nub healing questions...

[Grim Tim]

i looked in the t2a wiki and it seems that the difference between a gm healer/gm anatomy and a 60 healer/gm anatomy is only 8-20 pts of additional damage healed. at 60 healing i have an 80% chance to cure poison. the wiki doesn't say that the chance to cure poison goes up with higher healing and i'm not interested in rez'ing ghosts w/ bandages. it seems to me that makes 60 healing a sweet spot.

2 questions...

1.) if i gm healing would i have a better chance to successfully heal? that is, not fail to heal?
2.) if not do you think gm'ing healing is worth the effort? my character is a bard but i'd like to spread the skill points around as much as possible. he has gm anatomy which makes sense because anatomy boosts both healing and fighting skills. it seems it would be better to save those 40 points and put them towards magic resist.

[Panthor the Hated]

the higher your healing the higher chance of success for everything - 60 healing/60 anat will have trouble curing but itll be possible.

anatomy impacts healing in 2 ways, it allows ressing and curing at appropriate levels and increases the amount that is healed

healing is checked for sucess checks (afaik)

[OhSnap]

1) I don't have any proof or figures to back this up, but yes, definitely there is a better chance to successfully heal if you GM it.

2) Tough question. Personally, that extra 8-20 hit points being healed is pretty big, especially knowing that your next bandie won't finish for at least 16 seconds later, I want as much healing to come from each bandie as possible. With that being said, all my chars with healing have GM or near-GM resist already. For your bard, you may be served better with 40 points in resist rather than GMing healing, although I really have no idea.
Hope this helps!

Edit:

the higher your healing the higher chance of success for everything - 60 healing/60 anat will have trouble curing but itll be possible.

anatomy impacts healing in 2 ways, it allows ressing and curing at appropriate levels and increases the amount that is healed

healing is checked for sucess checks (afaik)

True, Panthor, but it looks like he plans on having GM anatomy regardless of GMing healing or not.

[Grim Tim]

My current character has GM anatomy. I figured that GM anatomy made sense since it boosts both healing and melee fighting. I just macro'd healing to 61.5. I planned to leave healing at 60 since that's the level required to cure poison and at that level I would heal an reasonable amount of HP w/ a successful heal.

Do you know exactly how my level of healing skill effects my chance to successfully heal and not get the "barely helped" message?

[Grim Tim]

1) I don't have any proof or figures to back this up, but yes, definitely there is a better chance to successfully heal if you GM it.

2) Tough question. Personally, that extra 8-20 hit points being healed is pretty big, especially knowing that your next bandie won't finish for at least 16 seconds later, I want as much healing to come from each bandie as possible. With that being said, all my chars with healing have GM or near-GM resist already. For your bard, you may be served better with 40 points in resist rather than GMing healing, although I really have no idea.
Hope this helps!

Thanks...

I'd totally GM healing but I'm thinking about the resist or magery so I can fight back against PKs. I used to play this game years ago (pre T2A). I always got pummeled by PKs and on this server they're 10 times more powerful than they were back when I remember. Everybody who plays on this server is super sophisticated about their approach to UO. I barely even know how to use Razor yet.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

You haven't provided details regarding the rest of your intended template, so it is a little difficult to advise you. I can give you some pointers, though.

60 Healing will give you adequate healing success for adequate hit points healed, in a PvM environment; I doubt a Bard will require anything more.

I'm not sure exactly what you intend to mean by, "40 pts towards Resist": 65 Resist should be considered the absolute minimum, even for PvM; if you aren't going to devote 65 pts, forget Resist entirely; 75 is the amount one should consider "adequate" for PvM; it should also be enough to help you survive the PK-Mana dump until your Recall spell kicks in ...

So, I'm also not sure what you intend to mean by, "Fighting back against PKs": you won't be doing any of this without GM Resist and GM Healing; in fact, calling your character, "a Bard", seals the deal right there, as this means that you aren't going to have the dedicated-murderer-7XGM-HallyMage template that all the PKers have (so, 1v1, they will always kill you, in 3 seconds, and not even break a sweat; they very rarely hit you 1v1, however ...).

All I'm saying is, it's pointless to invest skillpoints where they will never be used.

I am guessing your intended template would look something like the one called, "Skald", on this page:

viewtopic.php?f=107&t=23281
(you'll need to be logged-in to the forum, as this is in the "Guilds" section)

This is an adequate Bard-Warrior template, although it is rather weak on the Magic side (you would need scrolls for Recall; personally I'd drop Healing to 60-65, and raise Magery to 35-40); however, if you modify this template to 60 Healing and 0 Hiding, you could raise Magery to 65, which can provide quite nice support, and the ability to use Blade Spirits and Energy Vortexes (NB: you'd need scrolls, and also at least 50 Int, to use EVs; 75 Dex and 50 Int, or even the reverse, is fine on any magic-using PvM warrior).

