Weapon Cycling

[Jack]

This is a guide I wrote for another shard in 2010. Everything here applies to UO Lost Lands. I will update this guide if anything changes, and clairfy if necessary.

THIS GUIDE DOES NOT APPLY TO ARCHERY - THE ARCHERY TIMER RUNS ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THREAD TO OTHER MELEE SKILLS.

What is weapon cycling?

Most commonly known as cycling your halberd, weapon cycling is using your wrestling timer to increase the rate at which your halberd swings.

How do I cycle a weapon?

Weapon cycling is done by de-equipping your weapon and waiting out your entire wrestle timer. Once your wrestle timer is complete, you will move into the next "swing state", meaning you are ready to punch - but this also means you are ready to swing ANY weapon.

I tried that, but I keep ending up with a long delay on my halberd swinging

Imagine that every time you equip a weapon, the timer starts fresh. EG: if you equip a halberd, you have to wait out the entire halberd timer before you can swing. When you switch to wrestling, you have to wait out the entire wrestling timer. This is absolutely the case, unless you previously reached that state of your current weapon being "ready to swing" (the one you had equipped before you switched).

So imagine your wrestle timer is 2.5 seconds, and your halberd is 5 seconds.

1. You disarm your halberd in a non-readied swing state
   
2. You wait 2.25 seconds.
   
3. You equip your halberd. Now you have to wait 5 seconds before you can swing your halberd, since you were not in a ready state when you switched.
   

You can get into an endless cycle of doing this, and you will NEVER swing your halberd, or wrestle - imagine the following.

1. Disarm halberd
   
2. Wait 2.25s (on wrestling timer - swing not readied)
   
3. Equip halberd
   
4. Wait 4.75s (on hally timer - swing not readied)
   
5. Go to step 1.
   

To do it properly, you'd follow these steps:

1. Disarm halberd
   
2. Wait 2.5s
   
3. Equip halberd
   
4. Swing at opponent
   
5. Go to step 1.
   

If you followed that sequence, exactly, every time, you would swing at your opponent every time, with a frequency of roughly every 2.5s.


I'm still having problems - it works most the time, but not all the time

There are other issues that may cause your halberd cycling to not work. These all have to do with your wrestle timer needing to be in the readied state before the halberd is equipped.

• Stamina.
  

Swing speed for weapons is calculated by - Attack Speed= 15,000 ÷ ( [Stamina +100] x Weapon Speed ) . Wrestling speed = 50. Round UP to the nearest 0.25s

Note that stamina, not dexterity is used to calculate the rate at which you swing. If your stamina drops below full, then your swing speed is re-evaluated and you will have to wait longer than usual before you can swing. And of course, if you continually follow the pattern of equipping every X seconds, you'll start equipping in an "unreadied swing state", and being forced to wait out the long halberd delay.

• The need to stop for 1 tick (0.25 seconds) to "re-evaluate your swing state"
  

Simply put, when your wrestling timer or weapon timer has elapsed to 0, you then need to stand still for 0.25s before you will move into your "ready to swing" state. If you equip before you have done this, you will be forced to wait out your entire weapon timer, as your wrestle was not ready to swing yet. Turning counts as movement.

If you learn exactly how this works, you'll be able to manipulate the timers to constantly dish out damage, while your opponent screws up. Cycling your halberd properly is one of the most important elements of winning fights.

Any questions.. add them, and I will add them to this post.