LKP
Forum Member of the year 09'
The Ultimate Tank Mage Guide
Introduction:
The tank mage is one of the oldest templates in UO, and still one of the most viable. The name "tank mage" may seem like something of a misnomer, given that modern tank mages are as lightly armored as any other mage. However, this name comes from their origin, when these mages would wear heavy armor - preferably platemail. It is the original hybrid character, combining skills from both the mage and warrior classes to bridge the gap between the two. Tank mages are noted for their versatility, as they have a great variety of techniques and tactics at their disposal due to their diverse skills. This background allows the tank to use the strengths of one class to overcome the weaknesses of the other. While a pure mage is essentially useless when his mana is exhausted, the tank can still rely on his weapons; and while a warrior's swing is based purely on chance, the tank can employ his magery to guarantee a hit at a critical time. Furthermore, tank mages can combine both spells and weapons into massive combo attacks through the use of "insta-hit," "insta-swing," and "precasting." (Explained later.)
History
Tank mages are as old as UO itself. In the beginning, there were fewer skills to choose from, and fewer necessary. Meditation is one skill that was added later. With mana regeneration rates being constant (and slow), magery could not be a stand-alone skill in fights more than a few seconds long. It was used instead to allow players a quick burst of powerful attacks that augmented their normal regimen of melee combat. Warriors, too, had need of fewer skills, and as such one could easily fit a variety of combat skills onto a single character while remaining viable. A common template might have Magery, Resist, Swordsmanship, Archery, Tactics, and Healing, and be able to participate in every kind of combat (magical, ranged, and melee). In those days, there was also no penalty to dexterity or mana regeneration from wearing heavy armor, so the only concern players had when it came to armor was achieving the highest possible armor rating (AR). Mindblast functioned differently than it does today, dealing damage to whichever player (caster or target) had the lower intelligence... and hit points were directly proportionate to strength. Most players strove to make their characters have 100 strength, 100 intelligence, and 25 dexterity.
In time, mana regeneration and dexterity penalties were added. Meditation and a few other skills were added to the game. At that time classes began to develop. Some players chose to develop their dexterity instead of intelligence and rely more heavily on weapons... thus the "dex monkey," or pure warrior, was born. These characters dominated for a while, especially in towns during the period when magic damage was disabled within guard zones. Others stuck more closely to the path of the mage and shed their heavy armor. Many became known as "naked mages," as they traveled light, often wearing only cloth or nothing at all. However, the name "tank mage" stuck for those who continued to use weapons on their mages. The T2A Starter Guide defines "Tank Mage" as "a magic-using [player character] who is proficient in melee combat as well."
The classic template was the "Mage's 5" with a weapon skill (usually swordsmanship, but sometimes mace fighting or archery) and tactics added to it:
Magery
Meditation
Evalint
Resist
Wrestling
Swordsmanship/Mace fighting/Archery
Tactics
Paralyzing blows and other special moves didn't exist, so Fencing was not commonly used because it lacked big, hard-hitting weapons, which were the tank mage's preference much of the time (although good tank mages carried fast weapons as well, and used them often). This is because of insta-hit, insta-swing, and precasting, which I will now define.
Insta-hit refers to a weapon hitting at the beginning of its swing animation. You hear the sound and damage is dealt when the animation begins to play, as opposed to when you graphically see the weapon make contact with your opponent a second later. Insta-hit was removed as part of the UO:Renaissance publish for all characters with less than 75 dex. This made weapons useless in PvP for players with less dexterity than that, because an opponent could see a swing coming and literally sidestep it. The swing timer would be reset, but the hit chance would never be calculated, resulting in an automatic miss. In other words, if insta-hit is not active on a shard, tank mages are completely unplayable in PvP. This term is often erroneously swapped with insta-swing.
Insta-swing means swinging your weapon at the time when it is drawn. Later versions of the game (including UOG:Hybrid) have a significant delay when the weapon is first armed before it can be swung. Insta-swing was removed as part of the dreaded UO:Renaissance publish, in order to nerf tank mages. It was never reinstated, and is not active on UOG:H.
Precasting is the process of casting a spell and waiting for the targeting reticule to appear, but arming a weapon and switching to melee combat instead of releasing the spell. A spell can be held for about 30 seconds and then instantly released later, bypassing the casting time. Precasting an energy bolt and then attacking with a war hammer and targeting after a good hit essentially allows the tank mage to make the damage from both attacks happen simultaneously.
