Helping Traditional Templates PvM (PvE)
The purpose of this thread is to brainstorm ideas to aid the base Templates compete in PvM with the higher performing Templates such as Sampire and Spellweaving-tamers. This should not be done by nerf-hammer or penalizing players of popular templates, but by boosting traditional templates.
This example might be the oldest in-game: Evaluate Intelligence Skill and Anatomy Skill combine to create a passive Weapon Skill value that is used in place of Wrestling when the character is attacked, but for defense only, not to attack. This made Magery-based Templates more survivable without requiring skill points in Wrestling.
So three questions in the poll:
1) which templates deserve to be brought up in effectiveness?
2) how would you do it?
3) which two templates do you currently use most often in PvM
This example might be the oldest in-game: Evaluate Intelligence Skill and Anatomy Skill combine to create a passive Weapon Skill value that is used in place of Wrestling when the character is attacked, but for defense only, not to attack. This made Magery-based Templates more survivable without requiring skill points in Wrestling.
So three questions in the poll:
1) which templates deserve to be brought up in effectiveness?
2) how would you do it?
3) which two templates do you currently use most often in PvM
- Which Traditional Template would you like to see become more effective?23 votes
- Warrior ( Weapon, Tactics, Parry, Healing, Anatomy, Resist, Focus)13.04%
- Archer ( Weapon, Tactics, Parry, Healing, Anatomy, Resist, Focus)8.70%
- Mage (Magery, Evaluate Intelligence, Meditation, Inscription, Resist)21.74%
- Samurai ( Weapon, Tactics, Parry, Healing, Anatomy, Resist, Bushido)4.35%
- Ninja ( Weapon, Tactics, Healing, Anatomy, Hiding, Stealth, Ninjitsu)17.39%
- Paladin ( Weapon, Tactics, Parry, Healing, Anatomy, Resist, Chivalry)8.70%
- Necromancer (Necromancy, Spirit Speak, Meditation, Resist)8.70%
- Templates based on the Avatar's Companions should be boosted; ex: Jaana, Dupre, Geoffery, Shamino, e13.04%
- I have posted a template below0.00%
- Template balance should be left alone.4.35%
- What is the way you would choose to balance that template?23 votes
- Skill Synergies (ex: Anatomy+EvaluateIntelligence=Defensive Wrestling)43.48%
- Specialized Equipment designec for the template (ex: Sorcerers Armor Set)8.70%
- Allow the template different Stat/Item Property Caps (ex: pure caster SDI cap)17.39%
- Add a new Ability system similar to Skill Mastery that works only with specific Templates.8.70%
- Add new Item Properties8.70%
- I have a different option which I posted below13.04%
- What two Templates do you most often use for PvM?23 votes
- Warrior or Samurai ( with 0 Skill in Necromancy, 0 Skill Chivalry)8.70%
- Mage or Necromancer17.39%
- Bard4.35%
- Archer (no chivalry)0.00%
- Tamer (no spellweaving)17.39%
- Mystic0.00%
- Paladin13.04%
- Sampire17.39%
- Warrior or Archer with Necromancy or Chivalry4.35%
- Tamer with Spellweaving17.39%
- Other ( please post below)0.00%
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Comments
The Samurai and Paladin are not far off from the Sampire. All rely on similar equipment: Resists, Damage Eaters HCI, DCI, Swing Speed, Stamina/Dex boosters and Lower Mana Cost. The Sampire's primary advantage as access to Chivalry over the Samurai, and access to Vampiric Embrace and Bushido specials are the advantage over the Paladin.
The Warrior is lacking access to a) Chivalry, b) Bushido and c) Vampiric Embrace.
a) Chivalry is a remarkable toolkit. Remove Curse, Enemy of One, Consecrate Weapon, Divine Fury. Most Sampires won't use Close Wounds or Cleansing Fire, they just keep swinging and Leeching Life.
b) Bushido gives access to Perfection and Special moves.
i)The Warrior does not care about Honoring targets and will not be building Perfection. The Mastery abilities such as Thrust, Onslaught and Focused Eye can offer bonuses, but only at a steep mana cost which means the Warrior will not have mana for Special moves. Honoring an opponent means you get the bonus at no mana expenditure.
ii) Weapon Special can offer similar bonuses to Bushido attacks, and are sometimes prefered. Double Strike instead of Lightning Strike, or Whirlwind instead of Momentum. I don't believe a any help is needed here.
c) Being able to cure remove poison in Vampire Form without expending mana or bandages gives a unique advantage. Life Leech can be compensated by equipment and Stamina Regen by equipment or Focus Skill.
