Several questions about pvp

[Blade Spirit]

Lo guys,

sorry if questions may sound stupid, but they are the result of a sort of parallel I'm tring to do from OSI server (were I played for 10+ years as pk!).

1. Weaken to interrupt spells. Is this used here? Does it work?
2. Trapped chests to remove paralyze?
3. I definitely remember in 99 you can heal while poisoned. It is not so here?
4. How are wand working? Can they be used on the run (on OSI no).
5. All kill... why would only set to attach my nearest commanded pet and not all?
6. How are reflect spells and reactive armor working exactly?
7. Curing poison. On OSI to cure deadly/lethal poison I would cast arch cure. Here is the same?
8. Resist spells is only gained through direct damage spells?
9. Area damage spells will hit invisible players?

Sorry for parallel on OSI. But after 10 years, I can be a bit confused

[N-C Events]

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes on the run
Huh
Reflect will reflect the first spell after you have applied it. No more no less. RA here is utterly terrible , prolongs fights and allows weaker players to stay alive longer. Bounce back damage it was changed about a year ago maybe more. Awful awful spell on this server.
Yes
Yes
Yes

[Blade Spirit]

Question for reflect and reactive armor is because on OSI they modify resist stats...
Ok so reflect reflect first spell. Nice
RA sucks eheh ok!

Wand on the run!
Ouch!

[Kaivan]

I apologize for going over information that was already answered, but I'd like to give a bit more detail for certain answers.

1. Yes. Debuff spells are used here to interrupt spells being cast.
2. Yes. Trapped chests or pouches can be used to interrupt paralysis (fun fact: during pre-T2A, you couldn't trap pouches).
3. Yes, it is possible to cast heal or greater heal through poison here, but if you attempt to use a bandage, the bandage will always cure the poison before attempting to heal the player, even if the poison is applied after the bandaging process started.
4. As on OSI servers during the era, it is possible to use a magic wand while moving, since it is a simple process of using an item, much like a dagger.
5. All kill only tells one of your pets to attack because during the era, the all prefix was never meant to be used with targeted commands. At the time, if you used a targeted command with all, one of your pets would follow the command, and for each other pet you had, the command would be "stored". Then, the next time you brought up your target cursor for any reason, whatever you targeted would instead execute the next stored command for one of your other pets. This lead to dicey situations where a player could do something like try to heal another player after telling a few pets to execute a targeted all command, and instead of healing, they would tell their pets to attack their target, which could be very lethal in town. Here on UOSA, we replicate the part of the command that only tells one of your pets to attack, but we don't replicate the storing of commands.
6. Reflect works by bouncing the spell back at your target, but only the first spell cast. It wasn't until UOR that magic reflect was buffed to reflect a certain number of "circles". Reactive armor works by reflecting 25% of the damage intended to hit your opponent back at you. This actually works both on spells and on ranged weapons as it did during T2A, but only if you're standing directly next to your victim at the moment the attack hits. RA was changed in UOR to absorb 80% of the damage sent your way and reflect 10% back, while letting 10% through to you.
7. Yes, you can cast arch cure to cure poison here. but you don't actually need to cast arch cure. Regular cure works just as well, and arch cure is merely an area of effect version with the same strength.
8. Yes, and no. Resisting spells does require you to take direct damage from a magical source for you to gain, and the strength of what you are hit with determines your chance to gain at the skill, but the spell doesn't have to be "direct" in the sense that you can cast a spell like fire field and gain resist by walking through it. In principle, the spell is directly doing the damage, but it isn't being done directly to you in the same way as a fireball spell.
9. Yes, area of effect spells such as fire field, poison field, meteor swarm, and chain lightning will hit invisible players (potions too). It wasn't until 2006 that the mechanics were modified so you had to have line of sight to anyone who would be hit with your area of effect spells to actually be affected by them.

[Blade Spirit]

I apologize for going over information that was already answered, but I'd like to give a bit more detail for certain answers.

