Mamlauk: I haven't played this one to hero, but I've seen quite a few. Some people swear by it, but I'm not a huge fan. That said, it has some damn useful skills and you can output some serious damage.

Skill: Level:

Whomp 35

This is a good damage skill that also does a double feint (sometimes?). Every once in a while you will hit some sort of extra damage. There is a log of Kubilak instakilling some druid with a dracolich claw. It's a good kill and can help seal a kill or change a fight that isn't going your way.

Stone Hands 37

Mixed feelings on this. I think it helps you wield heavier weapons, but it doesn't seem to work like Fist in keeping them in your hands if your str drops. Best bet: Pretend you don't have it and gear for str. You've got heavy weapons you have to hold on to.

Swat 40

I'm not sure why you would use this instead of grapple (and offhand grapple) ever, but it's still nice to have a less damaging (to you) disarm ability. Consider this utility but probably not a pk skill.

Brute Force 43

Combine this with bully and you can do some very serious damage to low level NPCs (like cabal inners and outters). Even without them being low level you get more damage and more attacks, which is generally a good thing.

Hack 46

This is your bread an butter skill in that it does some seriously nasty maledicts. Hack leg is death against anyone that can't teleport/word away (big -dex and big increase to move lag). Hack arm is like boneshatter + kote, so will wreck most melee types. Hack torso does big damage and maledicts (str I think, but not 100%) as well as preventing them from resting or recovering really at all, so you can use it to help wear somebody down. I'm not sure on hack head, since no one seems to use it (or hit it) often enough to know, but I'd bet it would be murder to any casting (and maybe communing) class.

Shig-ru: I've played this to hero and was fairly successful. You can look at Thrunna logs to see how it goes, but I'll give some thoughts.

Skill: Level:

Rush 35

This is your bread and butter skill. 2 rounds lag for you, drive, + you get the next strike. When I was killing ranking groups around 35-40, this was just a recipe for awesome. You drive one out, bash, and by the time the rest of the group catches up, you are ready to repeat on the next target. It is unblockable and causes some decent damage.

Willbreaker 40

Does -morale. Not sure how effective it really is, but it is a nice skill in that it fire on pretty much everything you do (bash).

Pillage 43

I can only think of two reasons to use this skill because it uses mana which you don't have and the bonus +morale +dam +hit doesn't last very long (6ish hours). 1) you are fighting a druid and don't have a non-metal or vuln-exploiting weapon, but the weapons aren't great, so I don't know if it will actually be better... or 2) getting a bladed weapon to use with set snares weapon which shig-ru get a bonus with. I haven't tried 2, and Thrunna only had elf (I had iron) and cloud (they were also defilement) druid enemies, so I had no use for 1. Overall usefulness is low, but it doesn't hurt you or make you believe to can do something you can, so it isn't terrible.

Masochism 46

This skill is awesome. Once you have it, and understand it, you shouldn't die (you can't be permalagged) and you no longer need to gear for damage (not that you need to beyond level 35 much anyway). It helps you vs. fiends (to a smallish degree) and is to dirty fighting what concealed on d-elf empire dagger spec is vs dwarf dagger spec.

Punt 48

Landed exactly 1 kill with this. Don't let the helpfile fool you, as far as I could determine it is straight damage. That said, it is good straight damage for 2 rounds of lag, so it is useful in situations where you just need a little damage to turn the fight or to finish someone off (if you can't bash them realiably).

Berserk

The most useful shig-ru skill. Level to 35, use it, love it, keep it up 100% of the time. Of the 7 pk deaths Thrunna had, 1 was pre-masochism (and was something I should have ran away from because I was totally unprepared to fight someone). 1 was because the watcher tore through me in like 2 rounds (see [www.qhcf.net]). 1 was to an improved invis voker before I could see them (and didn't have any potions). 1 was an assassination, and the other 3 were instances were I forgot to berserk. So basically half of my pk losses were directly attributable to not being berserk. I cannot stress enough how important, and awesome, berserk is for a Shig-ru orc.

Tac