So what can be done to help boost the Warrior?
Offer a pure-template Warrior (a character without specific Skills; ie:: Magery, Chivalry, Necromancy, Mysticism, Spellweaving, Poisoning, Hiding) additional advantages through the Skill Mastery System:
HARDINESS - pure warrior is more resistant to Poison and Curses. They are less effective and duration is decreased when used on a pure Warrior.
WELL PRACTICED - a pure warrior knows their gear. Weapons gain extra Swing Speed Increase, Hit Chance and Defense Chance (possibly a specialized Cap increase). Also a further mana discount on Mastery Toggle Abilities such as Thrust and Onslaught.
FIND A WAY - a special move Attack which costs mana. The character gets a Hit Chance bonus and results in extra Direct Damage. Should be a good replacement for the Lightning Strike/Consecrate weapon combo.
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The reason I said Synergies is because I feel like if you have those template of skills with inter-changable melee fighting skills (Swordsmanship and Fencing, Lumberjacking and Parrying) you should get a huge boost to survivability equating to slightly more powerful than the most trained pet. It should be balanced with healing.
Or maybe healing just needs to be reworked to tick more frequently as the skill goes up. Something equating to what a Sampire can heal.
Thus, I would like a warrior type to have the same bonus as a paroxysmus dragon's 12% damage reduction in PVM without having to ride one. This would work whether on foot or on an ethy or on a normal mount.
If someone wanted the full 20% that an exceptionally barded dragon they can still ride one, but it would not stack with the 12% inherent.
This would only be inherent bonus if there is 400 skill points in a weapon skill, tactics, anatomy, and healing combined. If you go into a form, such as vampiric embrace, this inherent bonus is voided.
Hence, 6x builds, which maximize 6 skills and hope that not having the seventh will not cause major problems. In the case of this Samurai, he would likely let Resist Spells go. Let's do a thought experiment and see what might be done via the assist. Assume 20% of a primary skill counts towards the level of its secondary. A primary skill would not assist more than one secondary skill. So you could achieve a 6x equivalent build with:
Add everything up, and the sum is 648 points. If your skill cap is 720, that leaves 72 points for Resist Spells or some other skill.
But, note that the element of balance and sacrifice still exists in this framework. Maybe you don't need 120 as your goal. What would happen if you settled on 110?
Now the sum is 594. If you wanted your 120 Resist Spells, you could have it, with 6 points left over to go to one or two of the other skills. (For example, 5 more in Parry and 1 more in Bushido would give an equivalent 115 to Parry and 112 to Bushido.)
I have not thought this system completely through. Threesomes exist, such as Ninjitsu, Hiding, and Stealth. That's an expenditure of 340 if you want to max them out under the current system (maximum for Hiding is 100). Perhaps Ninjitsu would be considered primary for Stealth, and Stealth would be primary for Hiding. Then 120 Ninjitsu allows for 96 Stealth to act as 120. However, to avoid "double-dipping", the third skill of the set would only be assisted by the actual points of Stealth, and at a 10% rate rather than 20%. So now the sum is 120 + 96 + 90.4, or 306.4. Compared to 340, that is a savings of 33.6 points. I don't know if that is the best way to handle it, I'm just sitting here in stream-of-consciousness. Maybe you'd only allow Stealth to be assisted, so the Hiding would still need its full 100 points to max out.
However it would work out, the Skills Gump would simplify things, by default showing assisted skill levels. There would be a button, though, to toggle actual skill levels to see what was actually happening.
Good post. I'll bite.
1. I'd like pure mage, and pure warrior to become more effective in pvm.
2. Fix is hard.
For pure warrior, I believe their healing options are not as strong as other templates, they have bandage healing which is slow, disturbable, and doesn't deal with many specials + whatever leech the weapon gives them. These don't compete with Confidence + Vampiric Embrace etc. Maybe Confidence and/or Vampiric Embrace style skills, need to come with Parry Skill as masteries.
