When looking to achieve skill gains for weapons: The biggest factor is the mob level vs. your own, followed second by how many of the weapon you're wielding, and lastly morale. Morale helps the higher it is but don't stress out about it if you can't find enough + morale gear or morale preps(food, potions, scrolls). Some also say your odds are better to fail at using a weapon and thus gain a chance to increase % from failure the lower your skill % is, and using berserk or frenzy accomplishes this with a -10% skill in certain skills.

So for sword, mace, dagger, axe, and hand to hand, make sure you have dual wield and two weapons of different weight. For example, take practice weapons and try to find something heavier or much lighter so you can have one of each weapon type since you won't be able to do so without having a spec in the weapon for same weight. For spear, staff, polearm, flail, and whip you're just going to have to do those one at a time since they are unique in two-handed-ness or being unable to offhand without spec. Flail is also unique in being able to be mainhand with any offhand in weight (up to max wield weight). And of course, hand to hand is speedy when you have dual wield and both hands free.

*EDIT* almost forgot! Begin with hand to hand because the majority of all mobs in Thera do not have weapons and their attack damage is hand to hand. The higher skill % you have in your opponents weapon the higher % chance you will dodge or parry it. Being 100% in hand to hand will help you to take less damage and thus continue fighting longer for more skill gains. In the long run, being 100% in hand to hand as quick as possible will help you the most for solo ranking or skill spamming.

Now, when finding a mob to sit at, the longer you sit and fight it the quicker you're going to master the weapon. To speed up the process it's best to have a lot of hp gear (stay fighting longer), spam feint so you take less damage(stay fighting longer), any healing prog gear, pocket healer, pocket bard, plenty of easy dam redux, and of course - time. You'll have to rest often and heal up to begin again and always be vigilant of your location, how long you've been there, your range, and your current HP. Know that after level 11 you're free game to anyone in your range and often you'll find people looking to take advantage of your low hp from skill training while solo fighting mobs. Situational awareness is the #1 maker and breaker. So set your wimpy where it needs to be, have plenty of gold and a return/teleport/GTFO potions to keep death at bay if you have to run to a healer.

Look for mobs that have a lot of hp, don't aggro after attacking, have low number of attack moves, heal themself, are off the beaten path, are close to a healer, and don't chase or can be locked up.
When you consider mobs you're looking for one that looks to be an equal match or greater without being 'ominous'. There are even a few ominous mobs to find at low levels that you can spam at without being at risk of death, but you've gotta know where to look!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/04/2016 12:17PM by Demtok.