Skill Mastery Testing

[PlayerSkillFTW]

So, i've been testing various skill masteries on TC 1, and posting my results on the News thread about Publish 90. I thought it would be a good idea to post the results in a dedicated thread, one not littered with complaints about gold or castles/keeps. Here it is.

First of all, you must have at least 90.0 real skill to utilize it's Mastery. Second, all Mastery abilites scale based off of REAL skill. Skill boosting items, such as Jewelry, do not benefit Mastery abilities. Third, Melee Weapon Masteries only function with their weapon type, not even UBWS would allow you to use Stagger with a Leaf Blade.
All tests were done with Lvl 3 Mastery.

Here's a link to the test results after the latest changes to Masteries. Skill Mastery Testing Part 2

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

WEAPON SKILLS​

SWORDSMANSHIP
"Focused Eye" with 120 Swords/120 Tactics gives +30% HCI (does not exceed cap), it costs 20 Mana (subject to LMC) to activate, and costs 20 Mana (subject to LMC) every 3 seconds to maintain.

"Onslaught" with 120 Swords/120 Tactics and a 100% Physical Damage Iron Katana, applied a flat -20% Physical Resist debuff for 6 seconds to a High Plains Boura, dropping him from 64% Physical Resist, to 44%. Onslaught ignores Consecrate Weapon, and will always debuff the Resist that your weapon regularly targets (making Reforged 100% Elemental Weps even more important for selective hunting).
Onslaught with 120 Swords/120 Tactics and a 100% Physical Damage Iron Katana, applied a flat -10% Physical Resist debuff to another player for 6 seconds. This debuff can be overcome by overcapping Resists, so 80/80/80/80/85 renders an Elf immune to the effects of Onslaught.

MACING
"Toughness" gives +27 Health at 120 Macing/GM Tactics, and +30 Health at 120 Macing/120 Tactics. The extra Health goes above the 150 Cap, so you can reach 180 Health. It costs 20 Mana (subject to LMC) every 3 seconds to maintain.

I tested "Stagger" against High Plains Bouras and Greater Dragons for PvM, and against my other guilded char for PvP, and the results are mixed and interesting. In PvM, as far as i could tell, Stagger doesn't do as much damage as AI against high Resist targets, and doesn't do as much damage as Double Strike against low Resist targets, however, it severely slows down the melee attack speed of the victim (presumably by 60%). In PvP, with 150 STR, 100 DI, 120 Macing/120 Tactics/GM Anatomy and a Iron War Axe, Stagger was dealing 20-29 damage against a 70 Phys Res player, and would apply a -60% SSI debuff for 10 seconds, going into the negatives. So, Stagger is mainly a defensive ability to be used once every 10 seconds basically.
Macing has basically just been relegated to "Tank" for PvM, but still doesn't have good weapon selection, unless ToL is adding more.

FENCING
"Thrust" with 120 Fencing/120 Tactics gave +15% SSI (doesn't go above 60% cap) and +10% Damage Modifier.

"Pierce" with 120 Fencing/120 Tactics does about 40-50% of the victim's max Stamina in Stamina damage over 10 secs in PvP. Against players with low max Stamina, they can potentially out-regenerate the Stam damage. In PvM, Pierce seems to almost always damage 40% of the victim's max Stamina over 10 secs, even monsters that have massive Stamina, such as Anlorvaglem (1,100 DEX/Stam, so 400+ Stam damage in 10 seconds). Three Pierces is enough to drop most creatures to 0 Stamina. Pierce struggles though to lower the Stamina of creatures with Paragon level regen. It requires constant upkeep of Pierce on them to lower their Stamina, and if Pierces falls off of them for even 5 seconds, they can quickly regain their Stamina.

ARCHERY
"Flaming Shot" with 120 Archery/120 Tactics shoots arrows that do Fire damage to all targets within a 5x5 tile radius of the target, and has a 10 second cooldown. Against a single High Plains Boura, it did 69 Fire damage. Flaming Shot's individual damage starts to decline at 3+ targets. It does 31 damage to players with max resists. Flaming Shot does not draw aggro for some reason.

"Playing The Odds" with 120 Archery/GM Tactics halves your Bow Range while increasing your party's HCI by 45% (doesn't go above cap), and their SSI by 30% (doesn't go above cap). Playing the Odds appears to affect pets of party members as well. It lasts for 1 minute, and has a 1 min, 30 second cooldown, so a 2/3 uptime.

THROWING
"Called Shot" at 120 Throwing/120 Tactics gives +45% HCI (doesn't go above cap) and +75% DI for 10 seconds. It has a 1 minute cooldown. Oddly enough, it's +75% DI seems to ignore the 100% DI cap in PvP. With 150 STR, 120 Throwing/120 Tactics/100 Anatomy and 100% item DI with a Soul Glaive, i'd normally do 18-25 damage a hit to a player with maxed resists. As soon as i'd activate Called Shot, i'd start doing 33-43 damage a hit. You can even activate Weapon Specials during Called Shot...
I'm inclined to believe Called Shot mistakenly gives +75% Damage Modifier, rather than Damage Increase, despite what the buff bar says.

