Hello everyone, in this guide I'll try to explain my thoughts about Right on Target Maces and show how to play it. If you like this guide, please give it a thumbs up to keep it relevant.

For those who want a quick look at what are the core skills of this build, you can refer to the image below.

You may have some questions about this build, so I'll try to answer some of them here:

Why Right on Target with Maces?

Because it's fun to have to work around not having a shield to cover your defenses and the Knock Out skill is pretty damn powerful.

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this build?

As your strengths, you get to take advantage of the powerful stats given by Right on Target
(RoT for short) and you get to use the powerful mace abilities, Armor Break and Knock Out.

As for clear disadvantages, the Mace skill tree doesn't offer any inherent defense mechanisms aside from applying stagger or chaining dazes for a stun, so you have to complement your defense with other skill trees, you also don't have any mobility skills or AoE skills.

What's the general playstyle of this build?

Because you won't have a lot of defenses early on and you won't have any AoE Skills, you're pretty much locked into having 1 v 1 fights. You'll be focusing on maintaining that one enemy staggered for as long as possible. But, once you've unlocked some of the defensive skills in other trees, you'll have more leeway to fight 2 v 1 or 3 v 1.

What character should I play as?

Any will do, although picking one with Mace, Warfare, and/or Athletics skill trees unlocked is preferred.

Which stats should I focus on?

As a rule of thumb, you'll focus on stats that unlock your abilities. Because we want to pick RoT, we'll almost always start with Perception (Per) and followed by Agility (Agi). After that you'll have to put points into Strength (Str) to further unlock your mace abilities.

The distribution can change, depending on if you get a early Warfare II book or a Mace II or III book.
In those cases you might not need to invest into Agi or Str early, leaving you free to put points into Per or Vitality (Vit).

After you've unlocked all your core skills, you can focus on Str or Per, depending if you want raw damage or more critical chance.

In this section I'll guide you through the ability order for the core Abilities of this build.

In the image below you'll see at which levels you should pick each ability.
Note that whenever two abilities are presented at the same level you have the choice of picking one or the other, and the "Locked/Empty Ability" represents a spot where you can pick an utility ability.




Seize the Initiative

StI is a pre-requisite for RoT and also a very good early game ability.
All the bonuses you get are great when you've just started and because it targets the least protected bodypart, it'll deal on average more damage than a basic attack.

Because of all of this you should take this ability at level 1.

Armor Break

This ability is very good during the early game, providing a chance to Stagger and applying a Dmg Taken debuff on the enemy when it deals damage. Later in the game the cooldown reduction it provides will help you maintain tempo with your other Mace abilities, the Armor Damage helps dismantling the Protection of later enemies, and the Move Resistance debuff helps Onslaught with its Knockback as well as in general with your attacks applying Stagger.

For those reasons you should take this ability at level 1, or 2 if you don't have Mace Abilities unlocked from the start.

Onslaught

This is your "Damage" ability.

Onslaught can knockback enemies, causing you to attack a second time if they move back, you don't get the second attack if the enemy collides with anything, but in that case the enemy takes collision damage and has a chance to become Dazed.
The Control Resistance it provides is applied before the attack even hits, so even if you miss or fumble, you'll get the benefit of extra Daze and Stun chances.
Because its Knockback chance is somewhat low at the start of the game, it's best to use this ability after Armor Break or Mighty Kick, so that you maximize the chances of Knockbacking the enemy.

Because of that, you should take this ability at level 2 or 3, usually after getting Armor Break.

Mighty Kick

All stats that this abilitiy provides help Maces in some way, you can Knockback into walls for Dazes, the Stagger synergizes with your passive abilities, the Move and Control resistance debuffs help with applying your Staggers, Dazes and Knockbacks, the Crit Avoidance debuff helps with your crits, which add extra Daze chance to your attacks. It's the perfect support ability for maces.

