Help on build

[Kerwin]

Hello all. It's been a while since I last played, and I now officially have no clue on what works and what doesn't work on UO anymore. I figured I'd wing my first build just to see how well it works, but I'd love some input on it!

The goal is to have a mage build where everything works together. I think I may be trying to do a bit too much though.

Race: Gargoyle
7X GM, I figure I can use skill items to adjust as needed.
Necro
SS
Mysticism
Focus
Magery
Eval Intelligence
Meditation

Int 120
Dex 25
Str 80


Some Ideas I have had would be to swap out Meditation for Poisoning, or maybe have a partial meditation skill with skill items... Not sure what the best path would be. I have a feeling this build will be purely PvM. I know I am sacrificing Magic Resist, but that can be mitigated fairly easily by just managing agro with various summoned pets. (BS, Greater Deamon, EV, etc.)

Other Questions:
Are Tamers still useful in PvP or PvM?
What's up with Ninjitsu and bushido- are they useful for anything?
Is Spell Weaving worth it?

 

[Taylor]

Poison doesn't really have a good PvM application. Also, with the institution of power scrolls, 7xGM has become a thing of the past. With only GM magery/necro/mysticism, you are going to have a hard/impossible time casting some of the most essential spells.

If your skill cap is 700, I would recommend something like this:

120 Mysticism
120 Focus
120 Eval
120 SS
115 Magery
105 Necro

This will allow you to (a) take advantage of higher level spells and (b) fortify your damage output.

To answer your other questions, tamers are effective in both PvM and PvP ecounters. Ninjitsu extremely useful for thieves, stealth/archers, assassins, etc. in PvP instances, but really has no good PvM application. Bushido is useful for archers/warriors in both PvM and PvP. Finally, spellweaving increases both survivability and damage output for PvM: e.g., the weaving spell “Word of Death” is the highest damaging spell in the game (PvM only).

 

[Kerwin]

Poison doesn't really have a good PvM application. Also, with the institution of power scrolls, 7xGM has become a thing of the past. With only GM magery/necro/mysticism, you are going to have a hard/impossible time casting some of the most essential spells.

If your skill cap is 700, I would recommend something like this:

120 Mysticism
120 Focus
120 Eval
120 SS
115 Magery
105 Necro

This will allow you to (a) take advantage of higher level spells and (b) fortify your damage output.

To answer your other questions, tamers are effective in both PvM and PvP ecounters. Ninjitsu extremely useful for thieves, stealth/archers, assassins, etc. in PvP instances, but really has no good PvM application. Bushido is useful for archers/warriors in both PvM and PvP. Finally, spellweaving increases both survivability and damage output for PvM: e.g., the weaving spell “Word of Death” is the highest damaging spell in the game (PvM only).

Ah, thanks! So no hit and run attacks with poison/Blade Spirits? (Can't aggro if I'm not on Screen :>)


Also, what about skill items, if I use those to achieve 120, can I make use of the 100 points?

Also, how do I tell my skill cap, I completely forgot >_< (I have had my account since 2003, but 99% of the time it was inactive.)

 

[Taylor]

In PvM, most creatures will cure themselves pretty quick. The damage from poison is negligible – certainly not worth 80-100 skill points. Also, if you cast the necromancy spell “Evil Omen” prior to casting the mage spell “Poison,” you’ll actually bump your lesser poison up to greater poison.

Skill increasing items are fine. When you are building your suit, you will want at minimum 100 lower reagent cost (lrc), 40 lower mana cost (lmc), 6+ mana regeneration (mr), and 2/6 faster casting/faster cast recovery. If you still have room for skill increasing items, then feel free to add them. One item that might help is the Tome of Lost Knowledge: it has +15 magery and some other nice mage-related modifications.

To determine your skill cap, open your paperdoll and double click the scroll beside your character’s feet. Your account age, in months, will be listed. Next, check your account age against these figures:

0-11 Months = 700 skill cap
12-23 Months = 705
24-35 Months = 710
36-47 Months = 715
48+ Months = 720

 

[Kerwin]

In PvM, most creatures will cure themselves pretty quick. The damage from poison is negligible – certainly not worth 80-100 skill points. Also, if you cast the necromancy spell “Evil Omen” prior to casting the mage spell “Poison,” you’ll actually bump your lesser poison up to greater poison.

Skill increasing items are fine. When you are building your suit, you will want at minimum 100 lower reagent cost (lrc), 40 lower mana cost (lmc), 6+ mana regeneration (mr), and 2/6 faster casting/faster cast recovery. If you still have room for skill increasing items, then feel free to add them. One item that might help is the Tome of Lost Knowledge: it has +15 magery and some other nice mage-related modifications.

To determine your skill cap, open your paperdoll and double click the scroll beside your character’s feet. Your account age, in months, will be listed. Next, check your account age against these figures:

0-11 Months = 700 skill cap
12-23 Months = 705
24-35 Months = 710
36-47 Months = 715
48+ Months = 720

Ah, very good. I am at 19 months. (I gave my original account away when I quit the first time back when Tram was released) I had never put much thought into building specific suits for my character, this seems like UO is turning into a variant of Eve Online with ship builds and such.

I kinda like this level of complexity, makes you think that much harder about your character, as compared to the simply modifiers back in the day for magical armor and such.

Thanks!!

Also, Since Poison is rather useless- what about replacing it with Inscription instead? I don't know if I will have room for skill increasing items, but it is most definitely worth looking into ^_^

Edit: I may have this wrong- I was thinking Inscription effected the damage output for all Magic's- Does it only effect magery, or does it actually help out the rest as well?

Edit Update: Ah, just found out about Inscription. It is an all or nothing sort of Bonus- 10% for having GM Inscription, otherwise it is nothing. On top of that, the bonus only applies to the Magery skill based spells >_<

Thanks again, I do think I'll go with your suggestion there!