Bushido on a budget?

[Ogrebait]

I just returned to UO after a LONG break from the game and I'd like to play a Samurai. The problem is that I am broke (pretty much everything I owned in the game disappeared along with my house a long time ago) - And alot of the players I see are decked out in high-end artifacts that I simply cannot afford right now (probably never will since I dont have alot of time to game these days).

Can somebody recommend a PvM template that doesnt require literally millions of gold in high-end gear to be effective against decent creatures? I'd really appreciate the help.

Note: I have a 720 pt skill cap

 

[Balian]

im on my way out the door but heres a few good pices that are cheap

DCI is important so:
Heart of the lion (HOL)
or violet courage depending upon your gender
15DCI and 95 luck
Fey leggiings 20dci
quiver of inf 5 dci
thats 40dci for about 500k

brightsights are about 100k they have high fire resist and mr 3

gloves of pug about 100k they have Damage increase and dex i believ

get some legs, arms and gorg with resists and mods, I prefer stam/mana/hp increase

and some jewels with HCI and a little dci to raise up dci above soft cap of 45

prolly do this suit for under a mill

get weps with ssi/ml/sl and ll

I hope this helps for a 2 minute reply

 

[Jolt]

Probably the most versatile template I could recommend would the popular ABC template (archery bushido chivalry).

110 Archery
110 Med (change to resist eventually)
100 Tactics
100 Healing
100 Bushido
100 Anatomy
100 Chivalry

With that template and some exceptional crafted leather and bows you'll be able to PvM very effectively. When you've got enough gold to upgrade, look for armour with high MR (mana regen) as this template can be further enhanced by changing medi to magic resist once you have the gear to compensate for the lost mana regen.

Those are the basics, but a good place to start I think.

 

[Ogrebait]

Er... I must have missed sumthin. Archery on a Samurai instead of a melee skill like swords or maces? I assumed there'd be little or no use for Bushido on an archer since Bushido (from what I understand) works hand in hand with Parrying (which requires a sword/mace). What does Bushido bring to an Archer?

 

[Jolt]

While it's true that bushido does combine with parrying to allow you to parry with 1H and 2H weapons (while penalising you for using a shield), it's only really one facet of the skill.

I'd say the three most used abilities for bushido are honoring opponents, confidence, and lightning strike, all of which can be used on an archer. There are other abilities that can only be used in melee, but I don't even have them bound on my bushido swordsman (other than momentum strike, which i use occasionally).

If you're stuck on a melee samurai I'd guess the standard template looks like this:

Weapon Skill (As close to 120 as you can afford)
Bushido (As close to 120 as you can afford)
Parrying (As close to 120 as you can afford)
Tactics (Can drop points here, but 70, 90 and 100 are good places to lock the skill.)
Anatomy (Can drop points here, but no lower than 81.)
Healing (Can drop points here, but no lower than 90.1.)
Chivalry (Can drop points here, but try to stay around 75 or above.)

Tactics at 70 and 90 for primary and secondary weapon specials, and GM for the additional damage bonus.
Anatomy no lower than 81 in order to be able to resurrect with healing.
Healing no lower than 90.1 so you don't fail healing (although you still will fail healing high poisons and resurrecting)
Chivalry try to stay around 75 in order to keep a decent success rate on EoO.

The only one of those skills you could theoretically drop would be chivalry, but you'd take a massive hit to your damage, plus lose the other abilities it gives, so I wouldn't recommend it.

You'll need a decent resist suit to start with, preferably with a bit of MR on it. As you progress you'll want to add some DCI to it, and if you get the chance DI and HCI is beneficial also.

I still stand by the fact that a ABC archer with med/focus is probably the quickest, easiest and cheapest PvM template to get up and running. With the template I originally posted and some cheap/crafted armour you could happily hunt balrons and dragons and participate in guild peerless or doom runs. Then when your gear gets better you can drop med for resist and do some PvP/champ spawns.

I've got both characters and I favour the archer for ease of use and power, but obviously it's personal preference.

HTH.

 

[Valhakar]

<blockquote><hr>

Er... I must have missed sumthin. Archery on a Samurai instead of a melee skill like swords or maces? I assumed there'd be little or no use for Bushido on an archer since Bushido (from what I understand) works hand in hand with Parrying (which requires a sword/mace). What does Bushido bring to an Archer?

[/ QUOTE ]

Bushido Archer is the current "Tank Mage". Easy to play, simple to build, almost no down sides. It is just screaming for a nerf.

 

[imported_GFY]

BE QUIET!

Let them nerf necro mages first!