"Elemental Fury" with 120 Throwing/120 Tactics lasts for 120 seconds, and adds 11-12 Fury to your Fury Pool with every attack, and once your Fury Pool reaches 69 (every 6th or 7th hit), it unleashes an Elemental Fury attack. Against another player with maxed resists, the Elemental Fury attack did 10 damage. Against High Plains Bouras with a 100% Fire Damage Soul Glaive, it did 132-144 Fire damage.

WRESTLING
"Rampage" with 120 Wrestling provides a stacking +4 HPR, +3 SR, +3% SSI (up to 60% cap) per successful hit for 60 seconds, or until you miss/are parried, which then cancels Rampage.

"Fists of Fury" with 120 Wrestling attempts to hit the target 3 times simultaneously, and if all three blows land, then the third blow deals extra direct damage. Against another player with max resists, the third hit would do anywhere between 4-20 damage. Against High Plains Bouras, the third blow would do between 6-20 damage.

Without new weapons that utilize the Wrestling skill, the Wrestling Masteries are pretty worthless.

PARRYING
"Heighten Senses" with 120 Parry/120 Wep Skill gives +12% Parry chance, and costs 10 Mana (subject to LMC) every 3 seconds to maintain.

"Bodyguard" with 120 Parry/120 Wep Skill gives 50% Damage Reduction to the targeted "protectee", the "protector" will then take 55% of the original damage that the protectee would've taken, for 90 seconds. So it basically diverts half the damage from the protectee, to the protector. Bodyguard only functions when the protector and protectee are within 2 tiles of each other. This ability is absolutely perfect for cross healing by reducing spike damage (thus also making bandage interrupts/slips less likely), so long as the protectee is the one tanking.

"Shield Bash" with 120 Parry/120 Weapon Skill did about 60 damage (normal auto hits were averaging 30 damage) to a High Plains Boura, and paralyzed it for 6 seconds. Shield Bash with 120 Parry/120 Weapon Skill did an average of 30 damage (normal auto hits were averaging 15 with a Katana) to another player with max Resists and paralyzed them for 3 seconds.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

ARCANE MAGIC SKILLS​

MAGERY
"Ethereal Burst" with 120 Magery/120 Eval fully restores your Mana, but has a 2 hour cooldown.

"Death Ray" appears to deal pure Energy Damage. Death Ray with 120 Magery/120 Eval did 64 Damage per tick to a wild Cu Sidhe with 72% Energy Resist (so would do 232 Energy Damage against 0 Energy Resist). Death Ray with 120 Magery/120 Eval did 27 damage per tick to a player with 75 Energy Resist.
Death Ray is interrupted if you move or get hit with anything, even through Protection. Slayers and SDI do not affect the damage. Death Ray requires a massive amount of Mana to use, it consumes 50 Mana (subject to LMC) to initiate the cast, and consumes 35 Mana (subject to LMC) per tick, which is every 3 seconds. Wraith Form works for leeching Mana back with Death Ray. With 40% LMC, and at least 65 damage per tick, you can keep Death Ray up indefinitely with Wraith Form, so long as your target has Mana remaining.

NECROMANCY
"Command Undead" with 120 Necro/120 SS, was easily able to take control of a Lich Lord, with him taking 2 Control Slots and me being able to give him commands like any other pet. However, the Lich Lord no longer cast Necro spells once controlled, the Life Leech only applied to his melee attacks, and oddly enough, he could be healed via Magery or Vet Healing, despite being Undead.

A Skeletal Dragon with 130.0 Barding Difficulty was easily controlled, and still retained his Necro spells. His Wither and Poison Strike would hit me though when i was too close, and aggro him to me. He too, was only 2 Control Slots. The Skeletal Dragon is surprisingly powerful, with high base damage melee attacks (which lends him tankiness via Life Leech), and a very aggressive spellcasting AI. He hits harder than even a tamed Greater Dragon.

Rotting Corpses can be controlled as well. Need to test if Ancient Liches can be controlled, since they're only 5 Barding Difficulty above Skeletal Dragons and Rotts. The Named Undead in Bedlam cannot be controlled. Paragons cannot be controlled. Multiple Undead can be controlled at once, so you can have 2 Skeletal Dragons while riding an Ethy.

"Conduit" with 120 Necromancy/120 Spirit Speak places 4 Skull Candles in a 5x5 tile radius for 10 seconds, and if one of the creatures in the radius is hit with a single target Necro spell, then all creatures in the radius will be affected at the same time, although at 80% normal strength. For example, you can get a bunch of monsters inside the radius, then Corpse Skin all of them simultaneously to reduce their Fire/Poison Resist by 15 (useful for Fire Horns or Hit Fire Area weps). You can also Strangulate all of them simultaneously to apply a DoT, or use Poison Strike to have a sort of "Poison Cluster Bomb" go off, where every single creature in the radius get's hit with the main Poison Strike, as well as multiple secondary strikes if they're bunched up.

Unfortunately, for some reason Conduit will drop any non SC Wep you're wielding, into your pack, which no other Necro spell does.

MYSTICISM
"Mystic Weapon" with 120 Mysticism/120 Focus applies Mystic Weapon -5 to any weapon in your hand, functioning like how Mage Weapon does, except for Mysticism. It lasts for 450 seconds, or until you unequip the weapon, and can be recast immediately.

