how much to control dragons

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randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

I have high 90's to tame them, but I'm working on a treasure hunter, which I want the following skills

Magery GM
Meditation GM
Lockpicking GM
Mining GM
Animal Taming- enough to control dragons/have them transferred to me
Animal Lore GM
Cartography GM

The animal lore and taming I'm not sure what I need.

Edit- actually, come to think of it, I want the toon to be able to pick locks in dungeons too, I can have another toon decode the maps so...... thinking

Magery GM
Meditation GM
Lockpicking GM
Mining GM
Hiding GM
Stealth GM
Animal Taming 50
Animal Lore 50

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Orion GM B^D
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Location: Trinsic

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by Orion GM B^D »

On the first set, you can drop mining. Most all libraries or one you make yourself go to
one tile from the spot, so no mining required. I'd also drop med. If your using your
dragon to kill the spawns, then you wont need to regen med fast. Most t-hunters use
provocation/music to kill the spawn.

You can add hiding and stealth. That may solve the second skill set.

I believe using that skill set, you could do maps and LP dungeon chests.
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SighelmofWyrmgard
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Re: how much to control dragons

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

Randale,

If you include Mining in the skillset, it has to be on the cartographer: the cartographer has to be the one who digs up the chest.

Animal Lore & Taming at only 50 will net you nothing: you won't be able to tame/control anything useful; it would be 100 wasted skill-points. Otherwise, there is little synergy between Stealth and Animal Taming.

Orion & Randale,

You include Mining on a Treasure Hunter so that you can be 5 tiles away from the chest and still dig it up: the digger will be outside the ring of guardian spawn.

On any stealth-dungeon-chest-lockpicker, a little Tracking (15-25 real skill) will help ensure that you don't walk into another stealth-dungeon-chest-lockpicker, and be revealed ...

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

If you include Mining in the skillset, it has to be on the cartographer: the cartographer has to be the one who digs up the chest.
I didn't know this, I thought anyone who had the decoded map could dig it up.
Animal Lore & Taming at only 50 will net you nothing: you won't be able to tame/control anything useful; it would be 100 wasted skill-points. Otherwise, there is little synergy between Stealth and Animal Taming.
I thought 30-50 animal taming ONLY was enough to have dragons transferred to you, all I need is for them to guard and follow me.
You include Mining on a Treasure Hunter so that you can be 5 tiles away from the chest and still dig it up: the digger will be outside the ring of guardian spawn.
Cool! So, they won't even spawn if I have it and open it that far away. Can I start to dig it up, then after it's partially dug up, dig from a few tiles away to prevent the guardian spawn? Just have to make sure I'm that many tiles away, maybe perhaps when I START to dig it up. Unless you maybe you mean they DO spawn, but not near you.

In light of this, I'm thinking of a new template.

GM Magery
GM Meditation
GM Mining
GM Lockpicking
GM Cartography
GM Stealth
GM Hiding

Not sure about meditation, since all I need magery for is recall and telekinesis.

SighelmofWyrmgard
Posts: 881
Joined: Thu May 20, 2010 5:34 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

randale wrote:I didn't know this, I thought anyone who had the decoded map could dig it up.
In fact, the cartographer who first solves a map is the only character who can dig-up that map. So, for example, you couldn't have one cartographer solve maps for another. If you buy maps from another player, make sure they are unsolved ("a tattered treasure map"): if you single-click on the map and it returns, "a treasure map", that map has been solved, and can only be used by the character that solved it.
randale wrote:I thought 30-50 animal taming ONLY was enough to have dragons transferred to you, all I need is for them to guard and follow me.
According to Wayback Archive, Stratics Animal Taming, 50/50 Lore/Taming is far too low to control transferred dragons with any reliability (only ~37% chance of any command being obeyed).
randale wrote:Cool! So, they won't even spawn if I have it and open it that far away. Can I start to dig it up, then after it's partially dug up, dig from a few tiles away to prevent the guardian spawn? Just have to make sure I'm that many tiles away, maybe perhaps when I START to dig it up. Unless you maybe you mean they DO spawn, but not near you.
I'm not sure why you have assumed that the guardians would not spawn: the guardians DO spawn, in a ring one tile away from the chest, at the exact instant that the chest fully emerges; however, with GM Mining the Cartographer can be anywhere within a 9x9-tile-square, centered on the chest location, and still dig up the chest; with 0 Mining, the Cartographer must be in a tile adjacent to the chest location.

