how viable are caster/dexer hybrids in pvp these days?

[[JD]]

ive noticed a trend of a mixing of skills. traditional archer only, or mage only templates seem to be going away

a few mages i know have traded in some skills to add archery.

ive been playing on TC1 for 10 hrs last night working on a mystic/archer and necro/archer.

had to give up on the mystic because the RNG hated me and wouldnt let me craft bows with the correct stats i wanted to be a mystic/archer. and im not sure i want to go farm the underworld for imbuing ingred's. its a lot of time for just 1 bow, and i'd want a couple of them, and then enhance chances..well...yeah.

however necro/archer i was able to flat out imbue weaps with everything i need, and didn't take special ingredients. seems like a fun little toon with a lil versitility in that it could pvp, spawn, or pvm... dueled a blue and won but i dont think he was very good at pvp, so i need more action to find out.

won't bore you with template details, just kinda curious if anyone else is running dexxer (emphasis on dexxer) caster hybrids and what they think of them in pvp.

 

[Lynk]

ive noticed a trend of a mixing of skills. traditional archer only, or mage only templates seem to be going away

a few mages i know have traded in some skills to add archery.

ive been playing on TC1 for 10 hrs last night working on a mystic/archer and necro/archer.

had to give up on the mystic because the RNG hated me and wouldnt let me craft bows with the correct stats i wanted to be a mystic/archer. and im not sure i want to go farm the underworld for imbuing ingred's. its a lot of time for just 1 bow, and i'd want a couple of them, and then enhance chances..well...yeah.

however necro/archer i was able to flat out imbue weaps with everything i need, and didn't take special ingredients. seems like a fun little toon with a lil versitility in that it could pvp, spawn, or pvm... dueled a blue and won but i dont think he was very good at pvp, so i need more action to find out.

won't bore you with template details, just kinda curious if anyone else is running dexxer (emphasis on dexxer) caster hybrids and what they think of them in pvp.

I'm a huge fan of hybrid templates. They really allow you to maximize on burst damage.

I have a Necro Archer that I use on Chesapeake occasionally. I find it very fun to play. The only problem is that you need the mana to make it work, and as a result your stam will suffer (or vise versa). You also don't get the ability to get 300 skill points for the extra LMC, which makes mana even more of a problem. I can cast a couple prep debuff spells and 2 specials before I'm tapped on mana (but I do have gm med).

My necro archer only works against people with a hole in their suit. If they try to patch the resist hole in their suit, I'll switch my bow around.

I only have 60 necro and 120 SS. I have 120 anat and 120 tactics for maximum damage, along with 100 DI from items. I only really use blood oath, corpse skin, and pain spike. Sometimes I will curse weapon if I get to 1/2 life and I'm hitting for good damage.

I carry around a 100% fire and a 100% poison bow that I imbued to have hit lightning. I prefer to use normal bows for para/mortal. Many people slack on poison resist in their suit.

On some people I'll corpse them and mortal, my bow will hit for 40 plus 8 from the lightning. My next hit will be a para shot for 40 more. Then I'll precast a pain spike and target the cursor when the next shot hits.

That is just a general combo for people with a poison hole in their suit. If I play against someone that is all 85s in their resists to counter corpse I'm just another archer, but blood oath helps a lot too.

It isn't the uberest of uber templates but I really have fun playing it and its a nice change of pace and works extremely well against certain templates.

 

[Cetric]

Love my mystic dexer.

PM me if you want to get into details. Takes some serious imbuing, so hope you have that ability. I have a spreadsheet at home with all of the specifics on the suit and template. Just let me know, thanks.

Also, archeyr is the **** with the right combo with the tempalte, but it is downright impossible to balance the right amount of mana and stamina to swing fast enough, and be able to chain specials/cast spells to be an effective ARCHER and MYSTIC. With a skill like fencing, you can use weapons with low speed requirements, skimp on your stamina, and load up on mana. I could actually squeeze a few more mods into the suit if i felt like carrying regs, but to be honest, id rather have the 100% lrc and not have to carry 12 different regs, and be out of a fight when you die.


