Thoughts On Magic+Special Ability and HP

[RhelHalcyon]

So I just came back to the game. The highlight of UO has always been taming for me so when training came out I was super excited! The additional tames made it even sweeter.

I've finished training up a Platinum Drake (Fire) and I must say, I'm impressed but it opened up some questions about what's necessary, important, or a waste of points. As it's my first trainee I've not had a lot of time to compare but here is what I'm wondering.

Magic+Special ability vs one or the other: The question came to mind while training skills on Navrey. After adding Chiv and AI to my drake, I realized that while tanking the drake's use of AI and offensive chiv abilities severely diminished due to the severe mana issues. The drake would focus on cleansing poison and healing after bursting out a few AI's and burning its mana. The remainder of the fight the drake would only use AI sporadically. The drake also wouldn't use the offensive buffs from chiv.

What I'm wondering is whether its worth it to give a pet a magic (mana using) ability and a special ability?

My thought is that with just chiv, my drake may not do as much burst DPS but over longer fights will have MUCH better sustained DPS and actually kill larger monsters faster? On average as is, the drake hits for 200-250 with AI and 90-110 with normal melee attacks while chiv buffs were active. If my drake didn't have AI, he wouldn't do the burst damage but I feel it may allow him to keep up the chiv buffs doing more damage over a sustained fight while tanking?

I did notice that while there was another tamer with me who had a tanking pet, my drake would spam AI and Chiv buffs, as she wasn't focusing on cleansing poisons and healing herself. In that instance, the drake does amazing sustained damage imho.

I'm thinking of training up a necro drake (100% poison) next, and leaving special abilities off but I'm not sure it'll have the same effect as the necro won't be able to cleanse? I did notice someone in Navrey had a necro goat who tanked just fine with minimal healing from the tamer.

Quick snippet for drake's stats: 120 Med/Focus, 30 MR, 20 HPR, 432 Mana.

My second question is about HP: I'm trying to decide just how beneficial health is outside of increasing the damage of fire breath, and this seems to not go off enough to warrant adding HP just to boost it. I'd think adding more str or mana to get a few additional first strike AI's in would be more beneficial?

On my drake, I put 700 and it seems to tank just fine. I've seen people max this out to 1000, and I'm just wondering if its really worth the points spent? The necrogoat I mentioned above only had 500, and tanked Navrey just as well as my drake, without a cleansing/healing ability. Well unless necro has a heal/cleanse that I'm not aware of?

So has anyone found the "golden" spot for HP. As I train more pets I plan to shift the HP a little.

Lastly, does anyone know the complete list of chivalry skills a pet will use and how karma works with chiv on pets (if it does)?? Does it use EOO? It seems to use Holy Light and its an absolutely worthless mana drain. At least on my drake. It hits for around 6 damage when my drake uses it. Really wish we could "optimize" what our pets used. Like a list with check boxes to select certain skills we want them to use or not use.

Thanks!

 

[Donavon]

Good afternoon, Sadly there are a few skills that have defensive and offensive codes that switch back and forth.. Chiv's is one Ive been mapping as well as monster that use aoe's like goo.. Chiv pets that are being attacked by poison uses will use more cleanse and close wound , light and DF,... the one that are not will use consecrate weapon, dispel evil, and enemy of one and any special moves ya have loaded up... This hold true with what I've seen of the AI of some goo aoe specs too.. where if the monster is not tanking it will use goo less and its side moves more like armor ignore and so forth.. You will find that certain specs, and magci skills ( chiv , mystic, spellweave) work better on some pets then other... and certain pure special move, aoe move , and combos of 2-3 of them will do insane numbers as well... HP wise honestly its better not to give your pet super high HP as armor ignore will out damage breath damage anyway .. and those points would be better spent on str, or higher mana pool... Most people run 500-800ish for more of their pets... I normally stay around the 500-700 range with mine as once they are speced out they are super tanky... If ya need anymore help feel free to ask.. oh and ya should check out the tread on here " New changes and stats" I think it will help ya understand a lot of the new system.. =^-^=

 

[Uvtha]

So I just came back to the game. The highlight of UO has always been taming for me so when training came out I was super excited! The additional tames made it even sweeter.

I've finished training up a Platinum Drake (Fire) and I must say, I'm impressed but it opened up some questions about what's necessary, important, or a waste of points. As it's my first trainee I've not had a lot of time to compare but here is what I'm wondering.

Magic+Special ability vs one or the other: The question came to mind while training skills on Navrey. After adding Chiv and AI to my drake, I realized that while tanking the drake's use of AI and offensive chiv abilities severely diminished due to the severe mana issues. The drake would focus on cleansing poison and healing after bursting out a few AI's and burning its mana. The remainder of the fight the drake would only use AI sporadically. The drake also wouldn't use the offensive buffs from chiv.

What I'm wondering is whether its worth it to give a pet a magic (mana using) ability and a special ability?

My thought is that with just chiv, my drake may not do as much burst DPS but over longer fights will have MUCH better sustained DPS and actually kill larger monsters faster? On average as is, the drake hits for 200-250 with AI and 90-110 with normal melee attacks while chiv buffs were active. If my drake didn't have AI, he wouldn't do the burst damage but I feel it may allow him to keep up the chiv buffs doing more damage over a sustained fight while tanking?

I did notice that while there was another tamer with me who had a tanking pet, my drake would spam AI and Chiv buffs, as she wasn't focusing on cleansing poisons and healing herself. In that instance, the drake does amazing sustained damage imho.

I'm thinking of training up a necro drake (100% poison) next, and leaving special abilities off but I'm not sure it'll have the same effect as the necro won't be able to cleanse? I did notice someone in Navrey had a necro goat who tanked just fine with minimal healing from the tamer.

Quick snippet for drake's stats: 120 Med/Focus, 30 MR, 20 HPR, 432 Mana.

My second question is about HP: I'm trying to decide just how beneficial health is outside of increasing the damage of fire breath, and this seems to not go off enough to warrant adding HP just to boost it. I'd think adding more str or mana to get a few additional first strike AI's in would be more beneficial?

On my drake, I put 700 and it seems to tank just fine. I've seen people max this out to 1000, and I'm just wondering if its really worth the points spent? The necrogoat I mentioned above only had 500, and tanked Navrey just as well as my drake, without a cleansing/healing ability. Well unless necro has a heal/cleanse that I'm not aware of?

So has anyone found the "golden" spot for HP. As I train more pets I plan to shift the HP a little.

Lastly, does anyone know the complete list of chivalry skills a pet will use and how karma works with chiv on pets (if it does)?? Does it use EOO? It seems to use Holy Light and its an absolutely worthless mana drain. At least on my drake. It hits for around 6 damage when my drake uses it. Really wish we could "optimize" what our pets used. Like a list with check boxes to select certain skills we want them to use or not use.

Thanks!

I think 700 is the right amount for most players, though I think 600 would probably be fine in a lot of cases. I was just pondering what combo to try out next and this makes me want to shy away from spell casting all together. Maybe discord, AI/WW? Might be good for doing Baracoon or something.