Pally Archer Remove Curse vs. Resist Spells

Zane

I've got 80 Chivalry and 55 Resist Spells on my archer.  I seem to still get cursed a lot in battle and end up using Remove Curse to clear it.  Usually without too much trouble.  As a range fighter, it is the paralyze spell that makes things a bit hairy.  In any case, I am wondering if I should let Resist Spells drop and apply the points to other skills where they may have more value.  Thoughts?

Arroth_Thaiel

Resist Spells will work against the casting skill of your attacker. Even if you get Resist to 120, if an attacker has 120 Magery/Necromancy the attacker will have a good chance to curse/para you. However, without your 120 Resist, the attacker will almost always be successful in cursing/paralyzing you.

Eventually wouldn't you want to have 120 Chivalry and 120 Resist Spells?

What are the other skills on your template?

Chivalry
Archery
Resist Spells
Tactics?
Anatomy?
Healing?

Gwen

Having 115 (so 80 with protection) and having 0 resist is really a big difference for my Mystic. Fighting same pirates. Being sometimes poisoned and cursed I tried to stone it. And saw difference- how much more i got cursed, poisoned etc. 
Try to stone skill and hunt same mobs. 

Zane

Thanks.

Build is:

Archery   102

Anatomy  100

Focus      100

Tactics     100

Healing      83

Chivalry    80

Resist Spells  55

Hiding     100

Seeing as I get hit with spells pretty regularly as is, perhaps moving the resist spells points elsewhere may be beneficial.  For example, taking chivalry up to 100 or 120 would make remove curse spell more effective (seems to work pretty well already) and I am also somewhat enamored with the idea of taking Archery up to legendary.

I think I will stone resist spells and experiment.

Arnold7

Try some enchanted apples.  They do a great job of removing curses quickly.  Also, if your human, try casting protection from a scroll so your chivalry remove curse spell does not fail.  See the nearby post on concentration disturbed for more information. 

Arnold7

Also, use the search at the top of page to search on tears of the ice dragon or click on my name to get to the link to that discussion.  There are a couple excellent posts there on how to play a paladin.  The posters are not archers but I think you will find the information very useful.

Arroth_Thaiel

With only 55 skill, you're probably not seeing that much of a benefit from Resist. Stoning off skills and playing with the build is a great way to find out what you like!

I personally would remove Focus from the build and put those points into other skills. The rate Focus regenerates mana/stam is quite slow. Having Mana Leech on the bow will return far more mana than Focus ever will.

The only other thing I'd say is that right now you're splitting two quite effective templates (stealth archer vs. paladin archer). However, if you like what you're running and it's working for you as is, roll with it.

Other options you could consider:

Drop Healing, add Stealth to create a stealth archer:
120 Archery
120 Tactics
120 Anatomy
120 Chivalry
120 Stealth
100 Hiding

Drop Hiding, add Resist to create a paladin archer:
120 Archery
120 Tactics
120 Anatomy
120 Chivalry
120 Healing
120 Resist

Drop Resist (or Healing), add Bushido to the previous template to create an ABC (Archery, Bushido, Chivalry).

Arnold7

Currently have a template similar to the template above with stealth.  My template has 120 fencing and 110 chivalry ( until I find an affordable 120 chivalry scroll), and 100 in the other skills, and has healing. Stealth is easy to raise and if you get killed a lot it can facilitate getting to your corpse to get your stuff back when there are a lot of enemy’s close by.  You can always stone it when you no longer need it.  Stealth and hiding can come in handy once in a while.
Don’t know if you have enough gold for all the 120 scrolls listed above.  Think they would set you back 200 to 300 million gold.  If not, you might consider adding healing.  It’s fairly easy to raise to around 90 and is easier to use during a fight than the chivalry healing spell.
Good luck in the game.

Zane

Great comments all.  Thank you.

Have thought about reallocating focus as mana leech seems to keep me in good shape.

Hadn't thought about stealth.  Do you rely on close wound to heal with that template?

I haven't taken any skill to 120 but maybe I should.

Arroth_Thaiel

If you're going the Stealth route you have a couple options for Healing (off the top of my head, there are probably more):
Life Leech on your weapon
Chivalry spell Close Wounds
Healing Potions (keep in mind the Balanced property for bows)
Healing Scrolls (if you're human)



Archery is the primary factor in your chance to hit (as with any weapon skill). As you get closer to 120, you will hit far more frequently, making your leeches work much better.

Tactics is your primary damage booster. Higher Tactics = more damage = leeches return more.

Chivalry will grant better bonuses with higher skill (and with higher karma).
There is a substantial difference between 80 Chiv and 120 Chiv. There is also a solid difference between Chiv bonuses at 10,000 Karma vs. 32,000 Karma.

You will have to decide exactly what level you like each skill for whatever you're doing in game, but yeah, once you get to 120 you won't want to go back to anything less. (You may have to, but you won't want to...)

Having said that, a (1x120 6x100), or (2x110 5x100) template is perfectly viable. As Arnold said, getting all those 120 scrolls can be pricey. I'd just play with what you like and see how it goes.  

If you do look to scroll up, the first scroll I'd look for would be Archery 120, just to cut down on the number of misses. 

Good luck!

McDougle

Arroth_Thaiel said:

With only 55 skill, you're probably not seeing that much of a benefit from Resist. Stoning off skills and playing with the build is a great way to find out what you like!

I personally would remove Focus from the build and put those points into other skills. The rate Focus regenerates mana/stam is quite slow. Having Mana Leech on the bow will return far more mana than Focus ever will.

The only other thing I'd say is that right now you're splitting two quite effective templates (stealth archer vs. paladin archer). However, if you like what you're running and it's working for you as is, roll with it.

Other options you could consider:

Drop Healing, add Stealth to create a stealth archer:
120 Archery
120 Tactics
120 Anatomy
120 Chivalry
120 Stealth
100 Hiding

Drop Hiding, add Resist to create a paladin archer:
120 Archery
120 Tactics
120 Anatomy
120 Chivalry
120 Healing
120 Resist

Drop Resist (or Healing), add Bushido to the previous template to create an ABC (Archery, Bushido, Chivalry).

is bushido working with ranged attacks? last time i tried Honoring them was wacky 

Arroth_Thaiel

McDougle said:

is bushido working with ranged attacks? last time i tried Honoring them was wacky 

I have a paladin archer that I can switch around to a stealth archer, but have never played the ABC, just read about it.

This thread might have some answers for you:
ABC Archer Questions - Ultima Online Forums (uo.com)

Zane

Postmortem.  So, I took two trips to Daemon Temple, one with Resist Spells on the stone and one with Focus on the stone.  I worked with mana leeching slayer bows.  Being without either of those skills did not seem to bother me until taking on a greater dragon.  Without Resist Spells, I got pretty bogged down with curses.  Using chivalry Remove Curse spell helped some, but seemed less effective at cleaning the intense curse load quickly.  Also, the mana cost of continuous Remove Curse combined with all my other mana needs seemed to overpower my mana leeching.  On the other hand, being without Focus seemed easier.  The cursing seemed more manageable.  Even though my mana drained out a bunch of times, it did not take much pause to keep Enemy of One and Consecrate Weapon alive.  Resist seems higher value than Focus.

So, I am unloading Focus and will allocate the points to Archery, Chivalry, Resist and elsewhere.  I think I can buff up my mana situation with items too to really come out ahead.

Thanks everybody.

McDougle

You can use apples to remove curse as well orange petals for poison etc.