Guide: Abrakazz Razamatazz's Mastery Training Guide

This guide has been ported over from previous Neflaria Guides to the Shimlar Wiki. Please note that some information may be outdated. Formatting for the guide has been changed to accomodate new coding. Due to how old this guide is, contact information has been removed.

Why should I believe you? What do you know?
I've played Shimlar for a long time. I've mastery trained for years, and I've spent a while looking into it. I wrote this guide originally for friends who were stuck/weren't sure how to mastery train. The attitudes of many players [] have made me want to write this guide for everyone, so that there are no more smug secrets. This is only a guide, not a definite route to success. My aim is only to aid you. If you feel that you know better, then by all means go ahead, I hope it works for you. It's worked for me, it'll work for you.

First of all, what is it?
Mastery training is as simple as it sounds, training up your masteries. Whether you're a troll, gargoyle or human, your character will hugely benefit from having better masteries. You'll kill better things and take less damage with some patience. Simply put, it involves hitting an enemy lots of times without killing it (this is so that there is little downtime between hitting New Fight once the monster is dead, it's a continuous flow of damage) and being hit lots of times by the enemy without dying (again, continuous flow of damage against you). This is to increase the probability of gaining masteries from being hit/hitting. Hitting an enemy lots of times increases the chance of gaining masteries on your spell or weapon. Getting hit by an enemy lots of times increases the chance of gaining armour masteries.

When should I start?
I normally suggest around 150-200. Fluffy Forest is a nice place to train. There are others, which I'll write down later. The reason I suggest this is because Fluffy Forest is a neutral alignment zone (no positive alignment from Ta'lorn for you evils) and the monsters there are pretty good for training on. However it can be done at any level.

How do I gain doublehit masteries?
Well, doublehit masteries are always the most tricky to gain. The best way to increase your chances of gaining any are to be hitting the enemy lots of times, causing that 1% chance to doublehit that every race starts with to come up more often. It takes time, but it'll go up.

Well, what do I need? Anything expensive?
Well, there's a basic way, and a bit more of a complex way. I personally think the difference is negligible, but for optimum efficiency go for the more detailed way.

Basic
IC0 spells or weapons depending on whether you are a caster or a fighter. No gems. The reason for IC0 is because they cause very little damage. This way you are attacking the enemy lots of times but not killing it (back to the continuous flow of damage with little downtime).

Rubies in some shape or form. Put them in low Ghost Shields/low Spells so that you can wear them without worry on restrictions, and have two slots. Dual R** is best, dual R* works.

Your normal leveling armour is fine.

If you have a Goblin Ring, you won't need the rubies.

Complex
IC0 spells or weapons depending on whether you are a caster or a fighter. Gem them with wisdom gems (pearl***, corundum***, black pearl***). Black pearls are ideal, but any work or dexterity gems (emerald***, moonstone***, opal***) depending on whether you are a fighter or a caster. This is so that you miss less often, meaning a greater chance to gain masteries.

Rubies same as above, or Goblin Ring.

Armour same as leveling.

Shield/Heal with tears to ensure you do not die.

Alternative
If rubies are not around, or you're too poor to afford any, you can still mastery train. You can use arcane spells. The advantages of using arcanes are that you can still mastery train without rubies, and you never kill the monster (zero downtime). The disadvantage is that you do not gain any spell/weapon masteries. Mostly, spell/weapon masteries are the easiest to gain just by normal leveling, so if you can't afford rubies and you're left with this option, don't feel bad. Armour and doublehits once they get high will make a massive difference.

Where should I mastery train? Are some zones better than others?
Yes. You essentially want a zone where the monsters have high armour class so that you can hit them multiple times before killing them. One good zone for this is Demon Gate. You need some frozen tears to survive in here, probably a frozen tear** shield/spell. It's hard but effective if you can manage it.

Fluffy Forest is the best one which anyone can train in.

Other reasonable zones are Ta'lorn, and non-pk zones.

Pk zones are bad places to mastery train in general. The reason for this is because if people are pking you at all, it will slow down your progress. Reviving ten times or more a day will make things go slower, which is something you want to avoid.

Some Truths and Fallacies

 * The more often monsters critical you/you critical them, the more likely you'll gain masteries from it.
 * False.
 * You can still get a mastery from a monster missing you/you missing against a monster.
 * This is a definite truth. I had a screenshot from a few rounds ago where I got an armour mastery from a full screen of misses.
 * If you get initiative by using jades in equipment, you get masteries quicker.
 * False.
 * Can I get masteries from PK/hitting players?
 * Yes.
 * If I choose Elders to attack to mastery train, I'll get more masteries!
 * This is false. Elders only give an increased chance to get a mastery on the final blow. Not every round before the kill. So don't waste your time.
 * There are big secrets/awesome ideas to mastery train! What are they?!
 * There are not. There are different ways of doing so, most of them explained in this guide, and there are likely a few ways that work for people that are not explained here. However, this is only a guideline. No method guarantees success, the idea is to simply increase the probability for success. If you follow this, you'll get somewhere.
 * If I use X random gem, it'll make me get masteries faster!
 * Generally there are weird and unorthodox ways of training, such as using sapphires etc. The difference is negligible. Don't waste your time.

[] I hope this helps everyone who's stuck! Have fun clicking, and good luck!