Ultima Online Starting from the Beginning Guide

Ultima Online Starting from the Beginning Guide by BorikGL

Kicking it old school: A guide to creating new chars from scratch.

Greetings, greetings…. I returned to UO about 2 years ago after around a 7 year break, I had to start a fresh account as I lost all my details and what not so I started from scratch. I created a few characters and fell in love with UO again when I made my new char and logged in for the first time I was hit with a bunch of choices and a billion items that I had never seen before. As luck would have it I made friends with a few players and they have really helped me along this last year or so but to get you started along the right path I have put down on paper (well electronic paper) what i did to scratch out a living in these harsh lands.

my mage and my tamer and sampire were a good source of gold but I thought back to how different it was when i played back in the early 00’s . I always loved warrior classes and played them as my main chars back in the day so I decided I was going to make a warrior well an archer in fact bit I set myself the following rules, I wouldn’t take gold or items from any of my other chars, and although I would use power scrolls and alacs NO pink scrolls! reason i did this was I made this char intending to write a new player guide around it and the people reading may not have access to other chars and stuff.

I know most people who have played will already have a good idea how to make a new char but you my find somethig interesting in here anyhow so please read on.

I had done some reading up on skills and what not so I had a clear picture of what I wanted the char to look like in terms of skills once he was finished.

I was aiming for a template that I thought would A, complement my play style. B, let me face off against high end monsters and C, work equally well as a team player or Solo. here is what I came up with.

This is my final skill template its a work in progress, I am not yet there but I will keep you posted.

120 archery (got it yeahhhhh)
120 Tactics (Currently 117 again woo hoo)
120 Music ( currently locked at GM)
120 Discord (only at 84 so far… its a bugger i tell ya)
120 Spellweaving (at 102 so far)
75 Chiv (75 reached)
35 focus

This first thing any archer needs is a bow and some arrows… looking at my freshly made char and my 1000gp i was aware that I would need to make a little gold first when I made Jethro Tull I started him out with Archery at 50 Chiv at 50 and what ever was left in healing. I had a regular bow and a handful of arrows, hardly enough to be training with but good enough to get me started!

the first thing i did was head off and used my 1000gp to get as many arrows as i could! i think i got around 50-60 from the NPC bowyer guy. with my starting arrows and the handful I had just bought I had enough to at least get started… one thing i didnt have was a suit or any jewels or anything but to be honest I didn’t mind as I wasn’t fighting anything yet :-) Ok, I ran to moonglow moongate and killed a couple of mongbats… sounds silly i know but I just needed a couple hundred GP to get the ball rolling. I went and got me a hatchet and headed for Tram yew… I ran up to behind where the bank is and started chopping at trees. i did this until i had a couple of thousand boards the reason I did this was to get the wood mainly but also LJ is a good wat to raise strength… I out the hatchet back in my pack and headed back to Luna, within the walls and outside there are geerally lots of birds flying around… I again got out my hatchet and began butchering the local bird population… this bit took a while (around an hour or so) but i eventually had around 2k feathers in my bank… I asked on chat if anyone could use the boards and feathers to make me some arrows and I found a helpful chap and thats my arrows sorted for now

Righty, now we get started…. The way I have gone about things may seem old fashioned and that’s because… well it is!

I have always liked knowing that I can play with others yet still rely on myself to provide the things I need, its always been my way of playing. Don’t get me wrong, I have accepted gifts from friends but I wouldn’t feel right accepting items from players I don’t know and I have NEVER accepted gold from anyone…. My old man used to say… if its not worth saving up for its not worth having! Its stuck with me to this day… even in computer games lol.

So that’s enough rambling on from me… The end template is different from the one I will be playing throughout building this char… the main reason for this is that I don’t consider this to be a beginners template. The way I will train will allow new players to get a true feel for the fighter class while building towards the finished article…

