Introduction

This guide is designed to describe how best to integrate unholy prayers into combat progression with the expansion.

Unholy Prayers

Unholy prayers can 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 the fragments from Dark Waters and trivialize difficult bosses.

While they can be acquired earlier than ITM, they are far less effective without the Combat Passive Slot. The main strength of Unholy Prayers is multiple forms of % max HP damage, which is most effective on the strong enemies such as in Dark Waters, Unhallowed Wasteland, Impending Darkness Event, and in the Throne of the Herald expansion.

Note: Unholy Prayers are not effective against the boss in Into the Mist as she is immune to all debuffs.

Unholy Prayer Mechanics

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

An Unholy Item (M) will either state "Unholy Item used for Unholy Prayers" or "+1 Unholy Mark stacks applied when hitting with an attack and allows Unholy Prayers to be used with one other item that allows for Unholy Prayers." These two effects are exactly the same.
For each Unholy Item equipped, 1 Unholy Mark is applied to the enemy per hit, up to a maximum of 5.
1 Unholy Mark is removed from the enemy when they complete an attack.
Unholy prayers consume Prayer Points per hit, not once per attack turn.
Each time prayer points are consumed while using an Unholy Prayer, 1 Unholy Mark is removed from the enemy. This happens independently for each prayer, so with 2 prayers, 2 stacks are removed. Preserving Prayer Points results in fewer marks being consumed by the player's attacks.
Unholy prayers scale in power based on unholy marks on the enemy.

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

For each active status effect on you (meaning, individual icon), you gain 10% damage per unholy mark on the enemy.
Multiple stacks of a status effect do not affect the power of Reckoning.
Similarly, a status effect with 0 stacks also counts, as long as the icon is visible.
So for example with 5 active status effects, and 5 Unholy Marks on the enemy, Reckoning increases your maximum hit by +250%.

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 weapon with a long attack interval will struggle to stack sufficient marks on the enemy due to them being removed on enemy attacks.
Thus, it is recommended to use weapons with special attacks that hit multiple times 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 (m), Grudge Amulet (m), Consuming Shield (m) from the Unholy Forest dungeon.
Eradicating Gloves (m) from the Underwater Citydungeon.

Other unholy item options include:

Unholy Gem (m) from Archeology
The Unholy Ring (m) or Cursed Ring (m).

Unholy Prayer Equipment Recommendations

This section is heavily WIP due to the number of different factors that can go into using Unholy Prayers, as well as the possibility of nerfs.

Unholy prayers do not help against Barrier enemies as they do not affect summoning damage.

Base Game

The following equipment sets are useful for Dark Waters, Unhallowed Wasteland, and the Impending Darkness Event

All setups use Reckoning and Destruction Prayers with Diamond Luck Potions.

As always, use the Combat Simulator to test these setups for YOU to ensure you are hitting the required slayer area negation and damage reduction to not die. If attempting to manually eat through a dungeon while relying on weapons with special attacks that hit multiple times, remember that eating interrupts your attack and guarantees that your next attack will be a normal attack.

The Eradicating Gloves (m) are a large upgrade but require a larger investment into AOD combat.

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

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: 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	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)

Note: Blade echoes is particularly important as it grants a special attack with multiple hits to all melee weapons. Replacing the Consuming Shield (m) can hurt this setup a lot.

Throne of the Herald

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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