Ultima Online Archery - every bow, the rules archers live under, and the mastery

The rules an archer lives under

uo.com’s Archery page publishes almost no numbers. What it publishes instead is constraints, and they are quoted here because every one of them changes a template:

• Bows are two-handed. “Actions which need you to have a hand free, such as drinking a potion, can not be performed without disarming, unless your bow has the property ‘Balanced’.” The Balanced property is the only published way round it.
• You must carry the right ammunition. Arrows for bows, bolts for crossbows, in your pack or a quiver, with the matching bow equipped.
• You must have line of sight. “Even in UO you can’t shoot around corners.”
• You must be standing still to fire — the single exception being the special move Moving Shot.
• Parry does not work with archery, “nor does any Bushido spell requiring parry”. An archer’s defensive skill is Healing, not a shield.
• Use Best Weapon Skill does not work for archery. The item property every other fighter can lean on is unavailable here.

Two more apply: gargoyles cannot learn or use Archery — Throwing is the gargoyle ranged skill — and arrows and bolts are the product of Bowcraft & Fletching, which is the skill that keeps an archer supplied.

[!] uo.com mentions that “some special quivers give a bonus when worn” and that plain filled quivers in the pack reduce ammunition weight, but publishes no list of which quivers give which bonus and no figure for the weight reduction. Nor does uo.com say whether Archery suffers a penalty when mounted.

Every bow and crossbow

[!] uo.com does not publish an archery weapon table — no damage, speed or range figures appear on its Archery page at all. The damage, speed and range figures in the table below are unpublished and are marked [!] in the column headings. The primary and secondary moves in it are confirmed by uo.com’s Special Moves page, which lists the same pairings for all eight weapons.

Weapon	Damage [!]	Speed [!]	Range [!]	Ammo	Primary (70)	Secondary (90)
Magical Shortbow	12–16	3s	10	Arrows	Lightning Arrow	Psychic Attack
Repeating Crossbow	11–15	2.75s	7	Bolts	Double Strike	Moving Shot
Yumi	13–17	3.25s	10	Arrows	Armor Pierce	Double Shot
Elven Composite Longbow	15–19	3.75s	10	Arrows	Force Arrow	Serpent Arrow
Composite Bow	16–20	4s	10	Arrows	Armor Ignore	Moving Shot
Bow	15–19	4.25s	10	Arrows	Paralyzing Blow	Mortal Strike
Crossbow	18–22	4.5s	8	Bolts	Concussion Blow	Mortal Strike
Heavy Crossbow	20–24	5s	8	Bolts	Moving Shot	Dismount

The shape of the list is a trade: bows fire faster and reach further, crossbows hit harder per shot. The Repeating Crossbow is the fastest thing in the game at 2.75s [!] and pays for it in range — seven tiles [!], three fewer than a bow.

The two special moves, and what they cost

Every bow carries two, unlocked at 70 and 90 Archery with 30 and 60 Tactics alongside. Those must be real skill points — item bonuses do not count towards the requirement.

[!] uo.com contradicts itself about which of the two is called “primary”. Its Special Moves page says the first (primary) move needs 70 and the second needs 90. Its Melee Fighting page says the reverse in as many words: 70 for the “secondary” move, 90 for the “primary”. The numbers are not in dispute — only the labels. The table above follows the Special Moves page, with 70 on primary.

Mana runs 15 to 35 a move, and comes down with your combined total across Swordsmanship, Mace Fighting, Fencing, Archery, Throwing, Parry, Lumberjacking, Stealth, Poisoning, Bushido and Ninjitsu: −5 at 200–299, −10 at 300 or more. A second special within 3 seconds of the last costs double, and a special that gets parried costs nothing at all unless it is a Bushido or Ninjitsu move.

Move	Mana	What uo.com says it does
Lightning Arrow	15	A charged arrow that arcs lightning.
Force Arrow	20	An arrow of pure force, dazing the enemy.
Moving Shot	20	Fire while on the move, with reduced accuracy.
Concussion Blow	20	10–15 scaling direct damage, based on weapon speed.
Dismount	25	Unseats a mounted opponent. 15–25 damage.
Serpent Arrow	25	Poisons the target in addition to normal damage.
Psychic Attack	25	Reduces the target’s Spell Damage Increase by 4–16%.
Armor Ignore	30	Bypasses all of the target’s armour resistance, for one shot only.
Armor Pierce	30	Increases damage by 50%. Requires Bushido or Ninjitsu.
Double Shot	30	Two arrows, with a 15% hit increase. Requires Bushido or Ninjitsu.
Double Strike	30	Two quick shots in succession, with a 10% penalty.
Mortal Strike	30	The victim cannot heal — 8 seconds on a player, 14 on a monster.
Paralyzing Blow	30	Stunned, unable to move, attack or cast — 3 seconds on a player, 6 on a monster.

[!] Moving Shot’s accuracy penalty is described only as “reduced accuracy”. No percentage is published for it anywhere.