Once I know where the chest-location is (to the exact tile), I decide where I want my Cartographer to be standing, and then dismount and dig up the chest. The guardian spawn still all appear on cue, surrounding the chest, but not surrounding me. I immediately re-mount and ride off about a screen and decide how to dispose of the spawn.
randale wrote:In light of this, I'm thinking of a new template.

GM Magery
GM Meditation
GM Mining
GM Lockpicking
GM Cartography
GM Stealth
GM Hiding

Not sure about meditation, since all I need magery for is recall and telekinesis.
Unlike dungeon-chests, you can not loot a Treasure-Map chest without being revealed, so this template can only deal with the guardian-spawn of any lvl3-5 Map by dropping EVs (so, you would want Meditation); lvl1-2 Maps you could handle with direct-damage spells, even without any Evaluate Intelligence, but you'd still want Meditation to keep your mana pool up.

If you only want Magery for Recall & Telekinesis, maybe try this variant of my "Privateer" template from "Other Professions":


100 Cartography
080 Hiding
100 Lockpicking
040 Magery
100 Mining
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation (or, maybe Peacemaking, but I think Provo is better on this kind of low-Magery character)
080 Stealth

You can have 100 Str & Int on such a character (no need for Dex). For guaranteed success using Recall, use scrolls; 3rd Circle will almost-never fizzle (& maybe carry a stack of Blade Spirits scrolls to help deal with "the lone survivor" guardian of a lvl3-5). 80 Hiding/Stealth is perfectly adequate for doing dungeon chests.

Never forget that it is indeed licit to multi-client the retrieval of a Treasure Map chest: Lockpicking, Hiding & Stealth on one character, and Cartography & Mining on another, and both characters will enjoy 200-300 free skill points for other useful skills.

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

I'm not sure why you have assumed that the guardians would not spawn: the guardians DO spawn, i
I haven't assumed anything, it's just your statement can be interpreted differently than what you thought, You said "outside the spawn" which made think if I was outside it, they wouldn't spawn at all.
Unlike dungeon-chests, you can not loot a Treasure-Map chest without being revealed, so this template can only deal with the guardian-spawn of any lvl3-5 Map by dropping EVs (so, you would want Meditation); lvl1-2 Maps you could handle with direct-damage spells, even without any Evaluate Intelligence, but you'd still want Meditation to keep your mana pool up.
None the guardian spawn dispel? In that case, EV's wouldn't work too well.
Never forget that it is indeed licit to multi-client the retrieval of a Treasure Map chest: Lockpicking, Hiding & Stealth on one character, and Cartography & Mining on another, and both characters will enjoy 200-300 free skill points for other useful skills.
Yes, was trying to get it all one on to make it easier/simpler. I could use my tamer's drags to protect the digger, just one toon doing everything has less steps.I'm thinking what I may do is use my bard/mage who has peace, provoke and music all GM'd.

randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

to save a slot, I'm going to be remaking my bard/mage into a treasure hunter, I'm going to go with

Magery GM
Musicianship GM
Provocation GM
Cartography GM
Lockpicking GM
Hiding GM
Stealth GM

I will take your advice and use scrolls, both for gate travel to bring in someone to defend me (or maybe I will just use provoke instead to kill most of them off) and EV's.

And, I will be adding tracking to another character I mainly use to scout IDOC's, excited about that as I've never had that skill GM'd, looks useful for finding frenzied ostards and nightmares, too.

SighelmofWyrmgard
Posts: 881
Joined: Thu May 20, 2010 5:34 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

randale wrote:And, I will be adding tracking to another character I mainly use to scout IDOC's, excited about that as I've never had that skill GM'd, looks useful for finding frenzied ostards and nightmares, too.
The only person who should GM Tracking would be a dungeon PKer. Tracking is a weird skill, as I describe on page 2, 3rd post, of this thread.

My remarks, here, about Tracking refer only to its use to detect other dungeon-stealth-lockpickers, so that you don't accidentally stealth into them and be revealed (if you are stealthing, and "push through" another mobile, you will be automatically revealed): 15 real skill points will be enough, and it ought to be on your own lockpicker (why send 2 toons?).

Before you ask, yes, I have had stealth-dungeon-lockpickers push into my hidden character and be revealed: bad thing for them in certain rooms.

If/when you accidentally become revealed, try the "Tele-Hide" trick: Teleport breaks LOS (and its aggro) so you will be able to launch a valid Hiding attempt instantly after, so long as you are not also in auto-defend mode.

