A Comprehensive Guide to Skills and Skill Gain

[sunfiregt]

***Skills Expalined By Sunfire***

Some of the Skills Marked "Weaponry" you can learn about in further detail here:
Weaponry Guide

Sparing Guide


I use the term sparing a lot in this guide and by this i mean to fight with another person in order to gain a specific skill. When I spar I get a friend to stand in front of me and we just hit each other. When you hit another player you gain very quickly. This is also very easy to macro in order to GM healing, weapon skill, and tactics all in one.

The various skills require different sparring tools and here they are: Wrestling = Empty Hands, Parry = Shields, Fencing = daggers, Macing = a wand will work or any mace, Swords = knife, Archery = a bow and arrows

The reason you use these lower end weapons is because they do minimal damage and you can spar for longer periods and gain more without the loss of health. However if you want to gain in healing you could use higher end weapons and heal your opponent or yourself (this is discussed under healing)

Now that you have your sparing items and your sparing partner it is time to look at skills that go together.

When you fight you will also be using the skill Tactics and Anatomy. These are necessary skills to fight with and they both gain with each other. Example: I spar with Billy using my mace and I will gain in Macing, Anatomy, and Tactics at the same time.

Fighting Skills are the easiest to GM and it will take you no time to find out how.


Skills that deal with Regents


Many of you come from shards where they do not have regents; however here, we do.

Magery is the most commonly used one. Each spell will require 1 of each listed regent (required regents are found in the spell book under the listed spell). When you cast the spell the regents is used up.

The Magery skill and the skill Evaluating Intelligence are used interchangeably, similar to warrior skills and anatomy/tactics like i explained earlier. You do not do much damage without Evaluating Intelligence and it is a necessary part in functioning magic..

Example: You cast earthquake and you will gain in Magery and in Evaluating Intelligence.

Other skills that use regents are: Inscription and Alchemy.

To GM any regent using skill you will need a fairly decent supply of all the regents. I would say about 5000 of each.


Skills with Instruments


First you need an instrument.
There is a place in Brit, NW of the bank that sells these. The vendors that sell them are called Bards and you can access them by saying "vendor buy." They are cheap and will only cost you about 30 gold. Or you can craft them using the carpentry skill.

Music related skills: Provocation, Peacemaking

These skills are also interdependent with the skill Musicianship which determines the success rate of you playing the instrument well.

When you double click an instrument you will play it resulting in skill gain in Musicianship.

When you use the skill Peacemaking or Provo it will ask for you to target the instrument and then target your preferred target. When you do this you will gain in Musicianship and either Peace or Provo.

All music skills are based on repetition.


Crafting Skills

You probably have been to places where crafting is completely different than on UOGamers.

UO gamers follows the standard crafting rules that have been on OSI.
Click on this to be directed to UoStratics to view a list of all craftables!

To craft you need specific tools. Hammer and nails, saws ect.. for carpentry, sewing kits for tailoring, tongs, smiths hammers for blacksmith. These items have charges so after a given amount they will break and disappear. You can see how many charges an item has by clicking it.

Each tool gives you a menu that will give you options on what to create. If you click the arrow beside what you want to create it will show you the % chance you have to craft it.

Crafting takes resources like wood, cloth, leather, ingots and bones. When you make something it uses the resources. Smelting/Cutting the items again will result in the item being destroyed and returning a portion of the materials. Breaking Carpentry or wooden made items do not yeild back wood, so the item is lost.

You will be able to gain as long as you have a 1% chance to make it. So, look on the tabs beside all crafting because there are fast cost efficient ways to gain everything.

Macro and Macro Guide
In this guide I will use the word "macro" often. if you do not know what macroing is and you want to learn then i have provided a guide for you. Since this post was too long I had to make another post for macros so go here for more information!:
Quick Guide to Macros


Difficult / Anti-Macro Skills (this means a in game macro will not be able to assist you in unattended gaining)

Lockpicking can be macroed in the beginning but will be very hard to later in the skill, you will not be able to macro past past 95
Poisoning will cost many potions/nightshade to GM. It will cost about as much to get from 99 to 100 as it did to get from 50-90
Resisting Spells is cheap but will slow down, very much so, around 98 skill. Mana vamp still works but is slow.
Provoking cannot really be macroed past 65 due to the need for increased difficulty monsters
Lumberjacking cannot be macroed because you need trees. But also remember lumberjacking is a skill that goes along with fighting with axes and can be gained that way.
Cooking has not a lot of options to get fast gains past 80.
Animal Taming is completely based on movement. You have to seek out your tamable's and once they have been tamed they are useless and you need to move on.



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Alchemy
0 – 65 make Cure Potions
65 – 85 make Greater Cure Potions
85 – 95 make Greater Poison Potions (Much cheaper)
95 – 100 make Greater Poison

Anatomy "Weaponry"
Spar a friend with a small weapon and use bandages to heal him/her.
While having both Healing and Anatomy set to gain (arrow up).
This will help you in Healing and Anatomy.

If you do not need Anatomy for Weaponry purposes then you can macro Anatomy on players. In your macro menu use "Use Skill = Anatomy, Last Target" and macro it on a target.

Animal Lore
Find an animal that you can tame and macro "Use skill = Animal Lore, last target" on that object.
Even a bird trapped in a house will GM you.

Many people have found that locking your animal lore at 0 until you GM taming will help alot. Having 0 Animal Lore will make you fail to tame creatures more and give you more gains. Then after you GM taming, go for lore.

Archery "Weaponry"
Use it. