|
↓ Main Menu ↓
» Home
» Forums
» Advertise
↓ UOPG Services ↓
» UO Sales & Service
» UO Gold
» UO Gametime
» Tokens and Gifts
» Character Gifts/Tokens/Codes
» Used Accounts
» Buy UO Houses
» UO Assist
↓ Navigation ↓
» News Archives
» NWNPowerGamers
» Stories
» UO Craft
» UOPG Email
↓ Community ↓
» Forum
» FAQ
» CPU Tech Help
» Essays
↓ Stats/Skills ↓
» Champion Spawn Guide
» Stats Guide
» Skill Guide
» Guaranteed Gain System
» 8x8 Essay
↓ Strategy ↓
» Character Guide
» Player vs Monster
» Player vs Player
» Special Moves
↓ Information ↓
» Armor Guide
» Bug Awareness
» Files
» Tricks
|
 |
|
 |
|
MELEE ESSAY
Many people accuse characters based around the three melee skills -
Fencing, Swordsmanship, and Mace Fighting - of being simplistic characters requiring
a laughable amount of thought, planning, and strategy. The assertion that
warrior characters are no more than "dex monkeys" is as untrue as it is old. One
can achieve a limited measure of success with mere double-click-and-follow techniques,
just as one can kill many monsters and a few players with a tamer who does nothing
but repeat "a kill", and a mage who fires nothing but a constant stream of mindblasts.
The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate the range of options available to
warriors in player-vs.-player and player-vs.-monster combat, including template
selection, preparation, and field tactics.
Creating Your Fighter
The first decision you'll be making relates to which skills you'll select.
Note that this section will not cover methods of training and skill gain, as a wealth
of information on that subject is available elsewhere on UOPG. Note also that we will
exclude Archery from this discussion.. while it is a warrior skill, note that the title is
"Melee essay".
Constructing an effective template
When selecting your seven skills, there are certain constant factors that
one will have to take into consideration. Every time you deliver damage, you can
potentially take damage, so you'll need a noninterruptible method of restoring your
hit points. Your risk of exposure to poison is greater. Your method of attack is never
guaranteed, and you need to maximize the damage it can do. Finally, you ought to have
a backup method of healing , curing, and stat correction when the long delay of a bandage
just won't cut it. All of these facts suggest that your template must include the following
five skills, with few exceptions.
Anatomy Healing Tactics Magery Resist
Without anatomy your heals will be less effective and will not cure poison.
Without healing you will never be able to repair damage at the rate necessary as you are
not a true mage.
Without tactics your attacks will not do any damage.
Without magery you lose many miscellaneous useful functions, including the ability
to have extra heals, cures, to recall, to become invisible, to poison, to trap your pouches,
to bless yourself and curse your enemy, and toss heals to your allies in a group fight.
Without resist, you will get poisoned on every enemy cast, paralyzed for the maximum
length of time, and every spell will do maximum damage, even from other warriors with zero
Evaluating intelligence.
Now, you have two slots remaining. One of these must be a weapon skill (Fencing,
Swordsmanship, or Mace Fighting) The other skill can be another weapon, or a supporting
skill for your weapon choice (preferred). Viable secondary skills include: Parrying, Hiding,
Lumberjacking, Poisoning, Meditation, Evaluating Intelligence, Wrestling, Detect Hidden, and
Tracking.
Often, it is your supporting skill that will actually determine your weapon choice, your preferred
stats, and your primary combat strategy. With that in mind, we will first briefly examine each
weapon type and its inherent advantages, and then complete it with each secondary skill,
which weapons it can be paired with, and finally, a discussion of balancing your stats properly
to make the best use of them.
Swordsmanship has the advantage of the highest damage potential of any of the weapon classes
and the anti-mage concussion blow with its two handed attacks. Useful weapons include the
katana, the broadsword, the halberd, and all axes. Katanas and broadswords are best used
to deliver deadly poison. Broadswords hit harder and bust through shields better, while katanas
are faster (the fastest weapon in the game, in fact) for chasing mages. Halberds are the universally
accepted non macing counter to parriers. Axes deliver the highest damage of all in the hands of those
with Lumberjacking, as well as consistent concussion blows due to their greater speed.
Mace Fighting weapons break armor and reduce stamina by a large amount every hit. Useful
weapons include the quarter staff for speed and chasing mages (it is an exception in that it does
not break armor), the war hammer which can deliver a double damage crushing blow for those with low
life or stamina, and the war axe, the best damage/time one handed weapon and the parry-macer's primary
armament.
Fencing weapons are universally fast and deliver erratic damage. Useful weapons include the spear
and short spear which can deliver paralyzing blows, the kryss which can deliver poison, and the
war fork to punch through parry.
Selecting and using a secondary skill
Lumberjacking
Paired best with: Swordsmanship (only; this will not benefit other weapon choices)
With this template, you're maximizing the amount of damage delivered in a single blow. In battle,
you will usually be holding your axe. Never stand next to your opponent; keep moving, and don't
allow them to have a shot at you more often than you swing at them. This is the simplest skill
combination to play as you will normally not have to do much besides heal yourself properly
and stick to your opponent. You will do well against other warrior types and most mages;
parry warriors, however, will present a problem as they will easily and often nullify your damage.
It is recommended that you then switch to a halberd to punch through the shield or a poisoned
katana to force the shieldfighter to drop it while drinking a cure, and moving in for the kill when
he is vulnerable. Since you attack slowly, it is also imperative to choose a stat combination
with high dex (I would choose 100, and just enough INT to have some defense against mindblast.)
and drink refreshes and Greater Agility / cast bless constantly.
Parrying:
Paired best with: Mace Fighting
The parry-macer will win every fight over a sufficiently long run, as every blow reduces the
opponent's ability to continue to fight by crushing armor and lowering stamina more than the
hardest halberd hit will. As a parry-macer, you should again keep your dex high with agility
potions or blesses to maximize your swing rate. You must also resign yourself to a longer
battle, as your path to victory involves your defensive advantage and ability to wear your
opponent down. While you can get lucky with a war hammer hit, be aware that other classes can
exploit the 'lucky special hit' phenomenon better than you, including lumberjacks and anyone
with fencing. Primarily you should hold a war axe and shield, sticking to your enemy like glue.
If your opponent drops his weapon to run and drink a potion or cast, is under 40% life, or
appears to be swinging very slowly and not refreshing, it is then you should pounce with the
war hammer. The crushing blow is best used as a finisher to those who thought they could
hold out a bit longer for the heal, or for those whose stamina is nearly gone. As a parry
macer your biggest problem will be mages. The shield will not help you and your other weapons
aren't fast enough. Here is when you use your quarter staff, as you will need the speed (it's the
only fast mace weapon) to interrupt them. Having no ability to paralyze, concuss or poison your
target, here you must hope for the damage to come fast and furious, and remember to run and
heal if you're getting dumped on.
Meditation:
Paired best with: Any weapon skill, Fencing preferred
The medwarrior is perhaps the best anti-mage fighter possible. While one can use any
weapon with this, I prefer Fencing as the paralyze hit is the most potent of the special hits and will
buy you time to cast a spell. Medwarriors have the advantage of more frequent spell casting.
When fighting another warrior, you should always be Blessed and your opponent should always
be Cursed.. a 22 point stat differential can almost guarantee you the fight. Your paralyzing blows
grant you the breathing room to precast an ebolt, mindblast, or poison before resuming the
pounding, or to get off a heal if necessary. When fighting mages, you have the ability to use
small Heal spells to survive a combo. Note that since the resist changes, this is a risky
proposition, but you can recover from spell damage a lot more rapidly than others, as well as
disrupt the mage's casts with quick spells of your own, such as Harm. Your worst enemy will
be aggressive warriors, especially Poisoners, who leave few opportunties to cast spells. Against
such enemies, only when you get off a paralyze hit or deadly-poison them and force them to run
will you get the opportunity. Your stat choice should include more INT than other warrior types,
at least 40, to make full use of your more magically oriented template.
