Basic Templates for New Players (Part 3)

In this third part we are going to see the basic concepts of the weapons that a melee and archer should carry, the magic spellbooks that a mage should carry, how to know the strength and weakness of our enemies and how to use our skills to face them.

Before deciding what weapons or spellbooks to carry, the first thing we need to know is: What are we going to face, what resistances do they have, what Slayer group do they belong to?

Two ways to know the resistances of a creature are, one is with a tamer using the Animal Lore skill (to say about this skill, that to be able to see the information of any creature it is necessary to have at least a minimum of 110 skill) and another is to search the internet for information of the specific creatures that we are going to face in Ultima Online guides.

For the examples of weapons or spellbooks that we are going to carry I will use as an example the creatures that appear in Vermin Horde Champion Spawn.

Vermin Horde Champion Spawn is composed of the following creatures:

Level 1 Giant Rats and Slimes

Level 2 Dire Wolves and Ratman

Level 3 Hell Hounds and Ratman Mages

Level 4 Ratman Archers and Silver Serpents

Champion Barracoon the Piper

In general there is usually a range of greater or lesser intensity in the Stats, Resistances and Skills of each creature, there are guides where you can see based on a number of readings that have been made with the ability of Animal Lore on the particular creature (usually indicated on one side the number of readings) its Minimum, Average and Maximum, and this information will help us to know what weapons or spellbooks we are going to take.

In this case we are going to base ourselves on a reading that I made of each one of the creatures that I am going to show next.

[Level 1] Giant Rats and Slimes

Giant Rats have no resistance to Cold or Energy and Slimes have no resistance to Fire, Cold or Energy.

In this reading both Giant Rats and Slimes share that both have no resistance to Cold or Energy.

[Level 2] Dire Wolves and Ratman

The Dire Wolves' lowest resistances are Cold and Poison and the Ratman's (they have names, that's why it doesn't appear in the Ratman information as it happens with other creatures that show the type it is) are Cold and Energy.

In this reading both Dire Wolves and Ratmans share Cold.

[Level 3] Hell Hounds and Ratman Mages

The Hell Hounds have no resistance to Cold and the Ratman Mages have Fire and Poison as their lowest resistances.

In this reading both Hell Hounds and Ratman Mages do not share the lowest resistance, however if we look, Hell Hounds have no resistance to Cold and in Ratman Mages the next lowest resistance is Cold, therefore we will take Cold as a reference.

[Level 4] Ratman Archers and Silver Serpents

The Ratman Archers' lowest resistance is Cold and the Silver Serpents' lowest resistances are Cold and Energy.

In this reading both Ratman Archers and Silver Serpents share Cold.

We have already extracted the information for each level and we observe that there is mostly the same lowest resistance in common in all levels, which is Cold.

[Champion] Barracoon the Piper

Barracoon the Piper's lowest resistance is Poison and his next lowest is Cold, like the rest of the Champion Spawn creatures.

The next thing we need to know is, which Slayer group do they belong to?

In general, each creature is grouped into a Slayer group, there are Super Slayers that group a collective of creatures and individual Slayers that are more specific to one type of creature.

Super Slayers do double damage and individual Slayers do triple damage.

Although some slayers are obvious, to know which group each creature belongs to there are Ultima Online guides where all this information is shown, in the links section I will share a link to the official wiki where all this information is shown.

We will observe to which group each creature belongs, in this example it would be the following:

[Level 1]

Giant Rats: Vermin Slayer (this Super Slayer can only be found in talismans).

Slimes: Does not have

[Level 2]

Dire Wolves: Wolf Slayer (this Super Slayer can only be found in a dagger called Misericord)

Ratman: Repond Slayer and Vermin Slayer

[Level 3]

Hell Hounds: Wolf Slayer and Flame Slayer (like Vermin Slayer, the Super Slayer Flame Slayer can only be found in talismans)

Ratman Mages: Repond Slayer and Vermin Slayer

[Level 4]

Ratman Archers: Repond Slayer and Vermin Slayer.

Silver Serpents: Reptile Slayer and Snake Slayer, being Reptile as Super Slayer and Snake as individual.

[Champion]

Barracoon the Piper when turned into Ratman would be Repond Slayer and Vermin Slayer.

