Mage Forum FAQ (old and outdated) Updated: 06/27/2003

Guildenstern · Oct 31, 2002

8x8 Help (coming soon!)

Place holder post at the moment.

Skill building and the 8x8

Once you have decided your template, you need to work the skills. One of the easiest and best ways to gain skill, is a method known as 8x8. It's provided here:

1st, you need to get supplies:
A boat
materials for the skill, or spells your going to be casting

2nd, you must go out into the ocean
Self Explanatory

OK here’s were the "hard" part comes in.

3rd, get in your boat and sail NORTH. Be sure to have your boat facing NORTH

4th, cast the spell or use the skill you wish every 2 seconds

5th, as soon as you get a gain STOP sailing NORTH. Type "stop" and your tiller man will obey.

This is were a lot of people get confused, so let me explain. Once you get a gain you have hit a "run". A run is a distance north or south that is rich with resource squares. So in a nutshell, you gain tons of skill while on a "run".

Now you must determine if your run is north or south. That is very easy to do.

6th, go 8 spaces forwards, (North) You may achieve this by saying "forward one" to the tiller man eight times. Once you are there, cast a spell or use your skill.

Now we come to a fork in the road so listen VERY closely because this part is very important.

7th If you hit a gain, repeat step 6.

if you DID NOT GAIN

8th, sail 16 spaces backwards, you can achieve this by saying "backwards one" 16 times.

9th, YOU WILL GAIN HERE. Once you get a gain proceed with step 6, only backwards (south) instead of forwards, (north)

once your run stops, begin with step 4 again.

AoS Updated Information
With the introduction of the Age of Shadows (AoS), OSI introduced many items that will raise/lower skills. Weapons with the "Mage Weapon" attribute can reduce your magery to a lower level which make it easier and less expensive to work your Magery skill. Keep in mind that this weapon will only affect gains for the Magery skill and no other Mage related skills such as Evaluate Intelligence and Meditation.

Ideally you should find a mage weapon with at least -27 skill although it is not too hard to find them with -29. Treasure maps carry many wands and are a good source of these items.

8x8 Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I need the 8x8 resource grid to do 8x8?

A: ABSOLUTELY NOT. The 8x8 resource grid has been deemed and illegal 3rd party program and is a ban able offense. Also, if you follow my instructions there is no need for it anyway.

--------------------------

Q: Why am I not gaining skill? I followed all your directions perfectly!

A: 8x8 is not a sure fire way to gain skill always. It is the way the skill gain system works. So if your on a big shard that is very crowded and 1000 other mages are trying to 8x8 at the same time you are, skill gain is slow. Remember, your not the only mage who is 8x8ing in his/her power hour.

--------------------------

Q: Does 8x8 help inscription?

A: No. Inscription is not effected by the anti-macro code and therefore you do not need to move to gain skill.

Guildenstern · Oct 31, 2002

written by the kronos/php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Ok, I have been PvP'ing on a mage in UO for 4 years now. Every character I have ever made has had magery. Through the years I have accumulated a vast knowledge of magery and its workings. This knowledge I shall now pass to all those who read this.

First I shall teach some basic skills and principles, which will come in very handy.

Fast Cast: Fast cast is very simple and VERY effective. Basically, it allow you to cast 2 spells without delay. The reason it works is because after a spell is cast there is a delay in which u can start casting another spell ('You must wait for this spell to have effect). If you wait that delay out, you can cast 2 spells seemingly simultaneously.

Here is how its done: First cast the first spell but do not target it. Wait about 2.5 seconds, then target it. The millisecond you target that spell, hit your macro for the next spell you wish to cast and hold down last target. This will DRASTICALLY reduce the cast time for the 2nd spell.

Mindblast Protection: Mindblast can be a lethal spell, but it can also be the most useless spell in the book if your stats are balanced. The most common mage set ups are (str/dex/int) 80/45/100 and 80/55/90. With these stats mindblast will be useless against you.

Pre-Cast: This is an old ability brought back. What it allows you to do is have a weapon equipped with a spell cast. To do this you must have a arm/disarm macro with the weapon you wish to use set up. First cast the desired spell, and when the targeting cursor comes up hit your arm macro. Extremely useful.

Stun Punch: This is a new ability that came with UO:R. With 80 wrestling and 80 anatomy, you have the ability to stun punch. This will paralyze the target for 4 seconds, and unlike the spell Paralyze, nothing can get them out of it. Extremely useful and deadly.

Disarm: Another UO:R ability, this is also VERY useful (especially if you have stealing) you will need 80 wrestling and 80 Arms Lore to use this. Simply put, this knocks the item in a person's hand into their back pack. If you have this AND stun punch warriors are no threat.

Inscription: Inscription helps with Reactive armour and Protection, see the scribe FAQ for more information - Guildenstern

Poisoning: Yet another addition that came with UO:R. This allows you to cast a higher level of Poison depending on your skill(Read Poisoning FAQ for more info). Prior to this the level of Poison cast was randomy determined. I suggest locking this skill at 73 if you choose it, as even at gm you only have a 5% chance to Deadly Poison, when at 73 you have a 100% chance to Greater Poison.

Protection: Very usefull spell(especially when coupled with Inscription). When cast, reduces the probability of getting disrupted to 25%. In a duel ALWAYS cast this spell, even with 0 Inscription it will lessen the chance for an opponent so disrupt your spell.

Parrying: Parrying is also a useful skill against warriors. When you run out of mana you can equip a shield and warriors will miss almost every hit. If you have Inscription with Protection cast with GM Parrying, you are almost untouchable by a warrior.

99.9 Vs. 100.0 Magery: It is true at GM Magery you get a damage bonus, but there is also a benfit to 99.9 magery. Say a GM Mage casts Weaken on you, lowering your Str by 11. You then cast Strength, raising it by 10. They can weaken you no further than 11 points lower than what you started with. So, if they try and Weaken you again it will fizzle, and you will be within 1 point to your starting stats.

Now its time for an in depth look into Mage templates.

Heal/Anatomy Mage: My personal favorite. Hard to learn, but once mastered almost unstoppable. This template comes with 2 great abilities. The ability to heal without mana cost and the ability to stun punch.
Tactics for Dueling - Always keep the bandages going. They are life savers. Well in a Mage Vs. Mage duel (no pots) the strategy is simple. Usually I let my opponent dump all his mana while I keep myself healed with the Heal spell,bandages,and the Cure spell. Once their mana supply is exhausted I make my attack. I first attack with poison, then weaken/clumsy/feeblemind to disrupt their attempts to cure and lower all their stats. I then engage one of my combo's, of which I will list 2.
Combo #1: Cast Explosion, run up and stun and target the Explosion, then cast and target Energy Bolt and follow immediately with a poison. Then one final Energy Bolt usually does the trick.
Combo #2(Fast Cast required):Fast Cast Energy Bolt to Poison and run up and stun them. CAst and target Explosion, then follow with a Harm(to disrupt their cure attempt) or an Energy Bolt(to just finish them off).
Battlefield Tactics - Carry pots, with pots magery and bandages it will be VERY hard for you to die. Keep and Explosion casted at all times, and when you see an enemy target that explosion and cast another one. As soon as that first one hits target the second Explosion. You should then stun the target to keep them from running away like little girls, and then cast the spell of ur choice (usually an Energy Bolt or Mindblast). Against a large number of enemies just run around and keep yourself healed and try to lure one or two of them away from the others. Use para to prevent one from helping while you deal with the other.
Tactics when Fighting Heal/Anat Mage: Watch for their heals and pray.

Hybrid Mages: Very effective, and somethimes very cheap. This template follows the same basic template, Magery/Meditation/Evaluating Intelligence/Wrestling/Magic Resist/Tactics/(Weapon skill of your choice). The most common choice for Hybrid Mages is Archery.
*NOTE* Warriors with magery are *NOT* hybrids, they are Townies, and will not be discussed in this FAQ
Tactics for Dueling - Keep Dex up at all times. What you usually want to do is cast Explosion and equip your weapon. When you get them down to 2/3-1/2 life target the Explosion and follow with a Poison. Then Energy Bolt will usually finish the job.
Battlefield Tactics - Like Heal/Anat Mages keep Explosion Cast and have your weapon equipped. Once you get in a few good hits target the Explosion and continue with whatever spells you prefer. Also handy to bring pots along.
Tactics when Fighting Hybrids: Dont waste all your mana in a dump, you will probably need it to heal. If they are Melee base Hybrid keep up Reactive Armor or Protection(if you have Inscription). If they are Archer Mage cast Reactive Armor and get right next to them. You can also throw down Stone Wall's to block the arrows.

Nox Mages: Usually Nox Mages Pick up Inscription as their secondary skill. Poisoning is a very hard skill to gm and this isnt a very effective template, almost useless against mages. But, against warriors without potions, it can be lethal.
Tactics for Dueling: No real tactics here, just try to keep them poisoned(make sure you are within 2 tile spaces of your target when targeting the Poison). Poison them and Harm them to thwart their cure attempts, a good combo is Explosion, Posion, Harm x2,Energy Bolt.
Battlefield Tactics: Same as others, just make sure to poison warriors.
Tactics when Fighting Nox Mages: Keep cured.

Scribe Mages: Very useful template. With Protection cast other characters have only a 12% chance to disrupt your spells(unless you get hit really darn hard).
Tactics for Dueling: Keep Protection up at all times. Other than that follow same tactics mentioned above and you're set.
Battlefield Tactics: Same as above, except keep either Protection or Magic Reflect up.
Tactics when Fighting Scribe Mages: NEVER* try to disrupt their spells. It wont work. Try and go for the bigger harder hitting combo's against Scribe Mages.

I have pretty much covered the basics and some and given you tactics to fight with. Now its your turn. Go log on to a Test Server and experiment with templates. Pick the one that best suits your plat style and get to work on him on your home shard!

Other Interesting Templates to Try: Poison/Anatomy,Heal/Inscription,Inscription/Anatomy, Experiment and see what you like.

Originally compiled and written by MasterCraft
PVP Tips, (revised)

This mini FAQ covers:
1. Thoughts on connection speed and Machine specs.
2. Possible templates for PvP.
3. What equipment to carry for PvP
4. What macros you’re going to need.
5. PvP tips against various classes.

