Prayers, Curses & Familiars: RS3's Combat Support Explained
Damage abilities get the attention, but prayers and familiars are the cheap, underrated boosts that make every fight safer and faster. If you're bossing without them, you're leaving free power on the table.
Prayers vs Curses
RuneScape 3 has two prayer books, and you pick one at a time:
- Standard prayers — the default book, unlocked as you level Prayer. Includes protection prayers and damage/accuracy boosts.
- Ancient Curses — an alternative book unlocked through a quest. It swaps protection for Deflect curses (which protect and reflect a little damage) and adds sap/leech curses that weaken your target while buffing you.
You can only have one book active, so most players settle on Curses once they've unlocked them, but both work.
The two jobs prayers do
- Protection / Deflect — reduces or blocks damage from a specific style (Melee, Ranged, or Magic). Flicking the right protection at the right moment is one of the highest-value habits in PvM.
- Boosting — increases your damage and accuracy for your style (the top-tier boosting prayers are a big, always-on DPS gain). Keep your style's best boosting prayer on whenever you can afford the prayer points.
Prayer points drain over time, so bring restore potions for longer trips.
Summoning familiars
Summoning lets you call a familiar that fights or helps alongside you. Broadly:
- Combat familiars add damage, and some have useful special moves (fired with scrolls) — extra DPS, healing, or utility.
- Beasts of Burden carry extra inventory space, huge for long trips and Ironman supply runs.
- Skilling familiars boost gathering or production while you train.
Familiars last a set time before they need re-summoning, and their scroll specials are cheap value — keep a stack on your action bar.
Put it together
The strongest, cheapest setup for almost any fight is: your style's best boosting prayer, the right protection/deflect when you're taking that style of damage, and a combat familiar with scrolls. That trio alone noticeably raises your kills-per-trip before you spend a single coin on gear.
Get the specifics
- RuneScape Wiki — Prayer and Summoning for every prayer and familiar.
- PvME for which prayer, curse, and familiar to run at each boss.
Level Prayer and Summoning show up automatically on your Codex profile — see the combat abilities guide for how these fit into your rotation. References courtesy of the RuneScape Wiki and PvME.