Template help...

[Malaikat]

Been a while since I got the UO "itch". I'm new to the shard but played for about 7 years starting just after beta (Chesapeake, Drech, but mostly Cats). I've been reading through the forums to re-acclimate myself to the game and to shard specifics, but I've got some template questions.

Figured I'd crawl before I walk and build myself a dexer. I see that people here have a hardon for fencing, and the war fork in particular, but I think I'm going swords. The kat being nerfed has me second guessing, but the weaps are cheaper and I'm into the diversity of hally, kat, double axe.

My question - what about that final skill slot?

Right now I'm looking at GMing:

Swords
Tact
Heal
Anat
Resist
Magery?
Archery/Tracking/Detect/Hiding?

I like archery for the xbow hit, and I understand that archery and melee operate in seperate cycles. Does that mean I can follow an xbow hit with an insta hally? If not, is archery worth keeping at all? Just been training so I haven't had the chance to test this.

I had thoughts about taking magery to 35.1 and then mixing in with 64.9 hiding/detect/tracking, but then I've just got 2 mediocre skills rather than one that's actually useful.

So, do I dump archery and gm mage and track or is there something else I'm overlooking entirely?

Thanks in advance.

[Pirul]

Swords
Tact
Heal
Anat
Resist

Thus far it's pretty obvious. For the other two skills, I'll repost what I'd posted in another thread:

The other 2 are very much up for debate and depend a lot on what you want to do with your char. If it's simply a PvM toon, then some magery (up to around 50), some hiding, and maybe even GM Parry. If you want to PvP in the field, you might want to drop parry and some magery (down to around 30) and get some tracking, up your hiding, and maybe even poisoning.

Archery is actually pretty terrible considering you have to stand still for a looooooong while to be able to shoot, then wait for the dmg to hit target. By then, they've probably healed up pretty good. You're likely better off using magery and timing a nice little e-bolt to finish off.

On the swords issue, also from another thread:

Swds has a lot of different "decent" 1 handed weapons (katana, broadswd, cutlass and scmitar), and an outstanding 2-handed in the hally. You can buy +15 power broadswords for anywhere between 500gps and 1k (which is dirt cheap for a very decent wep, and tips the scale for me over fencing). Fencing might have the best weps in the war fork, short spear, long spear and kryss, but those are much more expensive due to them not being as common.

[Spitfire]

Tracking is one skill that works at low levels quite effectively. You could do something like 70 magery (won't fail recall)/30 tracking or 50/50 and use the last skill for archery, parry, hiding, or poisoning. The general consensus is that archery is too slow to be effective for pvp, but I can't give you specific answers about the timers because I don't know. Welcome to the shard.

[Malaikat]

Archery is actually pretty terrible considering you have to stand still for a looooooong while to be able to shoot, then wait for the dmg to hit target. By then, they've probably healed up pretty good. You're likely better off using magery and timing a nice little e-bolt to finish off.

For archery, I was thinking more as an opener than a finisher. Maybe a waste to gm a skill for a single shot that will miss around 50%, but I have visions of starting combat with an xbow hit/insta hally combo and then switching to a dp'd one hander followed by a fast-ish axe to finish. Or cycle the hally...Then I'd just cycle the sword weaps throughout combat if the initial volley is survived.

edit: I'm reading the archery support thread now. Missed that one before...

Tracking is one skill that works at low levels quite effectively.

True, but you don't get the range, which is obviously nice. Still useful though without it, which is a good thing if I wanted to take it to 64.9.

Welcome to the shard.

Thanks!

[Mikel123]

Definitely at least 70 Magery, for the 100% recall success rate.

If you're at all concerned with other players, I'd go with 100 magery, 100 wrestling, to allow you to get a spell or two off in a pinch, and give you the maximum mini-heal and greater-heal effectiveness.

Detect Hidden is pretty terrible in terms of effectiveness, and is a waste on a dexer.

Tracking is effective, all of my characters who have this skill have 100 of it because it's enormous range is so much fun.

Hiding is useful at first, and I always make it the first skill I GM (and the last one I turn down when I need to finish training my "real" skills), but it WILL get you killed a few times when you hide to go afk for a couple minutes and get spotted by a tracker.

My suggestion is tracking or wrestling. Tracking is more fun, Wrestling is more for duels with people (trammel tournaments).

[RoadKill]

Swords
Tact
Heal
Anat
Resist
Magery
Archery

That template was extremely successful during the actual T2A era on OSI. Not sure how well it holds up here now that PVP functions faster. Archery is still great for PVM and some PVP situations (like if you get into a fight with a paraganker - equip bow instead of popping pouches)


I'd honestly go with 70 tracking and 30 detect. It'll give you enough tracking range and it'll let you detect 0 Hiders a majority (maybe 100%?) of the time - lots of PKs think they are clever and invis at spawns for a minute or 2 if they suspect someone is/was farming there.

[Malaikat]

I'd honestly go with 70 tracking and 30 detect. It'll give you enough tracking range and it'll let you detect 0 Hiders a majority (maybe 100%?) of the time - lots of PKs think they are clever and invis at spawns for a minute or 2 if they suspect someone is/was farming there.

I'd need to come up with something to drop in order to do that - even with magery at 35. Right now the build I'm looking at is the typical swords temp with gm archery, 35.1 magery, 34.9 track, and 30 hiding. Enough hiding to not dick around too much if I want to camp someplace, enough tracking to at least check around the immediate area and surrounding screens, and enough magery to recall 100% with scrolls. I may do some playing on test in order to get the hang of the swords/archery combo. I haven't invested anything to archery yet so I could always opt for something new while I train some other stuff up.

Any further discussion would be beneficial if someone knows more about this or has another take on it, and thanks to everyone who's already helped.