Truths about this Era - The Way it Was

[Teknix]

what about eval instead of med on that temp?
i know mana would be a bitch 2 gain, but you would have a dangerous finish???

i messed around with switching eval for med on the test center shard. it was fun, but by this time i had 'checked out' of pvp'ing on napa. i played nothing but test center for a long time.

the dangerous finish is more difficult to pull off with no wrestling, but you can pull off an ebolt before a tank mage would hit you with hally. just watch out for magic arrow, it will mess you up everytime, assuming the mage is quick enough to hit his magic arrow macro to interupt you

i could survive many many dumps from a tank, but it was difficult for me to kill them. switching med for eval would have meant i couldn't mini heal like mad and that finishing move is a one-shot attempt that would work less than often.

who knows, i might make the character again. right now i'm playing a bard. never done that. after i gain money and housing, i'll venture onto other characters

[Loathed]

to be honest the best template is either -

a. blunt mage :
macing
tactics
magery
eval
med
resist
wrestling

b. hally mage :
swordsmanship
tactics
magery
eval
med
resist
wrestling

c. not sure what this is called, but if i'm correct would be the most effective

For my Tank mage (ie Hally mage) i go with.

Magery
Meditation
MagicResist
Eval Int
Swords
Tactics
Anatomy

I sub in anatomy for wrestle. It seems to be worth it when i get that finishing blow with the halbred. I dont get interrupted much. Just seems to work for me.

- subsitute any weapon skill you want in there for swords, be it archery, macing, or fencing. it's a fast/heavy dmg template but still gives almost as good as defense against physical as the above do. wearing a weapon in ur hand is almost like having atleast 80 wrestling if not more.
//weakness - dexers can own you bad while your casting.

try it and see

[alatar]

Considering 90% of the people here use a weapon skill having no wrestle is pretty stupid.

[platy]

yeah, u guys think having anatomy would help but if u try it u'd prolly be dissapointed.. hally's hit hard no matter what.
wrestle is a must

[BloodyBandage]

Glad to see all the different ideas...my intent was never to say this is the only way to play UO but rather what was mainstream at the time. I'm usually the first person to try the fishing/mage/bakery template as far as randomness goes so I love the fact that people are trying different things. That's the beauty of this game/era. It's whatever fits your style.

I enjoyed the no wrestling for anatomy template but if you face a dexer you're in for some troubles. If you face a mage and you have good timing your weapon hits are going to be pretty scary.

I actually tried to recreate a full plate mage for this era on another shard I once played.

Fencing
Tactics
Magery
Eval
Anatomy
Healing
Resist

100 str
80 int
45 dex

The idea was fencing was fast enough to disturb 4th circle spells with 45 dex -full plate penalty. I would run around in full plate with a kryss and try to get my opponent down to 75%. I would quick prep and ebolt *no time for delayed spells as your mana is limited since you don't regain it* and release once they got to around half hp. Then throw the longspear/short spear on to try to finish them.

Meditation was useless since I wanted to wear Full Plate. The Full Plate could absorb weapon hits much better and the bandages should keep me from using my mana defensively - granted one Greater heal was needed occasionally to survive a dump. The extra Eval Int would give my ebolt enough power to get them low enough for an insta hit longspear killshot. It wasn't everday a full plate dexer launched a powerful ebolt.

It turned out the template was pretty good but the no mana regen made it absolutely useless in group fights or long fights. It was more of a dueling character, or a soloist...and so much downtime it wasn't even funny. The character would lose to parry dexers as they were dealing more damage then I could handle unless I kept them poisoned through spells and tried to dump on them...but no wrestling makes it so you get disturbed a lot. It was a mage's nightmare however. Their hally/bows/warhammer would not do max damage against full plate and the magic resist would ensure my survival until a bandage kicked in. The anatomy/eval combo gives me max dmg on my wep hits and spell. Once they figure out you have no meditation they will likely dump on you and make you become defensive or constantly cast poison on you to make you take your weapon off to cure in which time you will be wasting mana that you won't regain and possibly getting weapon smacked. Pots would solve this but I never like relying on them.

I also made a defensive template that was extremely hard to kill and very annoying.

Mace
Parry
Anatomy
Healing
Meditation
Magery
Resist

100str
100int
25dex

I figured out how much of what different types of armor I could wear and not get a passive med penalty while wearing a shield. I believe the formula is based on total AR. Once you get past a certain AR the passive med takes a hit...so I rocked a naked outfit with a wooden shield *I would still parry lots of blows limiting the dmg*. The character was an annoying monster as I would just follow you with a club healing myself and draining your stamina. Mana was used only for defensive purposes as well as resist, meditation, parry and healing. Only hope of killing this character was by dumping since no wrestling and landing kill shot...but even then you had to hope I didn't parry or mini heal spam till a bandage kicked in *100 mana of miniheals if need be*.

I also made a Stealth Pk template that was pretty good but my post has turned into a novel...just saying there are many ways to play the game. Most templates were based around the generic templates I talked about in the original post but clearly it should not limit your creativity or desire to create one great template you personally love. Best of luck

[LargePiece]

Damn good reading here. It's nice to see people aren't all precious about their strategies and templates.

