Will you leave UOSA if the hally mage is nerfed?

[ehafh]

i don't pvp so no.

but if i did, i'd just try to find another technique.
usually the most popular isn't the best. in regards to nearly anything.

[Vhyx]

If anything, the changes that are in the works might actually motivate me to join the PvP field.

Would I be wrong to assume that more people participating in field PvP would be healthy for the shard?

[Tiwstacain]

given that the time frame we r trying to replicate here is 12 years old, i always figured that the game had been studied so hard that really everything was known. I mean maybe mages were that op in real t2a. I am so fuzzy on some of the mechanics that I don't remember. I certainly remember a lot more dexxers then, but was it due to ppl not understanding the mechanics like we do now?? I do not know and I certainly am looking forward to dexxers becoming more viable. Sandro won't quit it just means that Drax will be going to more events



TC


P.S. I appreciate everything that the staff does in trying to make this server more accurate and better for everyone THANK YOU.

[Robbbb]

Thanks for chiming in. I heard last night that a patch note was found that proved SOTR. I guess that person was mistaken.

I figured insta hit (hitting at the beginning of the animation was staying). I was mistaken by calling it insta-hit, I actually meant swing-holding by your definition.

So when will we see the halberd cycle and swing-holding disappear?
These features both have no evidence whether they existed or whether they didn't exist. I believe this is because they existed during the entire T2A era, but I have no evidence of course. Only my memory, and we can assume that mine is just as good as anyone that disagrees with me.

I agree. I looked up my old UO account and my start date was Feb 1999. I SPECIFICLY remember that you were able to equip your hally run up and hit your target instantly. From what I remember though you had to wait the 4 seconds, and maybe that is because I was a noob and didnt know about the other timer, but I do remember that you didnt have to equip your hally and wait 4 seconds for it to swing.

[itwouldbewise]

I posted a pretty in-depth post on this topic here:

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=31498&start=105

But I'm going to try to out-do myself due to the import of this topic:

In summary,

I believe it would be a huge step backwards for PvP.

First, I have a few questions:

• Did anybody have Arm/Disarm hotkeys during 1999 OSI T2A (without third party programs like UOE or UOA)?
  
  I don't think that the UO hotkeys had arm/disarm back then (accessible in the in-game options menu--I'm not referring to a third party program (all of which were illegal at the time if I remember correctly)) . I don't remember weapon cycling during T2A BUT I (1) had dial-up and was lagged up the wazoo and (2) I'm pretty sure that I had to drag my weapon onto my paperdoll until at least after UO:R (which would, of course, have made cycling impossible)--I believe UO:R is when UO came out with it's own arm/disarm hotkey as well as making UOAssist legal. People have cited the current swing mechanics as being different from OSI T2A in order to explain why people back then used to use quarter staffs and katanas, but I'm QUITE inclined to believe it was JUST a matter of those weapons being easier to use considering reasons I gave in (1) and (2). I'm pretty sure a lot of people were in my same situation at that time.
  

  ... things such as halberd cycling or swing holding ... both lack any sufficient evidence to support its existence

  Given (1) and (2) above, I can't speak on halberd cycling--but could someone please point me to the hard evidence that it was not possible back then?
  
  Regarding swing holding, I can only say that I'm pretty sure that back then I could run up to somebody with a "ready" swing and have it fire once I got next to them... What is the evidence that this should be removed? (perhaps a link would be useful)... My experience is obviously just an anecdote, but I'd be interested in seeing this "sufficient evidence".
• Does anybody out there have a dexxer that can compete in PvP? Will you please stand up?
  
  I know that they do (I've seen and fought with them, and had a very difficult time beating them). They are out there. I have a dexxer... a med-warrior that I use regularly (he's 2x GM since I've spread the skills around in a unique way), and he does very well (there are many who can vouch for this) and I enjoy playing him a lot. Of course it took PRACTICE to figure out how to use him in a way that works. That's what is fun / interesting about PvP anyway: figuring out how to make a character work. I've killed PKs with my bard (who's basically a tank mage with provoke and musicianship instead of swords and tactics) in Destard and Hyloth, but not after many times playing around trying to figure out how to outsmart them and utilize the monsters against them (and failing a lot at first).
  
  I don't think the mechanics cause an "unbalanced fight" as much as people not taking the time to practice and figure out good technique for a particular build... besides, it's FUN (like in the case of my bard) to try to make the character work even against difficult odds. If a PK tries to jump him, I usually recall out at first to drop my gold, but I always recall back in for the challenge of fighting against (what most believe to be) uneven odds.
  
  Don't be upset because you just finished macroing your dexxer to 7x GM and after buying him a dexxer suit and a gm katana you went and got pwned by a mage tank... Why don't you work at it and practice fighting some more--there are dexxers out there who make it work, and make it work very well.

What would happen if these changes are implemented?

