Need Character Advice: Applies to multiple paths

[donjn]

I am having trouble with my crafter character. Here is what he has so far:

Blacksmith 87.5
Mining 91.4
Arms Lore 22.5 (raising this in progress)
Tailoring 76.8
Tinkering 85.5
Magery 72.1

The trouble is, that my Strength is 114 and my Intelligence is 58. I wanted the high strength to be able to carry more ore, cloth, etc. Trouble is, how am I ever going to defend myself while having Magery with no Eval, no Med or Forcus, and such a low Intelligence because I will go OOM after a few spells? Would it be better to move the 72.1 Magery to my Necro who only has 52.1 Magery? This would free up two slots on the Crafter, then get Mace Fighting, or some other melee skill? And if I do get that, what would better go with it? Healing, Tactics or Chiv?

Now, as you can see I have an extra slot open for a skill. Keep this in mind.

Here is my mage/bard:

Inscription 77.1
Eval Int 92.0
Meditation 100
Magery 88.7
Music 87.0
Peracemaking 85.3
Provoke 85.1

As you can see, this mage/bard can easily get out of tough situations. But, what if I could create a crafter that does not have to fight? Then I could move Tailoring over to my Mage (which makes sense roleplay wise)?

Basically the question comes down to:

1. How important is a "teleport skill" (Chiv, Magery) to a crafter?
2. Does Peacemaking work on Ore Elementals?

Thanks!

 

[Harb]

Question 1, magery isn't required with a crafter unless you wish to craft every house "add on," and because you did not include carpentry I'm assuming it's not really something you're looking to do. Personally, way back in the day both the Mrs and I had crafters, mine sort of migrated away from doing the actual work and became more of a "gatherer," collecting the ores/ wood/ hides her crafter used. Whether or not you need more than one character slot dedicated to crafting is a personal choice. Bear in mind as you go, that embuing, as yet to be fully flushed out, may end up on your crafter. We do have magery on our crafters/ gatherers, mind blast works fine in most cases.

Question 2, area peace works everywhere/ everytime, so I've never really paid attention to effects on a targeted ore elemental sorry.

Generally, I'd never go with a crafting skill on any adventuring template, be it a bard or mage, skill requirements to push the characters to their potential negates the ability to do so.

 

[Tina Small]

When Arms Lore became an important skill for crafters, I started shifting some skills around. Here's what I currently try to use as templates to cover the crafting skills. I have more than one account, so it works for me, but might not be viable for someone else. I'm probably wasting some opportunities with the scribe mage template, but I've never gotten all that comfortable with using a mage for doing a lot of high-end PvM and certainly not for PvP. Also, I've tried to make sure the crafters have a decent amount of magery so they aren't completely defenseless and will be able to complete quests (e.g., quests to change race or obtain special recipes) or participate in events that might be especially beneficial for crafters.

Resource Gatherer
100 Mining
100 Lumberjacking
100-110 Magery
100 Meditation
65-70 Tinkering (Not really essential; may change to Evaluate Intelligence.)
110-120 Music
110-120 Peacemaking

One drawback to this template is not being able to cut the logs for the special wood into boards. It hasn't been that big of an issue yet because I always LJ in Trammel using pack animals. A while back, when resources were randomized, the developers hinted that the more valuable resources might be more prevalent or maybe yield more in dangerous locations. I didn't take that to specifically mean Fel, so I wanted to make sure this character had the ability to go to some of those places because of the barding skills. Haven't tested it too much yet, but I do enjoy my characters with this template. It's a bit annoying to have to deal with the skill use timer on peacemaking because it doesn't seem like it should interfere with using another skill like mining or carpentry, but unfortunately it does. You just learn to do things in a specific order and get used to it, I guess.


Tailor/Blacksmith
120 Blacksmithing
120 Tailoring
100 Armslore
100 Magery
100 Meditation
70 or higher Tinkering

Lots of wiggle room in this template, I hope, to accommodate Embuing and maybe another related skill. (Have to catch up on reading about Embuing and Mysticism and see where Mysticism fits in with crafting, if at all.) With no mining skill, this character also can't recycle items she crafts out of metal higher than iron. I usually just stick those things in a chest or drawer and save them up for the miner to smelt. Hasn't been too big of a problem yet because I don't craft much out of the non-metal ingots other than to fill BODs.

