"Witchdoctor" Template

[Kaine]

I am a returning player (haven't played since 06 or 07). I've been looking at a lot of the new skills and I wanted to create something fun, mostly viable, and at least a little unique. This would be for a 100% PvM character.

So far, at a minimum, this is what I want.

100 Mysticism
100 Focus
100 Necro
100 Spirit Speak
Eventually 100 Spiritweaver but that will probably be a while since I am still brand new and it looks somewhat hard to get it unlocked?. I also have 50 Magery at the moment for convenience (recall, heals, cure).

And that's where things start to get hazy. To be honest, magery seems a bit unnecesary for my goals. Aside from the utility of gating and ressing what benefit would it give me? I can heal with mystic and SS. I can recall with wraith form. And it seems like mystic and necro and spellweaver give you me the summoning and offensive spells I could want. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong here.

Also, keep in mind I am on a new account so powerscrolls and quality gear will be beyond my reach for a good while.

On the above template, I have room left for 2 skills. From a 'witchdoctor' roleplayish perspective, poisoning would fit. But does poisoning increase damage of necro based poison abilities like strangle? Is it useless outside of melee and magery?

So what would be everyone's suggestions? I was thinking maybe like discordace/music, or maybe provocation/music. Maybe hiding/stealth? Or maybe just be lazy and get meditation and spell resist?

Appreciate any input that is given.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Well!... For a start Spellweaving is actually incredibly easy to do the quest for, I usually do it as one of the first things I do on any new character for Attunement and Gift Of Renewal on my human characters. Purchase 250 boards from a Carpenter, 10 bales of cotton from the Tailor, 10 jars of honey and 1 sack of flower from the Cook/Baker, and spam Create Food until you have 20 cooked fish steaks, then head to Heartwood. If you can't carry all that use your Horde Minion as a make shift pack animal. You can then complete 4 out of 5 parts of the quest chain without leaving Heartwood. The 5th part might give you some problems, you'll need to go to Ilshenar to Compassion, head south around the mountain through the cave, South West to the mountain pass then west into whatever that place is called, there you will find the Minion/Overseer to kill for the last part, Colossus/Eagle Strike should work well enough. Then return to Heartwood and it's done. I'd advise doing both the Pixie and Imp quests when you're more developed, the Pixies are 5 irritating little spellcasters, the Imps are 5 irritating little meleers.

You have no melee defense on the template at the moment, so would get hit 100% of the time, if you're in Wraith or Stone Form you'll be on foot a lot so could be an issue. I would either pick up Magery for a Mage Weapon or (and I don't know how effective this will be yet) the new Masteries coming out soon for Mysticism one of them lets you use Mysticism the same way as a Mage Weapon with -5 Mysticism used.

Other benefits for Magery (without Eval), Teleport, Mindblast, 2x Summons for most elemental types, Gate, Res, Field spells, faster heals/cures, Telekinesis.

Poisoning doesn't work with Necro, you could use it with Magery even without Eval, Poison Fields, and Evil Omen/Poison is a good combination as it bumps the level. Plus (although it won't matter if you're in Stone or Vamp Form) having Poisoning helps you automatically cure similar to orange petals. Also with the new Necro Masteries coming out one is called Conduit that lets you use a 'mass' effect on direct Necro spells, so for example you could combo Conduit/Corpse Skin/Poison Field/Poison Strike/Strangle.

I would advise you to look at the new Masteries that are coming out for the main skills you are planning. The Necro ones are particularly good as you can have two Skeletal Dragons as pets which are very strong. Magery would be needed here for gating. You can also Soulstone on Animal Taming and bond a pair of Bake Kitsune's to use with the Dark Wolf Familiar. The Spellweaving Masteries are looking pretty good to me too, Mana Shield especially, and the Reaper can Word Of Death for you.

You'll want to eventually take Spellweaving to either 100 (for a big range 80-120 skill) for getting an Arcane Focus or to 117.5 for 100% success casting Word Of Death.

Necro at 100 gives 100% success with Wither, you'd need 105 for 100% success with Strangle, higher isn't necessary though I don't yet know how it affects the Masteries. SS 100 is fine.

Mystic/Focus I would want to take to 120 as Stone Form gives full protection at that point as well as other benefits to all spells.

I would aim for an end template of:
100 Mage (+20 Crystalline Ring, -15-20 Mage Weapon)
120 Myst
100 Focus (+20 Crystalline Ring)
100 Necro
100 SS
120 Spellweaving (because 2.5 points does nothing anywhere else and this may affect the Mastery)
80 Poisoning

Raise Meditation to full while training obviously, and also use Shadow Wisps and Lich Form for increased Mana Regen. Also when you get that far the -5 Mysticism from the Mastery may help with training (the same way a -29 Mage Weapon does).

 

[Kaine]

First of all, thank you for the great response.

I heard there was a new expansion coming out, but I haven't been able to find any information about it. Could you help point me in the right direction? The new masteries sound pretty fascinating.

Your template seems like a pretty good fit. Obviously it's going to take some time to max out all of these skills so I have a lot of experimentation in the mean time. My first goal is to get mystic high enough to reliably cast bombard so I can kill faster. Right now I am pretty much relying on eagle strike for damage.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

It's called Time Of Legends (I think) there are several threads about it in Uhall, it's also available on Test Center.