All three of these strategies allowed tank mages to construct very powerful combinations of attacks. A favorite was explode-energy bolt-halberd, which could do up to about 90 damage. Fortunately there were myriad ways to counter these combinations, available to all templates. Even a smart miner could disrupt this combination, so it was by no means overpowered. The truth of the matter is that dexers had the advantage, and a well-played dexer would usually beat an equally well-played tank mage. However, since good players like to have control of whether they hit or not, good players chose to play mages. This resulted in tank mages winning most of their fights against warriors, but not because the game was unbalanced in their favor.
Unfortunately, EA/OSI did not feel that tanks were balanced. In December 1999 precasting was removed. Then, in April 2000 they released the UO:Renaissance publish, which removed insta-hit and insta-swing. Furthermore, players then had to hold their spellbooks in hand to cast spells. In order for a tank to set up his trademark combo, he would have to cast his spells, then disarm his book, arm his weapon, wait about 7 seconds, then attack with his melee weapon and hope his opponent stood still long enough for the whole swing animation to finish. It simply couldn't be done, and for a while tank mages ceased to be. This publish made several other PvP changes as well - the way mindblast works, the inability to heal while poisoned, weapon special moves, lumberjacking's damage bonus, and the defensive benefits of inscription were all introduced at this time. While the tank mage was decimated, many other templates became viable and some variety could be found on the battlefield. Healer mages, scribes, nox mages, lumberjacks, and a variety of warriors were among their number.
Then, a balance pass by the name of Publish 14 restored tanks to playability. While insta-swing was never reinstated, insta-hit and precasting were. At the same time, magery was revisited and the effects of many spells were changed. Lower circle spells like harm and magic arrow, which had previously only been used to remove an opponent's magic reflection, became essential tools for the PvP mage. Quarter staffs got their stamina drain ability back, and defensive wrestling was introduced. That is, (Anat+Eval)/2=defensive wrestling, which gives the same chance to make an opponent miss as wrestling does, but does not grant any chance to actually land a punch.
Tank mages returned with a slightly altered template:
Magery
Meditation
Evalint
Resist
Anatomy
Weapon
Tactics
The formula for calculating HP changed, too. Whereas it had originally been Str = MaxHP, it is now Str/2 + 50 = MaxHP. This made characters with less than 90 strength much more useful on the field, and allowed some more interesting templates to emerge.
Unfortunately, this blissful age of PvP was not to last. Publish 15 soon brought about bulk order deeds and runic weapons, which had an overall negative effect on PvP. Then, Publish 16 created the alchemy bonus to purple potion damage and introduced the champion system with its powerscrolls. Powerscrolls on EA/OSI shards were (and presumably still are) available for almost every skill, although they were very rare and expensive. Still, it became possible for characters to get up to 120% in most skills, and 6-skill templates slowly became the norm. The rich dominated for a while as they were the only ones who could afford the scrolls. A 5x120 character was completely unbeatable by a 7xGM character, as hit chances seemed to be badly bugged and the character with higher skill would hit nearly every time while the less-skilled character could only hope the breeze from his weapon would give his enemy a bad case of the sniffles. GM evalint couldn't hope to overcome Legendary (120) resist, while Legendary eval would do insane damage to "mere" GM resist. The implication of course is that 7-skill templates were slowly phased out... and since a tank mage cannot function without all 7 skills, tanks faded away again.
Age of Shadows was released just a few months later, in February 2003. This publish turned the game into an entirely item-based Diablo II clone, with little room for player skill. Tank mages resurfaced in a completely altered state due to spell-channeling weapons, which could be held in hand while casting. There is precious little positive about AoS or the publishes and expansion packs that followed, and none of it is relevant, so our history will stop here.
About this shard:
UOGamers Hybrid is based loosely on the Publish 16 timeframe, sans powerscrolls. It therefore offers a great variety of templates, including the subject of this guide.
Insta-hit is enabled.
Insta-swing is disabled.
Precasting is enabled.
HP is calculated using the new formula Str/2+50.
Defensive wrestling is enabled using the formula (Anat+Eval)/2.