[leterrien]

Nice post BB

My stealth template:
Archery
Tactics
Anatomy
Magery
Eval Int
Hiding
Stealth

100 STR
25 DEX
100 INT

Also going for the max damage hits with anatomy.

[BloodyBandage]

Remind me not to run into that template Leterrien as it is powerful ;p. Mine was basically the same but I went with swords over Archery (can poison blades)..that's going to be a ton of fun to play...and really hard to escape as you have multiple ranges attacked...nice

[silex]

I've been building that exact defensive macer template for a bit now. Good to know I'm not a unique snowflake after all.

I've been trying to figure out what the best way to go about the stats on that template is though. 25 dex just seems so low for self bandaging and interrupts. Did you find that the 100 mana was really that useful? I mean, it is pretty much only for the occasional utility spell and mini heal dumps.

I was thinking 100/75/50. Chug dex potions to keep you hovering around 100 the majority of the time.

[BloodyBandage]

Hi Silex,

Usually I have this criteria when I pick stats:

Is this enough dex to disturb 4th circle spells (greater heal) if it hits twice in a row.
I.E. if they keep trying to gheal spam can my weapon keep hitting (if it hits) and disturb them without them being able to get their cursor up.

If it's not enough dex I have to ask what my dex is good for at that point...maybe its so bandages kick in quicker or fast enough to beat their bandage when trying to kill them...the lack of tactics will make this character rely on draining dex of your opponent and hoping they get bored and die ;p

I would personally try to find how much dex is needed to swing faster than gheal with a club...and if you can drop parry perhaps a qstaff. Once you get that number then that's all you need dex wise..granted the more dex the faster on top of that you will swing.

That's why the template worked great with fencing because not much dex was needed to disturb gheal with a kryss. It will be a little more for macing weapons but the stamina damage might be worth it...you're going to need to test this out some to find the right amount of dex (factor in things like debuffs as well).

[Antiock]

OK i started playing in t2a era , i was in 7th grade , im 23 now and i find myself going back every 9 mo or so , its an addiction in nostalgia. Before eq and its level based bullshit ruined everything RG had worked for , and now look , his name lay spread eagle and spit on TB. O well rg , hope that bought you another castle. Sellout , letting ea get their grubby hands on this game and shove it to crapville w their half ass 3d bs , not releasing uo2 , NOT RELEASING UOO!!!! HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!!!! ahem, sorry for the rant ,welcome to the neighborhood yada yada. I was wondering a few things because i never incorporated magery into my guys except a pure mage class and i always had a blast and didn't suck either but i was wondering

does lumber jacking give a damage buff GM when using axes? cause it should.

also , can you parry with just a weapon? cause it should. but i was wondering anyway and also what does wrestling do for the hally mage ebolt doom template, whats its purpose.

also , is there an easier way of making money than picking moonglow cotton , im going insane , looking for newb chars to play with casually dungeon raids etc fun shit. alright late

[email protected]
(pidgin)AIM:chasemuschong
Character: Antiock

Was going to be:

Anatomy ( bonus)
tact
swords
parry
healing
resist spells
?___________?( lumberjacking , magery, wrestling,)

stats were going to be
str 100
dex 100
int 25

[Derrick]

Welcome to SecondAge Antiock

does lumber jacking give a damage buff GM when using axes? cause it should.

also , can you parry with just a weapon? cause it should. but i was wondering anyway and also what does wrestling do for the hally mage ebolt doom template, whats its purpose.

There are no Lumberjacking, Inscription or Alchemy skill bonuses on SA, those were introduced in a later era.

Parry is only active with a shield equipped.

Wresting is the combat skill that is checked for "chance to hit" when you are empty handed, fo example when casting. With GM Wrestling vs a melee hit from someone with GM weapons skill your chance to be hit, and therefore to be interrupted is 50%. With no wrestling they will never miss.

[Kefka]

It seems odd that everyone has Meditation down as a skill. I Played from jan 08 till around 01-02 on Atlantic, and around the 1999 era (that this shard says it emulates), while meditation was indeed in the game, it didn't work properly, sucked, and not many people used it.

Although I could be wrong, it has been a while But I do recall it not working well.

[alatar]

Meditation has been on the top 3 list of useful skills since UO came out. Though some templates & skilled players can work without it, I would say its definatly the most popular skill.

[Derrick]

It seems odd that everyone has Meditation down as a skill. I Played from jan 08 till around 01-02 on Atlantic, and around the 1999 era (that this shard says it emulates), while meditation was indeed in the game, it didn't work properly, sucked, and not many people used it.

Although I could be wrong, it has been a while But I do recall it not working well.

Meditation was introduced just prior to, at, or just after the release of T2A. If it was buggy at first, they fixed it beacuse I started not long after T2A release and never knew of any problems with it. The behavior of med when I played (as best I remember) is the same as it is on Second Age.