K
Kofu
Guest
This is at the moment still a work in progress but should answer some questions you might have. Thanks go out to Ifrit the mage for providing the basics and to all mage forum posters for giving comments. It is by far not complete but there is always the stratics site for mages:UOSS Magic - Magery
Magery
Nowadays getting up to 80 is relatively easy. so when you are an adept mage, around 80's only buy flamestrike regs (ash, silk) and for your power hour go out flamestriking all animals in sight while moving around. if you are not one of the rich UO players spend your nights in shame fighting blood and other elementals, for money towards regs. You will find that unexpected gains will come out of this. at about 90's summoning water elementals mixed in with the occasional earthquake and flamestrike while at nights going to shame.
Evaluating Intelligence
I never macroed EI, dont believe if you want...I dont care. Post UOR it raises with magery, but it is pretty bugged so the way I did it (I recommend) is along with all your spells (target spells) make the macro look like this
Cast Spell: Ebolt
Use Skill: Evaluating intelligence
Last Target
Meditation
Imbetween spells, meditate both passively and actively, moving around helps a lot. Wear only leather or nothing as Studded armor hinders your passive meditation rates.
Wrestling
Get into high 60's or 70's by punching a friend, from then on go to the bone wall (its in deciet, somewhat near the lich spawn ahead, not too far from the fire elly plank) for anywhere around a week, getting a spot on top, as far away from the parry spot as possible DO NOT HAVE SPELLBOOK EQUIPPED You could also decide that you hate your friend and use him as a punchingbag till you hit GM but it is less profitable. You could also wrestle you summoned elementals it will even give you some resist if you are lucky.
Resisting Magic SpellsResist Calculator
Always start your character with 50 resist. every night from 50 have 1 or 2 friends flamestriking and ebolting you, and have 1 friend healing. pre Power hour i went to shame and deciet and fought LL and blood elementals...I just want to note that if it takes over 3 months of non stop practice theres nothing wrong. it was never meant to be an easy skill. Wrestling summoned elementals seem to give some gains and fighting ordinary liches also raises it.
Gaining Resisting Magic Spells 101, by Ifrit
I guess a lot of you have been wondering how to gain resist for some time and recently a lot of you have been asking about it so ill help out.
Up to around the 50's you can use firewalls
50-60 -Going into Shame Blood elementals evvery power hour gives you nice gains, also if you have friends
get them to do certain spell combos, the best one is an explosion, fireball combo, this will give you great raises.
Key Spells:Fireball
Supplementary spells: Explosion, Lightning, Ebolt
60-70-Try the same explosion, ebolt combo and mix in the explosion, Lightning combo. Using ebolts and explosions work out great while moving. Mix in Flamestrikes but dont overdo it.
Key spells: Explosion, Ebolt
Supplementary spells:Flamestrike, Fireball, Lightning
70-80-Do much of the same you did for 60-70, take out lower level spells, replace the OCCASIONAL fireball with the OCCASIONAL lightning, focus on explosion, ebolt, and emphasize more on flamestrike
Key Spells:Explosion, Flamestrike, Ebolt
Supplementary Spells:Lightning
80-90-While going to dungeons, do the same thing with your friends. get rid of using EVERY spell under 6th cirlce, use the main combat spells (ebolt, explosion, Flamestrike)
Key Spells:Flamestrike, Explosion
Supplementary Spells:Ebolt
90-GM
Flamestrike all the way only during power hour, you will save regs a lot. mix in the occasional ebolt, explosion. and make the combos yourself. stay away from lower levels.
Key Spells:Flamestrike
Supplementary spellsEbolt, Explosion
I am referring to using ALL of these while moving on a boat going slow forward with 1-3 friends healing you and doing the appropriate spells on you, I AM NOT REFERRING TO YOU DOING THEM ON YOURSELF.
-Ifrit
----------------------------------------------------------
<font color=red>What to wear and especially what NOT to wear as a mage</font color=red>
Studies done by Tim the Scribe
Hail and well met fellow mages.
Being of the scientific type nerd in real life (that's what they pay me for anyway) I decided to test
for myself whether clothing changed the rate of meditation.
For this experiment I used Tim, my mage and scribe who has 100 int and 100 Meditation and I put
him on the catwalk and did a full blown fashion extravaganza while timing my meditation rates (both
active and passive) after hitting my poor tillerman for two quick flamestrikes. I started each timing
and also meditation when my mana hit 30 so in ALL the following cases there is 70 points of mana
regenerated.
Ok for the results. First Passive Meditation: (all numbers are in seconds unless stated)
Nekkid: 70
Newbie Robe(black), Newbie Cape(blue), and Thighboots (black) (my normal garb of the realm): 88
(repeated several times)
Full set Leather Armor with Leather Cap AC15: 70
Above leather set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 70 (did that one several times to be sure)
Full set Studded Leather Armor with no cap AC19: 142
Same studded set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 142
Metal armor, Plate helm, gorget, and arms, chain tunic, and legs, ring gloves AC33: 7 MINUTES 50
Seconds ;-P
Everything else I did active meditation so to repeat the above:
Nekkid: 35
Newbie Robe(black), Newbie Cape(blue), and Thighboots (black) (my normal garb of the realm): 53
(repeated several times)
Full set Leather Armor with Leather Cap AC15: 35
Above leather set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 35 (did that one several times to be sure)
Full set Studded Leather Armor with no cap AC19: 71
Same studded set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 71
Metal armor, Plate helm, gorget, and arms, chain tunic, and legs, ring gloves AC33: You cant
actively med with this much metal on! ;-P
And other stuff: (wearing ONLY these items)
Cape: 35
Robe: 35
Shoes: 35
Robe, Cape, and Shoes: 35
Fished-up Sandals: 53
New sandals: 35
Blue sandals: 35
New boots: 35
Old Black thigh boots: 53
New thigh boots: 53 --these DO affect the mana regen rates
Mage Hat (the one that gives 5 int and -5 str,dex): 35
Floppy hat: 35
Tricorner hat: 35
Scullcap: 35
Wide brim hat: 35
Feathered pimp hat: 35
Bandana: 35
Straw hat: 35
Bonnet: 35 (and very silly)
A cap: 35
Body sash: 35
Shirt, Short Pants, and Shoes: 35
Fancy Shirt, Long Pants, and Shoes: 35
Doublet, Kilt, and Shoes: 35
Tunic, Long Pants, and Shoes: 35
Jester Suit, Long Pants, and Shoes: 35
Orc helm AC2: 53
Durable bone helmet of defense AC5: 53
And just to be sure with leather armor:
Robe, Cape, Shoes, Full Leather armor with deer mask: 35
Thigh boots and leather leggings: 35
Thigh boots and leather gorget: 53
Thigh boots and all the rest of the leather EXCEPT leggings: 53
And for just one piece of studded in an otherwise leather armor set:
Leather Armor set with studded gorget: 53
Leather Armor set with studded tunic: 53
If anyone wants to do further work on mixing and matching be my guest.
CONCLUSION: Wear any clothing you want except for footwear. Any single piece of any armor of
studded leather, bone, and metal WILL seriously slow down your meditation rate. Leather Armor does
not affect meditation rate. If you do wear leather armor (especially the leggings) then ANY footwear
is cool and the armor and clothing do not affect the meditation rate. If you DO NOT wear armor then
don’t wear thigh boots or fished-up footwear or you can always just go barefoot.
I do not have time or inclination to expand this study to rings and other jewelry. I suggest if you
wear something to at least keep an eye on how fast mana can regenerate. IF IT SLOWS DOWN
figure out what you are wearing that is causing you grief.
Hope this helps all you fashion conscious Magi.
<font color=red>PvP tips for mages....</font color=red>
by Vertigo of Sonoma
I haven't been killed since UO:R with my mage in PvP. Here are some stratigies I have found to be effective:
Basics:
Spell selection is crucial. Don't waste mana on anything that is not necissary. Hit with heavy hard hitting combos, explosion/ebolt, explosion/Flamestrike. I wouldn't PvP with anything less than about 95 meditation, or you'll get owned. The other thing about combos is knowing how to cast them in battle. Here is what I do, run about 10 squares, stop, hit explosion macro, let dexer run withing 2 tiles of me, run 10 squares in another direction, target, ebolt macro, last object, run, poison, ect. I'll elaborate more on combos in a sec, of course there is more to it than two spells. The other crucial component is movement. It takes some practice to move into position to cast and not be hit with melee. If a dexer can't hit you, he can't kill you...period. Use obsticles, houses, trees, bushes twigs, anything to get in thier way. I dropped swords for archery, took 4 days to GM Archery from zero. It was a huge improvement. Fire rate isn't too bad, and I've killed townies in non-magic towns, oh and it was two dexers against my mage using only archery and poison.
Ok, now the "nitty gritty". I've picked out these techniques through experience fighting guildmates and spending time in a chaos guild post UO:R. I have found them to be very effective for me and have done quite abit of research to discover them. Again, movement is key. If you can't get the hang of distancing yourself, timing your spells to distance, and moving out of the way you might as well create a dexer. Being a mage is about finese and offence now. You should never have to take a beating.
Stratagy one:
We'll start against a dexer without archer first. This should be the easiest target. Again, movement is key. First off, remember that he has to get close to you to kill you. So, your main stratagy, don't let him get close. Use obsticles, trees, bushes, houses, ect. to block his path. You'll want to open up hard on this char. First thing, check to see if he has any GCures on him. Throw poison on him, see if he chugs. If he does, you have two options. Keep poisoning him until he runs out of potions (I'll bet your carrying more nightshade than he is GCures, and at GM med, 9 mana is nothing). If you go with this option, when he stops chugging, let your mana go to full. Just keep stepping out of reach while your passive builds your mana back to 100. If you have archery (as my mage does) pull up the bow and do some extra damage while you wait. Other option is to dump on him then poison, if he cures, poison again. This is a bit more risky because if he has 10 GCures, that's 90 mana. and you do not want him to get that heal off after your dump. Which brings us to the next major stratagy, keep him from healing. Poison is by far the spell I cast the most. Nothing is more flustrating to a warrior that getting a cure, hitting the bandage, and before it goes into effect seeing "In Nox" on the screen. This stratagy worked against the healing skill before UO:R, nothing new here, exept that it works on potions too. Ok, so now we get to the mana dump. This is the part that makes or breaks you. DO NOT MANA DUMP IF YOU DON'T THINK YOU'LL KILL YOUR OPPONENT. If you have 90 mana and aren't sure, med up to 100. Spell selection is very important. I have found that mindblast is very inconsistant. Even on unbalanced players. I'm guessing because it is a lower circle spell it is probly effected by resist more than say ebolt or explosion. I will generally do this, Poison them until all thier GCures are gone. Med up to 100, then Explosion/Flamestrike, ebolt, ebolt. This should have them on thier heals. Of course there are many combos that you can use, but you need to get them off quick and they need to do alot of damage. If they are still alive, med back a few points, poison again, they should be very low on life. If you have archery, put it to work now. If not, let the posion kill them. Mostly my fights end in a warrior running around trying to cure with his 7 hps left from the mana dump and dropping dead while running around in a panic.
Stratagy 2:
Against a warrior with archery. Same stratagy as a warrior without archery with a few twists. Know how thier weapon works. They have to stop moving to fire, if the fire animation starts and they move, they auto miss. Line of sight on this one. Get behind a building, precast, when they move to follow then you hit em. Keep em poisoned, drink your GHeals and you'll be ok.
Stratagy 3:
Against a mage, same thing, with a few exeptions. don't poison before your dump. Dump then poison quick. When they cast cure poison again. If you have weapon skills. IE maces, swords, Fencing, put them to work now.
That's it in a nutshell. Of course there are alot of intangibles to my stratagies, IE, moving and spell timing. It may take some practice but it is very effective for my mage. I don't think a mage should ever lose to a warrior, especially one without archery. Play around with what I have here, add your own twists, find what works for you. Practice on guildmates, go to the death. It's the best way to figure out your own stratagies without loosing all your regs. I'd also highly recommend you take up archery. I dropped wrestling on my mage (I move well enough not to need it) and have archery and maces instead of maces and wrestling. I'm even considering dropping maces for anatomy to add damage to archery. Archery helps coving your chars weekness (defence) by removing the need to get close to your opponent. Hope this helps some of you, of course like I said it takes practice and may not work for every one.
<font color=red>Blade Spirits And Energy Vortex</font color=red>
Greetings all, i did this essay in response to a thread i read about the subject. It is a question that comes up every now and again, so i thought i would put together what i have found out about these two often very misunderstood spells.
BS and EV are tricky, but once you get to know how they work they are easy to use. I have spent a great deal of time practicing and hunting with them (in fact i dedicated a good deal of my UO time Mastering their use). Here is what i discovered.
Casting the spells.
You will no doubt notice the casting time for BS is HUGE, the best option is to either, cast the spell and then aproach your victim with the targeting cursor ready, or disable your victim (usually with a para or para-wall) then cast the spell.
EV is slightly better in this respect as the casting time is relativley short, about the same as a flamestrike, so you can get away with casting it without preparation if you need to.
Placing the BS or EV and getting it to fight for you
This is probably where most 'accidents' happen
First a word on targets the BS or EV will attack. Valid targets for BS and EV are in short, anything the caster could 'negativly affect'. What i mean by this is if you try to use a negative effect (eg a damage spell or stealing or provocation for example) and you get the message 'you cannot preform negative acts on this target' then your BS or EV cannot attack it either. In Felucca you can 'negativly effect' anything you want to, in trammel you are limited to guildmates, enemy guild members, monsters, and NPC's, if you want to check just try and attack whatever you want to test, if it lets you then it can be 'negativly effected' and is a valid target for BS and EV.
With regards to what things the BS and EV will actually attack, BS will attack the nearest valid (see above for valid targets) target, however, they will ALWAYS pick a MOVING target over a stationary one even if the stationary is nearer. EV target the creature or player with the highest INT score within range. (however they always seem to target player charecters over monsters).
Ok now onto actually getting them to attack your chosen victim.
There are 2 ways to almost guarentee it targets the victim and not somthing else. The 1st is to cast the spell then provoke (if you have the skill) onto the victim (deadly if you fail provoke).
The second is my prefered method, in order to ensure the BS or EV attacks the victim you choose, the spell must be cast into a floor tile DIRECTLY next to the victim (that is, you must TARGET a floor tile directly next to the victim). This sounds a lot easier than it is. The reason for this is when the BS or EV 'appears' the victim will be in the 'area of effect' of the BS/EV and will auto defend and target the BS/EV, this will cause the BS/EV to defend and auto target the victim as it apears. This works almost all of the time, if it doesn't then you were either very unlucky or you didn't target a tile next to the victim (remember although some creatures are very big, they still only take up one floor tile). It is obviously easier to get the right tile if your victim is not moving,. which brings me onto the next bit,.
My tips
Para wall,... this spell is invaluable when using BS/EV, (para is good but is a liitle less usfull), Para wall helps two fold, 1st of all it will stop your victim moving (see above for why this is good), secondly when you cast the BS/EV make sure you target a tile next to the victim on the OTHER side of the wall from you, that way if it does not target the victim for any reason, it will run into the para wall if it decides to come for you. Para is usfull for stopping victims so you can place your spells, but the wall gives the extra protection just in case.
Dont use either spell on dragonkin,.. since they were patched, dragonkin can dispell both on 0% mana, so dont waste your time,.. you'll have to think of a better way to kill these creatures.
FAQ
Q. Do Mage hats spell count for INT when talking about EV targets.
A. Yes, the highest INT as displayed on your staus panel(wether this be enanced by spells or magic hats etc) will be targeted.
Q. Can they be cast onto water.
A. I have tried many diffent locations from many different angles postions,.. as yet i have never been able to place a BS/EV onto water, so i would say no to that.
Q. After the initial target is dead, will the BS/EV target anothe creature.
A. The BS/EV should default to its AI targeting (see the essay for valid targets and prefered targets), however, every now and again, it will completely ignore everthing untill somthing attacks it, or it will target the caster, i have not been able to determin why this happens. this generally only happens in trammel though i have noticed.
Q. It wont let me dispel A BS/EV in trammel
A. you may only dispel a BS/EV in trammel if
1. you are in a guild
2. it has targeted you.
3. you are the original caster
Well,.. thats all folks, hope it helps you, cya on Europa,...
(if you see me running away from an EV, do me a favour, dispell it for me eh ?,...)
Urgat Rip-Eye
------------
<font color=red>Frequently Asked Question:</font color=red>
Sometimes I see vendors who appear to give a discount to memebers of a guild? What is up and how do I save money on regs?
Those people have spent 500gp for the privelege of seeing that message every time they buy stuff from mage vendors. Unfortunately the only professional guild working is the thief guild. It has been confirmed (thanks Silme Yanta and his better half, Madam O) that there is indeed NO difference in the prices offered to members vs. non-members. If you desire to see that message by all means do the following: Find the Mage Guildmaster in most any big magery store and say his name and then join (eg. Chauncey Join). He will then ask for 500gp and you can drop that on him. Then you too can impress your freinds and influence people because you are a member of the guild. Just dont expect a price break. This is the exception to joining only one guild at a time. You may be a member of a professional guild AND a player guild. But unless you are a thief, the dues are a waste of gold.
In celebration of a great post, it belongs here in the FAQ. Following is the group of questions as asked and then the excellent replies by Chiron and Raistlin:
---------------------
I'VE SPENT SO LONG KILLING CATTLE I HAVEN'T LEARNED OUT TO USE THIS CHAR WITH A GROUP AND IT'S DRIVING ME MENTAL.
How should I be macroed up?
What are good combos?
What do I do when I'm with a group and targeted by every monster in sight? I mean all I do is run trying to put distance between me and the monsters so I can cast while warriors chase the beasties around.
How best to preserve my mana in bigger fights?
Any help would be great.
Oh, and since i was to freaked out to try it, if the warriors are surrounded and I cast chain lightning on the monsters, will I hit any members of my group...?
Petorlan The Drunk
-----------
And the responses:
-----------
STEP #1 SET UP
--------------
Set your spells up on hotkeys (macros). Mine are as follows:
ctl z flamestrike
ctl x ebolt
ctl c lightning
ctl v harm [used to be of use to bring down magic reflect - limited use now]
ctl a paralyze
ctl s explosion
ctl d poison
ctl f teleport [use this to get out of trouble to safe areas]
ctl q greater heal (self)
ctl w cure (self)
ctl e heal (self) [faster than gh and harder to interrupt]
ctl r invisibility (self) [instant hiding when you are in over your head]
Now open your spell book and drag the icons for your favorites spells to the bottom of your screen. Mine includes all the ones listed above and:
dispell summoned, blade spirit, summon daemon, summon fire elemental, energy vortex
dispell wall, wall of stone, wall of poison, wall of fire, energy wall
create food, night sight
heal, cure, greater heal, resurrect
recall, gate, mark
reactive armor, protection, spell reflect, bless
STEP #2 SOLO
------------
Go out solo and learn to fight things on your own before grouping. Start with the weakest creature and then move up to stronger creatures then finally groups of creatures.
Walk out of town and look for a mongbat, great hart, or bear. Pull the health bar off the monster by left clicking it and dragging. Stay as far away as possible and begin casting on it by targetting the health bar. Experiment with different spells and get used to dealing with running back after casting to minimize interruptions.