So, you think you’re elite enough to take on the world of PvP in Ultima Online. The truth is that a mage that is played well has the capability to be one of the strongest PvP characters out there. Hopefully this FAQ will give you tips, ideas, and help you survive and conquer.

I. Connection Speed and System Requirements:

The unfortunate reality of Ultima Online is that ping time to the UO server and your computer specs, really are the determining factors on whether or not you are going to be able to actually kill someone. If your opponent has a significantly faster ping time, they will just run out of spell range, and keep running until their bandages (or heal spells) kick in. Then, they can come back and kill you since you have low mana, and are now at a disadvantage. That said, there are some things that can be overcome even if you have a lower connection speed, and I’ll discuss that later in the FAQ.

First, find out what your ping time is. A useful utility is UOTrace. You’ll find it in the utilities section of the main Stratics menu. I’ve had experience with the full range of ping between 350 to 100 (I hope to get an upgrade soon which allows even faster ping than 100.) Here’s the lowdown on current ping versus PvP effectiveness:

Ping of
350+ Don’t bother PvPing, you will never win. Work to upgrade your connection.
250 You can PvP, but most people will be able to run away from you, you’ll have trouble finishing.
150 In my experience, the average PvP connection seems to be about 150ms.
100 You’re going to be faster than most, and quite effective.
50 This is almost a godly connection. You should rarely lose. Horse stamina begins to be a major issue.
30 With this connection, you fly, literally.
10 There’s a few people with pings this fast. They generally end up being the extreme elite, and are basically unkillable to any single person with a ping over about 50. You’ll only die to ganks, or if your horse runs out of stamina.

If you have a slower ping on a DSL or cable modem, sometimes it helps to go to DSLReports.com, and download their broadband speed tweaks. I was able to drop about 30 ms ping doing this. Others have reported even better improvements to their connection. Also keep in mind that everyone’s connection speed is improving constantly, so the above table won’t be applicable in a couple months (chart was developed 2/13/01). Everyone continues to improve in speed.

Keep in mind that you also need a decent computer to PvP. You really need about 128 meg of memory (with 64 meg, you notice you suddenly jerk to a halt for a split second, as new graphics loads up from the hard drive.) Do not have a disk cache like smartdrive enabled, as my experience was it dramatically slowed things down. I think the minimum PvP machine is about a 500 mHz machine, but some might be effective at lower computer speed. A decent graphics card also helps slightly.

Last but not least, if you’re going to PvP, you need to spend the $10 and get a copy of UOAssist. The appeal of UOAssist is the capability to drink potions, pop trapped pouches, and apply bandages with the touch of a keystroke. UOAssist also has superior spell macro capability in my opinion. Another nice feature is it keeps track of all your reagents, and warns you when you start to get low. There’s been more than one fight when I see my reagent numbers go red, and I realize I have to recall out, or die. Nothing will get you killed faster than to run out of reagents.

III. What to Carry as a PvP Mage:

My typical inventory on my mage when I go PvPing includes the following:

1. GM leather armor for an AR of 15 (yes, wear the stupid cap, sometimes you get hit in the head.)
2. At least 5 trapped pouches
3. 50-100 of each reg (you can carry less, but you’ll have to refill more often).
4. at least 10 g-cure potions
5. at least 10 g-heal potions
6. 3+ g-dexterity potions
7. 3+ total refresh potions, try to carry double that of dexerity potions.
8. 5+ g-strength potions
9. a couple of g-explode potions (only if on a connection, going grey can be bad)
10. other things such as bandages (if you’re a healer mage).

With all that, you’re carrying about 7.5K worth of stuff. Be aware that a typical dexer will be carrying only about 3500 to 5000 gold worth of stuff, so if you want to break even doing PvP, you’ll need to have at least a 2 to 1 win/loss ratio.

IV: What Macros to set up:

Aside from all your spell macros, which you should have already setup from your magery training days, you’ll need to add some more macros.

1. Setup hotkeys in UOAssist to drink g-heal and g-cure potions. I use F1 and F2 for these vitally important functions.
2. Setup a macro in UOAssist to drink a g-dex pot (you’ll have to use the “use itemtype” sort of macro to do this.)
3. Setup a macro in UOAssist to drink a total refresh pot, and another to drink a g-strength pot.
4. Setup a macro to open your trapped pouches. Just record a macro of you opening a pouch, and set it to a key. I use F9 through F12 for these macros. What’s a real pain is everytime you die and get new pouches, you’ll have to set up these macros again. Sometimes I don’t bother doing this, but then I inevitably regret it when I run into a gank situation where a mage is always casting para.

Additional macros that I use.

5. I have a macro that teleports me north to the edge of the screen and then immediately uses the hide skill. This has saved me a number of times. You just need to make sure that the edge of the screen north of of you is a good spot to land. You can also setup more macros for every direction. The nice thing about this is with the hiding skill you hide everytime, dexers lose target lock, and you’re safely hidden so you can regain mana or have bandages kick in.

6. “Last Target”: This one is vitally important. I have the “Ins” key on the numeric keypad as my “last target” macro, as it’s a big key. This way when someone is running from you, you cast a spell and hold it. Then you run after them, and if you get close enough, smack down your last target key, and if you’re in range, the spell will hit.

7. I have a macro that casts recall, and hits a runebook which leads to a safe spot. This way if I get attacked in a gank, I can ussually cast protection and use this macro to get out.

PvP is an extremely fluid and unpredictable situation. There’s a number of styles that a mage can adopt and be successful in PvP. I’ll try to cover the basics of most of these styles.

A. GM Inscription and the British Technique against Dexers:

The British style of fighting is where you don’t run, weave and dodge. You’re going to just stand there and kill dexers faster than they can kill you. While this seems counterintuitive to what all the monster bashing taught you about running away constantly, this is probably the most effective way of dropping a dexer quickly. Here’s what you do:

1. Cast protection and arch protection. If you have GM inscription, the protection spell will last 3 minutes, then you won’t be able to cast it again for another 90 seconds. So be aware that there is 90 seconds where you’re fairly vulnerable after the 3 minutes is up. Your AR should now be 25+, depending on if you have magic armor or not, and you’re only going to be interrupted 1 time out of 8 of the dexer’s swings. With an aggressive spell combo, you can drop the dexer before you run out of hit points. also most of the time if you do get hit, it wont disrupt your spell, so it still hits.

2. You need to dump your mana quickly against the dexers. I typically start off with explode/ebolt combo to lower their dexterity substantially. Then, poison and continue ebolting until they drop. You’ll need to dring a g-heal pot, and cast g-heal as needed.

Before doing this on a live dex warrior, cast protection and go take on some of the red undead in dungeon khaldun. Use this standing still technique to kill them. It does take a little practice and nerve to know when you heal and when to dump.

B. The connection mage versus the slow dex monkey:

If your connection is significantly faster then your opponent dex monkey, don’t sit still. Just run around them, casting mindblast or ebolts and poison until they drop. This doesn’t take a lot of skill, unless there’s multiple slow opponents involved. I’ve taken on as many as 3 slower dexers at once, and dropped 2 of them, and nearly killed the 3rd. A friend who has a faster connection has taken on 4 dexers at once and been successful. Being substantially faster as a mage compared to the dexer means you should win everytime, unless they get a lucky para hit in.

C. The para method against faster dex warrior opponents:

If you run into an opponent with equal or substantially faster connection speed, and who’s a GM runner there is an effective combo you can use to kill them. I’ve been using it quite a bit recently with a lot of success, against the fastest runners out there. This situation is going to take a good bit of PvP skill to pull off. You also absolutely have to have GM med, 100 intelligence and very high eval for this to be successful. Be aware though that if your opponent has GM resist, you’ll run out of mana before dropping them, and thus you’ll need to work in some g-explode potions into the mix. However I’ve found most connection monkies don’t have GM resist. They rarely need it. This also works fairly well against other mages.

1. If against a dex monkey, start off casting protection and arch protection. You’re in for a rough battle against a faster opponent, you need every edge you can get.
2. Cast curse on your opponent to reduce their strength. This curse spell is absolutely needed if your opponent has decent resist. Now you only have 89 hit points to wear away, and even then thats only if they have 100 str. This is 11 free hit points that they don't get to bandage.
3. Paralize your opponent, and keep casting para until they are out of trapped pouches. Most dexers only carry 2 or 3.
4. Meditate for a slow count of 10, then pre cast para and hold it. At soon as the target moves, hit them with para again.
5. Repeat step 4 until you have full mana. You are going to need full 100 mana to finish the opponent off.
6. Now, it’s time to kill them. Cast explode, and then precast para. Wait for the explode to hit, the smack them with the para that you’re holding. (You can also throw a g-explode potion here at the same time you’re casting explode, the effect is they get hit with the explode potion, 1 second later the explode spell, then you hit them with para. The timing on use of the explode potion takes a good bit of practice though. Also be aware that if a blue character is around, you can get guard killed in city limits by using explode potions.)
7. Repeat 6 until they get down to about 1/3 health. It should take 3 explodes, or so and you need to do this as fast as possible. They will probably use a heal pot, and in 13 seconds their bandage is going to kick in. If their bandage kicks in for a good heal, para them and run away. You no longer have enough mana to kill them.
8. When they get to 40% health, finish with an explode/mindblast or exp ebolt if you have the mana combo.

D. The poison method against dexers:

If you have decent poisoning skill, and your connection is equal to or better than your opponent’s, this can be a very cost effective way of dropping your opponent. You should get at least 16 real, or 70.1 (shown) poisoning skill to pull this technique off.

1. Cast protection and arch protection.
2. Now, just keep casting poison on your opponent until they run out of cure pots. You’ll need to be running around to avoid getting hit too much. Most dexer’s carry 5 to 10 cure pots. When you cast poison on them, make sure you’re within 2 spaces to cast the more effective poison.
3. Once they run out of cure pots, keep them poisoned and start working in mindblasts. They’ll drop quick. Make sure you poison them fresh once they go below half life. They’ll then die from the poison as they try to get away from you.

E. Heavy archer/explode/flamestrike against non-parry dexers:

Mages with combat skill ussually open with a hally hit or a heavy x-bow hit, and follow with explode/flamestrike. If pulled off successfully this combo can kill in 5 seconds or less. It doesn’t work well against parry dexers, or dexers in heavy armor. It also doesn't work well against opponents with high resist.