• Mage in town = piece of poop. Might as well just throw your feces at those town-fighters... at least he'll reek when he's looting your body. You know, at least with hally cycling AND held hit a tank mage had even a remote chance against a well-equipped dexxer who knows what he's doing (I just had a funny thought (which is unfortunately true): If the 4-second hally swing delay were implemented a dexxer could almost certainly sit there scratching his butt and healing through para-spam by a tank mage (dealing even MORE damage as the mage comes close since the mage has no held hally swing). Hey, those dexxers wouldn't even need to prepare trapped pouches anymore!). Should you be able to survive a para spam as a town fighter? Not anymore than you should be able to survive it as a tank mage... which means you need to be PREPARED and know what to do! (para-spam is just a waste of mana against a well-equipped townfighter / tank mage)
• 1v1 PvP will be reduced to dump and meditate matches. This is almost certain, considering how difficult it is to do enough damage to kill somebody who has any clue what they are doing EVEN WITH hally cycling and "held" swings. It won't take nearly as much skill, timing, and practice. Sounds like LOTS of fun to me.
• PvP is less skill (as in a player's uo-playing skill) based, because there is less you can control. Hally cycling is a skill that take practice (and as I said in the post linked above, Dexxers can cycle weapons too--and much faster!...). Taking away the parts of the game that require practice to master = taking away the competition (some will argue that this skill will be replaced with others after the nerfing has occured, but I contend that just because magery will become more important in PvP, that does NOT mean that it suddenly is a skill that takes time and practice to master.
  
  And now I'll end with a sample scenario of these new and improved PvP mechanisms:
  
  Sample 1v1 match between 2 tank mages, Larry and Curly:
  
  Larry casts Explosion, ebolt, and equips his halberd and runs after Curly. Then
  (1: assuming there is no held hit and your timer starts after equipping a weapon) Oh no! Larry unfortunately has to wait 4 seconds after equipping his hally before swinging... Curly has already g-healed two times and is going on the offensive (go back to the beginning of this scenario and repeat the whole process, swapping out Larry for Curly and vice versa)
  
  OR
  
  (2: assuming that the timer is constantly going and he luckily got a swing in) Whack! Of course, it wasn't enough to kill Curly, and Curly gets 2 g-heals off before curly can swing again. Now, assuming that Larry (having failed his dump attack) ceases the offense to get his mana back so he can do another attack, it's Curly's turn (go back to the beginning of this scenario and repeat the whole process, swapping out Larry for Curly and vice versa)
  OR
  assuming that Larry decides he's going to (what's this?!? Don't do it Larry!!! you must conserve mana!!) CONTINUE his assault, he tries to disrupt Curly's g-heals with his harm spells! Oh my, whatever will Curly do? What a surprise! He's MINI-HEALED up to 100% before there's even a remote chance of getting another explosion ebolt combo off or EVEN another swing. Tough luck Larry, now it's Curly's turn (go back to the beginning of this scenario and repeat the whole process, swapping out Larry for Curly and vice versa)
  
  But wait, there's more!
  
  Suppose that Larry decides it's katana time. Aww too bad, Larry, there's enough time for Curly to mini-heal to 100% 5 times over by the time Larry's got him down half life. Furthermore, Curly can get g-heals off IN BETWEEN katana swings (he has a good internet connection after all).
  
  What could possibly be the outcomes of this fight?
  (1) Can anybody say "sudden death?" I hope that the sudden death timer is reduced, folks, or we are gonna be here a LOOOOONG time.
  (2) Oh wait, this isn't a tournament match? Well, the end of the fight will either be "regs", followed by Larry or Curly running as long and far as they want (now that everybody has a good connection, after all).... or they might as well just get it over with and Kal Ort Por... Save us all the anguish of watching.
  
  
  
  Another scenario: Larry vs. Moe the Dexxer.
  Larry casts his combo and.... what's this? The dexxer is running until he gets his heal off! Larry can't compete with weapons so he tries his combo again... and fails again uh oh out of mana... now it's time for Larry to run around forever. Rinse and repeat.
  
  
  Is that how it was in the actual OSI T2A? I think people tended to fight more with magery, yes it is true. BUT, do we know for certain it is not just because (1) most had bad connections (weapon timing difficult) and (2) the arm/disarm hotkeys weren't available? (as described above). Haha I remember it being difficult to even get a heal off on yourself (having to click on your character, NOT your health bar) without TargetSelf or LastTarget, so half the battle back then was clicking on your enemy or on yourself (I don't remember mini-heal spams, probably for this reason and the bad connections.. and because they healed less back then???). Furthermore, I remember the game evolving from Pre-T2A (when magery and archery were dominant) into T2A where magery became more dominant because of meditation and other weapons became more prevalent due to insta-hit. I think it's not unlikely that the dominance of magery in PvP at that time was simply an outgrowth of the fact that it had previously been dominant and people (suffering from handicaps (1) and (2)) were still figuring out how to best use melee weapons in PvP... not necessarily because such techniques as are used today were not possible

In any case, please don't break PvP... If you do, I think I'll be forced to become a full time potion-bomb town-killing suicide bomber (and with that I'll leave you with a screenshot of one of my first days in this shard, where me and some friends (you may recognize the names from my scenario) did such things on a regular basis... indeed, when that was my only option considering I had very little PvP skill--May 2011)... We still do such things sometimes, but not as much since PvP is still fun.

[Roser]

September 2/99 PVP guide written by one of the WTF men.

http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/ Newbie > PvP'ing as a mage.