I hope this advice is helpful.

SS

[Grim Tim]

You haven't provided details regarding the rest of your intended template, so it is a little difficult to advise you. I can give you some pointers, though.

60 Healing will give you adequate healing success for adequate hit points healed, in a PvM environment; I doubt a Bard will require anything more.

I'm not sure exactly what you intend to mean by, "40 pts towards Resist": 65 Resist should be considered the absolute minimum, even for PvM; if you aren't going to devote 65 pts, forget Resist entirely; 75 is the amount one should consider "adequate" for PvM; it should also be enough to help you survive the PK-Mana dump until your Recall spell kicks in ...

So, I'm also not sure what you intend to mean by, "Fighting back against PKs": you won't be doing any of this without GM Resist and GM Healing; in fact, calling your character, "a Bard", seals the deal right there, as this means that you aren't going to have the dedicated-murderer-7XGM-HallyMage template that all the PKers have (so, 1v1, they will always kill you, in 3 seconds, and not even break a sweat; they very rarely hit you 1v1, however ...).

All I'm saying is, it's pointless to invest skillpoints where they will never be used.

I am guessing your intended template would look something like the one called, "Skald", on this page:

viewtopic.php?f=107&t=23281
(you'll need to be logged-in to the forum, as this is in the "Guilds" section)

This is an adequate Bard-Warrior template, although it is rather weak on the Magic side (you would need scrolls for Recall; personally I'd drop Healing to 60-65, and raise Magery to 35-40); however, if you modify this template to 60 Healing and 0 Hiding, you could raise Magery to 65, which can provide quite nice support, and the ability to use Blade Spirits and Energy Vortexes (NB: you'd need scrolls, and also at least 50 Int, to use EVs; 75 Dex and 50 Int, or even the reverse, is fine on any magic-using PvM warrior).

I hope this advice is helpful.

SS

Thanks for confirming that my bard will never "fight back" against PKs. I sort of suspected that but I wasn't sure because I've never actually tried. I guess I should build a fully legit tank mage and learn to PVP like everybody else.

Everything you said in the end there was exactly what I was thinking. Below is the template I imagined.

100 Anatomy
060 Healing
060 Magery*
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation
100 Mace Fighting
080 Resisting Spells
100 Tactics

edit - 100 str, 100 dex, 25 int

Maybe I'll build my character to this point and farm with him for a while until I can afford the regs to gm magery and resist.

Thanks again for the advice.

[Panthor the Hated]

I've yet to see when these slightly off templates are actually better than or even as good as their 7x equivalents.

You'll definitely be more efficient at farming with a standard mage bard template. All that being said if you want a macer bard that can reliably recall because its your preferred style, then go ahead and do it but you will not be effective in any pvp situation with that template. Theres a lot of weaknesses that you'll need to get used to compensating for just to survive/make some money.

Its hard to justify 60 healing/60 magery/80 resist unless you think its cool/fun/whatever it is to you. Its certainly not the most viable option.

I suspect it'll be more expensive to get your resist to 80 without magery than it is to work mage/med along with resist. You can easily get newbie housing to macro in if thats your concern.

[archaicsubrosa77]

you should switch anatomy and healing

60 anatomy GM healing

makes more sense.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

you should switch anatomy and healing

60 anatomy GM healing

makes more sense.

No, it doesn't. This is a Bard-Warrior: he's maximizing weapon damage output, rather than maxxing a Healing Ability he will almost never need; further to my previous remarks, I'd even drop Healing entirely, developing 50 Med instead, and adding the 10pts left-over to Magery, resulting in a template that looks like this:

100 Anatomy
100 Mace Fighting
075 Magery
050 Meditation
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation
075 Resist Spells
100 Tactics

STATS: 100Str/75Dex/50Int or 100Str/50Dex/75Int; trust me, relying more on Magery you will want higher base Int a lot more than Dex.

Liabilities: 0 Hiding, 0 Tracking, 0 Wrestling, Scrolls required for Magery Circles 6-8; this is a perfectly viable PvM build, as Healing will be accomplished through Magery.

Panthor: design your PvP Bard however you think best.

Some folks should think before they spam: an intelligent man speaks because he has something to say; an unintelligent man speaks because he has to say something.

