[Magery] Help with my Mage's Template?

[BellaofCats]

Hello, although I've been an active subscriber to UO for eight yrs, I, like so many others, took a break. I've been back for about eight months now and am trying to work with all of my chars (across two accounts) to get them up to snuff; today it's my mage.

Her skill is maxed out at 720 and includes: Wrestling 70, Inscription 100, Magery 100, Focus 100, Meditation 110, Eval 115 and Resist 120

Enhancements include:

Crystalline Ring for the +20 to Magery and + 20 to Focus (Focus is scrolled to 120, waiting on Magery scroll to do the same)

Ornament of the magician FCR 3, FC 2, LMC 10

Spell Woven Britches for the Med 10 bonus (which brings it to 120) SDI 10, LMC 10

Kasa of the Raj-In with SDI of 12

Scrapper's SDI 25, FC 1, FCR 1, LMC 10

Pendant of the Magi MR 3, SDI 5, LMC 10

Chaos Shield FCR 2, FC 1

Totem of the Void LMC 10, HPR 2

In addition to the 120 Magery scroll, I am looking for a 120 Eval scroll. Then I think I am done... or am I?

I realize the GM Inscribe gives me +10 to SDI, but, is it needed with all the other SDI enhancements? Should I stone it off and add another skill? I've heard good things about Mysticism but don't really want to train another skill unless it is really worth it. I have GM Spellweaving stoned and could add that but would I need to train to 120? Is wrestling even worth having at all? I did it basically to fill in the 70 points I had left over not knowing what else to do with those "extra" points.

Although I don't currently PVP, I am not against learning how and with 120 resist, I thought perhaps this char would be a good one to give it a try with. Basically I want as much SDI, LMC and anything else I'd need if I did try to PVP as well as a top-notch template for PVM. I often play alone in PVM and need to be able to take on whatever comes my way in as many situations as possible.

I want max LMC, SDI, FC/FCR for both PVP and PVM that I can get and already have 100 LRC. I'm sure I've overkilled it on some of this and maybe lacking in other areas.

So, I turn to the experts for advice on what YOU would do if this were your template and I am open to any suggestions or comments you offer.

Thank you in advance for your time!

Bella

 

[icm420]

A good pvm/pvp temp would be the mystic mage, and since you have a crystalline ring I would go that way. A mage weapon is the "best" defense available currently, it takes no skill points so you can create a character that packs a punch but has solid defense at the same time. A mage weapon is mostly used in pvp, but if you get swarmed in pvm it could be the difference between looking for a res and surviving to tell the tale. For the most part however in pvm you will rely on slayer books for damage output, along with summons to keep monsters at bay. For pvp a mystic mage provides a great "crutch" heal that will allow you to learn what is going on and compete better with limited experience.

Spellweaving is another great skill for pvm/pvp. It is a bit of a pain to use, since you need 4-5 other spellweavers within 20 skill points of each other to get an arcane focus gem. A focus will literally increase the potency and duration of your spellweaving spells, and without a focus you will find spellweaving to be lacking. Spellweaving isn't very offensive tho, so you can't rely on it to do lots of damage with the exception of word of death in pvm. For a spellweaving template you have lots of options since it requires no secondary skill, and it works well at differnt skill levels. One of my favorite templates is a spellweaver mystic mage, which takes advantage of many of the lower skill level spellweaving spells, and uses less meditation because of the need for focus for mysticism.

The most common templates out there now would be a mystic scribe mage, a mystic ninja mage, or a mystic spellweaver mage. There is no real set template, everyone has a differnt playstyle and can run differnt amounts of meditation, I tend to be a mana hog so I tend to stay with higher meditation characters, but I know many people who forgo med all together and pick up 120 spellweaving in place of it. Others drop med down to 40-60 and put ninja on, this is to use llama form to counter dismounts. This is really only useful for pvpers, but more often then not a dismount=death so it pays off for a lot of people.

As for the suit, since pvp sdi is currently capped at 15%(with 10% additional granted threw inscription) all of your sdi items would be wasted. This is why I would recommend a pvm suit and then a pvp suit. In pvp DCI is your friend and the higher you can get it the better off you are. This is assuming you are using a mage weapon or 120 wrestle, since dci without something to trigger it is useless. For pvm, the more sdi the better, you want to kill the monsters quickly, so stack up the sdi and use slayers..unless you are word of deathing, spellweaving doesn't use slayers so as much sdi as possible will give you the big wod numbers.

If you are going to use mysticism you really need to be 120, since it a skill set that is directly based against resist spell, 120 will give you the best chance and best damage possible vs a pvper with resistspell. A pvper without resist fears a mystic mage, and they tend to do much more damage against them. Also 120 mysticism gives cleansing winds and bombard on spelltrigger which is an instant cast spell, obviously these two spells are the best ones available and only show up at 120 myst. Mysticism gives a great summon as well and the max duration and chance to cast is at 120..yet another reason to get this 120 scroll.