"Nether Blast" with 120 Mysticism/120 Focus, is essentially another 5 tile "Field" spell, but it extends only 5 tiles directly out from you and has a short duration and higher damage. Each tick was doing 16-19 damage to Gamans. Nether Blast was doing 8-9 damage a tick to a player with max Resists. You can only have one Nether Blast out at a time.

SPELLWEAVING
"Mana Shield" with 120 Spellweaving/120 Meditation, has 15% chance to reduce damage taken by 50%. Half of the original damage is subtracted from Mana. Lasts 600 seconds. Mana Shield can only be applied to yourself. Arcane Focus Level does not affect it.

"Summon Reaper" with 120 Spellweaving/120 Meditation summons a stationary Reaper that has 603 Health/180 Stam/200 Mana, 650 STR/180 DEX/200 INT, Resists on this one are 70/15/18/100/69, it deals 80% Physical/20% Poison Damage with 16-20 Base Damage and GM Wrest/GM Tact/GM Resist/GM Anat, no Magery skills. It does cast some Spellweaving spells though, and it has a damage aura, plus it can do Dismount. It did 20-25 damage per hit to a player with max Resists. Arcane Focus Level does not affect it.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

MARTIAL MAGIC SKILLS​

CHIVALRY
"Rejuvenate" with 100 Chivalry and 120 Wep Skill completely restores the Health/Stamina/Mana of a target, and can remove Curses/Poison, but has a 3 hour cooldown. It's cooldown is 1 hour at 120 Chivalry.

"Holy Fist" with 100 Chivalry, 120 Wep Skill, and 26k Karma, did 123 damage to a Lich Lord. With 120 Chivalry, 120 Wep Skill and 26k Karma, it did 190 damage to the same Lich Lord. With 100 Chivalry, 120 Wep Skill, and 26k Karma, Holy Fist did 19-20 damage to a player with 75 Energy Resist. With 120 Chivalry, 120 Wep Skill, and 26k Karma, Holy Fist did 29-30 damage to the same player with 75 Energy Resist.
It is affected by FC/FCR and has no cooldown, but is Mana intensive, with a base Mana cost of 40 (affected by LMC). Casting Holy Fist is not interrupted by damage. Holy Fist does not deal extra damage to players in Necro Forms. A 100% Spell Reflection Pool was completely consumed reflecting a single 120 Chiv Holy Fist, although the reflected Holy Fist did no damage to the aggressor.

BUSHIDO
"Anticipate Hit", with GM Bushido, Confidence gives +80 HPR for 4 secs, and restores 1-10 Health and 1-21 Stamina per successful Parry, with a 60% chance to reduce the Confidence HPR heal by 75% when hit, instead of completely losing it. With 120 Bushido, Confidence gives +100 HPR for 4 secs, and restores 1-12 Health and 1-25 Stamina per successful Parry, with a 80% chance to reduce Confidence HPR heal by 75% when hit, instead of completely losing it.

"Warcry" with 120 Bushido/120 Wep Skill gives -50% damage taken from all enemies within 3 tiles for 10 seconds. It has a 1 hour cooldown at 120 Bushido/120 Wep skill.

NINJITSU
"Shadow" took awhile to test. With GM Hiding/120 Stealth/120 Ninjitsu on an Elf, i first tested how often taking damage in stealth would pop me out of Stealth. Without Shadow active, i took damage from 30 Earthquakes, each one 30-36 damage. 9/30 of the Earthquakes revealed me. With Shadow active, i took damage from 30 Earthquakes, each 30-36 damage. 8/30 Earthquakes revealed me.
Next, i tested how often i'd get revealed by the Reveal spell. The Revealer had 120 Magery/120 Eval/GM Detect Hidden/GM Tracking and was an Elf. The Stealther had GM Hiding/120 Stealth/120 Ninjitsu and was an Elf. Without Shadow active, 17/30 Reveals succeeded in revealing the Stealther. With Shadow active, 15/30 Reveals succeeded in revealing the Stealther.
Activating Shadow while Hidden/Stealthed, will reveal you. There is an error in the displayed Upkeep Cost of "Shadow" in the Book of Masteries. The Book of Masteries lists the upkeep cost for Shadow as 4 Mana, that is wrong. The actual upkeep cost, is 10 (subject to LMC). Just stealthing around, even with 120 Focus, 55% LMC and 8 MR, i could not maintain Shadow indefinately. Now, while this testing isn't empirical (doesn't have thousands of tests performed), from what i observed, Shadow doesn't seem to work, it just eats Mana.

"White Tiger Form" with 120 Ninjitsu/120 Weapon Skill gives +20% DCI, +5% DCI Cap, Chance to Evade Attacks, and every melee attack inflicts a Bleed effect on the victim (does not work with bows, even within melee range), with 12 max tick damage. Bleed attack does not work on Undead or Automatons (Golems, etc).
White Tiger Form always gives +20% DCI and +5% DCI, regardless of skill. Only the Bleed tick damage is affected by skill. I tested the Evade chance, and it's very small. In the time that i got hit with 100 attacks, i only evaded 5 attacks.
White Tiger Form moves at mounted speed, and is subject to all the same spell casting/ability limitations as other Ninja Forms (no casting spells other than Forms/Mirror Image/Shadowjump, and no toggling Weapon Specials).

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

OTHER SKILLS​

TAMING
"Whispering" Mastery with 120.0 Taming/120.0 Lore, gives a 95% chance for a pet's skill gain to be between 0.2 - 0.5. It's essentially a SoA for pets. Whispering lasts for 600 seconds, and has a 30 min cooldown (usable 20 minutes after it wears off), so 1/3 uptime.

"Combat Training" gives the option to give your pet "Empowerment", "Berserk" or "Consume Damage". Active Meditation can no longer be maintained during the use of "Combat Training".
Not sure what "Combat Training: Empowerment" does yet, but sometimes when the pet is hit when under Empowerment, a bronzish sparkle briefly appears on the pet, no idea what this does.
"Combat Training: Berserk", with further testing, appears to grant a 20-25% damage increase, and when the pet is low health (45% or below), grants extreme Stamina Regeneration.
"Combat Training: Consume Damage" is incredibly powerful at 120 Taming/120 Lore. With Consume Damage on my fully trained Greater Dragon, he was able to take on an Ancient Wyrm Paragon along with 3 Wyverns at the same time, and they could barely even scratch him. I didn't have to vet him at all, and he never went below 80% Health the whole fight, which went on for about 5-10 minutes.
"Combat Training: Consume Damage" does not appear to function in PvP.

POISONING
"Injected Strike" will prompt you to select a Poison Potion (any Poison, even Parasitic or Darkglow) to use on your currently equipped weapon (this works on any weapon, including Bows), granting it multiple Poison Charges (you still have to pass a Poisoning skill check though, which fails a lot).
Once your weapon is poisoned, using Injected Strike again will cause your next successful attack to poison the victim and reduce their Poison Resist by 30% (PvM) or 15% (PvP) for 4 seconds at GM Poisoning/120.0 Anatomy. You can even queue a Weapon Special at the same time, for example you can deliver an AI from a Composite Bow that will simultaneously DP your target.
Even without having Anatomy, Nox Mages can make use of Injecting Strike with a Mage Weapon.

"Tolerance" with 100.0 Poisoning can be toggled to reduce Poison that afflicts you by 1 Level, at the cost of 18 Stamina. So Tolerance will turn DP, into Greater Poison, and consume 18 Stamina when the Poison is applied to you.

"Potency" passive is mainly affected by Poisoning skill, and barely affected by Anatomy. At GM Poisoning, it provides 75% chance for Infectious Strike and Injecting Strike to not consume Poison Charges from your weapon. At GM Poisoning/120 Anatomy, it provides 80% chance.

 

[Gamer_Goblin]

You think Lich Lord not casting should be reported?

 

[OREOGL]

WEAPON SKILLS​

SWORDSMANSHIP
"Focused Eye" with 120 Swords/120 Tactics gives +30% HCI (does not exceed cap), it costs 20 Mana (subject to LMC) to activate, and costs 20 Mana (subject to LMC) every 3 seconds to maintain.

"Onslaught" with 120 Swords/120 Tactics and a 100% Physical Damage Iron Katana, applied a flat -20% Physical Resist debuff for 6 seconds to a High Plains Boura, dropping him from 64% Physical Resist, to 44%. Onslaught ignores Consecrate Weapon, and will always debuff the Resist that your weapon regularly targets.
Onslaught with 120 Swords/120 Tactics and a 100% Physical Damage Iron Katana, applied a flat -10% Physical Resist debuff to another player for 6 seconds. This debuff can be overcome by overcapping Resists, so 80/80/80/80/85 renders an Elf immune to the effects of Onslaught.

MACING
"Toughness" gives +27 Health at 120 Macing/GM Tactics, and +30 Health at 120 Macing/120 Tactics. The extra Health goes above the 150 Cap, so you can reach 180 Health. It costs 20 Mana (affected by LMC) every 3 seconds to maintain.

I tested "Stagger" against High Plains Bouras and Greater Dragons for PvM, and against my other guilded char for PvP, and the results are mixed and interesting. In PvM, as far as i could tell, Stagger doesn't do as much damage as AI against high Resist targets, and doesn't do as much damage as Double Strike against low Resist targets, however, it severely slows down the melee attack speed of the victim (presumably by 60%). In PvP, with 150 STR, 100 DI, 120 Macing and 120 Tactics and a Iron War Axe, Stagger was dealing 20-29 damage against a 70 Phys Res player, and would apply a -60% SSI debuff for 10 seconds, going into the negatives. So, Stagger is mainly a defensive ability to be used once every 10 seconds basically.
Macing has basically just been relegated to "Tank" for PvM, but still doesn't have good weapon selection, unless ToL is adding more.

FENCING
"Thrust" with 120 Fencing/120 Tactics gave +15% SSI (doesn't go above 60% cap) and +10% Damage Modifier.

"Pierce" with 120 Fencing/120 Tactics merely applied a -12 Stam Regen debuff to another player for 10 seconds. It didn't actually do any Stamina drain to the player. In PvM however, Pierce seems to almost always damage 40% of the victim's max Stamina over 10 secs, even monsters that have massive Stamina, such as Anlorvaglem (1,100 DEX/Stam, so 400+ Stam damage in 10 secs). Three Pierces is enough to drop almost any creature to 0 Stamina. Not even Paragons (which have crazy Regen) can keep up their Stamina if you refresh Pierce on them every 10 seconds.