First stop. Brit grave yard.. Now bare in mind I have only the basic armour I started with. So I head to brit graveyard and run around near the enterence and flag a bunch of skeletons and zombies…. I then dash out so I don’t flag too much to handle and pick them off one by one. I did this until I had 5k in gold. I also got to my weight limit in swords,shields,mace ect off the bodies. I run to the smiths and sell all those and get around and extra 1k gold. In chat I then advertised that I was looking for a dull copper ringmail suit, paying 5k. in the space of around 5min I have a new suit or armour. Most resists are lousy but the important one physical is at 70. I will try stay away from magical monsters for the duration of the guide so all in all I don’t really need anything else. Right in terms of skills now I am at 56 archery, 52 chiv 45 anat 70 focus and ready to move on to the next stage… only 2 things are important at the moment… gains and gold… and there is a place where I will get both in good supply… despise. This dungeon can take you from 40 in any wep skill right through to 120. but before I go there I need to make a stop off at new heaven. Using my remaining gold I buy healing skill up to 40 and get around 150 bandages. Enough to be starting with. I run north from brit graveyard, follow the mountain pass and reach despise. I clench my butt cheeks and head in. up or down.. up or down… Down! You will be greeted by ettins… our bread and butter for the next 15-20 skill points. Start shooting ettins, use cons wep to maximise damage and save on arrows and divine fury for extra swingspeed and damage also. My tactic as an archer is to never let a monster (if I can help it) get within 3 – 4 tiles of me… I am using a ranged wep for a reason. Another bonus of hunting here is that from time to time you will be awarded a special item for killing monsters here… even ettins. I spent a few hours here killing ettins, luring them 2 at a time to the enterence. In the space of a couple of hours I have reached 65+ archery, tactics, anat and am 90 in focus and around 50 in healing. I also have ran back to the bank a few times and collected around 50k in gold! I also got 2 virtue armour pieces which on my shard sell for around 200k a piece (perhaps they are worth more but I price to sell) I however will save them for now.

My stats by this time are around 75 str and dex and about 50 int. my damage output is going up, my skills are getting better and I am getting richer.. all good.

Time for phase 2! I go and buy 20 non gm lutes, and head into brit and train music and discord up to 30 skill. Keep in mind also to loot any slayer instruments you find… the reason I take them is in the later game they may come in handy and also if you use opposite aligned slayers it REDUCES the chance you have to discord which means you can use the same creatures for longer to gain from. E.g if you are fighting an ettin or an ogre and you use an undead slayer wep you have a lower base chance to disco than with a non gm or GM made instrument. This means you can train on weaker monsters for longer.

I head back to despise having restocked on arrows and bandages and this time I go in a little deeper and start killing earth elementals as well as ettins. These monsters together will take me to around 90 skill in my fighting skills before the gains really slow down. Earth elies would take you all the way to GM but it would be a little too long in the tooth, even for me.

I got a +10 discord ring, it only cost a few thousand gold from a luna vendor, I got this before coming to take me into the gaining range for ettins, its slow going even at low skill but just keep plugging away, my discord with the ring is around 42, I train while fighting until I am at the same skill without the ring and keep going. My music skill is gaining MUCH faster and is already now in the 70’s while discord is around 50 real skill its gaining slow but the gains are constant enough for me to not switch just yet… you know if you are out of skill range as you will get a “this task is beyond your skill” or words to that effect. When I switched to ellies I did it with jewels first then took them off after so I could keep within the gains range. If you can be bothered do the quest in ter mur to get the crystal ball of knowledge, it tells you the difficulty when you use a skill and really helps you keep on track with stuff. I worked the same spawn areas for a couple of nights, I made a couple hundred thousand gold and got to the early 90’s before moving to the lower levels to work trolls and ogres. I trained on Ogres and such until I was GM tactics and archery, I had let anat and healing gain but I will not be keeping these skills so literally just use these as and when, there is no real focus on using them for me.

Right, remember all those virtue pieces you have been saving up, time to try find buyer… I had a few Jana’s staffs and around 10 virtue pieces. By the time I sold them all I had just under 2 million gold. The power scrolls I need are not the cheapest so I will hang on to the gold for now and just keep earning. For the next phase of my training I am introducing spellweaving, IMHO this is one of the best skills in the game! Attunement and gift of renewal are awesome (there are not really any spells that you wont use) and as your skill gains progress you get one of the most powerful direct damage spells there is! Word of death. The quest chain to get the skill starts in Heartwood (look up the quest on a site such as uoguide or stratics or uoforums ect…. ) it takes a while and for the bit in the dungeon is pretty hard so if you have made a friend or 2 take them with you… if not just keep your distance and fight one at a time, they pack a punch up close but are a cakewalk if you keep them ranged.

