At what time do I need to flick my prayer on to reap its benefit?

Solution 1:

After experimenting for a while, I've observed the following:

• For prayers that affect your target (like Soul Split), you want the prayer to be on for the same tick that you deal damage to your opponent. With certain abilities, you may need to delay turning on your prayer for a tick or two. One ability that you need to delay for is Asphyxiate - I believe it takes two game ticks before any damage is dealt with this ability (possibly only one tick). Failing to do this, will result in you turning your prayers on at the wrong time, negating them.

• For prayers that absorb damage being taken, you want your prayers to be on the tick before the damage is dealt. I've noticed that turning the prayer on right as the damage is dealt to me seems to negate the prayer and allows full damage through (exactly what I want to avoid).

All of this comes down to keeping track of the game tick of 0.6 seconds each. If you are too fast or too slow with the prayer flicks, you will become off-tick and your prayers will be useless. You also need to be careful when using abilities so that you don't fall out of the tick cycle as well.