Nocturnal's Guide to PvPing as a Mage
By: Nocturnal

Introduction
Have you ever been witness to one of the thrilling and long mage duels in the Deceit dueling room? Ever seen a lone mage take down an unexpecting person in 5 seconds flat? Ever wanted to be one of those mages? I hope this guide will be of some assistance to you. This guide assumes you know the basics of character building and have a halfway decent mage character to pvp with. In my mind, that would be:

GM magery (definitely GM if you want half a chance against gm resistors)
90+ eval and meditation (note: the difference between 90-100 eval is roughly 2 damage per spell against high-level resistors, i.e. duelers)
GM tactics and weapon skill (swords is the best, closely followed by maces. You have to be a weird and crazy person to use fencing as a mage)
the best resist you can afford (that means if it makes you go broke to get 80 resist, do it.) See Nighthawk's excellent guide on how to do this. Once you have the character down, here's where this guide comes in. Note: this duel does not tell you how to kill a lone newbie with 4 mages, as I don't consider that pvping, I consider that retarded.

Basics
This short section covers the art of precasting and spell/weapon combos.

Precasting : this is the thing that all the monsterkillers whine about that makes the mage half worthwhile in pvp to play. This consists of casting a spell, but instead of releasing it, arm a weapon (using your favorite 3rd party program or...*shiver*...Origin's version), hit them once with the weapon, disarming, and releasing the spell. Whew. To put it a little simpler, this keeps the targetting cursor up while you whack away with your weapon. Then when they start to heal, you can disarm and release the spell, rather than disarm and starting to cast, which takes too long. Greater heal is faster than ANY attack spell you will use in battle, so precasting is the only way to beat it.

Simple combos: (these assume the opponent is paralyzed for the sake of simplicity)
There's always the favorite, the explosion/ebolt combo. Everyone knows that explosion doesn't immediately damage the opponent, and it's very easy to get off an ebolt in that time and making them hit simultaneously. This will do 40-60 damage all at once, which is decent, but not reliable enough to use a lot.

There's the common standby, the explosion/flamestrike combo. It takes a bit of practice to get the FS to hit when the explosion does, but once you get it, you'll know why it's used so much. It can do upwards of 70 damage very quickly.

Now the combos become a little more complicated and involve precasting with weapons.
Explosion/precast FS/weapon hit/release FS. This combo is EXTREMELY deadly. Especially when combined with a nice magic hally or qstaff, this can easily kill a low-resist target at once. Basically what this does is confuses the early healer. Once you cast the explosion, then the FS the opponent will think to heal as soon as he's unparalyzed. However, without releasing the flamestrike, you arm your weapon and attack him. He will usually cancel the heal or delay it, but then you do a quick disarm and release the flamestrike. This will catch mediocre duelers off guard all the time and works most of the time on experienced ones. This is worthwhile doing on a fully healed opponent, as it does that much damage. They will normally be close to death, if you can get off a quick ebolt you've pretty much clenched victory.

Precast paralyze/hit with weapon/release para. This is basically the precursor to the above combo. In the case where the above combo doesn't kill the opponent, this little extra damage that this combo causes before hand is very nice. This insures that you whittle away some life before you para them and release your (hopefully) deadly combo.

And finally, the last basics of pvp that all characters use, potions (and lots of them) and trapped pouches. Bring a LOT of greater heal potions, they will save your life. However a lot of duels agree on not using them. Greater refreshes are nice against macers if you need your stamina back. Explosions seem rather worthless now, I never use them anymore. Bring greater cures if poison is allowed in the duel, most times it isn't. The greater strength and agilities aren't very useful. And have some trapped pouches (cast magic trap on them) prepared before duels. When you're paralyzed, just open a trapped pouch and bam you can move again. However a lot of duels disallow these as well.

Mage vs. Mage
These are the fun duels that last a long time and don't consist of the mage running as fast as he can in circles while recharging mana. These are the duels that drain 30+ silk each . One quick note first that fits into anything, if you see them preparing some sort of combo, get a gheal ready, you'll need it. Precasting the gheal when they're casting the paralyze works very nicely.

Beginning of the Duel
There are several paths you can take to start off with in a duel. Depending on how strict the dueling rules are, you might want to guzzle a greater strength and heal potion before it starts, but that's your perogative. I never do it, since if you die that early that the potion makes a difference...well...you need more help than this guide can give you. Make SURE you have reflect up. 99.99999% of the time, it will be dropped, but the one time the other duelist doesn't check for it is the time you win easy. Now, onto the paths you can take.

Early offensive
This is where you want to drop your opponent in 10 seconds flat without him really getting a chance to do anything. Personally, I consider this fairly unreliable considering that they have a large pool of mana to heal themselves with, and greater heal takes less mana and time than the attack spells.

However, with that said, here are some early duel options.
-a lot of players start out by dropping reflect and immediately paralyzing the opponent, and then doing a combo on them. This works okay, but since most duelists have 100 strength, you'll rarely do enough damage this way to kill them before they heal. I think the best early offensive combo, is the precast para/weapon hit combo, then the big weapon/fs combo. If you can pull it off, this kills anyone. The only problem is most people precast a heal when they see a para coming. Quick note: often times when your reflect drop spell bounces back at you, it will disrupt your first para or whatever. Wait the miniscule amount of time it takes to bounce back before you start casting.

-In general, I find early offensives very unreliable. If you don't kill them, you'll be *very* low on mana and they'll have used almost none to heal back up. Especially since the latest defensive duelist tactic is to precast a harm or magic arrow not to drop your reflect but to release their paralyze. If they release the para during your critical combo, you're screwed.

