Help a born-again-noob make a char!

[Commodore Axavious]

Hey guys-

Like many of you, I played UO back in the day. I played for about 5 years, through the opening of second age. The last substantial changes I remember before I quit (besides tramel and all that) was that Lumberjacking started effecting Axe damage... if that dates me.

These days, I'm not exactly sure that I have the free time to start playing UO again. I'd want to devote 3 hours a night, you know? If I couldn't do that I'm afraid I'd just be thinking about UO all day like some coked out fiend.

Anyway, enough psychoanalysis. if I DO start playing again, it will certainly be here. Looks like you all have a great thing going- a genuine return to the golden age of gaming, before WoW's ancestors turned everything into solitaire. If I can spin it, getting in on this sounds like it will be a blast.

So to prepare, and to get myself hyped about the prospect, I'm designing a character build. I hope you'll all forgive me if I make any stupid or obvious statements, but I'd like to offer up my ideas to be workshopped by the pros. Any help or input would be appreciated- I just don't remember all of the mechanics well enough, and it would be a shame to put long hours into building a gimped, useless char.

I do not focus on PVP. I'm more of a monster-hunter, fortune-builder, team-play guy. When PVP happens organically (IE, when I get jumped by a pack of murderers, or when I come upon a friend in trouble) I'm all about it. But, making a build that can toe-to-toe with you tournament jockeys is not my goal. I like to be the guy who can rush up into somebody else's 1v1 and tear down a stalemate. I like to pop out of hiding and nail unsuspecting fools. I like being part of a crew, participating in massive battles. No arenas for me, no waiting for a stone wall to disappear.

That said, you'll understand me when I say I want to build a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. I mean that literally- i'm okay with mastering nothing at all in the pursuit of having an interesting bag of tricks. I just want to be able to adapt to various circumstances, even if I don't excel in any.

Here's the idea:

100 weapon
100 parry
100 Magic Resist
90 Tactics
90 Hiding (how much do I really need in order to hide every time? My OSI char had like 94 and I never bothered GMing it because it never failed.)
80 Anatomy
70 Healing
70 Magery


Obviously the magery is not for PVP, just for fun tricks and emergency situations (99% chance on 4th circle and lower). Greater heal, cure, reflective armor, teleport (for climbing and hiding), plus I could technically cast up to 7th, for things like making Gates when the pressure is off. So, no meditation is not a big deal since I can just Melee while waiting for regen, and I won't exactly rely on spells to get things done. The lower healing would still be reasonably useful according to the Healing chart on the T2A wiki. As for the lower damage from Anatomy/Tactics, if I am going to be parrying, then I'm using a 1h weapon with lower base damage, meaning that the 14% damage I'm losing from not GMing will only really make a difference of 1-3 damage per hit, right? My only concern is being unable to res friends.

So my question is (besides, does this suck?) what would be the best weapon skill for this char? I was thinking Maces, since the stamina drain/item breaking might help to offset the lower damage in PVP. EDIT: Also, what stat breakdown do you think is a appropriate? 100 str, 85 dex, 40 int? Or would 25 int be enough for my purposes?

Thanks a lot for your time, guys. Sorry of this was long-winded... you can take it out on me later with a good res-killing, dry-looting or some other obnoxious behavior. I look forward to getting started.

[ArteEtLabore14]

I'm not really qualified to comment on this, just wanted to bump your thread up to the top of the list and say welcome to the server! I'm also new here, once you start working on your char you're more than welcome to join me in killing some monsters, I'm currently working on a provo bard.

[MatronDeWinter]

100 weapon
100 parry
100 Magic Resist
90 Tactics
90 Hiding (how much do I really need in order to hide every time? My OSI char had like 94 and I never bothered GMing it because it never failed.)
80 Anatomy
70 Healing
70 Magery

You are going to constantly fail healing, and when you get frustrated and try to cast Greater heal, you are going to get interupted/damaged because you have no wrestle.

Welcome to UOSA! This is certainly the best place to play classic UO.

It really does not take that long to make a character, and with tools like razor, and the availibility of AFK macroing here, you could work on it, and still play your 3 hours.

[Commodore Axavious]

You are going to constantly fail healing, and when you get frustrated and try to cast Greater heal, you are going to get interupted/damaged because you have no wrestle. .

Oh right, I forgot that you could fail to heal... I thought you just got less HP back with lower skill. Yeah, failing would be frustrating. As for getting GH interrupted- that's true in PVP, but like I said, that's less important to me. Plus, if I'm resorting to dropping my shield in order to GH, chances are I'm already running for my life.

So, drop Hiding to 80 and up healing to 80? Or would that still be failing too often... at least that way I could possibly res people. But would 80 hiding be too unstable?

[MatronDeWinter]

Well, keep in mind, it's not 1999. People are going to be right on you, and the second you stop to cast, you are going to die from the barrage of potions hitting you on the run, and the hally that smacks you the second you stop. It's probably better just to use bandaids to heal the purple potion damage and then just hope you can make it to town. Parry is pretty good for pvm, and vs another dexer, but the reality is that you can usually outclass another dexer with high-end weapons/potions and win. Hiding is another sort of strange thing, not nearly as useful as you would thing as most people out to kill you, will have tracking (or there will be a tracker in the group).