Special moves are enabled for 2-handed weapons other than staves and bows.
Selecting your Weapon Skill
All four weapon skills are viable for a tank mage, and all four have their pros and cons, so which is right for you? It's mostly a matter of personal style, but read on so you can make an informed choice.
Swordsmanship
Swordsmanship affords the greatest variety of weapons to its users, from the lightning-fast katana to the cumbersome but devastating halberd. Here's a rundown of the reasons to choose Swords:
I use swordsmanship most of all among my tank mages, but primarily for reasons of nostalgia - it's the quintessential tank mage skill.
Fencing
First, the good: Fencing's paralyzing blow is amazing. It leaves an opponent utterly helpless for a few seconds, unable to move or cast, similar to wrestling's stun punch but with the added bonus of some damage behind it. The weapons are all very fast, and do good damage over time. The one-handed versions can be poisoned, and an abundance of tribal spears makes it easy to find force-equivalent (+5 damage) weapons.
However, there are some drawbacks here as well. The first is that fencing lacks any heavy-hitters short of the best runics. You may encounter enemies with armor that you have a great deal of difficulty punching through. The other con here is that there are only 6 weapon types, and only 4 which most players would take into combat: the spear, short spear, kryss, and warfork (dagger and pitchfork being the others). This can make it difficult to find high-end magic ones. Thirdly, there are no weapons too heavy to steal, so you must take extra precautions to thief-proof yourself, and even then disarm thieves will present a real threat.
Mace Fighting
Macing is another classic, nostalgic tank mage skill. While it was originally not as popular as swords, now it may even be more so.
On a high note, maces hurt in a lot of ways. The war hammer is already nearly as powerful as a halberd, and faster to boot. Crushing blows can make it the most damaging weapon in the game. In addition to taking all that health away, maces will also erode an opponent's stamina, eventually rendering him unable to move. Furthermore, maces destroy armor very, very quickly. Even if your mace isn't a very good one, it will seem much more powerful than the best spear once your target's armor is eaten away. This makes it the hardest skill to survive against in long, drawn-out fights.
Again, there are some caveats. While macing has a lot of weapons, it doesn't have a lot of good ones. The war hammer and quarter staff are weapons of the first tier, as good as any sword or fencing weapon. However, those are both 2-handed, making them incompatible with potions. The best one-hander is the war axe, which is a very good one-handed weapon... but maces cannot be poisoned. The other one-handed maces mostly suck. And while macing does have a weapon too heavy to be stolen, the war mace, it's also too crappy to be worth lugging one around just in case you have to fight a thief who made off with your good weapons.
Archery
Archery is the most overlooked combat skill, because it just doesn't have enough going for it to make it a good stand-alone skill. It's terrible unless augmented by a group... or by magery.
Bows are light enough to be stolen, as is their ammunition. The ammo is also depletable. Neither weapon nor ammo can be poisoned. Arrows and bolts cannot be fired while moving, so chasing someone down with a bow or crossbow is no easy task. Archery is also much more easily parried than melee. All its weapons are two-handed so potions are out, and there are only three weapon types, none of which can be repaired!
So why would you even consider this skill? Well... because it's cool! Archmages are a lot of fun to play, and heavy crossbows in particular hit extremely hard. In the duel pits, no one will be able to get out of your range, so you won't have to move much from the center of the ring. Speaking of range, that can make it tremendously useful in PKing, too - you don't have to close the distance to your target before he recalls, just get within bowshot. It's an underused skill despite all its shortcomings, because it really can be an enjoyable playstyle.
Building your Tank Mage
Skill training on this shard becomes harder as one approaches the skill cap. Therefore, skills must be trained in a logical order based on which skills are the most difficult and most expensive to raise. I will progress through training in steps based on this rationale.
Step 1: Magery, Resist, Meditation
You should start your character with 50 magery and 50 magic resist. You can add 1 point to your weapon skill of choice and lower magery to 49 if you want to start with a newbie weapon (this weapon can break, but you will not lose it when you die as long as you are not a murderer).
