• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

Hardest Skill To Raise

O

onthefifty

Guest
for ninja i have a question.

can i do focus attack from mid 50's on my mount unguilded in trammel?

or will i need to use a golem.

if using a mount just tell it to all kill me?

i'm unclear on this point.

thanks.
 

Joshua Ravenloft

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Nice idea :) will have to go thru some other servers and see if I have some of those stuffed away... althou I guess you would also need an extra 105, 110, 115 and 120 taming PS, which does make it a bit more expensive :)
Yep sorry missed that bit about the scrolls needed out of my original post.

I spent very little on PS's as Taming is such a hard skill to raise and this was reflected in the cost of the 120 scroll. As for the 105/110/115, they were less than a mill to buy if my memory serves me right.

Using the soul frags is also a great way to bring 50 point skillz across to your home shard to then train up on another char if you don't have the room to create a new one.

It's just a shame you can't put stats on soul frags too!

[Now there's a thought for the new expansion Dev's]
 
M

MorganaLeFey

Guest
Yep sorry missed that bit about the scrolls needed out of my original post.

I spent very little on PS's as Taming is such a hard skill to raise and this was reflected in the cost of the 120 scroll. As for the 105/110/115, they were less than a mill to buy if my memory serves me right.

Using the soul frags is also a great way to bring 50 point skillz across to your home shard to then train up on another char if you don't have the room to create a new one.

It's just a shame you can't put stats on soul frags too!

[Now there's a thought for the new expansion Dev's]
Taming.
 
G

guum

Guest
Taming hand down, nothing is close
This. I'll concede that there are some skills that I haven't maxed, but I have done other contenders mentioned in this thread and several of them multiple times (fishing, lockpicking, cart, discord, etc.), and while it's definitely true thatthose skills are annoying and fairly slow to raise, they are not in the same league as taming for sheer, tedious, RSI-inducing, months-as-a-best-case-scenario frustration.

Taming is even a serious pain to raise to the 80-90 range. Not too many other skills that are more than a minor annoyance to get that high. There's a reason that the only skill anyone blows a 20mil advanced character token on is taming.

For most underrated pain-in-the-butt skill, I'll go with hiding. I've GMed it a few times, and it really does slow way the heck down in the 90s. Of course, you can just set up a macro that spams it every 10 seconds while you run around looking for IDOCs or whatever, so there are worse, but it does seem awful slow in the 90s.
 

Padre Dante

Journeyman
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just wanted to weigh in with my $0.02.

1) Taming - hands down. Even the zoo turn in rewards don't entice me enough to train it. Maybe if they were reasonably point slotted? 550k per armor piece? That's something 11k unicorns for the set.
2) Discordance - I just picked this one up for my tamer. The skill gains are slow as molasses, but at least you can be out hunting while training and make gold/loot. Also, as Poo has mentioned, there are tricks/methods to gaining everything, just not taming.
 

ACB1961

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Ok, everyone says Poisoning is hard to raise but I had no problem with it, yeah it took a while but it wasnt that painful...

How come no one mentions Ninjitsu?! I am trying to 120.0 this skill (only at 92.5) and I get MAYBE if I am lucky .2 in an hour before I get angry and quit.

So here is my question what skill is the hardest to CAP?
Poisoning is different than it once was. We used to have to have a different target per attempt until we actually got skill or waited for server reset.

Ninja was pretty easy in comparison to taming. Let me tell you how bad taming used to be. I got stuck at 117.6 for 6 or 7 months. I tamed 10-12 hours a day for weeks (I'm retired). It finally took something over 6 months to get .1. I mean in the old days (which was before power hours and ggs) things that got stuck, really got stuck. It was literally 1000s of bad animals for that .1 I've made a couple more for the family since then. I don't mind doing any other skill for them, but taming to 120 takes a very long time.

In the first 6 months of the game it was almost impossible to be a gm mage. People now don't have a clue what being stuck was like then.

Can't compare old school poisoning to the way we do it now.
 

Berethrain

Slightly Crazed
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
There is a script for that too.
I've only seen one and it's a pos. But compare that the number of them versus taming etc.

