Ultima Online Tactics - the damage bonus, an unpublished figure, and the moves it gates

The damage bonus, and the figure that does not match it

uo.com publishes the bonus as a formula, on two of its own pages, in identical wording:

Tactics Damage Bonus% = Tactics ÷ 1.6  (Add 6.25% if Tactics >= 100)

and states the results at the two milestones: 68.75% at 100 Tactics and 81.25% at 120 Tactics.

[!] A very different, unpublished figure exists. It gives the bonus as skill level + 50% [!] — so 0 Tactics deals 50% [!] of base damage and 120 Tactics deals 170% [!]. Against uo.com’s 81.25% at the same skill, that is not a rounding difference; it is a different model of the whole system. Side by side:

Version	Rule as stated	Figures it states
uo.com (official)	Tactics ÷ 1.6, +6.25% at 100 or more	68.75% at 100, 81.25% at 120
Unpublished [!]	skill level + 50%	50% at 0, 170% at 120

uo.com is the official source and is the figure this toolkit’s weapon pages and damage calculator use. The unpublished figure is recorded here, marked, only because the gap is so large. Nothing official explains the gap, and no per-value table is published — uo.com gives a formula and two points, and that is the entire official record.

Where Tactics sits in the whole damage calculation

Tactics is one of four skill and stat bonuses that add together before the weapon’s base damage is multiplied. uo.com publishes all four as exact lines:

• Tactics ÷ 1.6, and +6.25% at 100 or more
• Anatomy ÷ 2, and +5% at 100 or more
• Lumberjacking ÷ 5, and +10% at 100 or more — axes only
• Strength × 0.3, and +5% at 100 or more

Total Damage Bonus% = Tactics + Anatomy + Lumberjacking + Strength + Damage Increase Items

Final Damage = Base Damage + ( Base Damage × Final Damage Bonus% )

Damage Increase from items is capped at 100%, and the overall bonus at 300%. Compare the divisors and the point of the skill is obvious: Tactics divides by 1.6 where Anatomy divides by 2 and Lumberjacking divides by 5. Point for point, Tactics is the biggest skill-based damage bonus a warrior can buy — on uo.com’s numbers and on the unpublished ones alike.

Every special move it gates

Without Tactics you have no weapon special moves at all. The requirement is 30 Tactics alongside 70 weapon skill, and 60 Tactics alongside 90, in Swordsmanship, Mace Fighting, Fencing, Archery and Throwing alike. Both numbers must be real skill points, not bonus from items.

[!] uo.com labels those two moves in opposite ways on two of its own pages. Its Special Moves page calls the move at 70 the primary and the move at 90 the secondary; its Melee Fighting page says “70 weapon skill and relevant support skill for the ‘secondary’ move and 90 weapon skill and support skill for the ‘primary’ move”. The thresholds themselves — 70 with 30 Tactics, 90 with 60 Tactics — are not in dispute anywhere.

Tactics does not make specials cheaper. The mana discount comes from a combined total across Swordsmanship, Mace Fighting, Fencing, Archery, Throwing, Parry, Lumberjacking, Stealth, Poisoning, Bushido and Ninjitsu — −5 mana at 200–299 and −10 at 300 or more. Tactics is not in that list. It is a gate and a damage bonus, nothing else.

The one exception. uo.com’s Special Moves page notes on both Disarm and Paralyzing Blow that the move “is exempt from the Tactics requirement when used as an Unarmed (wrestling) special move”. That is the whole reason a stun mage exists — see Wrestling.

Tactics has no mastery, but it scales other people's

uo.com’s Skill Masteries page lists masteries for nineteen skills. Tactics is not one of them, and there is no Tactics mastery title, primer or ability set.

It does scale three published abilities belonging to other skills:

• Onslaught and Focused Eye, the two Swordsmanship mastery actives, both scale off “the swordsman’s swordsmanship and tactics skill”.
• Evasion (Bushido) grants an extra 10% on its parry modifier only when Bushido is above Grandmaster and both Tactics and Anatomy are Grandmaster or better. There is also a matching +2 second [!] duration bonus under the same condition.

The mage-side counterpart: casters use Evaluating Intelligence to set spell damage, not Tactics. The two never overlap.

In PvP

• Nothing works without it. Below 30 Tactics a template has no Paralyzing Blow, no Mortal Strike, no Disarm, no Dismount, no Concussion Blow — no specials at all except the two unarmed ones. Tactics is the first thing a PvP warrior buys, not the last.
• It is a flat multiplier on every swing, which in PvP is the difference between landing a kill inside somebody’s heal cycle and not landing it.
• 100 Tactics is a defensive prerequisite too. With 100 Anatomy and Bushido above Grandmaster it unlocks Evasion’s full parry modifier and its longer duration — so a parry-based defence wants Tactics at 100 for reasons that have nothing to do with damage.

In PvM

• The biggest damage bonus you can train, by the published divisors, applied to every hit for the whole fight.
• uo.com’s own worked example on the Melee Damage Increase page runs a double axe at maximum stats with a super slayer and Perfection against 30% physical resist and arrives at 124 damage — Tactics is a term in that sum.
• It is negotiable on a Sampire. Beyond the core, a Sampire’s remaining points vary by build, usually spread among Tactics, Anatomy, Healing, Resist Spells and Spirit Speak. Once the 60 for secondaries is in, the rest of Tactics competes with everything else for the 720.

What is not published

• [!] Any reconciliation of the two damage figures. uo.com says Tactics ÷ 1.6; the unpublished figure is skill + 50% [!]; nothing official explains the difference.
• [!] Any per-value Tactics damage table beyond uo.com’s two points (68.75% at 100, 81.25% at 120).
• [!] Any effect of Tactics on chance to hit. uo.com describes it only as a damage bonus and a special-move requirement; hit chance runs off the weapon skill itself.
• [!] Whether Tactics affects defence, swing speed, or a special move’s chance to succeed. Nothing published says it does.

Caps, and how to train it

Tactics has Power Scrolls, so it runs to 105 / 110 / 115 / 120, counting against the 720 total skill cap. Primary stat Strength, secondary Dexterity. The two thresholds that matter on the way up are 30 and 60; the one that matters at the top is 100, where the extra +6.25% lands.

You do not really train Tactics, you accumulate it. It can gain whenever you hit an opponent with a weapon or a fist — so it rises as a by-product of training Fencing, Mace Fighting, Swordsmanship, Archery or Wrestling, and finishes by simply continuing to fight. The Guaranteed Gain System and Scrolls of Alacrity (0.2–0.5 per check instead of 0.1, for 15 minutes) apply to it as to any other skill.

Where these come from

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