Help on Template

Pcrew

TL:DR:  1. Need help with Imbuing Template. Never used it.

             2. Any suggestions on 6th Character Template.

As most, I'm a returning player. However, nappa valley was my old shard and i'm making the switch to Atlantic. 

Imbuing seems to be the skill I'm most curious about.  Never used it before, so I'd like some input.

My Character Plan:

1st; Sampire

2nd: Mystic/Mage/Weaver

3rd: Mage/Tamer/Peace

4th: Crafter

5th: 2nd Crafter

Sampire:

120 Bushido
120 Parry
120 Swordsmanship
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100 Necromancy
60 Chivalry

Mystic/Mage/Weaver

105 Eval Int
115 Spellweave
105 Magery
120 Myst
55 Resist Spells
110 Focus
110 Meditation

***Not 100% sure if the will be my final template***

Plan to use gear for Skill boosts.

Mage/Tamer/Peace

**obvious skills**

Crafter 1:

120 Blackmithing

120 Tailoring

120 Carpentry

120 Lumperjacking

100 Tinkering

100 Magery

Crafter 2: (gargoyle)

100 Arms Lore

100 Imbuing            <----- I've read I might want to use Mysticism on here,

100 Bowcraft/Fletching

120 Magery

100 Eval Int

100 Med

40 Music (From Gear)

***  Change Eval to Focus, and Med to Mystic?  ***   I don't know need help here

6th Char:  Any  Suggestions?  T-Hunter maybe?

NOTE:  I don't plan on doing Character Transfer.  Thanks for the help in advance.

Rock

Welcome back, @Pcrew.  I was in your shoes a few months ago, so I know how much information overload you can feel.  I'll just make a few suggestions starting from the bottom (Crafter 2):

1. no need for Music.  A carpenter needs 45 music (some from gear is fine) to make instruments, but there is no reason for anyone else just to have a tiny amount of music.
2. Plan on Imbuing going to 120.  It is one of easiest skills to get power scrolls for.  You can turn in 50 Enchanted Essences to NPC by Ter Mur soul forge to get 115 Imbuing scroll.  Do that 10 times, put the scrolls in a scroll binder, and they advance to a single 120 scroll.  You get Magic Residue and Enchanted Essences from unravelling magic loot, of which your adventurers can get a lot of.  Start character with 50 Imbuing skill.  He can't unravel Enchanted Essence stuff until at 45.1 skill, so might as well start at 50.  The 120 skill will help you make the best stuff.  Being a gargoyle helps; you seem to already know that.
3. Mysticism isn't necessary for Imbuing, but either Imbuing or Focus is necessary for Mysticism.  You don't need both; their boost is not additive.
4. I suggest moving Lumberjacking (max 100 skill) from Crafter 1 to Crafter 2.  That will allow Crafter 1 to take Mining instead, which is extremely beneficial when training blacksmith.  You can recycle stuff you make and regain up to 2/3 of your ingots, meaning less total ingots used.
5. In addition to the 50 Imbuing, start him with 50 Bowcraft.  There is no accelerated gain quest for that skill.
   

On Crafter 1 (now with 100 Mining instead of Lumberjack), Carpentry only goes to 100, but you need to plan on 45 Music (real and/or jeweled) to make musical instruments.  You'll want Arms Lore on him to for the best-quality output.  You can lower Magery to 80 to squeeze that in.  Making him an elf will let him bet more colored ore while mining, and I think more jewels or granite as well (once Mining at 100). Start crafter 1 with 50 in Tailoring and Carpentry. There are no accelerated gain quests for those skills.

Your Mystic/Mage/Weaver won't need Resist (and Resist at 55 won't do a lot anyway).  The Mysticism spell Cleansing Winds is extremely powerful combo spell that heals, cures, and removes curses.  Add in that it is an area-of-effect spell to boot, it is pretty much perfect.  If one of my adventures has Mysticism or Chivalry (with a dedicated Remove Curse spell), they don't bother with Resist.  It's not useless, but you already have a method to reduce ill effects of curses, so spending 100 to 120 more points on Resist is a luxury they don't bother with.  I don't PvP though, and folks have told me Resist is more important for PvPers.

I don't have experience with Sampire build, so hopefully someone else can address that.  Good luck.

Official Skill Guide

Imbuing Calculator

Rock

I thought of a suggestion.  Make a dedicated Gargoyle character for Imbuing, and turn Crafter 2 into Elf.  That will enable him to get advanced woods and, once he reaches 100 Lumberjacking, the special ingredients.

The Gargoyle could fully embrace his heritage:

• 120: Throwing, Tactics
• 120: Mysticism, Imbuing, Focus
• 120: Chivalry

You'd want Lower Mana Cost, Lower Reagent Cost, and Mana Regen on your outfit, because 120 Focus won't renew mana fast enough by itself.  Gargoyles begin with 2 MR as a racial bonus, so that's something.  There are 3 skills which would be best started at 50 skill (no accelerated gain quests in New Haven), but you can only do that with two.  So out of Throwing, Mysticism, and Imbuing, I would start Imbuing and Mysticism at 50.  In Ter Mur you can buy Throwing skill up to 40, and it can advance pretty quickly to 50 even without accelerated gain.

An advantage to an adventuring Imbuer is that he can fight in Ter Mur and gain loyalty points with the queen.  Gargoyles begin with 2000 loyalty, so you only need 8000 more to be able to use the Queen's Soulforge, which will help you to make very powerful items.

