If you are having trouble with PKs, this guide is for you. How to not get PK'd! Enjoy and hope this helps. When you die, use it as an opportunity to improve. Do not do the same thing over and over. If you do, you deserve to die and only have yourself to blame. You are never 100% safe from a PK, but if you are smart you can easily survive 90%+ of encounters. Using more of these tips will increase your survival; using just the basic recall and magic reflect tips should keep you alive in most situations. A lot of the tips below involve using Razor. Get familiar with Razor. Have Show Incoming Player Names ON Pretty simple, know whose coming so you can be prepared. Recall/Gate Macros Have a recall macro setup that will cast the spell and target your rune. Bind it to a key that is easily accessible. I have an extra button on my mouse. In an instant I can hit that and recall out. Always be ready to recall out. If you cannot guarantee a 100% success chance with recalls or gates, use a scroll. Also, its a good idea to carry 2 scrolls, in case one gets stolen. Anytime you change characters or use a new rune, make sure you re-target your rune in the recall/gate macro. Pets Gate Macro - setup a gate macro that does the following: Double click gate scroll, target rune, say "all follow" 2 times, double click moongate. If you have pets that don't listen (White wyrms) say all follow 3-4 times. Always be close to your pets so when you gate, they will follow you into the moongate instantly. You should be bandaging them anyways. If you don't have veterinary on your tamer, you are playing on hard mode. Have Magic Reflect up 100% of the time. PKs usually open with some sort of spell. Magic arrow, paralyze, ebolt etc etc. Even before they cast that spell, you should already be recalling or gating. Any red thing on your screen means you hit your macros. The magic reflect will prevent their first spell from interrupting you. Some people argue protection is better to stop melee hits, but if they are that close to you, in my opinion you are already dead. Be Suspicious of BLUES Whenever I see a blue, I stop fighting the monsters and I get ready to fight or flee. Usually I have my finger on the recall/gate macro ready to go. Blues have lots of ways of killing you, from running into your blade spirits/EVs, stealing your stuff, or just hanging around till you're low and then killing you. If you don't want to get PK'd, trust no one. Use An Alt If you really want to up your survival rate, have a dummy character logged in where PK's would come from. Have him go afk and keep that client open. If the alt starts getting attacked or is dead, hit the recall macro on your other character. Dealing with Stealthers Stealthers (AKA URKS) will try and sneak up on you. You can put down crates or furniture to block entrances, fight near double doors, or plant an alt. If any of those things gets moved/opened/attacked, hit your macros and get out. Be smarter than the PKs. Stock Up Bring trapped pouches, set hotkeys for them, and practice using them. If you get paralyzed, open a trapped pouch and recall out. To setup opening trapped pouches in Razor, under the agents section, select the UseOnce option. Then click the add target button, and select the trapped pouches one by one. Set a hotkey to use that agent and each time you hit the hotkey, you will open a pouch one by one. Put your reagents into a backpack, and cover the backpack with a clothing item(cloak etc). If a thief snoops you, he will not be able to see the backpack under the cloak. Healing potions, cures, and refresh potions can help if for some reason your recall/gate macro doesn't go off in time. Run and chug those potions (heal for hp, cure for poison, stamina for stamina). When you get a good enough distance away, hit your recall macro again. It is also a good idea to have sets of armor/regs/runes ready to go. If you die you can be back up and running right away. PK's won't slow you down at all! Farming Tips Do not farm in the same spot. If reds show up at a location, recall out and go somewhere else. If you are farming at a popular place during primetime, leave and farm somewhere less popular. You should always have 3-4 locations that you can farm at. If you saw reds at a particular location, do not go back. Chances are they will keep hitting up that spot. Hunt in a Group Pretty straightforward, if you hunt in a group you will have a higher survival rate. PK's will be more cautious or just leave. PKs usually like easy fights, and if you're in a group of 2-3 they will think twice. Pets and Daemons also scare them too. Tame up some dragons, or summon a daemon while hunting! Stay Calm If you prepare well, you should feel confident. It's natural to get nervous but you are in excellent shape. You've got all these strategies, equipment, and hotkeys on your side. You know what to do. Don't rage, dying is normal You will die, it's a part of the game. You may play as smart as possible, and sometimes you still may die. Get over it and get used to it. It costs a set of armor and some regs. Nothing in the grand scheme of things. If you find you are getting upset rather than having fun, try another playstyle or take a break. There's enough options in UO that you can have fun doing all types of different things. Limit your complaining and don't rage on the forums or in-game. It will just make you angrier, look dumber, and that's what the PK's want. Be smarter and better!
Update 3/21/2016 Use an Alt Character to scout I realized that people aren't using this technique enough, and it's one of the most effective. 1. Make a character on an alt account with GM Hiding, enough magery to recall. 2. If you are hunting somewhere, hide this character at the entrance to where you are hunting. Have that client open on another monitor or on the side of your screen. Open your journal on that character as well. 3. If you see anybody run by on your screen or any player activity on your journal, recall out! Use those 3 account wisely, it's powerful.
This post saves lives. hehe Good on ya for doing this. Archiving this for later linking to the fresh meat.
Nice job! Your post reminded me of some extras worth mentioning... Don't you have to re-target the macro if you swap out or lose the rune? I could be wrong on that though. For a while, I used a macro and made sure to test it once before each hunt. Now, to give myself more control over my actions, I manually target the rune with my mouse on each recall/gate cast. Granted the macro is faster than clicking and if you don't die or go to T2A much then you're not going to need to re-target the macro enough for it to be a big problem. So it works well either way if you're responsible. Agreed that escape is way better than survival but you can definitely salvage an escape after you've been assaulted! I recommend a hotkey for Razor's built in mini-heal self function in addition to the potions. It chooses heal/cure automatically based on whether you're poisoned or not. It also casts so quickly that you can pop it off in between your opponents spells. I've survived a ton of spell combos and melee assaults by spamming that button. So important! I keep two different types of bags in my bank. One type is a "recovery kit" that just has a rune to a rune-library, 20 band-aids, 20 of each reg. I'll use that to find and retrieve my corpse/pets. The other type is a "restock kit" that has all that plus armor, clothes, etc. I'll use that if I know I was dry-looted and my pets were murdered. I also keep a horse or two in the stable named "SPARE". Stuff like this makes dying barely an issue.
Thanks for the bump Rezon. Reminded me to update it! I made the format more user friendly and simplified things.
I start reading this guide but can only read as far as the ablist comment: When you die, use it as an opportunity to improve. Do not do the same thing over and over. If you do, you deserve to die and only have yourself to blame. …before I have to stop because I am triggered the hell out. NO, some of us cannot improve upon what is physically/mentally/accessibly possible for us already. It might be less nasty to say that these things in the article MIGHT help us to do better but that there is no blame on us ("you have only yourself to blame") if we do not find them possible. Please remember that not everyone is as fit, healthy and able as you are when writing things like this or chatting in game. Or even just say, "This is what I do. You might find it useful." Blame much? Just an old and wizened disabled person with aspergers and multiple sclerosis, sayin'
Also, some of us might get killed by lag from across the pond before we can even register that there is a PK coming and the PK has might have killed us while we were lagged out.
To whom it may concern, I dare you to pick a day and play as though it's not you VS everyone else. Actually...
Don't get PKed, by becoming the shard's next PK. http://uorforum.com/threads/how-to-be-a-successful-pk.6871/
What'r you doing here? I thought you went to go pick up more short ribs for the BBQ party @ The Panda House!
Thanks for this post. It is very helpful and well thought out, except that one area Azerothian, mentioned. I'm sure you didn't intend for it to sound mean. Thanks again. Marjo Governess of Wispfelt Westra on irc
