Noob PvM needs help...

[Rahvin080]

I'm starting my first real PvM character. I've played many chars on many shards but mainly stuck to PvP when many of the player run shards were heavily populated. I decided to go with a T-Hunter bard first(suprise, suprise) to make some cash. I'm going with -

Mage
Med
Music
Prov
Cart
Lockpick
Hiding

Right now, I have 100 music, 95 provoke and 80 hide and I decided to head to destard to get some dragons killed for some extra money to start training mage. Well I head in and get the tar beat out of me. I've seen people say that provoking these dragons is "easy" but they kill me in about 3 casts, or 1 or 2 hits. I can get one or two down from provoking them but another swoops in, kills me and my horse and then it's nearly impossible to recover my loot.

Any tips? I know it's basic stuff but I'm having a hard time here

[alatar]

You will soon find the treasure hunting template is the hardest template to become proficient with.

[Rahvin080]

You will soon find the treasure hunting template is the hardest template to become proficient with.

Heh, ok well how does one start with nothing effectively? With 100 gold you can barely buy much equipment so I assumed macroing bard skills was a good way to raise funds to be able to macro the costly skills

[Derrick]

You will soon find the treasure hunting template is the hardest template to become proficient with.

Heh, ok well how does one start with nothing effectively? With 100 gold you can barely buy much equipment so I assumed macroing bard skills was a good way to raise funds to be able to macro the costly skills

Welcome to the Shard Rahvin.
I'm sure players can give more valuable advice than me, but it seems like it may not be best to go right after the dragons as a new bard, may want to start with some non-casters to get the hang of it.

[benh088]

I myself have been working on a bard PvM character and I found it easiest to go to places like Despise with the ettins and earth elementals.

Also, you might want to invest time in resisting spells and give up another (no idea what you'd want to give up), but that's just my two cents.

[Rahvin080]

You will soon find the treasure hunting template is the hardest template to become proficient with.

Heh, ok well how does one start with nothing effectively? With 100 gold you can barely buy much equipment so I assumed macroing bard skills was a good way to raise funds to be able to macro the costly skills

Welcome to the Shard Rahvin.
I'm sure players can give more valuable advice than me, but it seems like it may not be best to go right after the dragons as a new bard, may want to start with some non-casters to get the hang of it.

Yeah, I started a bit with the bandits on the road from Yew to Britain, but those guys run, which makes them nearly impossible to target with UO's ancient targeting system. I'm sure there's some fancy way in Razor but I haven't really found anything yet. I went to Despise next, but honestly the risk wasn't worth the reward, I need a horse to be able to get away from danger, and if they manage to kill me somehow I'm boned in a deep dungeon like that. Just wondering if there were any tips from experienced players on where to start.

[ironfistmax]

Despise is the best place to go when starting out.

If you need a horse but have no money, create an Animal Tamer character with 50 Animal Taming skill. Run outside Britian and tame a horse for free.

[TwoTon]

start shame with earth elementals they carry 400 gold aprox. and can give you a great start. not many pks come there either.

[silex]

Definitely start on something easier than Destard. You might find Resist, Wrestling, or Eval Int better than Hiding, but your mileage may vary.

What is your magery at? Once you can reliably lay down Blade Spirits, it becomes much easier to tackle harder areas. The bottom of Covetuous is a good place for beginning bards as well. Cast a blade spirit on the dragon, run out and provoke the drakes, then provoke them onto the dragon and apply additional blade spirits as necessary.

[Luminarie]

I have a char with the EXACT same template.

its good and all but shit, if you hang around 2 seconds too long after you pull up even a lvl 3 or 4 tmap, you can get smoked pretty quick.

Especially if you forget magic reflect like me ^_^

[Coffee]

You will definitely want to wait until you have magery before setting out into places like Destard. Once you're able to chuck some blade spirits around and heal yourself -- then you can start thinking about going to other places.

Despise or Shame would probably be your best bet -- but keep in mind that Shame has scorpions, which means you can look forward to being poisoned.

Personally, I was never a big fan of Destard. All of that stuff pretty much goes insta-aggro which is waaaay annoying.

I'd suggest dumping hiding for resist. Eval is nice, but since most of your offense will be summons, there really isn't much of a need. Once you get your magery up, I think you will find that the invis spell works just as well as hiding -- and you don't have to deal with the skill cool-down.

[Onslaught]

You will soon find the treasure hunting template is the hardest template to become proficient with.

Heh, ok well how does one start with nothing effectively? With 100 gold you can barely buy much equipment so I assumed macroing bard skills was a good way to raise funds to be able to macro the costly skills

Welcome to the Shard Rahvin.
I'm sure players can give more valuable advice than me, but it seems like it may not be best to go right after the dragons as a new bard, may want to start with some non-casters to get the hang of it.

That's what I did when I first got provo and destard was littered with more "a corpse of Ons" than dragons/drakes combined.

[Alex21]

start shame with earth elementals they carry 400 gold aprox. and can give you a great start. not many pks come there either.

kidding, that is where i used to noob pk the most.

[Wick]

ive always started a warrior to make money, start with 50 healing and 50 resist and you can get free bandages via cotton fields once you get 50 swords/tactics you can jouney to shame 1 and kill earth eles for jewels/cash/magic items.. its a slow start but i bought my first house and macro'd a mage that way

[silex]

start shame with earth elementals they carry 400 gold aprox. and can give you a great start. not many pks come there either.

kidding, that is where i used to noob pk the most.

It used to be a huge PK hive on OSI, but agreed with TwoTon, it's rarely used by PKs or even other players here. Scorpions are a major PITA.