One of the lesser-known facts about Old School RuneScape is that the game is run on a time-based system called “ticks”.
Essentially, the game updates itself every 0.6 seconds. Similar to how a video game on a console or PC would have a certain FPS, OSRS uses ticks.
Over the years, players have figured out ways to use this game’s mechanics to their advantage, called “tick manipulation”.
In this guide, I am going to explain one of the benefits of tick manipulation called “Prayer Flicking”, which will let you extend the number of prayer points you have without having to return to an altar.
To prayer-flick in OSRS, you need to activate and deactivate your prayers every 0.6 seconds, aligned with the player’s ticks. This will cause the game to not fully register a prayer being active while still give you the prayer effect, causing you to have your prayer points be drained at a much lower rate!
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How to Prayer Flick in OSRS
Prayer-flicking in Old School RuneScape involves using tick manipulation to make your prayer points drain slower than normal.
It can be tricky at first to understand how this works, but I will do my best to explain the process and where you can apply it.
Old School RuneScape uses ticks to run its game engine. Every 0.6 seconds, OSRS refreshes to the next tick, similar to how other games have frames-per-second (FPS).
There are certain activities in the game that can be activated and deactivated at the beginning of sequential ticks to manipulate how an item/effect is used.
In the instance of prayer-flicking, you can activate a prayer on one tick, deactivate on the next one, and the game will both keep that prayer active while conserving the drain rate of your prayer points.
The most optimal way to do this is to set whichever prayers you need in your quick-prayers menu. Then, you can keep clicking on it every 0.6 seconds to “prayer-flick” them when needed.
The best way to practice is to start fighting a monster that attacks with one combat style and try to prayer-flick the associated protection prayer.
It takes some practice to get the timing right, but you will know if you are doing it right if you don’t get hit with any damage while watching your prayer points drain at a much slower rate.
Prayer-flicking can be done in pretty much every PvM scenario where you want to conserve prayer-restoration potions.
In one example, high-level players will prayer-flick at something like the Inferno where it is essential to save all of your supplies.
Many Ironman-accounts will prayer-flick at early levels when obtaining prayer-restoration potions is more of a chore.
Instead of having to get/farm Ranarrs to make 6-8 Prayer Potions for a slayer task, they can opt for just 1 or 2 and prayer-flick through the task.
That is how to Prayer Flick in Old School RuneScape!
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