1. Yes. Debuff spells are used here to interrupt spells being cast.
2. Yes. Trapped chests or pouches can be used to interrupt paralysis (fun fact: during pre-T2A, you couldn't trap pouches).
3. Yes, it is possible to cast heal or greater heal through poison here, but if you attempt to use a bandage, the bandage will always cure the poison before attempting to heal the player, even if the poison is applied after the bandaging process started.
4. As on OSI servers during the era, it is possible to use a magic wand while moving, since it is a simple process of using an item, much like a dagger.
5. All kill only tells one of your pets to attack because during the era, the all prefix was never meant to be used with targeted commands. At the time, if you used a targeted command with all, one of your pets would follow the command, and for each other pet you had, the command would be "stored". Then, the next time you brought up your target cursor for any reason, whatever you targeted would instead execute the next stored command for one of your other pets. This lead to dicey situations where a player could do something like try to heal another player after telling a few pets to execute a targeted all command, and instead of healing, they would tell their pets to attack their target, which could be very lethal in town. Here on UOSA, we replicate the part of the command that only tells one of your pets to attack, but we don't replicate the storing of commands.
6. Reflect works by bouncing the spell back at your target, but only the first spell cast. It wasn't until UOR that magic reflect was buffed to reflect a certain number of "circles". Reactive armor works by reflecting 25% of the damage intended to hit your opponent back at you. This actually works both on spells and on ranged weapons as it did during T2A, but only if you're standing directly next to your victim at the moment the attack hits. RA was changed in UOR to absorb 80% of the damage sent your way and reflect 10% back, while letting 10% through to you.
7. Yes, you can cast arch cure to cure poison here. but you don't actually need to cast arch cure. Regular cure works just as well, and arch cure is merely an area of effect version with the same strength.
8. Yes, and no. Resisting spells does require you to take direct damage from a magical source for you to gain, and the strength of what you are hit with determines your chance to gain at the skill, but the spell doesn't have to be "direct" in the sense that you can cast a spell like fire field and gain resist by walking through it. In principle, the spell is directly doing the damage, but it isn't being done directly to you in the same way as a fireball spell.
9. Yes, area of effect spells such as fire field, poison field, meteor swarm, and chain lightning will hit invisible players (potions too). It wasn't until 2006 that the mechanics were modified so you had to have line of sight to anyone who would be hit with your area of effect spells to actually be affected by them.

Wow, thank you very much for the love of detail

For trapped crates, on OSI there was a bug that a trapped crate, trapped facing (can't remember which) side, turned the other facing, would be usable forever to remove paralysis. Is it so? Or is one shot?

Heal through poison with magery ok, then I remembered correctly. Not bandies, this I remembered also. In my opinion stopping heal with magery when poisoned, was one of the best thing added to pvp scene. It lead to really really well developed spells patterns, expecially in mage duels! Too bad here is like this

Arch cure yes of course has an area effect. But then you say it's really no problem also to heal deadly/lethal poison with simple cure with high magery? On OSI, even with 120 magery, for lethal poison (and also deadly with lower magery), it was always more convenient to arch cure, for 100% cure chance, which you didn't have with simple cure.


As for interrupted spells, here I find it very difficult cos thereìs no fizzle sound in it.
On OSI an interrupted spell would make fizzle sound, so it was easily noticed. Here you need to look at screed bottom left!
And man if I have difficulties with spells timing. After ages on OSI with faster casting and faster cast recovery (with items you could cast spells requiring 500ms less and with no cast delay).

Other difference I noticed are, regarding spells.
Magic arrow, is an interrupt spell, no more no less. Interrupt with delay so I imagine a quite effective weaken magic arrow spam
Harm is not distance based and is useless.
Fireball does really little damage.
Lighting does little damage and has a damage delay!

Of all the bad things one can say of OSI, one must admit that mage duels were more fun there...

[Boomland Jenkins]

Other difference I noticed are, regarding spells.
Magic arrow, is an interrupt spell, no more no less. Interrupt with delay so I imagine a quite effective weaken magic arrow spam
Harm is not distance based and is useless.
Fireball does really little damage.
Lighting does little damage and has a damage delay!

Of all the bad things one can say of OSI, one must admit that mage duels were more fun there...

I think you need to come out and watch some duels or even some of our PvP tournaments. You will find that magic arrow is purely used (in most cases) to remove magic reflect. Harm is used as an interrupt because it's chance to interrupt is drastically higher than magic arrow, and it's faster to cast, lower mana cost, than a higher circle spell.

Fireball, lightning, and flamestrike are used here in duels occasionally from what I've seen.

As you can suspect, Energy Bolt and Explosion are used quite often along with the infamous halberd.

[Blade Spirit]

Other difference I noticed are, regarding spells.
Magic arrow, is an interrupt spell, no more no less. Interrupt with delay so I imagine a quite effective weaken magic arrow spam
Harm is not distance based and is useless.
Fireball does really little damage.
Lighting does little damage and has a damage delay!

Of all the bad things one can say of OSI, one must admit that mage duels were more fun there...

I think you need to come out and watch some duels or even some of our PvP tournaments. You will find that magic arrow is purely used (in most cases) to remove magic reflect. Harm is used as an interrupt because it's chance to interrupt is drastically higher than magic arrow, and it's faster to cast, lower mana cost, than a higher circle spell.

Fireball, lightning, and flamestrike are used here in duels occasionally from what I've seen.

As you can suspect, Energy Bolt and Explosion are used quite often along with the infamous halberd.

I will come, one day, if time allows me to

On OSI weaken magic armor spam was used to do pure interrupt, but dealing little damage. Little but higher than zero!
Harm.. what do you mean harm has a higher chance to interrupt? And faster to cast? 1st circle is faster than 2nd isn't it?
Explo eb hally, yeah I know. Quite repetitive though from where I come from

Magic arrow as interrupt is sometimes better than weaken because it allows you to gain time for the following spell, as damage is delayed.

But again, sort of parallel that doesn't fit here!

[Boomland Jenkins]

what do you mean harm has a higher chance to interrupt? And faster to cast? 1st circle is faster than 2nd isn't it?

I will leave it to players to elaborate more. However, harm will interrupt spells with a much higher success rate than magic arrow. Players are rarely interrupted with magic arrow.

[Ohm]

The damage delay for magic arrow is longer than harm.
So in order to disrupt casting with magic arrow, you'd need to be dropping the magic arrow at about the same time they begin to cast, if not a little before.

Lightning is probably my favorite offensive spell because of the damage delay.. and it's damage really isn't that terrible.

[Kaivan]

Wow, thank you very much for the love of detail

Thank you

For trapped crates, on OSI there was a bug that a trapped crate, trapped facing (can't remember which) side, turned the other facing, would be usable forever to remove paralysis. Is it so? Or is one shot?

Magic trapped items are a one shot deal. Regarding infinite trap usage, I suspect that you're thinking of regular tinker trapped boxes after UOR, where a picked lock would leave the trapped chest armed, and allowed the trap to be set off an infinite number of times (unlocking the chest with the key would disable the trap, but not remove it).

Heal through poison with magery ok, then I remembered correctly. Not bandies, this I remembered also. In my opinion stopping heal with magery when poisoned, was one of the best thing added to pvp scene. It lead to really really well developed spells patterns, expecially in mage duels! Too bad here is like this

You'll find that some players will disagree with the notion that requiring you to cure before healing was a good thing. Of course, that was also at a time that poison operated very differently as well.

Arch cure yes of course has an area effect. But then you say it's really no problem also to heal deadly/lethal poison with simple cure with high magery? On OSI, even with 120 magery, for lethal poison (and also deadly with lower magery), it was always more convenient to arch cure, for 100% cure chance, which you didn't have with simple cure.

Sometime in 2005 or 2006 EA modified the effectiveness of the cure spell such that casting arch cure used the old strength equation, and cure used a somewhat weaker equation, giving deadly and lethal poison more of a bite. However, during T2A and UOR, cure was just as effective as arch cure.

As for interrupted spells, here I find it very difficult cos thereìs no fizzle sound in it.
On OSI an interrupted spell would make fizzle sound, so it was easily noticed. Here you need to look at screed bottom left!

The fizzle interruption animation was something added in after 2003, which is far after our intended time period. Here, you've got to be a bit more cognizant of exactly what's going on.

