Protection prayers

The protection prayers are the three overhead prayers Protect from Magic, Protect from Missiles and Protect from Melee. Each one guards against one combat style. Against other players it cuts the damage of that style by 40%, and against most monsters it blocks that style's damage completely. Switching to the right one is the most basic skill in PKing and bossing.

This page also covers Protect Item, which lets you keep one extra item when you die, and the other overhead prayers (Retribution, Redemption and Smite), which share the overhead slot with the protection prayers.

The prayers

Prayer		Level	Protects against	Against players	Against most monsters	Prayer drain
	Protect from Magic	37	Magic attacks	40% less damage	No damage	1 point every 3 seconds
	Protect from Missiles	40	Ranged attacks	40% less damage	No damage	1 point every 3 seconds
	Protect from Melee	43	Melee attacks	40% less damage	No damage	1 point every 3 seconds
	Protect Item	25	Keep one extra item when you die (see below)			1 point every 18 seconds

• Only one overhead prayer can be on at a time. Turning on a protection prayer turns off the other two, and also Retribution, Redemption or Smite.
• The active protection prayer is shown above your head, so other players can see which style you are praying against.
• Some game messages call Protect from Missiles "Protect From Range".
• Protection prayers do not make you harder to hit. They only lower the damage of hits that land.

Against other players

Against another player, the right protection prayer multiplies the damage of each hit by 0.6, rounded down: a 50 becomes a 30. This works the same way for melee, ranged and magic.

The prayer counts at the moment your opponent attacks. It has to be on when they swing, fire or cast; turning it on while their arrow or spell is already flying does not lower that hit.

Situation	What happens
Elysian spirit shield	The shield's effect (a 70% chance to take 25% less damage) is applied first and the prayer second, so a protected hit that also triggers the shield deals 45% of its normal damage.
Verac's set	With all four pieces worn, a quarter of Verac's melee hits ignore both your Defence and Protect from Melee.
Voidwaker and Korasi's sword special attack	The special counts as magic damage: Protect from Melee does not lower it, but Protect from Magic lowers it by 40%.
Dark bow special attack	The prayer is applied first, then the special's minimum: each arrow still deals at least 4 against Protect from Missiles (8 without it). The Dark bow (bh) deals at least 5 (10 without it).
Dragon scimitar special attack	If it deals damage, it turns off your three protection prayers ("You have been injured!"). For the next 5 seconds you cannot turn on any overhead prayer.
Dragon spear special attack	While you are stunned by it you cannot switch prayers at all.
Tele Block	Protect from Magic halves the Tele Block if it is on when the spell is cast: 2 minutes 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes, or 1 minute instead of 2 minutes in the PvP areas of the Royal Donator Zone and the Divine Donator Zone.
Freezes and other spell effects	Protect from Magic only lowers the damage. Freezes and other effects of a spell that hits still happen.
Multi-combat areas	Every player hit by a barrage spell or a chinchompa uses their own prayer, so the extra targets are protected by their own protection prayers.
Damage that is not an attack	Vengeance, recoil damage (such as the Ring of suffering), Retribution, poison and venom are never lowered by protection prayers.

Against monsters

Against most monsters, the right protection prayer blocks all of that style's damage. For most monsters the prayer counts when the hit lands, so you can still switch after the monster attacks, as long as the right prayer is on before its attack reaches you. Zulrah is different: against Zulrah the prayer counts when Zulrah attacks.

