A Combat Guide

[Mephistopheles]

This is my combat guide for new players

If anything I post here is incorrect, please say so and I will rectify.

Feel free to add to this!

Many different skills combine to form “templates”.

Keep in mind that there’s two kinds of PvP in UO:
- The Dueling kind where it’s agreed upon by the parties beforehand (or in the case of an Event held by players or staff) and the…
- Ganking kind that basically involves getting the jump on an unsuspecting victim, which is especially effective if you catch them while they’re low on mana or health.

Often times a fight in the field will turn into a battle of attrition to see who runs out of resources (bandages, healing and refresh potions, etc) first if one player doesn’t choose to simply Recall out of the situation or doesn’t have the ability to do so.

Be mindful of how much stamina that your mount has. A horse fresh out of the stables, for example, won’t have nearly as much endurance as an ostard or horse that has had to survive on it’s own in the wild. It’s wise to try and seek out tamers to buy their once-wild pets. They don’t charge much more than a stable master usually. If you’re out of the town guard boundaries and you’re not on a horse, you are fodder and are not allowed to complain when you get run down. Even if you’re in the Brit GY and a Red comes along, I can assure you that a skillful murderer will be able to make quick work of you before you manage to make it to the town lines.

If you are new, do not have enough money for a horse and like to make your own money without asking others, there’s something known as “bunny bashing” that I’d like to acquaint you with.
- Go buy a pair of scissors or just use the one that is located in any tailor’s shop
- Kill animals that are within your skill range
- Use your dagger on their corpses
- Cut the hides and sell them for 3GP a piece to the tanner and the meat for 4GP to the butcher

Tips for people who choose to/have no other choice but to simply run like hell is this:
- Do not run in direct North/South/East/West directions as this will cause you to stop in front of impassable objects and that moment’s pause is often enough to make your screen fade to black.
- Instead, run in diagonal directions as this will make your character to turn around these objects and continue forward unless you get caught in a blocked area (like three trees adjacent to each other).
- Unfortunately, it’s usually the player with the faster connection that wins the death race but even so if you happen to spot the Red Text (and you can see further [a tile or two out of screen] if you “Force” your game window size to 1024x768 via Razor) and are quick to react, you can slip away easily enough.
- Run in a direction away from them for 5-10 seconds then make a sharp left or right and keep running for a good 10-20 seconds.
- Do you have the hiding skill? Use it! Just make sure they don’t have Line of Sight when you do! Hiding is very important for players who like to PvE (everyone) solo!
- If the murderer has tracking, you’d better hope they don’t have Detect Hidden or can cast Reveal. If they can, well, sorry =P Take comfort in knowing that if they have to cast Reveal, that gives you enough time to bolt off screen (as they are frozen while casting) again though!

Some Useful Macros/Hotkeys to Consider (Make sure to put pauses [Right Click > Special Constructs > Insert Pause/Wait] in for some of them):
- Arm/Disarm
- Dress/Undress (Use this if you like to use Magery and wear plate, can hide and you’ll regain your Mana back faster naked without revealing yourself)
- TargetSelf
- Use Item By Type (Bandages), Bandage Self
- Use Item By Type (Bandages), Band Other
- Use Item By Type (Potions)
- Disarm, Use Item By Type (Explode Potion), Last Target, Arm
- Next Target (Alt O, Macros) cycles through targets on the screen. You will see a small health bar below the player.
- Attack Last (Options) for people who use weapons. Be warned, however, that unless you’re using Smart Last Target, you will attack your ally if you use bandages on him and hit this button
- Use Skill (Stealing), Absolute Target (Change it from player to player by right clicking on Absolute and selecting “Re-Target”) Use "Smart Stay on Top" to utilize this quickly
- A Feed Mount Macro (IE: Double Click on X, Drag item by type (the food), Drop item, Double Click Again (This can really get you out of a jam if you get the “Your mount is very fatigued” message in mid-combat)
- Resynch Client (Found Under Hotkeys > Miscellanious) Sometimes your macros get out of whack or you encounter a situation where you literally can’t move in a certain direction (blame it on Razor). This will assuage that.

