Long time returning player catching up

[jaashua]

I played from 97 -00. Then came back 03-04 after AoS but quit before the samurai and elf stuff. My game disk gets here Friday and I'm just trying to figure some things out in the meantime.



Armor. Can you still find good armor as monster loot? Or is everything good pretty much runic crafted or artifacts now?

Same with weapons. Where do you get good weapons? Artifacts? Crafting? Elsewhere?

As a new account, will I have any means of acquiring something like an ethereal mount so I won't have to keep buying horses or wearing holes in my sandals?

What's inflation like now? For example, the going rate for a really nice piece of armor or a runic barbed kit.

Is having either ninjitsu or samurai pretty much a requisite skill for a melee player?

Between chivalry, spellweaving, magery, necro, etc......is there one that complements a melee hybrid character better than the others?

What are the hot weapon skills right now? I'd like to know not so that I can go that way, but because it will take me long enough to reach GM level that by then the current hot skills will have been nerfed so I'll go with a weaker one now.

Does mace still take away the target's stamina.

Lumberjack still increase axe dmg? Is it worth it will all the other modifiers out there?

 

[Guest]

<blockquote><hr>

I played from 97 -00. Then came back 03-04 after AoS but quit before the samurai and elf stuff. My game disk gets here Friday and I'm just trying to figure some things out in the meantime.



Armor. Can you still find good armor as monster loot? Or is everything good pretty much runic crafted or artifacts now?

Same with weapons. Where do you get good weapons? Artifacts? Crafting? Elsewhere?

As a new account, will I have any means of acquiring something like an ethereal mount so I won't have to keep buying horses or wearing holes in my sandals?

What's inflation like now? For example, the going rate for a really nice piece of armor or a runic barbed kit.

Is having either ninjitsu or samurai pretty much a requisite skill for a melee player?

Between chivalry, spellweaving, magery, necro, etc......is there one that complements a melee hybrid character better than the others?

What are the hot weapon skills right now? I'd like to know not so that I can go that way, but because it will take me long enough to reach GM level that by then the current hot skills will have been nerfed so I'll go with a weaker one now.

Does mace still take away the target's stamina.

Lumberjack still increase axe dmg? Is it worth it will all the other modifiers out there?

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K well, maybe I can answer a few things for you.. one being you don't have to order a disk to start playing, you can download the game from the uo website.
Second, most armor and weapons come off the peerless such as Lady M's, Shimmering Effusion and so forth.
As for ethy's the only thing i'm affraid you will be able to ride with a new account is a charger of the fallen, you can find these on vendors from upwards of 3m.

For all the tempate questions, I can't answer all of them prolly be best just to log in and experiment for awhile

or wait for someone else to answer them for you

What shard you going to be playing on? If LS I can help ya out, pm me if so

 

[5% Luck]

Runic amour and weapons are pretty must best. museum/library contibutions have some realy nice items too.

I see that most weapon artis are swords and macing does do a lil extra stm damage

Barbedkits are cheap 2.5 mill tops and theyve been adding in inflation fixs regularly lately. Arti prices are 800k and up to around 10 mill at "most".

What your going to hate is the BoS changes ----&gt;OUCH!

Monster loot realy only consists of jewlery and an occasional slayer. But enhanceable luck is about your only hope on armor.

You can purchase a charger of the fallen for a "ethhy" with no age restrictions but they are 5-6 mill. They do sell tokens for these at the token store on uo.com $18 I think!

Resources are all random now so finding valorite is a tough job to say the least. Good news is youll find a scaled average on all your colored ingots. Frost is nearly nonexistent.

If ya start on a gold saturated shard like atlantic you can make up the gold fast if ya know where to get good items and sell them. If not youll be working on gold farming for a while till you catch up with inflation. Typical needs 10-20 miil for a good suit/PS set up.

The new ML upgrade is a must have as most of the new dungeeons have the best loot over time.

But,
Welcome back and I hope this helps!

 

[imported_Hawkeye_Pike]

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I played from 97 -00. Then came back 03-04 after AoS but quit before the samurai and elf stuff. My game disk gets here Friday and I'm just trying to figure some things out in the meantime.

[/ QUOTE ]

Same with me, I'm an old-timer, I quit in 2001 and returned in 2007. I had to learn a lot of things...


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Armor. Can you still find good armor as monster loot? Or is everything good pretty much runic crafted or artifacts now?

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To my experience, armor loot is usually not very good concerning resistances. Even if you enhance it, its resistances usually suck. Armor loot is good if you look for special magic properties (like lower reagent cost) and don't give much about resistances. Really good armor has to be runic-crafted or artifact.

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Same with weapons. Where do you get good weapons? Artifacts? Crafting? Elsewhere?

[/ QUOTE ]

You get very good weapons as monster loot, if you are lucky and a bit patient. Some monster-loot weapons can even compete with runic-crafted or artifact weapons.

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As a new account, will I have any means of acquiring something like an ethereal mount so I won't have to keep buying horses or wearing holes in my sandals?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, veteran rewards usually require a certain account age. (I think ethereal mounts can only be used by accounts older than 2 years.) You could acquire a legacy token (you can buy the game code officially from EA for $10) and get a "Charger of the Fallen", which is a battle horse with the same attributes as an ethereal mount (it cannot be lost and appears in your backpack when dismounted).

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What's inflation like now? For example, the going rate for a really nice piece of armor or a runic barbed kit.

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If you know the right places, you can make 100k in 2 hours by killing monsters. Some artifact armor pieces (like the Heart of the Lion, which is quite good) go for 300k. Some very good weapons are sold for the insane amount of 1-3 Million. In my opinion, spending that much money is quite stupid, as acquiring those items by yourself is fun and it is possible without having to play 2 years as a power-gamer.
If you do not power-play UO, you can easily make 1 Million gold in 2 months. (I know some people make much more by selling the right stuff in vendors, but I only play for fun and I make about 1 Million in 2 months.)

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Is having either ninjitsu or samurai pretty much a requisite skill for a melee player?

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Not necessarily. However, the days of the Parrying/Swords melee fighter are over. You should have an additional skill to enhance your character. Those are typically Ninjitsu (together with Stealth), Bushido (together with Parrying), Chivalry, etc. Those skills have special abilities that give you an advantage in PvM and PvP.

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Between chivalry, spellweaving, magery, necro, etc......is there one that complements a melee hybrid character better than the others?

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I know people wildly mix those skills, especially when focused on PvP. In my opinion, a balanced character has its advantages (I wouldn't add necromancy or spellweaving to a melee fighter, but rather to a mage). In my opinion, typical melee enhancing skills are: Ninjitsu, Bushido, Chivalry. Optionally add classical skills like Stealth, Poisoning, Parrying where it makes sense.

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What are the hot weapon skills right now? I'd like to know not so that I can go that way, but because it will take me long enough to reach GM level that by then the current hot skills will have been nerfed so I'll go with a weaker one now.

[/ QUOTE ]

In my opinion, the weapon skills are pretty well balanced. Each weapon has its advantages. I would select the weapon skill by the special attacks I want to be able to perform. See Weapon Special Attacks table on Stratics.
I know that Mace Fighting is not very popular. However, Mace Fighting does not have balance issues. There are some very nice mace weapons out there.

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Does mace still take away the target's stamina.

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I'm not sure about that.

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Lumberjack still increase axe dmg? Is it worth it will all the other modifiers out there?

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It does, by 5% if you are grandmaster. In my opinion, other skills give more damage bonus than lumberjacking. For an axe fighter I'd rather learn Parry and Bushido and dump extra skill points into Anatomy for damage bonus.

 

[Guest]

Take your time and do the new player quests in the town of new haven.

Do most of the melee quests, focus quest if your going to be using a hand to hand fighter. there are quests for most skills in game, just look around new haven.

once you complete these quests, you get some blessed armor pieces (you keep them on your ghost when you die and they do not cost anything to insure), yes the armor does suck and you will want to replace it at some point, but not having to worry about losing it when starting a new character is nice.

 

[Guest]

The others have done a good job on advice except on the macing question ... <blockquote>Does mace still take away the target's stamina.</blockquote>

To my knowledge it no longer does, nor does a macing weapon destroy the opponents armor like it did. I miss that and the DEX penalties for certain armor. Those I would love to see back ingame.

I played late '98 to just after AoS, then left for a year and returned.

 

[imported_Hawkeye_Pike]

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1. What mobs drop the decent weapons? Back in the day the poison elementals and daemons were the best.

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It is funny, I found some pretty decent weapons even on Elementals. However, the more dangerous the monster, the better the loot. There are some exceptions of pretty powerful monsters with crappy loot (like the Rend). Just find out for yourself!

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2. Can you melee higher level things now with the bushido addition or are you still pretty much limited to draining and then EVing stuff?

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You absolutely can, if your equipment (expecially your over all resists) are good, and if you know how to use your fighting skills (like Ninjitsu and Bushido). Fighting peerless monsters (those are like boss monsters in quests or in Doom) requires a team though.

 

[Basara]

Actually, Chivalry, and the slayer weapons made most non-boss things doable in melee. The Chivalry spell Enemy of One adds a +50% damage bonus to one type of creature (the first type you hit after casting), and from the way the Devs talk, it is applied after the slayer bonus (which is +100%) - as a result (200% * 150% = 300%... Which is the maximum Damage one can do against monsters). Anatomy and Tactics add additional damage bonuses that aren't capped, and are factored in before the multipliers above. A character with bushido AND chivalry often requires a little bit of skill bonus equipment to be fully effective with both, but can be devastating against monsters.

Until the recent buff of Ancient Wyrms, I could do level 6 maps (added a few years ago) with a swords paladin (though, running with 0 Resist spells, I was always flirting with disaster). The spawn from those maps are Ancient Wyrms, Balrons, Poison eles, Blood eles and Titans. You typically bring back 3 times as much gold from the monsters that spawn, than from the chest itself (%#$%#$%$ Bag of Sending Nerf)