[General] Need Help with a SW/Mage suit w/Artis

[Chaos Draconix]

Hi there, I have only been back to UO a few months now, and I have done okay getting my sampire, bard and tamer suit together, but I seem to be brain farting the best options for my mage suit.

Some arti's I already have and spent LOTS of gold in the past on that I would like to see in the suit are:

Hat of the Magi (blessed) - [int bonus 8, mana regen 4, sdi 10] 0/5/9/20/20
Pendant of the Magi - [int bonus 10, mana regen 3, sdi 5, lmc 10, lrc 30]
Ornament of the Magician (blessed)* - [FCR 3, FC 2, LMC 10, LRC 20] 0/0/0/0/15
Crystalline Ring - [Magery +20, Focus +20, HP Regen 5, Mana Regen 3, SDI 20]
Inquisitor's Resolution (blessed)* - [FCR 3, LMC 8] 5/3/22/3/17

These items along with Totem of the Void and my Scrapper's give me 40 LMC, 63 LRC and 60 SDI 3/7 casting
I also have the Lieutenant of the Royal Brit Guard sash on my sampire I can switch over, I think it has 10 more LRC.

Currently my skills are:

120 meditation
120 spellweaving
105 magery (120 cap, maxed with Crystalline Ring)
115 evaluating intelligence
100 inscription
101 resisting spells

I am open to any and all suggestions for a good set of pieces to craft/purchase to fill the tunic, sleeves and legs slots. I would be okay with sacrificing "some" of the artifact pieces if necessary.

I know this might not be the proper forum, but if anyone had any suggestions for a MONSTER casting PvM spec using the skills I have or training new ones I would love to hear any suggestions!






*I spent quite a bit of gold on the item bless deeds for these 2 items several years ago so I would really like to incorporate these pieces into my suit.

 

[hamburger]

Hi there! Don't want to change your template or style, but just some questions/comments:

1) For mage PVM, SDI can more than compensates for inscription. +5% casting focus from scribe is neglible in PVM. I suggest dropping inscription for more skill points.

2) Can you get your hands on a 120 eval scroll?

3) What are you fighting? More or less I think its 120 resist or 0. Also sometimes in PVM you will probably run protection (champ spawns) which will drop your resist far below 120 anyway (doubt you want to have +skill items to get to 120 resist protection). For the most part, 120 resist in PVM can be replicated by carrying the followoing items. Trapped box to break paralyze. Orange petals for low level poisons. If you can run with a free hand, heal pots and cure pots can further assist in compensating for lack of resist. The only problem is mana drain, but it is only temporary (just off screen), plus your mana regeneration will be substantial. Also you with level 6 focus, your spellweaving buffs of attunement and gift of renewal will materially increase your survivability.

4) If you were to part with inscribe and resist, you can add necromancy and spirit speak. Your template might look like the following with and without items:

100 mage / 120 after crystalline
120 eval
120 med
100 necro (100% cast on wither)
120 spirit speak
120 spellweaving
40 focus/ 60 after crystalline (or whatever you want)

5) You should do some research on necromancy and spirit speak. Wither is a great area spell and relatively fast cast. Corpse skin is a great debuff. Evil omen is nasty. Word of deathing with wraith form on high mana bosses is a sight to behold as it leeches back more mana than expended. If the target runs out of mana, your lmc, med and focus, and mana regen will carry you through to the end. Maybe go into tree form for more SDI at this point.

6) I would try to make your suit not dependent on a scrappers compendium (unless you have a full set of slayer scrappers!). There are instances where you will want to switch spellbooks to super or specific slayers to amplify damage well in excess of what the 25 sdi on a scrappers can provide (e.g. dragon slayer for Riktor, fallen mystic spellbook for Oaks, repond for Barracoon, spider for Navrey). Once you and your party get the boss low, you will switch to the scrapper (or higher sdi spellbook i.e. one of the invasion spellbooks with 30 sdi) to amplify your word of death as slayers don't increase word of death damage.

7) If I were to make the assumption you want more offense rather than defense, I would suggest adding the following items to your suit. The lt guard sash, conjurer's garb (or cloak of death, your call incremental sdi vs mr), tangle, +4 int boots, ranger's cloak of augmentation, mana phasing orb with +1mr/sdi, protector of the battle mage, enchanted kep woven leggings.

