Spellsongs while in a form?

[Promyvion]

Can spellsongs be used while in a form like Stone Form or Horrific Beast?

 

[Tuan]

Yes, I believe so, given that they're like being under the effect of a spell. I know I saw a video of someone in the ninja form with +HPR, and also under the effects of the bard song that regen's HP getting a mana dump from a maxxed out mage, and surviving without issue.

 

[Promyvion]

That's cool I haven't really played UO since T2A and have been messing around on it recently... The game has changed a lot and there's a lot to learn so it's been pretty overwhelming. The template that I've been working on:

Necromancy - Only using this for Horrific Beast, so this can be 80 for 100% chance or even lower honestly.
Focus
Parry - I'm using a Kryss and a Shield, though it appears that shields are different now so not sure
Poisoning - Is parasitic poison good?
Fencing
Tactics
Anatomy

Poisoning was something I always wanted to do in UO but never did so I'm sort of set on using that. I was thinking of dropping Focus/Anatomy for Music and something else. I was originally thinking Discordance but I see that both Peacemaking and Provocation can provide a form of HPR.

I tend not to play cookie cutter or popular builds, and I realize my template is probably weak. From the bit I've read it seems to be a requirement to take either Chivalry or Bushido if you're a melee/dexxer and I don't like that. I've also noticed people saying you can get over 800 skill points so maybe I can fit another skill in there eventually.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

That's cool I haven't really played UO since T2A and have been messing around on it recently... The game has changed a lot and there's a lot to learn so it's been pretty overwhelming. The template that I've been working on:

Necromancy - Only using this for Horrific Beast, so this can be 80 for 100% chance or even lower honestly.
Focus
Parry - I'm using a Kryss and a Shield, though it appears that shields are different now so not sure
Poisoning - Is parasitic poison good?
Fencing
Tactics
Anatomy

Poisoning was something I always wanted to do in UO but never did so I'm sort of set on using that. I was thinking of dropping Focus/Anatomy for Music and something else. I was originally thinking Discordance but I see that both Peacemaking and Provocation can provide a form of HPR.

I tend not to play cookie cutter or popular builds, and I realize my template is probably weak. From the bit I've read it seems to be a requirement to take either Chivalry or Bushido if you're a melee/dexxer and I don't like that. I've also noticed people saying you can get over 800 skill points so maybe I can fit another skill in there eventually.

Spellsongs can be used in any form.

I would recommend first planing your weapon. The Kryss seems the best choice as you'll have Infecting Strike/Armour Ignore. You may also want Leafblades for Feint. I also like the Pike.

I wouldn't use Parry or Focus (not unless you plan on having Mysticism/Focus). Mysticism/Focus isn't a terrible idea, it gives you tons of Healing options, a powerful summon and complete immunity to poison (which I find an interesting thought to be a poisoner who is immune), plus Fencing would go great with Stone From due to it's swing speed penalty, and Fencing being the fastest of the weapon classes.

I would recommend having 120 Fencing, 80 Poisoning, 100 Necro, 100 Spirit Speak, 90+ Tactics... which would leave you plenty more options to play with. The reason for full Necro, is as you said without Bushido/Chivalry there are some fights you won't do much damage in. With full Necro you can use Curse Weapon (you heal 50% of the damage you do), and Corpse Skin, Corpse Skin will lower the targets fire/poison resist by 15 (while making phys/cold go up 10) making your poison ticks do more damage, and you too if you use only 100% poison weapons. A good deal of monsters have very high poison resist so you will also need a plan b. But most Dragons/Demons/Repond are weak to poison. Also with Necro there's a dozen other useful things you can do with it.

I would 110% go with Discord if you can fit it in. You will get hit less, and hit more, and you can use the mastery's for further debuffs and rather large damage on the target. The mana upkeep cost should be no issue with Hit Mana Leech or Wraith Form as options.

Use Parasitic or Deadly. If you take Necro and SS you can also use Evil Omen to increase the level of poison that you apply.

I wish more people thought outside the box like you, or even realised they were in one lol.

 

[Promyvion]

Still leveling my skills, but I swapped Parry/Anatomy/Focus for Music/Disco/Provo. So atm I'm
100 Music
96.4 Fencing
93.9 Tactics
79.8 Poisoning
73.7 Provocation
54.5 Necromancy
43.9 Discordance
Hope I don't miss Anatomy too much, although Provo is a heck of a lot more offense AND defense than Anatomy could ever dream of being... I also still have the option of using Mysticism and using Stone Form instead of Horrific Beast, I really love the regen from beast though. I'm just worried about the regen not being as good later on. Still on the fence about Spirit Speak - can it fail or does it work every time? Also I should've mentioned I plan on staying in form full-time. Lastly, does Necromancy work like Magery and casting from a scroll requires Magery skill 2 circles lower?

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Still leveling my skills, but I swapped Parry/Anatomy/Focus for Music/Disco/Provo. So atm I'm
100 Music
96.4 Fencing
93.9 Tactics
79.8 Poisoning
73.7 Provocation
54.5 Necromancy
43.9 Discordance
Hope I don't miss Anatomy too much, although Provo is a heck of a lot more offense AND defense than Anatomy could ever dream of being... I also still have the option of using Mysticism and using Stone Form instead of Horrific Beast, I really love the regen from beast though. I'm just worried about the regen not being as good later on. Still on the fence about Spirit Speak - can it fail or does it work every time? Also I should've mentioned I plan on staying in form full-time. Lastly, does Necromancy work like Magery and casting from a scroll requires Magery skill 2 circles lower?