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
randale wrote:And, I will be adding tracking to another character I mainly use to scout IDOC's, excited about that as I've never had that skill GM'd, looks useful for finding frenzied ostards and nightmares, too.
The only person who should GM Tracking would be a dungeon PKer. Tracking is a weird skill, as I describe on page 2, 3rd post, of this thread.

My remarks, here, about Tracking refer only to its use to detect other dungeon-stealth-lockpickers, so that you don't accidentally stealth into them and be revealed (if you are stealthing, and "push through" another mobile, you will be automatically revealed): 15 real skill points will be enough, and it ought to be on your own lockpicker (why send 2 toons?).

Before you ask, yes, I have had stealth-dungeon-lockpickers push into my hidden character and be revealed: bad thing for them in certain rooms.

If/when you accidentally become revealed, try the "Tele-Hide" trick: Teleport breaks LOS (and its aggro) so you will be able to launch a valid Hiding attempt instantly after, so long as you are not also in auto-defend mode.

SS

Ok, I read your post on tracking. I just wanted to ask, how common is it to get more than 255 mobiles on each menu choice, to get that message? As far as players are concerned, less than 100 are on a time, which is a good thing, unless you were near a town, etc with lots of NPCs.

SighelmofWyrmgard
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Re: how much to control dragons

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

I guess my point, regarding that, is: it doesn't matter because you can't turn if off, or "dial it back"; in any situation in which your Tracking is "too high", the skill is worthless; if you GM it, that's 100, of only 700, completely-useless skill points.

How wonderful would it be to discover, after the house-looting fact, that a shard-wide PvP field-event, 5 screens' away from your house, made your Tracking fail, and let chumbucket (who was hiding at your doorstep) stealth into your house and "re-secure" your most-precious belongings ... (apologies to chumbucket who would, of course, be simply ensuring the security of your beloved hoard!)

... or Tracking fails at West Britain Bank, and a thief (standing right beside you) ends up stealing the Furniture Dye Tub you were about to trade-off for several castle deeds ...?

GM Tracking just screwed-you-over, big-time, while 15 real-skill Tracking would have given you the warning you wanted.

The other side of the coin is simple practicality: GM it and then use it and receive, say, 212 valid results, all of which are entries you have to scroll-through on the menu gump to determine if they're desired, or not, and/or to try to figure out the range, which is not given (only direction is given). Most of the time this will simply be useless information.

So, why GM it and use it to discover that there are 206 valid mobiles within six screens' distance, when all you really want to know is whether or not a nerd is, right now, occupying a tile between you and the dungeon chest you intend to stealth toward ... ? (apologies to a nerd)

Now, if a dedicated dungeon PKer knows the world-map by tile reference and juxtaposition (you could use UOAM to figure this out), that character could use GM Tracking and a few Recalls to determine that there's nobody worth killing in all of the dungeons except Azor Ahai at Elder Gazers: William of Yew also happens to be on Shame Islands, but he's likely raiding the lvl4 chest and will be gone in a few seconds, while Azor Ahai is probably farming Gazers and likely will be there for some time, a much-more-likely target to kill and loot ...

You don't need to GM all of your skills, and some templates are really, really dumb to insist upon it: while I hate to single you out, I'll point to the last template you posted,

7xGM accidentally stealths through a nerd (apologies, again) and gets revealed right in front of the Ancient Wyrm, and then dies a very-entertaining death, while 90 Hiding, 90 Stealth, 20 Tracking stealths around a nerd and, not only doesn't get revealed and die, but maybe also beats a nerd to the chest ...

I've gone off the track quite a bit, but do you see what I mean?

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

I've gone off the track quite a bit, but do you see what I mean?
So, your're saying it's no good to try pick someone out in a crowd, because you don't know which ones it is that is inivisible say on your doorrstep, for instance- since it could be ANY them, in your example. But, I still see some uses for it, such as find a particular animal/mobs (like I said, frenzied ostards/nightmares for example) you want to find, perhaps an evil healer if you are red (provided they have a name that doesn't look like a PC's name) or if you're in pursuit of someone in particular, you can locate them. I may not even care that I get tons of results, it's still worth it to track someone that far away.

