Re: PVP Stealth Archer
thanks dude.
i'm set on having an effective 120 archery/tactics for the most part. but some more questions if you don't mind?
1. what hiding and stealth levels should i shoot for to be effective in pvp? i don't want to go to 120 if it's not necessary.
2. i'm just now finding that bows have different abilities... but how do i shoot someone with a special shot to dismount, mortal strike, or para?
3. how useful would small levels of bushido be on a stealth archer? i checked out lightning strike and it adds up to maximum of 45 Hit chance increase. didnt matter if I was wearing a 19 HCI ring or if I had no chance, it would always be 45. im not sure if thats worth the points when i can get almost as much from an item or two. what else in bushido would be good for a stealth archer? we can't parry so confidence is useless, right? and we can't stealth with a pet so the hiryu, while nice, is not useful to us.
4. how useful would small amounts of chiv be to a stealth archer?
5. what about out of the box thinking - spirit speak to heal instead of anatomy/healing? as a bonus it cures mortal strike. or also ive seen stealthers with maxed hp regen and no healing ability. they just run off restealth wait 10 sec to heal and then attack again.
6. regarding ninjitsu, i've been told llama form is faster than the other stuff like ki-rin form and takes much less skill pts. would i be better off going with 70 natural ninja and then adding 10 or 20 more to make llama form reliable?
thanks. just trying to determine the best direction to go...
I'll do my utmost to answer your questions but I'll confess that I'm not the greatest PvPer and someone like Lynk might be able to offer more accurate information.
Nonetheless lets begin.
1. I regularly see fellow stealthers with 100 Hiding & 80 Stealth. With GM skill you'll never fail hiding and 80 stealth means you'll never fail stealth whilst wearing medable armour i.e. leather (note: not studded) & armour with the
mage armour property.
120 stealth is not necessary for PvP. The differences between GM & legendary stealth are: (1) the amount of steps that you'll have to take before passing another stealth check (iirc it's 16@ 80, 20 @ GM & 24 @ Legendary) and (2) you'll be more easily passively revealed with lower stealth.
The former doesn't really matter as long as you're wearing medable armour and similarly the latter doesn't matter too much as you'll be hitting your opponent from distance as a stealth archer. Passive reveal primarily concerns people who need to get in close such as dexxers and thieves.
You could drop stealth even lower to free additional skill points and make use of arties such as the shadow dancer leggings, burgalars bandana & cloak of silence. However you then become tied to these items and I prefer having natural ability.
2. You attack with mortal strikes etc. by using the primary and secondary attack functions of your weapon similar to any dexxer class.
See this link for details:
http://uo.stratics.com/content/arms-armor/specialmoves.php
3. The problem with the stealth-archer or any stealth-dexxer template for that matter is that it's a tight build as c. 200 skill points are 'tied up' in hiding & stealth. This means that you have to make some sacrifices, which usually means the build doesn't have the survivability of pure warrior / mage templates.
Bushido may work on the template but its eating into your already limited skill points. You would have lightning strike for improving your HCI & confidence for healing. All the other bushido abilities are rather redundant as your build would be lacking parry.
Personally I'd opt for some Mace & Shield Glasses (for the HLD) and buy some imbued jewels for increasing your HCI / DCI.
4. I think the smarter option would be to run small amounts of chiv. Add extra chiv skill points (+13 ea. peice) to your imbued jewels with some FC / FCR. This would enable all the additional buffs of chiv with less skill points used than Bushdio would reequire.
Alternatively if you're human you can use the Jack of all trades (JOAT) ability to use spellweaving's gift of renewal to provide additional healing.
5i. Again spirit speak might work. I've seen some stealth-archers running with necro & spirit speak. They use wraith form for mana leech and spirit speak for additional or main source of healing. For your information spirit speak doesn't 'cure' mortal strike, but enables you to heal through the mortal strike, effectively negating its special ability.
5ii. Stealth-archers with high HP regen. rates are sometimes referred to as 'dog archers'. They run in ninjitsu's dog form, which provides increased HP regen. & add additional HP regen. to their suit. Dog-archers are notoriously survivable & difficult to kill thanks to a combination of HP regen, hiding / stealth & small silhouette.
6. Llama form is one of my favourite ninjitsu forms. I'm not sure whether its faster than Ki-rin form, I always assumed they were the same. However it does require less ability to use (c. 70) and has 100% success rate at 105 ability.
Again you could run 70 ninjitsu & add additional skill points through items, but then you become tied to them. This isn't neccessarily a bad thing now though with imbuing and perhaps I'm a little stuck in my ways of preferring real skill over item bonuses.
A few templates for you to consider:
(A) Keeping it simple
120: Archery
110: Ninjitsu
100: Tactics, Anat, Heal, Hiding
90: Stealth
JOAT: Spellweaving
(B) Some Chiv
100: Archery (120 with Hunters Headdress)
110: Ninjitsu
100: Tactics, Anat, Hiding
90: Heal (use enhanced bandies)
80: Stealth
40: Chiv (+26 (2 x +13) from imbued jewels = never fail sacred journey or CW iirc).
(C) Necro-Archer (use spirit speak, spell weaving's gift of renewal & curse weapon for healing. Dog form for increased HP regen. Vampire form for life leech)
120: Archery
100: Necro, Hiding
90: SS, Tactics
80: Stealth, Ninjitsu
60: Spellweaving
Alternatively if you opt to use Wraith form you could drop Necro to 40, which frees 60 addition skill points for SS --> 100, Tactics --> 100, Ninjitsu --> 110, Stealth --> 90 Or add Chiv --> 60
Hope that helps. I think the key thing is to remember that stealth templates are a matter of compromise and so its always going to be difficult to find one that suits everyones needs / purposes.