Chiv/Mage question...

[Salty Pete]

I just started playing a chiv/mage for doing spawns and other heavy spawn situations and I have to say this is probably the best character I have ever played. I have 4/6 casting for heals, cures and curse removal along with holy light spamming for times when I get into a crowd. Coupled with the benefits of magery it's a blast to play.

My question is this.... My current template on the character is this:

110 Magery
110 Eval
110 Med
GM Focus
GM Chiv
GM Hiding
80 Stealth

My suit has 4/6 fc/fcr, 28%LMC, 6MR, 100% LRC with 50 resists.... Not great, but I am still in the process of upgrading it. I use a scrappers for the 25% SDI as well as the FC/FCR.

Would I benefit more from dropping focus for poison or inscription or should I stick with focus? The hiding and stealth I am keeping because I love being able to move around undetected in heavy spawns.

I am seriously considering doing the poison as it seems like this would be an incredible asset for champ spawns.

 

[5% Luck]

I personaly love that idea of poison. Though I would say 105 chive would be better as your wither is Holy Light and requires 105 for 100% casting. Ive come realy close to making this charr myself!

Awesome idea!

Wither min 200 SP

Holy light Min 105!

Have you played with wither much? Does the HL damage compare?

 

[Salty Pete]

I personaly love that idea of poison. Though I would say 105 chive would be better as your wither is Holy Light and requires 105 for 100% casting. Ive come realy close to making this charr myself!

Awesome idea!

Wither min 200 SP

Holy light Min 105!

Have you played with wither much? Does the HL damage compare?

I have a necro mage and honestly at 220 SP the wither just isn't as good.... It does a better area of effect, and more damage..... BUT HL is doing 20+ damage with high karma in a good AoE with the benefit of 4/6 casting.

Also, I still have enough SP left to get my chiv to 105 as well as having GM poison.

 

[GFY]

I've been toying with this Idea for a mage template;
Magery 120
Med 120
Eval 120
Resist 120
Wrestle 120
Chiv 120

My current mage has a hard time vs. necros. I'm wondering if this could be a fix to my necro "problem?"

I see this template as good damage potential with 120 eval (no inscribe but oh well...) and very good defensive with chiv 4/6 casting and HL for up close encounters.

 

[Lynk]

Well I hate to call the OP a liar and ruin everyone's template idea.. wait, who am I kidding no I don't.

but.... Chiv FC/FCR is capped at 2/6 if your magery is over 69.9. If you have 70 or more magery you can't cast chiv @ 4/6. It has been this way for some time now..

 

[Salty Pete]

Well I hate to call the OP a liar and ruin everyone's template idea.. wait, who am I kidding no I don't.

but.... Chiv FC/FCR is capped at 2/6 if your magery is over 69.9. If you have 70 or more magery you can't cast chiv @ 4/6. It has been this way for some time now..

I am curious as to the validity of that claim.... When I pull off one of my FC items my Chiv casting time goes down noticably. Also, chiv heals are definately faster than G. Heals with 4/6 FC/FCR items equipped. Can you show me your test data?

I'll do a few tests tonight with different gear and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Lynk]

I am curious as to the validity of that claim.... When I pull off one of my FC items my Chiv casting time goes down noticably. Also, chiv heals are definately faster than G. Heals with 4/6 FC/FCR items equipped. Can you show me your test data?

I'll do a few tests tonight with different gear and see if it makes a difference.

The change was first implemented in Pub 25:

http://update.uo.com/design_502.html

It was broken with a later publish that messed with casting speeds, and then fixed in pub 45.

http://update.uo.com/design_556.html

Interesting to note that with 69.9 magery it is possible to cast 4/6 chiv and you will never fail a 4th circle spell.

 

[Salty Pete]

The change was first implemented in Pub 25:

http://update.uo.com/design_502.html

It was broken with a later publish that messed with casting speeds, and then fixed in pub 45.

http://update.uo.com/design_556.html

Interesting to note that with 69.9 magery it is possible to cast 4/6 chiv and you will never fail a 4th circle spell.

Well, cool. If that's how it works I'll be able to swap out my jewels and armour for higher resist 2/6 40% LMC. I'll do a few tests first to make sure that is how it is currently working.

 

[Clog|Mordain]

Personally, if your carrying a book, i'd go wrestle and try and work the temp so its 120 wrestle instead of gm. you wont get hit anywhere near as much either.

 

[Obsidian]

How does this template work for mana? The benefit of using over 200 points for necro & ss is you also get excellent mana leech in wraith form. Seems to me that you'd be mana deficient most of the time. Other than that, excellent template idea.

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[GFY]

Necro/SS????

Did I miss something?

 

[Salty Pete]

How does this template work for mana? The benefit of using over 200 points for necro & ss is you also get excellent mana leech in wraith form. Seems to me that you'd be mana deficient most of the time. Other than that, excellent template idea.

-OBSIDIAN-

A human character can still cast wraith form without necro skill, right?

 

[Boogieman]

The minimum skill for wraith form is 20, so the answer would be yes - with some patience. However - as I understand the amount of mana leach is depending on your SS skill, so the benefit is like none existent... ?

 

[Obsidian]

I have a necro mage and honestly at 220 SP the wither just isn't as good.... It does a better area of effect, and more damage..... BUT HL is doing 20+ damage with high karma in a good AoE with the benefit of 4/6 casting.

Sorry, I should have been more clear on my input. I wanted to explore Salty's Pete's comment about using 220 skillpoints (SP) for necro/ss to get wither wasn't as good as ~100 SP of Chiv for Holy Light. I am still concerned this template would run out of mana too quickly if spamming holy light over and over. To me, that's the benefit of running wraith and spamming wither with a necro-mage... you leech back a fair bit of mana to keep you going longer.

