This one bugs the crap out of me. I have a char on an 80 month old account that simply gains no stats or skills. She has been stuck at 98.4 Ninjitsu for 3 months, refusing to gain, even though I try to use the skill daily. She will gain healing, albeit slowly (maybe .1 per every couple weeks). She was capped at 250 on stats, but I bought a +25 scroll for her today, thinking that I could work her up with that on stats. I worked her for 3 hours for NOTHING. I am trying to build intelligence on her and I got nothing. I stripped all armor/weaps/jewels to take her to zero bonuses. She was 114 strength, 114 dex, and 22 intel, and would not gain. This is frustrating, first the ninjitsu and now the stats. I'm trying to redesign her and can't figure this one out. I even turned the arrows down on strength and dex and left it up on intell hoping this would help, but no joy. Any ideas? I really don't want to delete her out and start over, as I have neither feel I should have to shell out for adv char token OR spending another 3.5 mill for the +25 stat scroll.

Should be working if you have Skill points open (not at 720 total cap) and whatever skill your working is set to gain (arrow up).

Exactly. I have skills to gain AND the arrows are up. This is what is ticking me off.

If you're near skill cap, maybe a skill you're trying to drop is a slow-decaying skill. Alchemy is the fastest decaying skill, so what I do is buy 10 points or so of alchemy and then mark it down. That always fixes my slumps. That doesn't explain, though, if you're still below skill cap and have empty points to gain.

Some people think skill decay is a myth. I personally believe it exists, having tested it many, many, many times personally (most recently last week!)

Here's a link to my old write-up on the topic:
http://www.uocraft.com/skill_decay.php

No way skill decay exists.

Not getting any GGS's either?

Nope, nothing. I haven't had a ninjitsu GGS in three months, after using the skill daily. Also I run mana down, with my intel arrow up on my stats, my strength arrow down on my stats, and nothing, nada. Very frustrating.

Have you tried to gain anything in any other skills?

What are you doing (eg animal form, death strike) to gain in ninjitsu?

Vepl

I had my Ninja that wouldnt even get GGSs off of Shadowjump for weeks. I did a Focus Attack, got a gain, and now Shadowjump works for GGSs again...strange.

I agree with Dip. The reason why people always say to buy up Alchemy was that it is the first skill in alphabetical order, in the thought that might affect it someway. The best idea nowadays is to "flush" any unwanted skill through a SoulStone if you do have some that need to go down.

If you had a 250 cap and bought a +25 stats scroll, your new cap is only 255. Add up your stats (taking equipment into account) and make sure you havent already hit it.

Actually, the reason why people buy alchemy is that skill decay did in fact exist prior to the days when you could lock your skills. That list was from the dev's - albeit a very old list, as we've been able to lock skills for a long time. In the olden days, though, if you did not use a skill in a certain amount of time, it began to decay. (ie. You literally lost points off of that skill every day until you used it again). So you had to continually use any skills you wanted to keep on your character. Some skills decayed faster than others. Alchemy decayed the fastest.

When skill locks went in, the skill decay concept was no longer in use. In my experience, however, that code still exists in the game. For example - A few months ago, I was training up to elder mage. I was at skill cap and had no soulstones left. I decided to drop focus. I could NOT gain to save my life. Day after day, no GGS. I tried for a week, casting every day, anything from 6th circle to 8th (fighting monsters). Casted EV every time I thought of it, even when not fighting. Then, I arrowed alchemy up, bought 10 points of alchemy (pulling from my down-arrowed focus), set alchemy back down, and got my GGS gain on my very first cast.

Maybe my old accounts are just bugged, but this trick still works for me. I did it again last week with my tamer on LA (who also has a 9+ year account). Maybe it's just the old accounts. I can't say why it works for me, but it does.

If skill decay rates don't exist, then my characters are just super cool magic characters And that's fine with me too!