Find a safe place to macro, lock your evalint, and cast the appropriate spell for your skill level on yourself to raise your magery, meditation, and resist. You can use a looped Razor macro to facilitate this process. Meditation will GM quickly and automatically as you go... Magery should GM fairly quickly, and Resist will be much slower. Still, you should be able to finish all of these skills within a single day of macroing (no more than 8 or 9 hours) and it shouldn't cost more than 20k gold worth of reagents. Here's an excerpt from the Comprehensive guide to skills and skill gain:
This is ideally trained by sparring against a character who has a GM weapon skill already. Since you can't heal your target using your tank-in-training, you will need to have your target heal himself or ideally use a third target to heal him. Healing others is much faster than healing yourself, and finger slips will not be an issue this way.
Lock the trainee's anatomy before beginning.
Make sure your tank mage is running a Razor macro to rearm himself if his training weapon breaks, unless you are watching and doing this manually. You will break several weapons in the course of training your weapon skill and tactics. The macro will look like this:
If right hand = empty (left for macers using staves to train)
Drag (dagger) by type from backpack to hand.
Else
Pause 15.0 sec
The pause is arbitrary, but don't make it too long or you'll waste valuable training time... and don't neglect to put one in, or you may have some problems with your macro.
_______________________________
Meanwhile, your healer should just be looping a macro to repeatedly use bandages on your target:
Use (bandage) by type
Absolute target
Pause 20.0 sec
The delay here should be as long as possible to conserve bandages, but not so long that your target's health falls dangerously low. Twenty seconds is a good starting point. Make sure you have enough bandages to last the amount of time you plan on being away from the computer, or that your macro incorporates a restock agent to make sure you don't run out.
______________________________
As an option, you might consider having your target keep himself alive with a macro like this:
If HP < 30
Walk West
Wait for HP >= 50
Walk East
Pause 5.0 sec
Make sure you make the timeout on wait for HP less than 2 minutes, or combat may end, stopping your training. The directions here are arbitrary, too - in this example, West would be out of range of the trainee, but within range of the healer. In this example, the characters would be set up thus:
_H
_XT
with up being North, H being the healer, X being the target, and T being the trainee. If the target's health falls below a certain point, he walks out of range of the trainee, pausing combat while the healer continues to restore his health.
_H
X_T
Introduction:
The tank mage is one of the oldest templates in UO, and still one of the most viable. The name "tank mage" may seem like something of a misnomer, given that modern tank mages are as lightly armored as any other mage. However, this name comes from their origin, when these mages would wear heavy armor - preferably platemail. It is the original hybrid character, combining skills from both the mage and warrior classes to bridge the gap between the two. Tank mages are noted for their versatility, as they have a great variety of techniques and tactics at their disposal due to their diverse skills. This background allows the tank to use the strengths of one class to overcome the weaknesses of the other. While a pure mage is essentially useless when his mana is exhausted, the tank can still rely on his weapons; and while a warrior's swing is based purely on chance, the tank can employ his magery to guarantee a hit at a critical time. Furthermore, tank mages can combine both spells and weapons into massive combo attacks through the use of "insta-hit," "insta-swing," and "precasting." (Explained later.)
History
Tank mages are as old as UO itself. In the beginning, there were fewer skills to choose from, and fewer necessary. Meditation is one skill that was added later. With mana regeneration rates being constant (and slow), magery could not be a stand-alone skill in fights more than a few seconds long. It was used instead to allow players a quick burst of powerful attacks that augmented their normal regimen of melee combat. Warriors, too, had need of fewer skills, and as such one could easily fit a variety of combat skills onto a single character while remaining viable. A common template might have Magery, Resist, Swordsmanship, Archery, Tactics, and Healing, and be able to participate in every kind of combat (magical, ranged, and melee). In those days, there was also no penalty to dexterity or mana regeneration from wearing heavy armor, so the only concern players had when it came to armor was achieving the highest possible armor rating (AR). Mindblast functioned differently than it does today, dealing damage to whichever player (caster or target) had the lower intelligence... and hit points were directly proportionate to strength. Most players strove to make their characters have 100 strength, 100 intelligence, and 25 dexterity.
In time, mana regeneration and dexterity penalties were added. Meditation and a few other skills were added to the game. At that time classes began to develop. Some players chose to develop their dexterity instead of intelligence and rely more heavily on weapons... thus the "dex monkey," or pure warrior, was born. These characters dominated for a while, especially in towns during the period when magic damage was disabled within guard zones. Others stuck more closely to the path of the mage and shed their heavy armor. Many became known as "naked mages," as they traveled light, often wearing only cloth or nothing at all. However, the name "tank mage" stuck for those who continued to use weapons on their mages. The T2A Starter Guide defines "Tank Mage" as "a magic-using [player character] who is proficient in melee combat as well."