In this situation of combined groups, the common Slayer taking into account the Champion would be Repond Slayer and Vermin Slayer, but because the effect of the Talisman damage increase does not apply to magic spells, the main Super Slayer will be Repond Slayer.

As this guide is basic and I wanted to exclude artifacts and Runic Tools (including Re-Forging) for our weapons, I will make an example of how to make or get weapons based on metals that can be mined.

• Melee 

Based on the templates explained in Part 1, a melee for this situation would have to have the following weapons.

For Level 1:

Weapon Material:

Dull Copper

Properties:

Damage Increase

Lower Requirements (this is included due to the type of material, I'll explain later)

Hit Life Leech

Hit Mana Leech

Hit Cold Area (we choose Cold area because it is the lowest resistance in common in all levels)

This weapon will be exclusively for this level and part of the second level until there are no Slimes, the reason is because the Slimes as soon as they receive damage, you will see that their acid reduces the durability of the weapon at a faster rate.

The Dull Copper material gives the weapon +100% Durability and Lower Requirements 50%, being easy to get weapons with levels over 200 Durability.

At this level it is not necessary to use Super Slayer, the Giant Rats and Slimes have little life and do not pose any problem.

Hit Cold Area is a property that when you hit a hit there is a chance that additional damage will be applied to nearby enemies of Cold type.

These basic properties to our weapon will bring increased damage, the possibility of area damage and the ability to extract life and mana from the enemy for each successful hit.

For Level 2:

When all the Slimes are gone, we will use the following weapon:

Weapon Material:

Valorite as preferred, secondary Agapite.

Valorite applies to the weapon damage type: 20% Cold Damage, 20% Energy Damage, 10% Fire Damage, 10% Poison Damage

Agapite: 30% Cold Damage, 20% Energy Damage

In general in this Champion Spawns the greatest resistance is in the physical, with Valorite material we decrease the physical type damage of the weapon and distribute it among other types of damage.

Properties:

Damage Increase

Repond Slayer

Hit Life Leech

Hit Mana Leech

Hit Cold Area

In this level we already include in the weapon the Repond Slayer property to finish earlier with the Ratman and accelerate the speed to pass to the next level.

This level is not difficult either.

For Level 3:

We continue with the same Repond Slayer weapon in this level.

In this level we must focus on the Ratman Mages, as soon as we see one, even if the Hell Hounds follow us or there is a group of 3 together but a Ratman Mage alone, go for the Ratman Mage, because if we distract our attention on the Hell Hounds they can start doing magic combos with Explosion, Flamestrike, etc. along with curses and could seriously harm us if we neglect.

At this level we can carry a Flame Slayer Talisman for the Hell Hounds.

For Level 4:

As soon as we see the Silver Serpents we will put on a Snake Slayer or Reptile Slayer weapon, if we don't have a weapon with these Slayers we will continue with the same one we have been using in Level 3.

Weapon material:

Valorite as preferred, secondary Agapite.

Properties:

Damage Increase

Preferred Snake Slayer / Reptile Slayer as secondary

Hit Life Leech

Hit Mana Leech

Hit Cold Area

In this level we must focus on the Silver Serpents, if we are bothered by the Ratman Archers we will move away and let the snakes follow us to finish them, these snakes can apply a level 5 poison (Lethal) and together they could cause quite a lot of difficulties to the point of dying, so we must be very careful and not be careless.

At this level we can carry a Vermin Slayer Talisman for the Ratman Archers.

For Champion:

Here we will use a specific weapon for Barracoon the Piper.

Weapon material:

Verite

Verite applies to the weapon damage type: 20% Energy Damage, 40% Poison Damage

Properties:

Damage Increase

Repond Slayer

Hit Life Leech

Hit Mana Leech

Hit Lower Defense (if we have this property in our equipment, it can be substituted by another property, such as Hit Stamina Leech)

To fight Barracoon the Piper we must be incognito, apply Savage Kin Paint or be transformed, such as Necromancy's Wraith Form spell.

Savage Kin Paint is made with a Tribal Berry and a Sack of Flour with the Cooking skill. The Tribal Berry can be found in the loot of the Savages creatures that you can find for example in the center of the Ilshenar region, in the Savage Camp. The nearest moongate is Compassion and is accessed through a cave next to Gypsy Caravan located south of the moongate.