Evaluating Intelligence:
Paired best with: Any weapon skill, Fencing preferred
The eval-warrior has but one advantage : the occasional attack spell he throws will hit as hard
as a mage's, commonly a 40-damage energy bolt. Again, any weapon can be used, but Fencing is
preferred to utilize the paralyze hit to buy the time to prep a spell. The strategy here is to
pre-cast an attack spell, for general purposes Energy bolt, or Mind blast if you know your
opponent has unbalanced stats, and engage them with your spear. Here, aggression and the
willingness to play on the edge of your seat is necessary, as you will be pushing the limits of
how much damage you can take without the ability to start a bandage or drink a potion. If
you do more damage than your opponent and he begins to run and heal, here you release the
spell and finish him off. If he gets the better of you, run away a short distance, release the spell
anyway (hopefully scaring him off for a second) and begin your own heal. You'll have to stick
and move for awhile while your mana recovers before you can try again. Your weakness will
be conservative opponents who keep themselves healed above what your precasting capability
will overcome, and parriers who are more difficult to redline.
Poisoning
Paired best with: Fencing
Poison-warriors, more often called Assassins, are gaining favor over Medwarriors in some circles.
Obviously, the benefit is the ability to keep your opponent poisoned almost all of the time,
through the ability to re-poison your weapon in the middle of the fight. You'll be holding a kryss
most of the fight, whipping out the spear only when you need to buy some time or pin your
running, panicky opponent. For real overkill, you can precast Poison before charging in,
surprising your opponent with yet another Deadly Poison after the one that came from your
weapon is cured, since with both Magery and Poison GMed you can fling it from your hands
as well as your sword point. High dex is good on this template, as you'll be aiming for maximum
hit frequency rather than damage, so play to your strengths.
Wrestling
Paired best with: Any weapon skill
Wrestling can have some minor benefit to a warrior who incorporates magery frequently. It
will reduce the chances of spells being interrupted, as well as give the ability to stun punch.
While such an ability is better used on a mage, it might surprise your opponent and put him
off guard. Better choices can be made for a secondary skill, and is most often used by those
who break the mold and do without Resist in order to take both Meditation and Wrestling.
Hiding
Paired best with: Fencing
Hiding is a very effective skill which can be used with any weapon. Fencing, however, is best
since generally speaking, hiding is used in one of two ways. One can hide and lie in wait for
opponents, getting the drop on them and thus wanting to maximize speed and the ability to
hold the quarry in place. Hiding is also preferred by the risk-averse who can hit fast and get
out if things begin to go badly. Simply run around the side of a building or out of range, start
your bandage, and hide. It's a nice 'pause' feature that forces the battle to go on only when
YOU feel like it. Ironically, though Hiding complements a less courageous fighting style, it
allows one to take greater risks by pushing the envelope a bit farther knowing one can evade
one's opponent and buy time, as well as escape from ganks. If you do take this skill, don't
ever hesitate to use it. Hide before your opponent targets you, throwing off his spell. Run
around the building and hide at random. Hide at the start of a duel. Hide while you're banking.
Never be visible when you don't have to be.
20.1 Tracking/79.9 Detect Hidden
Paired best with: Fencing
This odd numerical combination exists for a reason. Since 20.1 real skill in Tracking is all you need
to track players, and there is no benefit in tracking radius with greater skill, this is all you will
need. Then, the rest of the points can go into Detect Hidden. These skills enable you to
locate and flush out hiders. Especially useful in factions and when thief hunting, the weapon
choice Fencing is best paired with these skills? Why? If you've just flushed out someone
who ran and hid from you, the paralyze hit is best suited to preventing them from running
away and hiding yet again.