F. Mage vs. Mage Combat – the fast attempted kill:

Probably this is going to be a long fight. More than likely both of you are going to burn a ton of reagents, and have it end as a tie. That said, there are some ways to win, there are really three strategies to take here. Here I’ll talk about trying to kill quickly through fast damage first. The key to doing this is disrupting the enemy mage’s spell casting, and pounding spells on them faster than they can heal.

1. Drink a greater-dex pot, this ups your dex by 20 and you won’t take as much damage from mindblast at about 10 points per spell.
2. Cast spell reflect on yourself if you can.
3. Test for spell reflect on your opponent by casting harm, if spell reflect is up, cast one more harm.
4. Lead in with explode and poison
5. You now need to disrupt their cure/heal spell attempt, a great fast spell to do this is clumsy. Clumsy will also cause more damage on your next mindblast.
6. Now that you disrupted their heal spell attempt, inflict more damage by casting mindblast.
7. Disrupt their heal spell attempt by casting another quick spell, another good one is feeblemind.
8. hit with another mindblast
9. disrupt again using weaken
10. hit with another mindblast. They should be dead, or very close to it. Finish with lightning. Lightning has the longest range of any spell out there, and doesn't always have to be line of sight.

G. Mage vs. Mage Combat – The para method (see section C)

This works just like the para method against faster dexers. The only difference is that a really canny mage will start castng magic trap on his pouches before he ends up running out of pouches. But, most mages don’t have magic trap on macro to do this, so it often works.

H. Mage vs. Mage Combat – The defensive tactic:

The spell g-heal takes less time and mana than any other spell to cast. Cure casts faster than poison. So, if you’re on your toes you can just cure and heal through an enemy mages mana dump with no problems at all. This is a tactic that happens quite a bit, and ends with a stalemate when both mages no longer have enough mana to kill the other. A couple survival tactics here is to cast feeblemind on your opponent, this drastically slows down their mana regeneration and they might just get in trouble with low mana this way. Also cast clumsy on your opponent if you want to inflict damage with mindblast. Use a g-dex pot to up your dex by 20 points so you take less mindblast damage. Use cure and g-heal potions as often as you can.

I. Mage versus Tamer Combat – the para battle:

Okay, you’re going to run into this eventually. The tamer mage, the most obnoxious PvP template out there. He’s going to have magic reflect up, and basically his strategy is to continuously paralyze you while telling his white wyrm to “all kill” you. It’s not going to take a lot of skill on his part to drop you, so you need to go into the situation already knowing you’re the underdog. This is what I’ve found to be effective:

1. Cast magic reflection, and use a g-dex pot.
2. The tamer’s probably going to lead off with paralize and have it reflected back on himself. Take this time to cast paralize on the white wyrm, now you have about 30 seconds to drop the tamer.
3. Switch over to the mage-fastkill tactics talked about in section F.
4. If the wyrm starts to move, para again and get out, you’re probably not going to win as you’ve burned too much mana on para’s.

Where possible gank tamers whenever you can. They are basically ganking you by using pets, so don’t feel bad going in with a buddy at your side. A good effective gank technique is to have one mage cast para on the dragon, and anther cast para on the tamer. Then one mage sits and casts para over and over again on the tamer and dragon while the other mage casts explode on the tamer. This rapidly leads to a dead tamer and there’s not much he can do about it. Then lead the white wyrm away and mana drain it then energy vortex it.

Another option if you are in Fellucca is to have a rune available to a very dangerous PvM spot. Open a gate, and lead the tamer’s pet through it. Then cast dispell field on the gate. The only problem with this is it leaves you with only 45 mana left, and one angry tamer with 100 mana on your hands. It’s better to just gank the tamer if you can.

Guildenstern · Oct 31, 2002

written by Chandalir, with help from various forum posters /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

With all the redundant posts on the boards asking about publish 16 changes lately, I think we all should pour in and build a FAQ to direct people to. I know Im not the only one getting tired of replying the same 3 questions, so lets try to make something people can check up on? I, unfortunally, have no hard numbers myself, so if anyone has any to add, feel free. Same applies if you have anything Ive missed or you feel should be answered as well. Anyway, here goes.

<ul>[*]Publish 16 changes
<ul>[*]Wrestling changes -- anatomy/eval formula[*]Powerscrolls effect on meditation[*]Powerscrolls and poisoning[*]Powerscrolls and inscription[*]Precasting and instant hits[*]New leather types[*]Field spells[*]Summons[*]Explosion potions (including UOA macro)[*]Stun punch clearup[/list]
[*]Skill gain post Publish 16
<ul>[*]Stat gains[*]8x8 guide (simple one)[*]Magery -- what to cast, when?[*]Evaluate intelligence[*]Meditation[*]Wrestling for the sentimental /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif[*]Anatomy, the easy way[*]Resist - a work in progress[/list]
[*]Templates
<ul>[*]Starting skills and stats[*]Pure mage variations[*]Healer mage variations[*]Tank mage variations[*]Bard mage variations[*]Tamer mage variations[*]Thief mage variations[/list]
[/list]

Publish 16 changes

Wrestling changes -- anatomy/eval formula
In the past serious mages have always wanted wrestling to prevent being hit in melee (since they have no weapon equipped when casting spells). When you dodge a hit, your spellcasting isn't interupted, thus its necessarry to kill anything that will melee you.

However, Publish 16 changed this a bit. It is now possible to dodge melee hits without having wrestling, but instead having anatomy and evaluate intelligence. The formula for defensive wrestling effects of the anatomy/evaluate relationship looks like this:

(Anatomy skill + Evaluate Intelligence skill + 20) divided by 2

What this means is, at 100.0 evaluate intelligence and 100.0 anatomy you have 110.0 effective defensive wrestling. It also means that you only need to boost one of the skills to 120.0 to receive the full 120.0 defensive wrestling.

Note : The Anatomy/Evaluate intelligence relation does not give you any effect whatsoever in offensive capabilities. Thus you will not be able to hit your opponent (wether to interupt or to start spellcasting) unless you get extremely lucky with your adjusted wrestling (around 10 points with high strength), and you will not be able to activate stun and disarm modes. If you wish either of these things (disruption/special moves) you're gonna have to pick up wrestling.

Another thing to note : wrestling and the eval/anatomy relationship is in no way cumulative. Do not pick up all 3 skills thinking you're gonna be impossible to hit. The only one you'll have in effect is the higher of the two.

Evocares quote on the subject on www.uo.com message board; unfortunally the original thread is lost, but what he stated was saved:
<blockquote><hr>

As a quick note, the actual formula for "dodging" a swing with anat/eval is: (anat+eval+20)/2, capped at 120 max. So, a character with 120 eval, 100 anat (for example) actually has a full 120 "hit evasion" ability

<hr></blockquote>

Hope this helps clear up any confusion on the matter /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Powerscrolls effect on meditation
Many people have claimed to have seen no effect on using a meditation scroll. Odds are, these people are not fulfilling the entire formula for mana regeneration rates. You need a certain combined numbers of points devoted towards meditation and intelligence both to attain a certain meditation rate. Unfortunally, this is rather steep requirements to see benefits of meditatation powerscrolls. The numbers at high level mana regeneration looks like this:

200.0 to 239.9 combined intelligence and meditation lets you meditate 1 mana/second passively, and 2 mana/second actively.

240.0+ combined intelligence and meditation lets you meditate 1.33 mana/second passively, and 2 mana/second actively.

What this means is;
To attain the highest level of meditation rate you make your character vulnerable to mindblast (if you pvp) and requires you to drop strength and dexterity towards higher intelligence. For what little effect it really has, its totally up to personal choice wether or not you want to go through with it.

+20 meditation allows you to drop your intelligence to 80 and still retain the same regeneration rate you do with GM meditation and 100 int. This is potentially a big bonus to tank mages who need more dexterity/strength, and its a big plus towards archer mages who can, with a meditation powerscroll, use slayer bows by setting their stats up correctly, and still remain as powerfull as a pure mage.

All in all, meditation is probably the least desirable powerscroll for a mage, unless you have a specific goal in mind.

Powerscrolls and poisoning
I lack hard numbers on 120.0 magery/100.0 poisoning, so if anyone wants to fill in here?

There is one question here that repeatedly pops up though. And that is "Can I cast greater poison with 120.0 magery and 0 poisoning?"

The answer is no. You can't. However, you can cast normal poison (level 2) and as a matter of fact its quite easy to figure out what level of poison you can cast. From the last FAQ we have these numbers.

Combined adjusted magery and poisoning skill level and their casted poison level:
0.0 to 130.0 combined gives level 1 poison (lesser)
130.1 to 170.0 combined gives level 2 poison (normal)
170.1 to 199.9 combined gives level 3 poison (greater)
200.0+ combined gives a chance (around 10% in my experience) to cast level 4 poison (deadly)

In short; you cannot cast greater than level 2 poison without devoting points to poisoning skill. Your stats adjust the poisoning skill quite a bit at 0.0 base skill though, which, with 120 magery boost your poison one level. Keep previous restrictions in mind though -- you do still need to be within 2 tiles to attain higher than lesser level poisons.

Powerscrolls and inscription
Now with powerscrolls, its a good time to bring up the actual relationship that the inscription boosted spells are based on (reactive armor and protection -- nothing else). The actual formula for the spells look like this;

(Evaluate Intelligence + Meditation + Inscription) / 4 (up to 75, according to uo.com -- anyone wanna test?)

What this means is -- you wont (assuming, again, that uo.com is right) gain anything from having more than 300 combined skillpoints dedicated towards the 3 skills. This means that a legendary Scholar (eval int), legendary Stoic (meditation) wont gain from more than 60 points devoted to inscription. The remaining skill points does one thing -- let you scribe higher level scrolls. Granted, if you run a vendor or sell a lot of scrolls, go for it. However, if you only have inscripton for the spellbonuses -- ditch the remaining 40 points. It wont do you any good at all.

Note; the way protection works is that it lowers your chance to be interupted by the percentage set by the formula -- ie at 300 points you're only going to be interupted 25% of the time you're hit (and with wrestling, you already dodge 50% of the melee hits against you, so you're only going to be interupted 12.5% of the time by melee assuming 300 points devoted and equal dodging to your opponents mele -- thats damn nice!).

