Evaluating Intelligence

Evaluating Intelligence ("Eval Int") is the offensive half of a mage: while Magery decides whether a spell lands, Eval Int decides how hard it hits. It also lets you size up an opponent's intellect and mana, and powers the classic "mage wrestling" defense.

Spell damage ↑ top

Every damage spell compares your Eval Int against the target's Resisting Spells:

• If your Eval Int is higher, damage rises — up to about +20% at 100 Eval Int against a target with no resist.
• If the target's resist is higher than your Eval Int, damage drops sharply — a low-Eval caster can lose up to half the damage against a Grandmaster resister.

A serious mage therefore treats Eval Int as mandatory: without it your Energy Bolts tickle. Held Grimoires can add up to +25 Eval Int in PvM through their Enchanted property, on top of their damage multipliers.

The full spell-damage pipeline — the resist roll, Magery's contribution, the ×2 against monsters and where the masteries land — is drawn step by step on the Spell Damage page.

Judging a target ↑ top

Using the skill directly targets a creature or player and estimates their Intelligence; from 76.0 skill you also see their remaining mana percentage — handy for knowing when an enemy mage is running dry. Accuracy improves with skill.

Mage wrestling ↑ top

While your hands are free, your defensive skill in melee is the higher of your Wrestling or (Anatomy + Eval Int + 20) / 2 — the classic UOR mechanic that lets a mage with high Anatomy and Eval Int dodge like a wrestler without spending points on Wrestling. See the PvP overview.

The tank-mage insta-hit nerf (PvP) ↑ top

The UOR "insta hit" (your first swing being ready the moment you equip a weapon) is active on Sagas, but nerfed for mages: if you equip a weapon while having Magery 80+ and Eval Int 80+, your first hit against another player within that first swing window deals half damage. Pure warriors are unaffected. Details in the PvP overview.

Skill cap and mastery ↑ top

• Eval Int caps at 100 normally and can be raised to 120 with skill scrolls — one point per scroll, once you are already Grandmaster.

• The scrolled points only count outside PvP. While you are flagged for PvP combat anything above 100 is ignored — both for spell damage and for mage wrestling below. Grimoire Eval Int enchantments are not affected and keep working while flagged, exactly as they always did.

• It has its own Skill Mastery (PvM only), taught by mage and scribe NPCs from skill 90: Arcane Insight (bonus fire/energy damage after assessing a target), Vitalizing Spirit (stronger healing spells), Annihilation (bonus damage on wounded targets) and the ultimate Arcane Tempest (triple spell damage proc).

What the 20 points are worth ↑ top

Spell damage is scaled by the gap between your Eval Int and the target's Resisting Spells, and the two directions are weighted differently: every point you are ahead is worth +0.2% damage, every point you are behind costs 0.5%. Closing a deficit is therefore worth two and a half times as much as extending a lead, which makes Eval Int scrolls scale up against tough targets:

So against ordinary monsters the scrolls are a modest gain, and against high-resist bosses they matter most. (The separate ×2 bonus all magery does to non-human monsters multiplies on top and does not change these percentages.)

Training 0 → 120 ↑ top

Eval Int is one of the easiest skills to raise, because it gains passively with every spell you cast — while you train Magery, Eval Int climbs alongside it for free. If it lags behind:

Past 100 the method is the same — keep casting. Gains slow down the closer you get to your current cap, so the last few points before 120 take the longest.

Gains follow the normal region modifiers — see Skills Overview.

Related ↑ top

• Magery · Meditation · Resisting Spells
• Spell Damage Simulator — dial these numbers in and watch the result
• Grimoire — Eval Int enchantments and PvM damage
• Evaluating Intelligence Mastery
• Skill Masteries — how the mastery system works