L
Lord Kalatar
Guest
Relious’ Guide to Battle Mage Player vs. Player Combat
This guide was reposted on 11/10/03 and since this is the second posting of it some updating or editing may be needed. Once you have read it if you feel something needs to be added or changed post at the link at the very bottom of this guide.
This is a guide to PvP combat in UO both for the single player and the group mainly for a mage but good for all to read.
By: Relious’ Player, Lake Superior Shard, Long Live Felucca!
Table of Contents:
I. Introduction
a. Why make a guide?
b. What will this guide help with?
c. How to use this guide
d. Credibility of writer
II. Choosing Your Skills
a. Necessary Skills
b. Power Scrolls
c. Auxiliary Skills
d. Stats
e. How to GM Your Chosen Skills
III. Gear
a. How to Carry Your Regs
i. How Many
ii. Lockable boxes
iii. Top Layer of Backpack
iv. Magic Lock, Unlock, and Trap
b. Potions
i. How Many
ii. What kind?
c. Magic Bonuses to Armor
i. Intro
ii. Site with Information
iii. Suggested Bonuses
IV. Programs Necessary
a. UOAssist
b. UOAutomap
c. Voice Chat
V. Combat
a. Setting Your Macros
b. Dueling
i. Mage Vs. Mage Offense
ii. Mage Vs. Mage Defense
iii. Mage Vs. Mage Counter Attacks
iv. Mage Vs. Dexxer Strategies
c. 1v1 Non-duels
i. Strategies
d. Group Combat
i. Strategies
ii. Team Rules
e. Evading the Gank
f. Law of the Loot
g. Smack Talk
h. Murder Counts
VI. Ending Blurb Crap ‘n stuff.
I. Introduction
a. This guide to mage PvP is something I decided to write because I discovered many of the good role players on my home shard of Lake Superior were not very competent when it came to PvP combat. I also wanted to produce something to help the many good folks that have helped me along the way in my UO career.
b. This guide is for anyone who wants to learn how to make a strong PvP mage character. It will help you choose your skills and give you tips for PvP combat from a seasoned vet to the battlefield.
c. I have separated this guide into several sections labeled after the table of contents above. Feel free to read whichever section you wish, but reading the entire guide could always be beneficial to you.
d. To establish my credibility on the subject, I’d like to list my personal experiences with PvP combat. My first PvP experience was being house PK’d by someone named DUI at my place in Fel while playing Relious Shade. That was in the year 2000. Ever since, my lust for vengeance against PK’s was unquenchable. Since then; however, I became a notopk (That’s someone who attacks every target that they can without incurring a murder count), and I spent a tour of duty in two separate factions. (CoM and SL. Long Live Shadowlords!) The years of UO Combat experience have given me more joy for the game. I hope anyone reading this can benefit from my experience.
II. Choosing your Skills
a. Your basic necessary skills as a Battle Mage are as follows:
Magery
Evaluating Intelligence
Meditation
Resisting Spells
Anatomy OR Wrestling OR Parry
i. Magery: Decides the success rate of spells cast as well as damage done on a successful cast. The higher you are beyond GM, the more successful your 8th circle spells are and the more damage your offensive spells will do (You also enjoy the benefit of better bless, curse, and related spells).
ii. Evaluating Intelligence: This skill at GM provides a factor in calculating damage increase to your spells, and decides how much mana you can get from an opponent with a Mana Vampire Spell.
iii. Meditation: This skill determines the rate at which your mana regenerates. Once you reach GM in this skill, I have noticed that going beyond that gives diminishing benefits.
iv. Resisting Spells: This skill has come under considerable fire since the release of AoS. It seems people believe the skill is useless since the skill no longer reduces incoming damage.
Let me first clarify what the skill does do: It curbs the effects of stat-affecting spells. Resist will lower the stat change damage suffered in Curse, Weaken, Feeblemind, and Clumsy spells. Without resist, you could potentially lose 25hp from a single Weaken spell. That makes your max hp 25 less than normal. Furthermore, it affects the rate in which you are poisoned. With a high resist, you will rarely be successfully poisoned. Paralysis and mana draining spells are affected by resist as well. With GM Resist, most PvPers do not even notice the effects of a paralyze spell.
Since publish 18, GM Magic Resist also makes your base spell resistances at 40 each.
So I am of the opinion that resist is still an essential skill for PvP.
v. Combat Skill: This skill is essential in that it will prevent many physical attacks from Dexxers and monsters from actually hitting you. Anatomy, when paired with eval provides a similar protection to having the wrestling skill. It is rumored that the wrestle skill is better vs. monsters, and eval+anat is better vs. other players. Another recent addition to this line of thinking is the use of a combat skill with a spell channeling fast wing speed weapon.
b. Use of Power Scrolls:
Since scrolls of power were introduced to UO, people with their typical 7xGM characters had to rework their characters to lose points in one skill to have >100 points in another skill. As a result, a new kind of powered up character emerged: The 5x120 Mage. That is to say, 120 in each of the 5 essential skills of magery, and 100 in an auxiliary skill.
This has some benefits and some detriments to it. While you do improve your overall effectiveness as a Battle Mage, there are a few skills on your basic skill list which receive a ‘diminishing return’ on the benefit of the extra 20 points.
Magery is good to have as high as possible. It is only to your advantage to have your magery at 120 skill, as well as your evaluating intelligence. If your spell resist is up near 120, your defense against offensive magic will be complete. If you choose wrestling instead of anatomy, it receives noticeable benefits from having the skill at 120; you greatly reduce the number of times individuals can interrupt your spells.
However, meditation and anatomy are questionable. Anatomy does show a positive bonus to it at higher levels of skill; however, its overall effectiveness at 120 seems to be inferior to having the wrestle skill at 120. Meditation, on the other hand, seems to have very little benefit to having the skill above 100. The rate at which your mana regenerates is not worth the extra 20 points in my humble opinion. As a suggestion to you, the reader, I always value the benefits received from having 20.1 points of skill in Tracking. If you’re going for a power scroll template, consider the following template for your primary skills:
With Power Scrolls Without Power Scrolls
120 Magery 100 Magery
120 EvalInt 100 Med
119.9 Combat Skill 100 Eval
120 Magic Resist 100 Combat Skill
100 Meditation 100 Magic Resist
20.1 Tracking 100 Auxiliary Skill
100 Auxiliary skill 100 Auxiliary Skill
Veteran Accounts: Since OSI started giving +5/year to your skill cap, many veteran players have an extra couple of skill points to throw around. As a result, you can consider doing a few things:
· Put the extra points in one of your auxiliary skills (If it is scrollable)
· Use the extra points to make up for the lost skill points suffered in other skills for taking the tracking skill
· Saving the skill for use in forensics checks (so you can identify individuals in the thieves’ guild)
· Stay at 7xGM and just put the points in your magery bonus (With proper power scrolls)
c. Auxiliary Skills and Their Benefits
i. There are a number of very useful skills to sink your extra 100 or 200 skill points into. I’ll list them here with their benefits. Remember to test the mage template with each of the auxiliary skills on the test shard to see which fits your play style best.
