new char help...

[Grim Tim]

i used to play this game years ago when i was about 16. i liked it a lot but i had a terrible dial-up internet connection and was never "competitive". i played to kill monsters with fencing/bard/mage of sorts. i always got owned by pks.

anyway, i've been reading on these forums a lot and pvp is way more complicated than i thought. i don't want to spend a ton of time making a character that'll suck in the long run. i was going to make a fencer but after all my reading i've decided something called an mace-eval warrior is my best bet.

so... can somebody explain 1.) what's a good template for a mace-eval warriors, and 2.) how do i use him to not get owned in pvp.

thanks!

- tim

[BobDobbs]

I think someone's been trolling you.

[Grim Tim]

I think someone's been trolling you.

huh? it was one of (roadkills) posts two years ago that convinced me a mace-eval fighter was the way to go. different now?

[DrFaustus]

I suppose the medi dexxer could work...

You'd be better off just making a bard/tank mage separately and focusing on either farming or owning pks independently imo.

[BobDobbs]

Do you want to farm gold or PvP?

For farming gold, a bard works pretty good. To avoid PKs on a bard the two best things are GM wrestling and a recall macro within Razor.

[Grim Tim]

farm gold first, i suppose. i'm going to need a lot of gold for the regents to gm magery and resist. my plan was to first make a bard, since that's what i'm familiar with, provoke monsters in the dungeons to fight, and pick off the last man standing with my spear or mace. once i've farmed enough gold i'll drop my bard skills in favor of combat skills good for pvm and pvp.

thanks for the response.

my original questions were how do i make a tank macer w/ little focus on magery and how do i use him?

thanks!

[BobDobbs]

Keep in mind that on UOSA you are allowed three accounts, so you have fifteen character slots to choose from. You can always keep your bard's skills high and fund the macroing of new character(s) with it.

[Pirul]

A post from 2 years ago will probably be much different now. I have never used a macer, but this is by Mikel123, who does have one:

I love macing, and have done my best to use it effectively here, but it's just not that good.

Here's the thing... most pvp battles are short. Either someone recalls, dies quickly to a better player, or dies quickly to multiple players. There are very rare cases, I've found, in which two fairly well-matched foes will face off. The reason for this is that with two skilled and prepared opponents, no one will die, until someone runs out of reagents/potions/etc. And, usually they've Recalled before then.

You cite the two benefits of macing... the armor damage isn't really a factor since as I said above most fights don't last long. And the stamina hit isn't much of a factor since a red Total Refresh potion can be consumed any time to completely refill stamina. And, once someone is out of red potions, or near that point, they will recall. Not to mention, in practice the stamina loss (3-5 points extra) from macing isn't much when you're already losing 10-20 stamina from spells and weapon damage depending on your health.

Macing, too, has very consistent damage (see my guide linked by Pirul above) which is BAD against heavily-armored foes. The opposite of this is the war fork, which varies in damage tremendously. And, the kryss is by far the fastest weapon, useful for disrupting mages (and surprisingly effective at penetrating armor too).

There is however one instance in which the drawbacks of macing - namely, short battles and people recalling - does not apply. This is the Trammel Tournaments. You're enclosed in a 14x14 or so space with your opponent, and I think it's like 9 minutes of dueling (or when someone dies, whichever comes first). There, slowly beating the crap out of someone's armor is effective, since no one carries an extra set in their pack. And, while Trammel rules state you can eat as much food as you want to replace stamina, that's a slow process and your enemy may well run out.

Once the archery bug is fixed, I think macers might well be the dominant template for the potions and potions/magics tournaments.

So in short... for real UO, I'd pick fencing for the war fork and kryss. For tournaments, I'd probably give macing a shot.

Eventhough from a mathematical point of view, fencing is the skill to have, I personally like swordsmanship as my weapon skill. This for a couple of reasons, the first is that the broadswd, cutlass and scmitar are decent one handed weps that are cheap (it's not hard to find a vanq. cutlass for 3k, whereas a vanq warfork will set you back 20k+), and secondly, you always have the option of putting on a halberd and doing some serious damage.

As far as the "eval warrior" part, just realize how much INT you're gonna have (btw, the more INT, the less DEX, the slower you'll swing your wep), and if you're going to be wearing armor. If you ARE going to be wearing armor, chances are your med rate will not be good enough for one or two e-bolts tops, and then this will leave you with very little to no mana to recall in case things start to go downhill.

As you can tell, I am not a fan of relying on magery for a dexxer. Sure, you might get lucky, but I think the skill points you'll use on eval and/or meditation are better spent elsewhere.

[Grim Tim]

Keep in mind that on UOSA you are allowed three accounts, so you have fifteen character slots to choose from. You can always keep your bard's skills high and fund the macroing of new character(s) with it.

you're right. but, i just can't see myself playing more than maybe two or three characters, max.

[Grim Tim]

A post from 2 years ago will probably be much different now. I have never used a macer, but this is by Mikel123, who does have one:

I love macing, and have done my best to use it effectively here, but it's just not that good.

Here's the thing... most pvp battles are short. Either someone recalls, dies quickly to a better player, or dies quickly to multiple players. There are very rare cases, I've found, in which two fairly well-matched foes will face off. The reason for this is that with two skilled and prepared opponents, no one will die, until someone runs out of reagents/potions/etc. And, usually they've Recalled before then.

