Ultima Online Throwing - the gargoyle range sweet spot, and the weapon stats that are not settled

The range sweet spot - the whole skill in one table

uo.com: “the calculated maximum range a player can throw their weapon is used to determine how accurate their throw actually is when trying to hit a target at a certain distance.” There are three states, and uo.com publishes each with a worked example using a weapon whose maximum range is six tiles:

State	uo.com’s worked example	Hit chance	Damage
Underthrown	Maximum range six tiles, thrown at a target two tiles away — too close	−12%	No reduction
Perfect	Maximum range six tiles, thrown a distance of four tiles	No penalty	No reduction
Overthrown	Maximum range six tiles, thrown a distance of six tiles	No penalty	−47%

Dexterity partially rescues the close shot. uo.com: “a player’s Dexterity can partially negate the Hit Chance penalty incurred by such close proximity.” Escaping the close-quarters penalty entirely takes Grandmaster (100) [!] Throwing plus sufficient Dexterity.

[!] The exact Dexterity value is not published, nor a formula for how much of the 12% it removes. uo.com says only “partially negate”.

[!] The zones are not published per weapon. uo.com gives only the six-tile worked example above plus each weapon’s minimum and maximum range. There is no published rule mapping a distance to a zone for a weapon with a different range, so no per-weapon zone table is given here — any such table would be constructed, not published.

The three weapons, and an unpublished variant

There are three throwing weapons, all one-handed. uo.com publishes them like this:

Weapon	Range	Damage	Speed	Primary (70)	Secondary (90)
Boomerang	4–7	11–15	2.75s	Mystic Arc	Concussion Blow
Cyclone	6–9	13–17	3.25s	Moving Shot	Infused Throw
Soul Glaive	8–11	16–20	4.0s	Armor Ignore	Mortal Strike

[!] Unpublished damage and speed figures differ for all three: Boomerang 8–12 at 2s [!], Cyclone 13–17 at 3s [!] and Soul Glaive 18–22 at 4s [!], with the same special-move pairings. Only Cyclone’s damage range matches uo.com’s:

Weapon	uo.com (official)	Unpublished variant [!]
Boomerang	11–15 at 2.75s	8–12 at 2s
Cyclone	13–17 at 3.25s	13–17 at 3s
Soul Glaive	16–20 at 4.0s	18–22 at 4s

uo.com’s figures are the ones to build against; the unpublished figures are shown for comparison only. The ranges — 4–7, 6–9 and 8–11 tiles — come from uo.com and are not disputed.

[!] Also unpublished for all three weapons: their Strength requirement, which crafting skill makes them, and their damage type. uo.com’s Throwing page does not list any of it.

[!] Whether the published minimum range is a floor below which the weapon cannot be thrown at all, or simply where the good band starts, is not stated.

Shields, and why a thrower carries Parry

All three throwing weapons are one-handed, so a shield fits — but it is not free. uo.com: “the player will suffer a Defense and Hit Chance penalty for using a shield while using a throwing weapon. These penalties can be offset by investing skill points into Parrying.”

That is a rare thing in the published material: one skill page naming another as the fix for its own drawback. If you want a shield on a Bladeweaver, Parry is not optional flavour, it is the price.

[!] Whether a thrown attack can itself be parried by the target is not published. uo.com’s Parry page says melee and archery attacks can be blocked; Throwing is not named either way.

The six special moves

70 Throwing with 30 Tactics for the first move, 90 with 60 Tactics for the second, real skill points only. Between them the three weapons cover six moves:

Move	Mana	What uo.com says it does
Mystic Arc	20	The projectile “will arc to a second target”, creating chaos energy bursts.
Concussion Blow	20	“Applies scaling direct damage between 10-15 based on weapon speed”, with mana drain effects.
Moving Shot	20	“Fire while on the move. This shot is somewhat less accurate than normal.”
Infused Throw	25	The projectile “will be infused with energy”, causing more damage and stunning or dismounting.
Armor Ignore	30	“Bypass all of their target’s armor resistance, for one shot only”, at 90% normal damage.
Mortal Strike	30	“Render its victim unable to heal any damage for several seconds” — 8 seconds on a player.