The classic template was the "Mage's 5" with a weapon skill (usually swordsmanship, but sometimes mace fighting or archery) and tactics added to it:
Magery
Meditation
Evalint
Resist
Wrestling
Swordsmanship/Mace fighting/Archery
Tactics
Paralyzing blows and other special moves didn't exist, so Fencing was not commonly used because it lacked big, hard-hitting weapons, which were the tank mage's preference much of the time (although good tank mages carried fast weapons as well, and used them often). This is because of insta-hit, insta-swing, and precasting, which I will now define.
Insta-hit refers to a weapon hitting at the beginning of its swing animation. You hear the sound and damage is dealt when the animation begins to play, as opposed to when you graphically see the weapon make contact with your opponent a second later. Insta-hit was removed as part of the UO:Renaissance publish for all characters with less than 75 dex. This made weapons useless in PvP for players with less dexterity than that, because an opponent could see a swing coming and literally sidestep it. The swing timer would be reset, but the hit chance would never be calculated, resulting in an automatic miss. In other words, if insta-hit is not active on a shard, tank mages are completely unplayable in PvP. This term is often erroneously swapped with insta-swing.
Insta-swing means swinging your weapon at the time when it is drawn. Later versions of the game (including UOG:Hybrid) have a significant delay when the weapon is first armed before it can be swung. Insta-swing was removed as part of the dreaded UO:Renaissance publish, in order to nerf tank mages. It was never reinstated, and is not active on UOG:H.
Precasting is the process of casting a spell and waiting for the targeting reticule to appear, but arming a weapon and switching to melee combat instead of releasing the spell. A spell can be held for about 30 seconds and then instantly released later, bypassing the casting time. Precasting an energy bolt and then attacking with a war hammer and targeting after a good hit essentially allows the tank mage to make the damage from both attacks happen simultaneously.
All three of these strategies allowed tank mages to construct very powerful combinations of attacks. A favorite was explode-energy bolt-halberd, which could do up to about 90 damage. Fortunately there were myriad ways to counter these combinations, available to all templates. Even a smart miner could disrupt this combination, so it was by no means overpowered. The truth of the matter is that dexers had the advantage, and a well-played dexer would usually beat an equally well-played tank mage. However, since good players like to have control of whether they hit or not, good players chose to play mages. This resulted in tank mages winning most of their fights against warriors, but not because the game was unbalanced in their favor.
Unfortunately, EA/OSI did not feel that tanks were balanced. In December 1999 precasting was removed. Then, in April 2000 they released the UO:Renaissance publish, which removed insta-hit and insta-swing. Furthermore, players then had to hold their spellbooks in hand to cast spells. In order for a tank to set up his trademark combo, he would have to cast his spells, then disarm his book, arm his weapon, wait about 7 seconds, then attack with his melee weapon and hope his opponent stood still long enough for the whole swing animation to finish. It simply couldn't be done, and for a while tank mages ceased to be. This publish made several other PvP changes as well - the way mindblast works, the inability to heal while poisoned, weapon special moves, lumberjacking's damage bonus, and the defensive benefits of inscription were all introduced at this time. While the tank mage was decimated, many other templates became viable and some variety could be found on the battlefield. Healer mages, scribes, nox mages, lumberjacks, and a variety of warriors were among their number.
Then, a balance pass by the name of Publish 14 restored tanks to playability. While insta-swing was never reinstated, insta-hit and precasting were. At the same time, magery was revisited and the effects of many spells were changed. Lower circle spells like harm and magic arrow, which had previously only been used to remove an opponent's magic reflection, became essential tools for the PvP mage. Quarter staffs got their stamina drain ability back, and defensive wrestling was introduced. That is, (Anat+Eval)/2=defensive wrestling, which gives the same chance to make an opponent miss as wrestling does, but does not grant any chance to actually land a punch.
