Abilities

### Ability Information

Mozart has 3 different types of abilities: spells, skills and specialties. Spells and skills are awarded when you level up to certain level, if you have prerequisites that some of them have, specialties are bought for "specialty slots" (read help or specialty page on web) from Punisher, NPC that wanders the streets of Nevrast. Unless the ability difficulty (see command "All" bellow) is free, you only get ability learned to a very low percentage and have to practice it by successfully using it (this mean that f.e. healing spells will not get better if the healed character already had full hitpoints). This means that you should try to use your abilities as much as possible to master them. Each time your ability gets better, you gain so called "adept", which is 1% increase of given ability. You can also practice abilities at the NPC teachers by paying them money and experiences, but it is usually not worth it. If you gain ability you don't plan to use, you should see in help of the ability if it is not a prerequisite for some other for you more useful ability.

There are several commands you can use to get information about what abilities are available to you:

#### all

Shows you **all abilities that are available to your class** (or other class you select). It is usually used in format of "*all <class> <min lev> <max lev>*" e.g. *all th 10 15*, which would show you all abilities that Thief will get access to between levels 10 and 15 (included). Class doesn't have to be the one you have, you can check abilities of any class. It does show at what level can given class learn given ability, maximum you can learn it to (quite often 100%, but could be lower - also please note that this number **DOESN'T include the "-10% to maxskill" penalty** that dual classes get to all their abilities), difficulty of ability (how hard it is to practice, if it say "Free", you will have it at mastered (current skill equal to maximum skill) the moment you gain that ability (or in case of specialties some specific portion of it if the specialty can be bought repeatedly - those specialties give you e.g. 10% each time you buy them) and if it is a spell, also it's mana cost (same spell can cost different amount of mana for different classes).

(Please be aware that if you put 1 as one of the levels, it will show you all specialties available to that class at level 1, which is a lot and other abilities kind of get lost in it).

Another use of this command is to find out **what class has certain ability** - for example if you are looking for someone who could remove a curse from you, you can type "*all remove curse*" to see which classes do have that spell and from which level.

#### learned

This command is usually used to see which abilities you already have and how well you know them, either by simply typing e.g. "*le*" to see all of them or by typing "*le <ability name>*" to see specific ability.

Command does show you several information - for example if you are Thief class, "le backstab" can show you for example: *[  1] backstab             [--------+ ]*. The first number is a level you can have given ability from (if it is empty then the ability is not available to you), name of ability and how well you know it. The last information is the most interesting. It does show learned percentage in 10 percent increments and does include several important information:

* The parenthesis themselves - if they are square ( *[...]* ) it means that you do have required prerequisites to be able to practice it if you do not have it already mastered. If the brackets are round ( *(...)* ), then you are missing some prerequisite and you have to look into help of that ability what you need.
* If you see the brackets empty (something like *[   ] pyromancy            (          )*) it means that you have it only from your equipment (and less than 10%) and otherwise don't know that ability. *[   ] pyromancy            (++        )* would mean that you have from equipment bonus between 20-29% (shows 1 character (plus sign) per full 10%).
* If you see in brackets dashes ( *[----]*) it means that you know that skill but don't have it mastered, if you see asterisks ( *[\*\*\*]*), you do have it already mastered, if you see a plus sign(s) it means that you do have bonus from equipment (you don't see plus in first pyromancy example because in this case the bonus is lower than 10%, which is what 1 character represents. In the backstab example above, the player does have backstab from level 1, doesn't have it mastered yet (dashes would turn into asterisks) and have it practiced to somewhere between 80-89% + some bonus from equipment, together he know it to 90-99% (8 dashes = 80%, 1 plus sign = another 10% which is either completely from equipment of or partially from equipment + less than 10% from practice). While you can't practice ability to more than is your maxskill in that ability, you can increase it further with bonuses from equipment.

Another similar command is **mastered,** which shows only those skill you do have already mastered. It is a great command when you are not sure if you still need practice certain ability or not.

Opposite command to learned is **unlearned.** This command shows you abilities you didn't learned yet. Usually those are abilities you didn't have prerequisites for when you leveled up or some specific abilities that have to be learned from some other NPC than your class guildmaster. Similarly opposite command to mastered is **unmastered**.