And man if I have difficulties with spells timing. After ages on OSI with faster casting and faster cast recovery (with items you could cast spells requiring 500ms less and with no cast delay).

Indeed. Here on UOSA, we use the timing established for spells first established in early 1998 for spells. Spells generally follow this equation for the total time it takes to cast them in seconds:

0.5 + (Spell Cirlce - 1) * 0.25 = Total Cast Time

Other difference I noticed are, regarding spells.
Magic arrow, is an interrupt spell, no more no less. Interrupt with delay so I imagine a quite effective weaken magic arrow spam
Harm is not distance based and is useless.
Fireball does really little damage.
Lighting does little damage and has a damage delay!

Magic arrow is generally regarded as a pretty poor interruption spell, and is used almost exclusively to bring down magic reflect. The reason is that magic arrow, and most other direct damage spells, have a 1 second delay between the time it is targeted and the time that the damage actually occurs. This means that any lower casting time spell like Greater Heal (1.25 seconds) is virtually impossible to disrupt with magic arrow.

Harm is generally considered the primary interruption spell because it does a little more damage than magic arrow, and it also has no delay between the time that it is targeted and when the spell has its effect. Thus, its use as a disruption tool.

Generally speaking, for all spells - fireball and lightning included - the raw damage that the spells did was far lower during T2A and UOR than it was during later expansions, primarily because the entire system was designed differently at the time. If you recall, before AoS, things like elemental damage and resistances didn't exist, and the overall face of UO was very different.

[Blade Spirit]

Won't quote for length...


Yep was referring to those trapped crates.
So basically here I need to carry more than 1

What do you mean poison operates differently?

As for interrupt, I understand what you mean, but again what I said is something different.
If I use weaken to interrupt is, I cast, I release spell, and I interrupt. Then I cast the following spell (me and opponent start with same timing more or less).
If I use MA to interrupt, I cast, I release, I begin next spell, and opponent gets interrupted. This gives me a 1s advantage over next spell.
This is how I'd duel on OSI nowadays.

AoS changed it all, unfortunately I remember. That's why I'm here

Thanks again for your very detailed answers!

[Gork]

"If I use MA to interrupt, I cast, I release, I begin next spell, and opponent gets interrupted. This gives me a 1s advantage over next spell."

I've seen people do this in duels, but for the most part MA doesn't have a high enough chance to interrupt. However, throwing a MA in every once in a while can be quite good if it actually stops the spell. Harm is your bread and butter disrupt spell and re-debuffing players l right when they are casting. Harm almost always stops the spell if you hit them with it during casting.

[Blade Spirit]

"If I use MA to interrupt, I cast, I release, I begin next spell, and opponent gets interrupted. This gives me a 1s advantage over next spell."

I've seen people do this in duels, but for the most part MA doesn't have a high enough chance to interrupt. However, throwing a MA in every once in a while can be quite good if it actually stops the spell. Harm is your bread and butter disrupt spell and re-debuffing players l right when they are casting. Harm almost always stops the spell if you hit them with it during casting.

I still miss one thing...
What do you mean by good chance? If MA deals damage when spell is being cast, that it interrupts always. Or not?!
Weaken. Can I weaken spam someone already affected by weaken spell?
Harm almost always stop the spell. What do you mean by almost?

[Boomland Jenkins]

What do you mean by good chance? If MA deals damage when spell is being cast, that it interrupts always. Or not?!
Weaken. Can I weaken spam someone already affected by weaken spell?
Harm almost always stop the spell. What do you mean by almost?

Magic arrow does not have a 100% chance to interrupt, even if you time it perfectly.
Harm has a very high percent chance to interrupt when timed perfectly.

[Blade Spirit]

What do you mean by good chance? If MA deals damage when spell is being cast, that it interrupts always. Or not?!
Weaken. Can I weaken spam someone already affected by weaken spell?
Harm almost always stop the spell. What do you mean by almost?

Magic arrow does not have a 100% chance to interrupt, even if you time it perfectly.
Harm has a very high percent chance to interrupt when timed perfectly.

FFS!

This is very different then from OSI!
100% chance to interrupt always, it timed correctly!
Problem here is also that without fizzle animation, you won't detect it.