Couple template questions

[Lady Bleez]

Ok, the hubby and I are returning after a long break. I am enjoying my tamer again but have found upgrades to jewelry (and well just about everything else too).

So my first question: does my lore need to be real skill or can I use the jewelry thus leaving more points for elsewhere?
I was already using taming jewels that put me to 120 but wasn't sure about the lore. Will it effect stable slots etc? Not even sure how many slots possible now (I'll find that info somewhere).

#2 Should I go to 120 vet and/or lore or is 115 fine? What are the benefits of that extra 5 points in each.

#3 What is the latest must have gear/equip? Have tamers gotten anything since the library talisman?

#4 Being a peace tamer (have disco and provo stoned though)...what is the needed skill level needed for most stuff. Like the mini champs etc. Maybe that's a better bard question...

Currently (yes I still have some points left and stuff to work)
120 Taming (87 real)
115 Lore (115 real but can drop to 97 with jewels)
115 Vet
115 music
115 peace
110 magery (not sure why I had it so high with no eval....hmph)
40 chiv

I believe I have a 715 cap. So that's 36 points left. Advice? Drop this...add that?

 

[Driven Insane]

My 2 cents

1. You can use jewelry for lore. Mine's only 85 real -110 with jewelry and I have no problems with control.

2. Cover this in your template below.

3. Nothing really, except making sure you have a nice imbued/reforged suit. In your case you want all 70's, 40% LMC and as much mana regeneration as possible and probably at least 2/4 casting.

4. Go 120 music and 120 peace. Most importantly, if you haven't done so already, go do the little quest and use your Bard Masteries.

Template - Again, just my opinion. As I tell other's it's your char, do what makes you happy

Real Skill (w/jewelry)

Taming 95 (120)
Lore 110
Vet 120
Music 120
Peace 120
Magery 100
Chiv 55 (Assuming you're using this to remove curses/mortal strike, 55 = no fails)

720 skill points total

 

[Lady Bleez]

Thank you Already took chiv to 55 at least until I figure out if I want to keep it.

Just curious but..What's the difference between 115 vet and 120?

 

[Driven Insane]

What's the difference between 115 vet and 120?

5 points

j/k

I'd assume you heal for a little bit more and it probably increases your stable slots by 1. But I'm not exactly sure, never had over 100 vet and I'm to lazy to go look it up.

 

[Wenchkin]

I've had no issues with having my real taming skills capped at 110/110/110. In some cases it's been less when the character wasn't going to have pets above a certain difficulty. The amount of skill you need depends on the pets you want to control. And I wouldn't go for 120 real skill unless it was a character who was planning to do a lot of taming. Or you just wanted that 120 skill for the leggy status. I have one full leggy tamer but I won't take any of my other tamers to that level. They keep real skill at 110 or less and add skill items when they go taming big game. But they can control all their pets 99% success without anything equipped. That's the minimum target I set myself because I don't want an ill-timed failed command killing my pets, or me!

More vet skill increases the amount you heal per bandie and at GM/110/120 skill you get an extra stable slot. At 120 vet you won't fail to resurrect a pet. If you've got the skill trained, I'd keep it as it is. If you feel you want to drop those 5 points later, you can do turn the arrow down as you're training up something else.

I use skill increase items on support skills if I can. That way the important skills I rely on are fully functional 24/7 and don't require any specific equipment to work. So for magery for example, I can carry a +magery spellbook if I need to rez someone. My main tamer uses stealth skill items rather than taming ones.

For your bard skills, I'd aim for 120 real in music and if you can the other skills too. Partly because of masteries (if you want to use them), and partly because you don't want to have to loot your corpse then dress before you can bard. If you need an area peace then you want it to work first time right after you're alive. And as with taming, barding is an important function of your template, so it makes sense to train it up. What you could do is decide one bard skill isn't as vital and boost that up with skill items. It depends how you play really.

I like having disco and provo - the former being landed on bigger targets, the latter for crowd control. But I did also run peace/provo before that. If you like peace more than disco, roll with it. The handy thing with soulstones is you can be one bard in the morning and a different one at night

Wenchy

 

[Driven Insane]

Yeah you could add either provoke or discord, but you'd probably need to lose the Chivalry.

Then it would look something like this:

Taming 95 (110)
Lore 110
Vet 100
Music 120
Peace 120
Discord/Provoke 120
Magery 100

Personally I don't find Peacing as useful as Provoke and Discord. Here's my Bard/Tamer template:

Taming 110
Lore 85 (110)
Vet 100
Music 115 (120)
Provoke 115 (120)
Discord 120
Magery 75 (100)

Magery and Lore skill on jewelry and wearing Library Talisman that give +5 Provoke and Music.

 

[Lady Bleez]

Thanks so much for the advice