Otherwise, if you attack him without having a transformation, incognito or applied the Savage Kin Paint, Barracoon the Piper will transform us into a Ratman.

Regarding the type of damage, as I explained above, we have used materials that we can extract and we have not used any kind of Runic Tools (including Re-Forging) for this example, advanced weapons you will see that they have for this example, 100% Cold Damage for the Spawn and for Barracoon the Piper 100% Poison Damage.

With the Combat templates explained in Part 1, if you decided to include the Chivalry skill in the melee, the Consecrate Weapon spell can be used making the probability of inflicting all damage at the lowest resistance.

The weapons we will use according to the skill we have chosen from the Part 1 template applied for this example would be the following:

Swordsmanship: Double Axe (For all)

Mace Fighting: Black Staff (For Spawn and when Barracoon the Piper summons Ratman) y War Axe (For Barracoon the Piper when alone)

Fencing: Kama (For Spawn and when Barracoon the Piper summons Ratman) y Kryss (For Barracoon the Piper when alone)

Special moves:

For Double Axe, Black Staff and Kama we will use Whirlwind Attack. Regarding the Whirlwind Attack special move, it receives an additional damage bonus when you have the Bushido skill, increasing the damage significantly. This remarkable Bushido ability is usually used for advanced Shampire templates.

For War Axe and Kryss we will use with Barracoon the Piper the special move Armor Ignore, in War Axe also Bleed Attack and in Kryss Infectious Strike of level 4 or 5.

In the case of Double Axe, when Barracoon the Piper is alone we will use the Double Strike special move and when he summons Ratman, we will use Whirlwind Attack.

If our template has Chivalry we will use against Barracoon the Piper the Enemy of One spell and Consecrate Weapon mainly and depending on the situation Divine Fury, and I say depending because except we have DCI above Capped or if we are in a group we are not the main target, we will avoid using this spell because it reduces our DCI.

During the Spawn we will not use the Enemy of One spell because this will cause other enemies to do more damage to us, so we will only focus on Consecrate Weapon and when we are cornered by many enemies we can also use the Holy Light spell.

When we receive curses we will use the Remove Curse spell when everything is under control, while we will use mana for special moves and Consecrate Weapon.

• Range

For all Champion Spawns levels we will use a Repeating Crossbow, the material will be Frostwood, but with a change in the properties, we will replace Hit Life Leech by the Balanced property, the rest of the properties are the same as the ones indicated in Level 2-3.

Example of material and properties for Level 4:

Weapon material:

Frostwood

Frostwood applies 40% Cold Damage, 12% Damage Increase to the weapon.

Properties:

Damage Increase

Preferred Snake Slayer / Reptile Slayer as secondary

Balanced

Hit Mana Leech

Hit Cold Area

The Balanced property allows us to drink potions while shooting arrows.

The special move we will mainly use will be Double Strike.

For Barracoon the Piper we will use a Composite Bow and the special move will be Armor Ignore.

Weapon material:

Frostwood

Frostwood applies 40% Cold Damage, 12% Damage Increase to the weapon.

Properties:

Damage Increase

Repond Slayer

Balanced

Hit Mana Leech

Hit Lower Defense

All the custom properties described in this guide can be done with the Imbuing skill, in case you don't have a character with this skill, request or buy these weapons from another player with this skill.

In addition to all this we will carry a Quiver of Blight for all Champion Spawns, this quiver applies a Cold Damage 50% and Poison Damage 50% to our damage, replacing the damage types of our archery weapons.

Quiver of Blight we can make it ourselves if we get the recipe or buy it from other players.

We must make sure that there are always arrows inside the quiver, because if it is empty it will use the available ones in the backpack and this effect will be lost.

The reason why we will use the Frostwood material having this quiver is mainly because of the additional +12% Damage Increase that is added to the base weapon (Bonus Arms Lore + 12 DI of Frostwood).

The strategy and use of Chivalry will be the same as explained above with the Melee type.