2) The midway or apathetic beginning. This isn't overly defensive or offensive. This is probably the most reliable way of going. Drop their reflect right away and see what they do. If they cast a heal or weak attack spell (to drop para), arm your weapon and charge at them gungho. It will mess up their defensive strategy a bit, and they'll use up some mana to heal the damage you did (while you used none). Precast a spell if you want, but this will usually cause them to heal as soon as their health drops even a little. However, if the opponent chooses an offensive strategy, do the opposite and precast your choice of a heal or para dropper. I personally still prefer to charge at them with the weapon, you might disrupt the para, and now they're scrambling.

3) The defensive beginning. This is where you may not even drop their resist to start with, you precast a para dropper (since it looks like a reflect dropper anyway) and just stand there and await the onslaught. This is a good opening against an offensive duelist, since you won't use much mana up and you'll be perfectly calm and collected when their 90 damage combo hits. However if it DOES kill you, it kinda sucks , but that's when they make a good swing with their vanq halberd of meanassedness. This strategy waits out the opponent, healing any damage they do and then doing your offensive when they have no mana left.

Mid Duel
The mid duel may or may not exist during a duel. This is when one person has no mana and the other does. This part is very simple. If you have mana and they don't, combo them to hell and back. If you are the one that failed your early offensive, hope to hell you can heal back up...and meditate as much as you can. If you can spare a paralyze, do it and just meditate until their resist breaks it off. (As a quick side note, I once just kept paralyzing a fighter and meditating until I was back up to 100 mana. They weren't happy but hey, I won. =).

Late Duel
This is where both players are somewhat low on mana and are basically running around hitting with weapons and meditating when possible. Throwing a few spells around. This is the part that lasts a loooong looooong time in some duels. The biggest priority here is keeping yourself healed and hoping you knock them down a ways in health. At this stage, I like to precast a paralyze and whack at them with my weapon for a bit. When they run off to heal, release the para. They're now wounded and can't cast. However, I'd recommend against doing this if they have the upper hand weapon-wise. If they can out smack you, precasting a para is bad because when you go to heal you'll have to cancel the paralyze as well which costs precious time.

Finishing the Duel
This is where you face plant them and give them a nice dirtnap. Look for a slight upper hand when exchanging weapon blows, then get off a quick combo. If you have the mana, I prefer ebolt then an exp/ebolt combo. The first ebolt may or (likely) may not kill them, however, it might disrupt a heal and will add to the amount they have to heal back. At this point, an explosion/ebolt combo SHOULD kill them, if not, a quick hally or qstaff hit should fall them. Of course, this will fail many times and now you're low on mana again. This is the most difficult part of the duel when anything could happen. Fizzle a flamestrike, resist some big combo, who knows. Play it as it comes and look for an opening for a combo. Again, as always, mana is key. Don't expend it if you can't kill them with the mana dump. If you think you can, go for it. At this point, big long combos are pretty much thrown out the window and you have to do what you can whenever. Throw an ebolt if they're running off to heal, whatever.

After Duel
Uh, well this is when you loot and/or res them. The fun part where you look l33t and get to gloat. =)

Final Notes
Weapon strategy: for swords mages, use the hally for combos only or for a big hit at the end. The swing time is too long to rely on, and if you use it a lot the delay will mess up that needed final hit. Use a katana when exchanging blows. For macers: use your qstaff all the time. It's nice when they have no stamina left and you can keep beating on them while they scramble to heal without the pain of chasing them around.

Mage vs. Warrior
These duels aren't much fun, but a little more interesting than warrior/warrior duels (i.e. two people stand by each other and heal repeatedly....wooo....). However, the mage spends most of his time running his ass off and trying to get paralyzes cast without being disrupted.

Beginning Duel
As soon as whoever says go says go, drop their reflect and get a paralyze ready. Make sure you wait until the spell bounces back, because if you disrupt your own spell you only add to the hell that is spell disruption. If you can get your first paralyze off without being disrupted, that's a very good thing. Now, you have the option of doing a combo on them, however more often than not their "precasted" bandage will kick in just as your combo hits and it's a waste of mana. What I like to do is precast a paralyze and charge at them with my weapon. If you end up doing okay against them in hand to hand, you should be pretty certain at this point you're going to win. However, more often than not you'll be whacked down a lot, but not before dealing some damage of your own. Once they're down a bit, release the paralyze and heal yourself back up. Now steps you should take are:

1) Combo them
2) Hope it kills them

If it doesn't, their para is released, more than likely their bandage kicks in, and you're low on mana. This is when the suck part of the Mage vs. Warrior duel comes in...running for your life. Middle / Late Duel
This is where your combo didn't work and you're running for your life hoping for mana. At this point, you're praying for mana, and you're praying to get a paralyze off so you can meditate (hint: para them so you can meditate). If you didn't kill them right off the bat, you're hoping you get an opening and get a quick spell off before they can heal. I normally precast a flamestrike and try and release it when they're around half health. They won't be expecting such a big drop in life and probably won't have a heal finishing. *Hopefully* you can finish them off before they de-equip and gheal. If the duel gets to this point, the warrior wins probably three times out of four, assuming they're capable. Thankfully, most dex fighters AREN'T capable and have no resist or pvp skill.

Final Notes
Weapon strategy: basically the same as above, except I'd recommend against using a halberd against a faster fighter, since you won't hit very often. Always be ready to heal. If they get in a few good swings in a row you'll be really hurting, and if you have to run around hoping to not have it disrupted, you'll probably die. Always get ready to heal earlier against fighters than against mages. If they have a far better connection than you, don't duel them, you'll lose.

