Greetings! Need advice on 7th skill.

[theenigma7]

Hello all, I just stared here about 2 days ago. I played OSI UO for about 4 years and started just after the Trammel/Felucia split. So far I am loving the shard =P.

I made a Warrior for my first character, I have my stats set at 90str/90dex/45int, and have chosen 6 out of my 7 skills

Mace Fighting (for Quarter staff and War hammer beat downs)
Tactics
Anatomy
Healing
Resisting spells
Magery (Mostly for spells like Cure, recall, mark, gate, blade spirit, lots of utility and travel that I just cant pass up on.)

The problem is that I cant pin down a 7th skill, I have been thinking about hiding but do I really need it if I can just cast inviz instead?
Ideas or suggestions any one?

[Sandro]

Take away -10 dex and add +10 str.

For the 7th skill it really depends on what you will be doing with the character. For all-around general purposes, your best bet is wrestling. That will give you a 50% chance to dodge attacks while your hands are disarmed (casting a spell) which is vital to any build that uses magic.

If you're not doing any extensive pvp hiding isn't a bad choice, but like you said its sort of a waste of 100 skill points when you can cast the spell and/or use invisibility equipment. Meditation is a nice choice, but wearing most types of armor will pretty much nullify most of your passive regeneration..

Your only other real viable options are parry, archery, or eval. Poisoning won't help you b/c you cannot poison macing weapons.

There are other choices available but without specifying what you plan to use the character for it's hard to give any further suggestions.

[applejack]

Sandro's advice is good and here is my obligatory plug for Tracking.

[theenigma7]

I plan on using him for general PvE, probably mostly things like liches, and elementals, and maybe some higher spawns like ogre lords and such using blade spirits (this may require meditation and use of lighter armor).

I think its looking like battle between meditation for mana regain so I can take on stronger monsters and wrestling for more protection in PvE and possible protection if i have a push comes to shove PvP situation.

Thanks for the advice, but feel free to keep posting every one, would love to hear more opinions.

Side note, I know that I can make much more money on a tamer or bard, and I do plan on making one, but I never enjoyed the play style much. There is some thing about whacking things with a hammer/sword that is just plain fun =).

[Spitfire]

I have 2 dexers with those 6 skills, my PVM one has archery and my PVP one has wrestling. I tried med but it was not worth the tradeoff for less armor IMO, I prefer wrestling.

[Mikel123]

45 INT seems excessive - what's it for?

If you're wearing heavy armor, even Meditation won't help you get a meaningful regen rate.

Wrestling is useful if you have your magery for emergency heals/cures.

But if your main monster opponents are ogre lords, liches and elementals, I'd suggest parry. It will be hugely helpful against ogre lords. That way you won't even be tempted to try to cast blade spirits with 0 wrestling or 0 meditation.

[OneEyedJack]

I'd have to agree with most that has been said. But here's my 2 cents. NEVER have less than 100 str... you're sacrificing HP if you do.

Archery is fun, but costly to gain. And can be costly to use if you don't have a fletcher (Even still you're spending time MAKING arrows, and time is money.) Wrestling is absolutely wonderful to get a quick recall out if a pk shows up and you can't take the heat. Hiding is more useful for a bard or tamer imo. As a dexer you probably won't spend much time hiding since you'll be swinging. Meditation is nice if you want to keep higher int, but will be useless if you wear armor. Eval is great for adding damage to your spells... but pretty much useless without meditation. Tracking is awesome, but you don't really require much for it to be useful (40ish).

My advice is go wrestle or archery. (if you choose to spare a few points for tracking, more power to you!)

Also there's only one OL spawning point that I know of here and it's overrun with ettins and regular ogres. And I do mean overrun... The OL island that I knew from UO is full of NPC red mages for some reason.

Good luck with your choices! free to PM me or IRC EarOfTin if you have any questions.

[theenigma7]

Also there's only one OL spawning point that I know of here and it's overrun with ettins and regular ogres. And I do mean overrun... The OL island that I knew from UO is full of NPC red mages for some reason.

Good luck with your choices! free to PM me or IRC EarOfTin if you have any questions.