Training wise, in the Underworld entrance to Stygian Abyss on Fire Island (you'd need a boat or rune), there are little ledges you can teleport on to by the Acid Slimes. You can sit up there safely in Wraith Form and use them to leech Mana which makes training pretty quick. For both Necro and Mystic, once you're high enough to Wither/Hail Storm that is.

 

[Kaine]

Well!... For a start Spellweaving is actually incredibly easy to do the quest for, I usually do it as one of the first things I do on any new character for Attunement and Gift Of Renewal on my human characters. Purchase 250 boards from a Carpenter, 10 bales of cotton from the Tailor, 10 jars of honey and 1 sack of flower from the Cook/Baker, and spam Create Food until you have 20 cooked fish steaks, then head to Heartwood. If you can't carry all that use your Horde Minion as a make shift pack animal. You can then complete 4 out of 5 parts of the quest chain without leaving Heartwood. The 5th part might give you some problems, you'll need to go to Ilshenar to Compassion, head south around the mountain through the cave, South West to the mountain pass then west into whatever that place is called, there you will find the Minion/Overseer to kill for the last part, Colossus/Eagle Strike should work well enough. Then return to Heartwood and it's done. I'd advise doing both the Pixie and Imp quests when you're more developed, the Pixies are 5 irritating little spellcasters, the Imps are 5 irritating little meleers.
.

I went to sanctuary to try and get the rat quest but there were way too many mobs that were really strong right at the entrance so unless I am missing something it doesn't seem feasible for me right now.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

You can do the quest in Heartwood which is in Yew, the Sanctury one is harder.

 

[Kaine]

You can do the quest in Heartwood which is in Yew, the Sanctury one is harder.

Thanks. Now I am having a different problem. I picked up 20 mushrooms and she isn't recognizing that I did that. I tried abandoning and reaccepting. Am I missing something here too? Have collected over 60 mushrooms so far, and (ironically) losing patience lol.

 

[PurplePotion]

In regards to quest turn ins, click yourself to pull up the your menu. There should be an option for 'toggle quest item'. This will allow you to select the specific item for turn in. It should turn the items a golden hue. Then speak to the turn in again.

To find out more about the new expansion, these two threads should cover you quite nicely.

http://www.stratics.com/threads/uo-com-publish-90-part-3-comes-to-tc1.350368/#post-2596688

http://www.stratics.com/threads/skill-mastery-testing-part-2.350010/#post-2597009

Oh and Welcome back!

 

[Kaine]

Thanks for the tips all. Right now I'm sitting about 90 with my magery/eval, low 80s with mysticism and low 60s with necromancy.

Magery is super slow going, energy vortex is the only practical skill that gives me gains but it fizzles so much that it becomes very frustrating. Flamestrike rarely gives me a skill up and yet still fizzles so much that it isn't worth trying to cast.

Only problem with my mysticism training is the massive amount of mana that hailstorm takes. That's why I started focusing on Necromancer more to get high enough to cast Lich Form.

To be honest though, Necromancy isn't seeming very useful to me anymore. I really wanted to like strangle, but it doesn't sound like it does much damage at all in PvM since it relies on low stamina so heavily. Anyone have any experience with that? I am going to keep training it to 100 and then if I decide I don't like it at that point I can just soulstone it off. And any other thoughts on the usefulness of necromancy for a spellcaster in PvM?

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Necromancy is EPIC in PvM! But it's how you use it. To get the most out of Strangle you then Corpse Skin (lowers Fire and Poison by 15, and increases Physical and Cold by 10), you then use Pain Spike which hits their Stamina and increases the damage, this isn't the main purpose of being a Necro though, Wraith and Omen are and the new Mastery's. You should train Necro/SS first because it'll make training the others easier. Fortunately it's quick and GM takes about an hour.

Until you're up to the point of casting Wither you should be doing all your training in Lich Form for 12 MR, with a Shadow Wisp up, later you'll want Wraith Form and the Acid Slugs for endless mana.

For SS spam Curse Weapon.

Equip a -29 Mage Weapon, spam Magic Reflect until 65, Invis self until 75, Mass Dispel or Meteor Swarm to cap. You shouldn't be casting any 8th circle spells during training. Cast time/mana cost would make that really slow. If you use Meteor Swarm use Wraith/Acid Slugs.

You can do Eval quickest by just spamming Create Food.

Focus will just get there when it gets there.

Mysticism, use Wraith Form/Acid Slugs and Hail Storm. You could wait until the Mastery's come out as there's a -5 Mysticism ability that may help gains.

Some people get themselves Discorded in Twisted Weald by the Satyrs, it has never worked for me, plus you're a Necro so will get attacked by everything unless you farm Karma first.

 

[Kaine]

An hour for GM necro? Do you know a secret that I don't? I've spent several hours already and only in the 60s. Skills raise VERY slowly. Keep in mind I'm a new player and don't have special gear except lower reagent cost.

The server I'm on has nothing for sale on vendors, is there an easy way to get a -29 mage weapon?

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Yeah just Imbue one.

 

[Merlin]

An hour for GM necro? Do you know a secret that I don't? I've spent several hours already and only in the 60s. Skills raise VERY slowly. Keep in mind I'm a new player and don't have special gear except lower reagent cost.

The server I'm on has nothing for sale on vendors, is there an easy way to get a -29 mage weapon?

If you're on Atlantic, I can give you some negative mage weapons tonight free of charge. Hit me up via ICQ.

 

[Kaine]

I'm on Baja, but thank you anyways.