Reactive armor is much simpler -- it gives you a shield worth the formula (up to 75) in "extra hitpoints". Basically, only a hit exceeding your remaining points in reactive armor will break it (yes, this means an 80 damage hit will break a fresh reactive armor by a 300 point scribe). Everytime you're hit the damage is absorbed and subtracted from the reactive armors hitpoints rather than yours. Only works vs. melee.

Precasting and instanthits
Ever since UO:Renaissance was implemented there has been a dex requirement on how soon in the swing animation you would actually hit. This requirement was removed with Publish 16. This means that a mage with a weapon armed vs. a warrior with a weapon armed will hit at exactly the same time if they attack eachother. However, it does not mean that they will swing equally fast -- the warriors high dex still allows him to hit more times within a given time than a low dex mage.

This coupled with the removing of the spellbook in hand implementatation in publish 14 which allowed precasting (defined as casting a spell then arming a weapon to hit with the weapon and release the spell later) and the anatomy / evaluate intelligence relation above, makes tank mages very viable again. They can hit as hard as a warrior in melee, and cast spells that hurt as much as any pure mages. Very powerful abilities indeed.

New leather types
Publish 16 implemented 3 new leather types into the world of Ultima Online; spined leather, horned leather and barbed leather. Since a mages life is his mana, many mages were concerned about the new leather types effect on meditation. There is, however, nothing to be worried about. Only the type of armor (not type of leather) you're wearing matters in mana regeneration.

Which means you can wear a full barbed leather suit (armor 31) without having any hindrance to mana regeneration rate. Coupled with the spell archprotect (casted on the ground next to you) you can attain armor 41, and adding 4 armor from vet clothes (robe and cloak) gives you an astounding armor rating of 45. This is more than most warriors in pvp carry! Take advantage of it /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Field spells
Field spells were changed considerable in Publish 16. They will now only harm 3 kinds of people; murderers (reds), criminals (greys) and guild/faction enemies (orange). They will never harm a lawful innocent (blue), or a lawful guildmate of yours (green).

This means that you can cast them with impunity in Felucca, and all of these spells have seen a lot more light lately. People are no longer scared of using them, and for a good reason. They cover large areas of enemies with minimal mana cost, so they're a good choice to use, particularly in champion spawns.

Note: The unfortunate effect of this is that training resist magic has been changed too, since you can't harm yourself if you're in a guild through field spells. Thus you need to be unguilded to train from fire fields, and since you can't harm blues with field spells in Trammel you need to be in Felucca to train as well. However, since there's barely anything to worry about (notos wont be able to walk into your field without flagging grey themselves) and its a fast thing to do, don't be scared to train this way!

If you for some reason can't get out of your guild, the only other alternative to use firefields is by having a guild enemy cast your firefields (they'll harm you) or by flagging criminal/murderer and walk through your own. This, however, is quite risky, so do it in an isolated area of Felucca.

Summons
Summons in Publish 16 now takes control slots (same as do tameables and other followers eg NPC fighters if you hire one), and every character has 5 control slots avaivable. A deamon takes 5 control slots, a fire elemental takes 4, water elementals 3 and earth/air elementals take 2 each. Blade spirits and energy vortex's each take 1 control slot as well. Keep in mind, that while you're mounted, or have a horse out of the stable, you always have one control slot taken by your mount.

Yes, this does mean that you can't summon a deamon and be mounted at the same time /php-bin/shared/images/icons/frown.gif But then again! In my opinion a deamon is worth every last control slot it takes -- a summoned deamon can take down quite a few spawned deamons without dying (unless a deamon gets a very lucky dispel off) so you can imagine just how powerful they are. They're very resistant to dispel, they have high magery, they have good melee and generally -- well, they rock! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Fire elementals have pretty good melee, and they have pretty good magic as well, but they're very vulnerable to dispel, so using them against casters is pretty impossible (I did, however, take a drake from ful health to 1/4 life with one fire elemental while I was busy fighting a dragon, so they're, again, worth it).

Water elementals are casters mostly (now Im not sure, I didn't use these very much) and will avoid melee although, still quite durable. Since I haven't used them much I wont comment on wether or not they're worth the mana/control slots.

Air/earth elementals are -- well, weakish. They only have one field of expertice each (air is magic, earth is melee) and they aren't too bright at that. The air elemental will, as the water elemental, dodge melee, so its quite possible that a team of an earth elemental and an air elemental will be worth 4 control slots by having the earth elemental tank the target and absorb damage, while the air elemental runs around shooting with spells. As with the water elemental though, I havent tested much, but at least with this combo I can see potiontial /php-bin/shared/images/icons/crazy.gif

Bladespirits and energy vortex' -- well, they behave like they always have -- by not behaving at all /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif Blades will fall to nearly any level of magery's dispel, whereas energy vortex's will only fall to higher level magery (as seen by mare/dragon trainers -- cast ev and the mare/dragon fails to dispel constantly till it hits 70+ magery). They are, however, well worth the control slots and mana. They both seek out their targets and fight to the death, and both have very high melee and hitpoints. If you need to clear a screen of non magic casting monsters quickly, an ev tanking for you is very often a very good choice as it'll move from one monster to the next killing them quickly. Another added bonus of Publish 16 is that blades and vortex' wont attack you if you're guilded, unless you go grey. Keep this in mind when venturing into a dungeon, and don't be scared of casting one where you would previously be afraid of getting targetted (ie if you have low mana). Cast away! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Explosion potions (including UOA macro)
Explosion potions were changed too. Not only do they follow the rules of field spells, but the throwers alchemy skill now boosts the damage (alchemy skill divided by 10 rounded down) so they're very worthwhile to use for a cheap offense. However, seeing they're pretty clumsy to use, UOAssist macros can be of great assistance. Vidala of these boards wrote a simple UOAssist macro for throwing one potion at your opponent and having it explode on impact, and its pretty simple to make too!

To read how to set up the macro check this post over on the alchemist board. Its very simple to do, so go make your mage even more versalite! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif

Stun punch clearup
Lately we've been getting some new reports on stun punches having been changed. However, this is simply not true. With gm (or higher) wrestling and gm (or higher) anatomy your stun punch lasts 4 seconds (always does) and you have roughly 40% chance to land one -- regardless of hit or miss with wrestling. 40% chance that your opponent will be unable to move or cast spells for 4 seconds is a very powerful ability.

Skill gain post Publish 16

Stat gains
A couple things changed here with publish 16. You can max gain 6 statpoints a day (so far, its gonna be changed to 10 I believe) and max gain 1 stat point per 30 minutes. But don't be too worried -- if you open your status bar (the big one) you can now set your stat locks! I suggest you do so as soon as you get the chance, and get the statgains needed for training (ie, if you train magery first, don't bother working dex up to the level you want, just work int/str, and if you train wrestling first, focus on getting the dex to where you want it as well as working str). If you're desperately looking for gains of one type, log out next to where you perform an action for that type of gain (ie a mountain or a tree for str, a pickpocket dummy for dex, or anywhere for int), and log in to do that action and nothing else. This will make sure you get the gain you want.

8x8 guide (simple one)
8x8 is a byproduct of OSI's antimacro code, and it offers extremely rapid skill gains when you get it down right. Some people call it cheating, but according to OSI themselves, the method of skillgaining is perfectly legal. Wether or not you want to do 8x8 is entirely up to yourself /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

8x8 works with any and all movement based skill, so as you've probably guessed by now, its movement based. It requires a lot of movement to get done. It can be done on land, and it can be done on water, it doesn't matter for the gains -- however, moving with a boat is a lot easier since you can cast/perform actions while moving.

Right, ready to move around? Okay then, start moving and doing actions that will give you gains (described below for the most part), eg cast earthquake spell for magery in your high 90's. Open your skill gump (the skill list) and tick the "show real" button at the bottom of the parchement. Keep a close eye on the skill you're raising and as soon as you see a gain, scream "stop" if you're on a boat (have it pretyped; will save you headaches).

There you have a gain -- you should be happy already /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif. Next step is a bit more complicated. This is when you start moving and actually performing 8x8. Say 'forward one'* (if your boat is facing north/south with the front end facing north) 8 times, and perform the same action you just did to gain. Again, keep an eye on your real skill -- if you gain in real skill, but not in displayed skill, the square actually yields you another gain; nifty eh? If you don't gain here after repeatedly trying the same thing, try moving 'backwards one' once or twice. You might've missed the spot cause of lag involved with hitting stop. If you do gain, proceed to go forward one 8 times -- congratulations, you're on a run! Keep going till you stop gaining from it and look for the next one. Be aware that it might take up to 10 tries to get a gain, so it will take time.

*: On Lake Austin, Europa and Drachenfels you'll want to go 'backwards one' (again, assuming your boat is facing as it ought to, north/south) instead, since runs run south on these two shards, as opposed to the rest of the American and Asian shards where they go north. Just try to keep a clear view of which direction your runs are heading, and keep up with it. Its a little difficult at first, but once you have the hang of it its very easy.

Hope that made any sense at all -- it doesn't to me, so if anyone else wanna write a better guide to 8x8ing, feel free /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Magery -- what to cast, when?
Keep in mind that the numbers aren't 'hard numbers'. Feel free to work 5th circle till you stop gaining from them if you want to (should be able to gain till the high 70's off of 5th circle).

0.0 - 30.x:
Dont cast a thing! Go buy it for 300 gp from an NPC mage guildmaster (they're found in Vesper, Moonglow and a couple other places). Will save you a bunch of reagents -- can't beat 1 gp/0.1 skillgain no matter what you cast /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

30.x - 50.0:
A mix of 3rd and 4th. You're probably in the middle of setting up your character, getting clothes, etc, so emphasis on recall and teleport might help. Im not really sure what to do here, since I always start with 50 magery. Regardless of what you do it shouldn't take very long to achieve anyway.

50.0 - 65.0:
Emphasis on 5th circle; any will do.
Paralyze, mindblast, magic reflection and poison field are all very good spells at this level, and will be able to aid you quite a lot in actual combat.
If you 8x8, paralyze is probably your best choice, since its targettable, doesn't have a delay, and its cheap. Just try to hit your spellbook with it and you'll be able to gain.