Note: Regarding Melee and Range weapons, we can carry a Vermin Slayer Talisman in substitution of the Repond Slayer property, in case we carry the Vermin Slayer Talisman, we can substitute the Repond Slayer property (of Level 2-4 weapons) for Hit Lower Defense to lower our enemies' defenses or if we have a property with HLD in our equipment, for example by wearing the Mace and Shield Reading Glasses (or the specific weapon I explained for Barracoon the Piper), add additional damage like Hit Lightning, which does Energy damage, which is one of the lowest resistances of this Champion Spawns.

• Magic

The first thing we will do is to make arcane circle, for that we will get together with other Spellweavers, if we do not have any acquaintances or friends, what we can do is use the chat to call other arcanists, usually it is usually the meeting in the bank of Britain because both the Arcane Circle located in the bank as the one in the dungeon of Prism of Light, make a bonus of +1 thus reaching the level 6 of Arcane Focus, which is the maximum strength that can be obtained.

The second thing will be to use the Wraith Form spell, this is the way we must be during all Champion Spawns, this form allows us to extract mana from our enemies (only if they have mana available).

The third one is to have the Protection spell active during all Champion Spawns. This spell means that our spells will not be interrupted when we receive a hit, as a disadvantage there are certain penalties such as a decrease in physical resistance, spell casting speed and Resisting Spells ability.

The fourth spell we will use will be Summon Familiar and we will summon a Shadow Wisp during all Champion Spawns. This summoning will bring mana to party members with negative karma as well as to ourselves. The higher the negative karma, the more mana you will receive.

The spells we will usually use for this Champion Spawns will be the following:

About ourselves (summary of their effects):

Gift of Life (In case of death we can resurrect if we want, we must remember to activate it again once resurrected as well as the Protection and Wraith Form spells, because the effects of the spells are removed when we die).

Gift of Renewal (Healing repeated for a short period of time)

Bless (Improves strength, intelligence and dexterity)

Arcane Empowerment (Improves healing spells, increases the damage of offensive spells and the resistance of our summons)

Attunement (Absorbs melee damage received)

Except for Bless which is a Magery spell, the rest of the spells are Spellweaving spells.

During Spawn:

For Level 1:

In case you have done arcane circle, our main spell for this level will be Essence of Wind from Spellweaving, this spell does Cold damage and penalizes Swing speed and Faster Casting to nearby enemies that have been affected by this spell.

If we have no Arcane Focus, low level of Arcane Focus or we are in danger with low health because we are surrounded by many enemies, the alternative spell is Wither of Necromancy that also does Cold damage.

The casting speed of Wither is notably faster than Essence of Wind, but the reason why Essence of Wind is used is because when casting Arcane Focus at high levels it allows to reach more tile radius than Wither.

The reason why we don't use Thunderstorm, which is similar in casting speed to Wither, is because in the first level this spell barely draws mana from the enemies, making the prolonged use of this spell leave us without mana.

For Level 2:

For this level we can cast Essence of Wind spell twice or combine Thunderstorm to lure our enemies and then Wither.

For Level 3:

In this level, as I indicated in Melee, our priority target will be the Ratman Mages, we have to nullify them, for that we will first use Thunderstorm that causes a Faster Cast Recovery penalty to the enemies affected by the spell and then Wither.

At this level, depending on certain factors such as active spells like Arcane Empowerment, the level of Arcane Focus and the enemy's life, we will have to cast two to three Wither in a row to finish off the enemies, especially the Hell Hounds.

For Level 4:

The same system described as in Melee will apply, our main target will be the Silver Serpents.

We lure the enemy with Thunderstorm and then we make Wither continuously.

For Champion:

When Barracoon the Piper appears we will put on a Repond Slayer book (Super Slayer will only work when Barracoon the Piper turns into Ratman form) and cast the following spells against him:

Curse (Magery)

Mind Rot (Necromancy)

Corpse Skin (Necromancy)

Evil Omen (Necromancy)

Arcane Empowerment (Spellweaving)

Strangle (Necromancy)

Meteor Swarm (Magery)

When the Ratman summons that Barracoon the Piper summons die or there is a creature corpse around, we will use Animate Dead from Necromancy up to 3 summons.

When Barracoon the Piper has 4% or less health, we will use Spellweaving's Word of Death spell. This spell applies high damage on low health targets, in case they are not low health, the damage will be negligible.

