Overheads is a term that describes prayers that display over a character's head when in use. Overhead prayers are commonly used in a plethora of PvM and PvP-related activities. Players usually use the term "overhead" to refer specifically to protection prayers, especially in bossing and quests, as Retribution and Smite are mainly relegated to PvP usage.
Only one of these prayers may be active at a time. Activating another overhead prayer will cause the previously-active overhead to be turned off.
For a list of monsters that can use overhead prayers, see this page. For a list of monsters that require the player to have unusual timing on their protection prayers instead of praying before the attack happens, see the monsters with abnormal projectiles page.