Unlike taming, you have to start at 0 when removing trap and work it up along with being required to have two more skills.

This is certainly the hardest skill to train, but becomes a little easier if you know how to do it right.
 

Poo

The Grandest of the PooBah’s
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Campaign Benefactor
Id say enticement is the hardest to raise now. I cant even find the damn skill anymore !
sure ya can, its called Discordance.

i have fond memories of using enticment back in the day to lure NPCs and town guards out of guard zone to kill them for their sandals.

what we do for sandals.
 

Taylor

Former Stratics CEO (2011-2014)
VIP
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Benefactor
Are we talking the "hardest" skills to train, or the most "time consuming?" If we mean time consuming, taming is at the top (obviously), but disco, ninja, and weaving are up there, as well.

Poisoning is difficult train, if you don't have an alchemist, as is cartography.
 
J

Jhym

Guest
*shrug*
Taming is tough, Provoke is tough, Discord is somewhat tough, remove trap is tough. Lockpicking was tough-ish but I didn't do locked boxes.

The repetitive ones are tiresome but not tough.

You do have to say, however, that skill raising these days is NOTHING like it was eight to ten years ago.
 

wanderer1origin

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
taming
begging
disco


I would say Arms lore was the hardest for me. very repetitive and boring. Taming has a trick too it. Ii involves using 2 & 3 tames and appling them to some of the harder critters. Have a couple of guldies or friends tame the animals before you tame for the third or forth taming of the same critter. You will get skill gain.
 
C

Connor_Graham

Guest
fishing im not sure why everyone has such a problem with that.
same as most skills you can bang that off in 2 days.
What's the trick to it then? I've been working it for days now, and still haven't made it to 75 yet. I spent a good 6 hours or longer yesterday fishing non-stop, and only got around 50 or so gains in that entire time by crusing up the server line east of Moonglow.
 
B

Beleg Megil

Guest
Detect Hidden and Remove Trap for me. Of course I'm in factions so failing at remove kinda sets me back a bit. And I don't use scripts.
 
G

guum

Guest
What's the trick to it then? I've been working it for days now, and still haven't made it to 75 yet. I spent a good 6 hours or longer yesterday fishing non-stop, and only got around 50 or so gains in that entire time by crusing up the server line east of Moonglow.
You aren't going to get good gains at 75 way out at sea. Try a little closer to land...like 15 or so tiles off shore (just a few into deep sea). Switch to deep deep sea at around 85 or when the gains fall off.
 
S

StarlaUO

Guest
My vote goes to Taming... hardest and longest skill to reach 120. Took me forever with GGS to reach 120. Now trying to do so for another character...

And the SOTs are hard to come by and very costly.
 
J

Jesara

Guest
Yet another vote for taming.
However, I found the most boring skill to GM was tinkering.. making nothing useful or able to be recycled or put into a BOD was painful.
 

Pfloyd

Colorblind Collector
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Yet another vote for taming.
However, I found the most boring skill to GM was tinkering.. making nothing useful or able to be recycled or put into a BOD was painful.
i remember when i was training tinkering and would die at the bank to allies or guildies to empty my pack. I would attack them at serpents hold bank and they would one hit kill me. hehe
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Actually, Tinkering has several items that you can make for Heartwood quests and The Library donations.

Donate lockpicks to the library (thief, upstairs) until you change to the spyglasses & fancy wind chimes for the Heartwood / Sanctuary quests.
 
G

guum

Guest
i remember when i was training tinkering and would die at the bank to allies or guildies to empty my pack. I would attack them at serpents hold bank and they would one hit kill me. hehe
Doh. Why didn't I think of that? That's actually pretty darn clever. I'll remember it next time I need to train a crafting skill with a lot of little items.
 
