Making a new PVM character

[Viktor]

HAIL!

Great to be back on a T2A shard. I played on Catskills back around 99/2000 (back when you could sell 1 million gold on eBay for $400- before the duping started).

Anyway I wanted to get advice on skills to build up for a warrior-style PVM character. I've been working mostly on mace fighting and am trying to decide what else to train. My main dilemma is choosing to use parry or adding another fighting skill. Some nice person gifted me a silver kryss the other day so I'm tempted to train fencing because of that.

Currently I'm looking to GM:
-mace
-tactics
-healing
-resist
-anatomy (already gm)

Not sure which of these to choose to GM:
-swords
-fencing
-parrying

Any advice would be appreciated!

[FearItself]

I know you are looking to make a nice PVM class, but I have to point out your current skills
Mace
Tactics
Healing
Anatomy
Resisting Spells
^are very close to being a PvP Dexxer Build and since this is UOSA and grief is a common atrocious act, I would suggest making this a dexxer or dexxer mage

The all around best PVM is a Tamer but the time it takes to create one and GM will have you broke in bank balance by the time you're making gold.

I full heartedly advise a Bard of your choice, Musicianship and Provocation are the main tools of a bard but for myself I made a Bard Mage.

magery
Resist
Meditation
Eval Intel
Wrestling
Musicianship
Provocation

I absolutely recommend above or around 30 magery so you can recall to different locations as well as save yourself from the inevitable PKS

You are able/aallowed to run 3 accounts at one time, 5 characters per account, total of 15 playable characters.

You would do well to macro 2 accounts or even 3 accounts that support eachother skill gains.
Example:
1 account is bard
1 account is dexxer
1 account is mage

Have the healer account (dexxer in this example) heal the mage, the mage casts on himself for resist+med+magery gains, and you can macro the bard with the other 2, or depending on skill level you can use that account to go hunt, adventure and other such entertainment

Whatever your decision I am sure you will have fun and learn a lot.

If you have any PK troubles and or grief feel free to message me here or on IRC, I love killing PKS, my IRC name is FearItself, and I am the leader of the PvM/PvP/Adventure guild <EX (Extinction)

Fare Thee Well Good Sir!

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Hail, Viktor,

FearItself has given you a lot of great advice.

If only to 'get a handle on' the sheer magnitude of options available to you, I invite you to visit my guildpage (you need to be logged-in to your UOSA forum account to view): therein are three threads (all with, "professions" in the title) that contain more than 30 templates, all of which are viable for PvM play.

If you have any questions, you may PM me.

Have fun here! Good Luck!

SS

[Viktor]

Thanks for the reply and the tips FearIself! I will make another mage PVM char, I just like PVMing hand to hand with one character.

I used to run a bard/archer for PVMing that was quite effective as well (especially in the terathon den).

Also, thanks for the link SighelmofWyrmgard, I will check that out!

[FearItself]

Thanks for the reply and the tips FearIself! I will make another mage PVM char, I just like PVMing hand to hand with one character.

I used to run a bard/archer for PVMing that was quite effective as well (especially in the terathon den).

Also, thanks for the link SighelmofWyrmgard, I will check that out!

My first char was a little of everything, mainly an archer bard, as long as you have fun figuring out what you want, you can't go wrong, though first characters are guranteed to be changed here and there.

Terra Keep is not too difficult on a melee class, add barding and you should be pretty set, just remember that it is a long run from Papua if you're in trouble or need to restock. Just use the Ophidians to kill the Terrathans.

I am pretty well addicted to PvP now days but I highly suggest making a character for PvP, whether to defend yourself while farming on your bard or with your guild, or to go look for fights.
Learning PvP as you go will help you handle the grief that comes with UOSA.

Many players have quit this shard due to not being able to pvp or understand the tactics that PvPers and or Grief'ers will use against you. With a decent dedication to this you can be sure to enjoy UOSA for a long time.

If you are the type of player who has no interest or skill for PvP then people like myself and Rose are there for your Anti PK Anti Grief needs, let us know who to kill

Good to see ya here and you got a lot of macro in to do! Get to work! Haha enjoy

[morgan1109]

You’ve got some great advice already. You do have the startings of a good dexxer build for both PVP and PVM. Bards do rule the PVM world. It only takes a couple days of AFK macroing provo to be able to take down dragons (assuming there are two). Your dexxer probably won’t be able to do that, but he’ll smoke the lich lord once he GM’s resist. So each has their advantage.

The first thing I would ask yourself is if you want to drink/throw a lot of potions on your mace dexxer, and what macing weapon you want to use. If you love the Quarterstaff or use potions liberally parrying will be of no use to you. If you love the war axe and truly want to stick to PVM then parrying is a pretty good option. You can run around naked with a shield and kill most things. You can take an impressive amount of physical damage with armor and a shield. Casting mobs are the real dangerous ones though and additional physical protection won’t increase damage or absorb much casting damage.

