Template Dilemma

[Ceridwen]

I'm totally lost right now, tried thinking about it on my own, and realised my best bet is to ask here for suggestions and pro/cons.
Sorry if my wording is a bit strange at times, my native language isn't English, so I sometimes fail at finding the right words to express myself. *blushes* It's also a bit longer, because I think it might help explain my thoughts so far (it could even be longer, since I've been throwing ideas around for a bit).

My main character is a simple mage tamer.
120 Mage/Eval/Medi/Taming/Lore/Vet - Skillcap: 720
(well ok, taming isn't legendary yet, since I prefer hunting and playing the game to working on it... ^^)

The mage skills were important for me in the beginning, to help me survive, especially when my taming was still lower. Nowadays though, I can really let my pets fight for me and I've started thinking about moving on to a more... um, "complex"? template, to enhance my hunting/playing experience.

I've seen various templates, and it seems that the barding skills would best suit me.
Necrotamer for example sounds awesome (just mentioning it because one of the most recent threads mentions them and I think it sounds great when you're good at it), and I'm sure I could get together a decent suit for it, but I'm horrible at assessing a situation and get lost easily when there's a lot going on...

To put it simply: I am known for dying easily.
Yesterday for example I was hunting with my usual group and I told them about my thoughts, and that I am considering if I should drop my luck/lrc suit (doesn't matter anyway if I'm not topdamager) and take up one with mr/lmc/lrc (for when I have to use Greater Heal on my pets) and resists (so I don't die quite as fast). The reaction was them laughing, telling me "Ceri, that doesn't matter in your case anyway. Resists won't help someone like you die less."
(yeah, that stings sometimes, although I know they're telling the truth)

So basically, I am looking for a way to reduce my death rate somehow, while also being able to kill well.
I've narrowed it down to add Peacemaking or Disco, but can't decide which one. I can soulstone both skills over, so training isn't something I'm worried about.
Idealy, I would love to have both skills in my template. But I don't really see how it could work, unless I used items - and I'm reluctant to using too many +skill items, especially with the taming skills (although I have no problem using jewelry for the stable slots) and also in case I'd want to wear my simple luck/lrc armour.

With my "playstyle" and how I handle situations (or fail at doing so), I think Peacemaking might be the better choice (and seeing more points for chosing that while writing this), but I'm really torn because Disco would be great to help fight against "biggies" (Peerless, Doom, Champs...).

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and I'm also open to other suggestions. I also don't mind more expensive suggestions (be it skillscrolls or armour).

Oh, and I might add: I've already tried Spellweaving, and it's just not a skill I can grasp or like, even though it's also a nice skill to have as a tamer.

EDIT:
Great, writing this all out helped after all... Currently trying to figure out how I can fit both peace and disco into my template. One cramped template over all characters so far doesn't seem as wrong to me after thinking about it.

 

[CroMag1980]

So basically, I am looking for a way to reduce my death rate somehow, while also being able to kill well.

Screw luck, that's all I'll say.

Run with protection on and just heal through stuff or invis don't forget the range of things you can do with magery - teleporting/fielding healing travel ressing curing invis - you might quickly pine for magery again if you drop it.

 

[Green Meanie]

ok this probly wont help your delima. But i have a bush swords chiv tamer that is consistanly top damage dealer. The worst part about it is i cant rez pets becouse no vet and having to get 1 tile away to heal my pets. With 4/6 chiv you can dump alot more hps per second into your pet than you ever could with just magery. Disco tamers are a very good soloing and group choice tamer though and ive seen them get some suprising things accomplished.

Some things to consider while tighting down your template

90 vet will never fail to applie a bandage beyond that you just increase ur chance to cure poison and rez by a small amount.
106 magery will never fizzle 7th and below spells most of 8th are summons and you have a pet so what do you care about them and rez witch normaly is ok if you fizzle a time or two. 110 taming and 110 animal lore will give you 100% chance to controll every tamable in game but the dread mare and that your still at like 96% conrtoll chance.

 

[Wenchkin]

If survivability is important to you, I'd suggest that you may find stealth and hiding are more suitable. Peace can work out ok, but IMO hide and stealth are better.