For example, there was this person I was trying to get his metal from. He left the door wide open, I came in, but he managed to ban me while I had the 15K ingots of iron on my cursor, I had to put it down for a second outside, and unfortunately he picked it up and put it back inside.............but he looked like a good person to victimize as his judgement wasn't that great. Besides leaving the door wide open (well, unlocked) he comes out running at me ON FOOT, while I'm on a mount after I earthquake him outside his house (apparently he didn't know that can't kill you by itself) I kill him, but, for some reason I don't remember couldn't get in the house. Furthermore, he comes back to loot his corpse (while I AM looting it) fresh from being resurrected, and I pk him two more times. He has since moved his house, but I'd like to find him again.

SighelmofWyrmgard
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Re: how much to control dragons

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

You're starting to think in the right direction. Hunting rare tameables would be a worthwhile reason to GM Tracking, but not necessarily on the Tamer: you don't expect spawned mobs to move terribly far, once located, unlike players (also really easy to pick out the animal by its picture, compared to lots of "people" results which all look the same).

With people, the problem with "tons of results" is that, by the time you isolate the single result you want to track, it probably doesn't matter (it took so long for you to find the one you're after that that character is long gone), unless you already know that the character you want is already (in)visible on your present screen, in which case you only needed 15 Tracking to begin with .... Red Healers usually wander within fairly small zones, and shouldn't be difficult to find without GM Tracking and, remember, your ghost will be "dead and can not do that", so you won't be using GM Tracking to get yourself resurrected.

If the Tracking skill "overloads", you get no information at all, which can be bad for reasons I've already described.

I have two characters that possess more than 25 (real skill) Tracking: they are "Rangers" which I have used to scout locations (including the neighbourhood of my home, and of my public guild properties); both have 80Hiding, 80Stealth, 40Tracking, and those 200 points have always worked like a charm, whether I'm investigating "local security" or looking for a specific monster to slay.

To make sure no one gets into my house, and/or to make sure no thief is standing next to me at the bank, 15-25 (depending on the rest of the template) has always done the job.

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

randale
Posts: 852
Joined: Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:42 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by randale »

If the Tracking skill "overloads", you get no information at all, which can be bad for reasons I've already described.
Perhaps in this case, it's a GOOD thing we have a low server population, of players, if that's who you're trying to track. Of course it also include NPC's if you are tracking people, so as I was saying it's likely to overload near a city. For animals and monsters in the wilderness? I'm not sure. The higher you have your tracking skill the more screens away you can track (A maximum of 10) so the more likely it is to overload. So, that's one reason- as you've been saying- you keep it low.

Perhaps the wiki is wrong- it says it can reduce your tracking to one screen if there are too many. Or, maybe it could be interpreted as correct- it does reduce you to one screen- but not one screen AWAY from where you are, one screen where you are standing currently, basically to anything you can see on your current screen.

I wonder if the overload problem was ever fixed in a post T2A patch on OSI servers, just wondering. You shouldn't ever be penalized for having too high a skill. Unless, maybe the overload was intentional and the skill was used to compensate for it being too strong/powerful a skill.

Yes, I forgot about not being able to use skills when dead...........

SighelmofWyrmgard
Posts: 881
Joined: Thu May 20, 2010 5:34 pm

Re: how much to control dragons

Post by SighelmofWyrmgard »

randale wrote:Perhaps the wiki is wrong- it says it can reduce your tracking to one screen if there are too many. Or, maybe it could be interpreted as correct- it does reduce you to one screen- but not one screen AWAY from where you are, one screen where you are standing currently, basically to anything you can see on your current screen.
You have it right, second time around. I see there's a grammatical error in that Wiki entry (probably just a typo): there should be inserted the word, "to".

In any event, it does not say that you can reduce your tracking (skill), only that you can maneuver and continue to track your target until you are both on the same screen, and even up to the point where the continuing tracking information allows you to isolate the precise tile.

The built-in, local, precision of the Tracking skill is, IMO, nifty-neato! But it requires very refined, delicate application, and becomes more and more gross and clumsy as skill rises, losing its nice and accurate subtlety, and also acquires an increasing chance of outright uselessness; that's the (era-accurate) flaw in OSI's old design.

Excepting dedicated-dungeon-PKer or rare-Tameables-hunter, Tracking skill: 15min to 40max.

SS
SighelmofWyrmgard wrote:
uosa44 wrote:For sale, by original owner:
1 Human Brain, never been used, only slightly damaged, still in original packaging.
$1, obo
FTFY.

SS
uosa44 wrote:The inability for this person to respond in such a crazy manner proves my point.

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