Once you are comfortable with those mechanics, find an orc, troll, or ettin. These will go aggro on you once they see you so make sure you are prepared for battle by having reactive armor up beforehand. Experiment with different spells. I personally like to paralyze then explosion/ebolt combo (the explosion should take place right as the Ebolt is striking when done correctly). Then I follow up quickly with a poison and run backwards for my next salvo of spells.
Once you are comfortable with single creatures venure further out from town and start working with groups. Find a group of orcs or lizardmen and run backwards and cast poison wall and fire wall (trammel only!). Run around the walls and wear them down enough to where you have enough time to cast ebolt and other offensive spells without them reaching you.
STEP #3 GROUPING
----------------
Once you are comforable with your spells and have a good understanding of how long they take to cast, how easy they are to interrupt, and which are best for certain situations you are ready to group. Join a group and establish what skill set everyone has. Determine who will heal and if you will be responsible for healing.
Everyone plays a mage a little differently. Some simply thunder in first on horseback and start slinging spells. Others play a warrior/mage hyrbrid and will follow the group right into the thick of combat. The pure mages may be more suited to staying in the back out of combat judiciously using spells as required. Until you get the group combat skills under your belt, I recommend you do the latter.
Stay in back and let the warrior types pull monsters to the group for combat. Let them start beating on it. Start with a poison and use your spells sparingly. If it looks like they are in trouble, begin blasting but always keep enough mana for at least one greater heal. Do not blast things into the ground when the party could have slain it easily because now they have to sit around while you med.
If you are unsure about what you are going to be fighting ask the party which spells are most effective. Sometimes it might be just as effective to paralyze monsters when more than one comes and let the party focus on one or two foes at a time than it is to burn a single monster down to the ground.
The most troubling thing for you is learning how to manage mana. Since you can summon, burn, gate, and heal you will be challenged with all these tasks at once. Burn too heavy in combat and you cannot get off the healing need to keep the party alive. Sit back too much waiting to heal and monsters will have their way with the warriors. There is a delicate balance that is different for each party. Ask them if you are burning too much or not enough. They will provide feed back.
Now to your questions...
What are good combos?
Read this board in detail. Lots of good suggestions. A classic is paralyze explosion ebolt.
What do I do when I'm with a group and targeted by every monster in sight?
Stay in back of the group so the monsters see the other party members first. Once they are engaged with the front ranks, then you can begin to cast. I tend to play more of the pure mage so I need to stay out of combat all together. Its inevitable that you will be standing toe-to-toe with something eventually though. In these cases you can teleport away and hide, use the invisibility (self) macro, or another escape skill. The monster will loose sight of you and find something else to do. When your mana is up enough, reveal yourself by ebolting or other offensive tactic.
How best to preserve my mana in bigger fights?
This is tough. With small battles you may only have to cast once or twice and then just wait for the warriors to do clean up. Larger pulls require more thought. Poison is a great spell as it does damage over time for the cost of only one spell. It all depends on the situation.
Sometimes you might want to poison everything and then med up to full. Now its time to drop an occasional offensive spell when you dont need to heal. Cast med cast med cast med. Make sure you are always greater than some set amount of mana (for me its usually 30).
Other times you might get something nasty (avengers, titans, matriarchs, dragons, anything with deadly or better poison) and you need to be much more active. Let the monster engage a group member before casting and then start hitting hard with repeated Ebolts, poison, etc. Make sure you keep enough mana for the inevitable cures and heals the group will be shouting for.
The last situation is where something comes that the party is clearly not going to beat. This may be due to the party's condition (needs mana and health), make-up, or inexperience. Sometimes the party just doesn't realize it needs to run and starts to fight it. Resist the urge to do a full mana dump. Keep enough mana for healing and possibly a gate. You might try paralyze and then gate if the group agrees its time to pull out.
If the warriors are surrounded and I cast chain lightning on the monsters, will I hit any members of my group...?
Area of effect spells are very nice to use if you are in Trammel. Your meteor swarm, chain lighting, wall type spells, blade spirits, and energy vortex will do wonders and not harm party members. If you are in Felucca things are a lot different. You will damage party members and go gray. At this point expect every opportunist this side of the Mississippi to jump on you and kill you.
Chiron, Atlantic
--------------
And a few helpful additions by Raistlin Magere:
I agree with the many facets of a mage. In a group you need on the front: Tough warriors that aren't afraid to take on just about anything. In the back as support mages and archers. Or, as in my case, mage/archers. Two long range attacks. You can still support the warriors with heals/cures/archprotection/invisiblity/blesses/etc... When mana is down, and it will be at times no matter how you try to manage, you use UOAssist to arm that bow and go to work on whoevers' being a royal pain to the warriors. You can also defend youself when something gets through. Archery isn't that hard to build either. More expensive though. If you can, I would use hiding instead of invis as there is no mana loss and no expiration time. You can use the teleport/hide trick if really in the river deep(teleport and hide quickly-teleport removes you from line of sight and you may be able to hide right under the beasties nose for very little mana). I'm only at 76 archery and about 98 Tactics and can take out a earth ele in just a few shots in an enclosed space.
Also, make sure everyone in the group has a horse. With a decent connection the movement is much better and it hides your actions better. If someone is still on foot then get them a horse and they can pay back later with part of their loot.
Odd as it is, in a group assign numbers to everyone and position. Battle tactics make for a strong front, and calling out names in battle is difficult when people are called no telling what(" Warrior of the high Plains" come here) . Uh... remember your number.
Trust you group and earn their trust-Everytime one of them dies they will probably think you could have helped. Such is a mages' lot in life. Trust your group because there may be time where a firefield or other spell may leave you open to notopks. The group should understand that there may be times where the mage is gray and to keep everyone off him/her. Now if a member of the group attacks you, it's time to leave that group. You can't trust them not to steal, lie or loot you later on.
-------------------------------------------------------
Do I need to have Tactics with Wrestling to avoid inturruption of spellcasting while toe to toe with enemy?
Just wrestling. Tactics is just damage, wrestling is chance for you and your opponent to hit.
Unless you wanna do 3 damage instead of 2, you dont need tacticss
(Solon)
Let me just add that Tactics IS necessary if you use Swords, Fencing, Macing, or Archery, but not if wrestling is without a complementary melee skill.
