So Ive never had a miner before. Here is the build I am considering going with: GM Mining GM Hiding GM Mace Fighting GM Tactics GM Anatomy 80 Healing 80 Resist Spells 40 Magery 100 Str 100 Dex 25 Int Am I screwing myself with that low of magery? (Will I fizzle recalls too often?) Maybe I should do 50 Magery, 70 Resist? Maybe 50 Magery, 70 Healing? Maybe drop healing to 50 and put the rest into both Magery and Resist? Maybe its the weapon skills I should lower, like do 80 Mace / 80 Tactics, and raise the defensive/healing/magic skills to GM? Im not sure what to expect as a Miner, so not sure exactly how I want to skill my avatar. Does my initial build pass or fail on this shard? Also, am I really naive for thinking I can be a miner wearing chainmail? Is it just too heavy?
Experience, and habit, really. For resist, I have a learned fear of being without it, but its one of those things from playing UO on a number of freeshards for a decade that I may just need to unlearn. I just assume Resist is necessary on every character except townies. I have it burned into my mind that zero resist = low level magic PvE mobs pwn you. For hiding, I am just pretty good with it and seem to be able to escape or prevent most PvE and PK situations with it. I also like the utility for using it to AFK on a PvE avatar.
I would GM healing as you'll be going through a lot of bandies fighting elemental types. And you won't need resist against those monsters so I would drop that. I can see hiding being handy but if you're a miner and someone wants to kill you they will kill you. No big deal. Miners die.
Id personally drop hiding or resist in favor of lumberjacking or parry. Golems and elementals dont cast so resists is not very helpful there. -Take lumberjacking and switch to swords if you want to kill them faster. -Take parry and keep macing if you dont mind a slower safer fight.
I assume this will be a battleminer. The resisting spells is pretty useless on battleminer, because none of the the golems and elementals use magic. It could help you a little bit if you were attacked by another player, but so can the magic reflection spell, because what you need to focus on is to escape. You are at a disadvantage as a miner, because you can't mine while sitting on a mount and this will prevent you from quickly chasing or escaping from anybody. As for hiding, I would do what @Keza suggests.
Yeah I find killing golems and elementals faster and easier with my non miner lumberjacker than my mace parry miner. If I had the inclination to go through the pain that is GM lumberjacking again I'd switch mine up.
No, not at all. My battleminers wear a mix of valorite chain/ring mail for a total of 44 AR. Chain tunic & leggings, ringmail gloves & sleeves, a helmet of your choice and plate gorget (Note: this will give you -1 DEX. You can replace the platemail gorget with a barbed leather one.)
For damage, not too much but for healing yes: Heal / Cure Yourself Formula: 8 Seconds + (.5 Seconds * (120 - Dexterity / 10) ♦ 30 Dex = 12.5 seconds ♦ 50 Dex = 11.5 Seconds ♦ 80 Dex = 10 Seconds ♦ 100 Dex = 9 Seconds
My setup (to the best of my memory) is as follows: 100 mining 100 macing 100 tact 100 parry 100 anat 100 healing 60 magery 40 med 100str / 100dex / 25int No resist? -I only battle mine, no casters in the equation. No hiding? -Recall macro ready if a PK shows up. Parry? -Ore elementals hit hard, especially valorite and marble ones. Parry makes it an easy win. Magery? -Travel and defense. Med? -Convenience.
Thats how my miner looks like: Mining Lumberjacking Swordfighting Anatomy Tactics Healing Resist Spells He will use axe as his primary choice of weapon and is doing very well really. I will later think about the magery, as I do have chars that will be able to cast gates towards the miner. But as his magic resist is very low, I have some space over for some magery, at least for the moment
I dont know much about miners, but i use recall scrolls on my provo dexer which have ~35 magery for 100% change to cast recall on scroll.
Thanks for the insight everyone, this was really helpful! Thanks a lot, like I said Im brand new to mining and diddnt anticipate the elementals that can spawn. Ive seen them before in Ocllo dungeon and someone explained to me. So now I know to better prepare for lots of those sort of encounters. Thanks, I think Ill bring parry back up and drop hiding. I have a LJ Swordsman for my PVP avatar, and really have no desire to have more than one GM LJ. Plus the game is more fun for me with a variety of weapon styles, so I want a good excuse for an avatar with maces and shields . Ok good to know, I diddnt realize I would not be running into casting mobs often. Im not worried about PKs - I accept that I will indeed be PK'd a certain % of the time, its part of the game, and my miner on food wearing chainmail without critical supplemental fighting skill is destined to die anyway. I just use hiding a lot as a convenience in PvE, and on a very populated server it does help against PKs too cuz they go after other people instead . But yeah, I can now see why its less useful than another melee defensive skill (like parry...). Also glad to free up more points from resist, wasn't looking forward to building magic resist on yet another character. I was considering that as well. It sounds good in theory, but I was thinking cautiously in case its too expensive in practice. I might want higher magery anyway for magic reflection anyway, so I dont think ill rely on scrolls. Might keep 1-2 around for an emergency getaway macro, just to be safe in case spell fizzles.
Why provoke, Valrick? Do there spawn several elementals at once? I always thought you spawn one elemental, kill it, spawn the next and so on.
For solo mining id either do: - Lumberjacking (best damage) - Fencing (Para Blows prevents them from escaping) - Parry (lets you tank more) There is also the option to put Provoking or Peacemaking onto a template like that (works incredibly good against golems) but then you will be basically defenceless against pks. I would recommend Parry in the long run, you will be slower, but you can add other toons later. For example a heavy AR Parry Miner, which can spawn and tank a lot of golems, backed up by a provo char, or Archers. You see where this is going..
I'm working on fighting skills for my miner who is also a lumberjack, so this thread has been very helpful. Which axe do you think would be best for a miner/lumberjack/tank ? I've been using an executioner's axe.