This is commonly done with protection prayers and damage-related prayers, such as Protection from Missiles and Piety respectively. In Old School RuneScape, prayer flicking is mostly only used by very skilled players. This is because a strong understanding of attack cycles and game ticks is required to successfully perform it.
How To Do Prayer Flicking
To properly prayer flick, you’ll need to activate the prayer on the precise game tick that you wish the prayer’s effect to take place. For example, if it’s a prayer like Piety where you’re focused on dealing damage, the prayer would only be on for the exact tick you attack. With a 4-tick weapon like a whip, you can use game sounds to help you time this. The same idea works for protection prayers, but you would activate these prayers on the exact tick you get attacked by an enemy. It should be noted that a few enemies in OSRS don’t deal damage on the exact tick they attack, like TzTok-Jad. This means the traditional prayer flicking method won’t work and you’d have to practice the timing to get it just right. A good place to practice this is on slayer tasks. And once you’re more skilled you can try it out with bosses like Commander Zilyana, where you’ll take almost no damage.
What is 1-Tick Prayer Flicking?
If you’re an extremely skilled player, you can attempt 1-tick prayer flicking. This can be done with as little as a single prayer point, which will never run out provided your timing is correct. Doing this method means you’re activating and deactivating your prayers every single game tick. Meaning your prayers are almost always “technically” on. It’s very difficult to do properly. But doing it successful means you won’t drain any prayer. Some players use this method when they’ve run out of prayer in areas like the Fight Caves, or just in general when they’ve run out of prayer and need to ration their remaining points.