I could list templates but basically it comes down to what you want to do, with focus as the "eval" for mysticism you can come up with some really creative temps, and an extra 20 skill points for focus(threw cryst. ring) only makes it better. Like I said I am a mana hog and so I go for higher med chars, but some people can run no med and use just focus for mana return.

Keep an eye out for the new update, it's currently looking like sdi in pvp will go to 30% for focused characters, meaning if you are a "pure mage" or a "pure necro" ,etc you will be allowed a higher pvp sdi cap.

 

[BellaofCats]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions and putting so much into perspective. It sounds like, for me and although I did not want to train another skill up, a mystic mage may be more fun as well as more potent.

It also sounds like I should keep focus at 100. Otherwise the 70 points I currently have in wrestling are the only "spare" points I have to devote to mystisism. I suppose I should take a look at any and all posts about templates in this forum to get some idea of how to make it all mesh together.

Another question if I can: Would a the Staff of the Magi work?

Thanks again,

Bella

 

[icm420]

A staff of the magi would work fine, most people go for the 1 handed mage weapon in order to use the healing stone that is offered by mysticism, which is a renewable healing potion basically. It will heal around 30-35 points of damage instantly, and has a stored number of points that can be consumed before the healing stone goes away. Once it is used up, you can recast the spell healing stone and start all over again. However a staff of the magi is better then nothing, and sure beats having a healing stone and no defense.

If you want to keep inscription you should consider dropping meditation down, I realize this isn't what you want to hear, but 120s in major skills are more important then lesser skills. I say meditation is a lesser skill since mana regen, forms, focus, etc all do the same thing. Tight templates require sacrifices, and to counter the lower mana return most people go for a high mana pool. At any rate, 120 eval with inscription is a must, otherwise you are kind of using 100 points to get to 120 eval..120 magery is the defense and also determines healing ability and who doesn't hate to fizzle 6 EV's or res's in a row? 120 mysticism and 120 focus again are important and 120 resist is a must for pvp. Most "new" mystics prefer the 6x120, mage eval resist med focus myst, because it lets them cast almost non stop. Mystic can be heavy on mana so most prefer this route. I would never say no to inscription if you can make it work, especially if you want to pvp...but you may find your out of mana a lot. With focus as the mysticism "eval" you can do a lot with the templates so try things out and see what works for yah.

If I was you I would do a 6x120 and if you plan to use a staff of magi you would have 40-60 points available that would be great in spellweaving. Figuring gm med, gm mage, gm focus using the crystalline ring to get focus/mage to 120s. If you have an empty soul stone you can soulstone spellweaving off, get a group of people without spellweaving to hop on the circle with yah and get a Jack of Trades arcane focus. It will work the same as a 120 spellweaver level 6, with the exception that is doesn't last as long. When you get your circle you soulstone spellweaving back on and your ready to go. This is how you are able to run odd amounts of the skill and still have the potency that the arcane focus gives. Spellweaving without a focus is terrible, spellweaving with a level 6 is amazing. Attunement and Gift of Renewel are some of the best defensive buffs in the game, and arcane empowerment will increase the amount of damage you heal, increase summons life and make summons harder to dispel. An arcane empowerment RC is a tank that rarely if ever gets dispelled(by monsters).

Of course you could also consider necromancy, at 60 you would get 100% on wraith form and with slayer books and the huge damage hailstorm does you can pull enough mana back to make it worthwhile without having spiritspeak. (wraith form mana drain is based on spiritspeak levels, but huge damage seems to offset it) It won't be the same as a regular necro but is worth trying out to see if it helps any. Hailstorms get costly but try them out on a greater dragon and see how strong they can be.

 

[BellaofCats]

Thanks again for the thorough explaination, it's more help to me than I can say. I don't understand the game mechanics the way many, like you, do and so I putt along with the basics. It's kind of like only seeing the world in black and white, you know it's there but can't really grasp the full beauty of it all.

You are right, my template is tight and I don't mind dropping meditation down since it's easy enough to raise later or I could just stone it off and start it over. That's a sacrifice I can make without issue. The same with wrestling, if it isn't needed I can add it to a stone. Inscription is one I thought I needed if I wanted the extra spell damage, no matter how my tempate was put together but it sounds like I can get the SDI with items if need be.

Basically, I really want a fun template that I can play, really enjoy and, for once, be more than just a "black and white" character that just putts along.

I mentioned the magi staff only because it is the only 0 magery weapon that I know of. Sounds like there are others?

Thanks again, for everything!

Bella

 

[5% Luck]

What I did with a pure caster was to set up the SDI as high as possible while still retaining as much resist as i could and having lrc and regns nice and high.