D

DVDA

Guest
i remember when i was training tinkering and would die at the bank to allies or guildies to empty my pack. I would attack them at serpents hold bank and they would one hit kill me. hehe
That is pretty clever but it wouldnt work as well now because, when you double click your body you get all your stuff back....I miss the old days of having to pick up individual items off my body (it was the only way i cleaned out my backpack)
 

MalagAste

Belaern d'Zhaunil
Alumni
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
That is pretty clever but it wouldnt work as well now because, when you double click your body you get all your stuff back....I miss the old days of having to pick up individual items off my body (it was the only way i cleaned out my backpack)
hehe yeah I remember that! Sometimes I'd find long lost items that way!
 

Cear Dallben Dragon

Babbling Loonie
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Taming for sure is hard.
There are some usesless/dead skills that im sure are hard to raise too.
As for the sterotype on poisoning being the hardest. I think that just comes from it having such a massive delay, and not really being what poison was meant to be. Todays mechanics change poisoning alot. its not a spell/move that ticks 12 dmg per 6 seconds, or 3 dmg a second. its making your oponent spend a second hitting the greater cure pot macro instead of healing or harming you.
 
C

Coppelia

Guest
Remove Trap. Taming isn't even half the misery that Remove Trap is.
 
F

Fink

Guest
i remember when i was training tinkering and would die at the bank to allies or guildies to empty my pack. I would attack them at serpents hold bank and they would one hit kill me. hehe
Doh. Why didn't I think of that? That's actually pretty darn clever. I'll remember it next time I need to train a crafting skill with a lot of little items.
Just put the material you're working (eg: iron) into a pouch or bag inside your pack. When you tinker items they will be made in the bag that holds the material. Make items til you can't hold any more, remove the ingots, trash the bag.
 
O

onthefifty

Guest
if were talking poison to 80 is not hard at all

take a few weapons with you to trogs. 4 or 5, pre poisoned cause u will fail prior to 80.

put 1 fish steak in your bag.

poison trog, poison fish steak, poison trog, poison fish steak. it goes fast.

when ur weapon poison is exausted, poison weapon instead of fish steak after switching it for next poison weapon in ur hand.

for ninja:

i started one based upon the suggestions here.

is going well. i bot it to 40. cast mirror image to 50 or so. than got a cat and used focus attack to 67.5. put on jewels to raise it abv 85 and did deathstrike.

i put on a mr 12 suit, cast lich form and summon shawdow wisp. i'm currently switching out the jewelry as my real skill atm is 79.4. its gaining well. i know it will slow down in the 90's but i dont need the skill yet so when it gets there it gets there.
 

Tina Small

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Actually, Tinkering has several items that you can make for Heartwood quests and The Library donations.

Donate lockpicks to the library (thief, upstairs) until you change to the spyglasses & fancy wind chimes for the Heartwood / Sanctuary quests.
What annoys the heck out of me regarding donating at the library is that the donation totals you accumulate with the various NPCs aren't aggregated for purposes of claiming a reward. The only type of item I've ever been able to stick with donating long enough to actually get a reward is leather. Unfortunately, the scales collected and donated at the same time have never amounted to enough points to get a decent reward.

When I work on Tinkering, I always finish up by making spyglasses and selling them to a ship builder NPC. UO Assist has a nice "Sell" agent that makes it very easy to sell items to an NPC. I also use that feature when training a carpenter to sell shields and staffs to an NPC. You get very little gold back for selling the spyglasses, but you do end up a bit richer than you started with (if you overlook the value of the ingots you used up). The carpenter, on the other hand, always ends up in significantly better shape for gold because of selling off the shields and staffs.

And to reply to the OP, Remove Trap is one of the most painful and tedious skills to train. I've taken it to GM six times so far but I think Poo's got me beat with about a dozen trap removers built by now. We've both posted some helpful hints in a sticky thread on the Factions forum if anyone else is working on the skill or is thinking about it.
 
T

TheGrayGhost

Guest
For me

#1 Taming
#2 Legendary Chivalry (Yes there's no need for it but I liked my RP paladin just to much work to make another lol)
 
N

northwoodschopper

Guest
begging was extremely painful before the easy exploits now.
remove traps is really difficult unless you're in the know.
stealth use to be really annoying to train up
 
B

BardMal

Guest
I'm going to say something different than all these other players.....
taming.
OK, not so different.
 