For those reasons, you should get this ability at level 3, or at level 1 if you don't have access to Mace abilities from the start

Hammer and Anvil

This is the Mace stance, it provides some nifty buffs for using mace abilities.
The Fumble reduction helps controlling your fumbles, especially if you decided to use Flails.
The Stagger and Daze chances help with applying those effects with your Abilities and Attacks.
The Armor Damage will help destroy the armor of enemies, increasing your average damage.

You should get this ability at level 6, or 7 depending on your starting stats.

Knock Out

This ability is, to say it bluntly, insane. Putting all of the enemy's abilities on cooldown reduces their threat level by a huge amount, many enemies are rendered completely useless by this ability. On top of that, targetting the head can often result in head injuries for enemies, which is very impactful. This ability also prolongs the duration of Dazes and Stuns, further reducing the enemy's efficacy.

Because of all of that, you should get this ability as soon as possible, usually at level 12 or 13, depending on your starting Stats.



Moment of Weakness

Providing extra Bodypart damage and Crit chance when attacking Dazed, Stunned or Staggered is very welcome, injuries reduce the efficacy of enemy's attacks as well as synergizes with the second part of this ability, and Crits provide extra Daze chance.
The second part of the ability is very good because the amount of Daze and Stagger chance you gain depends on the degree of the Injury, not just how many injuries the enemy has. So an enemy affected by a Severe Head Injury would provide you extra 15% Daze and Stagger Chance(Minor counts as 1 degree, Medium as 2 degrees and Severe as 3 degrees).

For those reasons you should get this skill at level 4 or 5.

Dazing Strikes

This ability will help render enemies useless, making them miss or fumble more often as well as dealing less damage, even if they manage to get a clean hit.

Because you need to attack enemies that are already dazed, stunned or staggered, it's best to get this ability at level 5 or later, when you already have plenty of ways to cause those effects.

Right on Target

This is the main point of the build. This ability provides a ton of useful stats as long as you're not holding anything on your Off-hand. The amount of fumble reduction and Acc you get from this ability is great, especially if you decide to use Flails.

After the Equipment III update this ability has scalings on all bonuses for One-handing weapons. the most important one being Fumble chance scaling from Perception, so extra points into Perception not only help getting your Accuracy up but also help reduce your Fumble.

You should get this ability as soon as possible, usually at level 7 or 8.

Respite

This is your energy management ability, it gives you energy for every time you daze/stun/stagger an enemy and can trigger multiple times in the same attack, meaning that if you cause 2 or more effects at the same time, you'll get multiple procs of this ability.

Get this ability at level 8 or 9.

Push the Falling

This skill got quite the glow up in the Equipment III update, it now triggers when causing the status effects listed instead of only on kill which is quite nice.

It also now upgrades your Mighty Kick, causing it to extend the duration of the listed effects by 2 turns, of course respecting the natural limits of each effect (so no 3 turn stuns, only 2). This is great as you can use it to extend your Dazes/Stuns/Staggers, which means more stacks of Dazing Strikes and more value out of Moment of Weakness.

Get this ability at level 9 or 10.

Once you've got all core abilities, or when you're waiting to unlock one of your core abilities, you can take any of these abilities to complement your build.

But before we suggest some utility abilities, let's talk about Concussion

Concussion

This ability is sort of a failsafe for whenever you fail to apply an effect with your Mace abilities, the bonuses are very nice, but because they trigger only when you Miss or Fumble one of your Mace Attack abilities, or when the enemy resists the status effects when using those abilities, you won't see this very much. This ability shines later into the game, when enemies start having good dodge or block chance, as well as good Control and Move resistances.

Because of that, this ability is not part of the core, and you can confortably get this ability way past level 13.



Given that we already make use of some Athletic abilities in this build, it's natural to look for other abilities that might help the build here.

Not This Time

You'd mostly consider this for its ability to negate a stun/daze/stagger every 90 turns, which can be the difference between living or dying. The rest of the ability is situational for this build, though.

