Things to do before Big Bang

Will do. I gave up on buying up MBs and weapons (hard to value and the supply and inventories are enormous) and stick to delay selling resistance weapons (including my old xbows). A friend of mine asks


Venom for Thieves and Venom for Dual Blades have different Mastery Books. Can anyone confirm that skills like Sharp Eyes and Stance can be used for both existing classes and resistance?

It would suck if I bought up dozens of SEs and they ended up not applying to new classes ._.

[edit] He also asked if


...or do they just become unusable?

Also: do battle mages use shields?

SE applies, but I don't know about the other skills.
Brandish 20/30 automatically turns into brave slash 20/30 books.
Yes, they use staves, so they have room for a shield.