Mace Fighting

Mace Fighting is the heavy-impact weapon class. Its hallmarks are armor-degrading hits, stamina drain on every connect, and the highest concentration of Crushing Blow specials in any weapon line. Mages fear macers because every successful swing has a chance to disrupt a spell-in-progress; armorers fear them because mace hits eat durability at an accelerated rate. The macer's professional title is Armsman.

Mechanics

Mace Fighting is a combat-defense skill — it rolls both for hit chance on offense and as the defensive comparator on incoming swings. Damage scales off the standard Tactics + Anatomy + Strength stack; swing speed off Stamina + Swing Speed Increase. Like every weapon skill it gates the special-move thresholds (70 for primary, 90 for secondary, plus 30/60 Tactics) and counts toward the 200/300 combined-skill mana-discount tiers.

Two passive effects make the class distinct:

• Armor durability. Every successful mace hit damages the target's armor durability at an accelerated rate. Against PCs in expensive Imbued/Reforged suits, this is the slow-bleed advantage of Mace Fighting — a sustained PvP brawl shortens the opponent's gear lifespan whether they win the fight or not.
• Stamina hit. Each successful mace strike deals a small additional stamina-pool hit on top of the regular damage. Below 20 Stamina, opponents swing at the slowest base rate; the macer in a sustained fight can grind the opponent's stamina down until their swing speed collapses. This is the canonical anti-mage opener — drop the mage's Stamina to halt their own offensive cadence.

Spell disruption is universal across all weapons (interrupt-on-hit), but mace damage routinely outpaces a mage's bandage cycle, so the practical spell-shutdown weapon is a mace. Poisoning cannot be applied to mace weapons — the entire line rejects the Poisoning skill.

One-handed weapons

Two-handed weapons

The War Hammer has the highest base damage in the one-handed-eligible portion of the mace roster (17–20), but is two-handed; the War Mace at 15–19 is the highest-damage one-hander and the canonical PvP mace.

Notable weapon-class quirks

• Wand is uncraftable — wands drop from monsters and from certain shopkeepers. They are the only mace-class weapon that doubles as a magery scroll-charge (mage classes use wands for the spell charge and the Dismount/Disarm specials are the macer's bonus when they pick one up).
• Wild Staff carries the Block primary — a defensive special unique to staves and the Tessen. Block grants a brief Parrying-like absorbtion window without requiring the Parrying skill.
• Force of Nature is the carpenter-staff signature special, available only on the Wild Staff and Gnarled Staff. AoE multi-element damage; modest power but the only Mace-class AoE that bypasses physical resist.
• Diamond Mace carries +Mage Mastery Mana when crafted with select runic tools — the Crafty Mace runic-tool reward path makes it a niche mage-melee weapon.
• Tessen and Nunchaku are Tinker-craft only; Tinkering has no Runic Tools, so these weapons cannot be runic-rolled and are rarely used at high-end PvP.

Skill Mastery — The Crushing

Reaching 90 real Mace Fighting and reading any-tier Mastery Primer activates the Stagger / Toughness mastery line.

Title: The Crushing. Stagger is the PvP cap; Toughness is the boss-tank window.

Training

The 120 Mace Fighting Power Scroll is among the cheaper combat scrolls because the build is less popular than Swordsmanship or Fencing — a budget warrior can reach Legendary Macer for far less gold than Legendary Swordsman.

Build context

• Stam-Crusher Macer. 120 Mace Fighting, 120 Tactics, 120 Anatomy, 120 Bushido, 120 Parrying. Pair Crushing Blow with the Stagger mastery; the build's job is to drop opponents below stamina-swing-collapse mid-fight. Standard PvP pick.
• Sampire-Macer. A non-traditional take: Necro/Bushido/Lumberjacking with a War Mace or War Hammer instead of an axe. Loses the Lumberjacking damage bonus (mace weapons don't get it) but trades for higher base damage and the armor-durability bleed in long boss fights.
• Mage-Killer. Wand + Magery + Eval Int + Mace Fighting at 60-80; uses the Wand's Disarm primary against a defending mage to break their spellbook hold, then casts a finishing spell. Niche but historically effective.
• Force-of-Nature Druid. Carpenter-mage hybrid running Gnarled Staff or Wild Staff for the Force of Nature secondary. AoE elemental damage outside the Mage spellbook.

Strategy notes

• Mace + Stamina = lock. The single highest-impact combat trick the class delivers: pair War Mace with Disarm secondary, drop the opponent's wand/weapon, then sustained mace damage drains their Stamina toward 20 and their swing speed collapses. The combo is why GM Mace + GM Tactics + GM Anatomy + 80 Bushido is the canonical PvP macer template.
• War Hammer Whirlwind is the highest-base-damage two-handed AoE special in any weapon class. Combined with the Bushido Whirlwind formula, surrounded-by-five enemies plus 90 Bushido produces a 100% bonus on the AoE.
• Crushing Blow is the macer's signature special — extra damage at modest mana cost. Available on six different mace weapons, including primary on Club, Smith's Hammer, Sledge Hammer, Tetsubo (secondary), Tessen path, and War Mace.
• Frenzied Whirlwind (Tetsubo primary) is one of the few non-Necro AoE specials in the game — fast cycle, modest damage, useful for clearing low-HP packs in Doom or Champion Spawn pre-stages.
• Block (Wild Staff / Tessen / Nunchaku) is the defensive niche — it is not as good as a real Parry but combines with the staff's two-handed damage profile for a self-shielding staff template.

See also

Tactics, Anatomy, Special Moves, Power Scrolls, Swordsmanship, Fencing, Archery, Throwing, Wrestling, Parrying, Crushing Blow, Concussion Blow, Mortal Strike, Whirlwind Attack, Disarm, Force of Nature, Block, Stamina, Spell Disruption, War Hammer, War Mace, Diamond Mace, Bushido.