[Onyx]

I personally would drop your parry to 70 and gm healing. Anything less than gm healing is aggrivating. You can do the hit and run thing and be fine without the parry.
I would go with 100str 90dex 35mana, if you plan on using your magery for more than just recall.

[Commodore Axavious]

Sounds like I should just drop parry and GM everything with the freed up points, huh? Well, GMing magery still seems unnecessary to me... are there any skills worth having at 30? Long shot

Guess I was just attracted to the Wiki's description of 100 parry / 100 weapon skill giving your opponent a %25 chance to hit at best. Sounded like it would throw a nice wrench into the Hally combo, and just generally make me better at running away.

Thanks a lot for the help and the warm welcome, everyone .

[MatronDeWinter]

Don't get me wrong, parry is a great skill, but it's just not too great for PvP vs a mage (which most people are). They will just drop a huge combo on you, then whack you when you unarm to G-heal. Realistically, they can probably fireball you do death without being interupted before you can use 1 bandaid. Since monsters are inherently dumb, you really dont need parry because let's face it, while going toe to toe with a balron may be a novel idea, it's not a practical way to make money. You are probably going to be going after smaller monsters, liches, gazers, L.lords, EG's, etc.

If you want a sort of "utility" dexer, that can dex/heal and cast some spells (for travel as well as healing) you might consider something like the medi-warrior.

Magery
Meditation
Tactics
Anatomy
Healing
Weapon (I would recommend fence, but theres 100 other threads on this)
Magic Resist

At the very least, if you get playing and dont like the template, you could easily transition into a tank or other type of dexer, because you already have the foundation skills.

[Manowar]

When I came to UOSA, I went with a straight dexxer. It was my favorite character to play for a while and helped me get reacclimated to the world of T2A. (and is an easy build to make)

Mine is:

100str/100dex/25int

100 Swords (though I'm thinking of dropping this for fencing)
100 Parrying
100 Tactics
100 Resist
100 Anatomy
100 Healing
70 Hiding
30 Magery (for recalling purposes only)

To make money, you should also make a bard:

100str/25dex/100int

100 Music
100 Provo
100 Magery
100 Meditation
100 Resist
100 Wrestling
and one fo the following:
100 Eval Intelligence
100 Hiding

[Commodore Axavious]

Thanks again for all of the tips!

I think I've decided to drop parry and GM everything else. Sort of caught between Swords and Mace Fighting, myself... EDIT: Just read Matron's post on that other topic about fencing being nerfed... I'm convinced- going for the longspear / warfork / dagger. Thanks again Matron!

so,

100 weapon
100 Magic Resist
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100 Healing
90 Hiding
70 Magery

I'm still thinking of leaving magery around 70/80, as you can see... are there any skills whatsoever that might be useful at a mere 30/40 points? Can detect hidden that low revel people who've used the Invisibility spell? Think 40 meditation would make any noticeable difference in my char's passive meditation? Maybe 40 stealing for PVP stealing, hoping to get regs or bandages? (Not sure if the stealing would work... whats the deal with the Theives' guild? I don't remember that from Origin. Can't steal if you're not a member? Also, does stealing from an enemy guild or someone who has attacked you flag you gray? Sounds like Razor could make a pretty good macro to just auto-attempt to steal from people mid-fight)

EDIT: I've moved the Stealing question to its own Topic, along with some other stealing Q's.

[Pirul]

The tricky thing about magery is that if you want the ocassional gate keep in mind that 7th circ. spells require 40 mana, having to drop your dex to 85 which will affect your swing speed.

Med at 40 will most like be a non-factor, since you'll be wearing armour, mana regen will take forever, meditation or not.

Don't know much about stealing, but I see someone on this thread who can point you in the right direction. As for flagging, if it's a warring guild, I asume you shouldn't flag. You shouldn't have a problem stealing from someone who attacked you first either.

Hiding is a nice skill to have in the field, and 90 should be more than enough for being successful almost always.

DH at that low skill is not that hot really, you can cast reveal and it will work better.

My advice, as I always say it is, do a template to have fun with. People here are experts at making hally mages, and PvP dexxers, but if you really want to experience the game, go out, build your own template, and shuffle skills around, have fun, be a noob. If you want parry, use parry, I do, and I love it, but I can't give you more technical reasoning of why it is a good skill other than I like having it on my char. I like wearing a shield. If it gets me killed in the field, f-it, no big loss. Res, re-equip, have fun trying again.

[nightshark]

You can definitely play here with 3 hours a day.

Many days I don't play at all, a few days a week I'll log in for 2-3 hours. I've been playing for about 4 months now, I have a few 7x chars and 6x's with 90+ resist/other difficult skill. The only things I have left to make is a tamer and a mule, which I'll get around to after I've purchased my keep, which I have the gold for

For the first few months just macro every night building skills on all your characters, eventually you get to the point where you don't need to macro anything anyway. Your gold will stay pretty low until you've finished macroing all the expensive skills across all your chars, but to me it's more important to have an array of characters to play, than to have a big house.