DOH, your right I forgot this is from before they changed over despise to have Ogre lords, Titans, Cyclops, and earth elemental in it. Looks like that means that shame will be my primary stomping ground.

45 INT seems excessive - what's it for?

If you're wearing heavy armor, even Meditation won't help you get a meaningful regen rate.

Wrestling is useful if you have your magery for emergency heals/cures.

But if your main monster opponents are ogre lords, liches and elementals, I'd suggest parry. It will be hugely helpful against ogre lords. That way you won't even be tempted to try to cast blade spirits with 0 wrestling or 0 meditation.

Mostly the 45 int was to be able to cast 2-3 blade spirits back to back and still have some emergency mana left over. That is how I remember killing ogre lords quite easy, cast 2 or 3 then loot. but now i am not so sure the blade spirit thing and going after ogre lords would even be worth it. I still plan on keeping gm magery for utility and travel tho.

I am heavily considering wrestling.

Thank you all for the great info and advice =)

[OneEyedJack]

Also keep in mind BSes are VERY aggressive. And they will target YOU probably more quickly than a monster if you misplace it.

[iamreallysquall]

your best bet is wrestling
stats i like 95 str 90 dex 40 int with
+20 agi str pots and cunning items

[Pirul]

Some people swear by the "med-dexxer", however, I have never been a fan of half-mages/half-warriors, I feel you gimp the character too much, and end up with the shitend of the stick for both.

If you're main offensive weps will be melee, then you NEED max protection, which means, at the very least, a light dexxer suit, which will not allow you to actively med, and will dumb your passive med to intolerable levels. No med means you cannot rely on magery as your main means of offense, and for defense really 25 INT will get you plenty of mini heals while your bandage/pot timer kicks in, and you still have mana to spare to recall out. If you get 25 INT...and I do not think any warrior should have over 35 INT, then you know you'll never be casting 8th circ spells (and 7th circle only with a magical wiz hat on, which means you have time, and thus can use scrolls)...you also know you will not be trying to gate in a hurry, and the only spell you really CANNOT fizzle is recall, a 6th circle, which 70 magery will almost guarantee (or lower using a scroll). So now we have at least 130 points to play with, which you can use for parry, which I am a huge advocate of, or tracking, or hiding, or a mix of the last two.

I also would never recomend having a char with under 100 STR, no matter the builld.

And if it's big game you're after, I solo kill deamons and drakes all the time with little to no problem (with proper equipment, of course) on this character.

[Sandro]

No med means you cannot rely on magery as your main means of offense, and for defense really 25 INT will get you plenty of mini heals while your bandage/pot timer kicks in, and you still have mana to spare to recall out. If you get 25 INT...and I do not think any warrior should have over 35 INT

That works just fine until you get feebleminded for a -10 int.

You better use that 15 mana wisely at that point.

[Spitfire]

My pitch for 40 or so int is that you can easily jack your dex up with a pot but you can't do that with int (and even if you did with a bless or cunning item you'd have to wait for the mana to climb up to the higher level).

[theenigma7]

Just wanted to give an update and thank you all for the info and guidance.

The character is well under way and recently killed his first lich with relative ease. As for my decision on the last skill I decided on Wrestling (skill level is still quite low tho). I took the stat advice you all gave and am currently at 100/100/25 due to my magery being extremely low (I can and probably will lower Dex and buff Int once my magery gets to a more respectable level).

Thanks, you all rock.

[iamreallysquall]

Just wanted to give an update and thank you all for the info and guidance.

The character is well under way and recently killed his first lich with relative ease. As for my decision on the last skill I decided on Wrestling (skill level is still quite low tho). I took the stat advice you all gave and am currently at 100/100/25 due to my magery being extremely low (I can and probably will lower Dex and buff Int once my magery gets to a more respectable level).

Thanks, you all rock.

magery is really really slow gains if you don't have meditation. due to the fact your passive regen rate will be very slow. if you have 200 free points id get meditation temporary while you level the skill else it will take a very very long time. Any template that i get magery i work up meditation to make magery gains go faster then drop meditation inplace of another skill that i am keeping