Disengage

This ability reduces the chance of receiving an attack when moving away from an enemy, which can help repositioning without being punished for it. The Magic and Nature resistances are nice if you're using light armors, but if you're using medium or heavy armors this portion of the ability might not apply. Finally, the modest penalties to enemies adjacent to you are also nice to have.

Dash

Pretty intuitive, it helps you escape from dire situations. Can also be used to engage enemies that try to flee from you, and landing adjacent to an enemy provides a decent amount of stats.
Pay attention when surrounded by enemies, this ability loses range for each enemy adjacent to you.

This is a very tactical ability and it can help a lot.


Elusiveness

This is a very potent defensive ability that helps you deal with scary enemies that have reach advantage against you, like two-handed axe enemies with Hooking chop, or spear enemies. The stacks can be replenished with Dash or even Onslaught if it manages to knockback the enemy.

Overall, a good addition to your repertoire of abilities.

No Time to Linger

Getting this ability should seem natural when playing maces, you apply a lot of Dazes, Staggers and Stuns, allowing you to get extra Acc, Fmb and Crit, which helps maintain the pressure against the enemies. The second part of the skill isn't useful for us, as we don't make use of Sudden Lunge.

Peak Performance

This ability is a natural good fit for this build given how easy it is to maintain your energy above 50% on Maces, Respite and Push the Falling, as well as some other abilities I'll mention later, do a good job at mantaining you above the threshold. So you end up getting free stats almost all the time.

Adrenaline Rush

Adrenaline rush is an ability that can turn the tide of a fight in your favor, all on its own. When fighting multiples enemies, the cooldown reduction of all abilities will help maintain your tempo, allowing you to quickly chain abilities, and all the stats you gain per stack of the effect help you survive for much longer.
Overall, an incredible ability you might want to include in your build.


Considering that we already got Seize the Initiative and Right on Target, it's natural to go down the leftmost path of the Tree.

Setup

The stats this ability provides are very useful, and given our selection of core abilities(Mighty Kick, Onslaught, Hammer and Anvil), we have a very easy time triggering it during combat.

Opportune Moment

Crits and Counters aren't a rare occurrence in this build, so this ability can provide a good amount of energy restoration during combat, but we mostly consider this ability because it is a requirement for Offensive Tactic and Finisher.

Offensive Tactic

Provides a ton of useful stats that are used when you attack and can be replenished by killing enemies. Very useful for starting a fight without a risk of missing or fumbling an attack by yourself.
Pretty much required if you're planning to use Flails.

Finisher

This is my main suggestion in this skill tree, this skill resets all other skills' active cooldowns . That means you can reuse your most powerful abilities without having to wait for their cooldown. It is a 2 tile Charge attack, which is also quite nice. To top it off, the Energy Drain on hit and Energy Restore on kill are some amazing stuff.

Armor Crusher

This ability helps against heavily armored enemies, accelerating how fast you can deplete their armor durability. It's also very useful against non-armored enemies, like proselytes, the stacking 10% damage taken against them will ensure that you dispatch of them very quickly.

This ability tree offers a lot of utility and the majority of skills here are worth considering.

Cauterize Wounds

Provides you with a very good way to deal with bleeding, not only curing all bleeding, but also providing you with Bleed resistance proportional to the amount of bleeds cured. This is very good against some of the later enemies that have great base bleed chance and also abilities that can cause you to bleed.

The pain generated is relevant, and you should be prepared to deal with it.

First Aid

Natural progression from Cauterize, now you can deal with injuries, gaining a big stack of healing efficiency and health restoration, which allows you to quickly recover from battle. The health restored is affected by the Healing efficiency you gain.

Make a Halt

This skill is currently very important to have, the changes to fatigue gain from Rags to Riches made it very difficult to maintain Fatigue low on pretty much everyone. Extending the duration of Vigor, as well as granting Max Energy, Fatigue resistance and Fatigue change goes a long way to making Fatigue somewhat manageable.

