Help with my template?

[Lavanthus]

First, here's my current skills:

120 Mystic (111.3 real)
111.1 focus (101.1 real)
100 spellweaving
72.5 meditation
120 music
120 provoke
90.6 peacekeeping
4.5 archery

I've jumped around a lot on my skills, but I'm liking this current one to a point. I plan on dropping peacekeeping and archery to replace it with something else, but I still don't have a strong handle on this template, yet. It's great and kills things pretty quickly, but I got into spellweaving believing I could use ethereal voyage anytime (Man was I mistaken). This template is more of a "control the field" template, but there'll be times where there's a paragon on my ass, or there isn't another enemy to provoke and they can dispel my colossus.

I dunno if I should drop provoke and music (which I would really hate but understand), because colossus pretty much does everything for me. Problem is the monsters will still go after me, even with the colossus wailing on them. That, and the colossus cast time is still pretty slow (yes I have max cast speed), so that leaves a window where I'm completely vulnerable.

I was thinking I wanted to go necromancer, or was thinking magery for invisibility mostly. Problem is I need either spirit speak or eval intel for whichever I choose, and the extra skill points (peacekeeping + archery) doesn't even cover a GM of a single skill (which means I might have to drop meditation a bit which is fine).
I need something that will get the heat off me in the immediate moment that I need it. I'm supposed to be out of the danger with this build, and that can't happen with a paragon on me or something dispelling my colossus and nothing to provoke it to that can take it down.


*EDIT*

Alright, I dropped archery and peacekeeping, and a little bit of meditation and GM'd hiding. It will work to cast ethereal voyage if you can cast it before you enter combat. It's worked about 1/6th of the times I've tried so far. Still very nice skill to allow me to get a handle on the situation. I haven't tried it against paragons and fast creatures, so not sure if I can get away or not, yet.

 

[RazicGL]

Firstly it's an intersecting template. Secondly I am not too sure what armour you have or how much mana regain but med and focus might be a bit o er the top... are you wanting to just do general hunting? E.g. champs. Dungeons etc? I bbeen messing around with my caster template and have finally found one I personally really like. I ran sw for years but gave it to my archer and shook things up a bit... I am running the following.

6 x 120
Mage
eval
focus
mystic
necro
spirit speak.

I have a whole host of slayer spell books and find this template very versatile. For defence I use a mage wep and got lucky on my jewels I looted to keep at full fc/fcr. Working in hci/dci was a pain but looted piecesmake most suits ppossible these days.

way I play is either mounted as a caster blasting stuff with spells, I use as many mystic/mage/necro spells as poss. Debuff strong monsters as needed and use nether cyclone and wither for crowd control. If I find myself getting low on mana I pop wraith form and AoE until full. Then either stay in wraith form or change as needed. Basic principles are always have summons out either a colly or evs and randomly animate dead on stronger monsters for more free summons. I have a damage. Eater suitso uusually lesser heal spell is enough to keep me full but if needs be I got healing stone, cleansing winds, Greater heal, heal, spirit speak, heal. Pots and if the situation calls for it vamp form for leeches. Lots of healing!!! As for offence knowing you monsters is the key. Play to weaker resists. Make em weaker with corpse skin, evil omen and mind rot and then drops your summon and chew em up. In wraith form I can spam wither in a big group and kill everything fast. And I can keep healed using pot and stone so I don't have to stop dishing out the pain. Another bonus is in fel you walk through monsters unhindered which can really save your skin.
With any template. The.trick is to prepare for what you are.killing and cycle spells accordingly. Hiding is ok buy it's 100 points and you can get the same result with a lvl 6 spell or a cheap potion. Or if your getting cased down ass sleep will do the job also.

*pants*

Ty for reading

edit. Mass sleep not ass sleep....
lol

 

[Lavanthus]

Well with my template, I was aiming for control, which I get plenty of. It kinda still feels off, but I would hate to drop barding, because it's so fun and broken OP. I use a high focus to add to my mysticism spells. My suit is really powerful, it runs max on everything a mage could want:
150 int
7/6 FCR
4/4 FC
40 LMC
100 LRC (obviously)
and 30 mana regen.
Only downside to my suit is the resists aren't all 70 (which I don't mind because stone form usually soaks them up) and I only have 20 spell damage increase, which is also fine because I use Arcane Empowerment. Hiding is convenient for not having to cast and instantly getting out of harms way, which is not the case for casting invisibility.