ARCHERY
"Flaming Shot" Mastery is interesting, and requires more testing. I can't quite tell if the damage is fixed, or based upon your bow damage, since damage numbers aren't popping up when i use it. It has about a 10 second cool down with 120 Archery/GM Tactics.

"Playing The Odds" with 120 Archery/GM Tactics, it halves your Bow Range, while increasing your party's HCI by 45% (doesn't go above cap), and their SSI by 30% (doesn't go above cap). Still need to test if it affects pets. It lasts for 1 minute, and has a 1 min, 30 second cooldown, so a 2/3 uptime. It's OP as balls for groups.

THROWING
Need to test.

WRESTLING
Need to test.

PARRYING
"Heighten Senses" with 120 Parry/120 Wep Skill gives +12% Parry chance, and costs 10 Mana (subject to LMC) every 3 seconds to maintain.

"Bodyguard" with 120 Parry/120 Wep Skill gives 50% Damage Reduction to the targeted "protectee", the "protector" will then take 55% of the original damage that the protectee would've taken, for 90 seconds. So it basically diverts half the damage from the protectee, to the protector. Bodyguard only functions when the protector and protectee are within 2 tiles of each other. This ability is absolutely perfect for cross healing by reducing spike damage ( plus not as likely to get hit hard enough to disrupt bandage), so long as the protectee is the one tanking.

"Shield Bash" with 120 Parry/120 Weapon Skill did about 60 damage (normal auto hits were averaging 30 damage) to a High Plains Boura, and paralyzed it for 6 seconds. Shield Bash with 120 Parry/120 Weapon Skill did an average of 30 damage (normal auto hits were averaging 15 with a Katana) to another player with max Resists and paralyzed them for 3 seconds.

For the flaming shot it didn't show damage but when I tried on another player who said they had 70 resists, it did 31 points of damage consistently.

The playing the odds you have to be At least near the other person for the buff to work but doesn't appear to go over the cap do seems pretty worthless.

 

[Dizzy]

Were you able to test is the 3rd magery mastery improvement to summons is noticeable? I'd still looking for an RC the frost dragons cant dispel.

 

[MalagAste]

TAMING​

TAMING (duh)
"Whispering" Mastery with 120.0 Taming/120.0 Lore, gives a 95% chance for a pet's skill gain to be between 0.2 - 0.5. It's essentially a SoA for pets.

"Combat Training" gives the option to give your pet "Empowerment", "Berserk" or "Consume Damage".
Not sure what "Empowerment" or "Berserk" (it's certainly not like the Berserk from Bestial Set) do yet, but "Consume Damage" is something ridiculous. I use it on my Greater Dragon with 120 Taming/120 Lore, and he just won't die. I pit him against wild Greater Dragons (which i used to have to vet him a lot against), and they can't even damage him now. Ancient Wyrms can't even scratch him. I don't even have to vet him with "Consume Damage" up.
Yeah, it's official, Consume Damage is OP as hell. My Greater Dragon just took on a Ancient Wyrm Paragon along with 3 Wyverns at the same time, and didn't require any Vetting. He didn't even go below 80% Health...

Good so this means I might be able to actually use my GD on something decent without having to stand beside him and die.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

I'm logging for a bit. Will be back later to finish testing Throwing, Wrestling, Ninjitsu and Poisoning.

 

[Lord Frodo]

I'm logging for a bit. Will be back later to finish testing Throwing, Wrestling, Ninjitsu and Poisoning.

You have done one hell of a job for the UO players, keep up the good work.

 

[Spock's Beard]

Necro ones seem to be mage-only.

 

[Synbad]

Hopefully the "Consume Damage" for pets does not get nerfed... sounds awesome and yet too awesome

 

[Spock's Beard]

OMG, the fencing masteries are so good, and sword/mace ones are so worthless.

Fencing gets a straight SSI buff, and a move that pretty much completely stam drains a monster? Yes please. Meanwhile swordsmanship has an HCI buff that only matters if you're under cap and don't like using Lightning Strike, and another mastery that does something to resists that nobody cares about because Armor Ignore.

Macing continues to not matter because every weapon is some 4s piece of crap with worthless specials. Except the war axe, I could see that being used in PVP for Stagger.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

OMG, the fencing masteries are so good, and sword/mace ones are so worthless.

Fencing gets a straight SSI buff, and a move that pretty much completely stam drains a monster? Yes please. Meanwhile swordsmanship has an HCI buff that only matters if you're under cap and don't like using Lightning Strike, and another mastery that does something to resists that nobody cares about because Armor Ignore.

Macing continues to not matter because every weapon is some 4s piece of crap with worthless specials. Except the war axe, I could see that being used in PVP for Stagger.

The +15% SSI from Thrust isn't that amazing, because most Fencing Weps are already innately fast. Pierce though, is amazing for PvM. Being able to drop a monster down to 0 Stamina, which slows down their attack and movement speed, is very useful against Bosses/Peerlesses.

Onslaught has a use against creatures that are more vulnerable to Double Strike than AI (creatures with less than 50% in their lowest Resist). For example, Navrey Night-Eyes, whom normally has 45-55% Fire Resist. An Onslaught from a 100% Fire Double Axe, would reduce her to 25-35% Fire Resist, making DS from that Double Axe hit even harder. Not to mention, the -20% Fire Resist to her would be "universal", so anyone else using the Fire Element against her would do more damage as well, making Navrey die faster overall. Combine a Corpse Skin with that, and Navrey goes down to 10-20% Fire Resist, making DS absolutely superior to AI against her.

