Dedicated Healer Template

Biff

My main is a Sampire and i was thinking of making an alt to be a dedicated healer so follow me around in dungeons. Does anyone know what this template may look like? 

I was thinking something like this:

Magery
healing
anatomy
music
disco
peacemaking
meditation/focus

........Or what else works?   is there anything that uses myst, or spellweave or anything other skills maybe?


Thanks!

Rock

My oldest character, Rock, on Baja, was built to have a similar role.  Since I wanted him to fight, too, the template varies somewhat from what you propose:

110: Mace, Music, Peacemaking

100: Healing, Anatomy, Tactics

  50: Chivalry

  40: Focus

Since Chivalry is mainly there for Sacred Journey, I've been thinking of dropping it and Focus, and go with a 6x legendary build.  He'd use charged runebooks and/or runic atlases to get about.  If you don't have a scribe, Recall scrolls can be bought in many mage shops.  (Some sell level 4 scrolls, some do not.)

Your template has Magery without Eval Int, making it quite weak, useful mainly for Recall and, if you put enough points into it, Gate.  At least one spell, Bless, is completely uncastable sans Eval.  If the character were human, he would have 20 Eval as part of his Jack of All Trades.  I believe this is enough to cast Bless, but only buffing your stats for like 1 point each, with a duration of about 3 seconds.  I don't know how good Greater Heal would be, but I wouldn't depend on his magical healing or curing capabilities.

If you were willing to drop Magery and Discord, and depend on charged runebooks for travel, you could buff your healing/restorative capabilities a lot, and give yourself some useful offense.  Mysticism includes the Cleansing Winds spell, which is a small area AoE (area of effect, simultaneously helping several close characters) that heals, cures, and removes curses.  Yes, you can target self with it, or your Sampire.  Additionally it would offer some debuffs, direct damage spells, and arguably the most powerful summoned pet, Rising Colossus.  If you went 6x, the template could look like:

120: Mysticism, Focus

120: Music, Peacemaking

120: Healing, Anatomy

(or 100 in Healing and Anatomy, with 40 in Hiding)

Note that Focus is one of two buff skills for Mysticism, like Eval is for Magery. (Its other possible buff skill is Imbuing; their effect is not additive, though).  Focus won't be sufficient mana regen (MR) on its own, so your armor and jewelry should include MR, reduce mana cost (RMC), and, likely, lower reagent cost (LRC).  One of Mysticism's mastery skills is Mystic Weapon, which is a castable form of Mage Weapon but for Mysticism.  I think it lasts 10 minutes, at which point you could cast it again.  Even if you don't plan on melee fighting (or archery), wielding such a weapon would provide you with protection against being hit. Since the build lacks Tactics, the warrior equivalent of Eval, you shouldn't be depending on the weapon for damaging foes; it would mainly be defensive.  (However, having high Anatomy does assist weapon damage significantly, as well as buffing the damage of your Mysticism summon, Animated Weapon.  Since AW also depends on Tactics, it won't be at full power, but at least it won't be totally nerfed.)

I'm not saying Discord is a bad option; I think your Sampire would appreciate how it can partially nerf most foes.  And unlike Peacemaking, its duration is unlimited if you stay in sight of the foe.  If you go that route, your build would need neither Focus nor Meditation.  In that event you could build Hiding skill to full power.  I guess it is a matter of which you think will be better for your Sampire, one very powerful debuff skill plus Hiding, or a large toolkit of good spells.

Biff

First off I just want to express my gratitude for going above and beyond in regards to helping me. This is absolutely helpful in everyway.

My plan is to make a pure dedicated healer without any offensive capabilites. My sampire is the risky, full damage deal. No resist, low chiv, max parry max anatomy etc.. making him rather weak but high dps.
To make a dedicated healer with hopefully some bard skills as a bonus is the plan.
Your explanation on mysticism really helps! It would seem the best route. Ill read over your post a few more times and put something together. Does eval int also increae3 the potency of heals?
As a healer how would you rank magery/eval vs myst/focus? My decision will be based here I think.

 Im leaning towards:

Myst
Focus
Music
Disco
Healing
Anatomy
Magery 60 (for recall) or perhaps hiding and use the recall charges trick, as you described.


If it turns out that magery/eval will hold up as a healer, it would probably be more practical, having gate and all the other fun stuff. But if myst and focus makes for an op healer, maybe it would outweigh?

Cheers mate!

Biff

Also, how does animated weapon provide a defensive aspect?

Rock

@Biff, I must have been unclear.  AW does not have a defensive aspect.  It is just sort of a weak Blade Spirits.  Tactics and Anatomy will buff its damage, but i think B.S. is still better than AW at full power.  Plus a mage can have two B.S. at once, but AW uses too many slots for more than one at a time.

IMO, Mysticism heavily outweighs Magery in the healing department.  With one spell (Cleansing Winds) you essentially have an AoE which provides Greater Heal, Greater Cure, and Remove Curse (from Chivalry).  The one downside is that it takes longer to cast than one of the Magery pieces.  Since it can work on multiple players and pets, and is several spells in one, nothing compares.  Bandages come close overall, but require proximity to the target.  OTOH they are uninterruptable, use no mana, and, when healing/curing others, they are faster.  And they can rez, which Cleansing Winds (nor any Mysticism spell) cannot.

Don't forget the Mystic Weapon mastery spell.  When you are attacked, do you want to get hit by every single blow, or a lot less often than that?  You will be of no use to your Sampire dead.

The other healing capability of Mysticism is Healing Stone.  Think of it as a castable, re-useable healing potion.  When created, it starts with a certain amount of healing potential, depending on your Mysticism and likely Focus level(s).  Assume it starts with 180 points, and you receive 23 points of damage.  When activated, those 23 points are healed, and the stone now has 157 points left.  Once the stone is used up, just cast it again.  (Or have your Spell Trigger stone set to instantly recast Healing Stone. This doubles your instant healing capability.)  Downsides of Healing Stone are that it only benefits the Mystic, will not heal through poison, diminishing returns if used multiple times quickly, and even if at full potential, there is a cap on how many points it will heal per use.  Still, compared to a healing potion, it works out a lot better.  Plus I think 10 healing potions weigh 10 stones, a healing stone only weighs 1.

Thus, as a healer, Mysticism > Magery -- especially full-powered Mysticsm vs nerfed Magery. Add Healing and Anatomy and your guy would be pretty much the ideal healer.   It would be a good idea to carry a few greater cure potions so that if poisoned you can cast without being interrupted by poison. Bandages can do the same for bleeding (and poison), but they will take longer.

I don't know how powerful the Magery heals and cures are without Eval.  You could create a character on TC1 and test different templates quickly.

It looks like you might be thinking Disco without Peace.  Disco would likely be more useful for your Sampire.  OTOH, you have to survive too.  If the boss is in a foe-rich environment, area peacemaking will offer you a great respite from the new spawn of 20 slimes, harpies, and archer ratmen protecting their boss.  So my suggestion is to abandon Magery and get used to checking how many charges are on your rune book(s).  BTW, a Runic Atlas can hold 90 charges or more, so it's not like you would have to recharge it every session.

McDougle

the regen rate on the provo mastery is fantastic !!party up and you are set !!

Maximus_Neximus

Personally, I'd go with a legendary bard: 120 music, disco, peace, provoke. Discord your target and have the peace mastery running. It's the easiest support character that you can quickly use and let sit there so you can focus on your sampire moves.

120 bard skills, GM mage, med and 40 focus assuming no +skill items. While the other templates suggested could work, I think you'd have to be too active with them and not be able to focus on your sampire and maximizing DPS.

Biff

@Rock Ahh yes! Thank you for the clarification and you make a good argument for the healing capabilities of the Myst.

@Maximus_Neximus You also make a very good point and have picked up that, although i need support, I do need a rather passive character that lets me focus on my Sampire.

At this point I feel like making both variations (two characters), just for the fun of it because the Mystic does sound very fun.


Big thanks to all the help guys, especially @Rock who went into so much detail. You guys are really important to the UO community, for both returning and new players. The UO community is proving to be less toxic than any other

Thank you!

Biff

@Maximus_Neximus With your template, can I drop provocation for eval int? or should i get more med/focus? Or is provocation also easy and helpful to setup as a passive macro?

FinleyGrant

i would suggest a bard template too,

4x120 bar skills give very powerfull buffs (peace and provo) check the mastery info...

also i have myst focus and magery in my template. but my suit is very tailored for a maximum on extra skillpoints but keeping 18hpr and 30mr

if you want i can give you details later when iam home.

Biff

@FinleyGrant Ahh very nice. and yes I would like some details, only if it's not too much trouble. Thanks dude

Rock

@Maximus_Neximus, I failed to "think outside the box", so my answer was constrained within the bounds of a healer template.  So it did not occur to me to investigate getting rid of Healing and Anatomy.  I see that Provoke provides two excellent buff type masteries.  (I've never brought up Provoke high enough to have access to them.)  Peacemaking also has two buff masteries, and you suggest using one of them instead of one of the Provoke ones.  Which one and why?  They all have an ongoing cost of 8 mana about every 5 seconds, so the difference is not a mana drain issue.  Also, if he is to use a Peacemaking mastery instead of Provoke's, doesn't that make Provoke an active and situational skill that would distract attention from sampire support?  I'm not trying to be argumentative, but to understand how Provoke will be beneficial.  If you had suggested using Provoke's Inspire mastery (up to 15% HCI, 40% DI, and 15% SDI), I would understand.  That would be marvelous for a sampire, unless those things were already capped.

Where I disagree with you concerns the supposition that Magery (especially without Eval) will be a better support skill to Biff's sampire than Mysticism.  How?  Yes, he would have the convenience of Recall and Gate to get places.  Presumably you are also suggesting that Greater Heal and Arch Cure will not be significantly nerfed by the lack of Eval.  But then what?  He could not even cast Bless onto the sampire as partial alleviation to some curses.  With Mysticism, he could do everything I stated above (except Mystic Weapon if running a bardic mastery) as well as unbuffing the boss with Purge Magic.

@Mariah, I suggest interlinking the Bard Masteries and Skill Masteries pages.  This would be beneficial to anyone researching masteies in general. The Bard Masteries page should probably also explicitly state that running one of the Bardic quests grants a masteries spellbook.  This is mentioned on the Skill Masteries page, but, curiously, not the other.

Mariah

Rock said:

@ Mariah, I suggest interlinking the Bard Masteries and Skill Masteries pages.  This would be beneficial to anyone researching masteies in general. The Bard Masteries page should probably also explicitly state that running one of the Bardic quests grants a masteries spellbook.  This is mentioned on the Skill Masteries page, but, curiously, not the other.

An excellent suggestion, I'll get right on it.  Thanks.

Maximus_Neximus

Biff said:

@ Maximus_Neximus With your template, can I drop provocation for eval int? or should i get more med/focus? Or is provocation also easy and helpful to setup as a passive macro?

You could. But eval is only useful for spell damage. My intention is for the support character to not be doing damage, but only reducing the damage (peace mastery) the sampire takes and allowing him/her to do more damage (discord).

I added provoke because it will add to your mastery buff. You could also use that skill in case multiple targets are on you that can't be killed quickly. Instead, have them kill each other. But if you don't want to go through the pain of training provoke, I'd go with more focus to really make sure you don't lose mana too quickly.

Maximus_Neximus

@Rock

I highly suggest running both of the peace masteries. For me, the provoke masteries are mostly useless. My suit maxes out my HCI and DI, so inspire does nothing for me. Invigorate is also useless as the hp increase is subject to the cap (afaik), the 16 damage every 4 seconds is negligible for a sampire, and the stat increase of 8 doesn't help me at all.

Nearly everything about the peace masteries is helpful and not included/capped in the suit, minus DCI and sampire poison resistance.

To me, using the provoke skill is an emergency situation. Depending on what you're fighting, maybe you can't tank 2+ of them, so quickly switching to provoke to make them attack each other can up your chances of survival. Otherwise, having the points in provoke makes the bonuses for the peace mastery be at the max cap. (I can't find the formula/total points needed for max atm).

For magery, I really don't care about eval because I wouldn't be casting spells to cause damage. I actually wouldn't be casting any spells while in a fight unless it's invis or resurrection. It's purely for those spells plus gate, mark, and recall. I'm also suggesting and saying that eval plays zero part in how much greater heal will heal you. That is based purely on your magery skill [(Magery * 0.4) + (1 to 10)]. But again, I don't plan on using that during combat as the sampire's damage is what will do the healing.

I think your template could work really well. But for me personally, I look for a more hands off approach with my second character and not someone who can also fight.

Rock

Maximus_Neximus said:

...

For magery, I really don't care about eval because I wouldn't be casting spells to cause damage. I actually wouldn't be casting any spells while in a fight unless it's invis or resurrection. It's purely for those spells plus gate, mark, and recall. I'm also suggesting and saying that eval plays zero part in how much greater heal will heal you. That is based purely on your magery skill [(Magery * 0.4) + (1 to 10)]. But again, I don't plan on using that during combat as the sampire's damage is what will do the healing.

...

 @Maximus_Neximus, I found the Magery & Eval section of the official documentation. It confirms your point about Eval being primarily useful for damage spells, but it also adds that Bless and Curse depend on it as well.

Perhaps Biff's sampire is not exactly like yours.  He wrote the OP specifically thinking it would be very useful to have another character during the fight who could heal and possibly cure and rez as well.  While your sampire does not need those things, maybe Biff's does. In his second post, he wrote, "To make a dedicated healer with hopefully some bard skills as a bonus is the plan."  So you are both in agreement that the second character need not have significant offensive capability.  @Biff, would your sampire like the new character to actively be able to heal, cure, etc., or would it be sufficient that he mostly stand there passively buffing the sampire with music?

Maximus_Neximus

Rock said:

Maximus_Neximus said:

...

For magery, I really don't care about eval because I wouldn't be casting spells to cause damage. I actually wouldn't be casting any spells while in a fight unless it's invis or resurrection. It's purely for those spells plus gate, mark, and recall. I'm also suggesting and saying that eval plays zero part in how much greater heal will heal you. That is based purely on your magery skill [(Magery * 0.4) + (1 to 10)]. But again, I don't plan on using that during combat as the sampire's damage is what will do the healing.

...

 @ Maximus_Neximus, I found the Magery & Eval section of the official documentation. It confirms your point about Eval being primarily useful for damage spells, but it also adds that Bless and Curse depend on it as well.

Perhaps Biff's sampire is not exactly like yours.  He wrote the OP specifically thinking it would be very useful to have another character during the fight who could heal and possibly cure and rez as well.  While your sampire does not need those things, maybe Biff's does. In his second post, he wrote, "To make a dedicated healer with hopefully some bard skills as a bonus is the plan."  So you are both in agreement that the second character need not have significant offensive capability.  @ Biff, would your sampire like the new character to actively be able to heal, cure, etc., or would it be sufficient that he mostly stand there passively buffing the sampire with music?

I agree, that his character may not be like mine. So I'm just saying what I would do and even stated that my suit made it so I didn't need the provoke masteries. It varies by individual.

As a sampire, vampiric embrace gives you poison immunity. It also does the healing through damage. Passively buffing the sampire means that they'd get, "Poison resistance increase(not the stat), Mortal, Bleed, Curse effect Durations decreased, Hp regen bonus 2-8, mana regen bonus 2-8, stamina regen bonus 2-8. Party Defense Chance increased by up to 16%, Damage reduced by up to 16%. Casting focus bonus 1-4%."

Personally, I prefer the mortal/bleed/curse duration decrease, +8 all regens, and 16% damage reduction (on top of swamp dragon). But that's just my preference. To each their own.

Biff

What a good read!

I have more than enough information here to make my decision.
I did not know about the bard masteries at all until now which helps my decsion.

The biggest selling point is having the most automatic/passive assistant to my sampire. Originally i thought a healer would be optimal but i now see the benefits of bard.
Although i do wish to make Rocks healer for fun and to help my guildies. 

Cheers lads

Rock

@Biff, I hope you haven't made your bard yet.  I should have mentioned sooner that there are no New Haven accelerated gain quests to bring the bardic skills to a 50 level.  (The same for skills including taming-related, thief-related, Tailoring, Carpentry, Throwing, and Mysticism.) At character creation you have the opportunity to start a character at a 50 level in 2 skills.  For a 4x bard, I would recommend starting Provocation and Discord at 50.  Musicianship has no target, and might rise either thru direct activation or using one of the 3 other skills.  With Peacemaking, you can self-target ("area peace"), essentially putting it in the same easier-to-train category with Musicianship.  Provocation and Discord cannot be automated (I use the EC 10x-repeat macro system), which is why I think it best to start them at 50.  You can buy Musicianship and Peacemaking to about 33.3 skill but you might have to search out bard trainers in several towns.  The level they train to varies from about 30 to 33.3.  I've had pretty good luck with the bard guildmasters in the Britain Music Conservatory.

And if/when you do make a Mystic Healer, start his Mysticism at 50.  You can train it to 40 in Ter Mur, but you might as well save time and get the 10 extra skill points up front. Since you are planning to play him as a primary, and will already have a multi-skill bard, templates you might find useful are:

120: Mysticism, Focus

120: Magery, Eval Int

.. and ..

100: Healing, Anatomy

  40: Meditation

.. or ..

120: Music, Peacemaking

.. or ..

100: Meditation, 100 Inscription (maximize Magery damage in addition to having a scribe)

  40: <something>

.. or ..

120: Meditation, Spellweaving (SW very mana heavy, but a 3-book wizard -- c'mon!)

(Note that Spellweaving has no assist skill such as Eval or Focus.  Instead you maximize your capability by forming an arcane circle with other weavers, after which you can separate and do your own things.  It uses no reagents, which is why the mana costs of its spells are so high.  Also, you cannot start a character with SW.  Instead you start a quest chain in Heartwood to prove to the elves you are worthy. I suggest starting the quest chain when your other skills are in the 70s or 80s, or you won't be strong enough to defeat the foes in the last part of the chain.)

FinleyGrant

sorry to disagree here with some people,

i would not do healing and anatomy, you need dex for to be effective.
that means you have lower int, which afftects MR

this combined with some of the templates listed here i fear they will be very weak...

also healing needs bein close to the target, thats makes it more difficult to play with without scripting as you also need to play your main guy...

i would go the magic healing way, like cleansing wind

and you need to put as much in medi and focus as possible with lots of MR to run mastery without running out of mana when you are fighting, even if you are only in party with 1 other toon, each MOUNT and pets counts towards the mana cost of mastery...

so your 2 guys and the mounts ? 4 mobiles towards mana cost for upkeeping the mastery.

FinleyGrant

here the template iam running...

Rock

@FinleyGrant, thank you for sharing.  You don't need to apologize; I was originally focused on Healing and Anatomy because that is the way the question was framed.  Also, it does have benefits magical means do not, such as needing no mana and non-interruptability.  Admittedly, though, I don't think most modern players know how to work optimally with a healer, depending on him and standing his ground in the same manner sampires depend on their damage output.

BTW, what program are you using to track templates?  It looks wonderful.  Is it available somewhere online? One of my first posts when I came back to the game a few months ago was asking if there was such a thing.  No one mentioned anything like that.

PlayerSkillFTW

His Sampire has 0 Resist. Mysticism's "Cleansing Winds" spell would be invaluable for removing debuffs off of him, Blood Oath especially. Myst/Focus would also allow his healer to go into Stone Form to become immune to poison, and also allow him to summon RCs, who will repeatedly Purge the boss of Bless while dealing damage.

Don't forget, that the Obi De Ense [Replica] can add +10 Focus as well, taking up the Half Apron slot.

FinleyGrant

@Rock
thats excel the reason for using magic from distance is that todays bosses often change target and do area which is not idea when u have to play 2 guys hehe


@PlayerSkillFTW
i thought about the obi, however this would only work if i find a brace which has all what i need to replace the 2 MR from missing the tangle,

i found while testing that each piece of int and MR is needed to keep the mastery up when you have bigger party...
so using the obi for gaining 10 focus but losing 2 mr is most likely bein equal to each other...

however if i find a ring with the 25 skill points i would consider it at least till the ring is broken 
as antique breaks faster 

Rock

@FinleyGrant, did you lay out the spreadsheet?  If so, are you willing to share your work?  If someone else did it, do you know if they would be willing to make it available?

Biff

Wonderful stuff. Im definitely making both templates here and will use each depending on the situation and how I'm feeling at the time.
@PlayerSkillFTW Good point about having resists, this definitely makes the myst template valuable.

@FinleyGrant
That spreadsheet is friggen cool. I'd also like to know where I can get it! I'll make a donation for it.

@Rock Good points here.

PlayerSkillFTW

FinleyGrant said:

i thought about the obi, however this would only work if i find a brace which has all what i need to replace the 2 MR from missing the tangle,

i found while testing that each piece of int and MR is needed to keep the mastery up when you have bigger party...
so using the obi for gaining 10 focus but losing 2 mr is most likely bein equal to each other...

however if i find a ring with the 25 skill points i would consider it at least till the ring is broken 
as antique breaks faster 

The +10 Focus not only functions as extra mana regen, it also improves your Mysticism spells. Cleansing Winds will heal for more and have a higher chance to remove Curses and Poisons. Stone Form will be immune to higher level poisons. RCs will have higher skills. Etc.

Plus, if you're running the Peace Mastery, Resilience, that'll give +22 MR at 4x120 Bard. MR hard caps at 30.

FinleyGrant

@Rock
@Biff

sorry unfortunately i have not planned to give out the excel.
the spreadsheet got a bunch of hidden tabs which i use with formula to actually let me select items in the slots so it puts in the proper values for for me, it took me some time to get all done 

@PlayerSkillFTW
so far i havent found a replica Obi which actually have 10 focus, do you maybe have one for sale?
got only 1 with +5 however i have more issues with to find a brace which will give me the 45 skills and 2 mr. (when i replace tangle with obi) so in the end this thing would only make sense if i can replace the 2 MR somehow with not losing skills.