ii. Poison: This skill with tactics gives you the opportunity to use infectious strikes against your opponents. However, its true power lies in how much more destructive it makes your poison spells. Your poison and poison field spells will begin to do level 4 poison to your enemies, giving them something to think about.
iii. Parry: Since AoS and spell channeling shields, parry has become an invaluable skill to the mage. It often blocks the special attacks from Dexxers, including the dreaded concussion strike, dismount, and paralyze attacks.
iv. Anatomy/Heal: Allows you to heal and rez with bandages. Considerably useful if you want to conserve mana on your healing casts.
v. Anatomy/Wrestle: Gives you the ability to deliver stunning blow.
vi. Inscription: Gives you a +10% bonus to your spell damage and reduces the penalties associated with Protection/Reactive Armor/Magic Reflect. Oh yeah, you can make scrolls with it too.
vii. Necromancy/Spirit Speak: Allows full use of necromantic spells and abilities. Used properly, it can be in incredibly powerful addition. (Also allows you to heal w/ Spirit Speak)
iix. Keep in mind, any of these combinations are effective. Just remember, there are always repercussions of your skill selections. As an example, taking a combat skill which requires use of a weapon in addition to parry means you will have to disarm one hand to drink a pot. My personal mage has the following skill selection: 120 Magery, 120 Eval, 100 Med, 120 Resist, 120 Anatomy/20.1 Tracking/109.9 Parry. That comes to the grand total of 710 skill since I have a 2 year vet acct.
d. Stats: With a Battle Mage’s stats, the primary stat is Intelligence. This decides how much mana you have. It aides in the speed of mana regeneration, and it affects the spell damage of a few select spells (mindblast primarily).
At all costs, you should try to max out Intelligence, and have a high Strength as well. Strength dictates your maximum hitpoints and your carrying capacity. (And we all know that carrying capacity is important for the law of loot.) Dex has little use to the Battle Mage. It affects stamina (which is what red pots are for) and the swing rate of your weapon or fist. While it adds protection against Dexxers, this is second priority to high INT and STR.
With this said, my preferred set of stats are as follows:
STR 100
DEX 25
INT 125
Note: This is with a +25 Stat Scroll
e. How to GM your skills:
My advice is to do a search on yahoo for “UO skill guide” if you want a legal way to gain (just don’t pay for a site). If you want to use illegal methods to gains skill which while faster could (but probably won’t) get you banned from UO then do a search for them.
III. Gear
a. Regs
i. How many regs are necessary? That varies to what situation you are in. If you plan on having a guild war where nobody will be looting, I suggest you bring around 100 of each. If; however, you plan to PVP competitively for loot, the law of loot goes into effect.
The Law of Loot says that you never carry in excess. So if you are playing factions, chances are you may get ganked. So be smart: only carry 30 of each reagent. This allows you to survive one good pitched battle. Just don’t forget to reequip after the fight. This method prevents you from losing much loot when you die. For general Noto and Chaos/Order fighting, It’s probably safe to carry 50 of each reg. So:
Factions: 30 of each
Guild War: 100 of each
Noto: 50 of each
Chaos/Order: 50 of each
ii. Lockable boxes - This is my preferred method for carrying regs. Purchase a lockable box from the provisioner and set your regs and potions on the UOA organizer agent to the box. Then put all your gear in the box and use the lock spell on it. This serves two purposes:
1. Thieves won’t steal your items.
2. If you die, your friends can quickly loot your box. If you duel, you can quickly loot your body if you go down.
iii. Putting your regs on the top layer of your pack can have benefits too. It is easier to throw loot in your backpack by just dropping it on yourself while looting. Also, if you go down, you won’t lose everything if you have friends with you. They can loot some of your gear. Just remember to keep your regs in separate piles in case a thief steals from you. Then you still have enough to drop them.
iv. Magic Trap on a pouch could be useful if you have protection cast because it reduces your chances of being paralyzed without hope of survival. Keep in mind that magic trap does a lot more damage now than it used to. Magic Lock and Magic Unlock are useful in section ii’s uses.
b. Potions
i. Potions are essential to every form of PVP besides dueling (where they are often banned or limited) Never carry too many, but make sure you have enough. I’ll list some suggested amounts to carry with you for different scenarios. (Note: All pots defined herein are made by GM alchemists at the strongest potency.)
1. Noto: 5 Heal, 5 Cure, 5 Refresh, 5 Str, 5 Dex (If you are using a combat weapon)
2. Factions: 5 Heal, 5 Cure, 5 Refresh, 5 Strength for running| 15 Heal, 15 Cure, 15 Refresh, 15 Strength if guarding sigils.
3. Guild War: 10 Heal, 10 Cure, 5 Refresh, 5 Strength, 5 Dex
c. Armor – The AoS Arms Race
i. Unfortunately, with AoS came the Arms Race. That is to say, one’s PVP ability is no longer based upon 80% skill, 20% gear, it is now 95% gear, and 5% skill. This in mind, here are a number of enhancements to consider when putting together your suit of armor and weapons. So check out the following site as to how to gauge your bonuses.
ii. http://guide.uo.com/itemproperties_0.html
iii. The following is our suggested aims for PVP mage combat in order of importance:
· All Armor Resistances 70
· Faster Cast +2 (Total)
· Faster Cast Recovery +6(Total)
· 1 Night sight Item
· Mage Armor on all non-leather pieces
· Always carry a spell channeling shield with no fast cast penalties. It provides extra protections, even if you do not have the parry skill.
· If you’re carrying a combat weapon, make sure it has swing speed increase and spell channeling.
· Mage weapons have their uses, but for PVP it can be rather frustrating to use them.
· Try to get an item that enhances potions.
IV. Programs Necessary
a. UOAssist. You can download this program at http://www.tugsoft.com/ Here are some suggestions on how to maximize the benefits of this program:
i. On the Display, do not have it display name.
ii. Have it display numeric stats, all regs, pots, and user items.
iii. Set user items to identify red pots and white pots.
iv. Set a macro to drink a white potion. Do this by hitting record, drink a white pot, then hit stop. Right click the “Use Item” slot, and convert it to use item type.
v. Use this same technique to make a macro for throwing purple potions
vi. Set up keys through UOAssist to arm and disarm shields, and a dress macro.
vii. Save what is currently being worn, (Particularly if insured) and hit the macro after you get rezzed. Also you can open your corpse and hit the macro to automatically loot your worn items from your body and put them on.
b. UO Automap. You can download this program at http://uoam.net/ Here are a few suggestions to maximize your use of this program:
i. Use this program to have one player set up a server, and others join it. Then you can track their movements.
ii. Shrink the map size and double click the screen to make the map stay on top. Have it take up a convenient side of your screen.
iii. Make sure to put all settings to “Fastest” when you first get to modify the map files.
iv. Go under the menu options to display player names as abbreviations if you have a large number of players on the map.
c. Voice Chat Program: Okay, this is the single most important part of successful group combat. Not only does it make you far more efficient (being able to issue and receive commands without typing) It’s a helluva lot more fun to hang with your group when you can hear them and they can hear you. If you go solo all the time, you don’t need this. But if you EVER, and I mean EVER plan to be good at group combat, you must have some form of voice communication. Of all those out there, let me recommend two: Roger Wilco http://rogerwilco.gamespy.com and Ventrilo http://www.ventrilo.com . Ventrilo is superior to Roger Wilco in voice quality, but as you add larger numbers of people into a Ventrilo channel, it begins to lag, whereas you can load up Roger Wilco and it doesn’t seem to have that problem.