Don't get me wrong though, in the wrong situation it is the wrong template. But that can be said for many many many templates in uo. You have to get a feel for how to manage your mana a bit, and im still working out little kinks here and there, but it can be deadly in the right situation.


With the weapon, you could also do some enhannting for spellchan and hit spell mods. But the enhanct wears off somewhere around 2 mins, and it disappears when you switch weapons. Because of this, i put spell chan on my weapons for sure, and half of my weapons are imbued with a hit spell. A main weapon i use is not, because most of the time i enchant lightning, precast spell plague, and run into people lol.

 

[slayer888]

Actually I think every shard is different, but in our shard's fighting, usually we are in a outnumbered situation.

Therefore, when I make the template I tend to have following requirement:-

LMC = 40 (all pvp or pvm templates)

Special Move (300 skill points) <-- warrior only

Currently, I have one necro archer as well (which I rarely use) due to the low defense that needed to fight 2 v 10 or whatever... which is not very good.

Anyways, with 300 skill points, you could send much more special/moving shots.

first = 3 mana , 2nd one = 6 mana, 3rd one = 6 mana, 4th one = 3 mana... which you can imagine... compare to when you have only 100-199 or 200-299

for 100-199, you need to use 9 mana for first moving shot, 18 mana for 2nd, 18 mana for 3rd, and 9 mana for 4th... so on.

for 200-299, you need to use 6 mana for first moving shot, 12 mana for 2nd, 12 mana for 3rd, and 6 mana for 4th... so on.

Unless you are working with a team of people which you probably not needed to use much specials to kill people off; otherwise you must need to aim for 300 skill points (total for specials reduction of mana)

Usually I could fire around 20 moving shots before I run out of mana.

In this case, gotta input 2 key skills which is bushido and ninja.

Bushido + ep 50 is mainly for heals

Ninja is mainly for mirror image, animal form, shuriken/dart

If you can calculate it correctly, you will have a 120 necro/120ss necro archer there which is much more effective than only 60/120.

Strangle+Revanant+Wither really helps so much in certain situation and can maximize the effectiveness of necro archer alone.


For mystics archer, you can apply the above similar concept to work.

However, like I mentioned, since I usually have to go for 1 v 10 or 2 v 10 or 3-4 v 10 situations, a well balanced fencer/mace/sword archer with 120 resist and 90+ ninja would be more viable.

 

[[JD]]

i like the idea of revenant on a caster as well. sure they can dispell, but it provides enough of a distraction that you can get in a couple free shots. or get away while they're getting rid of it.

regarding needing bush+ninja, have you thought about using meditation instead for one of them?

what are some good tactics for a necro-archer?

im thinking:

precast revenant
strangle
double shot yumi/ai/moving shot/mortal (as needed)
(stuff as needed)
pain spike finish

i pretty much need help with the "stuff as needed"

what do you do if you get boxed in with fields? i pain spike spammed to interrupt. but didnt think of JOAT teleport or wither at the time (oops)

 

[Death Adder]

I have a Necro Archer that I use on Chesapeake occasionally. I find it very fun to play. The only problem is that you need the mana to make it work, and as a result your stam will suffer (or vise versa). You also don't get the ability to get 300 skill points for the extra LMC, which makes mana even more of a problem. I can cast a couple prep debuff spells and 2 specials before I'm tapped on mana (but I do have gm med).

My necro archer only works against people with a hole in their suit. If they try to patch the resist hole in their suit, I'll switch my bow around.

I only have 60 necro and 120 SS. I have 120 anat and 120 tactics for maximum damage, along with 100 DI from items. I only really use blood oath, corpse skin, and pain spike. Sometimes I will curse weapon if I get to 1/2 life and I'm hitting for good damage.