Summary
Not really any summary except a few miscellaneous points to throw in.

1) It seems very odd, but parrying CAN work with a mage (against other mages, bear with me here). If you can survive the early mana dump (and if you can't you should still be reading above), you'll ALWAYS have the extra hand in the exchanging blows during mid and end duel. They'll do far less damage and you can outright block some of their hits, which really messes up the big hally combos. However, you have to sacrifice resist for it, which is dubiously good. Having parry rather than resist basically means it's a lot harder to survive the early mana dumps, but if you can you'll have them on the ropes.

2) Mana is your friend. Plain and simple. Meditate as often as possible.

3) When preparing for a duel, try and negotiate the following:
-no potions
-no trapped boxes
-no poison

Most (if not all) mages will agree to this, you'll have a tougher time pushing this on a warrior though. Get as many of the above as you can.

4) And the most final, important point: you'll never be good at pvp if your computer sucks and you're on a 14.4. It's a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless.

Hope this has been some help to you!

-Nocturnal of KoY
Pacific Shard
http://ndr.n3.net

[Vhyx]

Did anybody have Arm/Disarm hotkeys during 1999 OSI T2A (without third party programs like UOE or UOA)?

I don't think that the UO hotkeys had arm/disarm back then (accessible in the in-game options menu--I'm not referring to a third party program (all of which were illegal at the time if I remember correctly)) . I don't remember weapon cycling during T2A BUT I (1) had dial-up and was lagged up the wazoo and (2) I'm pretty sure that I had to drag my weapon onto my paperdoll until at least after UO:R (which would, of course, have made cycling impossible)--I believe UO:R is when UO came out with it's own arm/disarm hotkey as well as making UOAssist legal.

1st: UO Assist was legal before UO:R came out. I started my UO career during T2A, and I only played without UO:A for the first 2 months because I was too cheap to spend the $14 or whatever for a key. (Translation: I was broke as hell because I was a poor 18 year old living on my own)

2nd: Yes, there were UO Hotkeys for arm/disarm. I used them during my "too cheap to get a UO:A key" period. Worked just fine for teh l33t PvP. Even after I started using UO:A, I used very few hotkeys through UO:A. The primary ones being for potion chugging. Everything else was through the UO hotkey menu. I kept the habit of d-clicking my para-pouches for quite some time.

Edit: Thanks Rose, for posting that guide from "back in the day".

I don't get why some of the UOSA denziens seem to be under the impression that PvP here will suddenly suck if "Halberd Jousting" (cycling halberds as primary damage output) is made to be obsolete. All it means is having to adjust to a different fighting style, and the ones that are good won't take that long to re-adjust.

[iamantitype]

The arm/disarm keys had quite a delay compared to the razor arm/disarm though.

[Halbu]

Final Notes
Weapon strategy: for swords mages, use the hally for combos only or for a big hit at the end. The swing time is too long to rely on, and if you use it a lot the delay will mess up that needed final hit. Use a katana when exchanging blows. For macers: use your qstaff all the time. It's nice when they have no stamina left and you can keep beating on them while they scramble to heal without the pain of chasing them around.

[Ronk]

Yup, I like roses post. These are the kind of guides and forum discussions which help point toward some inaccuracies. Its just not easy to peg things down. In addition, too many people play the "my way or ill quit!" card.

It hasn't been "my way" for a very long time and im still around. I must admit though, SOTR is back in and ive not been playing my dexxer as much, I probably will tonight. Ive finally, mostly, retooled my char to have resist so I don't die in 3 ebolts. Lol.

[Roser]

The arm/disarm keys had quite a delay compared to the razor arm/disarm though.

This is true in the sense that there was a big delay between arm/unarm spam. You can test this out right now by simply setting a "UO Macro" in the options section of your paper doll.

The equip is instant, but there is about a 1 second delay before you can re use your arm/disarm macro, to unequip.

To those who are upset, its not all doom and gloom for these new changes. If you are mad at whats on test center right now, don't be, because that's not a final product by any means.

[MatronDeWinter]

September 2/99 PVP guide written by one of the WTF men.

http://www.wtfman.com/oldjov/ Newbie > PvP'ing as a mage.

Nocturnal's Guide to PvPing as a Mage
By: Nocturnal

Introduction
Have you ever been witness to one of the thrilling and long mage duels in the Deceit dueling room? Ever seen a lone mage take down an unexpecting person in 5 seconds flat? Ever wanted to be one of those mages? I hope this guide will be of some assistance to you. This guide assumes you know the basics of character building and have a halfway decent mage character to pvp with. In my mind, that would be:

GM magery (definitely GM if you want half a chance against gm resistors)
90+ eval and meditation (note: the difference between 90-100 eval is roughly 2 damage per spell against high-level resistors, i.e. duelers)
GM tactics and weapon skill (swords is the best, closely followed by maces. You have to be a weird and crazy person to use fencing as a mage)
the best resist you can afford (that means if it makes you go broke to get 80 resist, do it.) See Nighthawk's excellent guide on how to do this. Once you have the character down, here's where this guide comes in. Note: this duel does not tell you how to kill a lone newbie with 4 mages, as I don't consider that pvping, I consider that retarded.

Basics
This short section covers the art of precasting and spell/weapon combos.