While Macing's Toughness seems kind of moot if you can out heal incoming damage and aren't getting hit with massive burst, the Stagger ability is still useful. Stagger does a decent amount of damage (although not as good as DS against <50% resist creatures, and not as good as AI against >50% resist creatures), but it's real use is the -60% SSI debuff it applies. A creature hit with Stagger, will attack even slower than a creature at 0 Stamina from Pierce, although they'll still have full movement speed. But yes, Macing is in some serious need for new, useful weapons.

 

[Uvtha]

The +15% SSI from Thrust isn't that amazing, because most Fencing Weps are already innately fast. Pierce though, is amazing for PvM. Being able to drop a monster down to 0 Stamina, which slows down their attack and movement speed, is very useful against Bosses/Peerlesses.

Onslaught has a use against creatures that are more vulnerable to Double Strike than AI (creatures with less than 50% in their lowest Resist). For example, Navrey Night-Eyes, whom normally has 45-55% Fire Resist. An Onslaught from a 100% Fire Double Axe, would reduce her to 25-35% Fire Resist, making DS from that Double Axe hit even harder. Not to mention, the -20% Fire Resist to her would be "universal", so anyone else using the Fire Element against her would do more damage as well, making Navrey die faster overall. Combine a Corpse Skin with that, and Navrey goes down to 10-20% Fire Resist, making DS absolutely superior to AI against her.

While Macing's Toughness seems kind of moot if you can out heal incoming damage and aren't getting hit with massive burst, the Stagger ability is still useful. Stagger does a decent amount of damage (although not as good as DS against <50% resist creatures, and not as good as AI against >50% resist creatures), but it's real use is the -60% SSI debuff it applies. A creature hit with Stagger, will attack even slower than a creature at 0 Stamina from Pierce, although they'll still have full movement speed. But yes, Macing is in some serious need for new, useful weapons.

Combine all three in a group and you have seriously disabled the target. I agree the fencing one is clearly the best, they all have uses, and look good for group play.

 

[BeaIank]

Onslaught can also bring a 75% resist monster down to the sweet spot where DS and AI are equal, and monsters in the 60% range of resist down to where DS is more effective than AI.
Even more so if you have a bard discoing said monsters.

It has some nice uses when soloing, but shines in a group.

 

[Uvtha]

I tested wrestling, and posted my results in the patch thread which has no devolved into board drama. Basically it's useless. The passive "KO punch" is waaaaay too low to matter (you hit ettins for like 10-20 damage), the mode ability "Rampage" is worthless because it poofs if you miss (and is underwhelming otherwise) and the special attack "Fists of Fury" while not horrible with its partial direct damage it suffers from the super low damage of fists overall.

Also, Rampage disarms you, so if you had a shield you have to rearm it, which is very obnoxious.

I would up KO bonus to 150% pvp, +250% for pvm and on top of that add +Str%. For Rampage, just the "if you miss Rampage ends" (it's not so powerful that it needs a downside) and have it cast like a chiv spell and not disarm you. Fists of Fury is fine in function, but I would remove the timer, and have it work just like a regular special attack.

You would be at least functional, but still easily outclassed by weapons. As it is now, its pretty much nothing.

 

[Spock's Beard]

Is there any way to macro the new weapon moves, specfically in the CC? I see the new spells on the CastSpell list but that's it.

And I think macing is just borked for life. A whole weapon revamp and now all these new moves and it's still just the war axe skill. I give up on it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and can we call "Saving Throw" something else like "Iron Grip" or something? I mean calling it "saving throw" is way too meta don't you think? It's literally a reference to throwing dice in a game and doesn't have any meaning in the context of the game itself.

 

[BeaIank]

You should take a look on the maul. You need a fair bit of SSI on your suit, but it's a really sweet DS weapon..

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Onslaught can also bring a 75% resist monster down to the sweet spot where DS and AI are equal, and monsters in the 60% range of resist down to where DS is more effective than AI.
Even more so if you have a bard discoing said monsters.

It has some nice uses when soloing, but shines in a group.

Yep. Disco+Onslaught+Corpse Skin (against creatures weakest to Fire/Poison) makes DS do a lot more damage than AI.

You should take a look on the maul. You need a fair bit of SSI on your suit, but it's a really sweet DS weapon..

The Disc Mace is decent for PvP, with AI/Disarm and 2.75 Wep Speed. Unfortunately, Gargoyle Melee are extremely rare, with how they don't have access to the same Artifacts and can't use Swamp Dragon Barding for 20% Damage Reduction in PvM. Plus, while testing awhile back i noticed that a lot of Gargoyle Macing Weps, lack extra Stamina Damage. http://stratics.com/threads/stam-damage.320884/

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Just finished testing and updating the Ninjitsu section, as well as added some general info about Masteries (such as they only work with Real Skill).

 

[OREOGL]

Is there any way to macro the new weapon moves, specfically in the CC? I see the new spells on the CastSpell list but that's it.