V. COMBAT
a. Setting up Your Macros: Okay, you’ve survived the prep section. Now it’s time to cover combat. The first thing you’ll have to do is set up appropriate macros. Now, let me give you the layout I have set up for my macros, and you can modify these as they are comfortable. I feel I have all the essential spells available that I use the most on keyboard macros, and the spells I use less often are pulled off my spell book and lined up at the bottom of my UO screen.
i. Keyboard Macros: The following macros are set up like so: Key = Macro - F1=Heal Spell, F2=Drink Heal Pot, F3=Drink Cure Pot, F4=Drink Refresh Pot, F5=Explosion Spell, F6=Energy Bolt Spell, F7=Poison Spell, F8=Paralyze Spell, F9=Greater Heal Spell, F10=Cure Spell, F11=Flamestrike Spell, `=Mindblast Spell, 1=Clumsy Spell, 2=Feeblemind Spell, 3=Weaken Spell, 4=Agility Spell, 5=Cunning Spell, 6=Strength Spell, Insert= Circle Trans, Home=Dress Macro, Page Up=Organizer Agent, \= Last Spell, -(NUM)=Harm Spell, +(NUM)=Lighting Bolt Spell, Ctrl+W=Disarm, Ctrl+E=Arm Shield, Ctrl+Z=Use Tracking Skill, select menu option players(Uoassist macro), Ctrl+X= Hide Skill, Ctrl+C=Reveal Spell, Ctrl+V=Use Meditation Skill, Ctrl+A=Use Scissors (For acquiring last target), Alt+’=All Names, Delete=Bless Spell, End=Drink Strength Pot, Page Down=Throw Explosion Potion
ii. For spells you do not have on keyboard macros, pull their pictures out of your spell book and line them up at the bottom of your screen. Have spells like Protection, Reactive Armor, and Magic Reflect, along with several field spells, Magic Wall, Magic Lock, Magic Unlock, Summon Creature (For flagging in duels) Earthquake, Energy Vortex, Resurrect, Dispel, Dispel Field, Night Sight, Teleport, and other essential spells you use often, but not often enough to have on macro keys.
b. 1v1 Dueling – Fights based on pure skill alone.
Dueling has had a long and glorious history in UO. It has traditionally been the method by which skilled PVP players ranked one another according to their ability. However, with the release of AoS, dueling is all but destroyed. This is for the following reason:
PVP is no longer a skill based combat; it is an arms race.
Due to the system of upgraded jewelry, power scrolls, and armor resistances, it is practically impossible to have a fair and equal playing base. So nearly every duel now has one person with an equipment advantage over another.
So why not fight naked? Because spells are so devastating without armor, you will die in two spells flat.
Still, dueling is possible, just difficult. So here are some combat techniques and rules to keep in mind while dueling:
1. Mage Vs. Mage Offense:
It has been said by my longtime teammate in UO that a great offense is the best defense in PVP. Time after time this has proven to be true. The more powerful your initial assault, the more likely you are to win a match with another player. So, here are some attacks, defenses, and counter-attacks you can use.
Duels almost always begin with a magic wall being put up, and the two dueling parties flagged on one another (So neither can award a murder count when one wins). As soon as the wall drops, the fight begins.
I suggest you open with a quick offensive spell. Weaken is always effective. It reduced your opponent’s maximum hitpoints while interrupting their first spell if you time it just right.
Opening attacks should always be in a combination. So try some of these opening combinations:
· Weaken, Poison, Mindblast
· Weaken, Explosion, Poison
· Poison, Explosion, Poison
· Weaken, Poison, Harm
· Explosion, Explosion, Poison
Try using several different damage types on people to find their weakest resistance. Hone in on that weakness and continue to alternate between stat altering spells (I.E. Weaken, Poison), and heavy damaging spells (Mindblast, Energy Bolt, Flamestrike) The goal in mind in this sort of combat is to keep the other opponent from healing while continuing to barrage them with heavy damage.
If you are lucky, and skilled, this will usually drop your opponent. If; however, you notice they aren’t dropping, Save your mana for the next round of combat. Stop casting if your opponent is at or near full health and you are under half your mana.
Don’t be too aggressive. Watch your own hitpoints and mana so that you stay alive. I’ve lost several duels myself because I went too offensive and didn’t protect myself from excellent counter-attacks.
If you go into several rounds of exchanging spells, try not to be predictable. Try several spell combinations in different sequences.
2. Mage Vs. Mage Defense:
Remember, most duels do not allow potions. If you are strictly on defense, you will be using a few select spells: Heal, Greater Heal, Cure, and Bless
When someone poisons you, their aim will be to disrupt your casting and prevent you from curing. If this is so, let them cast their disruptive spell (like harm) and cure yourself after they drop the follow-up spell. Also, remember to cure between points of damage. Wait for your poison damage to hit you, then cast Cure. This way you will not be disrupted. Remember, timing is everything in this. Watch which spells they’re casting. If it’s poison followed by a small spell like harm, let them drop the spell. If it’s a spell like Energy bolt, quickly cast cure and cure yourself. You can usually cure poison before it even does damage to you.
You can also cast Greater Heal in the time it takes to cast and target spells like Energy Bolt, Mindblast, Flamestrike, and Explosion.
Make extensive use of lesser heals if fighting someone who is trying to disrupt your spell casting.
Have Magic Reflect up when Dueling someone mage vs. Mage, make sure you have all other protective spells down (Unless you’re strangled, in which case it’s wise to put up Protection).
3. Mage Vs. Mage Counter-Attacks
If someone gets to cast on you first, try to poison them as a defensive maneuver. It will often disrupt less-experienced duelists and allow you to take the offensive.
Try to stand next to your opponent and stick close to them while they cast offensive spells. This will often disrupt their spells with your wrestling attacks.
Try to cast a spell like weaken or Feeblemind on your opponent to disrupt their casting speed. This counter attack will often be the start of a deadly combination.
4. Mage Vs. Dexxer Strategies
The big thing to watch out for in Mage vs. Dexxers fights is special attacks. Critical Strike means you weave around your opponent until it wears off. Double-Strike means you had better heal up fast afterwards. So when fighting Dexxers, you are going to find yourself using the regular heal spell often. If you try to cast greater heal, you will often be disrupted.
On that note, you might suggest keeping the spell protection up. I advise against this. Your spellcasting speed is much better with protection down. Just have reactive armor up and try to avoid being hit. Only put up protection if you have been strangled.
Keep your Dexxer opponent constantly poisoned. If they stay poisoned, their bandaged heals will only cure the poison, not improve their hitpoints.
Use harm after poison if they’re holding close to you to attack. This will get them to back off while you cast healing or offensive spells.
Try to get several heavy damaging spells off to start, followed by a poison attack. Then alternate between poison, clumsy, weaken, harm, and your heavy offensive spells. If you time your spells correctly, this will kill your opponent.