Pcrew

@Rock

Thank You for all the suggestions.

I completely forgot about Mining. You are right, I'll have to put that in there somewhere.

I've never used the Throwing skill, but it does sound really Interesting!  I might have to try that.

Crafter 1:

120 Blackmithing

120 Tailoring

100 Arms Lore

100 Mining

100 Tinkering

100 Bowcraft/Fletching

80 Magery

Crafter 2: (gargoyle)  <--- I actually like your suggestion here.  Also give me a reason to use        throwing.

120 Throwing

120 Tactics

120 Mysticism

120 Focus

120 Imbuing

120 Chivalry

Not really concerned with carpentry, alchemy, and poisoning.  Not really into PvP either. 

Lumberjacking is the only skill im missing right now.  But, not that big a deal.

Rock

Since you eliminated Carpentry, the need for a lumberjack is lessened.  It would still prove very useful for your Bowyer, though.  One use for Lumberjacking is to buff Swordsmanship damage while fighting with an axe.  The damage added is skill/5 plus 10% at GM, or 30% max.  Also fighting with an axe is a second way to raise the Lumberjacking skill.  One potential build, focused mostly on non-magical damage, would be:

120: Swords, Tactics (120 Tactics adds 70% to base damage)

120: Anatomy (120 Anatomy adds 65% to base damage)

100: Healing, Lumberjacking (100 Lumberjacking adds 30% to base Axe/Hatchet damage)

100: Chivalry (100 Chivalry adds 50% to base damage when Enemy of One in effect)

  60: Focus

(Build will need more mana regen via armor buffs if you frequently use Chivalry and/or special moves.)

If you blacksmith makes you an exceptional quality axe (or you get one elsewhere), that will add another 35% to 40% to base damage.   (Total depends on Arms Lore.)

Tech detail: 120 Tactics technically adds 120% to base damage.  But since base damage is halved with no Tactics, you need 50 Tactics just to reach the damage rating stated by the weapon.  That's why I said 70% above.  (Similarly, Magery damage with no Eval. Int. is very weak.)

Another factor affecting weapon damage is your character's strength.  I believe the damage bonus from this is STR*.3, plus 5% at 100 or more strength.  At 100 strength, your axe damage would be 240% greater than the exceptional weapon states (35+70+65+30+40).  When Enemy of One in effect, that adds yet another 50%.  I believe there is a DI (Damage Increase) cap when in PvP, but that would barely effect any of the above because they derive from skills, not the DI property.  The exceptional quality bonus could be affected, which is DI.  It by itself would not bring you to the cap though.

Pcrew

I'll definitely keep those tip in mind.  However, right now Bowfletching is one of my lowest priority skills.  I don't even have an Archer .   I'll probably make a T-Hunter at some point with Archery. I also play with a friend.  I might just take his lumber when I need it lol

Rock

With Bowcraft at a low priority, you could consider eliminating it altogether.  Perhaps Crafter 1 could replace it with Lumberjacking.  Why take that with neither a Carpenter nor Bowyer?  Well, at some point you may add one or both of those crafts.  The process of training Lumberjacking will build you a stockpile of lumber which will be ready should you need to train the wood crafting skills.  You can also sell bulk wood on a vendor.  And, at 100 skill, you start getting special ingredients.  See bottom of Lumberjacking page.  For completeness, the special ingredients one can gain with mining include either granite or normal jewels (of which Imbuing will need lots).  Granite probably would not be useful to you, since Stonecrafting is an extension to GM Carpentry.  So set your shovel to jewelry, and forget about it.  The remaining special ingredients can be found in the Other Resources section of the Mining page.  Advantages of having Mining and Lumberjacking on same character include:

1. only 1 character needing a pack animal (best is blue beetle, which is a combo mount and pack animal)
2. being an elf aids both skills

Pcrew

Yea. I was actually thinking later on, when I have gold. I'll just get a Soulstone and swap between mining and lumber.

Basara

Also note that Bowcraft, while it doesn't have an accelerated gain quest, is the only crafting skill you can do that you can train from bought or starting (using a custom template) skill all the way to Grandmaster, just doing Heartwood quests - with a chance for fletching runics from each quest done.

Go to Heartwood with 30 skill, and pack animals full of boards and crafting tools. (refill as necessary)
Do (and repeat) "A Simple Bow" quest only until you hit minimum skill for crossbows.
Do (and repeat) "Ingenious Archery I" quest only until you hit the minimum skill for Heavy Crossbows
Do "Ingenious Archery II" quest only until you hit the minimum skill for Repeating Crossbows
Do Ingenious Archery III" quest only until you finish training at 100.

The only roadbumps in the process are having to click through the unwanted quests (and you can repeatedly click on the NPCs' bars, usually, to get the quests to change without having to manually reject the one currently offered), and dropping all the unwanted quest rewards (the junk gear, talismans, etc.). Just be sure you have the crafting gump set to mark each item as a quest item as you go, and only make the number of items required for the quest (so you don't have to manually re-mark everything).

Rock

@Basara makes an excellent point.  Other rewards include recipe scrolls for the archery items you need to learn recipes for, and various talismans, not just ones for archery.  You'll get repeats of these items over time.  You can choose to accumulate them to hold for guildmates and friends, sell on a vendor, or trash them.  IIRC, recipes and talismans both earn about 10 points apiece for Clean Up Brittania (CUB).  If you trash the extras, by the time you are done in Heartwood, you will have accumulated over 2000 CUB points.