Carpenter/Tinker/Fletcher
100 Carpentry
100 Tinkering
100 Fletching
100 Armslore
80-100 Magery
80 Blacksmithing
45 Music
75 Tailoring
Remainder in Meditation

Not much wiggle room on this template for much else, but can make all the house add-ons plus has a wee bit of wiggle room if skill caps are increased for carpentry, tinkering, and fletching.

Scribe/Cook/Alchemist
120 Magery
110-120 Evaluate Intelligence
100-110 Meditation
100 Inscription
100 Cooking
100 Alchemy
80-100 Spellweaving

I haven't really explored all my options with this template. Have been pondering what other skill could be swapped via soulstones with cooking and/or spellweaving.

 

[Maplestone]

I find magery works its way on to all my crafters because it is simply too good of a utility knife - recall, cure, heal, invisibility, summons. It saves a huge amount of micromanagement/contingency planning to just have magery on there.

I've never tried peacing an ore elemental ... I use a swordsman with mining to deal with them.

Imbuing is going to throw my who character strategy into chaos ... I have one generalist with blacksmithing, carpentry and tailoring and 3 specialists focusing on each of those skills (well, I will if I ever get around to working on the tailor more often). I haven't decided what to do yet ... I'm waffling between adding it to the generalist (which would be less work but mean I'd likely have to drop mining which is just nice to have for doing recycling) or adding it to each of the specialists (which will mean dropping off some fun skills off each and making them more like pure crafters)

 

[WildWobble]

Might i suggest a fast mage weapon bow with spellchanneling. or even a good axe with mage weapon. Axe best bet if you chop trees you will chop monsters better with it! And magery is nice on a crafter! helps to gate at times recall without fail even summoning stuff is handy.

 

[Harlequin]

I find magery works its way on to all my crafters because it is simply too good of a utility knife - recall, cure, heal, invisibility, summons. It saves a huge amount of micromanagement/contingency planning to just have magery on there.

I've never tried peacing an ore elemental ... I use a swordsman with mining to deal with them.

Imbuing is going to throw my who character strategy into chaos ... I have one generalist with blacksmithing, carpentry and tailoring and 3 specialists focusing on each of those skills (well, I will if I ever get around to working on the tailor more often). I haven't decided what to do yet ... I'm waffling between adding it to the generalist (which would be less work but mean I'd likely have to drop mining which is just nice to have for doing recycling) or adding it to each of the specialists (which will mean dropping off some fun skills off each and making them more like pure crafters)

Exactly. Magery is extremely useful. I have 80 magery on my main crafter:

120 Smith
120 Tailor
100 Carp
100 Tinkering
100 Armslore
100 Mining
80 Magery

Plus bard totem/jewels/singing axe/song woven to boost Music to 45. I can make everything in carpentry. I also hunt ore elemenals with a mage weapon earth elemental slayer bow.

Like maplestone, I'm gonna soulstone mining for imbuing. Training a miner on another account specifically for hunting ore elementals.

For fame, I swap jewels to boost to 100 magery and hunt Daemons with earth elementals.

Edit: The ore elementals I hunt are the val elementals. I hoarde all my garg pickaxes for spawning val elementals. Prospector tools I use on every single spot.

 

[Basara]

Note that a crafter with magery really has no need for dex, except if using a mage weapon on the two ore elemental types that are immune to spells.

Suggest that if you keep magery, if just 230 stats, going 125 STR/30 Dex/75 INT, then if you can find a cheap stat scroll, putting all points from it into INT. For that matter, you could probably go as low as 10 dex, so long as your armor raises you over 30 (enough for 1 tick speed increase with a mage weapon, and a few steps if overloaded).

Magery has the following spells that are useful to the non-eval mage.
Healing & curing spells
Summons (Blade Spirit, RV, Elementals)
Mind Blast (the one offensive direct damage spell that doesn't use Eval).
Invisibility

Note: unless you're trying to gather verite or valorite at the time, don't use gloves of mining, except to smelt ore you can't smelt without them. Only the +1 gloves allow meditation. And, before factoring in regen properties, your mana regen rate is actually 3/4 dependent on your INT, only 1/4 on med, so that skill is less needed for your purposes if you have a high INT.