I was thinking about a variation of this template based on this thread. The notion of running a 4/6 mage who focused on only 4th level and below spells actually sounds interesting. Here's what I was considering. It's kind of a hybrid.

120 Eval Int
120 Meditation
120 Wrestling
100 Spirit Speak
100 Chivalry
70 Resisting Spells
69.9 Magery
20.1 Necromancy

Idea is you'd run in wraith form for the mana leech. You can cast holy light & level 4 magery spells and below 100% of the time at 4/6 FC/FCR (with the right items). The Resisting Spells could be boosted to 100 via a +10 SP on a spellbook and +20 on brace/ring. You'd still need 100% LRC and 40% LMC, but this could be interesting. The biggest weakness I see is that there is no means to invis or hide, and no summons to take the brunt of the attack.

A variation might be dropping the Resist for 100 Inscription and cutting down 30 SP. Then you would get the 10% SDI bonus and be able to make invis scrolls, which you can cast from scroll with 100% success. Of course, you loose your resist but that is probably irrelevant with 4/6 close wounds & greater heal.

Thoughts?

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[Kimball]

If you are going with 20.1 necro just to get into wraith form, couldn't you simply put on necro jewelry to get into form then take it off (on a human). If the form requires 20 skill JOAT would get you this to stay in form, just hard to get there with only 20 skill (a lot of fails). I had a char I took necro off of while he was in wraith form. He stayed in that form after the publish and it was tough to get him out of it with only JOAT skill, but he did stay in that form. I'm not sure if this was because he was in form before the publish or not since I haven't tested this since, but it is worth at least testing if you want to keep wraith.

Anyone know if casting from a necro scroll require less skill like magery does????

 

[Obsidian]

I don't think casting from a necro scroll gives you the same advantage it does in magery.

I guess I just need to go to Test Center and try out running the template with 0 necro as a human. If I can indeed stay in wraith form with 0 skill then that solves 20 skill points I need in my template. The remaining 10 SP can easily be from the spellbook itself.

I also want to boost the Chiv up to 105 for the 100% chance of success for Holy Light.

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[Obsidian]

On test center, I tried wraith form on a human without any necro skill to see if the form would stay based on the racial attribute. It did. However, it would take many, many cast attempts to successfully cast. Using the items provided, however, it was easy to throw on Midnight Bracers and a Bloodwood Spirit to get 25 necro. With that I could cast, then then remove the items.

So I'm going to give this a try and see what happens. I'm having mixed feelings about whether the wraith form mana leech will outweigh the reduced mobility. The key to this character will be to run around (much like an archer) and take advantage of the FC/FCR to put out damage continuously.

If the wraith doesn't pan out, I'm going to try replacing it with inscription (for +10% SDI and to make 6th circle scrolls for casting) or hiding (to make up for my lack of 6th circle invis). I can move the inscription from another char via soulstone to test it. The hiding I'll have to work up. Other option will be poisoning (like Salty Pete mentioned before), but with poison field being a 5th circle spell I don't think it will work with this template.

I created the character now just need to start pulling it together.

BTW -- are you sure Holy Light requires 105 Chivalry for 100% success rate? The min skill to cast is 55. I thought it scaled over 40 skill points (not 50).

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[Salty Pete]

Here is another thing worth testing....

I could lower my magery to 95. Equip a -26 mage bow when I want to run just chiv spells (ala HL) which will put me at 69 magery allowing 4/6 FC/FCR and then equip my +15 mage book when I want my full 110 magery for summons. I'll need to adjust some items, but that should work in theory correct?

 

[Obsidian]

Yes, it should work in theory. You'll have to have some good arm macros set to change between the bow, and spellbooks. One of the keys to this template is to cause maximum damage with lower circle spells which relies on having slayer spellbooks handy. At least that is what I'm aiming for.

I built my char up to 69.9 magery last night. I need a 1/3 Bracelet (I have a ring) and need a +1 FC shield w/spellchanneling. Working on the Chivalry now. I don't know how long that will take as I've only taken Chiv to 80 max in the past.

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[GFY]

Well... you need 120 magery to cast summons (8th level) 100% of the time. IF you can stand the fails at 110 go for it.

 

[Boogieman]

In your template Obsidian - wouldn't it be better to exchange 120 medi for 120 SS? Given that the mana drain from wraith form depends on SS.

Just a thought...

 

[Salty Pete]

Well... you need 120 magery to cast summons (8th level) 100% of the time. IF you can stand the fails at 110 go for it.

Me? I simply can not afford 120 scrolls.

 

[Obsidian]

In your template Obsidian - wouldn't it be better to exchange 120 medi for 120 SS? Given that the mana drain from wraith form depends on SS.

Just a thought...

I'll experiment with it and see how it works out.

Right now, I'm finding it difficult to find a +1 faster cast spell channeling shield. That is the one primary item I need to make the template go from 3/6 to 4/6.

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[Lynk]

I'll experiment with it and see how it works out.

Right now, I'm finding it difficult to find a +1 faster cast spell channeling shield. That is the one primary item I need to make the template go from 3/6 to 4/6.

-OBSIDIAN-

Arcane sheilds are pretty cheap..

 

[Obsidian]

Yeah, I can't find one for sale on Atlantic at all. I have a guild mate who has a cursed one which he'll let me purchase to test. Long term, though, I need something I can insure.

Let me ask this, do shields with FC1 and spell channelling drop at all as normal loot? Or are they only as arties?

Is it possible for a smith to craft one with spell channelling and FC1?

Sorry, don't want to derail the thread, but getting the FC1 item for my left hand is kind of crucial to running a 4/6 mage without and Ornament of the Magician (which I certainly cannot afford).

Thanks!

-OBSIDIAN-