"Women's chains have been forged by men, not by anatomy."
- Estelle Ramey
Anatomy is an essential skill for a dexer as it serves two important purposes. On one hand, in depth knowledge of anatomy allows you to deal more damage to your opponent as you know where to hit to maximize the effect. On the other hand, that same knowledges allows you to more effectively heal your patient, hence restore a higher number of heal points. At GM level, you will cause 20% more damage to your target. At 61 skill, you will be able to cure poison and with a minimum of 80 anatomy skill and 81% healing you will be able to resurrect other players using bandages.
Anatomy can also be quite useful to mages. The combination of Anatomy and Evaluate Intelligence acts as wrestling, therefore allowing mages to to wrestle without the actual skill and gives mages greater flexibility in template creation.
Raising Anatomy
There are four ways to raise anatomy.
Using the skill directly
Through healing
Through combat
8x8 Method
Using the skill directly
You can use the skill directly by clicking the blue gem next to the skill in your skills list then targetting a living creature, whether animal or human, PC or NPC. That will work at very low level, but beyond 30, it's a waste of time. Frankly, in my humble opinion, it's a waste of time period so I wouldn't even bother with that.
Through healing
Now that's already a major improvement compared to the previous method. Everytime you heal someone using bandages, you stand a chance of gaining anatomy. As anatomy is an easy skill to gain, I strongly suggest you raise healing first, then proceed with anatomy. By this, I mean, keep this skill locked until you have either GM'ed healing or are in the high 90s.
Through combat
Fighting is the best way to quickly raise anatomy. You gain anatomy whenever you use melee skills and/or archery on any creature. Everytime you hit a target either through swordsmanship, fencing, macing or wrestling, you stand a chance of gaining anatomy. The more you fight, the more you gain.
Like for any skill related to combat, do not use slayer or magic weapons. They help you kill the creatures too quickly and hence slow down your gains as the more you hit, the more you gain. You therefore want your creatures to last as long as possible. The melee method, however, can be fairly long.
8x8 Method
Anatomy is movement based. That is the fastest method to gain. Get on a boat with a horse. Release your horse then wrestle it. Do no use any weapons because you do not want to kill it. If you do not want to raise wrestling, make sure you locked it first. If you wish to raise swords or fencing, you may try using a knife or a dagger but keep a close eye your horse's health and be ready to drop your weapon if your pet sustained too much damage. Start healing yourself. As soon as you get an Anatomy gain, stop the boat, lock healing and keep healing yourself. Proceed with the 8x8 method.
Healing a ghost on a boat will also do wonders for your anatomy gains. So once you hit 80 anat, try to find a friend who will be willing to play ghosts for you. Try to rez him while doing 8x8. Naturally, when you succeed, tell your friend to decline being resurrected and keep trying to rez him.