Once you get the skill obtain as many scrolls as you can, people tend to keep them to sell so it shouldn’t be hard to fill your book. Also as you are training the first task at log in is to get a focus. You can be a part of a circle as long as there is someone within 20 skill points of your skill. So spam your skill level or “no skill” focus on chat and keep that crystal in your pack! The friends of the fey / fiend spell (you can have one or the other) is very useful as is natures fury… they may be weak but will keep stuff busy while you fill them full of arrows!

Righty, for SW there are no regs, they just burn mana so now may be the time to start thinking about a new suit. Aye that beaten up old dull copper set has had its day… I would aim for a suit that has the following on each piece… 1 or 2 mana regain, 7/8 LMC and then +mana and +stam as high as possible end result should give a great boost to stam , mana , lower your mana cost by 40% and give you between 6 and 12 mana regain. A quiver of infinity is always nice too. For jewels if you have saved up enough to afford them go for 15% HCI and DCI on each piece, damage increase (20 – 25 per piece) and what ever room there is left split between +str and +dex.. some people would say mana regain isn’t needed but to me SW spells, Chiv and bow specials eat mana! Mana leech isn’t as effective on bows fo I like to have it on there but its all down to you really.

By the time you are kitted out you will have instantly just become a powerhouse for PVM hehe. In terms of bows I like composit bows.. I go for SSI, Velocity, Hit Mana Leech and Hit area effect. They have armour ignore and mortal strike… very useful indeed!

Right, your bank box will be a whole lot lighter and you may have to build your suit piece by piece to start off but its worth it in the end. For the next phase I started using GM made instruments to get me into the gain range for ogre lords on discord. I plugged away on them then when gains slowed switched back to a GM instrument. I am still working these now for discord but I had a day of work and the wife and kids were out so I had a day full of just hunting these badboys, I got discord up to 84 and training SW and discord I am now locked at GM in music (this is so the gain range stays good. I will unlock and train music once disco is at 120.

I started joining people who were advertising corgul runs ect and tagged along with people hunting navery too! I had no luck getting a tangle but on one of the corgul runs I got a field of blades which I sold and bought all my power scrolls and stat scroll with the profits! Just hunt hunt hunt, join anything where there is a chance of a drop even the lesser drops can be sold for some profit and the more you do the better chance you have of getting a drop. My current skill list is where I am now and I am still working ogre lords they drop decent gold and are easy to kill , they will take me to 120 tactics and I hit 120 archery on them. Once I got to 90 I will switch to Cu’s at the tangled grove place you don’t need to kill the Cu’s, just move 10 tiles away and wait a few secs before going back and you can just keep discording the same one over and over.

Things to keep in mind, I have not listed all the items I am using, Things like slayer bows for hunting ect… are a personal choice and most peeps will have a differing idea on what is the best wep for what monster… For Lady Mel I use Ironwood comp bow, a regular drop from Medusa, for Medusa I use and imbued repond slayer comp bow with SSI, Hit mana Leech, Hit lower def, damage inc and velocity. For corgul it is important to remember that leeches are your enemy!!! He has some sort of evil aura that reverse the effects of leeches, for him I use an imbued repond slayer with hit lower defence, Hit fireball SSI damage inc and hit chance increase on it! (bet ur glad you kept that MR on the suit now hey hehe) for the prespawn I use a ruined driftwood bow. Using jewels and slayers I can now discord the high end monsters and I assure you! If you advertise “Disco archer looking to join hunts ect..” you will be getting invited. Discord makes the tough monsters a lot weaker and you will be welcome in most groups. Your damage output will be great and generally you will be loved and worshiped by all who meet you! All hail you!

There are various methods for getting gold through hunting, some people farm the bosses hoping for drops, others use a slayer and farm high end monsters ( I like to spend an hour or so in ice dungeon killing WW’s) what ever you choose to do I would say one thing, experiment with weps. I have found that for champ spawns a fast bow with high “hit area” is the best for me, I spam out natures fury, wildfire and summon fey , for lower level spawn they kill stuff fast! And once spawn gets to a level where I find it harder I move on to the next spawn. The main reason I do spawns if for pinks from the low level monsters. I only finish the spawns if I am hunting in a group.

By this stage you should know most of what you need to know in terms of your class and the rest is personal choice really. Thanks for reading and Happy hunting!!!!

Jethro Tull GL

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *