Excelsior

Hi.

A little background information: I've been shooting with a bow and using pets for some time now and find it a bit boring. I still want to use pets as it is necessary for some mobs I think, but for now I've been killing stuff with mobs that some people kill in a melee fight! I would love to give some spanking to mobs in a close fight but I just can't see how is that possible(I get killed by a balron in 1 sec) and that's what this thread is all about.

Question1: How do you stay alive? Spam bandage? Use that necro lifeleech spell on weapon? sacred boon?

Question2: Do you use +defensive gear? How much HP I should have? Every resist has to be 70? Stamina regen or mana regen or less mana cost? Same goes for +stamina or +mana or +str or +hp or that +def? Obviously no one can be good at all of those.

Question3: Chivalry or necromancery? Because both doesn't work, they need different kind of karma lvl. Bushido(what skills?), ninjitsu(what skills?).

Question4: What is the best weapon type and best damage type?

And ofc if you have any other guidelines, feel free to enlighten me.

Hmm, so much to say... =)

There are many things you can do as a starting warrior to help keep your hit points up. A key-bound and looping Razor macro can be used to have you use a bandage on yourself every 9 seconds. A 40% or higher hit life leech weapon and at least 100 skill in that weapon's combat skill helps. Having the Protection magery skill on with the use of Touch of Life and 100 Spirit Speak is also helpful (With some faster casting and cast recover, cap being 4 for faster casting and 6 for recovery). Necormancy's vampiric form is also nice. Starting out, I wouldn't put too much trust in items that give you a total of maybe 2 or 3 hit point regeneration. While it is helpful, it won't help much with the hard hitting monsters. Being a quick and smart fighter are key as well. You can have fun owning drakes and a couple dragons in the beginning, but doing the tengo with a Balron might be pushing it for a beginning melee. Having one close to you, along with other mobs, can still be a challenge for veteran players. They are nasty.

Also, just to inform you, you can have most bonuses with hard work, dedication and ED...Or just ED. Weapon leveling and layer changing is a big investment of time and money, but It is worth it if you decide to donate to keep the shard running or doing a 5 to 10 ed purchase off multiple players, here and there over time.

For deciding between Chivalry and Necormancy, look at the skill list:
Chivalry here: http://uo.stratics.com/content/guides/p ... ties.shtml
Necro here: http://uo.stratics.com/content/guides/necromancy1.shtml
I personally use Chivalry for the Enemy of One + Consecrate Weapon + Armor Ignore combo with my Yumi. It does very well, espcailly with Discordance.

You have Consecrate Weapon, Divine Dury, and Enemy of One on one side, and you have Vampiric Embrace, Curse Weapon, Corpse Skin and Blood Oath on the other...Not at all limited to these...

For weapons, it depends on what you want to do. Focus on weapon skills and damage ranges. Some that are popular are Armor Ignore, Crushing Blow, and Whirlwind. Double Strike can also be nice with a weapon that has high leech attributes. So, assuming you want one of these skills, weapons you may want to try out are katanas, halberds, war hammers, kryss', double axes, broad swords, etc...Take a look here:
http://uo.stratics.com/content/arms-armor/arms.php

If you asked me for a brief explaination about what I did starting out, I would tell you something along these lines:

-Get at least 60 in each resist
-Raise ALL the skills you can imagine being used in combat to 100. This includes Discordance, Spirit Speak, Meditiation, etc.
-Find a weapon of your choice that has some hit life and mana leech, along with some damage increase. Ultimately, you probably will want a weapon with 50% in damage increase, life leech, and mana leech. Stamina leech is nice but not necessary if you have Chivalry and use Divine Fury (Raises your stamina to 100%). Also, you may want a 4th attribute to be a hit bonus like lightning, fireball, or lower defense. But, that will more than likely come later, focus on the life and mana leech.
-Use the discordance + enemy of one + consecrate weapon + (weapon skill) combo. Again, assuming you go with Chivalry.
-If you choose a 2-handed weapon, get your bushido and parry to 100. If you are not using a shield, you will have a high parry chance with these two skills at a high level. Otherwise, keep bushido at 0 if you use a shield.
-Use Peacemaking and Discordance. Its amazing how many people don't use these skills.
-Greater Healing is nothing compared to Touch of Life. So, make a "[cs touchoflife" key binding for yourself.

Sorry if I told you a bunch of stuff you already knew. If you have any specific questions, feel free to PM me in game. Or ask here. Most players here jump at the opportunity to help newcommers.


-Licos

Thank you very much for your long answer, wasn't expecting anything like that. =)

I guess the most useful information in your post to me was +hit properties in a weapon.

I knew a lot of that other stuff and I do have all skills at 100, except necro and disc.

It's still difficult to decide between necro and chiv. I've been happy with chiv as an archer, it works well and I could imagine getting stamina back to 100 by just using one skill would be uber good for a melee. Still at the same time I'm worried about can I stay alive without necromancy?

Other things I still need answer on: what kind of armor should I have? should it give +str, +dex or what? What is the most important stat? How much HP should I have for starters? I now have 110 str(115hp), 130dex(135 sta), 102 int(135mana). I haven't owned/used a stat scroll so keep that in mind.

To be honest, I barely tried the necro archer build. However, I can imagine the devastation that would come with a Discordance + Corpse Skin and Blaze weapon (100% fire damage). Also, having out 5 hell hounds while fighting sounds like fun, especially with the Corpse Skin spell. And yeah, the health drain that comes with necro spells sounds nice, but I can't complain about my high Chivalry.

Most often I find the best defense is a quick offense. That and running like a little girl if the match-up doesn't look good in my favor. So, maybe necromancy is the way to go for you. Not like its permanent, if you don't like it just go back to Chivalry. But, keep in mind that having low karma doesn't just mean no Chivalry. It also means Enchanted Grove won't heal you and the Lord Oaks champ will keep you on your toes. Probably more I'm just not remembering now...

Best armor...hmmm. I apologize if what I'm about to say is full of stuff you know, but I figure its best to say it and have you already know vs. not say it and assume you know. If at all possible, get leather or studded leather armor, or metal armor with the Mage Armor property. Otherwise, your mana will be depleted in the middle of battle. For a warrior, I would focus on finding +Str and +Dex items. +Int is cool, but really not too necessary if you have 100-110 Int already (Just my opinion). You will probably find the stat bonuses easier to obtain on jewelry. If you have lower than 100% Damage Increase now, find jewelry with damage increase on it. So, maybe look for Dex, Str, DI jewelry above all. And, to answer your question, I consider Dex to be the most important stat.

But, back to armor. High resists, of course, and decent durability. Lower regent cost and reflect physical damage are nice properties to have. But, at this point, maybe look for lower regent cost, bonus hits, and hit regen pieces of armor. Go to the mines in tokuno and get yourself a Headband of Power if you don't already have one. Pretty much the best head piece in the game. Also, may want to save up for a Crimson Cincture since you are interested in having more hitpoints (+5 Dex, +10 Hit Points, +2 Hit Point Regen).

What are your raw stats? What is the total damage increase bonus on your character?

Thanks again =)

My gear is quite good imo atm for archery(decent resists+mana regen+1000luck in addition to some lrc and +mana, +int and+dex) but I guess all need to be replaced if I go for melee style since I need more str and hp than int+mana..

Raw stats are: 100, 113 and 87. Which means I would have to reconfigure those too I guess. If I don't have any +int or +mana gear in the future, 87 mana seems really low. Although I do have Stormgrip which I wouldn't necessarily change and that would be +8 int. Headband of power I already have but don't use atm because it doesn't have any luck on it, haven't bought crimson cincture for the same reason. It terrifies to picture me walking around with 500 or lower luck, you can tell the difference when looting.... :/

You can definitely survive without necro.. Ive never used it, ever... ever lol. I'm a chivalry fiend all the way and I havent died from a mob (other then an ore elemental last night) in like... I dont even know how long. Not that there's anything wrong with dying, I just dont enjoy re-equiping, and Razor's 'dress' macro is way too slow and only works sometimes for me.

As for gear I'd say leather armor with Reflect Physical Damage, full resists, and anything else you have a preference for. I would try to go for the Mages Inquisition armor (quest reward armor) b/c it has some nice bonuses on it. I'll take some time to get it all, but it's worth having imo. I dont use the whole set but I think it's worth it to get the chest, legs and sleeves.

I would say if you're gonna be a melee man then try to get the bonuses in Str and Dex moreso then Int. Not that you wanna completely disregard Int but you want to favor Str and Dex imo.

The amount of Hp you have isnt important really. The main focus should be on not getting hit If you have good tactics under your belt and some nice reflect and full resists, then you have a high chance of making it, esp with a leech weapon. But since this question was about armor I'll leave it at that.

Any other questions feel free to ask.

love,
Llexa

Thank you Llexa!

I didn't quite get what did you mean with "not getting hit". Dex increases dodge like in WoW? Or is there some other way to dodge hits?

I have 120 tactics, 125 anatomy, 115 medi, 115 ninjitsu, 115 focus, 100 resist spells, 100 bushido, 100 chivalry, 120 spirit speak, 100 musicianship, 110 peacemaking.. I think I'm almost there with these skills Still have to train discordance which is at 42 and healing which is at 2.9 Obviously I didn't list all my skills, only the ones good for melee.

So.. when I go hit a mob with my 40+ life leech weapon(hopefully I find one), I first put on sacred boon, am ready to use bandage on myself 1 sec before engaging the mob, use weapon special attack and some chivalry moves.. that's it? >:)

Healing is easy enough. Buy it to 25-30ish skill. Then, combat target something like a horse or other animal that can deal safe damage to you, tab out of war mode, and macro heal yourself using bandages. For discordance, you can put on some jewelry and get it to 50, and then go to wyvern isle by launching a boat in the water east of paupu, and head north for a while. There is an island with about 4 or 5 wyverns there. Two spawn on one side and 3 on another. Just park your boat and use Razor to record you discording each wyvern and set it to loop. This place is also pretty nice for training provocation to 100 as well, since there is a land divide that keeps the 3 wyverns from reaching the other 2. That way, they won't kill eachother off and you can just keep provoking. However, that is assuming that 50 Discord and Provocation are the minimum skill levels to target wyverns, I can't remember. Try it out, and remove the jewelry when your base skill is at that minimal skill point.

