UO Second Age

Recently I spotted a red macroing in a small house not in the center of the house. I decided to take it upon myself to test out the earthquake spell against the wall trick which I have read about for this era to damage and potentially kill a player outside of the house. I got his health down to practically nothing but no matter what I could not kill him by repeatedly casting the earthquake spell. Is there something I am doing wrong or am I just misunderstanding the fact that you can just damage a character not kill them with this trick? Any light on this would be appreciated thanks.

earthquake reduces your hp by half but wont deal the last point of damage, you would need to use meteor strike for the last hit .

it has same mechanics as eq but will do that last bit of hp.