Pfloyd

Colorblind Collector
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Just put the material you're working (eg: iron) into a pouch or bag inside your pack. When you tinker items they will be made in the bag that holds the material. Make items til you can't hold any more, remove the ingots, trash the bag.
I dont think you could do that way back when i was working it. Has it always been like that? There also wasn't auto loot your corpse so i could just grab again what i needed. When i said allies...they were actually warring guilds as back then that was the only way to do it.
 

Pfloyd

Colorblind Collector
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
What about SW? This isn't as easy now with 8x8 gone.

112 now and seems i can only GGS it.
 
K

Kyle Orton

Guest
I will take your word for it on taming, I just jewel up to 110.

For me personally it was poisoning. It was a looooong and tedious road.
 
J

jfkeach

Guest
Ninja... 4 Days to 120 Attended...
Poisoning.... I gm'd in 2 days
Detect Hidden.... about 4 days to gm
Tracking... stopped at 95... 2 days...
Discord GM in two days... stopped at GM but easy to 120 if you know what ya doing.
Provo... easy to gain
Taming.. I give up and use jewels

The secret to any skill gain is preparation and dedication. SPEED counts. Repetition counts. For mana intensive skills, max out MR, and casting speeds. This applies to the magery, weaving, necro, chiv, bush, and ninja skills. Pick spells when you can that dont need a target or one where you can target your parrot. In bush you jewel up to as high as you can until you can cast without needing jewels. Lightning strike. Works well to 120.

The secret to barding skills, well use animals set to your level. For disco I went and released 20 ki-rin in the house, used a uoassist macro and discoed ten, then hid, then another uoassist macro to disco the next 10 then hide. Rinse and repeat. Then when gains slowed i used Cu-Sidhes. Same thing for provo. I have 10 cages in house. 2 per cage. Never let them fight. Then After you cycle through invis a couple of times till you break the provoke or disco. Also, it helps to poison field them all periodically so that they gain healing, anat and resist. THis causes their barding difficulty to go up so you can keep gaining after you level off.

For poisoning... Make sure you got plenty of pots before starting. Have 20 daggers in pack. Use UOAssist to poison each one.... then just rinse and repeat till gm.

Taming, just jewel up and use GGS. Thats what im doing.
 
U

UOKaiser

Guest
I gm alot of skills before before they removed anti-macro code and using boats and powerhour and before power hour but no matter what nothing is worse than taming.
 

Taylor

Former Stratics CEO (2011-2014)
VIP
Alumni
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Campaign Benefactor
S

Serine

Guest
Taming
Disco

Pre Trammel ....... 9 month and 90 parry ......
After trammel ...... 30 min gm Parry .... really pissed of that day ....
 
S

Sweeney

Guest
On Siege the only hard part is getting to 70 using GGS.

After that every skill is a cakewalk to GM.
 

Lord Frodo

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
The secret to barding skills, well use animals set to your level. For disco I went and released 20 ki-rin in the house, used a uoassist macro and discoed ten, then hid, then another uoassist macro to disco the next 10 then hide. Rinse and repeat. Then when gains slowed i used Cu-Sidhes. Same thing for provo. I have 10 cages in house. 2 per cage. Never let them fight. Then After you cycle through invis a couple of times till you break the provoke or disco. Also, it helps to poison field them all periodically so that they gain healing, anat and resist. THis causes their barding difficulty to go up so you can keep gaining after you level off.
Didn't somebody post that they got banned for this being done in thier house the other day? YES! Use this method at your own risk.

QUESTION
Is it legal to block NPC's or monsters with objects, or invisible pets/players?
ANSWER

It is not legal to block NPC's or monsters with objects. The deliberate blocking of monsters or NPC’s with objects such as boats, crates, house tiles, invisible pets or invisible players with the intent to gain an unfair advantage, like skill gain or monster killing is considered an exploit and can result in account penalties. This also applies to “animal pens” or “Safe areas” in the game world. If the animal/monster cannot damage you, then you are abusing the system and will be asked to stop.
 