I carry around a 100% fire and a 100% poison bow that I imbued to have hit lightning. I prefer to use normal bows for para/mortal. Many people slack on poison resist in their suit.

On some people I'll corpse them and mortal, my bow will hit for 40 plus 8 from the lightning. My next hit will be a para shot for 40 more. Then I'll precast a pain spike and target the cursor when the next shot hits.

That is just a general combo for people with a poison hole in their suit. If I play against someone that is all 85s in their resists to counter corpse I'm just another archer, but blood oath helps a lot too.

I have a very similar char -- 60 Necro, 120 SS, 100% poison weapons (though I prefer Composite/Heavy/Yumi to Bow). However, I don't cast too many spells so I don't have a very high mana pool (only 63 after mods, 26 base) and really max out my swingspeed (182 stam, 10 ssi on suit to go with 40 ssi weapons). My damage is a little less than yours as I run with only 100 Tactics and 61 Anatomy, but I also use GE pots w/50 EP and shuriken/darts to interrupt/poison. I prefer the GEs (or Melisande's Wine, when I have it) to Pain Spike because the damage is similar but I can use specials while holding the target cursor (though it's tougher to time things properly). I'll also use the Honor virtue on myself to gain a 25% damage increase (overall, not DI). I find this is a very effective template against most opponents (though I have only recently made a comeback and haven't PvPed very extensively as yet). As you say, few run with 85 poison resist so I can usually get my damage levels really high, and when you're shooting your comp at 1.5 sps and heavy at 2.25 sps you can put people into heal mode pretty quick.

If I run into a gank or a chain-disarmer, there is also the dark wolf/bake (7x) combo, which is a darned powerful ace-in-the-hole.

 

[slayer888]

i like the idea of revenant on a caster as well. sure they can dispell, but it provides enough of a distraction that you can get in a couple free shots. or get away while they're getting rid of it.

regarding needing bush+ninja, have you thought about using meditation instead for one of them?

what are some good tactics for a necro-archer?

im thinking:

precast revenant
strangle
double shot yumi/ai/moving shot/mortal (as needed)
(stuff as needed)
pain spike finish

i pretty much need help with the "stuff as needed"

what do you do if you get boxed in with fields? i pain spike spammed to interrupt. but didnt think of JOAT teleport or wither at the time (oops)

Usually playing this type of template must be in a wide open area instead of playing this in a gap. Because you don't have the ability to cast fields which is really a disadvantage in those certain area. This type of template can be used for fast/heavy damage kills and formation breaking (but only apply if opponents do not have para fields laying around).

Basically, it will be more wise to play this template in a supported area. Take me as an example, playing 2-3 vs 10 most of the time really isn't suitable to play this type of template because:-

#1. 0 magic resist (1 mana vamp and you're gone)
#2. lack of ways to heal self
#3. need sufficient time for casting (which at this moment can have an army rush to you; which is very dangerous)


To answer your question why need ninja + bushido and not taking meditation is because:-

120 archer + 90 bushido + 90 ninja = total 300 skill points
120 archer + 90 bushido/ninja + 90 meditation = total 210 skill points

300 skill points = special moves will have lowest mana requirement
210 skill points = 2nd tier lowest mana requirement

Take moving shot for example (if i have 300 skill points) [assume 40 LMC]

1st shot = 3 mana
2nd shot = 6 mana
3rd shot = 6 mana
4th shot = 3 mana
5th shot = 6 mana
6th shot = 6 mana

6 shots total = 30 mana


(if i have 210 skill points) [assume 40 LMC]

1st shot = 6 mana
2nd shot = 12 mana
3rd shot = 12 mana
4th shot = 6 mana
5th shot = 12 mana
6th shot = 12 mana

6 shots total = 60 mana

As you can see, it is a double mana usage for only 6 shots.

Like I mentioned, if you have 300 skill points, you probably can fire 20 moving shots on your enemy before you run out of mana. However, if you have only 200-299 skill points, you only be able to fire around 10 moving shots MAX.


Hope that clears your concern.