Coming Back..Need Help with Characters

[donjn]

Hi all! I am thinking about coming back to Ultima Online. I want to have a clear path when I return on the Pacific Server.

My question is, my characters..My questions are in parenthesis...if you could comment on them that would be great. I am PVE only...ALl characters have 70 resist armor.

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Markus
Paladan
Virtue armor
Soul Seeker and the Shield Of Invulnerability

Str: 103
Dex: 59
Int: 83 (Is this too high? should Dex be higher?)

Swordsmanship 95
Tactics 89
Chivalry 89
Anatomy 82
Parrying 75
Healing 53

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Almidar
Mage
(This is my Mage with Bard stuff on here as a placeholder unless you guys think a Mage/Bard rocks. I have Eval Intelligence 100 and Inscription 80 on some stones. I obviously need to stone move them back to this character and make a separate Bard/Treasure Hunter correct?)

Meditation 100
Magery 90
Musicianship 87
Peacemaking 85
Provocation 85
Cartography 50
Lockpicking 50


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Jareth
Necrofencer
(Is a Necrofencer a viable build?)

Str: 91
Dex: 70
Int: 84

Necromancy 88
Spirit Speak 88
Meditation 86
Fencing 77
Anatomy 68
Tactics 61
Magery 53 (for teleporting?)

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Lothgar
Str: 125
Dex: 42
Int: 72
(I wonder if this guy should drop Blacksmithing, Arms Lore, Mining, etc, become a Bard / Treasure Hunter type

Mining 92 (again whats the point here?)
Blacksmithing 88 (do I even continue here? why bother? My Paladin already has Virtue armor.)
Tailoring 78 (Should this go to my Mage?)
Magery 73 (so he can defend himself when mining)
Lumberjacking 67
Carpentry 55
Arms Lore 34

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Then of course, I want to make a Gargoyle...maybe he could do imbuing/bard or treasure hunter?

Help!

 

[temu]

Whoa, lots of stuff!

I'll just talk about your necrofencer.

I'm sure there's guys out there who use spirit speak/necro dexers, but ultimately I find there's problems with it. Your main objective is survivability. When you use slayer weapons and the enemy of one chivalry spell, your damage output is fine without withering and using corpse skin, and the other offensive necro spells. The main reason people have 100 necromancy with no spirit speak is to cast vampiric embrace, which is a 20% life leech on all damage you cause.

Forget about the magery on him. Think about healing and anatomy. I think 90/90 for those skills is fine. However, I run my PvM dexer without healing or anatomy and he does fine (the vamp form 20% life leech is insane when you are doing high damage). You should really consider bushido as well. Bushido has useful abilities like evade, confidence, and the bonus from honoring your targets.

Of course, now I'm steering you towards a basic sampire, which is probably the most popular PvM dexer build involving necromancy, and I'm sure has a hundred threads devoted just for that template on the warrior forum!

 

[Njjj]

Sampire is certainly the best monster bashing template out there. But to really work well it needs a good set of armour which will be very expensive. Definitely read up on it in the warrior forum. I was late jumping on the sampire band wagon and ran basically your swordsman template with bushido and parry for a long time and was pretty happy with it. So I would start by adding bushido and parry to him and while your working those up you'll learn about some of the new game mechanics and the benefits of bushido. You can then stone off healing and stone on necro for a basic sampire.

Your choice of abandoning smithy depends on if you like playing crafters. The virtue armor set cannot compete with what can be crafted with imbuing.

It seems like you really want to play a treasure hunter and I think it's a great choice. It's probably the character I play most often. There are several options here. I play a straight up mage with cart/lockpicking and mining. The maps now spawn in random locations so the old rune libraries are no longer useful and it is very hard to find locations without mining. The good news is it's very easy to find then with mining. Some people add disco/music to the template which would definitely help with level 6 and 7 maps. The idea here is to disco beasty, then send in EVs, so you can drop eval off the template to make room.

I havent played them much so I wont comment too much here but mystic is very popular now as well, mainly because their summoned creature is better than EVs (can't think of the name right now). Would be a good choice for your gargoyle.

And most importantly, welcome back! Although I'm sure you'll get alot of information here make sure you check out the forums specific to all these templates when you've got alot of time to read.

