UO Second Age

Having a tough time deciding between fencing or mace only reason I'm stuck is deadly poison... But if I plan to use it which is better swords or fencing?

I love maces but outside of the qstaff their weapons are a little slow and they can't be poisoned.

Swords has the hardest hitter (hally) and you can get magic broadswords for very cheap, which is a good value.

Fencing has the fastest weapons and would be my choice if I went with a blade skill over macing.

I'm just gonna throw it out there that for some reason I get more double hits with mace weapons than any other weapon type.

if you're new, then something less in demand could be better to start with.
finding super nice weapons to buy in fencing or swords might be a lot harder,
than finding a great mace. plus maces break stuff!

Depends on your template. With maces I like mace/tac/heal/anat/mage/resist/wrestling, with fences I like fencing/tac/heal/anat/poisoning/parry/resist

Well im building a secondary crafter with alchemy/poisoning/inscription so i was planning on keeping the dexxer to a build more like this anatomy/healing/tactics/parry/resist/weapon-skill/hiding and hiding for two reasons, 1) i do not have the best connection and 2) with no magery it leaves me the ability to just wait out trouble atleast thats the plan. I really like maces though, im just having a tough time remembering if DP was worth it when people can chug pots like crazy.

My .02...

Parry is terrible unless you're PvMing and not really fighting stuff that poisons and casts magic on you.

DP isn't great, but it can be nice in PvP sometimes.

I'd choose swords... good range of weapons across the speed-vs-damage spectrum... there's more of them, so therefore there's more silver sword weapons than anything else... so they're cheap. And additionally, the broadsword (a very underrated weapon) is incredibly cheap at high magical enchantments because balrons drop one 100% of the time. Broadswords of Power and even Vanq are practically free.

I agree with Mikel on the swds issue, and I disagree on the parry, it has saved my ass multiple times in PvM and PvP.

This is my guy: http://my.uosecondage.com/Status/Player/81912

Every char needs magery around here IMO. With the standard (weapon, tactics, heal, anatomy, resist) I like magery and wrestle or archery. Parry will absorb some damage, but with archery you won't be taking melee damage at all cause you can just run around the monster. Wrestle is good for casting without being interrupted.

I'm with Pirul on this. Swords is a great weapon choice and I'd also have to disagree with Mikel on parry. As a dexer, you're going to have at least one, perhaps two, 100 point skill slots to fill depending on the build.

People gripe about parry in pvp because you're wielding a low damage 1-hand weapon but still can't drink pots. However, they forget that mage pvp is pretty mechanical here...very predictable. I have gm parry but don't wear a shield often. I just keep the arm/disarm key for my shield handy - strictly for those pesky hally hits. With 2.5 seconds between cycles, you're not likely to equip the shield for all of them, but, if you're good, you can tell when you'll need a hand free to chug and when you can throw the shield up to block.

I'm not at all concerned about having to use one-handed weapons; in fact, without parry, I use them anyways - then I can drink potions with my free hand without any delay, and it costs me 1 second per potion (normal action delay).

With a shield, to drink a potion, it's a 3-second process: unequip shield, chug, re-equip shield. So there's two full seconds, minimum, where your shield is doing nothing. It's extra hotkeys you need to hit... and I find good magic armor to be more than sufficient for reducing the effectiveness of enemy weapons.

Indeed, parry may save you in some PvP circumstances, but I just think it will kill you more often, as you have to wait to chug potions and use bandages. I feel like most of the instances in which I die on a dexer are due to getting poisoned at the 14-second mark of a bandage, where I can't chug a cure fast enough to keep my bandage to be used for healing. With a shield, you're adding another second to the time in which you can get poisoned to ruin a bandage, and you're adding a second delay to the time it takes to chug a yellow heal or red stamina potion too.

Anyways, this is kind of an advanced argument... check out my Parrying guide for how to GM the skill in about 45 minutes and 10k of gp. So it's well worth trying it out to see what you think for yourself!

Go with fencing/swords and instead of parry/wrestling get Eval (unless you can afford poisoning) and 50 INT. You will be immune to mind blast, can EQ, SYNC drop, and with greater agility your kryss will still be hitting plenty fast to interrupt Gheals.

Without wrestling, your gonna get your ass beat when you unequip to cast or chug.

Kabal wrote:Without wrestling, your gonna get your ass beat when you unequip to cast or chug.

Not at all. If you're fighting a mage then you just have to time it right and insta-equip. You obviously have never played an anat-mage.