Some monsters get through protection prayers, fully or in part:

Monster	What the right prayer does
Callisto and Divine Callisto	Blocks 60% of the melee and ranged damage.
Venenatis and Divine Venenatis	While her spiderlings are alive, part of her damage gets through: the share of damage that gets through is the share of her spiderlings still alive. Once they are all dead the prayer blocks everything again.
Skotizo	Blocks 60% of the damage of all three styles.
Corporeal Beast and Divine Corporeal Beast	Blocks a third of the melee and magic damage.
Great Olm (Chambers of Xeric)	Blocks 70% of the damage of all three styles.
Nex and Divine Nex	Protect from Magic only blocks a quarter of her magic damage.
Guardian of Votes	Protect from Magic only blocks a quarter of its magic damage.
Roat Pkz Knight, Saint and Archer	Blocks two thirds of the damage.
Justiciar Zachariah, Porazdir and Derwen (Mage Arena II)	Protect from Magic halves their damage.
Verzik Vitur (Theatre of Blood)	Protect from Melee does not lower her melee attack at all, and several of her other attacks are only halved.
Verac the Defiled (Barrows), the Kraken and its tentacles, and Zulrah's snakelings	These hit through protection prayers completely.

A few other monsters, mostly holiday and event bosses, hit through protection prayers for half damage. Many bosses also have special attacks that ignore protection prayers or switch them off, for example the Guardian of Votes' "Icy day" attack and the Great Olm's spheres; see each boss's page.

• Revenants do not attack with the style you are praying against: if your prayer matches their current attack, they switch to another style. See Revenants.
• Dragonfire: Protect from Magic protects you from dragonfire just like an anti-dragon shield or a Dragonfire shield does, cutting the dragonfire of black dragons, lava dragons and the King Black Dragon from up to 65 damage to up to 13.

Prayer drain

Every prayer has a drain rate: the number of Prayer points it uses up every 36 seconds (60 game ticks). The protection prayers use 12 points every 36 seconds, which is 1 point every 3 seconds. Protect Item uses 2 points every 36 seconds, which is 1 point every 18 seconds. When you have several prayers on, their drain rates add up.

Your equipment's prayer bonus slows the drain down: your prayers last (1 + prayer bonus ÷ 30) times as long, so +30 prayer bonus doubles the time.

Prayer bonus	How long 99 Prayer points last
	One protection prayer	A protection prayer and Protect Item
+0	4 min 57 s	4 min 15 s
+10	6 min 36 s	5 min 40 s
+20	8 min 15 s	7 min 5 s
+30	9 min 55 s	8 min 29 s

• When your Prayer reaches 0 you get the message "You have run out of prayer points!" and all your prayers turn off.
• All your prayers also turn off when you die.
• Prayer does not drain at all in Last Man Standing.
• Restore Prayer with prayer potions and super restores.

Protect Item

Protect Item (level 25 Prayer) lets you keep one extra item when you die. It does not lower damage, so you can use it together with a protection prayer.

	Not skulled	Skulled
Without Protect Item	3 items	0 items
With Protect Item	4 items	1 item

• The items you keep are the ones with the highest PK point value, counted one by one, so a stack of a single item can take up several of the kept spots.
• Untradeable items, and items that are always lost, follow their own rules: see Items Kept on Death.
• The Items Kept on Death button on the Worn Equipment tab shows what you would keep and lose. In that window you can switch Protect Item and the skull on and off to see the difference before you go out.
• Protect Item cannot be used as a Hardcore PvP player or anywhere in the Risk Zone (::riskzone and ::highrisk). In those places it turns itself off and its icon is crossed out.

Other overhead prayers

These three prayers use the same overhead slot as the protection prayers, so you can only have one of them, or one protection prayer, on at a time.

Prayer		Level	Effect	Prayer drain
	Retribution	46	When another player kills you while standing less than 4 tiles away from you, it hits that player for 1 to (a quarter of your Prayer level + 1) damage: up to 25 at 99 Prayer.	1 point every 12 seconds
	Redemption	49	When a hit leaves you alive with a tenth of your maximum Hitpoints or less (9 or less at 99 Hitpoints), your Prayer drops to 0, all your prayers turn off and you heal a quarter of your Prayer level (24 at 99 Prayer). It cannot save you from a hit that would kill you.	1 point every 6 seconds
	Smite	52	Every hit you deal to another player also drains their Prayer by a quarter of the damage, rounded down.	1 point every 2 seconds

See also

• Items Kept on Death
• Skulling
• Rigour and Augury and Prayer scrolls
• Phoenix necklace
• Wilderness