Some Skills to Consider for All PvP:
- Anatomy: At 100 it will add 20% to all damage dealt with a weapon. That means if you deal 20 damage, it adds an extra 4 points.
- Evaluate Intelligence: Like Anatomy but for spells instead of steel and arrow.
- Swordsmanship > Fencing : Sorry to say this but the simple fact is that the Katana, being the fastest weapon in the game (doing a max of 25 damage as opposed to the Kryss’ 26 but the point is it can do 50 damage more quickly than a Kryss can and it’s all about speed!) and the Halberd, being the hardest hitting, basically gives Swordsmanship the advantage necessary. Sword + Fencing weapons can be poisoned and there’s nothing quite like seeing your Deadly Poison nom away at your victim’s life. This is what gives bladed weapons the advantage over maces. The higher your skill, the better the chance you’ll hit your enemy. Use a Butcher’s or a Skinning knife when you are macroing this skill up with other PCs.
- Mace Fighting: Maces are very reliable indeed. They drain your opponent’s stamina and destroy their armor. Against an opponent who has a Deadly/Greater Poisoned Katana and has the Poisoning skill handy, however, even the Quarterstaff won’t do much help as you will be forced to kite (run away/around) your opponent in order to drink the Cure Potions and avoid getting hit while you’re unarmed. They are, however, very useful for duel situations, which usually take place on foot. Use a wand when you are macroing this skill up with other PCs.
- Tactics: If you use weapons this skill is, essentially, necessary. It increases the damage you do. It goes up when you use any weapon.
- Archery: In the hands of a person adept at setting up Arm/Disarm Hotkeys and timing blows, a good Bow weapon can be devastating on any field in any situation. There’s nothing that instills fear into the heart of unsuspecting enemies quite as much as Stealthing invisibly with a posse of allies and hitting them, at the same time, with your Heavy Crossbows. Two players have the potential to do well over 100 damage! This skill is useful for both Dueling and Ganking. To get this up easily, find some monsters, get them in a spot where they can’t reach you and shoot away. Check out the entrance to Shame and stick to the wall on the right to get an understanding of how stupid monsters are.
- Resisting Spells: Anyone involved in combat should have this skill! Don’t question, just have it! The only reason you shouldn’t have this skill is if you’re willing to allow such a flaw for some other purpose that will make up for you being fodder versus Mages.
- Parrying: At 100, you will have a 50% chance of blocking any physical attack dealt against you with your shield. It’s usefulness varies from template to template.
- Poisoning: Poisoning your weapon is almost instantaneous so a GM Poisoner is someone to be feared. However, in duel situations where Poisoning is not allowed, the playing field evens out a bit. This skill is extremely expensive to GM. Expect to spend upwards of 500,000 GPs if you’re starting at 50.
- Wrestling: Anyone who uses Magery in the heat of combat needs to use this skill, otherwise your efforts will be for naught.
- Magery: Life in Britannia is pretty difficult by yourself without Magery. A skill level of 25 (obtainable for 250 gold pieces after saying “<NPC Name> Train Magery” to a Mage) lets you use the Recall scroll without fail and at around 35 you can cast the spell from a book without fizzling too often either. Runebooks are very useful in that they don’t consume a charge when you fail to cast. A GM Mage, however, has access to a variety of fun spells. For the more “defense” oriented Mage out in the world, summon some Demons (if you don’t care about your karma going down) or Fire Elementals (if you do) to defend yourself by saying “All Guard”! Learn the timing behind your spells. Sixth Level spells can be mastered to the point where you will never fail to cast them but the Seventh Circle spell Flamestrike, however, is the Mage’s bread and butter for dealing damage to a single opponent. It can do upwards of 50 damage even against a GM Resistor.
- Meditation: The higher this is, the faster your Mana will regenerate. Passive meditation decreases when you put on armor. When you’re at 100 skill and are decked in Platemail, it goes down to 1 point every 7 seconds, which isn’t much but is still more than it would be at 0! Anyone who uses Magery for dealing damage needs this skill. For those who mostly use Magery for Recalling, Curing or casting Heal/Greater Heal and such, it might vary depending on your template. You cannot be in combat, nor can you wear most heavy armor and be able to use this skill.
- Healing: Healing yourself takes 15 seconds. Healing another takes 5. If you are going to use this skill, do yourself a favor and GM Anatomy before you try curing yourself. Your chances of doing so will be much higher. At 60 Anatomy/Healing you can cure. At 80 Anatomy/Healing you can resurrect. At 100 Anatomy/Healing you can potentially heal a little over 80 HP in a single go. If you’re with a fellow comrade in arms and you have a “Heal Other” hotkey set and ready, this skill will make you two nearly unstoppable! You have to make sure that you stay close, even while moving around (this takes effort and practice) and that you focus on the same opponent at once! Keep an eye on each other’s health bar or, better yet, if you’re in voice chat, chances are they’ll react much more quickly at the sound of a command on their headset.

Some Skills That Aren’t Useful for “Dueling” Situations But Are Very Useful in “Ganking” PvP:
- Tracking: It’s exactly as the name implies. The higher your skill, the farther the range. To GM the skill, all you have to do is click on the blue crystal and…click on it again!
- Detect Hidden: Combine it with Tracking (even at a low skill Tracking is useful) for this to be effective. You can reveal hidden players in a 6x6 tile radius.
- Hiding: This skill is pretty effective at 70 but personally I like to be on the safe side and go for the GM. Get off screen from your potential attackers and hit the Hide macro to save yourself. The higher your skill, the shorter the distance you’ll need.
- Stealing: The random steal on the field can be devastating for an unprepared victim. It’s really obnoxious too! If you manage to get someone’s shield and they can’t get away from you, for example, they’re pretty much screwed.
- Stealth: You need at least 80 hiding to use this skill. You can walk 1 step every 10 points and cannot wear heavy armor (I think anything at Chain and above) and use this skill. Very useful for the "Bard" template as you can stealth deep into a dungeon and set the monsters against each other without them noticing you first very quickly. Also useful for the "Ninja Archer" idea.

[archaicsubrosa77]

Any two handed weapon for me is taboo unless it has a magic kicker.You only need one hand open to drink potions and a hot key to drop a sheild and rearm (if you arm yourself with one) is all you need to keep fighting.
Now don't bash macing or it will bash you. One of the only players who can safely wear heavy armor imo. If you have hotkeys set to arm a clumsy wand then run up to a player equipping your war mace and corner him the stamina damage and armor damage can rock your enemies world. So in heavy plate, even a full suit you can bring your opponents stamina down so low that faster weapons wouldnt matter as you would be faster and far more protected I assure you.With an AR of 56 or above which can happen with magic/magic armour whats a dexxer in a fancy dex suit going to do? They might force you to chug a potion but you would cause them to do the same to refresh without having to fiddle with a repoison and if you stay on them that's not going to happen and it doesn't wear off like poison or damage your weapon as badly.
Poisoning is easy to cure you got potions, bandages, and magery for that boost. Many players dropped Greater Cures from their vendors because of this reason.
If you run away only do it a couple spaces to reset swing timer, most likely your opponent will think you have began to flee and charge head on. As your counter is ticking his just reset at last movement so you'll get the next swing in, and especially since alot of players start casting when you flee it disrupts their spell and catches them off guard.
These tactics work only for melee warrior class mind you and I am saying this to defend macing, because if you think about it it's a better style putting it bluntly.