Tell Me How To Play My Character.

Pinkerton

Been away from serious playing for a long time.  A loooooooong time.  I am wondering how to play this character (in PvM - still working on bringing my PvP mage up to snuff)

110 Magery
110 Eval
120 Focus
120 Mysticism
120 Spellweaving
110 Med
30 Anat (for some defensive wrestle - is that still a thing?)

I get the gist of throwing an RC out and fireballing something.  BUT if I really want to dig deep into this char and play it to its fullest I would like help understanding the important spells, the proper scenarios to use them and the synergies I should take advantage of.

Template tweaks are welcomed (thinking of just going 6x120 if I can get the scrolls).

Thank you everyone in advance!

Pawain

Dump the Focus and anatomy and put taming and Lore in the spots. Get jewlery to compensate for 2 or 3 skills as needed.

Thalon

Yes, Eval and Anat do still combine for defensive wrestling. Since you mentioned you are going PvM that is generally a waste of points since several weapons have Spell Channelung + Mage Weapion 0. Very few monsters use disarm and your template should not be thst close to them anyway.

How you can effectively play your character depends on equipment just as much as Skills these days.  GM Magery and Eval only get you so far damage wise. In addition to Resists to 70 and LRC properties, you'll want Spell Damage Increase (SDI) and Lower Mana Cost (LMC).

Your Template does not have Resist Spells skill so you'll want to use a summon to take aggro. Cast Rising Colosus or become a tamer as Pawain suggested. Invisibilty should be a spell on your hotkeys. Hit the mob with whatever spell works for you and throw some heals on your pet now and then.

Bilbo

First thing you need to do is LOG-IN, get char and go out in the world.

Rock

Note: this post is from a recent returnee who has been trying to learn as much about skills and professions as he can. YMMV; mine sure does.

If I understand the defense from Eval+Anatomy, the melee defense your guy will have is (110+30+20)/2 = 80 wrestling defense. Against a foe with 100 or more fighting skill that's something, but nothing to write home about. Your 30 points of Anatomy might be better spent maxing Magery, Meditate, and Eval Int to 120. (The equation above ends with "equals 80" (check it yourself with copy and paste!), but for some reason this forum really wants the "equals" to look like a "minus". It looks like equals as I edit, but as soon as I save, it looks like a minus again.  Weird.)

With three magic schools, this guy will have a big mana load, so it makes sense to max both Meditate and Focus. If you find the plethora of spells available to be overwhelming, considering dropping one of the schools and getting the blessed relief of the passive Resist Spells skill. Mysticism offers some active curse & damage pulse relief (e.g. poison and bleed attack) via Cleansing Winds, but that will be mana and time not spent on doing damage. With Resist, you just get it and forget it. BTW, dropping Magery would free 240 points (M. + Eval Int), dropping Mysticism could free up 240 as well, depending on if you wanted to keep focus, and dropping Spellweaving would free up 120 points.

You didn't mention what race the guy is. With Meditation and Focus already maxed out, you'll get very little from a human's JOAT (Jack of all Trades) characteristic.  You can Lore pets with the 20 JOAT Animal Lore, and ... that might be about it.  (Oh, if human, the 30 Anatomy he currently has is only 10 above his JOAT level.) For such a mana-eating beast, an Elf would be beneficial due to their 20 extra mana.  An elf with 120 INT has 140 mana, not 120 like the other races.  Even being a Gargoyle would offer a mana benefit, a built in +2 MR (mana regen), above and beyond whatever your Med and Focus offer. (It doesn't go away like the human JOAT values would.) You can change between Human and Elf via race change quests, and change to any race with a Race Change Token.

Basara

I have never understood the fascination with the worthless (to me) Resist Spells skill. I've got it at 120 - on a soulstone. It made ZERO difference in the field for me. I kept getting paralyzed, cursed, and the like - just as much, with no appreciable duration difference, and more often than not I'd get retargeted (and could move) before para ran out (And Mysticism that has a spell that removes curses AND heals you at the same time). I replaced it with Spellweaving/Fishing (depending on which one I feel like using at the time)

As with the others, I agree though that the 30 Anatomy is better spent getting the other 3 skills to 120. 

Pawain is completely wrong about Focus. He apparently doesn't realize that in addition to the regens, Focus acts for Mysticism similar to EI does for Magery (as does Imbuing, but you only need one of the two, and Imbuing has no other benefits out in the field, compared to Focus).