--------------------------------------------------------
If you get a message "The spell can not adhere to you at this time" then you
have probably got another spell active. The following spells are not
accumulative in that you can only have one of these spells active at any one
time and the above message indicates that you have one of the following
active:
spell reflection
reactive armour
protection
--------------------------------------------------------------------------<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Kofu on 11/22/00 02:29 PM.</FONT></P>
Magery
Nowadays getting up to 80 is relatively easy. so when you are an adept mage, around 80's only buy flamestrike regs (ash, silk) and for your power hour go out flamestriking all animals in sight while moving around. if you are not one of the rich UO players spend your nights in shame fighting blood and other elementals, for money towards regs. You will find that unexpected gains will come out of this. at about 90's summoning water elementals mixed in with the occasional earthquake and flamestrike while at nights going to shame.
Evaluating Intelligence
I never macroed EI, dont believe if you want...I dont care. Post UOR it raises with magery, but it is pretty bugged so the way I did it (I recommend) is along with all your spells (target spells) make the macro look like this
Cast Spell: Ebolt
Use Skill: Evaluating intelligence
Last Target
Meditation
Imbetween spells, meditate both passively and actively, moving around helps a lot. Wear only leather or nothing as Studded armor hinders your passive meditation rates.
Wrestling
Get into high 60's or 70's by punching a friend, from then on go to the bone wall (its in deciet, somewhat near the lich spawn ahead, not too far from the fire elly plank) for anywhere around a week, getting a spot on top, as far away from the parry spot as possible DO NOT HAVE SPELLBOOK EQUIPPED You could also decide that you hate your friend and use him as a punchingbag till you hit GM but it is less profitable. You could also wrestle you summoned elementals it will even give you some resist if you are lucky.
Resisting Magic SpellsResist Calculator
Always start your character with 50 resist. every night from 50 have 1 or 2 friends flamestriking and ebolting you, and have 1 friend healing. pre Power hour i went to shame and deciet and fought LL and blood elementals...I just want to note that if it takes over 3 months of non stop practice theres nothing wrong. it was never meant to be an easy skill. Wrestling summoned elementals seem to give some gains and fighting ordinary liches also raises it.
Gaining Resisting Magic Spells 101, by Ifrit
I guess a lot of you have been wondering how to gain resist for some time and recently a lot of you have been asking about it so ill help out.
Up to around the 50's you can use firewalls
50-60 -Going into Shame Blood elementals evvery power hour gives you nice gains, also if you have friends
get them to do certain spell combos, the best one is an explosion, fireball combo, this will give you great raises.Key Spells:Fireball
Supplementary spells: Explosion, Lightning, Ebolt
60-70-Try the same explosion, ebolt combo and mix in the explosion, Lightning combo. Using ebolts and explosions work out great while moving. Mix in Flamestrikes but dont overdo it.
Key spells: Explosion, Ebolt
Supplementary spells:Flamestrike, Fireball, Lightning
70-80-Do much of the same you did for 60-70, take out lower level spells, replace the OCCASIONAL fireball with the OCCASIONAL lightning, focus on explosion, ebolt, and emphasize more on flamestrike
Key Spells:Explosion, Flamestrike, Ebolt
Supplementary Spells:Lightning
80-90-While going to dungeons, do the same thing with your friends. get rid of using EVERY spell under 6th cirlce, use the main combat spells (ebolt, explosion, Flamestrike)
Key Spells:Flamestrike, Explosion
Supplementary Spells:Ebolt
90-GM
Flamestrike all the way only during power hour, you will save regs a lot. mix in the occasional ebolt, explosion. and make the combos yourself. stay away from lower levels.
Key Spells:Flamestrike
Supplementary spellsEbolt, Explosion
I am referring to using ALL of these while moving on a boat going slow forward with 1-3 friends healing you and doing the appropriate spells on you, I AM NOT REFERRING TO YOU DOING THEM ON YOURSELF.
-Ifrit
----------------------------------------------------------
<font color=red>What to wear and especially what NOT to wear as a mage</font color=red>
Studies done by Tim the Scribe
Hail and well met fellow mages.
Being of the scientific type nerd in real life (that's what they pay me for anyway) I decided to test
for myself whether clothing changed the rate of meditation.
For this experiment I used Tim, my mage and scribe who has 100 int and 100 Meditation and I put
him on the catwalk and did a full blown fashion extravaganza while timing my meditation rates (both
active and passive) after hitting my poor tillerman for two quick flamestrikes. I started each timing
and also meditation when my mana hit 30 so in ALL the following cases there is 70 points of mana
regenerated.
Ok for the results. First Passive Meditation: (all numbers are in seconds unless stated)
Nekkid: 70
Newbie Robe(black), Newbie Cape(blue), and Thighboots (black) (my normal garb of the realm): 88
(repeated several times)
Full set Leather Armor with Leather Cap AC15: 70
Above leather set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 70 (did that one several times to be sure)
Full set Studded Leather Armor with no cap AC19: 142
Same studded set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 142
Metal armor, Plate helm, gorget, and arms, chain tunic, and legs, ring gloves AC33: 7 MINUTES 50
Seconds ;-P
Everything else I did active meditation so to repeat the above:
Nekkid: 35
Newbie Robe(black), Newbie Cape(blue), and Thighboots (black) (my normal garb of the realm): 53
(repeated several times)
Full set Leather Armor with Leather Cap AC15: 35
Above leather set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 35 (did that one several times to be sure)
Full set Studded Leather Armor with no cap AC19: 71
Same studded set with Robe, Cape and Boots: 71
Metal armor, Plate helm, gorget, and arms, chain tunic, and legs, ring gloves AC33: You cant
actively med with this much metal on! ;-P
And other stuff: (wearing ONLY these items)
Cape: 35
Robe: 35
Shoes: 35
Robe, Cape, and Shoes: 35
Fished-up Sandals: 53
New sandals: 35
Blue sandals: 35
New boots: 35
Old Black thigh boots: 53
New thigh boots: 53 --these DO affect the mana regen rates
Mage Hat (the one that gives 5 int and -5 str,dex): 35
Floppy hat: 35
Tricorner hat: 35
Scullcap: 35
Wide brim hat: 35
Feathered pimp hat: 35
Bandana: 35
Straw hat: 35
Bonnet: 35 (and very silly)
A cap: 35
Body sash: 35
Shirt, Short Pants, and Shoes: 35
Fancy Shirt, Long Pants, and Shoes: 35
Doublet, Kilt, and Shoes: 35
Tunic, Long Pants, and Shoes: 35
Jester Suit, Long Pants, and Shoes: 35
Orc helm AC2: 53
Durable bone helmet of defense AC5: 53
And just to be sure with leather armor:
Robe, Cape, Shoes, Full Leather armor with deer mask: 35
Thigh boots and leather leggings: 35
Thigh boots and leather gorget: 53
Thigh boots and all the rest of the leather EXCEPT leggings: 53
And for just one piece of studded in an otherwise leather armor set:
Leather Armor set with studded gorget: 53
Leather Armor set with studded tunic: 53
If anyone wants to do further work on mixing and matching be my guest.
