An old school assassin's return

[Val'lyn De'ana]

Hey everyone.

I think this is the right forum to jump into?

I am considering coming back to UO after a very long break. I sold my accounts eons ago so it looks like I will be coming back on a completely new account.

Since I will starting off with a fresh account, can any of you tell me what changes have happened over the years in regards to the assassin profession? Specifically, changes that have taken place to fencing, poison and ninjitsu?

If there are any good updated guides, please feel free to show me the way. It looks like I have a lot of reading to do to catch up with all of the other changes that have taken place during my time off.

 

[CorwinXX]

You can read here about changes:
CorwinXX's Warrior's Guide for New and Returning Players

 

[Val'lyn De'ana]

Thank you so much.

 

[Val'lyn De'ana]

Now to follow up...

So I am planning to play an assassin/detective on Siege. My prey will be the large number of thieves on the shard. Due to the need to find these riff raff, my template needs to include detect and tracking.

I am starting up with a new account so I am going to be limited with my skill points. My main damage will be with poison and ninjitsu.

Which weapon style should I go with? I'm thinking fencing or swords.

Please remember my template doesn't have room for tactics so I can't use the weapon specials. And because the account is so new, I will be in animal form to get around.

I am going to need to hit quickly and with enough extra umph to take down a thief, who will most likely not have many points tied into any offensive skills.

Thanks for any help you might be able to provide.

 

[Shelra]

Now to follow up...

So I am planning to play an assassin/detective on Siege. My prey will be the large number of thieves on the shard. Due to the need to find these riff raff, my template needs to include detect and tracking.

I am starting up with a new account so I am going to be limited with my skill points. My main damage will be with poison and ninjitsu.

Which weapon style should I go with? I'm thinking fencing or swords.

Please remember my template doesn't have room for tactics so I can't use the weapon specials. And because the account is so new, I will be in animal form to get around.

I am going to need to hit quickly and with enough extra umph to take down a thief, who will most likely not have many points tied into any offensive skills.

Thanks for any help you might be able to provide.

Riff Raff! Pppshhhh please!


Welcome back!

 

[CorwinXX]

You need Tactics for the best result. With tactics I suggest swordsmanship... without - fencing.

 

[Val'lyn De'ana]

Since I am playing on Siege only, I need to plan my template for maximum damage quickly, however because my quarry will be thieves, I am planning to keep tactics off my template for now.

Right now my template looks like this:

• 120 Ninjitsu
• 120 Fencing
• 100 Tracking
• 100 Hiding
• 100 Detect
• 80 Poison
• 80 Stealth

In the future I may add some soul stones so I can add skills such as tactics healing and anatomy for the times I am not hunting thieves. I know this will be a difficult template for kill shots, but since most thieves run around with very little armor and almost none have offensive abilities, it will be a fun template to use for my detective work. Poison should be enough, if I can unleash a high damage deathstrike followed up with poison.

If I stumble upon a thief that does have offensive skills, morph into an animal form, smoke bomb into the shadows and get out of dodge.

 

[Val'lyn De'ana]

Ok, edit that!!! I just found out the developers changed the cap at 700 skill points for new accounts. It looks like I need to figure out how to use another 20 skill points. Which would make the most sense? Stealth or Poison?

 

[Brock]

Poisoning is going to be useless without a weapon skill AND tactics. Poisoned weapons can only poison using the infecting strike which requires 70-90 weapon skill and tactics depending on the weapon. I think you might be able to get by with a Use Best Weapon Skill weapon and wrestling as your weapon skill since Wrestling special moves do not require tactics. I haven't tested it.

Magery's Poison and Poison Field and Necromancy's Poison Strike can receive a damage bonus from the poisoning skill.

I would highly consider dropping detect hiding and tracking at least in part. They're mostly worthless skills from a practical point of view. There isn't much you can do with 80-100 that you can't do with 30-50 skills points for either of those skills. Sure you'll fail less with Tracking. And you passive Detect Hidden radius will be decreased. But I really can't stress enough how impractical they are. Tracking isn't really that useful unless you're too lazy to just walk around and use your All Names macro. And Detect Hiding is only useful for getting extra points when returning Honor items to their owner and not just their city.

I would think a detective would probably have a template as such...

Weapon Skill
Tactics
Detect Hidden
Tracking
Forensic Evaluation
Anatomy
Evaluate Intelligence (maybe)

Personally I'd do Magery or Chivalry for their versatility in healing and travel spells at least instead of Evaluate Intelligence.

But I suppose if you wanted to throw the assassin aspect in there I'd do....

Fencing
Tactics
Detect Hidden\Tracking
Anatomy
Hiding
Stealth
Poisoning or Ninjitsu