Precasting : this is the thing that all the monsterkillers whine about that makes the mage half worthwhile in pvp to play. This consists of casting a spell, but instead of releasing it, arm a weapon (using your favorite 3rd party program or...*shiver*...Origin's version), hit them once with the weapon, disarming, and releasing the spell. Whew. To put it a little simpler, this keeps the targetting cursor up while you whack away with your weapon. Then when they start to heal, you can disarm and release the spell, rather than disarm and starting to cast, which takes too long. Greater heal is faster than ANY attack spell you will use in battle, so precasting is the only way to beat it.

Simple combos: (these assume the opponent is paralyzed for the sake of simplicity)
There's always the favorite, the explosion/ebolt combo. Everyone knows that explosion doesn't immediately damage the opponent, and it's very easy to get off an ebolt in that time and making them hit simultaneously. This will do 40-60 damage all at once, which is decent, but not reliable enough to use a lot.

There's the common standby, the explosion/flamestrike combo. It takes a bit of practice to get the FS to hit when the explosion does, but once you get it, you'll know why it's used so much. It can do upwards of 70 damage very quickly.

Now the combos become a little more complicated and involve precasting with weapons.
Explosion/precast FS/weapon hit/release FS. This combo is EXTREMELY deadly. Especially when combined with a nice magic hally or qstaff, this can easily kill a low-resist target at once. Basically what this does is confuses the early healer. Once you cast the explosion, then the FS the opponent will think to heal as soon as he's unparalyzed. However, without releasing the flamestrike, you arm your weapon and attack him. He will usually cancel the heal or delay it, but then you do a quick disarm and release the flamestrike. This will catch mediocre duelers off guard all the time and works most of the time on experienced ones. This is worthwhile doing on a fully healed opponent, as it does that much damage. They will normally be close to death, if you can get off a quick ebolt you've pretty much clenched victory.

Precast paralyze/hit with weapon/release para. This is basically the precursor to the above combo. In the case where the above combo doesn't kill the opponent, this little extra damage that this combo causes before hand is very nice. This insures that you whittle away some life before you para them and release your (hopefully) deadly combo.

And finally, the last basics of pvp that all characters use, potions (and lots of them) and trapped pouches. Bring a LOT of greater heal potions, they will save your life. However a lot of duels agree on not using them. Greater refreshes are nice against macers if you need your stamina back. Explosions seem rather worthless now, I never use them anymore. Bring greater cures if poison is allowed in the duel, most times it isn't. The greater strength and agilities aren't very useful. And have some trapped pouches (cast magic trap on them) prepared before duels. When you're paralyzed, just open a trapped pouch and bam you can move again. However a lot of duels disallow these as well.

Mage vs. Mage
These are the fun duels that last a long time and don't consist of the mage running as fast as he can in circles while recharging mana. These are the duels that drain 30+ silk each . One quick note first that fits into anything, if you see them preparing some sort of combo, get a gheal ready, you'll need it. Precasting the gheal when they're casting the paralyze works very nicely.

Beginning of the Duel
There are several paths you can take to start off with in a duel. Depending on how strict the dueling rules are, you might want to guzzle a greater strength and heal potion before it starts, but that's your perogative. I never do it, since if you die that early that the potion makes a difference...well...you need more help than this guide can give you. Make SURE you have reflect up. 99.99999% of the time, it will be dropped, but the one time the other duelist doesn't check for it is the time you win easy. Now, onto the paths you can take.

Early offensive
This is where you want to drop your opponent in 10 seconds flat without him really getting a chance to do anything. Personally, I consider this fairly unreliable considering that they have a large pool of mana to heal themselves with, and greater heal takes less mana and time than the attack spells.

However, with that said, here are some early duel options.
-a lot of players start out by dropping reflect and immediately paralyzing the opponent, and then doing a combo on them. This works okay, but since most duelists have 100 strength, you'll rarely do enough damage this way to kill them before they heal. I think the best early offensive combo, is the precast para/weapon hit combo, then the big weapon/fs combo. If you can pull it off, this kills anyone. The only problem is most people precast a heal when they see a para coming. Quick note: often times when your reflect drop spell bounces back at you, it will disrupt your first para or whatever. Wait the miniscule amount of time it takes to bounce back before you start casting.

-In general, I find early offensives very unreliable. If you don't kill them, you'll be *very* low on mana and they'll have used almost none to heal back up. Especially since the latest defensive duelist tactic is to precast a harm or magic arrow not to drop your reflect but to release their paralyze. If they release the para during your critical combo, you're screwed.

2) The midway or apathetic beginning. This isn't overly defensive or offensive. This is probably the most reliable way of going. Drop their reflect right away and see what they do. If they cast a heal or weak attack spell (to drop para), arm your weapon and charge at them gungho. It will mess up their defensive strategy a bit, and they'll use up some mana to heal the damage you did (while you used none). Precast a spell if you want, but this will usually cause them to heal as soon as their health drops even a little. However, if the opponent chooses an offensive strategy, do the opposite and precast your choice of a heal or para dropper. I personally still prefer to charge at them with the weapon, you might disrupt the para, and now they're scrambling.

3) The defensive beginning. This is where you may not even drop their resist to start with, you precast a para dropper (since it looks like a reflect dropper anyway) and just stand there and await the onslaught. This is a good opening against an offensive duelist, since you won't use much mana up and you'll be perfectly calm and collected when their 90 damage combo hits. However if it DOES kill you, it kinda sucks , but that's when they make a good swing with their vanq halberd of meanassedness. This strategy waits out the opponent, healing any damage they do and then doing your offensive when they have no mana left.

