2

   Get Zealot's robes if you have 80 Firemaking; 5% of bones saved is 5% fewer bones to buy.

3. 3

   Light both burners every trip.

   Unlit, the altar drops from 350% to 250%.

4. 4

   Use each bone on the altar by hand.

   The wiki counts about 2,550 bones an hour that way, against about 1,070 if you let the offering run.

5. 5

   Bank at the Camelot chest on a PvP world and teleport back to your house, so each trip is a fixed click pattern.

6. 6

   Do the Prayer quest rewards first.

   Holy Grail alone is 11,000 XP.

7. 7

   Stop at your milestone.

   Most accounts need 77 for Augury, not 99.

Cheapest and Most Affordable Route

• The Chaos Altar is the cheap method that is still fast: the same 350% as a gilded altar and half your bones come back, at the cost of PK risk.
• The libation bowl is the cheapest safe altar: 348 XP per dragon bone with sunfire wine against 252 at a gilded altar. Budget 10 coins per bone to Virilis, one jug of wine per 400 shards and 2 sunfire splinters per jug.
• Mining calcified rocks in the Cam Torum mine banks about 2,200 shards an hour, 11,000 to 13,200 Prayer XP worth, with no bones bought at all.
• The Ectofuntus gives 400% per bone, a little more than a gilded altar, but each worship needs bonemeal from the grinder and a bucket of slime. The wiki calls it slower and not much cheaper than a gilded altar.
• With the medium, hard or elite Morytania Diary, Robin in Port Phasmatys turns 13, 26 or 39 bones a day into bonemeal and slime for you, which is free Ectofuntus XP.
• Pest Control costs no GP: 100 points buy 15,840 Prayer XP at 70–73, and more at higher levels. Our Pest Control guide covers the lander choice and points per game.
• Ensouled heads are often a byproduct of Slayer, so they cost time rather than GP.
• The bonecrusher gives Prayer XP on everything you kill while you train other things.
• Do every Prayer quest reward before buying a single bone.
• Use big bones and regular dragon bones rather than premium tiers if cost is the priority.

AFK and Low-Intensity Route

• Prayer has no truly AFK altar. Offering bones is a click per bone at a gilded altar or the Chaos Altar.
• The libation bowl is the least clicky altar: it sacrifices 100 shards per action on its own every 4 ticks while you have wine, shards and Prayer points.
• Calcified rocks at Cam Torum are the AFK way to collect shards for the bowl, at about 2,200 shards an hour.
• The bonecrusher is the closest thing to passive XP: it builds up while you do Slayer or bossing. The ash sanctifier does the same for demonic ashes.
• Ensouled head reanimation is a slower loop with more time between decisions than altar offering.
• The Ectofuntus is repetitive rather than AFK; the pace is slow but the clicks never stop.

Ironman Route

• The Chaos Altar is the usual Ironman altar. Twice the XP per bone matters more when every bone came from your own kills.
• The libation bowl is the safe alternative from 30 Prayer: no Wilderness, 348 XP per dragon bone with sunfire wine, and jugs of wine from Sunlight's Sanctum in Aldarin, which has an unlimited supply.
• You cannot use another player's gilded altar unless they are in your Group Ironman group, and the wiki rates building your own as costly for little gain over the Chaos Altar.
• Ensouled heads from Slayer tasks are the safe main route. They arrive as a byproduct of content you are doing anyway.
• Do the hard Morytania Diary for the bonecrusher. Upgrading it to the necklace needs a dragonbone necklace from Vorkath and a hydra tail from the Alchemical Hydra.
• Pest Control points are a low-effort top-up once you have 100 combat for the veteran lander; the wiki puts it near 40,000 XP an hour at 80 Prayer.
• Do not chase 99. Reach the milestone your build needs and spend the bones on something else.

Where ironmen get bones

HCIM, UIM and F2P notes

1. 1

   Hardcore ironmen:

   the wiki recommends the Ectofuntus over the Chaos Altar. The libation bowl is the other safe option from 30 Prayer, and the Myths' Guild greens avoid the Wilderness for bones.

2. 2

   UIM:

   blessed bone shards are stackable, so a UIM can bless and chisel bones after a Slayer trip and carry them as one stack until the next visit to the bowl. Dragon bones at the Ectofuntus give 288 XP each.

3. 3

   Free-to-play:

   the Chaos Altar bonus is members-only. The fastest F2P method is burying big bones and scattering vile ashes together, just under 116,000 XP an hour. Our F2P training guide covers the cheap routes.

Common Mistakes

1. 1

   Offering with the burners unlit.

   A gilded altar drops from 350% to 250%, which throws away 72 XP on every dragon bone.

2. 2

   Taking the whole bone stack to the Chaos Altar.

   Bring one load, or use the suicide method; the wiki puts it at about 500,000 XP an hour with dragon bones and almost nothing at risk.

3. 3

   Blessing more wine than you have shards for.

   Blessed wine cannot be banked, and one jug covers exactly 400 shards, about 7 dragon bones' worth.

4. 4

   Buying bones before the quest XP.

   Four short quests give 14,531 XP and level 30, which also opens the libation bowl.

5. 5

   Chasing 99 when the account needed 77.

   Augury is 1,475,581 XP; 99 is almost nine times that, about 45,900 more dragon bones at a gilded altar.

Useful Plugins

1. 1

   Chaos Altar / Wilderness

   warnings: surfaces PK risk before you commit a load of bones.

2. 2

   Bank Tags

   : one-click bone withdrawals so altar trips stay tight.

3. 3

   Inventory Tags

   : keeps bones and marrentill in fixed slots.

4. 4

   Menu Entry Swapper

   : makes bone-on-altar a single action.

5. 5

   XP Tracker

   : compares altar tiers and bone tiers against your actual spend.

6. 6

   Prayer

   : tracks prayer drain and remaining points during PvM, and at the libation bowl.

FAQ

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