Recommendations on where to hunt

[Nightfire]

Hi all,

I've been around for about a month and having a great time. I'm looking for some advice on where to go / what to do next.

I spent a decent amount of time leveling up my skills (except Provocation and Veterinary...those need work) and have been looking to hit dungeons. Now, I should mention I donated and got some ED in return. I figured I could sell it on ExEx to buy mules and the like, but I'd prefer to not do that. I'd like to work my way up. One thing I've been doing is taming the frenzied ostards at the taming forest, and I'm starting to breed those. (It was the best animal I knew of for my purposes.) To give an idea of what I can handle, I've found I can clear Despise pretty well until the Ogre Lords. My poor ostards aren't good enough to handle multiple ogre lords, unfortunately. I've been using the animal breeding guide to play around with getting them up to snuff. Most of the ostards I find are around level 20 max, but I've found a couple 30s. I'm thinking of keeping that experiment going and then see how well my new pets do.

Should I keep breeding and see how far I can get in Despise? Should I take the ostards to other dungeons at this level? Are there other pets I should be using at this point? Finally, are there frenzied ostards other than the taming forest? I'd like to keep cycling them until I find a stable of level 30s to experiment with breeding.

Thanks!

[Asmodean]

Hi all,

I've been around for about a month and having a great time. I'm looking for some advice on where to go / what to do next.

I spent a decent amount of time leveling up my skills (except Provocation and Veterinary...those need work) and have been looking to hit dungeons. Now, I should mention I donated and got some ED in return. I figured I could sell it on ExEx to buy mules and the like, but I'd prefer to not do that. I'd like to work my way up. One thing I've been doing is taming the frenzied ostards at the taming forest, and I'm starting to breed those. (It was the best animal I knew of for my purposes.) To give an idea of what I can handle, I've found I can clear Despise pretty well until the Ogre Lords. My poor ostards aren't good enough to handle multiple ogre lords, unfortunately. I've been using the animal breeding guide to play around with getting them up to snuff. Most of the ostards I find are around level 20 max, but I've found a couple 30s. I'm thinking of keeping that experiment going and then see how well my new pets do.

Should I keep breeding and see how far I can get in Despise? Should I take the ostards to other dungeons at this level? Are there other pets I should be using at this point? Finally, are there frenzied ostards other than the taming forest? I'd like to keep cycling them until I find a stable of level 30s to experiment with breeding.

Thanks!

Well, without purchasing, or breeding your own mules, i think ostards are a fine addition to your collection. I think you can even spawn them at your house with a personal animal spawner, which can be purchased for 400k if i remember right. Maybe not frenzied. I can't remember. Might want to page and confirm before you spend the ~400ish k gold.

As you breed them up, you'll find you can take harder things. I would focus on getting maxed resists and hit points, and experimenting with your next to best pets*. (Since they can take stat loss upon death, don't use your best breeding pair(s) until you have backups).

Ultima is a game about exploration. Take your pets and explore and figure out what you can take and what you cant. Everything is situational, and dependant on which scripts you run, and/or how your skills line up. One person might be able to do something with 5 pets that another can not, because they have more mana, better regens, and faster cast is maxed . I can't tell you the best place for you, because im not you. That being said, play around some different places and see how you do. Test the waters. If you have questions, check the wiki, and ask in world chat. Find a guild or a friend to hunt with. For me, a couple pieces of GoC gear and the ultimate spellbook made a HUGE difference when i was newish. I also bought the druid book seperate for champs, but wasn't sure if i would relayer the omni or not, so i did it seperately which worked out fine. A bag of holding is also an immensely valuable asset to have. Being able to hold 60,000 bandages, and arrows for instance. Not to mention all that gold you'll be piling up.

Best of luck to you. Feel free to [pm me in game if you have some questions.

[Pariah]

Asmo is 100% spot on. If you're enjoying yourself, you're doing it right. I think there is a lot of focus (guilty myself) of becoming uber right away. On this shard, that doesn't really happen very often. I'm almost 2 years in here and I still learn things on a regular basis, I still die fairly often, and I still have much more to accomplish. That being said, what is your goal? If you're looking for other places to hunt, nearly all of the Tram anti-virtue dungeons should be ok. Are you looking for something new to tame/breed? Pretty much everything will be inferior to mules, then nobles, then imps, etc., but try a few different things out. Mules/Nobles/Imps give you access to areas that might be tougher for you now to get through. If your goal is character progression, focus on piecing together items to boost your dex and str since it sounds like you are mostly utilizing your pets right now. Then as you get further along, you can hone in on GOC items, relayers, etc. Enjoy the ride. Feel free to pm me as well if you have any other questions.

[Nunja]

Worth buying a single max hp/max resist pet (any str)
use this pet as tank and the rest to add dps.
with some practice you can do it quite well and this will open up lots of new places to go.

vet and cleric spells to heal. get mana leech bow to get mana back while fighting so you can heal more

[Devlin]

First, a tip on breeding: get pets that are level 25+. You ideally want 28-30. This lets you add str/hp/int faster (which require lvl 40), and nets you more ability points (AP) to use on stats. Ozzies are nice b/c of pack instinct and I think they're pretty fast.

As for hunting, keep track of how much you make per run, and how long it takes you to make said run. Math isn't fun, but it helps ;P Check out Sorcerers Dungeon in Ilsh, the lower levels of Shame, Fan Dancers or Yomutsu Mine (Yomutsu has a repeatable quest for the headband of power, sells nicely) in Tokuno, or Gauntlet. Chance for arties and some nice cash in Gauntlet. If you can handle balrons, Blood Dungeon.

Get mana leech bow to get mana back while fighting so you can heal more

This, plus you can use wep abilities more (get a yumi, use armor pierce, collect gold.)

He also mentioned getting a maxed pet. With cleric spells (GM SS), vet and archery, you can solo balrons with 1 mule. Or some ozzies, if you're quick with heals and they have decent HP. There's lots of spots, bounce around

[Dramoor]

Ointments are cheap nowadays, if u want to breed, just get any mules that can breed a lot lower levels for longer breeding and cross breeding and oint the crap out of them to max. Simple.

[Nightfire]

Hey all,

Thank you for the replies. I was rather busy the last few days so I apologize for not replying quicker.

I think I was in a rush to level up ASAP, run through the Mistvale quests, etc.; the rush to be uber as Pariah says. I think I'm just gonna go my own pace and not worry about finishing that stuff. If I do, great. If not, oh well! I'm still having fun.

I appreciate the tips and advice. Thanks again!

[Wil]

Should I keep breeding and see how far I can get in Despise? Should I take the ostards to other dungeons at this level? Are there other pets I should be using at this point? Finally, are there frenzied ostards other than the taming forest? I'd like to keep cycling them until I find a stable of level 30s to experiment with breeding.

Hi Nightfire,

Here's what has been working for me so far (a little over 5 months in):

Despise to about 200 strength/200 hp
Destard to about 400 strength/400 hp
Fan dancers / rune beetles (tokuno) above that

Rune beetles are particularly nice since one run leveling four pets to 42 will earn about 10k more gold than it cost you to get the pets from the breeder in Britain. This makes the process self-sustaining without spending your ED. Of course, all three areas are well known so you'll compete with other folks doing the same thing.

Take care however -- GM veterinary before you leave Despise. Destard and Rune Beetles both inflict poison. Plan to cure it fast and often.

I have some relatively decent ridable pack llamas that are breedable on my vendor at the public britain moongate if you'd like to jump-start your breeding program. Much better than ostards since they have a backpack and can help you carry your loot home (around 1200 stone of weight IIRC).

Regards,
Wil