For pure mage, everything out there is designed to disturb their spells, or monsters have huge resist so they cannot even do any damage. For example, warriors have armour ignore, which can cut through armour, with a thrower, I can solo Stygian Dragon - a mage just cannot do any damage at all, the Dragons HP regeneration is faster than any damage I can do. Putting protection on to pvm to deal with interuptions non stop is no fun, its like playing the game at half speed. Maybe for Scribe Mastery, they can add a Protection style skill, at max casting speed, and change some of the spells, so they are far more effective in pvm. Mind Blast and many others for example, are almost forgotten spells. Mind Blast was meant to deal with low cold resist, EQ is the only Physical spell mages have, but completely ineffective as a lvl 8. So not only were mages spells not suitable for when AoS style elemental resists came out, the monsters got so much resists, they made all the spells pointless anyway.
3. For pvm, my 2 most effective templates are tamer and mystic mage. My favourites are Scribe/or SW mage, but hardly useable, and Pure Warrior, but again hardly useable. I won't go near a Sampire, I really would rather quit than be forced down this road, like it seems they have been trying to do to everyone. Every new player these days, is pointed straight down the "build a Sampire" path - it's tragic.
On the other hand I tried bringing a samurai hybrid at an EM event in February. The character was doing damage but never earned looting rights because the tamer/spellweaver combo has much higher damage output, I could not compete!
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Hi Thalon,
I accept there will always be instances of one template is better than another template for a specific event or boss, if it happens here and there, that is fine.
My Thrower is ideal for soloing Navrey and Stygian Dragon. My Mystic can do Dreadhorn. etc.
But when you have 1 template that can wipe the board with 80+% of Events and Bosses, it becomes a joke. The Sampires in my guild solo all of the games top content - they solo the Harry, the Roof, Doom, Champ Spawns, Peerless etc.
My mage cannot come close. I cannot solo Roof, Harry, Doom, Champ Spawns. I cannot even solo the tier 2 pvm content (most Peerless), and I'm stuck with tier 3 pvm content - Stygian Abyss mini champs.
But what hurts more, is when they add in specific anti mage event/boss abilities that are designed to completely keep the mages out.
On the Roof, if you hit the boss with a spell, lots of additional mobs spawn, yet a pet or a warrior can hit it absolutely fine and penalty free - what is that about? They have completely shut off the games top content from an entire class.
In Doom, warriors again can hit the bosses fine, but the Dark Fathers for example, pull the mages in on every single spell (they may have reduced this now, but the damage is done) - but again, what sort of anti Mage game design is this?
Seriously, what the hell are they doing to be so anti mage?
Honestly, at this point, you have to question their fitness to be game designers for UO.
Time of Legends may favor warriors/tamers over casters on The Roof, but other encounters are doable by other template (all you need for the Bar is a mount). While not developed by Broadsword the two expansions following Samurai Empire (Mondain's Legacy and Stygian Abyss) have a mix of content favoring a variety of templates which you mentioned in your post.
Sampire has always been a special case. Look at High Seas, both Corgul the Soulbinder and Osiredon the Scalis Enforcer were released with "Tainted Life Force" which kills any player using life-leech, very ANTI-Sampire. I wasn't subscribed to UO at the time but I can imagine the uproar that caused. Riktor use to set any dragons fighting him wild which made many tamers cry. Lord Paraoxymus eats pets/summons to regain life...definately handicaps tamers. Numerous mobs in Samurai Empire are immune to bard skills and fandancers reactively damage caster templates. Making a single template handicapped isn't the best solution, but it has been regularly used.
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Harsh but fair, they've been building in this direction solidly for at least 10 years.
They don't even see it.
With regards to your small justifications, that is what they are, small justifications, I have said - to have it here and there, is fine, but not as a solid theme throughout the entire game. There is a solid anti mage theme, as if the lead designer only plays a Sampire.
On Stratics, I challenged Mesanna to show me her playing a Mage, to solo 80% of the games content - she never did. One of my friends uploaded video's of him soloing 80% of the games content on a Sampire as my side of the challenge. I have written to her about this, and I've seen developers state they think the mage is balanced. (Because it has 64 spells that do lots of things {except complete game content}).
It is unforgivable. I'll stop now, you've hit a nerve.
I agree Pure classes, and many classes need buffing, all my posts back this up.
What winds me up, is they seem to have no intention of doing anything about it. So UO just gets more and more 1 dimensional.
As much as this thread is about boosting traditional templates rather than bringing out the NERFHAMMER, the Sampire is the outlier. Sampire can complete content meant for groups as a solo character. Comparing any other Template to Sampire will never be equal on all counts. Some bard, tamer or mystic builds may compete forr soloing specific fights, but not all. So mage VS samurai VS bard VS archer vs etc in group oriented content MIGHT be considered balanced by the Devs....but the Sampire NO. So you have two options 1) boost other templates 2 ) NERF the Sampire.