Tank mages returned with a slightly altered template:
Magery
Meditation
Evalint
Resist
Anatomy
Weapon
Tactics
The formula for calculating HP changed, too. Whereas it had originally been Str = MaxHP, it is now Str/2 + 50 = MaxHP. This made characters with less than 90 strength much more useful on the field, and allowed some more interesting templates to emerge.
Unfortunately, this blissful age of PvP was not to last. Publish 15 soon brought about bulk order deeds and runic weapons, which had an overall negative effect on PvP. Then, Publish 16 created the alchemy bonus to purple potion damage and introduced the champion system with its powerscrolls. Powerscrolls on EA/OSI shards were (and presumably still are) available for almost every skill, although they were very rare and expensive. Still, it became possible for characters to get up to 120% in most skills, and 6-skill templates slowly became the norm. The rich dominated for a while as they were the only ones who could afford the scrolls. A 5x120 character was completely unbeatable by a 7xGM character, as hit chances seemed to be badly bugged and the character with higher skill would hit nearly every time while the less-skilled character could only hope the breeze from his weapon would give his enemy a bad case of the sniffles. GM evalint couldn't hope to overcome Legendary (120) resist, while Legendary eval would do insane damage to "mere" GM resist. The implication of course is that 7-skill templates were slowly phased out... and since a tank mage cannot function without all 7 skills, tanks faded away again.
Age of Shadows was released just a few months later, in February 2003. This publish turned the game into an entirely item-based Diablo II clone, with little room for player skill. Tank mages resurfaced in a completely altered state due to spell-channeling weapons, which could be held in hand while casting. There is precious little positive about AoS or the publishes and expansion packs that followed, and none of it is relevant, so our history will stop here.
About this shard:
UOGamers Hybrid is based loosely on the Publish 16 timeframe, sans powerscrolls. It therefore offers a great variety of templates, including the subject of this guide.
Insta-hit is enabled.
Insta-swing is disabled.
Precasting is enabled.
HP is calculated using the new formula Str/2+50.
Defensive wrestling is enabled using the formula (Anat+Eval)/2.
Special moves are enabled for 2-handed weapons other than staves and bows.
Selecting your Weapon Skill
All four weapon skills are viable for a tank mage, and all four have their pros and cons, so which is right for you? It's mostly a matter of personal style, but read on so you can make an informed choice.
Swordsmanship
Swordsmanship affords the greatest variety of weapons to its users, from the lightning-fast katana to the cumbersome but devastating halberd. Here's a rundown of the reasons to choose Swords:
- Great variety of weapons = best possibility of finding good magic ones.
- One-handed swords can be poisoned
- Halberds are too heavy to steal
- Good mix of speed, power, and damage-over-time weapons
I use swordsmanship most of all among my tank mages, but primarily for reasons of nostalgia - it's the quintessential tank mage skill.
Fencing
First, the good: Fencing's paralyzing blow is amazing. It leaves an opponent utterly helpless for a few seconds, unable to move or cast, similar to wrestling's stun punch but with the added bonus of some damage behind it. The weapons are all very fast, and do good damage over time. The one-handed versions can be poisoned, and an abundance of tribal spears makes it easy to find force-equivalent (+5 damage) weapons.
However, there are some drawbacks here as well. The first is that fencing lacks any heavy-hitters short of the best runics. You may encounter enemies with armor that you have a great deal of difficulty punching through. The other con here is that there are only 6 weapon types, and only 4 which most players would take into combat: the spear, short spear, kryss, and warfork (dagger and pitchfork being the others). This can make it difficult to find high-end magic ones. Thirdly, there are no weapons too heavy to steal, so you must take extra precautions to thief-proof yourself, and even then disarm thieves will present a real threat.
Mace Fighting
Macing is another classic, nostalgic tank mage skill. While it was originally not as popular as swords, now it may even be more so.
On a high note, maces hurt in a lot of ways. The war hammer is already nearly as powerful as a halberd, and faster to boot. Crushing blows can make it the most damaging weapon in the game. In addition to taking all that health away, maces will also erode an opponent's stamina, eventually rendering him unable to move. Furthermore, maces destroy armor very, very quickly. Even if your mace isn't a very good one, it will seem much more powerful than the best spear once your target's armor is eaten away. This makes it the hardest skill to survive against in long, drawn-out fights.
