*Edit* As a small caveat, (and apologies for not clarifying on initial post) the current goal is to attempt to create one tamer that's fairly balanced. Not quite one tamer to rule them all, but I will likely not be creating multiple tamers. Although if I get the itch, I'll be able to pivot. Thanks again so much for the responses thus far. Hey everyone, I'm "nearly" done with prepping my tamer to go out into the world. Before doing so though, I'd love to get a few people's opinions on balancing the finishing touches on the template I'm currently working towards. Currently I'm sitting at: Animal Lore: 100 Animal Taming: 96.7 Veterinary: 37.2 Resisting Spells: 100 Magery: 97.9 Meditation: 63.8 Musicianship: 100 Provocation: 100 (+ 4.4 Points floating on a skill that's yet to be distributed.) Top of mind, I'm currently on a trajectory that will look something like: (Build Option A) Animal Lore: 100 Animal Taming: 100 Veterinary: 70 Resisting Spells: 100 Magery: 100 Meditation: 30 Musicianship: 100 Provocation: 100 OR (Build Option B) Animal Lore: 100 Animal Taming: 100 Veterinary: 100 Resisting Spells: 100 Magery: 70 Meditation: 30 Musicianship: 100 Provocation: 100 ----- Any opinions here? Am I trying to combine too much PvP Prep with PvM with these builds? My main concern with "Build Option A" is lower Vet. At GM, I know I can res my pets, but couldn't I technically create another character to handle my pet resurrection for me? I'm also concerned about Vet's actual healing performance around 70. Regarding "Build Option B," I'm more concerned about the need to leverage scrolls. Huge inconvenience in my opinion and likely will get in the way of basic travel with pets. As a final note, I'm already at GM Resist as I recently attended one of the (very well managed) resist events, so the builds you see above are somewhat reactionary to my progress thus far, but that skill is the obvious other candidate for lowering. With that in mind, perhaps a build could look something like: (Build Option C) Animal Lore: 100 Animal Taming: 100 Veterinary: 100 Resisting Spells: 70 Magery: 100 Meditation: 30 Musicianship: 100 Provocation: 100 ----- Bit of a word wall here, but if anyone has any insight / advice, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm approaching that fork in the road where I'm going to need to choose a path as I get my Veterinary skill up. Thanks in advance, Artesian
If you must squeeze all of that into a build, and I dont blame ya for trying as I haven't had the motivation to try something like that, I would do option C. But take the 30 points from med and keep resist at 100. I dont believe anything lower than 100 resist will be worth it to have any points in the skill. Also with med that low or none at all, you're gonna need to use your magery sparingly. Pretty much use it for gating, otherwise if you're out of mana and a pk comes, you'll find yourself in trouble without being able to call that gate uber. Great pvm build imo, just be cautious about your mana.
Option C and take down resist... if you are taking damage on your tammer and you have not melee skill you are doing something wrong..
Get rid of resist completely and take 100 meditation. Resist is just a wasted skill on a PvE tamer. You should never be taking hits as your pets will be getting hit by everything. PKs you will want to run from regardless... so resist is a very wasted skill for a PvE tamer IMO.
If I may offer mine - For most players if you could only have ONE tamer it would be a provo tamer (taming/lore/vet/magery/mediation/music/provo). But it appears you really like having GM resist. IMO if you must keep it is to first convert this tamer into an eval tamer (swap out for tracking during holiday events like the one happening right now) and then create a new tamer like the one I mentioned above. Even though it is a pain to make new tamers, there is a reason so many of us have 3+. And as Talon mentioned, GM resist has very limited use on a tamer. It will help you win 1v1 and maybe 1v2, but more than that you will die anyway and it's just a matter of getting away fast enough (but ideally just slow enough to kill yourself in town to hand out murder counts).
Disco bard will yield greatest gph as elder gazers and blood eles are pretty much known for being the highest gold earning locations. But there's plenty of spawns that come close. I agree with the above that resist may not be used enough to justify for everyday farming so it just comes down to personal preference. Lately I've been enjoying having resist on my tamers. Being able to stand up to pks and even get into their face after their initial approach and even taking most down has given me more satisfaction than making max gph. Watching them struggle trying to power through their spells being resisted and turning the tables, its something I have come to love and breaks the boring cycle of just hitting your "oh shit" hotkey to gate out. Tamers dont require any big loss if you get dropped. You can even carry 5 of each reg and 150 bandaids if you wanted. Annoying to restock that often but your dragons are disposable or bonded and even if they need to get rezzed, they're still powerful money makers. Again, all just personal preference. Survive tip: carry str and heal potions along with cure. Make one of your macros that drinks a cure and then a heal potion. Make another macro that drinks a str and then a heal potion. When you see a red name, hit the str and heal. Has saved me quite a bit.
Thanks everyone for the input. It's greatly appreciated. Truly. Thanks for the additional notes, Hollywood. Especially the mana management [previous post] & str + heal pot recommendation. I'm pretty aligned with your satisfaction line above as well. (I'm a long time returning [but never quite hit GM] Tamer of 15+ years ago, so I'm somewhat used to the hunting landscape.) I also GM'd taming last night, so I'm already dreadfully close to needing to make a decision. Currently I'm leaning towards the suggestion in your first post. Option C, but completely dropping Med-which also happens to be the easiest change to implement based on my current progress. (Obviously putting mana management at a high priority.) Although I may investigate that a bit on a different character to get a feel how I like it before I fully commit. I do hear the note though that anything less than GM on resist seems silly, although I am curious to get a breakdown on Resist's performance on various skill levels [Has someone already done this homework?]. The goal of this character isn't necessarily to go out and PvP, but a few perks in my opinion are the ability to: 1) Stand my ground in smaller PvP scenarios. 2) Deter spells on initial mob encounters (like offensive spells and poison [although potions are a solid solve as well]) 3) Get fairly good gold per hour. (I've been testing the water on EG's and honestly had no trouble. I also did this with only 35 or so Vet.) 4) Not need to create multiple characters unless I really get the itch. [I'm playing UO again at a leisurely pace, but am doing a bit to get a character up to speed.] ----- Any additional thoughts on the above? I'm also open to hearing about any Min / Max recommendation scenarios for multiple characters, but when I set out to make this guy, I was technically settled on prioritizing a balanced build. Otherwise, thanks again to each of you though for taking the time. P.S. - I also read that taking 1 point from STR and bumping DEX up to 26 decreases bandage time by half a second. Seems like a good trade for the 1 (?) hp loss. Artesian