65.0 - 80.0:
6th circle! Now you ought to be feeling quite powerful, considering you can now cast the main offensive spells that a mage has -- explosion and energy bolt. Your first real view of power... well, that is, when you succesfully cast them /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif Prepare to fizzle a lot at first, so stick with those 5th as well for now. Once you get to the 70's range, you ought to have a pretty comfortable rate of success with 6th circle, so you can make some decent money from training at this point.
8x8; explosion, energy bolt, invis -- all cheap, all targettable, all without delay. Alternatively target yourself with energy bolts and pray you get one or two resist gains /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

80.0 - 92.0:
Flamestrike and gate travel. Thats really all there is to say for this level. If you want, work your compassion around now, since gate travel will give you skillgains, and NPC escorts will give you compassion and gold. Nifty aint it?
For 8x8, go with flamestrike -- silk and ash beats almost any spell in reagent cost.

92.0 - 100.0:
Any 7th and 8th. It really doesn't matter -- you're close to your goal now, so try to have fun in this step /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif Cast anything under the sky.
Earthquake or flamestrikes for 8x8. Earthquake cause its a spell with no timer and no control slots, and flamestrike cause it'll take you all the way to GM believe it or not.

100.0 - 120.0:
Earthquake pretty much all the way. Any 8th will do of course, but considering the level, you really are better off 8x8ing it. Im sure flamestrike will take you to 105 (havent tried) but gains are gonna be few and far apart, so stick with 8th circle after 100.0. You'll get there /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Evaluate Intelligence
Basically, any spell will raise this skill through passive gains. Any! 8x8 works with this skill as well, so if this is your preference, stick to magic arrow (cheapest in gold, cheapest in mana). Alternatively you can raise the skill through using it actively, ie evaluating people, but imo, it really isn't worth the time investment, so just stick to spells.

If you want to save time on this skill, work your magery and milk all the evaluate intelligence gains you get, and finish off the skill once you're done -- don't do it the other way around. Doing evaluate first is a huge waste of time AND reagents, so save yourself the trouble.

Meditation
Cast spells -- or rather, keep your mana low. Everytime you gain a point of mana you have a chance to gain in meditation. Its really that simple. Of course, it also requires movement, so yes, you guessed it -- another 8x8able skill if you prefer /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Wrestling for the sentimental /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif
0.0 - 30.0:
As with magery, buy it. NPC mage guildmasters train this skill, as do a few others like NPC fighter guildmasters. Looks around, and try to get it as high as possible.

30.0 - 45.0:
Hinds -- Moonglow isle near the Zoo is the easiest place to find these. Keep hitting and hitting; not much else to say /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

45.0 - 75.0:
Skeletons or empty handed NPC fighters.
For the fighters, hire one and drag him out of town. Have him guard you, attack him, and tell him to stay and you can gain for a while off of him. Pretty easy.

75.0 - 120.0:
Lizardmen at first would give good gains. Earth elementals later on, switching to rotting corpses at above gm.
However, by far the easiest way is to hire an armored fighter in Jhelom carrying a broadsword and proceed to strip him off his armor with your bare fists. Its slow, its boring, but its well worth it.

Anatomy
Again, for this you need to move around. However, you only need to move around till you get a gain. Hurt someone else, an npc*, or yourself, and start to apply bandages. Whenever you apply a bandage there's a chance you can gain anatomy. Once you hit a gain, lock your healing (or keep it locked at 0.0 from the beginning) and proceed to damage whoever you got a gain from and repeatedly apply bandages. This ought to give you a gain nearly everytime you apply one, and you can gain literally 30.0+ points without moving an inch! Very easy -- probably the easiest of all the skills you can have on a mage /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

*: One common way to do this is to hire 2 NPCs (a strong and a weak, ie a broadsword and a wrestler) and gate them to your boat. Have them guard eachother, then kill eachother (you need to be guilded in Trammel for this to work; in Felucca it doesn't matter) and they'll start whacking away and the wrestler will take substantially more damage than the swordsman. Commence healing the wrestler, and sail around for that, not so, elusive anatomy gain /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Resist - a work in progress
What this means is -- if you have anything at all to add to this, shout out! So far we have no real confirmation of things here, so its just a general guide up till now. Remember, everyone, I got most of this guide from Raistlan, so thank him if it works /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif Im just a messenger /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif But give it a try.

0.0 - 55.0:
Firefields, and you can alternatively bribe an NPC mage guildmaster to train you to 32 to save some time. Rumours are that firefields will now take you all the way to 60, so you might want to just continue with this till you stop gaining. There's 2 ways of doing this -- one is a lot safer than the other.

1) If you're in a guild, quit it (I resign from my guild) and head over to Felucca. Bring a lot of fire field reagents and healing means (ie bandages/healing reagents). Now cast firefield on the ground, and commence walking back and forth in it, healing as necessarry. Refresh the field when the one you just cast fades away. This would be the safe way /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif Remember the rules on field spells.

2) If you're in a guild you just can't get out of, don't disperse. If you have guild enemies, try to convince one of them to make fields for you (as orange/opponents spells will hurt you). If you can't do that, try to find a secluded area where you wont be interupted. Get off your horse, use eval int on it, mount it and cast magic arrow followed by last target. You should now turn grey (you just attacked your horse /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif). At this point, field spells cast by a friend (ie, blue) will harm you, so proceed to walk back and forth in it while healing. Be careful if you see another name though, and be ready to run (you're grey, and criminal/agressor -- you can't recall).

55.0 - 60.0:
Ice elementals (the ice dungeon), shadow wisps (forest champion spawns and Haven) and in the upper range, shades (anywhere with undeads).

60.0 - 70.0:
Wraiths, spectres (both near undead), fire and water elementals (Shame and Destard), gazers (Covetous, most of Ilshenar) and Orcish mages in the higher range.

70.0 - 80.0:
Air elementals (Shame), bone magis (Deceit -- note that these would actually take you all the way to gm before Publish 16; they might still), gargoyles (Hythloth and Ilshenar), meer Mages (Ilshenar), Rat mages (Ice dungeon), Dread spiders (Covetous), imps and efreets (both in fire dungeon and in Ilshenar).

80.0 - 90.0:
Deamons and imps (Wind, Fire dungeon, Ilshenar, Hythloth, etc -- Abyss champion spawns as well), Acid elementals (Ilshenar and Despise), Liches (Lots of places), and most Ophidian and Terathan casters (the Terathan keep and Cold blood/Arachnid champion spawns).

90.0 - 100.0:
Poison elementals and elder gazers (both in Shame), pixies (Ilshenar), Ophidian matriarchs/justicars/zealots (in the high 90's), gargoyles (smouldering/destroyer/enforcer -- Ilshenar I believe), meer eternals (Ilshenar), lich lords (Fire dungeon, Deceit, and Ilshenar) and repears (north of Minoc and Ilshenar).

100.0 - 110.0:
Blood elementals (Shame), Juka mages (Ilshenar only now), red mages (Shame and Fire dungeon, as well as several places in Ilshenar), Succubi, and gargoyles (blistering/scorching; both found in Ilshenar and Abyss spawns I believe).

110.0 - 120.0:
Scorching gargoyles (Abyss champoion spawns and Ilsharnar, possible Hythloth) and Serpentine dragons (Forest champion spawns and Ilshenar).

My advice -- if you gain on nothing in your range, take a step downwards instead of upwards. You're more likely to gain if you actively resist something, and you wont gain at all (or rarely) from something out of your range. Better to drain/kill 5 easy creatures for gains than it is getting 1 hard creature bested. This is one of the reasons bone magis were an awsome spot for resist prior to publish 16, seeing as you had 3 mages casting on you all the time, they died easy (new mana source) and they aren't terrible dangerous.

Templates

Starting skills and stats
Keep in mind, this is based on my opinion solely, so if you feel anything should be different -- do it! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif
This is what I would start with on all mage (well, dexer too in my case) chars;
Stats; 56ish str, 10 dex and 14 int. Why 14 int? Cause at that level you can cast paralyze, which is exactly what you need to cast to gain at the level you start out with /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif Strength is needed pretty much to carry what you need, and dex -- although annoyingly low, is really low priority for a mage, imo.

Skills; 50 magery, 49 misc, 1 misc.
50 magery cause its easier and you can recall right off the bat.
49 misc should be the hardest skill in your template; the one that will give you the most problems of any. If there isn't any, stuff healing here -- its always helpful.
1 misc should be whichever newbie item you want, ie if you want a newbie katana start with 1 swordsmanship. Check out the Stratics Master Skill List for a list of possible newbie items.

These starting skills and stats should get you started pretty well into the world. The rest of the skills you need as a mage raise extremely easy at this low level, so rarely bother wasting points in it. Not sure how much else I can say here, other than, get to work! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif

Pure mage variations
A pure mage is basically any mage who relies solely (almost) on his magery for offense and defensive purposes. A pure mage without mana is a dead mage shortly put. He has no secondary means of healing aside from potions, and the same for all his offensive. For this reason, mana preservation is probably the hardest part about playing a pure mage. Always keep check on your mana levels, and always keep enough mana to get off one more heal!

Pure mage basics:
Magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation, wrestling and magic resist. A pure mage is always better off with wrestling, unless he's crammed for skillpoints and adds anatomy for the equation. However, can he spare the points, wrestling is the better choice (since it allows you to interupt your opponent).

Variations:
The 2 remaining spots can be filled with a wide array of skills; pure mages are extremely versalite in their skill selections, more so than any other mage variant out there. Possible choices include,

Inscription -- Adds to the defensive spells of Protection and Reactive Armor. With protection cast on an inscription character you become very hard to interupt, and as stated, spells and mana is a pure mages life, so getting off the spells you need is very useful to say the least.

Alchemy -- Increased damage on explosion potions, so if you're a big fan of those alchemy might be worth it for you. Adding 1 point of damage per 10 points of alchemy, you can increase damage done by the purples by 10. That is quite impressive, boosting damage from 30 to 40 on greater explosion potions /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Hiding -- "Why do I need hiding when I have invisibility?". Simply put; cause hiding is better! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif There's no casting delay on hiding, and it can't be interupted at all. And with gm hiding you can even hide within 8 tiles of your opponent even if he's flagged agressor to you! Also, hiding lasts forever or till you're revealed, again, surpassing invisibility by several miles.