And I think macing is just borked for life. A whole weapon revamp and now all these new moves and it's still just the war axe skill. I give up on it.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and can we call "Saving Throw" something else like "Iron Grip" or something? I mean calling it "saving throw" is way too meta don't you think? It's literally a reference to throwing dice in a game and doesn't have any meaning in the context of the game itself.

last spell macro should work

or You can record it in uoa

 

[OREOGL]

Death Ray: needs some tweaking, the only way for this to work is if you stand still and let it go the full length. the problem is the other person has to stay in range and thats never going to happen. If you move to keep them in range it breaks the spell.

I cant think of any instance this would be useful. Maybe pvm?

 

[OREOGL]

fencing: thrust im not sure this is valuable since most fencing takes only 90 stam with a 2 second weapon to be at full swing speed. there are only 3 fencing weapons above the 3 second swing speed.

pierce is going to drain about 50 stamina from 125, 30 from 80, from the target at 10 mana with full lmc. the drop should be increase to compensate for refresh potions. increase to 40 stamina loss?

 

[OREOGL]

stagger seems pretty cool for macing, lowering 60 ssi and is completely defensive using 10 mana at 40 lmc.

toughness is okay, adding 30 hp. but mana consumption is high using 9 mana at 40 lmc every 3 seconds.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Hopefully the "Consume Damage" for pets does not get nerfed... sounds awesome and yet too awesome

Consume Damage is amazing at 120 Taming/120 Lore. But remember, only real skill counts towards Masteries, so the power of Consume Damage is well deserved. Taming is the absolute hardest skill to gain in the game, and going from GM - 120 is a grind from hell. I should know, my main Tamer/Mage on Napa spent months taming Cu Sidhes several hours a day to go from 110 Taming to 120. Most Tamers avoid that by having 90-GM Taming, and using +Skill gear, which won't work for Masteries.

 

[Gamer_Goblin]

Consume Damage is amazing at 120 Taming/120 Lore. But remember, only real skill counts towards Masteries, so the power of Consume Damage is well deserved. Taming is the absolute hardest skill to gain in the game, and going from GM - 120 is a grind from hell. I should know, my main Tamer/Mage on Napa spent months taming Cu Sidhes several hours a day to go from 110 Taming to 120. Most Tamers avoid that by having 90-GM Taming, and using +Skill gear, which won't work for Masteries.

Mythic token and a lot of gold on SOTs personally.

 

[OREOGL]

focus eye; 10 mana every 3 seconds at 40 lmc increasing hci to 30% but doesnt exceed cap. probably good for sampires.

onslaught only gives 10 physical reduction for only a few seconds using 10 mana at 40lmc

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

fencing: thrust im not sure this is valuable since most fencing takes only 80 stam with a 2 second weapon to be at full swing speed. there are only 3 fencing weapons above the 3 second swing speed.

pierce is going to drain about 20 stamina from the target at 10 mana with full lmc. the drop should be increase to compensate for refresh potions. increase to 40 stamina loss?

2 second weapons require 90 Stamina to swing at max swing speed, 1.25 seconds. Every 30 Stamina allows you to swing 0.25 seconds faster.

Just tested Pierce again in PvP. Looks like it acts similar in PvP to how it acts in PvM, it does Stamina damage based on a percentage of the victim's max Stamina. First time i tested it, i was using it against a char with 25 Stamina, and didn't notice any Stam drop. Just used it against a char with 130 Stamina, and it dropped him to 65 Stamina over 10 seconds. Then used Pierce on a char with 30 max Stamina, and they were able to out-regen it's Stamina damage.

 

[OREOGL]

MANA shield: im not sure about this one, it works less than 10% of the time with a 15% chance of working.

The reaper is cool, drawing people to it doing around 25 pts of damage a shot and is pretty frequent along with casting spells.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Mythic token and a lot of gold on SOTs personally.

Yeah, i've been training a Tamer/Bard on Atlantic recently. Started him at 50.0 Taming, and have trained him up to 93.5 in a few months. I'm at the point where i spend 25-45 minutes a day getting 0.5 Taming gain on him. Been slacking off on that though since i've been testing Masteries.

 

[OREOGL]

2 second weapons require 90 Stamina to swing at max swing speed, 1.25 seconds. Every 30 Stamina allows you to swing 0.25 seconds faster.

Just tested Pierce again in PvP. Looks like it acts similar in PvP to how it acts in PvM, it does Stamina damage based on a percentage of the victim's max Stamina. First time i tested it, i was using it against a char with 25 Stamina, and didn't notice any Stam drop. Just used it against a char with 130 Stamina, and it dropped him to 65 Stamina over 10 seconds. Then used Pierce on a char with 30 max Stamina, and they were able to out-regen it's Stamina damage.

Youre right it is 90, but you can only swing as fast at 1.25. Doesnt seem thrust ignores this. about everyone uses ssi already on top of this.

just tried at higher stamina and it does drain more but cant tell any certain percentage. AT 125 stam it dropped to 70 ish 80 it dropped to 50

 

[OREOGL]

i tried rejuvenate but it didnt remove poison and did little to heal. problem is it takes an hour before you can use it again! this seems a bit high for cooldown.

intuition gave me 15 extra mana and is passive

holy fist did 15-17 damage but i was unsavory for karma. really mana intensive, maybe someone with high karma can try it.