CONCLUSION: Wear any clothing you want except for footwear. Any single piece of any armor of
studded leather, bone, and metal WILL seriously slow down your meditation rate. Leather Armor does
not affect meditation rate. If you do wear leather armor (especially the leggings) then ANY footwear
is cool and the armor and clothing do not affect the meditation rate. If you DO NOT wear armor then
don’t wear thigh boots or fished-up footwear or you can always just go barefoot.
I do not have time or inclination to expand this study to rings and other jewelry. I suggest if you
wear something to at least keep an eye on how fast mana can regenerate. IF IT SLOWS DOWN
figure out what you are wearing that is causing you grief.
Hope this helps all you fashion conscious Magi.
<font color=red>PvP tips for mages....</font color=red>
by Vertigo of Sonoma
I haven't been killed since UO:R with my mage in PvP. Here are some stratigies I have found to be effective:
Basics:
Spell selection is crucial. Don't waste mana on anything that is not necissary. Hit with heavy hard hitting combos, explosion/ebolt, explosion/Flamestrike. I wouldn't PvP with anything less than about 95 meditation, or you'll get owned. The other thing about combos is knowing how to cast them in battle. Here is what I do, run about 10 squares, stop, hit explosion macro, let dexer run withing 2 tiles of me, run 10 squares in another direction, target, ebolt macro, last object, run, poison, ect. I'll elaborate more on combos in a sec, of course there is more to it than two spells. The other crucial component is movement. It takes some practice to move into position to cast and not be hit with melee. If a dexer can't hit you, he can't kill you...period. Use obsticles, houses, trees, bushes twigs, anything to get in thier way. I dropped swords for archery, took 4 days to GM Archery from zero. It was a huge improvement. Fire rate isn't too bad, and I've killed townies in non-magic towns, oh and it was two dexers against my mage using only archery and poison.
Ok, now the "nitty gritty". I've picked out these techniques through experience fighting guildmates and spending time in a chaos guild post UO:R. I have found them to be very effective for me and have done quite abit of research to discover them. Again, movement is key. If you can't get the hang of distancing yourself, timing your spells to distance, and moving out of the way you might as well create a dexer. Being a mage is about finese and offence now. You should never have to take a beating.
Stratagy one:
We'll start against a dexer without archer first. This should be the easiest target. Again, movement is key. First off, remember that he has to get close to you to kill you. So, your main stratagy, don't let him get close. Use obsticles, trees, bushes, houses, ect. to block his path. You'll want to open up hard on this char. First thing, check to see if he has any GCures on him. Throw poison on him, see if he chugs. If he does, you have two options. Keep poisoning him until he runs out of potions (I'll bet your carrying more nightshade than he is GCures, and at GM med, 9 mana is nothing). If you go with this option, when he stops chugging, let your mana go to full. Just keep stepping out of reach while your passive builds your mana back to 100. If you have archery (as my mage does) pull up the bow and do some extra damage while you wait. Other option is to dump on him then poison, if he cures, poison again. This is a bit more risky because if he has 10 GCures, that's 90 mana. and you do not want him to get that heal off after your dump. Which brings us to the next major stratagy, keep him from healing. Poison is by far the spell I cast the most. Nothing is more flustrating to a warrior that getting a cure, hitting the bandage, and before it goes into effect seeing "In Nox" on the screen. This stratagy worked against the healing skill before UO:R, nothing new here, exept that it works on potions too. Ok, so now we get to the mana dump. This is the part that makes or breaks you. DO NOT MANA DUMP IF YOU DON'T THINK YOU'LL KILL YOUR OPPONENT. If you have 90 mana and aren't sure, med up to 100. Spell selection is very important. I have found that mindblast is very inconsistant. Even on unbalanced players. I'm guessing because it is a lower circle spell it is probly effected by resist more than say ebolt or explosion. I will generally do this, Poison them until all thier GCures are gone. Med up to 100, then Explosion/Flamestrike, ebolt, ebolt. This should have them on thier heals. Of course there are many combos that you can use, but you need to get them off quick and they need to do alot of damage. If they are still alive, med back a few points, poison again, they should be very low on life. If you have archery, put it to work now. If not, let the posion kill them. Mostly my fights end in a warrior running around trying to cure with his 7 hps left from the mana dump and dropping dead while running around in a panic.
Stratagy 2:
Against a warrior with archery. Same stratagy as a warrior without archery with a few twists. Know how thier weapon works. They have to stop moving to fire, if the fire animation starts and they move, they auto miss. Line of sight on this one. Get behind a building, precast, when they move to follow then you hit em. Keep em poisoned, drink your GHeals and you'll be ok.
Stratagy 3:
Against a mage, same thing, with a few exeptions. don't poison before your dump. Dump then poison quick. When they cast cure poison again. If you have weapon skills. IE maces, swords, Fencing, put them to work now.
That's it in a nutshell. Of course there are alot of intangibles to my stratagies, IE, moving and spell timing. It may take some practice but it is very effective for my mage. I don't think a mage should ever lose to a warrior, especially one without archery. Play around with what I have here, add your own twists, find what works for you. Practice on guildmates, go to the death. It's the best way to figure out your own stratagies without loosing all your regs. I'd also highly recommend you take up archery. I dropped wrestling on my mage (I move well enough not to need it) and have archery and maces instead of maces and wrestling. I'm even considering dropping maces for anatomy to add damage to archery. Archery helps coving your chars weekness (defence) by removing the need to get close to your opponent. Hope this helps some of you, of course like I said it takes practice and may not work for every one.
<font color=red>Blade Spirits And Energy Vortex</font color=red>
Greetings all, i did this essay in response to a thread i read about the subject. It is a question that comes up every now and again, so i thought i would put together what i have found out about these two often very misunderstood spells.
BS and EV are tricky, but once you get to know how they work they are easy to use. I have spent a great deal of time practicing and hunting with them (in fact i dedicated a good deal of my UO time Mastering their use). Here is what i discovered.
Casting the spells.
You will no doubt notice the casting time for BS is HUGE, the best option is to either, cast the spell and then aproach your victim with the targeting cursor ready, or disable your victim (usually with a para or para-wall) then cast the spell.
EV is slightly better in this respect as the casting time is relativley short, about the same as a flamestrike, so you can get away with casting it without preparation if you need to.