Poisoning -- Allows you to cast higher level poisons as long as you're within 2 tiles of your opponent. As attractive as it sounds, keep in mind that most monsters can't be poison or they cure instantly, and most pvp'ers carry a lot of cure potions (if they don't, they're easy anyway). It may not be worth the skillpoints, but ofcourse, it depends on your playstyle.

Anatomy -- Stun! If you can't kill a runner, stun him in his place and he's dead meat /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif Limited use for pvmers though, so keep that in mind.

Of course, there's a pletora of other skills you can use, but these are the most common ones. If you want an item id/cook, feel free to add the skills to you template /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif

Is this template any good with powerscrolls?
Yes! This is the template for powerscrolls if you play a mage. You can boost all 5 of the basic skills on it and still have 1 skill left to play around with. That is very nice. Keep in mind the limitations of meditation before spending a million or however much on a +20 meditation scroll (ie, 240 intelligence/meditation required for highest regeneration rate).

Stats:
80-100 strength, 25-50 dex, 100-120 intelligence (pending on meditation scroll). Dont ever dare to go below 100 intelligence on a pure mage -- it wont work. You need that 1 mana/sec passive, 2 mana/sec active meditation rate, and you need to be able to cast enough spells to kill.

Tactics:
Use spells to kill your enemy, to keep your team mates alive, and most of all to keep yourself alive. Always keep in mind, your mana is your life. If your opponent is redlined, do not throw a flamestrike at him/it -- instead, use magic arrow (1/10th the mana!) or fireball. It will kill him. Also, never discard the first circle spell "heal" as it heals up to 16 hp for 4 mana at gm magery! Always try smaller spells to see if they'll do the job as well as larger spells -- saving mana is good /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Healer mage variations
Healer mages are mages who, well, obviously, heals with bandages. This means they can focus a bit more mana into offensive, so it has added benefits both defensively and offensively. It still relies entirely on magery for its damage though.

Healer mage basics:
Magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation, anatomy, healing and magic resist. A healer mage was a pretty set in stone template prior to publish 16 due to needing wrestling, but since this is no longer the case, wrestling can be left out of the basics.

Variations:
You can fill the remaining slots with any skill a pure mage can, or you can pick up wrestling for stun. In essense, a healer mage is a lot like a pure mage, but he still is a bit different in being able to heal 3 ways.

Is this template any good with powerscrolls?
Yep. If you powerscroll the magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation and resist, you can choose for yourself wether to powerscroll healing or anatomy -- or do both to 110. However, it leaves you very little in amounts of choices, so keep that in mind. Also, a powerscrolled healer mage won't have wrestling (unless, of course, you drop anatomy for it and forego the benefits of curing, ressing and healing more).

Stats:
80-100 strength, 25-50 dex (25 dex = 16 second heals, 41 dex = 14 seconds), 100-120 intelligence (again, pending on meditation scroll)

Tactics:
Pretty much the same as a pure mage, but can go out on a limb with bigger spells cause he can keep a bandage running. In PvM especially, bandages can mostly take care of all your hitpoint recovery, so as long as you keep enough mana to cure, you should do fine. Keep in mind you can move while applying bandages, and use it to your advantage! Dodge melee'ers while applying bandages and you can basically live on just those.

Tank mage variations
Tank mages are mages who combine weapon skill and magery to a refined form of complete offense. Granted, they still have potions/magery to keep alive, but staying on the offensive is their main strength. Precasting combined with instant hitting is what really makes a tank mage playable though, so take advantage of both features /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Tank mage basics:
Magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation, anatomy, magic resist, tactics and a weapon skill (whichever you like). Anatomy boosts his melee skill and keeps his weapon as strong as a warrior with equal strength -- that is a nice boon to the tank mage, so picking wrestling over anatomy is ill adviced, unless you're specificall aiming for a duelling template where interuption might play a bigger part in your playstyle.

Variations:
Basically, the only variations is the weapon skill, and that really boils down to which you like the better.
Fencing has all fast weapons, and of course, the paralyzing blow, which might, or might not, aid you in pulling off combinations of spells -- personally, Ive found this to be the least effective, but to each his opinion /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif
Macing has mostly slow weapons, but the quarterstaff in itself keeps it very viable. Nothing like draining a warriors stamina to keep him at your swing speed, or draining a monster of stamina to keep distance between swings. Also, magic macing weapons are extremely cheap on most shards!
Swords is a combination of the two really -- it has extremely fast weapons and poisoned blades as fencing, and it has huge hitters as macing, as well as having concussion hits which cripple a mage and spellcasting monster, or makes a warrior mindblast feed. Of them all, this is my personal choice.
Archery; only ranged of the lot, and it has the hardest hitting weapon in the game -- the heavy crossbow. However, it lacks a lot in the speed department, but for pvm, an archer-mage is probably the single best choice out there.

Is this template any good with powerscrolls?
Not really, unless you start sacrificing skills. Other than sacrificing skills, your only powerscroll will probably be used on your vet reward points. Stuff those into either magery (offensive/heals), evaluate intelligence (offensive/defensive wrestling), meditation (to balance your stats even further -- an archer mage with a +10 meditation scroll and +25 statscroll can have 80 str, 80 dex, and 90 int and thus, use slayer bows), or, of course, a magic resist scroll (obvious reasons).

Stats:
80-100 strength, 25-80 dex, 90-100 intelligence (again, of course, depending on powerscrolls, meditation etc).

Tactics:
Take full advantage of precasting. Ie, cast a poison spell and equip a heavy weapons -- your opponent will have little to do in defense; either he prepares to cure and take damage, or he prepares to heal and get poisoned. Precast an energy bolt and go in with a fast poisoned weapon to do major damage to your opponent. Precast a greater heal and walk around hoping for a concussion on a warrior. The possibilities are endless really. The easiest way for me to say it is to tell you to experiment with personal combos, so thats what Im gonna do -- now get out there and experiment! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif

Bard mage variations
Bard mages come in all forms and shapes -- really, the best call would be to go check out Bards board and check out template posts and strategies there.

Bard mage basics:
Basically, um, magery and music. The variations in this template are huge, so there isn't too much else to say about 'basics'.

Variations:
To give you an idea how varied bard templates can be I'll list 3 that I know work well;
Magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation, musicianship, provocation, peacemaking, discordance.
Magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation, magic resist, wrestling, musicianship, provocation.
Magery, anatomy, healing, meditation, musicianship, provocation, peacemaking.

See how they all differ greatly in shape? I could probably write several pages just listing barding templates, so really, go check out the bards board as listed, and find the template you want.

Is this template good with powerscrolls?
Yeah, it is. Actually, its ideal for powerscrolls, as long as you have skills to drop. 120 provocation is very good, as is 120 discordance and peacemaking. The magery powerscrolls, however, are probably of limited use for a bard mage, specially with firehorns and the barding skills being good all round, and bards being mostly pvm based in nature. When you're fighting 2 creatures with 100+ resist it really doesn't matter if your one energy bolt does 40 or 50 damage (examples).

Stats:
80-100 strength, dexterity doesn't really matter as long as you pvm, 100 int if you have meditation (and of course, 120 at 120 meditation if you fit one in)

Tactics:
Again, the bard board is the best way to go around getting tactics for bards. Mainly you'll be killing monsters, and mostly you'll be having two monsters doing most of the battle for you, so try to go to areas that have monsters you can control, ie spawns two or more at a time -- going to fight a single balron as a provocation only bard with no resist and no wrestling could get you into problems /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Tamer mage variations
Pretty much the same story as bard mages -- as far as tactics go, they're the experts on the Tamers Board. However, I'll add a bit of template info and such, but don't expect much again /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Tamer mage basics:
Magery, animal taming and animal lore. These are the very basics; they'll allow you to transport and sortof heal your pets as well as tame and control them. At the bare essentials you can skip the magery part, but this is the mage forum! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/laugh.gif

Variations:
Most tamers add at the very least meditation and veterinary -- both adds to healing power, and will help keep pets alive much longer, specially in pvm (pvp tamers have seen better days, what with control slots and all now). The rest of the slots are mostly filled with evaluate intelligence, resist or wrestling. Comes down to which you prefer -- my own has evaluate and resist, since he resides mostly in Trammel, thus has little use for wrestling.

Is this template good with powerscrolls?
Oh yeah. Lore and taming both have some pretty nifty aspects that Im sure the tamer board would just love to share /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif Same story as the bards in regards to magery aligned scrolls -- they see very little use on a tamer /php-bin/shared/images/icons/frown.gif

Stats:
*feels repetitive* Same as bards pretty much -- you'll want high strength to carry what you need, and high int to keep meditation rate up (even if you have no meditation). Some tamers opt for 40+ dex for the higher bandage timers, but it isn't necessarry -- mine does fine with 15 dex (no, my tamer never pvps! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif)

Tactics:
Well, use your pet to tank for you basically. The pet can soak immense amounts of damage, especially with 80 extra hitpoints/3-4 seconds from vetting. Also, assist your pets with magery -- a well placed earthquake can help your pet greatly in taking down larger creatures /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif

Thief mage variations
A thief mage is -- well, a thief who battles with magery! He probably will never see any use outside of pvp though, so keep that in mind when designing him.

Basics:
Magery, and stealing, as well as either wrestling or anatomy/eval. He's gonna be fighting a lot of warriors (*drools, valorite weapons! in Homer Simpson voice*), so you're gonna want defense against them.

Variations:
Tons and tons! Heh, the Thief Board probably has even more! But well, most thief mages Id say pick amongst evaluate intelligence, meditation, hiding, armslore, snooping, and resist. A common thief mage template is; magery, evaluate intelligence, meditation, wrestling, resist, armslore and stealing. Being able to disarm your opponent as well as steal his weapon is indeed a force to be reckoned with -- many a pvp warrior will tell you the same. Another common one replaces arms lore with snooping; can steal bandages and regs, as well as disarmed weapons. Also a great character (one I wish I had room for!).