General purpose tips
Ensure that you are well prepared at all times. A warrior is only as good as his equipment.
You should be carrying the following:
100 bandages
5-10 greater cures, greater heals, total refreshes.
30 of each reagent
5 greater agility, greater strength potions
Leather armor for those who depend on fast attacks, full plate for those who don't.
Fresh GM weapons according to the useful weapon commentary above
10 trapped pouches
If a medwarrior , a little more reagents
If a poisoner, Deadly Poison potions
If a parrier, two kite shields
When fighting mages - speed is everything. Stay on them at all times and use the following -
Macers should use a quarter staff. Swordsmen without lumberjacking should use a katana.
Both of these rely on the speed to disrupt. Swordsmen who are lumberjacks should use a battle
axe, as the high damage and concussion hit is crippling. Fencers should use a spear to pin the
mage in place and finish him off.
When fighting other warriors - know the relative speeds of your weapon and your opponent's.
If you are faster than him, stick close to him, and exploit your advantage. If he is faster than you,
know the timing of your weapon precisely. Practice with a friend or on a monster to perfectly
measure the delay time before it is ready to 'fire' again. Close with your opponent only when
you can swing again.. there is no need to give him the chance to hit you when you cannot hit
him back.
Note that unless you are a poisoner, your supply of poison is very limited with
the few DPed blades you've brought along, so use it wisely. Your opponent probably has more
cures than you have poison blades, so rather than attempting to kill with them, use them to get
your opponent off your back as most people run when they see green. Use the time you bought
to cast a spell, heal up, hide, or any other defensive maneuver.
Only try and cast a spell when it is safe to do so. Warriors and stun punching mages will take
advantage of your lack of wrestling and rush you when you try. It is best to do your casting
before combat, when your opponent is running, or when he is paralyzed. Don't try it when
you'll just get interrupted and smacked again.
If your fighter wants to PvM for any serious amount of time, Parry will help you more than
any other secondary skill. Monsters can take and deliver a lot of damage and having to do the
healing dance as little as possible will help you harvest them most efficiently. If your fighter
spends half his time or more fighting monsters rather than players for any reason other than skill
training (such as Resist), you should select Parry.
When PvMing with a friend, you can heal one another with bandages much faster than you can
each heal yourself. However, when PvPing in groups, use spells, not bandages. Trying to heal
your friend with a bandage is a bad idea, not only because there is a risk of accidentally attacking
him (since you're in war mode) , but also because it is unlikely in PvP he will be able or willing
to stand still for that long. The Medwarrior really shines in group fights chiefly because of his
greater ability to toss heals to his friends frequently.
Because of all the running around that's involved, warriors are harder to coordinate in groups than
mages or archers. The simplest technique for managing groups of size 2-5 is to designate a lead.
When the lead runs, everyone runs. When the lead stands and fights, everyone stands and fights.
Everyone attacks who the lead attacks, thus concentrating their power on a single target. If you
are fighting a large scale war with groups larger than this, break them up into squads of 4 or 5 each.
Finally, no matter how good you are, realize the random number generator will not always favor
you, and everybody dies some times. Luck factors into every facet of UO life, so just
resurrect, reequip, remember not to carry your silver vanqs, daemon bone armor, and boat keys into
battle next time, and go out there and try to beat his ass again!
~Captain_Awesome of Catskills, ICQ 8580933
|
|
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
©2000 - 2006
UOPowergamer Enterprises.
The names, UOPG, UOPowergamers.com, Powergamers.net, NWN.powergamers.net, and all information contained within this site is Copyright UO, Powergamer Enterprises, and other respective Copyright owners. Mad propz go out to Warlord for UOPG's graphics. Without his help, what you see wouldnt have been possible. UOPG encourages and appreciates links in your own Web pages to uopowergamers.com. Permission is expressly granted to any person who wishes to place a link in his or her own Web page. As a courtesy, if you link to, or include uopowergamers.com in an index, please let us know.
|
|
|