Placing the BS or EV and getting it to fight for you
This is probably where most 'accidents' happen
First a word on targets the BS or EV will attack. Valid targets for BS and EV are in short, anything the caster could 'negativly affect'. What i mean by this is if you try to use a negative effect (eg a damage spell or stealing or provocation for example) and you get the message 'you cannot preform negative acts on this target' then your BS or EV cannot attack it either. In Felucca you can 'negativly effect' anything you want to, in trammel you are limited to guildmates, enemy guild members, monsters, and NPC's, if you want to check just try and attack whatever you want to test, if it lets you then it can be 'negativly effected' and is a valid target for BS and EV.
With regards to what things the BS and EV will actually attack, BS will attack the nearest valid (see above for valid targets) target, however, they will ALWAYS pick a MOVING target over a stationary one even if the stationary is nearer. EV target the creature or player with the highest INT score within range. (however they always seem to target player charecters over monsters).
Ok now onto actually getting them to attack your chosen victim.
There are 2 ways to almost guarentee it targets the victim and not somthing else. The 1st is to cast the spell then provoke (if you have the skill) onto the victim (deadly if you fail provoke).
The second is my prefered method, in order to ensure the BS or EV attacks the victim you choose, the spell must be cast into a floor tile DIRECTLY next to the victim (that is, you must TARGET a floor tile directly next to the victim). This sounds a lot easier than it is. The reason for this is when the BS or EV 'appears' the victim will be in the 'area of effect' of the BS/EV and will auto defend and target the BS/EV, this will cause the BS/EV to defend and auto target the victim as it apears. This works almost all of the time, if it doesn't then you were either very unlucky or you didn't target a tile next to the victim (remember although some creatures are very big, they still only take up one floor tile). It is obviously easier to get the right tile if your victim is not moving,. which brings me onto the next bit,.
My tips
Para wall,... this spell is invaluable when using BS/EV, (para is good but is a liitle less usfull), Para wall helps two fold, 1st of all it will stop your victim moving (see above for why this is good), secondly when you cast the BS/EV make sure you target a tile next to the victim on the OTHER side of the wall from you, that way if it does not target the victim for any reason, it will run into the para wall if it decides to come for you. Para is usfull for stopping victims so you can place your spells, but the wall gives the extra protection just in case.
Dont use either spell on dragonkin,.. since they were patched, dragonkin can dispell both on 0% mana, so dont waste your time,.. you'll have to think of a better way to kill these creatures.
FAQ
Q. Do Mage hats spell count for INT when talking about EV targets.
A. Yes, the highest INT as displayed on your staus panel(wether this be enanced by spells or magic hats etc) will be targeted.
Q. Can they be cast onto water.
A. I have tried many diffent locations from many different angles postions,.. as yet i have never been able to place a BS/EV onto water, so i would say no to that.
Q. After the initial target is dead, will the BS/EV target anothe creature.
A. The BS/EV should default to its AI targeting (see the essay for valid targets and prefered targets), however, every now and again, it will completely ignore everthing untill somthing attacks it, or it will target the caster, i have not been able to determin why this happens. this generally only happens in trammel though i have noticed.
Q. It wont let me dispel A BS/EV in trammel
A. you may only dispel a BS/EV in trammel if
1. you are in a guild
2. it has targeted you.
3. you are the original caster
Well,.. thats all folks, hope it helps you, cya on Europa,...
(if you see me running away from an EV, do me a favour, dispell it for me eh ?,...)
Urgat Rip-Eye
------------
<font color=red>Frequently Asked Question:</font color=red>
Sometimes I see vendors who appear to give a discount to memebers of a guild? What is up and how do I save money on regs?
Those people have spent 500gp for the privelege of seeing that message every time they buy stuff from mage vendors. Unfortunately the only professional guild working is the thief guild. It has been confirmed (thanks Silme Yanta and his better half, Madam O) that there is indeed NO difference in the prices offered to members vs. non-members. If you desire to see that message by all means do the following: Find the Mage Guildmaster in most any big magery store and say his name and then join (eg. Chauncey Join). He will then ask for 500gp and you can drop that on him. Then you too can impress your freinds and influence people because you are a member of the guild. Just dont expect a price break. This is the exception to joining only one guild at a time. You may be a member of a professional guild AND a player guild. But unless you are a thief, the dues are a waste of gold.
In celebration of a great post, it belongs here in the FAQ. Following is the group of questions as asked and then the excellent replies by Chiron and Raistlin:
---------------------
I'VE SPENT SO LONG KILLING CATTLE I HAVEN'T LEARNED OUT TO USE THIS CHAR WITH A GROUP AND IT'S DRIVING ME MENTAL.
How should I be macroed up?
What are good combos?
What do I do when I'm with a group and targeted by every monster in sight? I mean all I do is run trying to put distance between me and the monsters so I can cast while warriors chase the beasties around.
How best to preserve my mana in bigger fights?
Any help would be great.
Oh, and since i was to freaked out to try it, if the warriors are surrounded and I cast chain lightning on the monsters, will I hit any members of my group...?
Petorlan The Drunk
-----------
And the responses:
-----------
STEP #1 SET UP
--------------
Set your spells up on hotkeys (macros). Mine are as follows:
ctl z flamestrike
ctl x ebolt
ctl c lightning
ctl v harm [used to be of use to bring down magic reflect - limited use now]
ctl a paralyze
ctl s explosion
ctl d poison
ctl f teleport [use this to get out of trouble to safe areas]
ctl q greater heal (self)
ctl w cure (self)
ctl e heal (self) [faster than gh and harder to interrupt]
ctl r invisibility (self) [instant hiding when you are in over your head]
Now open your spell book and drag the icons for your favorites spells to the bottom of your screen. Mine includes all the ones listed above and:
dispell summoned, blade spirit, summon daemon, summon fire elemental, energy vortex
dispell wall, wall of stone, wall of poison, wall of fire, energy wall
create food, night sight
heal, cure, greater heal, resurrect
recall, gate, mark
reactive armor, protection, spell reflect, bless
STEP #2 SOLO
------------
Go out solo and learn to fight things on your own before grouping. Start with the weakest creature and then move up to stronger creatures then finally groups of creatures.
Walk out of town and look for a mongbat, great hart, or bear. Pull the health bar off the monster by left clicking it and dragging. Stay as far away as possible and begin casting on it by targetting the health bar. Experiment with different spells and get used to dealing with running back after casting to minimize interruptions.