 

[OREOGL]

injection: this one seems borked i never could apply dp with this on but it doesnt consume mana and applies a 15 poison reduction for resists. im not sure why this affected the level of poison. this does stack at the same time as the dp special. may be cool if left this way.

potency works frequently to make sure it doesnt consume any charges (which will be extremely annoying for someone fighting against a person with this)

tolerance seems to work fine.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Youre right it is 90, but you can only swing as fast at 1.25. Doesnt seem thrust ignores this. about everyone uses ssi already on top of this.

just tried at higher stamina and it does drain more but cant tell any certain percentage. AT 125 stam it dropped to 70 ish 80 it dropped to 50

Use Anatomy on the victim. At 80.0+ Anatomy, it'll tell you the percentage of Stamina your opponent has remaining.

 

[OREOGL]

Use Anatomy on the victim. At 80.0+ Anatomy, it'll tell you the percentage of Stamina your opponent has remaining.

didnt need to i used it on an alternate account i was multiboxing on. i meant about the scale from 125 to 80 and down

 

[Lord Frodo]

And I think macing is just borked for life. A whole weapon revamp and now all these new moves and it's still just the war axe skill. I give up on it.

The Berserker's Maul
Rune Engraved Peg Leg
Shard Thrasher

 

[Uvtha]

The Berserker's Maul
Rune Engraved Peg Leg
Shard Thrasher

Surely you aren't mentioning those as a counter argument to "macing is borked"!

 

[Lord Frodo]

Surely you aren't mentioning those as a counter argument to "macing is borked"!

It is not as "BORKED" as people think it is, it is still a viable skill.

You should take a look on the maul. You need a fair bit of SSI on your suit, but it's a really sweet DS weapon..

And how funny that you liked this post and I have a Berserker's Maul listed witch means you do not know that it has %75 SSI (%60 useable) already on it but that is ok we understand.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Mythic token and a lot of gold on SOTs personally.

So this expansion is going to be a major payday for the gold sellers, for those who don't have several hundred million lying around
Edit: for the store too if you're on a shard with enough people to sell tokens to and find pink scrolls for sale

 

[Lord Frodo]

So this expansion is going to be a major payday for the gold sellers, for those who don't have several hundred million lying around
Edit: for the store too if you're on a shard with enough people to sell tokens to and find pink scrolls for sale

Taming has always been that way, this expansion has done nothing to change that.

 

[Yadd of Legends]

Taming has always been that way, this expansion has done nothing to change that.

The difference is that I've always done quite well with 90 real taming and +30 on jewels. No advantage to real skill other than bragging rights.
Now, if I want to use the high-level taming masteries, I'm going to have to get 120 real skill. So tamers wanting to use the masteries are going to have to decide between investing hundreds of hours to reach 120 or buying pink scrolls.

 

[Lord Frodo]

The difference is that I've always done quite well with 90 real taming and +30 on jewels. No advantage to real skill other than bragging rights.
Now, if I want to use the high-level taming masteries, I'm going to have to get 120 real skill. So tamers wanting to use the masteries are going to have to decide between investing hundreds of hours to reach 120 or buying pink scrolls.

OR just staying the way you are. My Tamer is 115 Tame/Lore and until I xfer her over to TC with her pets I will not worry about it. IMHO I will probably leave her the way she is because I do not have to have all the OMG LEET **** to enjoy playing UO.

 

[PlayerSkillFTW]

Well, asides from a few minor tests (and figuring out the Empowerment and Berserk of Combat Training), testing is mostly complete.

 

[Lord Taliesin]

@PlayerSkillFTW thanks for posting all of your results. I'm pretty excited about these masteries, some seem underpowered, some may get toned down before release but overall pretty good. Might lead to some retooling of characters since they're based on real skill.

 

[Spock's Beard]

The Berserker's Maul
Rune Engraved Peg Leg
Shard Thrasher

Is this a joke? Those weapons are newbie garbage. None of them have any leeches and other than maybe double strike on the maul, there isn't even a decent special move among them. Every one of them is infinitely inferior to even a basic imbued war axe. If you actually think the berserker's maul is a viable PVM weapon in 2015 then it's very obvious that you haven't played melee seriously since at least the Mondain's Legacy days, if ever, and don't know what you're talking about. Sorry.

 

[Synbad]

Consume Damage is amazing at 120 Taming/120 Lore. But remember, only real skill counts towards Masteries, so the power of Consume Damage is well deserved. Taming is the absolute hardest skill to gain in the game, and going from GM - 120 is a grind from hell. I should know, my main Tamer/Mage on Napa spent months taming Cu Sidhes several hours a day to go from 110 Taming to 120. Most Tamers avoid that by having 90-GM Taming, and using +Skill gear, which won't work for Masteries.

Yeah I hear that I have a legendary tamer on lake Superior and going for it again on Siege perilous

 

[Fridgster]

Honestly I'm very interested in the necro masteries. Necro tamer may be viable once again. Imagine a skeletal dragon tanking with a runebeetle doing damage. Hopefully the RB and Skele don't end up fighting each other. Or perhaps an adjusted sampire build that can control a couple Skeles.

 

[Spock's Beard]

Or perhaps an adjusted sampire build that can control a couple Skeles.

Without magery you have no real way of getting controlled undead around or of healing them. Plus the other one with the candles requires spell channeling for some reason. I play necro melee and would love to use these masteries but it seems like I'm not "supposed" to. The swords ones are pretty underwhelming too so I dunno what I'll end up with.