Remember, the best defense against Dexxers is to keep moving. Don’t slow down and let them get the upper hand.
c. 1v1 Non-Duels
When solo hunting, the same attacks/counter attacks/defenses apply as when you are dueling. Just remember, odds are often not on your favor when hunting 1v1.
Use potions to your greatest advantage. Carry explosion potions and greater strength to buff up your hit points. Use heal potions in the place of healing spells so that your spells can be focused on offensive tactics.
Try to fight 1v1. If they have a healer, exit the scene. It’s pointless to try and kill a person with a healer. Very rarely will you be capable of killing them. If being attacked by more than one opponent, it will be to your advantage to have the protection spell up.
Sometimes you can time your attacks to coincide with others that aren’t exactly on your side. If this is so, switch to heavy-damage spells (Such as Flamestrike), and try to get the last shot in. This gives you rights to payment for the percentage of their insurance money.
d. Group Combat
i. Strategies
Group Combat requires, in my opinion, far more individual skill than single combat. It requires a heightened sense of awareness in both offense and defensive fighting.
Successful group combat is based one two important principles:
STAY TOGETHER
WORK TOGETHER
Now that you have a basic idea of combat from a 1v1 standpoint, I’ll go right into group combat fighting techniques.
To be successful, you must be using a voice chat program. At best, each person in your running group will have a functional sending and receiving system that allows them to both talk and listen. At the very least, you should have a team leader on voice chat while the rest of your team can listen in.
Have a healing method ready. Either have a main healer for a party, or have the party break into teams. (One person buddies up and is responsible for that person).
Call single targets and stick to that target until either the target is dead, or the leader decides to change targets.
Each person in the party is responsible for keeping themselves cured. (Potions) This way, the other party members can focus on healing only.
Do not go grey unless you are sure:
· You can escape
· Your teammates can keep you alive (By going grey themselves)
· There are few individuals around that will engage you in combat
Choose your targets wisely. Some people will drop easy. Try to pick those individuals off first.
Make sure everyone in your attack party has the same target on “Last Target” before engaging an enemy.
Have a party leader. This person decides the plan of attack, the strategies used in attacking, and the called targets.
Have a method for synchronizing your attacks. We usually count 3, 2, 1 GO! Or perhaps you can say “Watch for the mana drop.” This is necessary because most voice chap programs have a latency lag. This timing technique ensures your attacks land at the same time.
Try to keep your team between 2-6 individuals. 4 members seems to be the ideal number for balance and order. Having too many causes the fighting to become chaotic, and having too few results in not dishing out enough damage.
Spell attacks for Group PvP are geared more towards overwhelming damage in the shortest time possible. Try to use come of the following combinations:
· Explosion/Flamestrike
· Explosion/Mindblast
· Mindblast/Pain Spike
· Mindblast/Poison
· Explosion/Poison
· Explosion/Energy Bolt
· Explosion/Curse
· Mindblast/Curse
· Explosion/Strangle
Tailor your attacks from there based on what energy type did the most damage and what your team leader says.
Remember: Stay together. Have at least one person in your party with tracking. Track your target before your initial attack. If they start running, they won’t be able to hide.
If your target is hiding:
I. Use Wither or Poison Field to Reveal
II. Sometimes you can get away with typing out Wis Quas – Reveal. This will fake them out into thinking you’ve actually precast a reveal spell while you’ve actually an attack spell up.
If your target is house hiding, there are several methods available to kill them:
I. Sick a revenant on them
II. Prepare a heavy assault for when they peek out
III. Have one person block access to the house with energy field spells
IV. Drop poison fields inside of the house
V. Lure individuals out by leaving one person as bait
VI. Leave, incognito, change clothes, and return. This often gets a target to come out.
Always carry bolas. If you are dismounted, you can return the favor. (Also have an “all follow me” macro ready).
Test your target’s spell resist by casting spells like Paralyze or Mana Vampire. If they have low resist, you can use these spells to your advantage.
In fights where the odds are even, it may be to your advantage to have protection up.
ii. Team Rules
Have a set of “Team Rules” or codes of conduct you don’t break regarding:
- Number of people you will engage
- Horse Killing
- Talking in Channel
- Sticking Together
- Tactics
- Places to avoid
- Smack-Talking
- Revenge
- Dropping off loot
Always remember: Revenge is a dish best served cold. You generally perform better when you’re not angry.
e. Evading the Gank
This section is paramount. Evade the gank, and you have embarrassed your enemy and proven how much they suck.
· Never allow yourself to be attacked by more than 2 people while sieging house hiders.
· Have at least 10 cure potions available. Use them much.
· Know, at all times, the shortest distance to: A guard zone, friendly house, server line, group of allies.
· Try to keep running in straight lines. If you zig zag, you’ll lose separation distance while trying to turn.
· Remember, it is easier to hide and inviz yourself behind buildings
· Pay close attention to obstacles
· Make extreme use of lesser heals
· Keep your teammates healed. Nobody should be attacking in a gank scenario.
· Remember: Kick some ass and run like hell, you’ll live to fight again in Fel.
f. Law of the Loot
This is a method of playing. It is an ideology that believes looting your opponent means you have defeated them, and you won. All the smack-talking about skill this and gank that doesn’t matter, the end result is that you have their loot, they’re dead, you’re alive, and if they paid out the nose in insurance, you got paid.
Several things to keep in mind:
· Law of Loot says you do not loot bodies of the fallen until all outside threats are removed or chased off.
· If someone loots your kill, and they flag grey doing so, you must kill them and loot them as well, by law of the loot.
· Dry loot corpses of smack-talkers
· Drop off loot you gather often so you aren’t carrying much should you die.
· If you loot someone’s body, you win
· Never die retrieving loot
· If you die and loot an opponent, and he kills you but loots less, you’ve still won by law of loot advantage.
g. Murder Counts
Be careful of murder counts. People love to give them to you. To prevent this, never cast a delayed spell on a grey you plan to attack. Always hit them with an instant spell like harm or weaken.
Don’t attack blues you think are thieves until you are certain by performing a forensics check. Always leave a few points of skill available for making forensics checks. Even if forensics is at 0, you know the person is a thief if you get a gain in skill by using forensics on them.
Don’t giver murder counts to Reds. That’s what they want. However, ALWAYS give murder counts to blues.
VI. Conclusion
Well folks, that about sums it up. If you have any suggestions for this guide, my ICQ # is 104045713. I’ll always add in your name and your contribution section.
Special thanks for helping me make this guide:
Boss, (AKA Snake-Eyes) Who’s been my partner in making people quit UO for over two years.
Malicious Rising, One of my loyal guild mates until the end.
Momma’s Boy – You know who you are, and you know I owned your butt in two spells, yet you’re still #1 with me! *Flips James off*
All the teammates I’ve had in AoY aka PSR aka D|E on Lake Superior through the years.
The Shadowlords – For teaching me to stick in there even if I get my butt ganked nightly
Team Redbud – For taking us in and not making us Newbs
Talanithus – For giving me the idea of writing this stupidly huge guide.
All of my opponents in Fel – If it weren’t for you dying, I wouldn’t look as good as I do. Thanks for having less skill than me!
- Relious Shade, Lake Superior Shard, Just D|E!