 

[Gwen_Denugz]

for whats it worth, i would go for the Sampire. Can be assembled for fairly cheap. Make it an elven female and you can wear any armor in the game. The basics to get you started would be a quiver of ininity, heart of lion/violet courage, fey leggings, brightsight lenses, +15 necro bracelet, +15 necro ring, Ossian Grimoire, +5 necro bloodwood spirit totem, and a soul seeker. Those are the absolute minimums, can make up the rest of suit outta decent leather armor, until you can afford things like mace and sheild glasses, and jackals collar, midnite bracers, etc....

can fight with the cursed jackals that is dropping like water now, and use cursed midnite bracers and keep in bank also

the quiver and Grimoire are available from the heritage tokens, which are also dirt cheap right now

next skills:
115 swords, bushido, parry
100 heal
90 anat
70 tactics
60 chiv
55 necro

before you start anything, put on bloodwood spirit, jewels, grimoire to get to 100 necro, and cast vampiric embrace. Take off jewels and replace with the highest HCI, DCI, DI you can afford.

In vamp form you leach 20% of the damage you deal out. With 100 healing, you will never fail to cure poison, with 70 tactics, and soul seeker, you can use whirlwind to make short work of mobs, get a fast heavy hitting weapon, and you will be making gold faster than you can spend it. There is a lil bit of capital involved to get started, but all the basics can be had for not very much, if you are in a guild, or have friends that play, odds are they already have most of these items, and will just give them to you, or sell for a deep deep discount.

The way to fight:
if fighting one on one, then enemy of one, honor, and consecrate weapon

if fighting mutliple enemies at once, stay away from EoO, as other critters not affected by it will do 2x damage. Use honor as much as possible, consecrate weapon, equip soul seeker, and whirlwind till they are all dead

you can lower necro even more if you have midnite bracers, and put points into chiv

 

[Valhakar]

<blockquote><hr>

BE QUIET!

Let them nerf necro mages first!

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry but the whole concept of Honor + Bushido for distance attack just sticks in my craw. Same goes for Chivalry and archery. Chivalry and Bushido are so darn powerful because the melee fighter needed the boost. Allowing Archers to get the full benefit is plain wrong. My GM Fencer/tactics/anatomy/resist/Bushido/Parry/Chiv character is barely more useful than my 90 archer with 80 chiv, 55 Bushido.

 

[Valhakar]

<blockquote><hr>


before you start anything, put on bloodwood spirit, jewels, grimoire to get to 100 necro, and cast vampiric embrace. Take off jewels and replace with the highest HCI, DCI, DI you can afford.



[/ QUOTE ]

Major nerf needed for that.

 

[Gwen_Denugz]

<blockquote><hr>

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before you start anything, put on bloodwood spirit, jewels, grimoire to get to 100 necro, and cast vampiric embrace. Take off jewels and replace with the highest HCI, DCI, DI you can afford.



[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry but the whole concept of Honor + Bushido for distance attack just sticks in my craw. Same goes for Chivalry and archery. Chivalry and Bushido are so darn powerful because the melee fighter needed the boost. Allowing Archers to get the full benefit is plain wrong. My GM Fencer/tactics/anatomy/resist/Bushido/Parry/Chiv character is barely more useful than my 90 archer with 80 chiv, 55 Bushido.



[/ QUOTE ]

Bushido Archer is the current "Tank Mage". Easy to play, simple to build, almost no down sides. It is just screaming for a nerf.



[/ QUOTE ]

Major nerf needed for that.

[/ QUOTE ]


sounds like we just need to nerf any character not named Valhakar. To go one step further maybe we should all templates EXACTLY like yours. That should make for a level playing field. Im surprised i didnt find the beuaty in this before now.

 

[Valhakar]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>


before you start anything, put on bloodwood spirit, jewels, grimoire to get to 100 necro, and cast vampiric embrace. Take off jewels and replace with the highest HCI, DCI, DI you can afford.



[/ QUOTE ]
Sorry but the whole concept of Honor + Bushido for distance attack just sticks in my craw. Same goes for Chivalry and archery. Chivalry and Bushido are so darn powerful because the melee fighter needed the boost. Allowing Archers to get the full benefit is plain wrong. My GM Fencer/tactics/anatomy/resist/Bushido/Parry/Chiv character is barely more useful than my 90 archer with 80 chiv, 55 Bushido.



[/ QUOTE ]

Bushido Archer is the current "Tank Mage". Easy to play, simple to build, almost no down sides. It is just screaming for a nerf.



[/ QUOTE ]

Major nerf needed for that.

[/ QUOTE ]


sounds like we just need to nerf any character not named Valhakar. To go one step further maybe we should all templates EXACTLY like yours. That should make for a level playing field. Im surprised i didnt find the beuaty in this before now.

