Masteries killed the 7-8 skills (with +skill from items...) Templates ?

popps

It used to be that players would go "over" the 720 skills CAP by adding extra skill points through items having the +skill bonus.

Now, with Masteries giving bonus only on "real worn skill", I wonder, it is no longer worth it to have skill points on items but it is much better to have the "real" skill so as to take full advantage of the Masteries properties ?

That is, modern Templates are nowadays 6 x 120 skill points for the most part to exert FULL advantage from Masteries' properties bonuses ?

Bilbo

And your point is?  You do understand that UO is a sandbox game and you are free to build your char anyway you want to.  Masteries did not kill anything, they just gave us another dimension to play with and a bonus to those players that chose to play pure chars.

Petra_Fyde

No.  You can only have one mastery active at a time, and as a general rule, one will fit your template better than others. As an example I have a treasure hunter who is a mystic weaver. The mastery I prefer to keep active is spellweaving, giving me a boost to the circle focus for my summons. I can therefore, if I choose, use +skill items for any other skill in my template.

popps

Petra_Fyde said:

No.  You can only have one mastery active at a time, and as a general rule, one will fit your template better than others. As an example I have a treasure hunter who is a mystic weaver. The mastery I prefer to keep active is spellweaving, giving me a boost to the circle focus for my summons. I can therefore, if I choose, use +skill items for any other skill in my template.

But doesn't that create a problem whereas if a player has different characters it would become harder to handle them with different skill levels and suits ?

I mean, for example, say that one day you want to use Mysticism Masteries on your Mystic Weaver rather then Spellweaving ones, wouldn't that become a "major" problem is theMystic Weaver was built around spellweaving and with using Items with Mysticism points and a lower "real" Mysticism skill ?

I mentioned Spellweaving and Mysticism but this could apply to whatever other skill you may have on your Mystic Weaver Template that uses skill points items...

Basically, the Template becomes less flexible unless one has those skills (in your example Spellweaving and Mysticism but it could be also other skills if present on those Template using +skill items and for which an interest on Masteries for those other skills could eventually arise) on various Soulstones and at various levels....

It becomes much harder to handle and manage it...

Petra_Fyde

Not every skill has a mastery, and as long as the skills that have are over 90, you're pretty much ok. Use skill jewels for the support skills that don't have them.  I don't remember the exact list, but there's a page on the player wiki for it, if you care to look

Basara

The only changes to 7-8 skill templates I've noticed, is that you try to concentrate the skill items in the skills you don't or can't have mastery in.

Example 1: My Tamer/Bard has the Bard Masteries and Taming. He has 120 natural in Taming and Provo, 120 (105 + 15) each in Music, Disco, Lore and Vet, and 55+45 in Magery. Magery mastery would be useless for him, from the lack of eval, even if he wasn't so low in actual skill. If I switch from Taming, it's usually to Provo mastery. 

Example 2: My main caster is a Mage/Mystic/Weaver.
Of her skills, Eval (120), Focus (120), and Inscription (100) (or 120 Fishing, if the skill swapped with stones for one of these) don't have Masteries, nor does the Meditation that is only at 60 (but mostly made up of equipment bonuses).
Mysticism is the skill whose use is the least important for me to have 120 natural, so I have 100 natural and +20 from a ring. I have level 3 mastery available, but rarely switch to it.
Magery is 120 Natural, and has a level 3 mastery used. But, again, I rarely use it.
Spellweaving is 120 Natural, and it's the level 3 mastery I use the most.
All three casting skills share the same passive ability, so it's what the the active powers do that determine which is the mastery in effect. If I have to, and the other stuff isn't working well, at worst I can switch to Mysticism and use the Mystic Weapon power, but it's not exactly a major thing in most cases.

The Weapon-using characters are more apt to have issues deciding which one to use - weapon, parry, support casting, or poisoning (if possessed). And, frankly, most of my characters of those types see little use for the masteries beyond the passives.