Yet Another Returning Player...with a few questions

[Tomarke]

Hello all,

I just wanted to take the time to drop in and say hi to the community. I am a returning player from 2003 (wow that seems like a long time) when i left sosaria for a galaxy far, far away. Now with the end in sight for that particular universe i decided to return to my roots, as uo is the first MMO i ever played. I am happy/surprised to see just how thriving the community is after all this time. i have reactivated my old account and am working to get reacquainted with the game once more. Another surprise to see was just how complex this game has gotten over the years. I feel like i could play for several years and still only scratch the surface of all the features that were added. It's a very humbling experience.

Because of all the changes i have decided to relearn my characters as they are built but i am sure that the templates are very outdated. i don't want to start changing my templates until i figure out what is going to acutally work for me. so i do have a few jumping off questions, please bear with me.

my main a legendary peace/tamer. i was glad to see that my pets were still stabled after all this time. working off memory i have two white wyrms, a dragon, two fire steeds, four nightmares, and a blue beetle. I have no equipment...when i left the game i went to haven and found a new player. i transferred my 18x18 house to him and gave him everything i was carrying/wearing and logged out. luckily i kept everything in my bank box which totaled about 15mil in gold and a stockpile of regs.

pure mage/scribe/wrest with an LRC suit.

legendary blacksmith/tailor. with gm mining/tinkering/carpentry/alchemy and magery as a utility skill. with an LRC suit

a pure swords warrior/healing. with crafted val armor set from my blacksmith.

and one utility character which started out as a provo/disco bard but never finished so i ended up with a mixture of random stats which i started training up lumberjacking on to build up some stockpiles of boards.

Now to start with my jumping off questions:

1. Is a peace/tamer still a viable template? she was mainly a solo toon for the days i was feeling anti-social and just wanted to go out and kill med/high level monsters on my own - i would still like to maintain a toon for this purpose. what gear should i be looking for to best augment this playstyle?

2. Suggestions for the warrior as a group player? would like to look at tanking if possible.

3. Are pure mages still viable as support/ranged dps in groups or do i need to start looking at the new skills that were added? if so, where should i start looking for meet these roles?

4. i won't even ask about the blacksmith - i know i have tons of reading to do on this subject.

I know some of these are really in-depth questions and i appreciate any information/oppinions you can give. At the very least i ask to be pointed to any other sites/forums that can offer info on the questions i've asked as i don't mind reading playguides but the playguides here on stratics have not completely answered all of my questions or are talking on a level of understanding that i just don't have at the moment.

Again, thanks for your time and i am really enjoying being back.

btw, i am playing on pacific and am primarily into pvm with a more mature crowd. I will be looking around for a guild or group of players to share my interests.

-Tomarke

 

[retrorider]

1. Is a peace/tamer still a viable template? she was mainly a solo toon for the days i was feeling anti-social and just wanted to go out and kill med/high level monsters on my own - i would still like to maintain a toon for this purpose. what gear should i be looking for to best augment this playstyle?

Not really. Not like it once was. Lots of changes to monster numbers and behavior have nerfed this template.

2. Suggestions for the warrior as a group player? would like to look at tanking if possible.

Gargs are popular gimp templates and easy to make armor for but Sampies and Whammies still seem to be the schiznit these days even though they have been nerfed.

3. Are pure mages still viable as support/ranged dps in groups or do i need to start looking at the new skills that were added? if so, where should i start looking for meet these roles?

Focus Mages with Wrestling and 70 DCI are nothing to laugh at now-a-days. If you have an old tank mage you could easily make him into one. Also, Alch-inscrip mages with potions are viable.

4. i won't even ask about the blacksmith - i know i have tons of reading to do on this subject.

Yes, imbuing is the way to go but to be effective you will need a 120 smith and 120 tailor to go with your Imbuing and Arms Lore.

 

[Basara]

For the peace-tamer, if you can change him into a disco-tamer, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck.

I personally run (with a custom-imbued suit) a bard/tamer that sacrifices the idea of a luck suit (still has 920 luck, but that's a lot lower than most tamers or bards) for an all-70s suit with lrc/lmc/MR (and just whatever luck I can fit) to have 120 (modified) in Lore/Taming/Music/Disco, 120 natural in Vet and Provo, and the rest (modified to over GM) in Magery.

You really need to check out the Bard specializations - the Provo ones are especially good if you're running with just one pet (get yourself a Greater Dragon as soon as possible), as you can use one power to buff (stacks with bless) your pet and yourself, giving both of you additional health regen every 4 seconds, the other gives you and your pet HCI, DI and SDI. These cost mana, and have a mana maintenance cost while active, that scales up with the number of party members/pets affected (yes, for group hunts they buff the party AND their pets, but you can't keep them up long).

By some chance the Turkey event resurfaces this year, Disco/Provo is about the only way to do them safely (and relatively quickly), without some sort of sampire/whammie with uber-regeneration suits on top their usual stacked leeches.

 

[Kalakhan]

Hi!
I thought to open a new post for my question, but I don't want to fill the forum with simple-question-posts, so I'll put it here...

I would like to know where can I get a list of the servers, where it says how many players are there in each one?
Or may be, can someone post a list with the number of players inside each?

I would realy like to play in a filled server, where players are playing! I mean, sometimes there are 1000 acc. registared, but only 600 playing actively.
My point is, UO has a huge World and it is very boring to walk around without meating anyone for h. Also in the cityes is very boring to see only players who play form 2-3 years, no youngsters, who are noobs like me , no people who wanna run around and steal staff, or harvisting or lumbrejacking for fun, empty citys... and aither you get beaten or you beat someone - no challenge .
I think you got my point, right!? rolleyes:
Thanks in advance!
P.S. "Sorry for my writing!"

 

[Mirt]

A list no. There is on the EC an option that shows you population, but exact numbers have never been released. Atlantic is the most populated North American shard. After that its all opinion and personal observations.