To use peace as a safety button requires 120/120 music and peace and you'll still find ill-timed failures creep in if you target peace. Area peace doesn't last long either.

Hide and stealth require a skill check, and won't work well up close with aggro'd mobs, but you don't need the high skill investment or an instrument. Once you learn how to hide and stealth effectively there's little you'll die to either. No need for powerscrolls, and I found it quick and easy to train up while I was out hunting.

For example, if your pet is a mount you can hide, mount it when it's on low health and run it and yourself to a quiet spot to vet up. Likewise if someone drags spawn to you, you can protect yourself for however long you need by using hiding. Being able to stealth into the middle of a pet spawn to lore and then being able to herd the pet to a quiet spot for taming is very useful.

This is my stealther's template, though I'd suggest you might want to take some of the taming skill points and put them into stealth skill instead, I just trained my stealth up after taming skills and I didn't want to drop down from 120

120 taming
120 lore
120 vet
100 magery
100 eval or herding (soulstone swaps)
100 hiding
60 stealth

I use herding on her more than eval, but it's useful if I'm para-taming cu sidhe or likely to do any PvP at a Fel champ spawn etc.

I wouldn't say the template does as much damage as some of the hybrids, or my disco tamer, but that's why I have multiple tamers

Wenchy

 

[weins201]

I have a very nice suit with high resist, MR, LRC. I can run in pro and heal, invis, tele, away from most targets that attack me. I can stay away long enough to let pet take the brunt of it then move back in and heal / vet.

Now if oyu want to really get fancy you can drop Eval as it really isnt needed it pet is doing all the work and with High MR you can drop med.

Now oyu have 240 points to play with the big question is what to do with them.

SW for gift of renewal is very nice and WOD for end stat monster killing.

Barding with pets Disco is AWSOME but then you need music and Disco so that can eat up your 240 points right there.

You can ad Necro but for a tamer not in PvP i dont think its very worthwhile

Now you can do very well with ALOT of items also

I have another char I run with who is;
Real (Actual)
113 (113) SW
110 (110) Vet
105 (120) Lore
105 (105)Eval
102 (120) Tame
95 (110) mage
90 (90) Med

I have absolutly no problem Soloing anything I can even take on paragon Greatr Dragons and survive as long as they are alone.

As you can see this is prety item intensive thow.

With Imbuing coming out and the ability to selectivly pic skills/stats on itmes tweaked templates will be easier.

But you can definatly dump the luck suit for a high resist high MR suit and stick with your true legendary tamer, i just wish oyu could actually get some bonus for actual skills over tweaked skills.

 

[Samaira]

I pretty much run Wenchy's stealth tamer template, but with med instead of eval and shadow dancers to boost the stealth to GM (Lore and Vet are only at 110). I find it very, very difficult to be effective playing any other template these days, as the survivability of a stealth tamer is unbelievable. They make a fantastic team char, keep yourself at Knight of Sacrifice and you become the one everyone runs to when peerless/doom/spawns go horribly wrong. No eval means you pretty much only have Mindblast for damage beyond your pets, but in the Shadowlord Event, I very rarely left without at least one cloak, every time, often three from three (and my GD isn't that good lol). I used to die a lot, like the OP, and have found this combo means it's only my own stupidity or bad lag that gets me killed these days

 

[kaio]

You really arent making it easy on youreself. Making a good survival suit with 100 lrc, lmc, dci, and top luck. just issent easy unless you have zillions of gold to play with.
As alot have mentioned here, get rid of the luck suit (use it when hunting solo, most do)

Only a tamer, that spends most of his/her time taming pets, really benefits from having 120 taming/lore real.

You can build a fairly cheap melisande group killer (and yes you will do alot of dammage)
Wraith form, corpse skin, explo fs. leech mana, heal pet (with magery)..you get the picture. (u will fail fs from time to time 100% chance is 110 magery)

On top of my head it goes like this.
110 tame (assuming u want a GD)
110 lore
070 vet (slap on some juwels with vet, when u need to res youre pet )
85 magery (use thome for gm magery)
90 ss (gm blood spirit)
55 necro (60 with blood spirit
100 eval
100 medi.
No juwels used, tweak it as needed.
Use 100% lrc, suit with high resist, thats basically all u need, and some fc/fcr

Having disco is nice, but it dossent benefit you directly...coz everyone is making more dammage when a monster is discorded. Let someone else do the discoing in the group you are in.

