Question from returning player

[enderz]

Hello all, havent been around for over 3 years. I read that old accounts were reactivated while the billing department etc etc.

Gotta say I missed loggin back onto my tamer, checkin my stables n bank.

House fell but o well.

Have just a few questions if anyone could help.

Main thing I like to do is tame n train top end pets. Anything new since the Cu sidhe or G dragon I should be aware of to tame etc?

When I used to play, Blood elementals, Balrons dropped decent loot w/ my luck suit... not so much i noticed lately... is there new monsters w/ better loot tables since SA?

Also I haven't upgraded since Mondains Legacy.... should I be upgrading & if so do I need the enchance client as well then?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Tazar]

Dread Warhorses and Bane Dragons both came out - but they were spawning for a limited time only and no longer spawn.

There is a lot of good content in the Stygian Abyss Expansion - and more in High Seas. The Enhanced Client is not required for any of them - but I do recommend that you give it a try. There are a lot of great features - especially if you use Pinco's User-Interface.

 

[pgib]

The king is still the Greater Dragon. In fact there are no new high end pets.

The greatest addition in taming land are the bouras (stygian abyss expansion). They come in three forms, ruddy, lowland and high plains.

The best are lowlands because they can be controlled with 0 taming-lore, they have up to 607 hit points, manageable resists and have pack instinct (you can have up to 2 lowlands).

They hit like a train and with a lot of healing they can take down a greater dragon.

There is also a small cutie, the skree, that originally - or so i read - was designed to be a powerful spellcaster but then lost the summoning ability and became the reason why the Reptalon doesn't suck anymore: because the skree is worse and takes the same amount of slots.

There are a couple of other low-end tamables (raptors and wolf spiders) that are worth a try but aren't really good for anything - especially if we take in consideration the environment where they live, with things that have thousands of hit points and do pretty much unsustainable amount of damage to any pet and tamer.

Dread warhorses and bane dragons are bank sitting pets (edit: or maybe a pvp thing, i don't know, i don't pvp), a good old regular dragon still gnaws them happily.

Try the new almost-3D client, it is far from being perfect but it has some nice features.

If you decide to stay in i suggest you to upgrade to Stygian Abyss. The High Seas... well i don't know, i'm not into that pirate sort of things but if you like it, why not.

 

[Woodsman]

There are a lot of great features - especially if you use Pinco's User-Interface.

Although Llewen tends to clutter his interface up more than the majority of us, you can see a lot of the new icons Pinco has been working on in action here:

http://vboards.stratics.com/uo-enha.../229011-screen-shots-ec-mods.html#post1998263

I also really suggest the Stygian Abyss upgrade. It's $19.99 for upgrades and occasionally goes on sale, but well worth it.

 

[enderz]

Hey thanks all. Will prolly try the stygian abyss xpac.

What do you all hunt these days with luck? Is it still balrons n bloods after all this time?

 

[pgib]

Luck has a different use, at least from what i could experience (i'm a returning too).

With a new skill, named imbuing, you can add magical properties to items (like lower reagent cost, faster casting and so on).

The resources used by this new skill are gems - both commons and rare, like diamonds or blue diamonds - and things you can get by consuming other magical items - like the ones you find as loot on monsters.

So you basically take the loot of the monsters and consume it to make resources for imbuing (magical residue, enchanted essence and relic fragments).

With those resources and some special ingredients that you can (also) find as loot on creatures of the stygian abyss dungeon (requires the stygian abyss expansion) you create your "uber" equipment.

Because the amount and strenght of the basic elements for imbuing that you can unravel from looted items depends on the strenght of the properties of those items, hunting with luck grants you more basic resources (the items you find have higher intensity properties).

What to hunt. Well, we're not short of creatures to take down of course. In a effort vs loot scale one of the best new entry is probably the undead gargoyle in the tomb of kings (ter mur land): they go down so quickly that you might thing they are more dead than undead and have a lot of strong items that good for unraveling.

Bedlam named monsters are probably still the best choice for money and loot amount.

The spirit dungeon is a desert these days. I still go there to test the "balron equivalence" of the new greater dragons i tame or to seek for an occasional paragon balron but it isn't anymore the crowded place it used to be.

 

[MalagAste]

Well welcome back. I think the others summed up taming pretty well.

I mean raptors and skree and the wolf spider are interesting as pets but on a scale of usefulness they fall very short. If the Raptor retained it's summon ability it might be great for PvP or something but it doesn't.....

The wolf spider while better than a giant spider or something isn't that great either at much.

The Skree while certainly cute is most DEFINITELY NOT worth 4 control slots. It would be Ok as a 3 slot pet but seriously underpowered. As a 3 slot with perhaps a Bake it might be decent.

As for the EC I use it everyday. I'll never ever go back to 2d unless they force me. I recommend using and downloading Pinco's UI from the EC Beta forum on this website if you are going to seriously test the EC and it's abilities. To me the EC is FAR superior to 2d with or without UO Assist.

As for the EC graphics most are livable except the male paperdoll.... and I tend to try to ignore that.

 

[Nine Dark Moons]

the best new tamer related content imo is the ability to set up a vendor stall in new magincia and sell your high end pets for lots of gold. i don't sell but i have been buying pets and it's awesome for people like me that suck at taming. i don't know what is required in order to set up a pet vendor stall (i *think* one of the newest mini upgrades - "rustic" maybe?) but it would be an easy way for you to accrue some gold and take advantage of your high end taming skills

 

[georgemarvin2001]

I agree with most of the other posters. Stygian Abyss is great. Best expansion since ML. Imbuing is great. High Seas...meh. Maybe if it goes on sale for $1.99 or something, or if it included Stygian Abyss, for the same price as Stygian Abyss. I never was much of a fisherman or pirate. Nothing in it for tamers like you; pets and boats aren't exactly optimal.

Definitely check out the bazaar in Magincia to sell your high-end tames without having to sit in front of Luna stables all day; you bid on a stall; you have to make sure you're still the high bidder every 2 weeks, or somebody else will outbid you and take it over.

 

[Zomeguy]

Does either of High Seas Booster Pack or Stygian Abyss Upgrade Account Code include any gametime?
Thanks all.

 

[Tazar]

The Upgrade Codes do not include game time.

 

[Zomeguy]

Thanks.