The mastery: The Exact

Archery has a Skill Mastery, and its title is The Exact. Masteries need real skill — item bonuses do not count — and the threshold is above 90 [!]. Getting one means a Book of Masteries from Hawkwind’s quest near the Valley of Eodon plus a mastery primer, which drop from champion spawns, Scalis and Charybdis, one per tier.

• Flaming Shot (active, 30 mana [!]) — fires a volley of flaming arrows at a target or a location; on a successful hit it deals fire damage to a number of targets in a radius. uo.com says the radius is determined by your Archery and Tactics, and the damage by mastery level.
• Playing the Odds — raises party members’ swing speed and hit chance as the archer’s range decreases, with a chance to apply a lower-defence debuff to targets within 5 tiles. Scales with Archery, Tactics and mastery level.
• Warrior’s Gifts — the passive shared by all five weapon-skill masteries: +5 Hit Chance Increase at level 1; +5 HCI and +5 Defense Chance Increase at level 2; +5 HCI, +5 DCI, +5 Strength Bonus and +5% Damage Bonus at level 3.

[!] Two gaps here, and one open question. uo.com lists Playing the Odds as an active ability and gives no mana cost; the unpublished figure is 25 mana [!], and whether it is in fact passive is unpublished too [!]. And uo.com does not publish a single magnitude for either ability — not Flaming Shot’s damage, radius or target count, and not Playing the Odds’ swing-speed bonus, hit-chance bonus, debuff size or chance to apply. The 5-tile radius is the only number given.

[!] The cooldown for switching masteries is not settled either: uo.com says 10 minutes; there is also an unpublished figure of 15 minutes [!].

In PvP

An archer wins by controlling the distance and loses by being caught standing still.

• Range decides the engagement. Ten tiles on a bow, and the hit-chance formula [!] uses the defender’s weapon skill as the denominator — so an archer shooting a mage with no weapon skill hits far more often than he would against another dexxer.
• Dismount (Heavy Crossbow, 25 mana, 15–25 damage) takes a runner off his mount. It is the reason the Heavy Crossbow exists on a PvP template despite swinging at 5 seconds.
• Mortal Strike (Bow and Crossbow, 30 mana) stops a player healing for 8 seconds — the window everything else is built around.
• Paralyzing Blow (Bow, 30 mana) holds a player for 3 seconds, unable to move, attack or cast.
• Psychic Attack (Magical Shortbow, 25 mana) cuts an enemy caster’s Spell Damage Increase by 4–16%.
• Moving Shot (20 mana) is the only way to fire on the move, and it costs accuracy to do it. Standing still is otherwise mandatory, and that is the defining archer weakness.
• Playing the Odds makes an archer a group piece: a party-wide swing-speed and hit-chance buff, plus a lower-defence debuff inside 5 tiles.

Against that: no Parry, no parry-based Bushido, no Use Best Weapon Skill, and no potion in the hand unless the bow is Balanced. An archer who is disarmed or closed on has nothing to fall back on but Healing and his feet.

Against monsters

• Range is the whole point. Ten tiles on bows, eight on crossbows, seven on the Repeating Crossbow — most of a fight can happen outside melee reach.
• Armor Ignore (Composite Bow, 30 mana) bypasses all of a target’s armour resistance for one shot. It is the standard answer to a high-resist monster.
• The disables last twice as long. Mortal Strike is 14 seconds on an NPC against 8 on a player; Paralyzing Blow is 6 seconds against 3.
• Flaming Shot hits several targets in a radius, which is the archer’s only published crowd answer.
• Serpent Arrow (Elven Composite Longbow, 25 mana) poisons on top of normal damage — this bow uniquely supports Poisoning among archery weapons.
• Standing still is the handicap. Against anything fast or anything that repositions, every step you take is a shot you did not fire.

Caps, stats and training

Archery is on the Power Scroll list: base cap 100, raised to 105, 110, 115 or 120 by a Wondrous, Exalted, Mythical or Legendary Scroll of Power. It counts against the 720 total skill cap. Primary stat Dexterity, secondary Strength.

From 0 to 30 you buy it from a Warrior Guildmaster. From 30 the method is simple: equip a bow and fight. uo.com’s published route runs through the same ladder as the melee skills — New Haven trainers and the accelerated-gain quests to 50; then Tokuno’s Makoto Jima orcs and deathwatch beetles, the eastern desert, or Solen hive workers to 70; New Haven Mine earth elementals, the dazzled harpies on Covetous level one or Solen Infiltrators near Wind to 90; and from 90 upward Shame level 1, the Tsuki Wolves of Homare Jima, Bushido Dojo ronin, the Fan Dancer Dojo on Isamu Jima, the Arctic Ogre Lord in the Ice Dungeon and finally Shame level 2’s mud elementals.

One rule worth knowing while training in the field: while players are in combat with other players, equipping +skill items carries a 15-second delay before the skill counts.

Where these come from

uo.com Archery · uo.com Melee Fighting · uo.com Melee Damage Increase · uo.com Special Moves · uo.com Skill Masteries · uo.com Skills, Stats & Attributes. Everything here is from uo.com or the game itself; anything uo.com does not publish is marked [!] as unpublished where it appears.