This! 50% chance-to-hit weapon hits are fine for warriors, but mages were always about spells 1998-1999. Indeed the hally was used as a finisher or throughout the fight as a side arm, but it was never able to be used as the main source of damage. Meditation was more useful(and used) in 1999 since there wasn't a constant onslaught of 30+ damage hally hits to interupt and nullify(constant healing) your mana.You know this change might actually make mages use .. you know ... magic?
Fights on UOSA have always been about luck on hally swings, not mana efficiency. Now instead of back and forth hally swinging, people will meditate and go back to fighting with spells.
The katana is what mages used to do quicker spurts of less damage if that was their style. Remember mages using war axes and quarter staves? They could actually stand up to a hally mage because they were faster while the hally was slower and did more damage. Yet on UOSA the hally hits just as fast and of course delivers much more damage. There's no balance because of the inaccurate cycling mechanic/bug.
I'm sure someone does but most mages don't. There's no real advantage.Many many hally mages use a macro that auto unequips / equips their Hally, maybe you don't, but the good ones do.