Here's what I'd do with your skills as they are, assuming your account is only a 700-point account...

120 Blacksmith (currently 87.5)
100 Mining (91.4)
100 Arms Lore (22.5)
120 Tailoring (76.8)
100 Tinkering (85.5)
100 Magery (72.1), but get a 110 or 115 PS, and a spellbook with +10 to +15 Magery on it. Eventually earn enough with selling crafted items and runics to get a Magery 120 PS, but that's a long term goal.
60 Eval Int
Add equipment to increase magery (and Eval), use points saved to increase Eval.
Build a suit around LMC and physical resist, preferably with Stat bonuses (mana increase for crafted armor, Str Bonus & Int Bonus for Jewelry, talismans, etc.) If at all possible, keep it medable to maximize passive regen.

Alternatively, you could use just the spells I mentioned, and go with Chivalry instead of Eval, and use Chivalry combined with a mage weapon bow on the ore elementals.

 

[Warpig Inc]

SUPER MULE
120 smith
120 tailoring
100 carp stone swap with 100 tinkering
100 fletching stone swap 100 Cooking
100 arms lore
120 imbueding
85 magery (30 jewel set + 15 off book............)
45 music (Mantel 10 for elf/ 30 on jewels/ 5 Singing axe/ 10 mask travesty/ 5 tally. Just no need for skill points on template. Gargoyle if it was a question! This mule will make all and reapir all. Will have to stone swap alky also for the glass weapons

COMBAT MINER
100 sword because the 10 str eli slayer axe from the museum is sweet.
100 tactics
100 anat
100 mining plus 5 for the ringmail gloves
100 heal
120 smith to smelt loot and another BOD snatcher
80 chiv
Do away with the chiv and burn recall charges or heal for 100 jacking and can stone swap the carp from SUPER MULE if know your going to have a day of it. Use everything in his suit that has stat pumps. totem 20 str/ jackel 15 dex/ arms 5 dex/ CC 5 dex/ tally 1 str/ jewel set be easy after Imbueding. My COMBAT miner is at 338 total stats and redlines a shadow eli without pally pump. The fire beetle fix for ghost form just a hit on honest players to compete with recall scripters in there sloppy seconds suit. Read that granite and sand books for the new stuff coming. Human

GOLD HUNTER
120 peace
120 discord
120 music
120 prov(4x120 bard to max the firehorn 81-100HP PVM area. 110 damage to WW or 80+ to named undead if you never used it)
100+ archery easier; hunters headdress over a bard travesty mask
100+ chiv
leftovers on resist magic. Template uses all the things that has skill to the suit. My guy still has sword but the tactics nerf ruined the Blaze of Death+ Fire Horn + Holy Light + fire area potion + Spin attack combo. Was great at champs and could solo most. But today Bedlam Named Undead a walk in the park and stuff the BOS the bank is right there. Skill heavy jewel set will really make this template rock when Imbueding comes out (150 skill set?). Elf to wear the 10 music arms and those choice heartwood armor pieces with DI & HCI.

BYO MEATSHIELD
120 archery
110+ taming
120 lore
120 vet
110 tactics
80+ chiv
leftovers on resist magic from what skills can be in the suit.
one pet works great and thats the Cu. X heals and can ride an eath with it. Female elf character to cover the demon champ and get the free mana. Archer so your not mage limited on armor for nice LUCK suit

JACK OF OTHER TRADES
100 fishing
100 chartography
100 lock picking
100+ archery (Horselord Yumi covers the serps and the elis)
100 tactics
100 alky
80+ chiv
stone mining; UOAssit can make a nice record macros to fish and mine at the same time on some choice seaside mountains. No need for the goyl picks. Any eli spawned just fall in the water and sink so just a waste of picks. Elf

SDI PIG
120 mage
120 eval
120 weaver
100 scribe
120 med
100+ resist magic in case they make it work right again
cap out all the mage mods and get those SDI slayers spellbooks. the 30SDI invasion spellbook for the Fey or the scrappers. Elf. Sounds like Imbueding a stone swap thought if the MULE is not crafting or Mystic skill

7TH SLOT
flavor of the month for Fel or a tailor smith for more BODs and a weapon skill with some tink to take a BOD Book hunting and fill junk BODs on the spot for tailoring