You can check out this faq and other interesting things as well as send uorehab new ideas at www.uorehab.com
This guide was reposted on 11/10/03 and since this is the second posting of it some updating or editing may be needed. Once you have read it if you feel something needs to be added or changed post at the link at the very bottom of this guide.
This is a guide to PvP combat in UO both for the single player and the group mainly for a mage but good for all to read.
By: Relious’ Player, Lake Superior Shard, Long Live Felucca!
Table of Contents:
I. Introduction
a. Why make a guide?
b. What will this guide help with?
c. How to use this guide
d. Credibility of writer
II. Choosing Your Skills
a. Necessary Skills
b. Power Scrolls
c. Auxiliary Skills
d. Stats
e. How to GM Your Chosen Skills
III. Gear
a. How to Carry Your Regs
i. How Many
ii. Lockable boxes
iii. Top Layer of Backpack
iv. Magic Lock, Unlock, and Trap
b. Potions
i. How Many
ii. What kind?
c. Magic Bonuses to Armor
i. Intro
ii. Site with Information
iii. Suggested Bonuses
IV. Programs Necessary
a. UOAssist
b. UOAutomap
c. Voice Chat
V. Combat
a. Setting Your Macros
b. Dueling
i. Mage Vs. Mage Offense
ii. Mage Vs. Mage Defense
iii. Mage Vs. Mage Counter Attacks
iv. Mage Vs. Dexxer Strategies
c. 1v1 Non-duels
i. Strategies
d. Group Combat
i. Strategies
ii. Team Rules
e. Evading the Gank
f. Law of the Loot
g. Smack Talk
h. Murder Counts
VI. Ending Blurb Crap ‘n stuff.
I. Introduction
a. This guide to mage PvP is something I decided to write because I discovered many of the good role players on my home shard of Lake Superior were not very competent when it came to PvP combat. I also wanted to produce something to help the many good folks that have helped me along the way in my UO career.
b. This guide is for anyone who wants to learn how to make a strong PvP mage character. It will help you choose your skills and give you tips for PvP combat from a seasoned vet to the battlefield.
c. I have separated this guide into several sections labeled after the table of contents above. Feel free to read whichever section you wish, but reading the entire guide could always be beneficial to you.
d. To establish my credibility on the subject, I’d like to list my personal experiences with PvP combat. My first PvP experience was being house PK’d by someone named DUI at my place in Fel while playing Relious Shade. That was in the year 2000. Ever since, my lust for vengeance against PK’s was unquenchable. Since then; however, I became a notopk (That’s someone who attacks every target that they can without incurring a murder count), and I spent a tour of duty in two separate factions. (CoM and SL. Long Live Shadowlords!) The years of UO Combat experience have given me more joy for the game. I hope anyone reading this can benefit from my experience.
II. Choosing your Skills
a. Your basic necessary skills as a Battle Mage are as follows:
Magery
Evaluating Intelligence
Meditation
Resisting Spells
Anatomy OR Wrestling OR Parry
i. Magery: Decides the success rate of spells cast as well as damage done on a successful cast. The higher you are beyond GM, the more successful your 8th circle spells are and the more damage your offensive spells will do (You also enjoy the benefit of better bless, curse, and related spells).
ii. Evaluating Intelligence: This skill at GM provides a factor in calculating damage increase to your spells, and decides how much mana you can get from an opponent with a Mana Vampire Spell.
iii. Meditation: This skill determines the rate at which your mana regenerates. Once you reach GM in this skill, I have noticed that going beyond that gives diminishing benefits.
iv. Resisting Spells: This skill has come under considerable fire since the release of AoS. It seems people believe the skill is useless since the skill no longer reduces incoming damage.
Let me first clarify what the skill does do: It curbs the effects of stat-affecting spells. Resist will lower the stat change damage suffered in Curse, Weaken, Feeblemind, and Clumsy spells. Without resist, you could potentially lose 25hp from a single Weaken spell. That makes your max hp 25 less than normal. Furthermore, it affects the rate in which you are poisoned. With a high resist, you will rarely be successfully poisoned. Paralysis and mana draining spells are affected by resist as well. With GM Resist, most PvPers do not even notice the effects of a paralyze spell.
Since publish 18, GM Magic Resist also makes your base spell resistances at 40 each.
So I am of the opinion that resist is still an essential skill for PvP.
v. Combat Skill: This skill is essential in that it will prevent many physical attacks from Dexxers and monsters from actually hitting you. Anatomy, when paired with eval provides a similar protection to having the wrestling skill. It is rumored that the wrestle skill is better vs. monsters, and eval+anat is better vs. other players. Another recent addition to this line of thinking is the use of a combat skill with a spell channeling fast wing speed weapon.
b. Use of Power Scrolls:
Since scrolls of power were introduced to UO, people with their typical 7xGM characters had to rework their characters to lose points in one skill to have >100 points in another skill. As a result, a new kind of powered up character emerged: The 5x120 Mage. That is to say, 120 in each of the 5 essential skills of magery, and 100 in an auxiliary skill.
This has some benefits and some detriments to it. While you do improve your overall effectiveness as a Battle Mage, there are a few skills on your basic skill list which receive a ‘diminishing return’ on the benefit of the extra 20 points.
Magery is good to have as high as possible. It is only to your advantage to have your magery at 120 skill, as well as your evaluating intelligence. If your spell resist is up near 120, your defense against offensive magic will be complete. If you choose wrestling instead of anatomy, it receives noticeable benefits from having the skill at 120; you greatly reduce the number of times individuals can interrupt your spells.
However, meditation and anatomy are questionable. Anatomy does show a positive bonus to it at higher levels of skill; however, its overall effectiveness at 120 seems to be inferior to having the wrestle skill at 120. Meditation, on the other hand, seems to have very little benefit to having the skill above 100. The rate at which your mana regenerates is not worth the extra 20 points in my humble opinion. As a suggestion to you, the reader, I always value the benefits received from having 20.1 points of skill in Tracking. If you’re going for a power scroll template, consider the following template for your primary skills:
With Power Scrolls Without Power Scrolls
120 Magery 100 Magery
120 EvalInt 100 Med
119.9 Combat Skill 100 Eval
120 Magic Resist 100 Combat Skill
100 Meditation 100 Magic Resist
20.1 Tracking 100 Auxiliary Skill
100 Auxiliary skill 100 Auxiliary Skill
Veteran Accounts: Since OSI started giving +5/year to your skill cap, many veteran players have an extra couple of skill points to throw around. As a result, you can consider doing a few things:
· Put the extra points in one of your auxiliary skills (If it is scrollable)
· Use the extra points to make up for the lost skill points suffered in other skills for taking the tracking skill
· Saving the skill for use in forensics checks (so you can identify individuals in the thieves’ guild)
· Stay at 7xGM and just put the points in your magery bonus (With proper power scrolls)
c. Auxiliary Skills and Their Benefits
i. There are a number of very useful skills to sink your extra 100 or 200 skill points into. I’ll list them here with their benefits. Remember to test the mage template with each of the auxiliary skills on the test shard to see which fits your play style best.
ii. Poison: This skill with tactics gives you the opportunity to use infectious strikes against your opponents. However, its true power lies in how much more destructive it makes your poison spells. Your poison and poison field spells will begin to do level 4 poison to your enemies, giving them something to think about.