 

[Njjj]

One other thing. Mage/bard is definitely a strong character, but make sure to add disco. Drop peace if you need the room.

 

[Njjj]

Ok one more. I just noticed your question about dex. Yes, you'll want to raise it at expense of some int. You really want to be swinging at the fastest speed allowed which I think is once every 1.25 sec. Go to the page on swing speed increase on uoguide, and there is a calculator there to help you. This is one of the places where imbued armour will help you over virtue set as you can add stats to your armor as well as your jewelry.

 

[Surgeries]

Ok one more. I just noticed your question about dex. Yes, you'll want to raise it at expense of some int. You really want to be swinging at the fastest speed allowed which I think is once every 1.25 sec. Go to the page on swing speed increase on uoguide, and there is a calculator there to help you. This is one of the places where imbued armour will help you over virtue set as you can add stats to your armor as well as your jewelry.

To clarify...in my understanding it is Stamina, not Dex, that determines your Swing Speed.

Dex affects the time it takes to bandage is how I understand it.

But then again, I am old.

 

[Mirt]

To clarify...in my understanding it is Stamina, not Dex, that determines your Swing Speed.

Dex affects the time it takes to bandage is how I understand it.

But then again, I am old.

That is correct. But Dex is the primary determinate of stamina. Your not going to be able to get high stamina without high dex.

 

[donjn]

Okay here is my first bit of confusion. Imbued armour. When you say that it makes it sound like there is an armor set called imbued armour...

I can imbue the Virtue armor right? Isn't imbuing like "enchanting" in WoW? Changing or adding stats to EXISTING armor?

 

[Mirt]

Ahh good old imbuing. Imbuing does pretty much what you just said. It allows you to add or modify properties on an item. Now if you use a blank slate (non runic) armor you can put what you want on it. The same goes for jewels and weapons and shields. It allows for more customization. You can also enhance things still using your enhanced ores. If you would like to see some examples in game feel free to PM I should have time Friday to show you what I am using for my sampire and my archer and how I figured out how to get there. I play chesy.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

That is correct. But Dex is the primary determinate of stamina. Your not going to be able to get high stamina without high dex.

True, but you can pretty easily add +5 Stamina Increase to imbued armor to get up to +25 or +30 stamina.

 

[Mirt]

True but your going to need far more then that to get into the upper hundreds which is where you need to be. Also remember that stamina only counts in groups of 30. So essentially your just moving yourself one way. As a dexxer you really need 125 dex base. Its one of the main reasons that your called a dexxer. Other things are easier gains for example mana and hp. Remember that strength only directly controls weight carry. It is factored in for damage and hp but still dex is your best bet and then suit up your other stats.

 

[Ezekiel Zane]

Yeah, all my dexers have 125 dex and as much stamina increase as possible. In most cases it's at least +25.

It's necessary to handle slower swinging weapons.

Before they nerfed stats to a cap of 150, my Pali had 205 dexterity.. 1 sec heals, whoo hoo!~



edit: I forgot to add also that on top of 125 real dexterity, I usually also run an additional +15 to +25 dex increase too.

 

[Mirt]

Yeah that must have been amazing its too bad its limited. Of course that does promote cross healing so I guess it works out.

 

[Njjj]

Okay here is my first bit of confusion. Imbued armour. When you say that it makes it sound like there is an armor set called imbued armour...

I can imbue the Virtue armor right? Isn't imbuing like "enchanting" in WoW? Changing or adding stats to EXISTING armor?

Like the others said, you use imbuing to add properties to items. The reason I said it as an alternative to virtue armour is that you cant imbue virtue armour since it is a special set. At least I don't think you can.

There are limitations in what can and cant be imbued that you should read up on. Making a great sampire armour set is an art in itself. There are good threads on the topic in the warrior forum. But to give you an idea, such a suit will have not only all 70s resists, but also maxed out lower mana cost, hit chance increase, and defense chance increase. On top of this, it will have hit point increase, stamina increase, mana increase, and a few other goodies depending on the preference of the individual.

 

[Mirt]

Like the others said, you use imbuing to add properties to items. The reason I said it as an alternative to virtue armour is that you cant imbue virtue armour since it is a special set. At least I don't think you can.

You cannot imbue any artifact anymore.