You cite the two benefits of macing... the armor damage isn't really a factor since as I said above most fights don't last long. And the stamina hit isn't much of a factor since a red Total Refresh potion can be consumed any time to completely refill stamina. And, once someone is out of red potions, or near that point, they will recall. Not to mention, in practice the stamina loss (3-5 points extra) from macing isn't much when you're already losing 10-20 stamina from spells and weapon damage depending on your health.

Macing, too, has very consistent damage (see my guide linked by Pirul above) which is BAD against heavily-armored foes. The opposite of this is the war fork, which varies in damage tremendously. And, the kryss is by far the fastest weapon, useful for disrupting mages (and surprisingly effective at penetrating armor too).

There is however one instance in which the drawbacks of macing - namely, short battles and people recalling - does not apply. This is the Trammel Tournaments. You're enclosed in a 14x14 or so space with your opponent, and I think it's like 9 minutes of dueling (or when someone dies, whichever comes first). There, slowly beating the crap out of someone's armor is effective, since no one carries an extra set in their pack. And, while Trammel rules state you can eat as much food as you want to replace stamina, that's a slow process and your enemy may well run out.

Once the archery bug is fixed, I think macers might well be the dominant template for the potions and potions/magics tournaments.

So in short... for real UO, I'd pick fencing for the war fork and kryss. For tournaments, I'd probably give macing a shot.

Eventhough from a mathematical point of view, fencing is the skill to have, I personally like swordsmanship as my weapon skill. This for a couple of reasons, the first is that the broadswd, cutlass and scmitar are decent one handed weps that are cheap (it's not hard to find a vanq. cutlass for 3k, whereas a vanq warfork will set you back 20k+), and secondly, you always have the option of putting on a halberd and doing some serious damage.

As far as the "eval warrior" part, just realize how much INT you're gonna have (btw, the more INT, the less DEX, the slower you'll swing your wep), and if you're going to be wearing armor. If you ARE going to be wearing armor, chances are your med rate will not be good enough for one or two e-bolts tops, and then this will leave you with very little to no mana to recall in case things start to go downhill.

As you can tell, I am not a fan of relying on magery for a dexxer. Sure, you might get lucky, but I think the skill points you'll use on eval and/or meditation are better spent elsewhere.

now i'm more confused than ever. i just don't want to suck in a pk encounter in the field. back when i played, though, razor didn't exist. in those days i didn't have the option of a quick recall macro. maybe i'll just focus on pvm for now and figure out pvp as i go.

[Pirul]

now i'm more confused than ever. i just don't want to suck in a pk encounter in the field. back when i played, though, razor didn't exist. in those days i didn't have the option of a quick recall macro. maybe i'll just focus on pvm for now and figure out pvp as i go.

It's actually quite simple, if you're going to do PvP tournaments, a macer is worthwhile, if not, I would go with swds or fencing.

As far as recalling goes, it is the same for a macer, than a fencer, and if you have GM magery and GM Eval, or 70.1 magery and 0 eval. Razor only allows you to do it with a tap of a key.

I highly recomend you read through these threads, some are quite a bit long, but you'll be better at UO just for knowing a bit of what's in there:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=24942
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24961
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10117
viewtopic.php?p=133279#p133279 (Ignore the macing part, as the update is quoted above)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25447

EDIT: If you have any additional questions, feel free to jump on IRC into channel #C^V, we'll do our best to help

[Grim Tim]

now i'm more confused than ever. i just don't want to suck in a pk encounter in the field. back when i played, though, razor didn't exist. in those days i didn't have the option of a quick recall macro. maybe i'll just focus on pvm for now and figure out pvp as i go.

It's actually quite simple, if you're going to do PvP tournaments, a macer is worthwhile, if not, I would go with swds or fencing.

As far as recalling goes, it is the same for a macer, than a fencer, and if you have GM magery and GM Eval, or 70.1 magery and 0 eval. Razor only allows you to do it with a tap of a key.

I highly recomend you read through these threads, some are quite a bit long, but you'll be better at UO just for knowing a bit of what's in there:

viewtopic.php?f=42&t=24942
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=24961
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10117
viewtopic.php?p=133279#p133279 (Ignore the macing part, as the update is quoted above)
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=25447

EDIT: If you have any additional questions, feel free to jump on IRC into channel #C^V, we'll do our best to help

rad. thx

[Grim Tim]

After some more reading I think maces are the common sense choice for a dexer. As a dexer your advantage is being faster and hitting more often. With a higher number of dice (ex. 5d5 vs 1d25) probability says you're going to have a higher average hit and more of your hits will be in the middle range even though your chanc of getting the highest value is less. Your fight becomes less of a hail mary for that super powerful hit (hally insta hit strategy) and more of a consistent thrashing. The stamina loss means less chasing. The armor damage is a bonus too.

The quarterstaff seems like an awesome weapon. It's only 10% slower than a kryss.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Here is an example of an eval macer

http://my.uosecondage.com/Status/Player/37383

I am making a counterpart to this character with anatomy instead of eval. When I look at the templates overall for these I can't help but to think "Monks".

One casts more powerful offensively, One attacks stronger in melee...a good combination I think as a duo.
Especially against opponents with low dex.

60 wrestling is light protection if caught offguard in casting, unlike hally mages you are going to have a macing weapon in hand except for when you do cast. 60 meditation is ample for a hybrid who can bandage. And we all know the benefits of charged macing weapons.

*If you choose that particular Eval template linked above be aware you need to raise Anatomy to 100 to GM Healing before dropping it. That is one example, not a rule. It's your character make it to fit your playstyle.