Scarst

Lore Master
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Definitely Animal Taming.
Ninjitsu is hard to raise, but way more easy then Taming. Ninjitsu is second hardest.
I find Poisoning actually quite easy to raise.
Yes poisoning is fairly easy especially if you have no regard for killing anything and go on massive death sprees.

Weirdly I haven't been able to get my guaranteed gain for if since I hit 80.1 poisoning. And I do have skill points set down to gain for it in alchemy.

As for taming yes it's hard but as has been said Remove Trap is insanely hard to raise and still has skill prerequisites. It by the very definition is the hardest skill to raise as it's on the very bottom of the decay list and alchemy is at the very top.

Anyone else remember when you had to have 80 hiding to even try to stealth?

As for people talking about scripts that's incredibly stupid that you even use them let alone talk about them.
 
J

jfkeach

Guest
Didn't somebody post that they got banned for this being done in thier house the other day? YES! Use this method at your own risk.

QUESTION
Is it legal to block NPC's or monsters with objects, or invisible pets/players?
ANSWER

It is not legal to block NPC's or monsters with objects. The deliberate blocking of monsters or NPC’s with objects such as boats, crates, house tiles, invisible pets or invisible players with the intent to gain an unfair advantage, like skill gain or monster killing is considered an exploit and can result in account penalties. This also applies to “animal pens” or “Safe areas” in the game world. If the animal/monster cannot damage you, then you are abusing the system and will be asked to stop.
Didn't know that actually. Good thing im done. Then again, if this is true they ban you for that, countless players that take pets to swoop desert to train resist/healing is at risk. Because that was how I trained cu sidhe healing in the old days, take it there, and have it attack satyr on other side of wall, and let the pixies cast on it. I consider this GAME mechanics, and don't see anything wrong with it, but then again, for them to make it so hard to gain skill in normal play is wrong too. I think the issue with this banning you are talking about is was it possible it was unattended? That i wholeheartedly support.
 
S

Sabbath

Guest
Focus - hardest hands down! Ok I'm kidding...they should probably make it just a little harder to gain. Every new character I start, I rush to lock down focus so it won't start shooting up just because I'm walking. LOL
 
T

Tazar

Guest
Didn't know that actually. Good thing im done. Then again, if this is true they ban you for that, countless players that take pets to swoop desert to train resist/healing is at risk. Because that was how I trained cu sidhe healing in the old days, take it there, and have it attack satyr on other side of wall, and let the pixies cast on it. I consider this GAME mechanics, and don't see anything wrong with it, but then again, for them to make it so hard to gain skill in normal play is wrong too. I think the issue with this banning you are talking about is was it possible it was unattended? That i wholeheartedly support.
The thing about getting banned by it is that as long as you have the pets in the house - discording - and they are able to reach you if angered (or each other if provoked), then you should be fine from what I understand. It's only when they are blocked from counter-attacking that it becomes a problem.
 
S

Stupid Miner

Guest
It is not legal to block NPC's or monsters with objects. The deliberate blocking of monsters or NPC’s with objects such as boats, crates, house tiles, invisible pets or invisible players with the intent to gain an unfair advantage, like skill gain or monster killing is considered an exploit and can result in account penalties. This also applies to “animal pens” or “Safe areas” in the game world. If the animal/monster cannot damage you, then you are abusing the system and will be asked to stop.
This entirely depends on the definition of "unfair advantage" until this definition is explained, the statement is meaningless due to the fact that it could be construed to mean anything, everything, or nothing.

As if running around to discord is somehow better than standing still? :confused:
 

Lord Frodo

Stratics Legend
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
This entirely depends on the definition of "unfair advantage" until this definition is explained, the statement is meaningless due to the fact that it could be construed to mean anything, everything, or nothing.

As if running around to discord is somehow better than standing still? :confused:
It all depends on what GM shows up. The only reason I posted this is because if you go to the UO Bard Forum you will see this post "24 Hour Ban" http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=166811. There are a few links in that post to follow too. Like I said it all depends on the GM that shows up if you get paged on for this. IMHO I think it is total BS, esp. if you are training disco. on something that would not argo you out in the wild, like a Cu or polor bears.
 
Top