Once you are comfortable with those mechanics, find an orc, troll, or ettin. These will go aggro on you once they see you so make sure you are prepared for battle by having reactive armor up beforehand. Experiment with different spells. I personally like to paralyze then explosion/ebolt combo (the explosion should take place right as the Ebolt is striking when done correctly). Then I follow up quickly with a poison and run backwards for my next salvo of spells.
Once you are comfortable with single creatures venure further out from town and start working with groups. Find a group of orcs or lizardmen and run backwards and cast poison wall and fire wall (trammel only!). Run around the walls and wear them down enough to where you have enough time to cast ebolt and other offensive spells without them reaching you.
STEP #3 GROUPING
----------------
Once you are comforable with your spells and have a good understanding of how long they take to cast, how easy they are to interrupt, and which are best for certain situations you are ready to group. Join a group and establish what skill set everyone has. Determine who will heal and if you will be responsible for healing.
Everyone plays a mage a little differently. Some simply thunder in first on horseback and start slinging spells. Others play a warrior/mage hyrbrid and will follow the group right into the thick of combat. The pure mages may be more suited to staying in the back out of combat judiciously using spells as required. Until you get the group combat skills under your belt, I recommend you do the latter.
Stay in back and let the warrior types pull monsters to the group for combat. Let them start beating on it. Start with a poison and use your spells sparingly. If it looks like they are in trouble, begin blasting but always keep enough mana for at least one greater heal. Do not blast things into the ground when the party could have slain it easily because now they have to sit around while you med.
If you are unsure about what you are going to be fighting ask the party which spells are most effective. Sometimes it might be just as effective to paralyze monsters when more than one comes and let the party focus on one or two foes at a time than it is to burn a single monster down to the ground.
The most troubling thing for you is learning how to manage mana. Since you can summon, burn, gate, and heal you will be challenged with all these tasks at once. Burn too heavy in combat and you cannot get off the healing need to keep the party alive. Sit back too much waiting to heal and monsters will have their way with the warriors. There is a delicate balance that is different for each party. Ask them if you are burning too much or not enough. They will provide feed back.
Now to your questions...
What are good combos?
Read this board in detail. Lots of good suggestions. A classic is paralyze explosion ebolt.
What do I do when I'm with a group and targeted by every monster in sight?
Stay in back of the group so the monsters see the other party members first. Once they are engaged with the front ranks, then you can begin to cast. I tend to play more of the pure mage so I need to stay out of combat all together. Its inevitable that you will be standing toe-to-toe with something eventually though. In these cases you can teleport away and hide, use the invisibility (self) macro, or another escape skill. The monster will loose sight of you and find something else to do. When your mana is up enough, reveal yourself by ebolting or other offensive tactic.
How best to preserve my mana in bigger fights?
This is tough. With small battles you may only have to cast once or twice and then just wait for the warriors to do clean up. Larger pulls require more thought. Poison is a great spell as it does damage over time for the cost of only one spell. It all depends on the situation.
Sometimes you might want to poison everything and then med up to full. Now its time to drop an occasional offensive spell when you dont need to heal. Cast med cast med cast med. Make sure you are always greater than some set amount of mana (for me its usually 30).
Other times you might get something nasty (avengers, titans, matriarchs, dragons, anything with deadly or better poison) and you need to be much more active. Let the monster engage a group member before casting and then start hitting hard with repeated Ebolts, poison, etc. Make sure you keep enough mana for the inevitable cures and heals the group will be shouting for.
The last situation is where something comes that the party is clearly not going to beat. This may be due to the party's condition (needs mana and health), make-up, or inexperience. Sometimes the party just doesn't realize it needs to run and starts to fight it. Resist the urge to do a full mana dump. Keep enough mana for healing and possibly a gate. You might try paralyze and then gate if the group agrees its time to pull out.
If the warriors are surrounded and I cast chain lightning on the monsters, will I hit any members of my group...?
Area of effect spells are very nice to use if you are in Trammel. Your meteor swarm, chain lighting, wall type spells, blade spirits, and energy vortex will do wonders and not harm party members. If you are in Felucca things are a lot different. You will damage party members and go gray. At this point expect every opportunist this side of the Mississippi to jump on you and kill you.
Chiron, Atlantic
--------------
And a few helpful additions by Raistlin Magere:
I agree with the many facets of a mage. In a group you need on the front: Tough warriors that aren't afraid to take on just about anything. In the back as support mages and archers. Or, as in my case, mage/archers. Two long range attacks. You can still support the warriors with heals/cures/archprotection/invisiblity/blesses/etc... When mana is down, and it will be at times no matter how you try to manage, you use UOAssist to arm that bow and go to work on whoevers' being a royal pain to the warriors. You can also defend youself when something gets through. Archery isn't that hard to build either. More expensive though. If you can, I would use hiding instead of invis as there is no mana loss and no expiration time. You can use the teleport/hide trick if really in the river deep(teleport and hide quickly-teleport removes you from line of sight and you may be able to hide right under the beasties nose for very little mana). I'm only at 76 archery and about 98 Tactics and can take out a earth ele in just a few shots in an enclosed space.
Also, make sure everyone in the group has a horse. With a decent connection the movement is much better and it hides your actions better. If someone is still on foot then get them a horse and they can pay back later with part of their loot.
Odd as it is, in a group assign numbers to everyone and position. Battle tactics make for a strong front, and calling out names in battle is difficult when people are called no telling what(" Warrior of the high Plains" come here) . Uh... remember your number.
Trust you group and earn their trust-Everytime one of them dies they will probably think you could have helped. Such is a mages' lot in life. Trust your group because there may be time where a firefield or other spell may leave you open to notopks. The group should understand that there may be times where the mage is gray and to keep everyone off him/her. Now if a member of the group attacks you, it's time to leave that group. You can't trust them not to steal, lie or loot you later on.
-------------------------------------------------------
Do I need to have Tactics with Wrestling to avoid inturruption of spellcasting while toe to toe with enemy?
Just wrestling. Tactics is just damage, wrestling is chance for you and your opponent to hit.
Unless you wanna do 3 damage instead of 2, you dont need tacticss
(Solon)
Let me just add that Tactics IS necessary if you use Swords, Fencing, Macing, or Archery, but not if wrestling is without a complementary melee skill.
--------------------------------------------------------
If you get a message "The spell can not adhere to you at this time" then you
have probably got another spell active. The following spells are not
accumulative in that you can only have one of these spells active at any one
time and the above message indicates that you have one of the following
active:
spell reflection
reactive armour
protection
--------------------------------------------------------------------------<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Kofu on 11/22/00 02:29 PM.</FONT></P>