SS

[Panthor the Hated]

lol? So you try to force a specific template down this dudes throat then imply I should butt out of this?

[archaicsubrosa77]

Some folks should think before they spam: an intelligent man speaks because he has something to say; an unintelligent man speaks because he has to say something.

SS

Then Say it on the field in an unburied grave...you shan't last long, not as you purpose it.
I Pritheewell. May your steed be hastened faster then your mana.

Or...take a chance, fail occasionally. A recall scroll is a nice security blanket.

Weapon
Tactics
Anatomy 80
Healing
Magery 60
Music 90
Provoke 90
Resist 80

[Mikel123]

Oh dear...

I...

um.

I...

I'm not sure I can do this.

I...

I agree with archaicsubrosa's advice on swapping healing and anatomy.

You definitely want GM Healing and 60 Anatomy, if you're capping yourself at 160 total points to those skills. Someone once said you never fail a bandage at 95+ Healing, which I haven't seen anything to disprove. Up until then, you can fail a bandage by trying to heal too much. And 60 healing is just suicidal - the rate of success on healing 30+ points of damage is awful.

The difference between 60 and 100 Anatomy is typically going to be 2 damage per hit, at most. If you're using something like a war axe, it's probably 1.6 damage per hit, and if you're using a war hammer it might be 2.2 damage per hit.

So the question is, would you trade 2 damage per hit in order to get improved healing amounts and vastly improved healing success rates? It's a clear yes.

The only other thing I'd suggest is to try to get up to 70 Magery. At that point, you never fizzle a level 4 spell like Recall. You could get 5 points from healing and 5 from resist, so your final template would be:

60 Anatomy
95 Healing
070 Magery*
100 Musicianship
100 Provocation
100 Mace Fighting
075 Resisting Spells
100 Tactics

That would be my suggestion, if you're dead set on having all of those skills.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Mikel, I appreciate your "no-failure" style of reasoning, yet the failure rate at 60 healing is not nearly as bad as you make out; also consider that not only will the damage bonus from Anatomy be 100%-free-bonus-damage (you must concede that it has to be the "other" damage that is absorbed by armor), it will apply to each and every hit.

Any PvM character that is incapacitated by the occasional failed bandage simply isn't played properly ... one only needs success-rates high enough to maintain a brisk momentum (and, perhaps, not waste expensive resources; bandages are plentiful, light-weight and cheap): particularly for a bard, there will always be an opportunity to make-up for a failed bandage; it takes 15 seconds for it to even kick in, for God's sake.

Once more, I'll expressly remind everyone except Grim Tim (who knows and acknowledges intuitively, go figure ...) that we are talking about PvM: you pull out of the fray to use the bandage, kiting until it kicks in; when a bandage fails, you kite longer ... Big Deal! The Provoked mobs are still continuing to kill eachother off. Archery is actually the best weapon skill to marry to this playstyle, because one can easily continue uninterrupted damage output while healing.

So, I stand by my remarks regarding swapping-out Healing entirely for higher Magery and 50 Meditation, particularly on a melee character: the Magery will supply ample Healing and Curing, with potions for back-up, and passive Meditation combined with higher Int will help maintain the mana pool.

Hey, Panthor, at exactly what juncture does the sarcastic irony of "PvP Bard" fail to register with you?

Otherwise, I've noticed that empty vessels seem hell-bent on proving that they make the most noise; I had always thought that that was tacitly understood.

SS

[Mikel123]

also consider that not only will the damage bonus from Anatomy be 100%-free-bonus-damage (you must concede that it has to be the "other" damage that is absorbed by armor), it will apply to each and every hit

we are talking about PvM: you pull out of the fray to use the bandage

Yes... each and every hit you make when you're actually hitting and not pulling out of the fray

there will always be an opportunity to make-up for a failed bandage; it takes 15 seconds for it to even kick in

The 15 seconds, in my opinion, makes it all the more important that you not fail them.

This is all hypothetical of course, and depends on what it is you're provoking. Earth elementals have a nice AR and don't hit that hard, so they can beat on each other all day and never kill each other. In which case, you're relying on your own damage to speed up the process. On the other hand, two demons fighting each other will be doing massive damage, and your extra 2 points per hit will be a drop in the bucket.

I, too, would swap out Healing for Magery and Meditation, but then we're getting into the bard mage template which he's been suggested before and is not interested in.

Just my .02. There's no perfect way to play an imperfect character; you're gimping yourself purposefully by sticking to a macing-bard build, so forget about perfection and just build the type of character you want.