Throwing counts toward the combined-skill mana discount alongside the melee weapon skills, Parry, Lumberjacking, Stealth, Poisoning, Bushido and Ninjitsu: −5 mana at a combined 200–299 and −10 at 300 or more. Using a special within 3 seconds of the last one costs double.

Damage itself comes from the usual stack: Tactics ÷ 1.6, Anatomy ÷ 2 and Strength × 0.3, each with its bonus at 100. [!] Note that the Tactics line is not settled — Tactics ÷ 1.6 on uo.com against an unpublished skill + 50% [!] — which the Tactics page sets out in full.

The Precise - the Throwing mastery

Above 90 real Throwing, with a primer read for each of the three tiers, the mastery is titled The Precise: two actives plus the passive shared with the other weapon skills.

• Elemental Fury — 20 mana. Builds a fury pool and unleashes it once fully accumulated. Capped at 35 damage in PvP.
• Called Shot — 40 mana. Provides hit chance increase and damage increase. Capped at 100 pre-resist damage in PvP.
• Warrior’s Gifts (passive) — level 1 +5 Hit Chance Increase; level 2 +5 HCI and +5 Defense Chance Increase; level 3 +5 HCI, +5 DCI, +5 Strength Bonus and +5% Damage Bonus.

[!] No per-level numbers are published for either active — not the fury pool’s size or damage, not how much hit chance or damage Called Shot gives. Only the two PvP caps are published. Note also that uo.com’s Throwing skill page does not mention masteries at all; all of this lives on the Skill Masteries page.

[!] The mastery switch cooldown is not settled — 10 minutes on uo.com against an unpublished 15 minutes [!].

In PvP

• Positioning is the skill. Closed down to two tiles you eat the 12% hit chance penalty; backed off to maximum range you lose 47% of your damage. A thrower who cannot hold the middle band is not really throwing.
• Infused Throw (Cyclone, 25 mana) stuns and dismounts; Mortal Strike (Soul Glaive, 30 mana) denies healing for 8 seconds; Concussion Blow (Boomerang, 20 mana) drains mana.
• Moving Shot (Cyclone, 20 mana) is the one that keeps you at your own range — firing while moving, at some accuracy cost.
• Both mastery actives are explicitly capped against players (Elemental Fury 35, Called Shot 100 pre-resist), which is the game telling you where they were meant to be used.
• A shield costs Defense and Hit Chance unless Parry pays for it.

In PvM

• No ammunition, ever. uo.com: “there is no ammunition needed and your boomerang will always come back.” No quiver, no arrow count, no resupply run — the single biggest quality-of-life difference from Archery.
• Soul Glaive is the boss weapon on uo.com’s figures: 8–11 tiles of reach, the highest base damage, and Armor Ignore with Mortal Strike on it.
• Do not stand at maximum range. The 47% overthrown reduction roughly halves your output, which is the most common self-inflicted wound in the skill.
• Mystic Arc (Boomerang) chains to a second target, which is the closest thing Throwing has to a crowd move.
• uo.com keeps a separate index of Throwing artifacts, which its skill page points at without naming any of them.

Caps, and how to train it

Throwing is on the Power Scroll list: 105 / 110 / 115 / 120, counting against the 720 total skill cap. Primary stat Dexterity, secondary Strength — and Dexterity is doing double duty here, since it is also what partially offsets the close-range penalty. Individual stats cap at 125 real and 150 with items.

For training locations, one unpublished suggestion is the Acid Slug pit in the Underworld [!]. Beyond that the general systems apply — the Guaranteed Gain System’s mandatory 0.1, accelerated gain quests worth up to 50% inside their training areas, and Scrolls of Alacrity giving 0.2–0.5 per check for 15 minutes.

Where these come from

uo.com Throwing · uo.com Melee Fighting · uo.com Melee Damage Increase · uo.com Special Moves · uo.com Skill Masteries · uo.com Weapons · uo.com Throwing Artifacts · 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.