Race is a bit of a trade-off. Human has a higher carry capacity, and some JOAT abilities. Elf & garg have mana-related bonuses that sound better than than what they actually play as.

You want to have 120 real in one casting skill - the one with the most useful Mastery is Spellweaving (and there's only one way currently to get any SW Jewelry).

I have a character very nearly that template.
120 Spellweaving, 120 Mysticism, 120 (100 real) Magery, 120 Focus, 120 Eval, 100 Inscription, 60 Med.
I have 40 skill points from equipment (well, 50 counting the unused +10 Resist Spells on the ring), allowing me to raise my med back up to a usable level. I could have considerably higher skills if I found the right bracelet to replace my Ornament. my suit is all-70s (even if I cast protection), max +INT (and +16 mana), somewhere around 28 MR, and well over-capped on LRC & LMC. All while wearing a 0-resist Pendant of the Magi. With my spell books, depending on book, I have 75-98% SDI, before counting the GM Inscription SDI bonus or using a +5% SDI bonus from my city.

each casting skill has its uses that complement each other.
Mysticism has Stone Form, Cleansing, and a great suite of offensive spells (RC, Nether Vortex for area, and bombard for repeated cheap single targets).
Spellweaving has Gift of Renewal, Gift of Life, and Word of Death
Magery has the transportation skills, fields, Protection when needed, and buffs such as Bless, while having a suite of summons (all that last far longer than an RC) and damaging spells for when you don't want NV's Chaos damage or Bombard's damage type is wrong for the job.

And, even as a human with 166 mana, I'm not having to actively meditate anywhere near as often as my higher-mana elves that are relying on magery alone (and that's before I made one of them a tamer and the other a bard- There's far worse things than casting for mana use).

For that matter, I don't see how people can keep a straight face suggesting use of a -0 mage weapon, then telling someone to cut out a casting spell to save mana. If you are going to use a mage weapon, you're going to be using far LESS mana than if you were casting from 3 different spell types.
Though, I will agree, from past experience, that a Chiv-mage with -0 Mage weapons, tactics, and using summons (which don't even require eval) in concert with the weapon attacks, can be a combat monster - it just doesn't have much to do with Mystic/Mage/Weaver combo. They are opposite ends of two different "how to max out your caster" branches of one tree.

Thalon

Basara said:

I have never understood the fascination with the worthless (to me) Resist Spells skill. I've got it at 120 - on a soulstone. It made ZERO difference in the field for me. 

As with the others, I agree though that the 30 Anatomy is better spent getting the other 3 skills to 120. 

For that matter, I don't see how people can keep a straight face suggesting use of a -0 mage weapon, then telling someone to cut out a casting spell to save mana. If you are going to use a mage weapon, you're going to be using far LESS mana than if you were casting from 3 different spell types.

Going to have to agree to disagree on these points Basara. I will explain the -0 mage weapon since you mentioned you do not understand it. 

Three basic choices for base difficulty to be hit in UO a)Wrestling, b) Anat+Eval, c) Mage Weapon
The first two take Skill Points, the third is an equipment choice. I prefer having a mage-weapon around because I have Equip Last on my hotbar. Combat goes like this:
1) Mage-weapon equiped
2) Find mob
3) Invis if mob aggros on character
4) Create summon
5) Summon and mob aggro
6) equip slayer/sdi spellbook
7) blast mob while summon holds aggro
8) if summon dies or mob aggros on my character, equip mage weapon and cast Invis on self

If you prefer not to switch equipment in combat or find you do not need to good for you, but I was very serious in my advice.

Basara

I can just post my experiences.

When I've had -0 mage weapons equipped, mobs beat the ever loving crap out of me, and the game would decide I swung back at the worst possible time for my casting an invis. I have equip item on my hotbar too - I usually get hit twice during the switch (plus any spells the the mob can dump on me).

With a book and shield, for some reason I get hit a lot less, and take less damage. Even with no parry, wrestling, anatomy, resist spells, etc.

But then, I've got a 25 year history of software acting funny when I use it - it wasn't until Vex/Phoenix saw me run to Haven using EA's own demo booths at Gen Con one year, that they realized just how bad Haven was messed up (so you can blame me for the destruction of Haven, too). <span></span>