If you want flexibility, I can’t recommend more highly GM’ing magery. It increases your ability to heal which is good in both. If you allocate enough INT, you can cast summons to kill stuff for you or protect you . magery is incredibly flexibile with its heals, buffs, debuffs, control, and summons abilities. It’s clearly the most overpowered skill in the game which is why nearly every single build out there has it. Even the crafters. I’m not kidding.

Once you have magery, you’ll need to think long and hard about whether some of the other casting centric skills deserve some points. Evaluate intelligence increases the damage of your casts, meditate increases your base mana gain rate so you can cast more often, wrestling keeps your casting from being interrupted a good chunk of the time, etc.

When I decided to move my PVM macer from a PVM to a PVP build all I really had to do was add some INT and drop parrying for Eval. Eval is free to raise, and parry cost 5K, so there wasn’t much burden to make the switch. That’s a one trick pony though, relying on a pre-casted damage spell instead of getting bandage ticks. It’s nice in PVM though. When the mob starts running away, you just cast a damage spell to drop them.

Parrying takes 10 minutes to GM with 3K worth of dogs and a few sets of normal platemail (about 5K total). Meditation costs about 3K in liqour to GM. You can be the renegade and try all three pretty cheaply to decide where those last points go. Hiding works great to for when you need a breather for the bandage to hit in PVM and is free to raise, etc etc. Blaze your own trail. They are cheap in the grand scheme of things so try them all and stick with the one you like the best.

[dazedman]

I don't have much to add other then, Welcome Viktor!

[PorkTornado]

Meditation costs about 3K in liqour to GM.

I've found it takes about 125 liquor bottles to GM Med. At 7gp per bottle thats 875gp. That being said, why spend the 875 when Med can be gained for free?

[morgan1109]

Yeah the runebook marked under a town crier method is pretty sweet. It's costs a fair amount to set it up the first time (runebook, stack of marks, stack of recalls).

This is a first timer though. It's a lot easier for a noob to buy a leather suit and some liquor than it is to source player made items.

[dazedman]

I am not sure I have ever paid anything for med. It would typically GM just from the macroing of magery. I always try to keep everything as cheap as possible but im a cheap sob.

[PorkTornado]

Yeah the runebook marked under a town crier method is pretty sweet. It's costs a fair amount to set it up the first time (runebook, stack of marks, stack of recalls).

This is a first timer though. It's a lot easier for a noob to buy a leather suit and some liquor than it is to source player made items.

1 runebook, 1 rune, 1 recall scroll and 1 mark scroll (if you cant find someone to mark the rune for you) costs maybe 350-370gp... its not that much.

[morgan1109]

You don't find singles on player vendors, and it's nearly impossible to find them Scribes. 10 mark scrolls is 400, 10 recalls is 350, and 400 for the runebook. That's 1150 as the most likely cost for the average new guy. Not including the half hour to shop in Yew, we can assume if they are on here they know about moongates, so there is no 15 minute run.

That's a good bit of time and 1150 to set it up for the first time. The good news is it never costs anymore for the rest of your dudes, and you've got some extra scrolls. It's much easier to spend 600 on a leather suit at the vendor and buy 600 in liquor and save yourself 15 minutes.

This isn't about an experienced Vet getting set up. This is about someone new to the shard, who might not know prices or shopping locations or having an GM Mage Alt with everything already set up.

It will ALWAYS be easier for a new person to use stuff bought off of NPC vendors, rather than begging at the bank or shopping player controlled vendors. In the long run it costs more. In the short run its a lot easier for someone who might not even have a town rune marked yet.

It doesn't really matter anymore. The new player knows about both options now, and likely chose one. It's doesn't serve the original poster to continue arguing about something he's probably already moved on from.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Any brand-new player who wishes to push Meditation "on a budget" need only purchase an NPC-magical-wizard-hat, (temporarily) lock Int @ 10, and find a safe spot to macro overnight: the player should find the character sitting at 55+ Meditation by morning.

For anyone unfamiliar with the method: take the hat off, restore it, Meditate; repeat every 10 seconds; don't forget to lock Int @ 10.

SS

[Viktor]

Hey all, I really appreciate all the advice and discussion here. When I played the original UO I could only play at a friends house since we only had 26.4k internet at home (I remember playing the offline version of Ultima too), so I only got so much playing time and didn't learn many of the ins and outs of UO.

[SighelmofWyrmgard]

Say, Viktor:

Particularly since our Wiki is down, it might be helpful if I put-up some useful links, here.

UOSA's Master Guide List, in which you will find all kinds of useful information.

I will draw specific attention to Krats' Skill Guide Compilation, since it's kind-of hidden at the top of the other compilation of skill guides: while there is some duplication in the two lists, Krats' list contains the Meditation-mechanics essay originally composed by Xena Dragon.

Another Shard's Wiki overview of Razor

Archived Stratics Statistics & Guides: the page will have no content, but the sidebar will be loaded, and almost all of those links are good.

Continue here, as you like, with any general inquiries; if you want something specific explained, you may PM me.

SS