Mid Duel
The mid duel may or may not exist during a duel. This is when one person has no mana and the other does. This part is very simple. If you have mana and they don't, combo them to hell and back. If you are the one that failed your early offensive, hope to hell you can heal back up...and meditate as much as you can. If you can spare a paralyze, do it and just meditate until their resist breaks it off. (As a quick side note, I once just kept paralyzing a fighter and meditating until I was back up to 100 mana. They weren't happy but hey, I won. =).

Late Duel
This is where both players are somewhat low on mana and are basically running around hitting with weapons and meditating when possible. Throwing a few spells around. This is the part that lasts a loooong looooong time in some duels. The biggest priority here is keeping yourself healed and hoping you knock them down a ways in health. At this stage, I like to precast a paralyze and whack at them with my weapon for a bit. When they run off to heal, release the para. They're now wounded and can't cast. However, I'd recommend against doing this if they have the upper hand weapon-wise. If they can out smack you, precasting a para is bad because when you go to heal you'll have to cancel the paralyze as well which costs precious time.

Finishing the Duel
This is where you face plant them and give them a nice dirtnap. Look for a slight upper hand when exchanging weapon blows, then get off a quick combo. If you have the mana, I prefer ebolt then an exp/ebolt combo. The first ebolt may or (likely) may not kill them, however, it might disrupt a heal and will add to the amount they have to heal back. At this point, an explosion/ebolt combo SHOULD kill them, if not, a quick hally or qstaff hit should fall them. Of course, this will fail many times and now you're low on mana again. This is the most difficult part of the duel when anything could happen. Fizzle a flamestrike, resist some big combo, who knows. Play it as it comes and look for an opening for a combo. Again, as always, mana is key. Don't expend it if you can't kill them with the mana dump. If you think you can, go for it. At this point, big long combos are pretty much thrown out the window and you have to do what you can whenever. Throw an ebolt if they're running off to heal, whatever.

After Duel
Uh, well this is when you loot and/or res them. The fun part where you look l33t and get to gloat. =)

Final Notes
Weapon strategy: for swords mages, use the hally for combos only or for a big hit at the end. The swing time is too long to rely on, and if you use it a lot the delay will mess up that needed final hit. Use a katana when exchanging blows. For macers: use your qstaff all the time. It's nice when they have no stamina left and you can keep beating on them while they scramble to heal without the pain of chasing them around.

Mage vs. Warrior
These duels aren't much fun, but a little more interesting than warrior/warrior duels (i.e. two people stand by each other and heal repeatedly....wooo....). However, the mage spends most of his time running his ass off and trying to get paralyzes cast without being disrupted.

Beginning Duel
As soon as whoever says go says go, drop their reflect and get a paralyze ready. Make sure you wait until the spell bounces back, because if you disrupt your own spell you only add to the hell that is spell disruption. If you can get your first paralyze off without being disrupted, that's a very good thing. Now, you have the option of doing a combo on them, however more often than not their "precasted" bandage will kick in just as your combo hits and it's a waste of mana. What I like to do is precast a paralyze and charge at them with my weapon. If you end up doing okay against them in hand to hand, you should be pretty certain at this point you're going to win. However, more often than not you'll be whacked down a lot, but not before dealing some damage of your own. Once they're down a bit, release the paralyze and heal yourself back up. Now steps you should take are:

1) Combo them
2) Hope it kills them

If it doesn't, their para is released, more than likely their bandage kicks in, and you're low on mana. This is when the suck part of the Mage vs. Warrior duel comes in...running for your life. Middle / Late Duel
This is where your combo didn't work and you're running for your life hoping for mana. At this point, you're praying for mana, and you're praying to get a paralyze off so you can meditate (hint: para them so you can meditate). If you didn't kill them right off the bat, you're hoping you get an opening and get a quick spell off before they can heal. I normally precast a flamestrike and try and release it when they're around half health. They won't be expecting such a big drop in life and probably won't have a heal finishing. *Hopefully* you can finish them off before they de-equip and gheal. If the duel gets to this point, the warrior wins probably three times out of four, assuming they're capable. Thankfully, most dex fighters AREN'T capable and have no resist or pvp skill.

Final Notes
Weapon strategy: basically the same as above, except I'd recommend against using a halberd against a faster fighter, since you won't hit very often. Always be ready to heal. If they get in a few good swings in a row you'll be really hurting, and if you have to run around hoping to not have it disrupted, you'll probably die. Always get ready to heal earlier against fighters than against mages. If they have a far better connection than you, don't duel them, you'll lose.

Summary
Not really any summary except a few miscellaneous points to throw in.

1) It seems very odd, but parrying CAN work with a mage (against other mages, bear with me here). If you can survive the early mana dump (and if you can't you should still be reading above), you'll ALWAYS have the extra hand in the exchanging blows during mid and end duel. They'll do far less damage and you can outright block some of their hits, which really messes up the big hally combos. However, you have to sacrifice resist for it, which is dubiously good. Having parry rather than resist basically means it's a lot harder to survive the early mana dumps, but if you can you'll have them on the ropes.

2) Mana is your friend. Plain and simple. Meditate as often as possible.