This thread is about option 1). Will all templates be as sucessful as the Sampire? No, but Devs could close the gap a bit with boosts. Sampire can be left alone as EASYMODE for players that want it and have invested the time in their build.
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As one who has always enjoyed the pure mage, I find it very unfortunate that a large portion of the game is not available to me (as a soloist in this guise) - even with excessive power gear.
At this point, most veterans have purchased, won or otherwise acquired a large amount of wealth and gear; when applied to certain templates, Skill Points can challenge the 800's … take a Mage/Tamer for example … there are specific items designed to allow for this and having a well trained beast along ones side, coupled with the large Skill Point pool is an immense advantage compared to most specializations.
Further comparisons remain valid (today) involving the Sampire; again the pure mage pales even further. Sampires have versatility in the extreme and when played correctly, their strength against one or many is impressive; frankly, ludicrous but great for a solo-player. Only I shouldn't be confined to playing a Sampire if I want to see "80% of the game content" …
Sure there are other class specialization that require attention; but the popular vote on this thread is that pure mage needs work, so we're tracking here. The hope is at some point this gets the attention it needs - when mailing Mesanna directly doesn't.
As one who has provided direction for the majority of my career, I take no criticism without an equal amount of solutioning. Most (obviously) agree here, so let's offer some solutions that could be of benefit. With that, I see the plight of the pure mage as one who is hobbled, hinder and/or compromised further by the addition of skills (such as Barding, Alchemy or even Inscription) and not empowered. Sure, there is added versatility, but the power of their casts remains largely unaffected. There is simply not enough Skill Points to go around to compensate for that... even with end-game gear. So, let me offer a few VERY simple (to code) solutions that could easily change "the game" for a pure mage. There is a lot of directions this could go, but I will detail three concepts a pure mage would passively choose a proficiency - a Summoner, an Elementalist or a Sorcerer.
But first, Alchemy and Inscription combined with the standard mage base (i.e. Magery, Evaluate Intelligence and Meditation) should yield a significantly larger bonus to Spell Damage, Cast Speed, and Recovery Speed. With those two Skills in any Mage template, there is no room to add other skills to that create the edge certain classes have with power and versatility; thus the reason the combination of Skills should empower the pure mage further. From a development (i.e. code work) perspective, this would be a very simple adjustment to make.
As for the passive proficiency selection, this would be accomplished by merely combining further skills into the template; which would then produce unique changes in the how Magery behaves.
The Summoner - Magery, Evaluate Intelligence, Mediation, Alchemy, Inscription, Herding and Anatomy would passively put the mage on this path. Why Herding and Anatomy? Herding should not remain useless, it's difficult to GM and resonates with Humility. Anatomy seems like something a Summoner would be required to know about what it calls into being. The two primary additions to this proficiency would include summons with greater statistics (e.g. those found with the 'greater' prefix) and an addition to how many creatures can be controlled. Imagine a Summoner with three EV's that did not easily dispel or die.
The Elementalist - Magery, Evaluate Intelligence, Meditation, Alchemy, Inscription, Resisting Spells and Focus would enable the Elementalist proficiency. Perhaps more of what some of us have in mind when we think about a pure mage, the Elementalist has ALL of benefits of empowered spell casts and can withstand a greater amount of magic as well. Their offensive spells dealing with elemental damage (i.e. fire, cold, electricity, etc.) would sustain a damage modifier and in coming elemental effects could perhaps benefit the Elementalist (e.g. leech?) while other harmful magics might be lessened altogether. Perhaps a bit more code involved here as each spell would need to be addressed, but very doable with regards to implementation.
The Sorcerer - Magery, Evaluate Intelligence, Mediation, Alchemy, Inscription, Poisoning, and Taste Identification would become the Sorcerer. You know who was a Sorcerer? Mondain! How about a proficiency that brought back the potency of Potions and Poison during combat?! Frankly, if you examine the combination of skills, there's some excellent synergy here. There are some very interesting potions these days, but their effectiveness would require a stronger boost in Enhanced Potions than we presently can receive. Perhaps spell the spell damage increase that I suggest with Alchemy and Inscription, combined with Enhanced Potions would suffice?? This too would be an easy adaptation for the thin ranks of Broadsword to withstand.