I thought animate dead from necro cost a summon spot, so I might consider transferring my music and provoke with a soulstone (I keep "Mule" toons to hold my skills with soulstone transfers) and going GM or more with necro and SS. I might rethink the template, because not having magery kind of hurts, but I also don't want to be just another spellcasting class. I might play around with necro on test and see how it would fair in my template.

 

[RazicGL]

No they don't use control slots as you can'tdirectly control them. Thinking of working peace on my tamer mage or even provo as not tried a bard for over 10 years !

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

These points are in no particular order but just from things I've picked out of what you've said.

You have no melee defense. (Mage Weapon, Wrestling, Defensive Wrestling, Weapon Skill) So you will get hit 100% of the time. If you're on foot you will get eaten alive by any mid level monster (parragons) because you can't outrun them, and from the sounds of it you're not using Protection. When something in UO tries to hit something else the game compares their weapon skills (as defined above), usually it's a monsters Wrestling vs whatever you have. If you have 120 Magery and are holding a Mage Weapon you effectively have 120 Wrestling also and you have 50% chance that the monster will miss. If you then have DCI that chance goes more in your favour. It may not sound like much but it is, it stops you getting fizzled and allows you to do whatever else you're trying to do (Provoking or Casting) without taking so much damage.

I would say that you can safely drop Peace, Hiding and Spellweaving. Spellweaving (in PvM) is mostly about Word Of Death, if you're using it for that fine, you won't fizzle it at 117.5. Peace Masteries are great for curing Poison, but... you're a Mystic! Stone Form stops you even getting Poisoned once you're 120/120 Myst/Focus, and even before then you have Cleansing Wind. Hiding/Ethereal Voyage you do not need your Mysticism spells Sleep and Mass Sleep will work better, as would Invis. (As a side note not really clear how you're using Hiding while flagged.)

Casting (FC/FCR)... Bard Masteries are 4/6, Spellweaving is 4/6, Magery is 2/6, Mysticism is 2/6... basically what I'm saying is go 2/6 on your suit and max your resists.

You don't really need Med.

You don't HAVE to have Eval for Magery to be useful. Without Eval Magery would allow you to use a Mage Weapon this alone is worth it. Use Protection (stops your spells being fizzled - toggle in and out of it when needed - like when getting wailed on by parragons), use Heal/Greater Heal/Cure/Arch Cure (all of which are faster to cast than Cleansing Winds), use Mindblast (cold damage spell that is not based on Eval), use Summons of different Elemental types and of stronger Dispel resistance, use Dispel/Mass Dispel (so you don't have to wait for your Colossus to vanish or get killed before moving to a different area), use Invis (on a Provoker this is very useful), use Ressurection, use Teleport and various other things I'm probably forgetting. Essentially it's a bit confusing why you don't have it when it trumps all the points you have in Hiding/Weaving/Peace.

I would suggest:
120 Mysticism
120 Focus
120 Magery
120 Music
120 Discord
120 Prov

Or, 100 Focus and use a Crystalline Ring, which would also give you +20 Magery to cover the penalty on a Mage Weapon. If you were able to add in some more +skill items you could then get maybe 40 points in Med for a little extra boost. However, if you don't have Med at all you could build your suit non medable and have 55 LMC.

Discord would give your Colossus even more power as more hits would get through (because Discord decreases the targets Wrestling among other things), it would also give you two high damage mastery spellsongs in Despair/Tribulation.

 

[Lavanthus]

I transferred my skills over to one of my skill-mule toons I use to hold them, and my current skills are:
120 focus
120 mystic
120 necromancy
120 spirit speak
120 magery
120 eval intel

I use Fallen Mystic's spellbook, which I might drop and get a mage weapon to try and deflect some of the damage. I'm still trying to get used to all these skills on my hotbars and such.