Austerity

On the topic of Fatigue, Austerity helps as well by increasing the threshold of conditions like Hunger, Thirst, and Fatigue by 5%, which is very nice. The reduction in Hunger and Thirst is very noticeable as well. The Pain resistance and the stats you gain while under Vigor are also nice to have.

Adaptability

Adaptability provides tons of useful stats. The Max health you get and the health restoration under Vigor helps a lot in maintaining yourself free from injuries.
The effect on your max health threshold makes it so that you can keep in fighting shape for longer, just take care to not break a limb because you got overconfident.

Finally, reducing the duration of Bad Trips, Hangovers and Aftermaths is cool when using Drugs and Alcohol.

Pathfinder

With this ability you get to know the position of every enemy outside your vision radius, even beyond doors and walls, this is an incredible advantage for you, being able to know how many enemies are around the corner and how much you need to prepare is incredibly powerful, also you can use this knowledge to safely lure enemies by shouting or throwing objects in their general direction.

The rest of the ability is just a cherry on top of an already great skill.

Ever Vigilant

Less accuracy for the enemy, more dodge for you is great, add on top that you're getting 20 extra turns of vigor every time you kill an enemy and this is a very cool ability to have.



Armored combat provide some decent defensive options you can use

Brace for Impact!

This ability can help you deal with some of the more scary abilities enemies use, things like Hooking Chop, Heroic Charge and among others. The additional effects that depend on your armor type are also very nice to have.

Hard Target

This passive helps against specifically Bow and Crossbow enemies, giving them -Acc and giving yourself +Dodge, it can help mitigate ranged damage given that Maces don't have any easy way to close the distance against those types of enemies. Sadly doesn't work against Magical Projectiles.

It also gives all attacks -Armor Pen, which will usually translate to 1 to 3 less points of damage taken, depending on the type of armor you're using.

This is also required if you want to get Unyielding Defense later on.

Flexible Defense

Provides you with a chance to apply Stagger to multiple opponents while also debuffing their attacks for the next 2 turns. If you're using Medium Armor, it has extra synergy with Maces.

All in all, a very good ability.

Battle-Forged

Gives you -Damage Taken whenever you use a Stance or Maneuver ability until the start of your next turn. This helps mitigate some damage whenever you need to reapply H&A or Offensive Tactic, or when you use Onslaught or Mighty Kick, which is quite nice.

Unyielding Defense

Repositions yourself, then gives you a buff that increases in strength every time someone attacks you. Can provide a ton of stats that'll increase your survivability by a lot.

While magic mastery is primarily intended for Sorcery or Hybrid builds, there are some abilities here that provide value for RoT in general.

Dissipation

This gives you 1 energy and 1% Magic or Nature resistance per 1 point of Magic or Nature damage you take, up to 20 times, meaning at most 20% Magic and Nature Res.

This skill is quite good for only costing just 1 point imo, right now we have the majority of Undead and Crimson Covenant enemies doing some amount of Magic and Nature damage, so you always get value there, against human targets we have some mages, but as more enemies are introduced, more enemies that deal magic or nature damage will appear, making this skill more and more desireable to have.
The energy regen is the cherry on top.


I won't go into too much detail but, if you want to, you should check out Tavi's Mage hunter guide, you can adapt some of the abilities there to work with this build

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302747689

While I personally prefer Medium Armors, this build can make use of any armor type.

Light armors can provide a lot of offensive stats and dodge interacts very well with your staggers, you'll need to invest into more defensive abilities because of the low Protection and Resistances offered but it should still be good.

Medium armors provide a good amount of Protection and resistances without heavy penalties, you don't need to invest as much into defensive abilities because of that.

Heavy armors require a good amount of investment into Vitality and Armored Combat to offset it's penalties, but you should also be impervious to most damage with it.


Maces as a weapon group have three categories of weapons, Maces, Hammers and Flails.