You can also get away with 0 vet, but then u need someone else who has it, incase youre pet dies.

 

[Ceridwen]

Thanks for the input!

The stealth tamer sounds nice - lucky me I have two tamers, sooo I can do both the bard AND the stealther!
Glad I'm not alone with multiple tamers though, feel like I'm insane for training that skill more than once.

I'm sticking with keeping enough taming/lore realskill so that I can - should it ever be used again - put on my luck suit and not have to worry much about my pets or jewelry. And I can't even imagine playing with no vet. If my pet dies I like to be able to res it on the spot, and not have to first leave the dungeon (especially nice in doom gauntlet) or be dependant on others. I'm a tamer after all!

Keeping magery of course - can't live without my beloved invis and gate travels!

Was amazed though at how much peacemaking helped me. Went to Terort Skitas yesterday, unable to invis most of the time ( ) and survived running through the whole dungeon by just using area peace!!! Was really proud about that, although in retrospect, it would have been a pain to die, because nobody else was on who could have given me a res in there... but who cares, not needed! Woohooooo!!!
(may seem like nothing, but those that die a lot know what an achievement that is)

kaio, sorry if I wrote it wrong - I meant "screw luck!" and am therefore currently working on a mr/lmc/lrc armour (neglecting resists, because I'm having problems with this simple armour already *chuckles*) with no luck, but skillpoints instead.

Speaking of skill jewelry and such: I realised I never needed any for my chars... I planned out every template to exactly fit my skill cap. Weird how I just realised that, while many seem to use +skill items on one char or more.

 

[Scarab]

Speaking of skill jewelry and such: I realised I never needed any for my chars... I planned out every template to exactly fit my skill cap. Weird how I just realised that, while many seem to use +skill items on one char or more.

ya know, maybe it's because I'm an old-timer, but I generally don't factor in skill jewelry when building a template either. I also just recently came back to UO after a few years away, and I can't bring myself to drop down skills that I've already GM'd for jewelry's sake. I understand that this approach is somewhat limiting at times, but part of me feels off about not having at least GM in a skill that I intend to frequently use

 

[Orlacc]

Using the trusty Soulstones I am running:

115 Taming
100 Vet
110 Lore
80 Stealth
100 Hiding
102 Music
110 Peace

with assorted jewels

Good for getting in tight places. Weird to have no magic, but all I was using it for was invis and recalls for the most part. As for healing, just pots.

 

[TimberWolf]

I would add 100 music and 100 peace ( probably have to stone off Eval and add some jewels to make it fit).

Then set an area peace macro...when ever the mob targets you hit area peace and then invis...it will relock on your pet.

Go with the LMC/LRC resist suit and heal your pet from a distance.


Fast and easy and very hard to kill!

 

[milk]

I have a template that you were asking for. I have both peace and disco.

I am trying to max out my mana regen, (ideally hitting +13ish, now i am only +10), then with high int (125), and human's racial trait, the mana regen isn't too bad. With disco plus vet plus magic healing, there really shouldn't be a problem for my pets (at least I think, since I am still in training. finished music, peace and now 91 disco). The key for template that cramps so much is to have good jewels. I was lucky to get a bracer that almost rival imbued bracer in terms of increasing skills, and I have an imbued taming ring, so total I got +90 skill points that allow me to play with many different skills. I still try to maintain 100 lrc and a healthy luck, so far i am over 1k. I plan to use this template and equipment setup to solo hunt. In group fights I think this would prove to be incredibly beneficial as well (probably not travesty encounter).

I am still new, reading all these crazy templates is so intriguing and makes wanna get more than 1 tamer, but alas it is just too painful.

 

[Fingers of Cats]

Taming
Lore
Vet

Music
Peace
Disco

Magery

I try and max out the easier skills through play and Jewelry the harder skills. Once the harder skills go up through longer play, I can drop the jewelry skills and use jewelry that helps with LRC or whatever I need... or drop the easier skills to be replaced by harder skills...

I like the Bard/Tamer... classic I know but it's one of the best for tough situations.