The funny thing about code and imagination, the possibilities are endless. If you made it this far, I hope it inspires, because its been entertaining imaging a more effective pure mage than what we have today.
Be well.
I can't believe that was ever allowed to exist. If necro spells and forms actually required negative karma maybe it wouldn't have been. The necromantic blood sucking vampire that believes in good virtue and honorable combat against foes that have zero chance of competing will remain king and a living contradiction.
Your thoughts on creating new abilities/bonuses for specific skill combinations/templates appears well-thought out, but in two cases ends up turning the mage into something that functions like another exisiting template. Your examples Summoner=Tamer and Sorcerer=Alchemist/NoxMage). I don't quite get what sort of game mechanics you are suggesting for the Elementalist.
However, since a "pure mage" is Magery/EvalInt/Meditation/Wrestling/Resist/Inscript. Swapping one of the traditional 6 skills makes it a new template; which doesn't really help the true "pure mage" template.
I've thought on the subject a bit over the last year. I currently think the problem is templates which rely on Magery spells for damage are underpowered against targets with high resists. Players which also include Necromancy, Mysticism or Spellweaving in their caster template are much more effective in my experience.
- Necromancers can use Corpse Skin to debuff target's Fire and Poison resists.
A new Item Property might help. Rather than a spellbook in hand which has Spell Damage Increase (let's face it, against a target with 90 Fire Resist a Flamestrike when you are at 60% SDI isn't much different from a cast at 90% SDI); instead create a new item property: all casters equip a book/rod/wand/staff which lowers the target's effective Resist for their spells by -5, -10 or -15. Each could be damage type specific, Fire/Cold/Energy etc.
Just like warriors swapping between weapons during a fight, if a mage is facing an opponent with high Resists, the mage would equip the Resist reducing book/rod/wand/staff. When they are facing a low resist boss or generic monster spawn, Spellbooks that grant SDI property or Slayer property will be the better option to equip.
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~ Adjust the curse spell to be more impactful in PvM ... something like lowers enemy resists by 5% - 25% for 60 seconds (scaled based on real evaluate intel) This could stack with other spell school debuffs. Curse/Corpse Skin would be extremely powerful for PvM with both skills at 120 real.
~ Add "mana leech" to some nice SDI spellbooks and allow mages the same ability that virtually every warrior class out there is using for life/mana/stamina.
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1. mages need more raw power or better defense to solo more high end bosses.
2. warriors need more raw power and not to miss so much, so they can go toe to toe with the greatest of enemies.
3. unnerf provocation, dont make anything unbardable, thats pretty lame and I get why they did it back then but its rediculous now. The game just doesn't have enough players to constantly run groups for everyone.
They beefed up the monsters and made the game generally harder, but in response to that did nothing but nerf everyone such as making BS and EVs get auto dispelled because you cant having anyone but tamers have any fun in the game. They did do a few things to compensate but it was never enough.
Solo play should be an option in this day and age. Why have content that can't even be played? Or only played on atlantic?
1)Mages can have an insane amount of SDI in pvm. It's just that spells cost mana and they can't leech it back. These templates are often hybrid with spellweaving which makes word of death do over 1k damage at times.
2) If you increase warriors it'll just increase the sampire as they're basically the same. Sampires can already solo everything in the game with the right set up.
3) The only issue i have with bard is the timer. Harder things should take longer to accomplish.
Almost everything can be soloed. I have ran Shadowguard with 1 friend and it was easy.
mages: then mages need more powerful spell defense. If sampires and tamers can just stand there,then mages who need to kite need better spell resist spells. I hoinestly don't care how its done, something needs to be done. There was ZERO reason to nerf evs and blade spirits. end of story.
I agree harder monsters need to be harder but not impossible to solo and if you look at other shards most of the content is untouched because the vision of having huge groups do content was misplaced and not in the spirit of uo up to that time. Re balance bosses to be challenging for the solo player end of story.
The standard mage was meant to add more skills to it. Mage Med Eval and Resist leaves room for 2-3 more skills to be added to compliment it.
If it's about the AI of Mobs auto dispelling then i can agree with that. You could do a mystic and cast RC. Those seem to do much better than EV.
be a start to making warriors a choice.
How about a DCI overcap increase for using a shield if wep skill = 100+? You have to tie it to a wep skill or else parry mages would reap the rewards.