Horrific Beast is 20 HPR, you can actually get the same amount from being human (2) and equipment (18). It gives 2 hp every second and isn't really enough to survive on in a lot of situations. By comparison 120 Ninjitsu and Cat/Dog Form gives 40 HPR, and is very good especially if you add on the additional 20 from human/equip. Plus you get Mirror Images which make you very hard to hit.

Spirit Speak as a stand alone skill for healing is interruptible, but mana free when near a corpse, the main point of it is if you intend to use spells other than forms. It works as a modifier for the spells in a similar way to how Eval works for Magery.

You currently have no way to cure other than potions, the healing from the Prov mastery will be blocked by poison.

I don't know if casting from a scroll gives you a 2 circle bonus like Magery, but I would assume so.

Poisoning doesn't need to be higher than 80.

You will get great damage from Discord masteries, don't forget you can use slayer instruments and change the damage type, for example vs a White Wyrm, a Reptile/Dragon Slayer instrument, and set the mastery book to fire damage (it's weakest resist) will give the most damage.

 

[Tuan]

You currently have no way to cure other than potions, the healing from the Prov mastery will be blocked by poison.

I'm not so sure this is correct unless this has changed in the last month. Last time I was using the Provo mastery was with a 2ndary 4x bard while my meleer was beating on Dreadhorn, and he was getting healed from the provo mastery for sure. In fact, that was part of the point since you spend most of the battle against DH under LP, I never even bothered to cure it with the provo mastery.

 

[Promyvion]

That's interesting to know. Also I've been wondering, it seems like there might be a poison resist check for every tick? It seems like when I fail to poison my weapon and poison myself, sometimes it'll just tick once and then say I resist the effects of the poison and it is gone. I haven't done any real combat yet since I've mostly just been leveling my skills, so I don't know if this is exclusive to accidental self poisoning or does it work like that with any poison? Or am I just trippin? lol

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

That's interesting to know. Also I've been wondering, it seems like there might be a poison resist check for every tick? It seems like when I fail to poison my weapon and poison myself, sometimes it'll just tick once and then say I resist the effects of the poison and it is gone. I haven't done any real combat yet since I've mostly just been leveling my skills, so I don't know if this is exclusive to accidental self poisoning or does it work like that with any poison? Or am I just trippin? lol

It's a result of having the Poisoning skill.

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

I'm not so sure this is correct unless this has changed in the last month. Last time I was using the Provo mastery was with a 2ndary 4x bard while my meleer was beating on Dreadhorn, and he was getting healed from the provo mastery for sure. In fact, that was part of the point since you spend most of the battle against DH under LP, I never even bothered to cure it with the provo mastery.

Well, I just logged in, have a 4x, Mindblasted myself down to half hp, started the Prov healing mastery, got healed, poisoned myself and didn't get healed again until I cured it.

 

[Tuan]

Hmm, interesting. I wonder if it is different for healing others when they're poisoned... I guess one of us can test this with 2 accounts pretty easily too.

 

[Logrus]

Invigorate (Provo Spell Song) Heal effect acts like a regular heal spell, and will not heal you while poisoned. It also will not provide resistance to poison effects.

 

[Promyvion]

I have acquired the Provocation spellsongs and can confirm that you in fact CANNOT cast them while in Horrific Beast. You can cast it before entering the form and it will stay on. Pretty disappointing, but hopefully I can work around it. At the very least, I can already keep Inspire on without running out of mana.

 

[Tuan]

Well, I stand corrected. I must have just been seeing a placebo effect.

 

[Promyvion]

A couple of interesting tidbits:
-At first it didn't seem like casting Necromancy from a scroll worked like casting from a Magery scroll.. At 58 Necro I seemingly could not cast Lich Form from a scroll. A couple days later I decided to try again with 60 Necro and it took about 50 casts before it finally succeeded, heh. (minimum requirement for Lich Form is 70 skill)
-My mana regen was breaking even with Invigorate up while in Lich Form.
-However, after several minutes I suddenly got the message "You can't maintain your special form anymore." I wonder if it's because it was cast from a scroll?
-Horrific Beast tooltip specifically says you can cast no spells other than other transformation spells, that's why I couldn't cast spellsongs while in it. You can cast spellsongs while in every other form it seems.
-Parasitic Poison is amazing O_O
-Hopefully soon I'll stop testing stuff and leveling skills and actually play the game LOL

 

[Tuan]

The spell forms generally require you to have that much skill on you, whether real or item enhanced, to maintain the form. It wasn't always this way... used to be you could just wear enough +skill items to get to 99, cast Vamp Embrace, and take the items off.

They decided this was too powerful, and that was probably a decade ago. By my count, you can (somewhat easily) get +85 necro on items (20 each ring/bracelet, 20 midnight bracers, 10 Ossian grimore, 5 bloodwood spirit, 10 mark of travesty). If you could maintain VE for only 14 skill points, that'd be silly.

Horrific beast prevents ALL spells while in form - unless you're a focused necromancer, which I believe means no more than 30 points in any other casting discipline.

I'm curious as to what exactly Parasitic Poison does?

 

[Promyvion]

I had just gotten my lumberjacking up to GM so I could farm parasitic plants, was only able to make 1 pot so I didn't get to test it much, but from what I can tell... It is deadly poison (level 4) which can upgrade to lethal poison (level 5), and unless I'm wrong, heals you for 100% of the poison damage done to the target each tick as long as you are only 1 tile away from that target.

This is going to become a very expensive/time consuming habit, lol.