The warrior arcanist

[imported_Farsight]

Since my return to UO after a 6 year absence, I found spellweaving to be the most fun skill. However, I always coupled spellweaving to a mage, since they seem to be complimentary.

So now I've decided I would attach the arcanist ways to a warrior based template (on TC, of course) and see what I could do with it.

Apparently, from my first test, it isn't much.

My first attempt at a template was 120 swords/spellweaving, 100 tactics/bushido, 90 anatomy/healing and 75 chivalry. The plan was to get an ogre lord and use my healing skill and renewal to keep it alive instead of needing the parry to do the same.

That's where I ran into my first snag. No gating ability means no ogre transport. I still used the ogre lord to kill other ogre lords, and I couldn't heal my ogre faster than they damaged it. Of course, I did take them on 3 at a time, but if I can't do that, what chance would I have against something big like the putrifier or a peerless?

My next attempt will leave off the bushido and add in parry. I'll also throw in vampire form (by taking a few points away from other skills to represent necromancy in a real shard template) since I can't use the ogres very quickly without using someone else as a taxi.

I'll post my results here. In the mean time, do any of you have any effective strategies or templates for warrior/weavers?

 

[Guest]

I can't offer anything but a good luck to you. I find SW to be a complimentary skill to mages, as the temps tend to utilize the same type of stats. The problem with SW with a dexxer is you give up too much Dex to get your Intel up enough to not be mana less after just 2-3 spells. SW is so mana intensive I just can't see it being an effective compliment to a template that demands high Strength and Dexterity. Maybe you'll find the effective middle ground.

 

[Guest]

I put SW on my ABC archer, and so far it's turning out well. Gift of Renewal and Attunement are good damage cushions, and Nature's Fury is a nice helper damage wise.

 

[imported_Farsight]

For me so far, it's turning out very badly indeed. So badly that I'm glad I'm testing on test center and not wasting a charge on a soul stone.

My first attempt was hoping that healing could keep an ogre lord alive through a lot of mob attention. That didn't work out for two reasons. One, transportation was a huge problem and two, healing alone wasn't healing more damage than an upper level mob can dish out.

My second attempt was to use myself as a meat shield and having fey dishing out extra damage. I couldn't test much because I'm not willing to do the summon fey quest in order to use the spell. But the idea is pretty sound. I do that with nature's fury on my production shard samurai quite a lot with my human's jack of all trade spellweaving.

I've decided that immolating weapon is just too much mana for not enough reward. Whirlwind attacks and holy light are enough mass damage spells for your normal warrior. Whirlwind has an added bonus of leeching mana/stamina/life/whatever for every shot as well, giving the warrior an eternal pool of mana. Anyhow, they make a better kill-em-all spell for a warrior than essence of wind or wildfire or thunderstorm.

I didn't test any word of death under the premise that if you can get a peerless or doom boss down to the point where WoD does anything, then you can get it the rest of the way down as well. If you have the right weapon, a warrior isn't much slower than WoD anyway. For example, a warrior with repond slayer, EoO, and/or a vermin slayer talisman and a boat load of damage increase can hit Baracoon for well over 150 points of damage. This over 3.75 seconds (given luck) adds up to over 450 damage, the same damage a GM arcanist hits with WoD, a reasonable amount of SDI and a level 5 focus.

So the warrior arcanist, so far as I'm concerned is a bust.