iii. Parry: Since AoS and spell channeling shields, parry has become an invaluable skill to the mage. It often blocks the special attacks from Dexxers, including the dreaded concussion strike, dismount, and paralyze attacks.
iv. Anatomy/Heal: Allows you to heal and rez with bandages. Considerably useful if you want to conserve mana on your healing casts.
v. Anatomy/Wrestle: Gives you the ability to deliver stunning blow.
vi. Inscription: Gives you a +10% bonus to your spell damage and reduces the penalties associated with Protection/Reactive Armor/Magic Reflect. Oh yeah, you can make scrolls with it too.
vii. Necromancy/Spirit Speak: Allows full use of necromantic spells and abilities. Used properly, it can be in incredibly powerful addition. (Also allows you to heal w/ Spirit Speak)
iix. Keep in mind, any of these combinations are effective. Just remember, there are always repercussions of your skill selections. As an example, taking a combat skill which requires use of a weapon in addition to parry means you will have to disarm one hand to drink a pot. My personal mage has the following skill selection: 120 Magery, 120 Eval, 100 Med, 120 Resist, 120 Anatomy/20.1 Tracking/109.9 Parry. That comes to the grand total of 710 skill since I have a 2 year vet acct.
d. Stats: With a Battle Mage’s stats, the primary stat is Intelligence. This decides how much mana you have. It aides in the speed of mana regeneration, and it affects the spell damage of a few select spells (mindblast primarily).
At all costs, you should try to max out Intelligence, and have a high Strength as well. Strength dictates your maximum hitpoints and your carrying capacity. (And we all know that carrying capacity is important for the law of loot.) Dex has little use to the Battle Mage. It affects stamina (which is what red pots are for) and the swing rate of your weapon or fist. While it adds protection against Dexxers, this is second priority to high INT and STR.
With this said, my preferred set of stats are as follows:
STR 100
DEX 25
INT 125
Note: This is with a +25 Stat Scroll
e. How to GM your skills:
My advice is to do a search on yahoo for “UO skill guide” if you want a legal way to gain (just don’t pay for a site). If you want to use illegal methods to gains skill which while faster could (but probably won’t) get you banned from UO then do a search for them.
III. Gear
a. Regs
i. How many regs are necessary? That varies to what situation you are in. If you plan on having a guild war where nobody will be looting, I suggest you bring around 100 of each. If; however, you plan to PVP competitively for loot, the law of loot goes into effect.
The Law of Loot says that you never carry in excess. So if you are playing factions, chances are you may get ganked. So be smart: only carry 30 of each reagent. This allows you to survive one good pitched battle. Just don’t forget to reequip after the fight. This method prevents you from losing much loot when you die. For general Noto and Chaos/Order fighting, It’s probably safe to carry 50 of each reg. So:
Factions: 30 of each
Guild War: 100 of each
Noto: 50 of each
Chaos/Order: 50 of each
ii. Lockable boxes - This is my preferred method for carrying regs. Purchase a lockable box from the provisioner and set your regs and potions on the UOA organizer agent to the box. Then put all your gear in the box and use the lock spell on it. This serves two purposes:
1. Thieves won’t steal your items.
2. If you die, your friends can quickly loot your box. If you duel, you can quickly loot your body if you go down.
iii. Putting your regs on the top layer of your pack can have benefits too. It is easier to throw loot in your backpack by just dropping it on yourself while looting. Also, if you go down, you won’t lose everything if you have friends with you. They can loot some of your gear. Just remember to keep your regs in separate piles in case a thief steals from you. Then you still have enough to drop them.
iv. Magic Trap on a pouch could be useful if you have protection cast because it reduces your chances of being paralyzed without hope of survival. Keep in mind that magic trap does a lot more damage now than it used to. Magic Lock and Magic Unlock are useful in section ii’s uses.
b. Potions
i. Potions are essential to every form of PVP besides dueling (where they are often banned or limited) Never carry too many, but make sure you have enough. I’ll list some suggested amounts to carry with you for different scenarios. (Note: All pots defined herein are made by GM alchemists at the strongest potency.)
1. Noto: 5 Heal, 5 Cure, 5 Refresh, 5 Str, 5 Dex (If you are using a combat weapon)
2. Factions: 5 Heal, 5 Cure, 5 Refresh, 5 Strength for running| 15 Heal, 15 Cure, 15 Refresh, 15 Strength if guarding sigils.
3. Guild War: 10 Heal, 10 Cure, 5 Refresh, 5 Strength, 5 Dex
c. Armor – The AoS Arms Race
i. Unfortunately, with AoS came the Arms Race. That is to say, one’s PVP ability is no longer based upon 80% skill, 20% gear, it is now 95% gear, and 5% skill. This in mind, here are a number of enhancements to consider when putting together your suit of armor and weapons. So check out the following site as to how to gauge your bonuses.
ii. http://guide.uo.com/itemproperties_0.html
iii. The following is our suggested aims for PVP mage combat in order of importance:
· All Armor Resistances 70
· Faster Cast +2 (Total)
· Faster Cast Recovery +6(Total)
· 1 Night sight Item
· Mage Armor on all non-leather pieces
· Always carry a spell channeling shield with no fast cast penalties. It provides extra protections, even if you do not have the parry skill.
· If you’re carrying a combat weapon, make sure it has swing speed increase and spell channeling.
· Mage weapons have their uses, but for PVP it can be rather frustrating to use them.
· Try to get an item that enhances potions.
IV. Programs Necessary
a. UOAssist. You can download this program at http://www.tugsoft.com/ Here are some suggestions on how to maximize the benefits of this program:
i. On the Display, do not have it display name.
ii. Have it display numeric stats, all regs, pots, and user items.
iii. Set user items to identify red pots and white pots.
iv. Set a macro to drink a white potion. Do this by hitting record, drink a white pot, then hit stop. Right click the “Use Item” slot, and convert it to use item type.
v. Use this same technique to make a macro for throwing purple potions
vi. Set up keys through UOAssist to arm and disarm shields, and a dress macro.
vii. Save what is currently being worn, (Particularly if insured) and hit the macro after you get rezzed. Also you can open your corpse and hit the macro to automatically loot your worn items from your body and put them on.
b. UO Automap. You can download this program at http://uoam.net/ Here are a few suggestions to maximize your use of this program:
i. Use this program to have one player set up a server, and others join it. Then you can track their movements.
ii. Shrink the map size and double click the screen to make the map stay on top. Have it take up a convenient side of your screen.
iii. Make sure to put all settings to “Fastest” when you first get to modify the map files.
iv. Go under the menu options to display player names as abbreviations if you have a large number of players on the map.
c. Voice Chat Program: Okay, this is the single most important part of successful group combat. Not only does it make you far more efficient (being able to issue and receive commands without typing) It’s a helluva lot more fun to hang with your group when you can hear them and they can hear you. If you go solo all the time, you don’t need this. But if you EVER, and I mean EVER plan to be good at group combat, you must have some form of voice communication. Of all those out there, let me recommend two: Roger Wilco http://rogerwilco.gamespy.com and Ventrilo http://www.ventrilo.com . Ventrilo is superior to Roger Wilco in voice quality, but as you add larger numbers of people into a Ventrilo channel, it begins to lag, whereas you can load up Roger Wilco and it doesn’t seem to have that problem.
