Parry?

[BardMal]

In the far far away reaches of what passes for my mind, I heard the echo that once apon a time there were complaints that parry mages were ruined by a dex requirement for parry.

Is there a min dex requirement to make dex "worth while" on a spawn char nox mage?

MAge; med; eval; wrestle; resist; poison ....

hanging between focus, parry, ninja

thinking 100/30/100 for stats

 

[Farsight]

If you don't have 80 dex, forget about parry.

Or you can have 60 dex and agility potions. And a curse will still kill you. Once you get the stat scroll, 80 dex is possible to manage.

I tried a parry mage for a while, and was dissapointed in the results. It is brillant against dexxers or archers, but once you start fighting mages, you have 240 skill points (wrestle and parry in my case) which are completely wasted. I prefer a more rounded mage myself.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

In the far far away reaches of what passes for my mind, I heard the echo that once apon a time there were complaints that parry mages were ruined by a dex requirement for parry.

Is there a min dex requirement to make dex "worth while" on a spawn char nox mage?

MAge; med; eval; wrestle; resist; poison ....

hanging between focus, parry, ninja

thinking 100/30/100 for stats

I additionally see that you have 230 for stat points? I would recommend having 250 or 255 skill points (depending if you could afford either of these) to even attempt playing a parry mage. Like Farsight said, it might have been disappointing anyways, but there is just too few points with anything less than 250 to make this template feasible.

Ninja is pretty pointless as well if you aren't a stealth mage. Even then, can pretty much only use mirror image and shadow jump.

Focus same thing, but worse. Just not worth the skill points for a PvP heavy casting mage. You can do the same thing basically with legendary meditation and a good amount of MR. Just don't overdo that though since the diminishing return that was put in place.

 

[Turdnugget]

Don't forget poison darts/stars with ninja as long as you got one hand free.

Ninjitsu has it's benefits for a mage, but it does better suit a stealth/mage (in the process of making one)

I've seen some people use ninja pretty much just for the mirror image. It's nice because you get a few more benefits, you can DP people w/out the poisoning, mirror image to help deflect an onslaught of attacks, animal form if you get dismounted. That's about it though for a regular mage template w/out stealth.

And what Farsight said, you need at least 80 dex for parry to be any use at all.

 

[kaio]

Build youre suit around hom, and pendant of the magi (+18 int) And the 60 dex u need aient that hard to come by. And yes u will use agility pots.

Poison is also great, but you will soon find out, with 10 moving shot archers up your'e butt, parry might come in handy.

 

[Turdnugget]

Best to have 80 minimum dex unless you've got a lot of +dex items and carry lots of G. Agility pots.

I just checked stratics... and there is only a 5% chance to block difference between 60 and 80 dex at 100 parry... That doesn't seem like it should be right.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

I agree. It is best to have 80 dexterity...straight up. Anything less than that, you suffer a hefty penalty.

Your chance of blocking an attack with a shield at 80 dexterity is 35%.

However, once you slip below 80 dexterity, the modifier penalty comes into play. It is a penalty because 80 acts as equal. Above 80 doesn't matter. Below 80 does.

SO...That said, here we are:

1. Straight up calculation of a regular block with dexterity at 60: 29%.

2. Dexterity modifier if > 80. (80 - 60) / 100 = 0.2

3. Then apply the dexterity modifier 29% Base chance * (1 - .2) = 23.2%

So in conclusion the further you get away from that 80 dexterity requirement, the heavier the penalty you are going to suffer. It is best to have 80 to begin with to combat mages who will cast curse and other similar spells.

It really is too easy to do. It does take A LOT of ingenuity on your part to make a suit work. In my opinion, it is one of the more item based templates for a mage in UO. You want your base resists and STR high enough so that if cursed you still stay at or above 100 HP and don't get too low on your fire resist.


Also, for clarification...this is if you had just 30 dexterity.

1. Base chance to block: 20%

2. Dexterity modifier if > 80. (80 - 30) / 100 = 0.5

Then apply the dexterity modifier 20% Base chance * (1 - .5) = 10.0%

*NOTE: All of these calculations assume you carry Legendary Parry. You can imagine how much worse it will be if you don't have 120 Parry.

To be truly effective, you will need to be 120 parry. All good dexxers and archers carry 120 weapon.

 

[Lynk]

Parry mages are best used in a group situation. You'll find yourself hard pressed to kill anyone with apples and pots if you are on a parry mage. Lower mana pool and low SDI makes it a tough kill.

They are great if you have 3 or 4 of you. You can take on a zerg of archers/dexers and still come out on top.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

Parry mages are best used in a group situation. You'll find yourself hard pressed to kill anyone with apples and pots if you are on a parry mage. Lower mana pool and low SDI makes it a tough kill.

They are great if you have 3 or 4 of you. You can take on a zerg of archers/dexers and still come out on top.

Low SDI? You can still carry 120 mage and 120 eval on a parry mage. Parry mage really is just a tight fit in terms of items. One of the most heavy item-dependent templates if you do it right.

If your gear isn't set up right, yeah it is a real struggle.

 

[Chaosy]

Low SDI? You can still carry 120 mage and 120 eval on a parry mage. Parry mage really is just a tight fit in terms of items. One of the most heavy item-dependent templates if you do it right.

If your gear isn't set up right, yeah it is a real struggle.

I think he might be referring to a lower sdi bonus for having less int (due to the increased dex requirement), though I generally run 125 int on all my parry mages anyways.

 

[Diomedes Artega]

I think he might be referring to a lower sdi bonus for having less int (due to the increased dex requirement), though I generally run 125 int on all my parry mages anyways.

Oh okay, good point. Yeah I wasn't thinking of that.