### Specialties

Tho they do in many ways work similarly, specialties are different from skills and spells. Which ones you will actually get is not set in stone by your class choices, instead you can take certain amount of them (read info about specialty slots in help or on webpage) and which ones you take to customize you character is up to you. You have to intentionally buy them from NPC called Punisher (if you made a mistake and took one you didn't want, you have 5 minutes to remove it using **forget** command (see in-game help for forget). You can also on higher level take a quest to remove any mastered specialty, so don't be afraid to experiment with them, see what does suit your play style.

Even tho it is up to you which specialties you take, there are some that you should consider if you are a new player:

#### General specialty suggestions for new players

* Perception: if you are new to Mozart and you don't know it's world, this specialty can help you a lot - it will (on successful skill check) tell you if there is something interesting in the room (usually some non-takeable item in the room that you can look at for more information with **look** command. If your class already doesn't have those, it will also give you Find hidden doors skill (which will allow you to see hidden exits and doors) and Stonereading skill (which will allow you to see exits that can be open with **dig** command (see help dig in game)).
* Heir: This specialty allows you to bypass the ego requirement on items, so you can wear equipment you get from higher level players without having to donate it first. (for more info on egoes see Equipment page).
* Scramble: One of the most important survival skills is a skill to know when to flee from combat. Unfortunately, mobs can trip you to the ground with several skills and getting up usually takes whole combat round, during which you can get tripped again or die if your hitpoints were low enough or your opponent strong enough. Scramble specialty allows you to try to flee from combat even if you are sitting on the ground without having to stand up first.
* Melee Maneuvers (available only to some classes): Without this specialty using items like potions or healing staves while in combat is pretty much useless. It also allows you e.g. open closed door so you can flee a lot faster.
* Retreat: Sometimes fleeing from battle can get you into even more problems. You can stand in room that is connected with room containing even stronger/more aggressive mobs, or maybe you are even fighting next to a death trap. Retreat allows you to flee into specific direction or not flee at all (which is sometimes a lot better than fleeing into wrong direction).
* Door bash (available only to some classes): You can quite often find locked doors or chests and looking for a key is not always easy (not to mention that some locks on Mozart actually don't have corresponding key at all). If you do not have Pick locks skill or Knock spell, your best bet is to take Door bash specialty. (Be aware that quite a lot of locks are not pickable/knockable/bashable at all).
* Dilettante: This specialty allow you to bypass prerequisite ability level for your next ability - you still have to have prerequisite ability, but you don't need to practice it.
* Jack of all Trades/Researching: These specialties allow you to practice you skills (including specialties) and spells respectively faster.
* Literacy (warrior/barbarian only): Quite often you need to use a magical spell, especially scroll of recall. But to do that successfully, you need Read magic skill. Warrior and Barbarian class does have access to this skill only through buying the Literacy specialty.

#### Class specific specialty suggestions

Warning! This section is quite subjective, since pretty much every player prefers different specialties that suits their play style. I tried to pick up those most people usually take.

* Backstabber: people who do play a Thief or Antipaladin class usually go for Thief specialties even if they play dual class with e.g. a caster. The most important for them is ability to use also other damage type weapons than just piercing weapons for Backstab, since quite lot of mobs on Mozart (especially higher level ones) are immune or at least resist to pierce damage - therefore they take Blackjack, Hamsting or both. They also need a way to get out of combat so they can backstab again, so they often take Retreat, if they are not "tanking" also Quicksilver or more advanced combo of Misdirection+ Quicksilver, but since Misdirection has also Cowardice specialty as prerequisite, it takes quite a lot of slots and is best suited for solo class Stabber.
* Warrior type: probably the most important for a warrior is to not lose his weapon in combat, therefore Iron Grip is very useful. They also usually stay in front of the mob and take a lot of damage, that can be a bit lowered by Pain Immunity. To be able to use their skills in combat involving a lot of either mobs or other players, they usually take Close Quarters and also Prone Attack to be able to use skill even when they are tripped to the ground by their enemies. They also usually prefer fighting with 2 weapons at once, so Ambidexterity is quite useful and at level 50 they usually take one of the weapon masteries. Warning: New players should NOT take Frenzy, because it can literally kill them.
* Caster: player who go the caster route usually takes Combat concentration to lower their chance of failing the cast while in combat and Jinx to decrease enemy's saves versus spells. If they are not combined dual class with any fighter type they also take Charisma and once or twice Leadership to make more use of pets that do tank mobs for them. Mage does also choose one school of magic specialty and cleric disciple specialty, magical equivalents of weapon masteries. Solo casters also quite often take Silent and Motionless casting so they can ignore being silenced, bashed or even paralyzed.

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