V. COMBAT
a. Setting up Your Macros: Okay, you’ve survived the prep section. Now it’s time to cover combat. The first thing you’ll have to do is set up appropriate macros. Now, let me give you the layout I have set up for my macros, and you can modify these as they are comfortable. I feel I have all the essential spells available that I use the most on keyboard macros, and the spells I use less often are pulled off my spell book and lined up at the bottom of my UO screen.
i. Keyboard Macros: The following macros are set up like so: Key = Macro - F1=Heal Spell, F2=Drink Heal Pot, F3=Drink Cure Pot, F4=Drink Refresh Pot, F5=Explosion Spell, F6=Energy Bolt Spell, F7=Poison Spell, F8=Paralyze Spell, F9=Greater Heal Spell, F10=Cure Spell, F11=Flamestrike Spell, `=Mindblast Spell, 1=Clumsy Spell, 2=Feeblemind Spell, 3=Weaken Spell, 4=Agility Spell, 5=Cunning Spell, 6=Strength Spell, Insert= Circle Trans, Home=Dress Macro, Page Up=Organizer Agent, \= Last Spell, -(NUM)=Harm Spell, +(NUM)=Lighting Bolt Spell, Ctrl+W=Disarm, Ctrl+E=Arm Shield, Ctrl+Z=Use Tracking Skill, select menu option players(Uoassist macro), Ctrl+X= Hide Skill, Ctrl+C=Reveal Spell, Ctrl+V=Use Meditation Skill, Ctrl+A=Use Scissors (For acquiring last target), Alt+’=All Names, Delete=Bless Spell, End=Drink Strength Pot, Page Down=Throw Explosion Potion
ii. For spells you do not have on keyboard macros, pull their pictures out of your spell book and line them up at the bottom of your screen. Have spells like Protection, Reactive Armor, and Magic Reflect, along with several field spells, Magic Wall, Magic Lock, Magic Unlock, Summon Creature (For flagging in duels) Earthquake, Energy Vortex, Resurrect, Dispel, Dispel Field, Night Sight, Teleport, and other essential spells you use often, but not often enough to have on macro keys.
b. 1v1 Dueling – Fights based on pure skill alone.
Dueling has had a long and glorious history in UO. It has traditionally been the method by which skilled PVP players ranked one another according to their ability. However, with the release of AoS, dueling is all but destroyed. This is for the following reason:
PVP is no longer a skill based combat; it is an arms race.
Due to the system of upgraded jewelry, power scrolls, and armor resistances, it is practically impossible to have a fair and equal playing base. So nearly every duel now has one person with an equipment advantage over another.
So why not fight naked? Because spells are so devastating without armor, you will die in two spells flat.
Still, dueling is possible, just difficult. So here are some combat techniques and rules to keep in mind while dueling:
1. Mage Vs. Mage Offense:
It has been said by my longtime teammate in UO that a great offense is the best defense in PVP. Time after time this has proven to be true. The more powerful your initial assault, the more likely you are to win a match with another player. So, here are some attacks, defenses, and counter-attacks you can use.
Duels almost always begin with a magic wall being put up, and the two dueling parties flagged on one another (So neither can award a murder count when one wins). As soon as the wall drops, the fight begins.
I suggest you open with a quick offensive spell. Weaken is always effective. It reduced your opponent’s maximum hitpoints while interrupting their first spell if you time it just right.
Opening attacks should always be in a combination. So try some of these opening combinations:
· Weaken, Poison, Mindblast
· Weaken, Explosion, Poison
· Poison, Explosion, Poison
· Weaken, Poison, Harm
· Explosion, Explosion, Poison
Try using several different damage types on people to find their weakest resistance. Hone in on that weakness and continue to alternate between stat altering spells (I.E. Weaken, Poison), and heavy damaging spells (Mindblast, Energy Bolt, Flamestrike) The goal in mind in this sort of combat is to keep the other opponent from healing while continuing to barrage them with heavy damage.
If you are lucky, and skilled, this will usually drop your opponent. If; however, you notice they aren’t dropping, Save your mana for the next round of combat. Stop casting if your opponent is at or near full health and you are under half your mana.
Don’t be too aggressive. Watch your own hitpoints and mana so that you stay alive. I’ve lost several duels myself because I went too offensive and didn’t protect myself from excellent counter-attacks.
If you go into several rounds of exchanging spells, try not to be predictable. Try several spell combinations in different sequences.
2. Mage Vs. Mage Defense:
Remember, most duels do not allow potions. If you are strictly on defense, you will be using a few select spells: Heal, Greater Heal, Cure, and Bless
When someone poisons you, their aim will be to disrupt your casting and prevent you from curing. If this is so, let them cast their disruptive spell (like harm) and cure yourself after they drop the follow-up spell. Also, remember to cure between points of damage. Wait for your poison damage to hit you, then cast Cure. This way you will not be disrupted. Remember, timing is everything in this. Watch which spells they’re casting. If it’s poison followed by a small spell like harm, let them drop the spell. If it’s a spell like Energy bolt, quickly cast cure and cure yourself. You can usually cure poison before it even does damage to you.
You can also cast Greater Heal in the time it takes to cast and target spells like Energy Bolt, Mindblast, Flamestrike, and Explosion.
Make extensive use of lesser heals if fighting someone who is trying to disrupt your spell casting.
Have Magic Reflect up when Dueling someone mage vs. Mage, make sure you have all other protective spells down (Unless you’re strangled, in which case it’s wise to put up Protection).
3. Mage Vs. Mage Counter-Attacks
If someone gets to cast on you first, try to poison them as a defensive maneuver. It will often disrupt less-experienced duelists and allow you to take the offensive.
Try to stand next to your opponent and stick close to them while they cast offensive spells. This will often disrupt their spells with your wrestling attacks.
Try to cast a spell like weaken or Feeblemind on your opponent to disrupt their casting speed. This counter attack will often be the start of a deadly combination.
4. Mage Vs. Dexxer Strategies
The big thing to watch out for in Mage vs. Dexxers fights is special attacks. Critical Strike means you weave around your opponent until it wears off. Double-Strike means you had better heal up fast afterwards. So when fighting Dexxers, you are going to find yourself using the regular heal spell often. If you try to cast greater heal, you will often be disrupted.
On that note, you might suggest keeping the spell protection up. I advise against this. Your spellcasting speed is much better with protection down. Just have reactive armor up and try to avoid being hit. Only put up protection if you have been strangled.
Keep your Dexxer opponent constantly poisoned. If they stay poisoned, their bandaged heals will only cure the poison, not improve their hitpoints.
Use harm after poison if they’re holding close to you to attack. This will get them to back off while you cast healing or offensive spells.
Try to get several heavy damaging spells off to start, followed by a poison attack. Then alternate between poison, clumsy, weaken, harm, and your heavy offensive spells. If you time your spells correctly, this will kill your opponent.
