Upon completion of the fighter's guild main quests and completing coldharbour, the Weapon Mastery skill line becomes available under guild skills. The skill line is ranked up the same way you rank up the fighter's guild line - by killing undead, daedra, and werewolves, and by completing dark anchor events in the veteran rank zones.

This skill line contains the following skills:

Passive Skill 1: Buckler (Rank required: 1)
While wielding a dagger and shield combo, you are able to access all dual wield skills and passives as well as all one handed and shield skills and passives. Your shield no longer provides additional armor value, and blocking reduces incoming damage by 50% less than normal.

Passive Skill 2: Gladiator (Rank required: 3)
Allows you to equip a shield in your offhand slot while wielding a two-handed weapon. While wielding a two-handed weapon and shield combo, you are able to access all two handed skills and passives as well as all one handed and shield skills and passives. Your attack speed and weapon damage are reduced by 10%.

Passive Skill 3: Behemoth (Rank required: 6)
Allows you to dual-wield two-handed weapons. While dual two-handed weapons are equipped, you are able to access all two handed skills and passives as well as all dual wield skills and passives. Your attack speed and weapon damage are reduced by 20%.

Passive Skill 4: Combat Staves (Rank required: 9)
While wielding a restoration or destruction staff, you gain access to all two-handed skills and passives. Damage dealt with two-handed abilities while wielding a destruction or restoration staff is reduced by 20%.

Active Skill: Companion (Rank required: 10)
Cost: 10% Max Stamina
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Summons a fighter's guild companion to fight alongside you. The companion wields a two handed weapon and will use cleave and uppercut against enemies. Reduces maximum stamina by 10% while active.

Morph 1: Bowman
Cost: 10% Max Stamina
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The companion becomes a bowman, supporting you with ranged attacks that deal increased damage. The bowman will use snipe and volley against enemies. Reduces maximum stamina by 10% while active.

Morph 2: Shield Bearer
Cost: 10% Max Stamina
Toggle On/Off
The companion becomes a shield bearer, wielding a sword and shield and gaining additional defense. The shield bearer will use shield bash and taunt against enemies, but deals reduced damage. Reduces maximum stamina by 10% while active.




Now to explain each ability a little more in depth:

Buckler allows you to use dual wield attacks and gain the benefits of dual wield passives, but only while a dagger + shield combination is equipped on your active weapon bar. This bonus does not apply when using any other weapon type, only daggers.
What this does is open up better utility and AoE options for tanking players without forcing them to sacrafice the defensive benefits of a shield. It also allows a damage-dealer to gain some extra survivability (at the cost of damage). Essentially you'd be able to use abilities like sparks or whirlwind or hidden blade while having a shield equipped.

Gladiator is for those tanks that want to deal more burst damage, or have more AoE tanking aptitude. This allows you to achieve much higher base weapon damage while tanking by using a two handed axe/mace/sword in your main hand while keeping your shield in the offhand. You still get all the defensive perks of having a shield equipped (reduced block cost and the like), but you also gain some of the passive boosts of the two handed line like splash damage.
Cleave and it's morphs, especially brawler, would make this an excellent combination for AoE tanking, as you'd be able to damage multiple enemies and gain the damage shield from brawler while keeping your shield up for blocking.
From a damage dealer standpoint, this would give you slightly less damage output than simply using a 2handed weapon on it's own (due to the debuff to attack speed and damage), but you would gain significant defensive benefits from the shield.

Behemoth is the burst-damage alternative to those who like to dual wield, or those who want a barbarian-esque character wielding two massive axes or mauls. Your attack speed will be incredibly slow, but you'll be able to combine the utility and AoE benefits of dual wield with some spike damage from abilities like uppercut.

Combat Staves allows you to use a staff (destruction or restoration) at melee-range by providing you with a set of stamina abilities (those from the two handed line). So, while wielding that restoration staff, if an enemy gets too close you can use uppercut to knock them down and deal some damage for example. There's a significant damage reduction associated with this though (hitting someone with a stick isnt going to hurt as much as hitting them with a sword, axe, or maul, obviously), but it would open up some very interesting melee-caster or "monk" type builds, especially when used with the restoration staff.



The Active ability, Companion, gives all players access to a stamina-based version of the sorceror's "pets". The companion can be toggled on/off to summon or unsummon it at any time. Summoning costs 10% of your max stamina, and reduces your max stamina by 10% (so you're using 20% of your stamina pool to summon the companion).
The base companion ability summons a randomized fighter's guild combatant that wields a two handed weapon and will use cleave and uppercut against enemies. Cleave whenever there are multiple enemies in range, and uppercut against single enemies when it's convenient (just like enemy NPCs do).
The first morph changes the companion into an archer, which will use snipe against single targets and volley against grouped enemies. This is intended as the damage-oriented morph for the ability, and should be more useful in pvp where the companion can stay at range while supporting you in combat.
The other morph changes the companion into a tank, with a sword and shield and the ability to stun enemies with shield bash or taunt them to attack the companion instead of you, along with increased base defenses (but reduced damage). This would be more useful for a player with a healing or damage-oriented build who wants a meatshield up front while soloing, but could also have some uses in pvp as an unpredictable stun against enemy players with the shield bash.