If you need bandages, I can give you a couple thousand when I get online in a few hours. I'm sure people will give you some to use well before I get back from work.

You can still have use necro spells and have Chivalry, primarily if you stay in vampire form all the time you don't lose Karma too often. (only when you die and have to recast). So this will give you 20% leech life. Also you could use Curse weapon for the 50% life leech, but def will take alot more of a karma hit each fight. Bad thing about necro form...you can't do angel form, so no bonus to stats and all. Personally I stay in vampire form all the time.

Didn't see it mentioned before. For defensive gear you gotta get Defensive chance increase. Max is 45. No joking, get it.

SSI is also important for doing more damage. weapon damage does cap per swing, but the faster you swing the more damage. It's kinda complicated and stat/weapon dependant, so take a look at the calculator on stratics. Cap is (supposedly) 1.75 sec a swing here.

Bushido spells, generally underrated. but really useful. Confidence heals you a bit when you parry a blow. Lightening strike is a low mana attack that increase chance to hit, very useful if you need to leech more mana to start using your main weapon attacks again. or use counter attack if you are full on health, and just wish to get an extra hit in.

Ninjitsu, i don't really use them too much except for mirror image, great for fighting hard hitting mobs.

I know i'm missing alot more, it's all i could think of right now...

Oh yeah. just remembered. Don't forget to Bless yourself, the extra stats are great.
the cleric heal over time spell, use that right before a really tough fight.

I'm not as lucky as Llexa, but i don't usually die using these tactics, cept for lag, or just being stupid.

Don't forget the Cleric spells too (say, "I pray to the gods") What I use for healing is a combo of bandage and the cleric heal spell (when it's a tough fight). The heal spell is [cs touchoflife, or just look ot Touch of Life from the menu that pops up.

Cleric with some chiv for your attack power...maybe a bit of bushido sometimes... and some discord or peacemaking when neccesary.. and a good weapon....yeah it's pretty much fail proof.

We'll sum up the basics....

Fighting Basics
Weapon: Life leech, Mana leech, Stamina leech, DI, SC, SSI

Weapon Abilities: Aim for weapons with Armor Ignore, Armor Peirce, Whirlwind, Double Strike and other heavy hitters.

Chivalry spells: Enemy of One, Divine Fury (when needed), Consecrate Weapon.

Cleric Spells: Touch of Life, Purge, Angelic Form (some people like this one b/c you get some added bonuses, BUT you can't ride a mount while in the angelic form)

Magery Spells: Protection, Bless, Mark, Recall, Invisibility, Poison Field

Bonuses: Str, Dex, Mana (+Regen)

Skills: Discordance, Peacemaking, (Musicianship), Hiding and Stealth, Healing, Magery, Chivalry, Spirit Speak, Meditation, Weapon skill, Tactics, Wrestling

Armor: Leather with RPD and full resists, (luck is nice), (LRC is nice but not a neccesity)

Jewelry/accessories: (Any of the following) HCI, DCI, DI, FC, FCR, SSI bonuses
_______

This is the moderate idea of what you need or could potentially need to be successful in any given situation with patience.... you could do less and still survive with excellent tactical ability, or you could do more and overachieve

(What I meant by "the point is not to get hit" is.. well yeah the point is to have great gear and tactical ability and avoid being hit/killed. Reflect Physical Damage, Defend Chance Increase and Hit Chance Increase will all help with this, among other things.)

love,
Llexa

*edit: Wow by the time I was done typing this amongst working there were like, 2 posts lol. Sorry if I repeated anything anyone else said in that time.

Well well.. If I don't become a succesfull Eowen with these guidelines, then it must be because of me.

Thanks to all of you and if someone still wants to draw conclusions, sum ups or give more tactical information, be my guest, I'll definately read it so it won't be a waste.

I would like to add a few things or rather two things to what llexa said

If you want to fight harder hitting monsters like balrons and the like I would advice getting Lower Attack on your wep, maybe have it at 25-30%, once it procs it will stay up for 8-10 seconds and it really helps out on the incoming dmg to you.

Also focus on Chiv Spells but also get necro to 100 or more so you can use Vampiric Embrace, this lets you avoid some Hit life leech on the weapon for other stats, I myself havent switched out from vamp form for the last 4-5 days or so and I keep my karma high anyways, 2 balrons and your back in karma lvl after using necro form hehe, maybe not for me though since I consistantly figure out new stupid ideas on how to take on as many mobs as possible. Try whirlwinding the entire first floor of shame a few times, so much fun yet badlulz if you get unlucky and all those 30 elementals hit at the same time


Another thing I thought of now is to check out uo.stratics.com and the weapon your interested in, there you can plug in dex and SSI numbers to see what swingdelay you get with that certain weapon, there is no use getting more dex and ssi than your weapons cap so that you can push everything else onto str and hitpoints, a good aim should be 200+ hits which will let you tank atleast normal balrons without worrying about FS+melee deaths.