Remember, the best defense against Dexxers is to keep moving. Don’t slow down and let them get the upper hand.
c. 1v1 Non-Duels
When solo hunting, the same attacks/counter attacks/defenses apply as when you are dueling. Just remember, odds are often not on your favor when hunting 1v1.
Use potions to your greatest advantage. Carry explosion potions and greater strength to buff up your hit points. Use heal potions in the place of healing spells so that your spells can be focused on offensive tactics.
Try to fight 1v1. If they have a healer, exit the scene. It’s pointless to try and kill a person with a healer. Very rarely will you be capable of killing them. If being attacked by more than one opponent, it will be to your advantage to have the protection spell up.
Sometimes you can time your attacks to coincide with others that aren’t exactly on your side. If this is so, switch to heavy-damage spells (Such as Flamestrike), and try to get the last shot in. This gives you rights to payment for the percentage of their insurance money.
d. Group Combat
i. Strategies
Group Combat requires, in my opinion, far more individual skill than single combat. It requires a heightened sense of awareness in both offense and defensive fighting.
Successful group combat is based one two important principles:
STAY TOGETHER
WORK TOGETHER
Now that you have a basic idea of combat from a 1v1 standpoint, I’ll go right into group combat fighting techniques.
To be successful, you must be using a voice chat program. At best, each person in your running group will have a functional sending and receiving system that allows them to both talk and listen. At the very least, you should have a team leader on voice chat while the rest of your team can listen in.
Have a healing method ready. Either have a main healer for a party, or have the party break into teams. (One person buddies up and is responsible for that person).
Call single targets and stick to that target until either the target is dead, or the leader decides to change targets.
Each person in the party is responsible for keeping themselves cured. (Potions) This way, the other party members can focus on healing only.
Do not go grey unless you are sure:
· You can escape
· Your teammates can keep you alive (By going grey themselves)
· There are few individuals around that will engage you in combat
Choose your targets wisely. Some people will drop easy. Try to pick those individuals off first.
Make sure everyone in your attack party has the same target on “Last Target” before engaging an enemy.
Have a party leader. This person decides the plan of attack, the strategies used in attacking, and the called targets.
Have a method for synchronizing your attacks. We usually count 3, 2, 1 GO! Or perhaps you can say “Watch for the mana drop.” This is necessary because most voice chap programs have a latency lag. This timing technique ensures your attacks land at the same time.
Try to keep your team between 2-6 individuals. 4 members seems to be the ideal number for balance and order. Having too many causes the fighting to become chaotic, and having too few results in not dishing out enough damage.
Spell attacks for Group PvP are geared more towards overwhelming damage in the shortest time possible. Try to use come of the following combinations:
· Explosion/Flamestrike
· Explosion/Mindblast
· Mindblast/Pain Spike
· Mindblast/Poison
· Explosion/Poison
· Explosion/Energy Bolt
· Explosion/Curse
· Mindblast/Curse
· Explosion/Strangle
Tailor your attacks from there based on what energy type did the most damage and what your team leader says.
Remember: Stay together. Have at least one person in your party with tracking. Track your target before your initial attack. If they start running, they won’t be able to hide.
If your target is hiding:
I. Use Wither or Poison Field to Reveal
II. Sometimes you can get away with typing out Wis Quas – Reveal. This will fake them out into thinking you’ve actually precast a reveal spell while you’ve actually an attack spell up.
If your target is house hiding, there are several methods available to kill them:
I. Sick a revenant on them
II. Prepare a heavy assault for when they peek out
III. Have one person block access to the house with energy field spells
IV. Drop poison fields inside of the house
V. Lure individuals out by leaving one person as bait
VI. Leave, incognito, change clothes, and return. This often gets a target to come out.
Always carry bolas. If you are dismounted, you can return the favor. (Also have an “all follow me” macro ready).
Test your target’s spell resist by casting spells like Paralyze or Mana Vampire. If they have low resist, you can use these spells to your advantage.
In fights where the odds are even, it may be to your advantage to have protection up.
ii. Team Rules
Have a set of “Team Rules” or codes of conduct you don’t break regarding:
- Number of people you will engage
- Horse Killing
- Talking in Channel
- Sticking Together
- Tactics
- Places to avoid
- Smack-Talking
- Revenge
- Dropping off loot
Always remember: Revenge is a dish best served cold. You generally perform better when you’re not angry.
e. Evading the Gank
This section is paramount. Evade the gank, and you have embarrassed your enemy and proven how much they suck.
· Never allow yourself to be attacked by more than 2 people while sieging house hiders.
· Have at least 10 cure potions available. Use them much.
· Know, at all times, the shortest distance to: A guard zone, friendly house, server line, group of allies.
· Try to keep running in straight lines. If you zig zag, you’ll lose separation distance while trying to turn.
· Remember, it is easier to hide and inviz yourself behind buildings
· Pay close attention to obstacles
· Make extreme use of lesser heals
· Keep your teammates healed. Nobody should be attacking in a gank scenario.
· Remember: Kick some ass and run like hell, you’ll live to fight again in Fel.
f. Law of the Loot
This is a method of playing. It is an ideology that believes looting your opponent means you have defeated them, and you won. All the smack-talking about skill this and gank that doesn’t matter, the end result is that you have their loot, they’re dead, you’re alive, and if they paid out the nose in insurance, you got paid.
Several things to keep in mind:
· Law of Loot says you do not loot bodies of the fallen until all outside threats are removed or chased off.
· If someone loots your kill, and they flag grey doing so, you must kill them and loot them as well, by law of the loot.
· Dry loot corpses of smack-talkers
· Drop off loot you gather often so you aren’t carrying much should you die.
· If you loot someone’s body, you win
· Never die retrieving loot
· If you die and loot an opponent, and he kills you but loots less, you’ve still won by law of loot advantage.
g. Murder Counts
Be careful of murder counts. People love to give them to you. To prevent this, never cast a delayed spell on a grey you plan to attack. Always hit them with an instant spell like harm or weaken.
Don’t attack blues you think are thieves until you are certain by performing a forensics check. Always leave a few points of skill available for making forensics checks. Even if forensics is at 0, you know the person is a thief if you get a gain in skill by using forensics on them.
Don’t giver murder counts to Reds. That’s what they want. However, ALWAYS give murder counts to blues.
VI. Conclusion
Well folks, that about sums it up. If you have any suggestions for this guide, my ICQ # is 104045713. I’ll always add in your name and your contribution section.
Special thanks for helping me make this guide:
Boss, (AKA Snake-Eyes) Who’s been my partner in making people quit UO for over two years.
Malicious Rising, One of my loyal guild mates until the end.
Momma’s Boy – You know who you are, and you know I owned your butt in two spells, yet you’re still #1 with me! *Flips James off*
All the teammates I’ve had in AoY aka PSR aka D|E on Lake Superior through the years.
The Shadowlords – For teaching me to stick in there even if I get my butt ganked nightly
Team Redbud – For taking us in and not making us Newbs
Talanithus – For giving me the idea of writing this stupidly huge guide.
All of my opponents in Fel – If it weren’t for you dying, I wouldn’t look as good as I do. Thanks for having less skill than me!
- Relious Shade, Lake Superior Shard, Just D|E!
You can check out this faq and other interesting things as well as send uorehab new ideas at www.uorehab.com