Bard - mage or dexxer

Building a pure mage and have thought about picking up peace, provo, and music. My original plan was to create a dexxer bard but I am tempted to wait.

Point would be to peacemake on demons, balrons, lich lords, dragons, etc and then EV, FS, EB them to death.

Alternative would be a mace dexxer with just peacemaking.

Thoughts?

I would work with either skill, but not both on same toon. A provo mage or a peace dexer are very fun and viable builds.

depending on the builds, selecting hunt locations is as important as skills. Provo you will want a spot that spawns multiple targets, peace single targets.

the high end spawns, ie balrons, lich lords, dragons etc will require the corresponding slayer instrument to even have a moderate chance at success..

You have 3 accounts with 5 players each. Just make both. But if you are just starting out a peace dexer is the easiest/ quickest to make, followed by a provo dexer. Then they can fund the rest of your characters.

Is a bard mage good for gold farming?

Peace dexers are really good & maces are also the cheapest wep type so I def suggest givin that a try. I’d go with a Provo mage and maybe utilize hiding instead of peace. Helps if you have to afk frequently or just want to be un noticed from all threats.

They do very well and are easy to make.

Also... Welcome to UOR!

I support your decision to make a streaker.

@Khalyreth’nn I tried messaging you on IRC. If you have any questions, just let me know.

Provo Mage with Hiding is gonna be the best chance to survive imo. I love provo-dexxers but I am not great at escaping pks when they show up so I got tired of donating my slayer weaps to them. Hiding definitely changed my chances of surviving. By the time they're finished casting reveal, I am already recalled out.

Another note is monsters here on uor dispel like a mother f'er

If you don't care for hiding and want another bard skill, I would recommend Discordance/Enticement.

Greetings! I am new to the shard as well. I played a Provo Mage heavily for about 8 years from the beginning on the original Catskills shard. I am working on my new bard now and would like some feedback(pros/cons) on the following builds for this shard:
Bard:
Provo
Music
Magery
Eval
Meditation
Resist
Hiding or Discordance(Would 50 Hiding/50 Resist/100 Disco work?)
Is this a viable build? What other skills should I consider?

I am working on a battle miner with the following:
Mining
Swordsmanship
Tactics
Healing
Resist
Anatomy
Magery
Any thoughts here?

I also would like to make a Treasure Hunter and Fisherman. Any templates for these I would love to see.

One more question do the champion spawns still work? I am assuming power scrolls do not exist.

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Thanks I appreciate the insight!!

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I actually like the look of the first template a lot. I do quite a bit of battle mining and wouldn't see an issue with it. Honestly, I would drop healing down to 80 instead of anatomy.

The difference from Stratics healing calculator is:
100 healing/ 80 anatomy (33-56 damage heal per bandage)
vs
80 healing/100 anatomy (33-53 damage heal per bandage)

With Peacemaking you won't be healing as much and I would rather keep a couple points of damage output over the 3 point max difference of healing.

Im gonna work that build into my battle-miner and see the results.

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Recall

70.1 natural / 50.1 with scroll



GM magery heals every once in a great while ain't half bad when combined with the occasional healing potion

But, you'd be stepping over the line straight into "one trick pony" land... meh, I like weird templates

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Unless changed in the past year, base barding dif of a ore elemental lord is 58 with GM instrument... use a slayer for 51. You should see very long peace making rounds with few breaks using a slow weapon.

Let me offer my $0.02 by parts:

Bard-mage:
Here you want the monsters to tank for you and do the most damage between them. For this I suggest provo. Peace is really not viable as you will not be tanking yourself, so you want the mobs to kill each other as fast as possible.
My template is:
Mage
Resist
Med
Eval
Music
Provo
Wrestling

Now, I have wrestling on mine as he is also my 5x “PvP” mage. Which only means I’m too stupid to run from PK’s and think I can fight them back once in a while.

You can sub wrestling for hiding, as it is a very useful skill for a bard as others have suggested.

Or you can go disco. This is mostly for the provo bonus. For the actual hunting, it might shave a couple of seconds when killing larger game, but since you, nor your pets, are taking damage, then it really isn’t that useful.

If I had to split my support for your 7th skill I’d go:
Hiding - 90% support
Disco - 10% support
Peace - 0% support
Other skills - 0% support

Bard-dexxer:
Now this is an interesting one, and depends mosty on what you enjoy more. You can go peace-dexxer or provo-dexxer. You’ll be hard pressed to fit both to a template. So either you want the mobs to kill themselves with a little assistance from you, or you want to kill them on your own wearing down your equipment. Keep in mind it is MUCH faster for mobs to kill each other while you help.
My template is:
Magery
Music
Provo
Swords
Tactics
Anat
Healing

Yes, I have GM magery to get around and for big GHeals. It also helps when casting reflect, and buffs. Mostly for convenience, and because I think the added bonus of bigger heals and buffs supercedes whatever 29 points in another skill might give you (at any time my guy has 1.5-2mill in gear on him, I ain’t fizzling recalls so dropping magery below 71 is out of the question).

If you do want to drop magery, consider taking resisting spells. Hiding could also work.

I prefer provo to peace simply because I like to go through mobs faster, but peace is a “safer” bet and you probably will die less.

Now I STRONGLY suggest against dropping any of the 4 basic warrior skills (anat, tactics, wep skill and healing). You want to kill that monster fast, not dance around with it forever.

Now as I said, peace or provo is up to you. As far as subbing magery goes, my support would be:
Resist - 70% support
Hiding - 30% support
Any other skills - 0% support

Treasure Hunter:
I actually wrote a guide on treasure hunting with my suggested template. You can check out the guide by clicking here.

Personally, I suggest putting in the time and effort to GM lockpicking. Having that extra GM skill instead of DH is VERY useful. Those last 5 points in lockpicking are a bitch, but they can be fun and you will become rich in the process. (I made about 400k on each of the 2 chars I have GMed lockpicking on just from the gold in the chests not counting gems, scrolls and junk)

To work lockpicking I do suggest stealth. Gate in hidden close to the chest, stealth to it, pick it, stealth one step away, pop the trap (open the chest), loot the chest and stealth to a safe place if needed to recall out. If you are one tile away from the chest, the trap will not hurt you. NOTE: this only works with dungeon chests. Any other trap chest will hurt/kill you.

Once you GM lockpicking, drop stealth for another skill. I suggest cartography.

Now you may have noticed the common denominator on my templates is that I don’t “split” skills. I just GM them. I believe (and this is purely personal preference) that having a GM skill is more useful and reliable than having 2 half-assed skills that will let you down when you need them most.