Appraisal

The Appraisal skill is used in two ways. It can be used to appraise players and monsters but its primary use is for the identification of unidentified items.

Unidentified items show up in a grey color typically with a ? symbol to the left of its name, such items are usually acquired by killing monsters and looting the items they held or by looting chests and other containers you may discover in your travels.

Skill Use
You can visit a skill trainer to learn this skill, after it is learnt the skill can be used in two different ways.

Appraising Monsters and Players
Using the Appraisal skill on monsters and players requires you to mouse over the intended target on the main game screen then click the Info button in the central bank of interaction buttons.

You can get a purple skill gain by identifying something that is up to ten levels higher than your skill allows.

Formula
Level of Target = (Appraisal/5) to (Appraisal/5) + 10

i.e if you had 25 Appraisal you could ID a monster for a skill gain inbetween level 5 and 15.

You can not identify the same monster more than once without first identifying another monster, this stops players from power levelling the skill by identifying the same target over and over again.

Appraising Items
To identify Items open the main Inventory screen, locate the item that is currently unidentified and click on the Item. In the right bank of buttons you will find an Identify button, clicking this will attempt to identify the item and where appropriate give you a chance of a skill gain (there is now a 3-second forced cooldown between appraisal attempts when appraising items to prevent the abuse of experience gains).

Formula
Appraisal required = (Item Level * 5) - 5

i.e if you had 25 Appraisal you could identify an item for a skill gain in between level 5 and 10.

There is also an Identify All button at the bottom of the screen, this will attempt to identify all unidentified items in your inventory, however it will only give once chance of a skill gain rather than the once chance per item that using the Identify button would give.