Again, there are some caveats. While macing has a lot of weapons, it doesn't have a lot of good ones. The war hammer and quarter staff are weapons of the first tier, as good as any sword or fencing weapon. However, those are both 2-handed, making them incompatible with potions. The best one-hander is the war axe, which is a very good one-handed weapon... but maces cannot be poisoned. The other one-handed maces mostly suck. And while macing does have a weapon too heavy to be stolen, the war mace, it's also too crappy to be worth lugging one around just in case you have to fight a thief who made off with your good weapons.
Archery
Archery is the most overlooked combat skill, because it just doesn't have enough going for it to make it a good stand-alone skill. It's terrible unless augmented by a group... or by magery.
Bows are light enough to be stolen, as is their ammunition. The ammo is also depletable. Neither weapon nor ammo can be poisoned. Arrows and bolts cannot be fired while moving, so chasing someone down with a bow or crossbow is no easy task. Archery is also much more easily parried than melee. All its weapons are two-handed so potions are out, and there are only three weapon types, none of which can be repaired!
So why would you even consider this skill? Well... because it's cool! Archmages are a lot of fun to play, and heavy crossbows in particular hit extremely hard. In the duel pits, no one will be able to get out of your range, so you won't have to move much from the center of the ring. Speaking of range, that can make it tremendously useful in PKing, too - you don't have to close the distance to your target before he recalls, just get within bowshot. It's an underused skill despite all its shortcomings, because it really can be an enjoyable playstyle.
Building your Tank Mage
Skill training on this shard becomes harder as one approaches the skill cap. Therefore, skills must be trained in a logical order based on which skills are the most difficult and most expensive to raise. I will progress through training in steps based on this rationale.
Step 1: Magery, Resist, Meditation
You should start your character with 50 magery and 50 magic resist. You can add 1 point to your weapon skill of choice and lower magery to 49 if you want to start with a newbie weapon (this weapon can break, but you will not lose it when you die as long as you are not a murderer).
Find a safe place to macro, lock your evalint, and cast the appropriate spell for your skill level on yourself to raise your magery, meditation, and resist. You can use a looped Razor macro to facilitate this process. Meditation will GM quickly and automatically as you go... Magery should GM fairly quickly, and Resist will be much slower. Still, you should be able to finish all of these skills within a single day of macroing (no more than 8 or 9 hours) and it shouldn't cost more than 20k gold worth of reagents. Here's an excerpt from the Comprehensive guide to skills and skill gain:
Step 2: Weapon skill, tactics
This is ideally trained by sparring against a character who has a GM weapon skill already. Since you can't heal your target using your tank-in-training, you will need to have your target heal himself or ideally use a third target to heal him. Healing others is much faster than healing yourself, and finger slips will not be an issue this way.
Lock the trainee's anatomy before beginning.
Make sure your tank mage is running a Razor macro to rearm himself if his training weapon breaks, unless you are watching and doing this manually. You will break several weapons in the course of training your weapon skill and tactics. The macro will look like this:
If right hand = empty (left for macers using staves to train)
Drag (dagger) by type from backpack to hand.
Else
Pause 15.0 sec
The pause is arbitrary, but don't make it too long or you'll waste valuable training time... and don't neglect to put one in, or you may have some problems with your macro.
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Meanwhile, your healer should just be looping a macro to repeatedly use bandages on your target:
Use (bandage) by type
Absolute target
Pause 20.0 sec
The delay here should be as long as possible to conserve bandages, but not so long that your target's health falls dangerously low. Twenty seconds is a good starting point. Make sure you have enough bandages to last the amount of time you plan on being away from the computer, or that your macro incorporates a restock agent to make sure you don't run out.
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As an option, you might consider having your target keep himself alive with a macro like this:
If HP < 30
Walk West
Wait for HP >= 50
Walk East
Pause 5.0 sec
Make sure you make the timeout on wait for HP less than 2 minutes, or combat may end, stopping your training. The directions here are arbitrary, too - in this example, West would be out of range of the trainee, but within range of the healer. In this example, the characters would be set up thus:
_H
_XT
with up being North, H being the healer, X being the target, and T being the trainee. If the target's health falls below a certain point, he walks out of range of the trainee, pausing combat while the healer continues to restore his health.
_H
X_T
And on my first run I am gonna fill my pack with valorite weapons to get the most out of it!