Is this template good with powerscrolls?
Ultimately, Id have to say no. It already has way too many skill options, and since there's no powerscrolls for the stealing related skills, the only thing powerscrolls will do is make you kill faster. Granted, this in itself can be good, but if you lower your stealing related skills too much they become useless. So again, as with the tank mage, you're probably going to rely mostly on vet reward points for powerscrolls /php-bin/shared/images/icons/frown.gif

Stats:
80-100 str, 25-50 dex (maybe even higher if you can disarm, seeing as each attempt at disarming will drain you 15 stamina), and 100 int (or 120, at 120.0 meditation).

Tactics:
Steal stuff! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/laugh.gif
Try to act like a pure mage in combat and mix in disarming your opponents weapon as well as stealing it (set the weapon on last target, toggle disarm, disarm, steal, hit last target etc, read the thief board! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif). Alternatively, snoop (if you have it) through your opponents backpack and snitch his bandages or healing regs. An opponent wont live long without a weapon or ways to heal himself /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif Just keep in mind that you need to keep yourself alive too! Pretty hard template to master, but once you have you're nearly unstoppable. Also, extremely funny to play /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif

Closing
Hope I covered most of the questions that have been asked lately. I think I got them anyway /php-bin/shared/images/icons/crazy.gif If you have anything to add, or if you have any questions feel free to ask them in this thread. If you have anything you want me to edit about the post, speak up! Lets make sure people know what Publish 16 brought to us mages.

Thanks!
To everyone on the mage board, the healer board, the alchemy board and the warrior boards, for making it possible for me to leech on their knowledge and compose one post with all of it in it /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif None of this could've happened without the lot of you.

Addendum
The All-In-One exp potion macro - originally posted by Vidala

This macro will essentially "double click" the potion, hold it for a few seconds, and throw it at your last target where it should explode instantly. The delays are a bit tricky to do this as it depends on your connection, but once you get it down in the general area it's a lot of fun This is only a macro to throw one PP, so if you wanna do your suicide bomber stunt you're gonna have to do it manually or figure out a UOA macro for that ;p

*Record*
1. Double-click PP.

2. When the cursor appears to select a target, hit Escape. Let the potion go off.

3. Double-click another PP, and toss it anywhere on screen (ground or person).
*Stop Recording

Your macro should look like this:

Use Item
Target
Use Item
Target

Now to do the "after macro editing". It's very easy and painless.

1. Change the two "Use Item" lines to "Use Item Type" (right-click it) (lines 1 and 3).

2. Change the second "Target" to "Target Last Target" (lin 4). DO NOT CHANGE LINE 2!

3. Add a delay after the first "Target" between line 2 and 3 (it should appear between them). To do this, highlight line 2, click the "Delay" button on the left side of the UOA interface, and insert the delay in milliseconds. Start with a delay of 3200. Depending on your connection, play around with it. If the potion is thrown too late and it explodes on you, reduce the delay time by 50 or 100 milliseconds. If you play the macro and you see the potion land on the ground, then the delay is too short; try bumping it up by 50 or 100 milliseconds. Toy with it until you reach perfection. I often have to change it from a day-to-day basis, since some days I'm laggier than others.

Last but not least, be sure to set whoever or wherever you plan on throwing the potion at is set as your last target.

Enjoy

Edits:
Added: not being able to get cumulative effects from wrestling and anatomy/eval relations.
Edited: changed anatomy to alchemy in the explosion potion addition /php-bin/shared/images/icons/blush.gif Darn typos! Thanks Ben Hur /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif
Added: Summons /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif
Added: Skill gains, 'cept for resist. Still trying to come up with a good way to gain it as well as asking Raistlan if I can use his guide /php-bin/shared/images/icons/crazy.gif
Edited: North/south facing of boat needed to follow the 8x8 instructions properly the way I wrote them.
Added: Evocares (anat+eval+20) post quoted.
Added: Asian shards have 8x8 running north (still need Oceania?). Thanks Glory /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif
Edited: A typo that could've caused some distress /php-bin/shared/images/icons/crazy.gif Thanks Kerrlamont.
Added: Inscription/powerscrolls -- thanks Vilus DeCreme
Added: Resist guide by Raistlan (thanks again for letting me use it)
Added: Statgains; hope its readable /php-bin/shared/images/icons/crazy.gif
Added: Templates and starting skills.
Edited: Title of post /php-bin/shared/images/icons/tongue.gif
Edited: Clearing up how to use NPCs for anatomy
Added: Lake Austin runs go south as they do on Europa/Drachs; thanks Psiserrat! /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif
Added: You apparently need an 'innocents' firefields for firefield training in Felucca. Thanks jediknight (and can anyone confirm?)
Added: Whole text of Vidala's UOA GX throwing macro post. - Guildenstern, 10/31/02

Guildenstern · Oct 31, 2002

Please do not post in this thread if you happen to see it open; I'm probably just updating/editing material. Thanks!

Table of Contents:
Basic Magery FAQ - currently taken whole from the old FAQ
Publish 16 Changes - Edited and written by Chandalir, with help from forum posters
PvP FAQ - Written by the Kronos
8X8 help - soon to exist (really)
Miscellaneous Information
Age of Shadows Changes

Some handy Links (in no particular order):
Stratics' Assassin Guide (poisoning etc)
Stratics' Alchemy Guide, for those purple pot lovers
Stratics' Warhall forum - it's not just for dexxers!
Renaissance Publish - Update Center on MyUO (includes special moves information)
Publish 16 (one of many updates): Guaranteed Gain System (aka GGS)
UO Assist

*note* Be aware that these links may well change! They'll be updated as much as possible but be sure to report a broken link to one of us mods /php-bin/shared/images/icons/smile.gif Thanks!

Edited 11/14/02: Added section "Miscellaneous" (Incorporates Meditation, Mindblast and Fastcast information fron old FAQ) - Guildenstern

Guildenstern · Oct 31, 2002

(old FAQ version): See Publish 16 Changes for changes to the mage class that happened with Pub 16.

Contributed by MasterCraft, now extensively edited (parts of the original also now appear in other sections of this thread. - Guildenstern

STARTING A MAGE

Starting a mage depends on the template you wish to chose. Often people have trouble with this; should I be a hybrid mage, a pure mage, a tamer mage, a bard mage, you just can't decide. There are MANY templates and all are effective in their own ways, but also all have disadvantages; generally the most offensive templates, have the biggest weaknesses, and the more offensive a character is, the less defensive they are.

The main 5 mage skills compose of

Magery - Your base magic, damage, healing, curing, stat-altering.

Meditation - assists Magery. The higher it is, the faster you passive and actively regenerate mana.

Evaluating Intelligence - damage modifier for magery, the higher the more damage dealt with magic. Also, the better the chance to pierce magery, *explained later*

Wrestling - helps prevent being hit by melee.

Resisting magic spells - as plain as it states, resist magic - the higher it is, the more you
resist specific spells, causing less damage, or not being poisoned.

These are what is called the "basic 5", ANY mage template is based on 1 or more of these skills. primarily being, OMG you guessed it, MAGERY!

Now, any character gets 700 skill points*, that's 7 total skills you can put at 100.0, or at anywhere in between. IE - 29.9 tracking 70.1 poisoning. Sometimes this works well, more often then not, it doesn't. Now a mage template doesn't need to have all 5 of these to work, it all depends on what style of character you're going to design.

PVM Tips

Well since PvM is a pretty much no-brainer concept, this won’t be a huge in depth essay, but rather just a few pointers for you aspiring lich farmers.

1. If your ping is above 100, you need wrestling. If it’s below 100 you don’t need wrestling.
2. There is absolutely no reason for you to be less than six spaces away from your monster. You’re a mage. You hit at a distance.
3. Mindblast is completely useless against 99% of all monsters. If you see someone casting mindblast on liches, laugh in their face and say their mother smells of elderberries.
4. Poison is 90% useless to most of all monsters. At least all the high level ones.
5. When you get poisoned by a monster do not, I repeat DO NOT stand there to cure. Run away to a safe distance, then cure. No monster will ever cast more than lesser poison.
6. Paralyze is your best friend. Use it as often as possible.
7. When you have almost killed the monster, cast lightning to finish it off. Lightning has the longest range of any spell and does not have to in the line of sight.
8. Always be prepared for your battle. If you're fighting something magical, then cast Magic Reflect. If you're fighting something non-magical, then cast Reactive Armour. This is just common sense.
9. Never carry more than 100 of each reg. This is just overkill and if you die (perish the thought - pun intended) you will lose so much more.
10. Always, always, always, fight ONE monster at a time. Unless you’re fighting a hord of mongbats, the “chain” spells aren’t good for combat. Focus on one monster, kill him, and then move on to another. NEVER get a monster to half life and move on to another. An almost dead monster can still dish out the respective whoop-ass.
11. Trapped pouches aren’t just for PvP. Carry 5 of them at all times.
12. Use the line of sight to your advantage. Pre cast around corners and then blast your monster into gibs.
13. There is no shame in dying to a lich.

Glossary of Mage terms - *note* some of this also appears in the PvP FAQ

Fast Cast: Fast cast is very simple and VERY effective. Basically it allow you to cast 2 spells without delay. The reason it works is because after a spell is cast there is a delay in which you can start casting another spell ('You must wait for this spell to have effect). If you wait that delay out, you can cast 2 spells seemingly simultaneously.

Here is how it's done: First cast the first spell, but do not target it. Wait about 2.5 seconds, then target it. The millisecond you target that spell, hit your macro for the next spell you wish to cast and hold down last target. This will DRASTICALLY reduce the cast time foir the 2nd spell.

Mindblast Protection: Mindblast can be a lethal spell, but it can also be the most useless spell in the book if your stats are balanced. The most common mage set ups are (str/dex/int) 80/45/100 and 80/55/90. With these stats mindblast will be useless against you.

Pre-Cast: This is an old ability brought back. What it allows you to do is have a weapon equipped with a spell cast. To do this you must have a arm/disarm macro with the weapon you wish to use set up. First cast the desired spell, and when the targeting cursor comes up hit your arm macro. Extremely useful.

Stun Punch: This is a new ability that came with UO:R. With 80 wrestling and 80 anatomy, you have the ability to stun punch. This will paralyze the target for 4 seconds, and unlike the spell Paralyze, nothing can get them out of it. Extremely useful and deadly.