8) Regarding your artifacts, I know that it is hard to drop some hard earned items but I think building your template around suboptimal pieces will hold you back. I suggest that you drop the hat of the magic for crown of arcane temperment. I suggest you drop the inquisitors resolution for replica bracers of alchemcial devestation. I suggest you drop the pendant of the magi.

9) Assuming that you have equipped all of the items above, you should have 3 slots left (excluding earrings of prtoection). Gorget, gloves and shield. In order to get all 70s and max out all required mods, between these 3 pieces you will need the following mininum total. 45 lrc (one piece will have to be reforged to 25)/2 mods used. 9 lmc/2 mods used (again there is an opportunity to tweak if you go with shadow cloak of rejuvination instead of rangers cloak so you only need 8 lmc and only use 1 mod at the cost of 3 sdi - your call). 35 physical resist, 19 fire, 36 cold, 34 poison, 18 energy (23 if you are elf and want 75). This is very doable if you can get in touch with a competent crafter that knows how to reforge, imbue and enhance correctly. Shields can be the wild card as there are some sick shields out with with spell channelling no cast penalty, MR, LMC, soul charge, etc. Technically, a compentent crafter could potentially squeeze another 5 MR and/or more mana increase on top of the necessary totals with very little effort. The cost will be primarly the cost of the kits to roll a 25 lrc base piece, forged metal tool for 100% enhance, and minimal imbuing ingredients.

10) When it's all said and done your suit should have the following PVM totals at least depending on how much gold you want to spend on #9 above.

2/6 casting
49 sdi
9 casting focus
100 lrc
40 lmc
20+ mr
5 hpr, 10 dci, 5ssi (not that it matters, lol)
+19 intelligence
5 hpi
+16 mana increase
70/70/70/70/70 or 75

11) For some 49 SDI is too low. Some want more survability so they run a -mage wep for melee defense and cap out hit point increase (swap out tangle for crimson and MPO for sliter). There are many variations so pick and choose what works for your specific style. Separately there is a way to do even better with the above framework but at the expense of a good amount of gold and time - just wanted to give you the "easy" setup. Happy hunting!

 

[Basara]

If you stay with non-crafted items

Your current resists are 5/8/31/23/52

You might consider the Enchanted Kelp-woven Leggings (gotten through fishing) and the Protector of the Battle Mage tunic (forget what drops that)

Combined, the two are
Casting Focus 4+3 = CF 7%
Mana Regen 2+2 = MR 4
SDI 8+5 = SDI 13%
LMC 8%
LRC 15 + 10 = LRC 25%
Mana Increase 8
HP Increase 5
and combined resists of 15/29/22/16/22

which would put your total resists to 20/37/53/39/74 and 88% LRC

Personally, I'd lose the Inquis (max FCR isn't all that vital, and you replace the 8 LMC on it from the above items), and replace it with something reforged for resists, and reforge sleeves for resists, and try to get the remaining 12% LRC from somewhere.


Here's my mage's personal suit

70 (even with protection cast)/70/69/69/67
FC/FCR 3/7
LRC 110%
SDI 69%
LMC 40%+
DCI 23%

Components
Protector of the Battle Mage
Enchanted Kelp Woven Leggings
(reforged) Arcane Leather Sleeves of Defense
(reforged) Fortified Leather Gloves of Aegis
Pendant of the Magi
Kasa of the Raj-in
Ornament of the Magician
(imbued) ring (+15 Mysticism, 49 luck, 11 SDI, FCR 3, and 15% Physical for when I need to cast protection)
(reforged) Arcane Buckler of Fortune
Totem of the Void
Lieutenant's sash
Boots of the Crystal Hydra
Conjurer's Garb
Water Elemental Slayer Scrappers Compendium (Magery +11 (but I have 120 natural), the FC and FCR are usually out of play from protection, and I only need 1% of the 10% LMC to hit cap)

My small resist deficiencies would go away if I can find a forged metal tool to buy, as my shield and the reforged leather parts have never been enhanced.

My skills are
120 Eval
120 Magery
105(120 with ring) Mysticism
120 Focus
100 Inscription
120 Fishing
35 Med