[/ QUOTE ]

Settle down junior. My main account was created the first week of the game, I have 3 accounts in total. I also have built MUDS, MOOS, and graphical RPG games. I know a thing or two about twink vs creative builds.

I have a Bushido archer. I have a Bushido fencer. I have a scribe mage. I have a NOX archer, I have a necro macer/miner for felucia, and the list goes on....

When you see a mass migration to a twinkie model, you know it is over powered and needs some adjusting. The plain fact that you can use Confidence to heal, lighting strike to max HCI, and never have to worry about actually taking damage; you have a balance issue. Bushido and Chivalry were created with the toe to toe fighter in mind.

I have an excelent solution to the issue. All Bushido skills check both Parry and Bushido for calculations. That means both the fencer and the archer have the same access to great skills but the archer MUST take the same points as the fencer to get the same benefit.

It also means the Chiv/Sammy/Archer MUST make the same hard choices as the melee toon. Heal or resist, but not both.

Cheers,

Valhakar

 

[Zalan]

ABC Archer FTP! or For the Big Game

Melee/Bushido is for fun more or less now.

 

[imported_GFY]

I think the problem is basically that not all templates can be run with a grand total of 720 skill points.

I chiv, bushido, swords type template just plan NEEDS more skill points to be as effective as a different twinked out template.

Think about it for a second... a dexxer (non-archer) needs weapon, bushido, heal, anatomy, tactics, parry, and chiv. This doesn't even consider if you want focus. If you want to make a necro you can drop one like bushido BUT your adding 2 MORE skills.

Perhaps its time for UO to have an adjustable max skill point based on the template your trying to create? I know, I know... max skill points isn't HARD CAPPED and you can use items to add a skill in a pinch. (See sampire above)

It just seems really crappy to me that I can use 720 skill points and make a maxxed out Scribe mage and have 20 points left over to boot! But if I want a really good melee template I have to choose what I max out then settle for what I can fit after that.

 

[Valhakar]

<blockquote><hr>

I think the problem is basically that not all templates can be run with a grand total of 720 skill points.

I chiv, bushido, swords type template just plan NEEDS more skill points to be as effective as a different twinked out template.

Think about it for a second... a dexxer (non-archer) needs weapon, bushido, heal, anatomy, tactics, parry, and chiv. This doesn't even consider if you want focus. If you want to make a necro you can drop one like bushido BUT your adding 2 MORE skills.

Perhaps its time for UO to have an adjustable max skill point based on the template your trying to create? I know, I know... max skill points isn't HARD CAPPED and you can use items to add a skill in a pinch. (See sampire above)

It just seems really crappy to me that I can use 720 skill points and make a maxxed out Scribe mage and have 20 points left over to boot! But if I want a really good melee template I have to choose what I max out then settle for what I can fit after that.

[/ QUOTE ]

No, you only think you need heal. It is all about balance. The issue with the archer builds is that they get an extra 100 points, since the actual parry skill is pointless for them.

This build has plenty of healing with Bushido and Chivalry. You just have to take less DCI/HCI/SSI and get a bit more MR.

Anatomy 90
Fencing 110
Bushido 120
Chivalry 70
Parry 120
Resist 110
Tactics 100
720

I have a Scribe mage, and you are right about it being easy to max out.

extra 40
Wrestling 120
Magery 120
Meditiation100
Eval INT 120
Resist 120
Inscription100
720

Simple fix, melee defense check needs to be skill + tactics, forcing mages to take a weapon skill and tactics.

 

[Lord Kotan]

<blockquote><hr>

Er... I must have missed sumthin. Archery on a Samurai instead of a melee skill like swords or maces? I assumed there'd be little or no use for Bushido on an archer since Bushido (from what I understand) works hand in hand with Parrying (which requires a sword/mace). What does Bushido bring to an Archer?

[/ QUOTE ]

Lightening strike (+50% HCI and chance for critical)

Confidense

Evade (though less effective without parry)

 

[The Real John]

<blockquote><hr>

Evade (though less effective without parry)

[/ QUOTE ]

That they got no evade bonus any more with archery.

 

[Ravenspyre]

<blockquote><hr>

Evade (though less effective without parry)

[/ QUOTE ]Archers do not, and never have benefitted from Evade. You can not, and never have, and most likely never will, be able to parry with a bow.

Archery doesn't need parry as much anyways for bushido because it's ranged attacks. Look at the Samurai guide for more answers.

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

<blockquote><hr>

BE QUIET!

Let them nerf necro mages first!

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry but the whole concept of Honor + Bushido for distance attack just sticks in my craw. Same goes for Chivalry and archery.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just to play Devil's Advocate, Samurai in real history were most always very skilled archers as well as swordsmen. That being said I tend to agree with you; I prefer to look them in the eyes up close as they die.