Introduction

This guide is designed to describe how best to integrate unholy prayers into combat progression with the AOD expansion. This is likely going to be very bare-bones primarily because balance changes are expected. A basic understanding of standard combat progression is expected using other various wiki guides.

How do Unholy Prayers fit into combat progression?

Unholy prayers give a massive boost to late base-game combat. They can increase kills per hour (kph) by a magnitude of 1.5x-4/5x in dark waters and beyond. This can dramatically shorten grinds such as 5000 of each dark waters mob and trivialize difficult bosses.

While they can be acquired earlier than Into the Mist (ITM), they are far less effective without the passive slot. One of their main strengths is multiple forms of % max HP damage, which is most effective on the strong enemies such as in Dark Waters, Unhallowed Wasteland, Impending Darkness, and ToTH combat.

Note: The bosses of Into the Mist are immune to all debuffs including unholy marks, so unholy prayers are not effective.

Unholy Prayer Mechanics

Unholy prayers do not follow the same mechanics as normal prayers.

Unholy prayers consume prayer points on each HIT, not once per attack turn.
For each unholy ITEM equipped, 1 unholy mark is applied on HIT to the enemy, up to a maximum of 5.
Each time prayer points are CONSUMED for an unholy prayer, 1 unholy mark is removed from the enemy. This happens independently for each prayer, so for 2 prayers, 2 stacks are removed. This means prayer preservation results in fewer marks being consumed. Enemy attacks also remove 1 stack per attack turn.
Unholy prayers scale in power based on unholy marks on the enemy.

It is also necessary to specifically talk about RECKONING. The effect is extremely unclear "+10% damage dealt per effect affected by". The way this works is:

For each buff on you (meaning, individual icon), you gain 10% damage per unholy mark on the enemy.
Buffs with stacks only count as 1 buff, but debuffs such as stun, poison, stun recovery, ect all count.
Buffs that begin with 0 stacks such as Agile Gem and Leviathan Shield still count as a buff while on 0 stacks.
So for example if you had 5 buffs, with 5 marks on the enemy, you are dealing 250% increased damage.

Due to the mechanics listed above, there are some cases where only a single prayer provides more damage than 2.

With only the minimum 2 items equipped and little/no prayer point preservation, using 2 prayers results in little/no marks being applied meaning prayers have no effect.
Without multi-hitting weapons, a slow attack speed weapon may struggle to stack sufficient marks on the enemy due to them being removed on enemy attacks.
Thus, it is recommended to use multi-hitting weapons with 3+ unholy items for the best results.

Aquiring Unholy Items

There are multiple pieces of unholy gear from crafting skills, archaeology, and combat. The most powerful ones are listed below.

Ring of Malice, Grudge Amulet, Consuming shield from the Unholy Forest dungeon.
Eradication Gloves from the Underwater City dungeon.

It is recommended to acquire the first 3 items as they require a low investment into AoD combat. A brief summary of acquiring them is detailed below:

Find the Mucky Cave point of interest, then kill Vampiric Bat for Barrier Sapping Gloves and Sapping Barrier gems. (optional)
Discover Monuments Dig Site for Ancient Stone Tablet.
Clear Golem Territory and turn in the township task for a Draining Barrier Gem.
Discover Glacia City Ruins Dig Site for Old Route Chart through Archeology.
Clear Unholy Forest for Ring of Malice, Grudge Amulet, Consuming shield.

Other unholy item options include:

Unholy Gem from Archeology as it does not compete as heavily within the gem slot. This item is often worse than Agile/Accuracy gem as those give you a buff for the reckoning prayer.
The next best item is likely Unholy Ring or Cursed Ring as they have acceptable stats relative to other pieces of gear from their slots.
The unholy items from the Cult Grounds dungeon are extremely weak and are not recommended.
Similarly all other pieces of combat or crafted gear which do not have an additional effect are not ideal as they compete with other pieces of gear, and the unholy marks they add are not a desirable tradeoff.

Unholy Prayer Setups for Base Game Combat

All setups use reckoning+destruction prayers and Diamond Luck potions. These setups are suitable for Dark Waters, Unhallowed Wasteland, and Impending Darkness. Make extensive use of combat sim to test your setups to ensure you are hitting the required slayer area negation and damage reduction to not die. When manual-eating, the special attacks do not trigger causing a massive DPS loss. Eradication Gloves are a massive upgrade but require a significantly larger investment into AOD combat.

Note: Using water strike over higher level water spells can be a minimal kph loss with a massive reduction in runes used.

Slot	Options
Head	Glacia God Helmet	Slayer Wizard Hat (Master)
Body	Glacia God Platebody	Slayer Wizard Robes (Master)
Leggings	Glacia God Platelegs
Boots	Glacia God Boots
Hands	Glacia God Gloves
Cape	Skull Cape	Slayer Skillcape
Neck	Grudge Amulet (m)
Passive	Consuming Shield (m)
Ring	Ring of Malice (m)
Gem	Agile Gem	Accuracy Gem
Weapon	Cloudburst Staff

Note: Ranged has bad options for multi-hit in the base game, this is also why unholy gem is listed as an additional item for more marks helps. The passive slot can use an additional unholy item as well. Ring of barrage, and fast weapons such as throwing daggers may be a kph increase with increased levels of ammo/prayer points. Ghost Blunderbow and Engulfing Vortex Longbow are MASSIVE upgrades but require a significantly larger investment into AOD combat.

Slot	Options
Head	Aeris God Helmet	Slayer Cowl (Master)
Body	Aeris God Platebody	Slayer Leather Body (Master)
Leggings	Aeris God Platelegs
Boots	Aeris God Boots
Hands	Aeris God Gloves
Cape	Cape of Prat	Slayer Skillcape
Neck	Grudge Amulet (m)
Passive	Deadeye Amulet
Ring	Ring of Malice (m)
Gem	Unholy Gem (m)	Agile Gem
Weapon	Shockwave	Ancient Crossbow
Offhand	Consuming Shield (m)

Note: Blade echoes is a large gain as it enables multi-hitting. If more DR is needed in the shield slot this setup greatly suffers.

Slot	Options
Head	Ragnar God Helmet	Slayer Helmet (Master)
Body	Ragnar God Platebody	Slayer Platebody (Master)
Leggings	Ragnar God Platelegs
Boots	Ragnar God Boots
Hands	Ragnar God Gloves
Cape	Ancient Infernal Cape	Slayer Skillcape
Neck	Grudge Amulet (m)
Passive	Ring of Malice (m)
Ring	Ring of Blade Echoes
Gem	Agile Gem	Accuracy Gem
Weapon	Infernal Claw	Tidal Edge
Offhand	Consuming Shield (m)

Unholy Prayer Setups for ToTH Combat

Coming soon.

Note: Poison pods and Natures Bloom are upgrades over cloudburst with a large amount of accuracy gained from poison gear. This can enable easy manual kills of most ToTH dungeons as manual eating does not disable Archaic Magics as it does with regular spec attacks.

Combat Guide/Atlas of Discovery

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