Disarm: Another UO:R ability, this is also VERY useful (especially if you have stealing) you will need 80 wrestling and 80 Arms Lore to use this. Simply put this knocks the item in a persons hand into their back pack. If you have this AND stun punch warriors are no threat.

Parrying: Parrying is also a useful skill against warriors. When you run out of mana you can equip a shield and warriors will miss almost every hit. If you have Inscription with Protection cast with GM Parrying, you are almost untouchable by a warrior.

99.9 Vs. 100.0 Magery: It is true at GM Magery you get a damage bonus, but there is also a benfit to 99.9 magery. Say a GM Mage casts Weaken on you, lowering your Str by 11. You then cast Strength, raising it by 10. They can weaken you no further than 11 points lower than what you started with. So, if they try and Weaken you again it will fizzle, and you will be within 1 point to your starting stats.

Mana dump: When you cast all of your mana all at once be it offensive or defensive.

*Based upon account age, characters can now have over 700 real skill points, up to a current limit of 720 points. See 1-4th year vet reward bonus for more information. - Guildenstern

Guildenstern · Nov 14, 2002

Miscellaneous Information: Mindblast and Fast Cast (revisted)

<center>MINDBLAST</center>
<center>Originally contributed by Gamma Zulu</center>

Okay, I spent some time yesterday evening and did some research on Test Center as to average mindblast damage. My target was a character with 50 resist. The mage had 100 magery and 100 eval. I collected 10 data points each on 5 character stat sets ranging from 75/75/75 to the 110/15/100 template. Here are my conclusions.

The spell scales totally on the highest and lowest stat. You don't have to have 75/75/75 to lower the spell damage to 1 point, 80/70/75 (a 10 point difference) also showed just 1 point damage per spell.

Between 10 points difference in stats, and 75 points difference in stats, the following linear equation ran through all the data points:

Average Damage = 0.5 x (Stat Difference) - 10

When you get above 90 points difference, the MB damage caps at 40.

So, to run through some numbers. The first column is the maximum stat difference. The next column is the average mind blast damage:

The first set of numbers represent the stat difference and the 2nd set of numbers represent the average MB damage.

10 1
15 1
20 2
25 4
35 10
40 12
45 15
50 17
50 20
60 22
65 25
70 27
75 30
80 33
85 35
90 38
95 40
100 40

Keep in mind this is average damage. Mindblast is a pretty variable spell it seems. There's plenty of times I saw 40 hp damage, and 10 hp damage off the same stat set.

<center>An Easier Way to Speedcast</center>
<center>Originally Contributed by Gamma Zulu</center>
I think Moostang's speedcast essay is quite good, but it makes it unneccessarily complex to understand how to speedcast.

It's really quite simple, as long as you just realize that you have to wait 2.2 seconds upon casting the first spell before releasing it. There's no need for holding keys down, and spamming last target with your mousewheel.

For example, it's possible to fast-cast the following combo:

How to fast cast Explode/Explode/flamestrike

1. Get someone targeted so you can use "last target" on them.
2. Cast explode, and wait for the target cursor to come up.
3. Wait 2.2 seconds
4. Release the explode spell, and immediately start casting the next explode.
5. You'll get the target cursor for the next explode before the first one goes off, hold off on releasing it until the first explode had gone off.
6. Upon releasing the second explode, immediately start casting flamestrike.
7. Flamestrike will hit at the same time as the explode.

In effect, the above combo fast casts the last explode/flamestrike combo. What the person on the recieving end sees is an explode spell hitting them, and 3 seconds later, and explode/flamestrike. In effect, they only have 3 seconds to respond between the sets of damage instead of the typical 5.2 seconds normally associated with this combo. This combo is most effective if you have the protection spell up, and you get them to commit to a spell cast just as you release the first explode, as they therefore cannot react within the 3 second window.

For example, here's how to fast cast Explode/Ebolt/Ebolt

1. Cast explode
2. Wait 2.2 seconds
3. Release explode, and immediately hit the key for the ebolt spell
4. Get the ebolt spell up (targeting will appear before the explode goes off)
5. Wait 2.2 seconds after the ebolt target comes up (you'll release it about 1 second after the explode goes off).
6. Immediately hit the ebolt key, and hit last target as soon as it appears (assuming target is still in range).

What your target sees is explode going off, followed by an ebolt 1 second later, followed by an ebolt 2 seconds later. Not alot of time to respond.

Now what's really deadly is for all you healer mages to incorporate a stun punch right after releasing the first explode. Killer. I've died to this a couple times, enough that I'm really thinking of just adding anatomy to my outdated hiding/inscription mage template (forget the healing).

Best

-Gamma Zulu of Great Lakes

Grommit · Jun 27, 2003

<center>
Meditation as of Publish 18
Contributed by Lamb666 with editorial changes
</center>

To calculate your mana regeneration rate, use the following:

If Meditation is less than GM: N = Meditation * 3 + Intelligence

If Meditation is GM or greater: N = ( Meditation * 3 + Intelligence ) * 1.1

If wearing meditation blocking: N = 0

Mana/s = ( N / 40 ) * 0.1 + 0.2

The Table below shows different medi/int and what speed of regen you can get.

<pre>
Meditation

X | 80 90 100 110 120
---------------------------------------------------
50 | 0.9 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3
60 | 1.0 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3
I 70 | 1.0 1.0 1.2 1.3 1.3
n 80 | 1.0 1.0 1.2 1.3 1.4
t 90 | 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4
100 | 1.0 1.1 1.3 1.3 1.4
110 | 1.0 1.1 1.3 1.4 1.4
120 | 1.1 1.1 1.3 1.4 1.5
</pre>

Every 20 focus counts as a mana regeneration item
Each mana regeneration item counts adds an extra 0.1 mana/s.

So for instance 120 meditation and 125 int gives N = (120*3 + 125) * 1.1 = 533.5

Truncate(533.5/40) = 13

13*0.1 + 0.2 = 1.5 mana/s

<center>
Faster Casting items
Contributed by wilki24 with editorial changes
</center>

I finally got curious enough about faster casting items, so I decided to do a little test. I did each test 10 times, measuring the amount of time from the time the spell was cast until the targeting cursor appeared, and then recorded the avg results. They're probably 100ms slow, and also most likely have an error of +/- 100ms due to the method I used to measure them, but you can see the general pattern.

<pre>Time for a Paladin to cast Cleanse by Fire:
FC Time
0 1.2 seconds
1 0.9 seconds
2 0.7 seconds
3 0.5 seconds
4 0.4 seconds

Time for a Mage to cast Energy Bolt:
FC Time
-2 2.7 seconds
-1 2.4 seconds
0 2.1 seconds
1 1.9 seconds
2 1.7 seconds
3 1.5 seconds
4 1.3 seconds

Mage with protection up:
FC Time
0 2.7 seconds
2 2.1 seconds
4 1.7 seconds
</pre>

I did one more test, this time with a mage holding a spell channeling shield w/ no fast cast modifiers, and the casting time was 2.1 seconds, exactly the same as w/o the shield, so it appears that spell channeling does not inherently increase casting time unless it has the -1 fast cast associated with it.

I have been told by several people that FC items do not have a bearing on Paladin spell casting time, but that appears to not be the case. I would imagine these results would apply equally to Necro spells as well.

The Protection spell essentially acts as Faster Casting -2 when calculating casting speeds. The Inscription skill does not affect this attribute of the Protection spell.

<center>
Meditation as of Publish 18
Contributed by Gamma Zulu
</center>
This post deals with the formulas that calculate the spell damage for each of the attack spells. I generated the data so I could make an informed decision on whether I wanted to spend the gold for +20 eval, and whether or not I really wanted to add inscription back into my template.

I did this testing on test center. I started by saying that spell damage is probably a function of eval, magery, intelligence, and inscription. These are the four variables I considered.

I stripped the mage I was working with completely naked. Then started by varying each of my 4 variables, until I noted the 2 that made a difference. For the vast majority of spells, the damage is calculated off just the eval and inscription score. The only exception is mindblast, which calculates off the magery and intelligence score. Once I had the two variables that mattered, I varied them in a designed fashion so I could test for interactions. For each data point, I collected 20 damage results, and averaged the results, and I typically collected 15 data sets per spell. There were no interactions found between the variables. This means it’s a simple linear formula in each case with no cross multipliers or nonlinearities.

I then regressed the results using MiniTab, which is statistics software I use in my line of work.

It’s important to note that the damages noted are base damage. If you’re wearing armor, the damage will be reduced. If you have armor with 50% rating in that particular elemental resist, then the base damage is reduced 50%.

The output formulas are as follows:

Mindblast base damage = (Intelligence + Magery) / 5
Flamestrike base damage = 10 + 0.5xEval + 0.1xInscription
Ebolt base damage = 11.5 + 0.369xEval + 0.0586xInscription
Lightning base damage = 6.5 + 0.2243xEval + 0.025xInscription
Fireball base damage = 9.5 + 0.1629xEval + 0.05xInscription

I could have looked at harm, and magic arrow but I stopped there since I figured I had a pretty good idea what inscription did at this point.

My conclusions from this analysis are as follows:

1. The effect of adding 20 points of eval seems fairly large. It adds 10 points base damage to flamestrike, 7.3 base damage to ebolt, 4.5 points to lightning, and 3.2 to fireball. Whether the difference between 115 and 120 is worth it is up to you, since the formulas scale linearly.

2. The effect of inscription is nice, but debatable for how many points are involved. It seems to help fire-based spells a bit more for some odd reason. Going to GM inscription would add 10 points to flamestrike, 5.8 points to ebolt, 2.5 to lightning, and 5 to fireball.

Cody McCourt · Dec 22, 2003

is there a way to be a pure mage but have really low battle skils like a new person training to be a warrior?because I want on ethat's a pure mage but I want a small backup of weapons.so,is there a way to be like a tank mage but not have enuogh skill to become one so I could still be a pure mage?

Chandalir · Jan 3, 2004

Just letting ya'll know that this, and the other FAQ thread has been unstickied. Please refer to the new one in the future /php-bin/shared/images/icons/wink.gif

Mage Forum FAQ (old and outdated) Updated: 06/27/2003

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