Maces provide decent Armor Pen and Armor Damage, as well as good Daze, Stagger and Knockback chances, or Stun chance depending on the mace. They are great if you want to improve Onslaught chance to knockback and daze.

Hammers have great Armor Pen and Armor Damage, give extra Accuracy and give decent amounts of Daze and Stagger chance. They are great if you're doing a heavy armor build, because the extra accuracy can offset some of the penalties that heavy armor gives to you

Flails have low Armor Pen, Armor Damage and Bodypart, give great amounts of Daze and Stagger chances as well as Crit chance, but they have penalties to Accuracy and Fumble. Flails have the highest base Dmg of all 1h weapons, you will need to build specifically to counteract the Accuracy and Fumble penalties but you'll rewarded with a lot of extra damage for it.

This section will contain videos regarding the optional boss fights we have in game, using RoT Maces to kill them.

Spoilers ahead, you've been warned.


Troll Fight
Fighting the Troll is very simple, as long as you follow the "dance" you'll be able to kill him. Start the fight using only Armor Break to deal with his Armor Durability and after that you can use only StI.
Seems like intentionally staying below 10% makes the troll not regen


Manticore Fight

You will need some amount of Life Drain for this fight, either enchant your weapon with it or get the Pagan Amulet from the Order's Prison before attempting this fight. You'll also need at least t4 gear to have a chance, and I wouldn't recommend fighting before level 16.

We arrived at the end of the guide, thank you for reading it.

Tell me if you liked the guide, if there's anything you didn't understand, if this helped you have fun with the build or if there's anything I can do to make the guide better.

Stoneshard is an amazing game and it isn't even finished yet. I can only imagine how awesome it'll be when it's fully completed.

I'll try and update this guide, whenever a new patch comes out, a new skill tree is added or when some new cool content gets into the game.

Until then, thanks again for reading this.

05 / January / 2025

• Made some adjustments to the Initial questions section
  
• Edited the Equipment, Enchantments and Curses to talk about only Equipment
  
• Boss Fights section have now new videos for the Troll and Manticore fights, as well as some recommendations on what to bring for those fights

29 / December / 2024

• Started work on updating the guide for Rags to Riches
  
• Renamed some sections to better suit the new layout of the guide
  
• Added some more ability suggestions

28 / September / 2023

• Added some animations to active skills
  
• Removed Offensive Tactic and Opportune Moment from the skill suggestions
  
• Moved Cauterize Wounds and Brace for Impact to the Levelling from 6 to 11 section
  
• Fixed some typos.

13 / June / 2023

• Fixed some typos.
  
• Added First Aid as a skill suggestion

20 / May / 2023

• Fixed some skill and ability trees names that got changed in the Equipment III update.
  
• Added Armored Tree skill suggetions to the Levelling from 12 onwards - Part 2 section

19 / May / 2023

• Started work on updating the guide for Equipment III.
  
• Removed the Stone Armor suggestion given that it was heavily nerfed.
  
• Updated the Equipment, Enchants and Curses section to account to new stats.

13 / February / 2023

• Small changes to the Equipment section to account for changes on patches 0.8.0.20~0.8.0.27.

11 / December / 2022

• Update the Mace skill tree image in the Overview section, to account that now it's recommended to take Concussion.
  
• Updated the Equipment and Enchantment sections to account for change in item stats and Bleed resistance changes in the latest patches (0.8.0.18 and 0.8.0.19).
  
• Added Not This Time as a skill suggestion in the Levelling from 12 onwards section.
  
• Added Cauterize Wounds as a skill suggestion in the Levelling from 12 onwards - part 2 section.

20 / October / 2022

• Added a new stat distribution suggestion for the Levelling from 6 to 11 section

14 / October / 2022

• Updated the guide to account for patch 0.8.0.14's changes to the game.
  
• Edited the Equipment section to also give Enchantments and Curses suggestions.