My template

120 mage
120 eval
110 necro
120 spirit speak
100 scribe
120 weaving (still 109 so slow...)
100 med

I use HoM stitcher mittens midnight bracers spell woven britches and imbued gorget and chest 20 lrc 2 mr and 8 lmc on both

my ring is 15 mage 15 phys 6 lmc 15 lrc 12 sdi

bracelet is 15 mage 6 lmc 15 lrc 2MR 12 sdi(hard to reproduce!)

I use the vesper chaos shield for casting speed.

I have a shadow cloak of rejuvenation and a robe of death?name? 3 more sdi!

I wear the CC over the tangel and use a bloodwood spirit 715 cap

The only real drawback is I cast magic reflection. That marks my phys cap at 65.

The suit adds up to 65/70/70/70/72 with protection up. 11-15 mr 40 lmc 100 lrc 170 mana 120 hp 20 stm

If im in a semi safe situation I swap out the chest and gorget for a pendant and a protector of the battle mage for more sdi.

At my best I have 100 sdi with the 30 sdi invasion book equipped(or 70+slayer w/sdi) 2/3 casting, at my worst its 57 sdi w/0 mage wep equipped 0/0 casting.

I chose necro over mysticism and alot of players think it is a mistake. I have not tried mysticism yet so I am unable to tell you if it is better or not but... between the necro forms the SS heal through poison and the wisp(-20k karma) I never run out of mana. I also get the curses that necro offers and animate dead. I find that out weights the lower mana regn from focus and the RCs indispellability but again that is not talking from experience!

It does take a little bit of time but I cast arcane empowerment before EVs and they last almost as well as the RCs i see though doing less damage.

I regularly FS navery for 320 and WoD for 710.

 

[icm420]

I mentioned the magi staff only because it is the only 0 magery weapon that I know of. Sounds like there are others?
Bella

Staff of Magi and Swords of Prosperity are the only -0 mage weapons available.. both are 2 handed. Sometimes you get really lucky and get a mage weapon as a drop, i used one that was 13 dci 11hci -22 mage weapon spell channeling with no -1. Items like that used to be hard to find and hard to craft and so the 1 handed mage weapon wasn't very popular. Now with imbuing you can make one pretty easily. A planesword is most common, it has enough room to fit -20 mage weapon, 15 dci, 50 hit spell and spell channeling with no -1, so most people use this.

The -20 penalty means you loose 20 magery for equipping the weapon, but you can make that penalty up, threw a crystalline ring or a 15 mage ring with a 5 mage talismen, this results in free 120 weapon skill defense. Or what ever you magery cap is..if you use a mage weapon it's best to be 120 magery...at least for pvp. Pvm any defense is better then none, but you can still get by without defense..if you are carful. Anyway the point to going threw all that effort to use a 1 handed mage weapon is to be able to chug potions, use a healing stone, etc.

 

[icm420]

Oh also inscription is awesome I would never say don't use it, but in my opinion it usually only adds up in pvp where you can't increase your sdi beyond 15% other then with scribe...at least right now, the focused mage/necro/mystic thing will change that. I pvp in small group/solo so if I run out of mana I am in trouble. That is why I usually don't make 40-60 med pvpers without some sort of non mana offense.

 

[5% Luck]

Staff of pyros is another 0 mage wep. Undead slayer to boot!

 

[icm420]

I totally forgot about that one! It was supposed to spew out fire randomly but like usual it never happened. Vorpal blade was supposed to 1 hit kill randomly too.. never happend. I still think half of the gargoyle mods are not working..

Anyways I am pretty sure undead slayer on the staff of pyros means repond do double damage to yah, I have noticed an increase of damage taken from rats at spawns when I have my undead talismen on.. but that was quite some time ago and I don't really use that talismen anymore because of that... has this been changed? If not then watch out using staff of pyros at a rat spawn

 

[5% Luck]

I tend to bring the pyros stff when I do undead champs and darkfathers or any other place that does not have repond. I hardly ever hunt repond anyhow but it does do extra damage to you if you wield any form of undead slayer

 

[BellaofCats]

I thank each of you for your replys, ideas and expertise. Apparently I have alot to think about on how to proceed as well as a way to implement it all. It's times like this that I start thinking about creating an imbuer... but that is another thread altogether!

 

[Obsidian]

It's times like this that I start thinking about creating an imbuer... but that is another thread altogether!

Don't think about it... start now... tonight even. It will be the best move you ever make to help equip your new mage (and any other characters you might have).

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[BellaofCats]

Don't think about it... start now... tonight even. It will be the best move you ever make to help equip your new mage (and any other characters you might have).

-OBSIDIAN-

Yes, you are right. When I think of how I'd like a suit and how much it would cost to have it made or find individual pieces... eek! I'm getting started this weekend!

Bella