3) When preparing for a duel, try and negotiate the following:
-no potions
-no trapped boxes
-no poison

Most (if not all) mages will agree to this, you'll have a tougher time pushing this on a warrior though. Get as many of the above as you can.

4) And the most final, important point: you'll never be good at pvp if your computer sucks and you're on a 14.4. It's a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless.

Hope this has been some help to you!

-Nocturnal of KoY
Pacific Shard
http://ndr.n3.net

This is one of the greatest era-accurate finds I have seen since playing here. I especially like the part where it says "spam the hally until you can drop a fast cast ebolt, augment with harm spell". Oh wait, it doesn't.

[A Skilled Midget]

I talked to Derrick about this issue. EVERYONE CALM DOWN! Lol. The current Test center is messed up and for some reason set in a UO:R type fashion. NOTHING ON TEST IS GOING LIVE! Again just incase you missed that. NOTHING ON TEST IS GOING LIVE!
Meaning no worries about pvp. You may all go back to qqing about other issues now. Your welcome.

[Halbu]

Regarding swing holding, I can only say that I'm pretty sure that back then I could run up to somebody with a "ready" swing and have it fire once I got next to them... What is the evidence that this should be removed? (perhaps a link would be useful)... My experience is obviously just an anecdote, but I'd be interested in seeing this "sufficient evidence".

"Instant hit" is not being removed.

[itwouldbewise]

Nocturnal!! A pox on you for writing that confounded PvP guide! And to think he played on the same shard as me...

Heheh I'm just kidding... Thanks for the post, Rose Reading that guide made me quite nostalgic. Ahhh the Deceit duel room... that brings back memories... I suppose my early UO experiences all blend together in my memory, so it's kinda foggy, so you'll please excuse my trying to piece things together .

I must say, however, that although hally cycling is exceedingly (that's +20, btw) absent from this article, what is the hard evidence that there was no "held hit"?

But man, oh man, I'm still very concerned about what 1v1 PvP will be like for the good PvPers of THIS shard, for some of the following reasons:

• On this shard, (practically) all of us have very low pings, a lot of PvP experience, and 7x GM characters--all things that were very uncommon back then. I really don't think that the type of PvP described in the guide (regardless of how era accurate it is) would be nearly as fun and competitive (or even feasible) in this kind of environment (see my next points).
• The '99 PvP guide indicates such a strong (almost exclusive) reliance upon paralyze, which is not effective unless trapped boxes are taken out of the equation, and (I believe) far less effective when you have a good connection and can react faster--even without boxes... It would seem that PvP would devolve towards paralyzing being the only way to really control dealing out damage, and that sounds pretty terrible (and ineffective, when fighting somebody who has PvP experience) to me, especially compared with something as interactive as timing hally cycling .
  
  (as a side note--and I hope this doesn't derail this topic--I really don't remember not being able to paralyze somebody who was frozen due to spell casting--is that era accurate? I also remember that they made it so paralyze did 1 point of damage at one time--I think to serve as a murder reporting mechanism, but perhaps also to address this "I'm-frozen-due-to-spellcasting-therefore-I-cannot-be-paralyzed-so-there-HAHA" situation)
• Mini-heal was never mentioned in that guide, I think because either (1) it didn't heal as much back then or (2) it was so difficult to get them off fast enough with bad connections that it was not cost-effective. I really think that if PvP were to resort to the situation described in this guide, it would be pretty much impossible to kill somebody who has any idea what they are doing. There just isn't enough damage-dealing power in a tank-mage wielding a katana or quarter staff to keep up with this kind of spam. Even with hally cycling it's difficult!!! Is the power of mini-heal something that would be changed then as well?

I know the goal of the shard is era accuracy, but I really think PvP would take a big hit in terms of fun and competitiveness (if hally cycling and held hits were removed) given these facts. I am quite fearful that it will devolve into the scenarios I described in my previous post involving Larry Curly and Moe: Some stooges running around doing damage to each other but never dying... not when they all have GM resist and broadband internet... not when they can mini-heal to 100% life faster than damage can be dealt. Not when they can run far far away and not worry about a "held" hally hit running two steps behind them.

I talked to Derrick about this issue. EVERYONE CALM DOWN! Lol. The current Test center is messed up and for some reason set in a UO:R type fashion. NOTHING ON TEST IS GOING LIVE! Again just incase you missed that. NOTHING ON TEST IS GOING LIVE!
Meaning no worries about pvp. You may all go back to qqing about other issues now. Your welcome.

Not now it's not, but it would be wise to look toward the future, and based on Kaivan's statements, it sounds like things are going to be changing (and not too far into the future).

"Instant hit" is not being removed

Thank goodness... but remember, I'm not talking about Instant hit--Instant hit just means that your enemy can't walk away from a swing after you see it starting (just like archery is right now... which makes archery pretty much ridiculous in PvP) ... BUT, Kaivan indicated that "held hits" WILL be removed (read the quote carefully). That means (if I'm not mistaken) that it does not hold it's "ready" state, so when you walk up to somebody to attack them, you will be waiting until a timer is reached before an "instant" swing occurs... it sounds difficult to predict and control to me (and, again I would like to see the hard evidence against it, since that is one thing I'm pretty sure you could do in OSI T2A).

... Oh yea... A pox on Nocturnal!... err j/k... heheh... no seriously that was a great find, Rose