•Mage Essay - Written by Proquo- 11/27/2000
A mage is made up of 7 skills, 5 of which are Magery, Meditation, Evaluating Int, Wrestling, and Magic Resist. The remaining two skills are used to focus your character on a certain playstyle. There are many variations of the mage but only a few stand up to the test of versatility. Few are useful in both PvP and PvM, both fun and easy to play and most important, powergamable.

When powergaming a mage, it is very important to have the cash available, otherwise you’re just working a mage character. Depending on your template, a mage will cost between 75,000-200,000 gold pieces. Having this gold available will greatly speed up the training of your character. A decent enough character but doesn't have the offensive firepower of the Nox Mage. Loses the benefit of inscription.

No matter the character, Id start my female character in the city of Moonglow with 45 int. The starting skills will depend on the template and will be detailed later.ok.

Withdraw 7k from the bank and train 700 skill points of random skills. It would be a good idea to train the 5 skills you didn’t start with and not train the following: Armslore, Spirit Speak, Music, Snooping, Mining. You will use the listed skills to train stats sooner or later.

After you hit the 700 limit, head to the provisioners and buy a SMALL boat. If you buy a large boat, your one of the fuckheads that stand at the bank holding a glacial staff pretending to be cool. Then head to the Encylopedia Magicia shop with the t2a teleporters. Search out a scribe and buy 5 Ebolt scrolls, 10 Flamestrikes, 10 Earthquake, and a full spellbook. Take the small boat to the EAST side of the island and sail slow backwards in a northly direction.

Set a macro to use the Ebolt scrolls then to target you spellbook. [This is also considered an exploit so be wary.] Loop it and work your stats. This is a bit tricky. I put all my garbage skills in a little section titled “garbage”, my 7 main skills in a section titled “Main” and the stat skills in a section titled “Stats”. As the macro plays out, I use Spirit Speak till I have 10 real skill. I then point it down and let my magery, eval, and Med drain it back to 0. After a few moments, you should be out of Ebolt scrolls and at 40 magery. Use the Flamestrike scroll like you did the Ebolt to reach 55 then use the EQ scroll to hit 71-72. You will GM Med while working magery up. Once you hit 85 Magery, you will constantly be waiting for mana. While waiting, you should gain tons of Med.

After you use up the last of your EQ scroll, its time to switch to the Protection scroll. You wont gain magery, but you will gain Eval and Meditation. Within a day you should be GM med with 85 Eval and 71-72 Magery. You can use the Protection Scroll to GM Eval but I would GM Med and have 100 INT before finishing Magery. To GM Magery, cast FS till 80 and EQ till GM.

Wrestling is another easy skill. Some say that Jhelom is faster; others say that City of the Dead is faster; but for my time, nothing beats Felucca’s Wall. Grab a few buddies and you can GM it in 2-3 burst hours without dealing with the Trammal idiots.

Resist is the hardest skill of the five to train. I do this to quickly gain 80 points. Firewall will quickly get you to 45 skill. At that point, head to the Felluca’s Moonglow Graveyard. There you will find many ghosts and liches that are conveniently blocked by a fence. Stand on one side and have them blast you from the other. With a burst hour you will be at 55 skill. To hit 75, head North of Vesper. Take the Bridge North of the bank and run North/North West. You should hit a heavy spawn of Air and Water Elementals, Reapers and Gargoyles. Find a public Villa and get to the balcony. You can then sit in safety as Dozens of Elementals gather around the house waiting to drench you in mana. With a friend to play bait and healer, you can hit 75 within 2 powerhours. After that, Id head to Shame Bloods and find a nice shard specific safe spot to hide and let the Blood dump on you.

Now for the templates:

Archer Mage
Like the name says, you use archery for its opening shot. Id stick to a heavy Crossbow for its 35-40 damage hits and then stick to magery after that. No matter the weapon, your shots will be to spread out to cause any will trouble to the enemy. This is best saved for the PvM type that occasionally PvP’s.

After training the Mage’s 5, head to City of the Dead in t2a and work skill on the Bone Knights stuck on the roof. Or if you like frustration, try to convince the 1000 ppl trying to kill the Executioners to hunt elsewhere so you can work your skill . Starting skills: Magery, Resist. Final stats: 100 int, 90 str, 35 dex Final skills: Mage’s 5 and Archery Tactics.

Nox Mage
This is a mage that is aimed at PvP. It uses its boosted Poison spell to deal damage and its enhanced Protection spell to get more spells off. This character has the added bonus of being a “trade character” that can produce needed items for other players or characters.

After training the Mage’s 5, have your alchemist grind up a good 20 kegs of Greater Poison and another dozen of Deadly Poison. Grab two pouches and fill them with 50 daggers each. Starting with Greater Poison, attempt to poison each blade one at a time. Try not to commit suicide or loose your mind during this mundane process.

For info on Scribing, ask Gator. He likes to help.

Starting skills: Inscription and Poison. Both are more expensive and mind numbing in the lower levels the Magery and Resist.
Final Skills: Mage’5 and Inscription Poison.
Final stats: 100int, 90str, 35dex.

Healer Mage
This Mage is a good mage to have for both PvP and PvM. While not as deadly as the Nox, it can hold its own. This character uses Bandaids to give it that healing edge when fighting critters and creeps. The bandaid allows the mage to save mana for offense that would otherwise be spent on a heal.

While training Resist and Wrestling, its quite easy to get Healing and Anatomy into the 80’s. Using the same 8x8 method that you used for magery, both Healing and Anat can be GM’d while attempting to resurrect a ghost.

Starting skills: Anatomy and Magery. Anatomy will be a pain to raise for this character. Every bit will help.
Final Skills: Mage’s 5 and Anatomy/Healing.
Final Stats: 100int, 90str, 35dex

Tamer Mage
A pain to train, a frequent target of nerfs, and totally un-respected in the PvP community, this is a fun character to play. Using a pet in combat may be lame, but it works and that’s all that matters. Besides, we all secretly want to control dragons.

Having the Mage’s 5 trained is a must before reaching the late 80’s in taming. For what to tame and when, check UO.Stratics taming chart for the best idea. To train lore, check the UO.Stratics tamers forum. To complicated to explain.

Starting skills: Taming and Lore. Taming is boring as fuck…..less you do, less your likely to snap.
Final skills: Mage’s 5 Taming and Lore.
Final Stats: 100int, 100str, 25 dex.

Thief Mage
The most fun character to play ever created. This character is designed to piss people off. It uses its stealing to make its opponent less effective. It uses its mage to destroy its crippled target. It’s even good in factions. The toughest part is deciding if you want to steal regs or weapons. Regs are usable and weapons are sellable.

Starting skills: 50 armslore (disarm weapons) OR 50 snooping and 50 Stealing.
Final Skills: Mage’s 5 and Stealing/ your choice between Snooping and Armslore
Final Stats: 90 int, 90 str, 45 dex.