The Meteor Swarm spell must be cast continuously, if there are more enemies around the main target they will also receive damage, when we see that the damage of this spell decreases, we start again with Curse, Mind Rot, Corpse Skin, etc.

In case this process needs to be accelerated for whatever reason, we will focus exclusively on three spells.

Corpse Skin (Necromancy)

Arcane Empowerment (Spellweaving)

Meteor Swarm (Magery)

Repeating the process when we see that Meteor Swarm has significantly decreased its damage, which is when the effect of Corpse Skin disappears.

To summarize, Curse decreases his Stats, Mind Rot causes him to spend more mana, Corpse Skin lowers his fire and poison resistances, Evil Omen causes him to have only 50% of his Resisting Spells with respect to the next spell he receives and increases the damage of the next spell he receives, Arcane Empowerment was explained above, Strangle causes him to take damage for a period of time and Meteor Swarm does fire damage synergizing with Corpse Skin, if there are more targets close to the main target, the amount of damage is doubled and divided between each target equally.

When carrying the spellbook with Repond Slayer some of Magery's spells are duplicated, in this case the Meteor Swarm spell doubles its damage applied to the creatures of that group.

Throughout Champion Spawns the beneficial spells indicated at the beginning (Gift of Life, Gift of Renewal, Bless, etc.) have to be renewed, the reference we will use to renew the spells will be the Bless spell, except Gift of Life. Gift of Life should be renewed as soon as the Buff icon disappears.

Therefore, if the Bless icon disappears, we must start activating Gift of Renewal, Bless, etc. again.

When Shadow Wisp dies, we will summon him again with the Summon Familiar spell of Necromancy, from Level 1 to 4 we will summon 2 Energy Vortex and when we see that they have disappeared, we will summon them again.

We will also have 3 Animate Dead summons from Necromancy, always having 2 melee and a mage, except in Level 1 and 4.

Examples:

In Level 1 we will cast the Animate Dead spell on any corpse, both do the same summoning.

In Level 2 we will cast the Animate Dead spell on 2 Dire Wolves corpses and 1 on Ratman.

At Level 3 we will cast the Animate Dead spell on 2 Hell Hounds corpses and 1 on Ratman Mages.

At Level 4 we will cast the Animate Dead spell on any corpse, both do the same summoning.

If at some point we are pressured by the situation and our life is compromised by being poisoned or by other situations under the effect of Mortal Strike, to recover life we can use the Spirit Speak skill, if there is a corpse nearby, we will approach and use the Spirit Speak skill, in case of emergency, we will directly use the Spirit Speak skill without waiting to reach a corpse.

In this guide we have seen how to interact and know what to do both in situations with many enemies and individually, as in the case of Barracoon the Piper, which when he does not summon or there is no enemy around, can be considered as a 1 vs 1 combat if we are alone.

Starting from this example, this is how we will apply and adapt our equipment to the different enemies we will encounter in our adventure.

All these spells, weapons and how to interact, are a base to get started, it is up to you to learn more about the skills you want to use, to improve this baseline and adapt it to you and the group of adventurers that may accompany you.

If you decide to go as a team, always keep in mind the lives of your teammates and pets if any, the lives of your teammates are as valuable as yours, if you are a mage leave everything to heal your teammates and if you are a melee or archer, paralyze or neutralize the enemies that can kill your teammates, look at your teammates as an extension of you, as a unit.

'I was near a pond contemplating a unicorn drinking water, observing its beauty I remembered the words Katrina told me when she was teaching me Animal Lore 'Do not judge whether creatures are kind or malicious, beautiful or ugly, our true nature transcends everything mutable and temporary, simply contemplate them without judging, observing their attributes, their strengths and weaknesses, their instincts... know them to know how to interact with them.', I took out my notebook and began to make notes.'

 Links of interest:

(Database creatures) https://uo2.stratics.com/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/slayer-property-items/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/runic-bonuses/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/imbuing/runic-reforging/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/material-bonuses/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/combat/champion-spawns/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/magic-item-properties/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/imbuing/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/combat/special-moves/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/weapons/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/chivalry/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/items/artifact-collections/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/magery/magery-spells/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/necromancy/

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/spellweaving/