Hiding could be used if GM'd while in combat, you just had to be 8+ steps away from monsters.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

What is it you hunt or intend to hunt?

Necro probably doesn't need to be that high. 120 for Revenants, 105 for Strangle, 100 for Wither.

 

[Lavanthus]

I'm not really aiming for anything specific. Ill probably do champ spawns and such with my guild. If I lower ss and necro, not sure what I would spend those points into. I did get a bokuto mage weapon with sci, so it's about 40% defense chance increase before the math for imagery is kicked in. Ill stroll around when hunting in stone form and protection, and magic reflection in some cases

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Well assuming you can get 40-100 points from lowered skills and a few skill increase items, some options would be:

Spellweaving (mainly just for success chance at casting Attunement/Gift Of Renewal)
Med (any multiple of 10)
Poisoning (80)
Alchemy (33, 66, 99, rest in Med)
Inscription (100)
Resist (100 - for when you're in Wraith Form)

 

[Merlin]

Figured I would throw in my two cents here:

Here is my template for Mystic Mage Weaver:
Magery 100 (120 with Crystalline Ring)
Eval Intel 120
Mysticism 120
Focus 80 (120 with Crystalline Ring, obedience belt and talisman)
Resisting Spells 110
Meditation 72
Spellweaving 118

The main spell book I use also has +10 meditation and +10 resisting spells, so I am getting quite a bit of help to my template from gear with skill points on them.

All of the Mystic and Mage spells allow me to do pretty much anything I need to do in PVM. With Spellweaving, I use Gift of Life and Word of Death quite a lot. If extra spell damage is needed, I go into Reaper Form or use Arcane Empowerment. I hit Word of Death with no problem at 118 instead of 120 skill.

For a period of time, I also had a Necro mage template that had Necromancy, Spirit Speak and Poisoning instead of Mysticism, Focus and Spellweaving. Personally, I just have never been a fan of the Necromancy spells. I just couldn't find a rhythm with them and often found myself neglecting them when I had them on the template. I also wasn't a huge fan of the negative karma affects. I stoned it off along with Spirit Speak. The Poisoning is pretty useful both from a defensive (resist most poison spells) and offensive stand point (cast deadly poison with ease), but you have to be close range to successfully cast higher level poisons. Ultimately, I removed this as well in favor of Spellweaving.

Not sure if you are going to stick with any of the bardic skills, so obviously you can substitute as you see fit. I personally also prefer spellbooks over mage weapons. If you could get a few good spellbooks with super slayers on them, or a scrapper's compendium with other skill/stat mods, you will probably be pretty set.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Just to clarify on spellbooks vs Mage Weapons... if you're using spells for damage then yeah use slayers, but just be aware that while holding one you have no melee defense (unless you have Wrestling or Defensive Wrestling). Personally on my Necro/Mage for example, I use the EquipLastWeapon macro to switch back to the Mage Weapon when I'm not safely at range.

 

[Obsidian]

I see this thread is a few weeks old, but this is a mage template I play and love. It is effective against many bosses and high-end mobs.

120 Magery
120 Mysticism
120 Focus
120 Spellweaving
120 Musicianship
120 Discordance

I run human and switch into wraith form. JOAT 20 Necro will keep you in form. With the JOAT 20 SS, you get back mana from WOD and it allows you to move through critters (particularly useful in Felucca). Always work with a level 6 sw focus. Then I always run in protection, wraith form, and gift of life. To start an encounter, I drop a Rising Colossus (RC). Then, I discord the foe, and cast Arcane Empowerment (AE). I keep up my RC and AE throughout the battle. I run with about 24 MR on the suit to help with mana. When the mob gets to 33% life, I finish it off with WOD. You also have tribulation and despair for supplemental damage, but keep a close eye on your mana.

The template isn't perfect for everything, but I like it for parties with Corgul, Rikktor, Mephitis, Oaks, and Covetous Lvl 3 & 4. Crushes Balron's in Blackthorn's Dungeon like they are nothing. There are many bosses I haven't tried the template with, but it is my favorite mage template for high-end PvM.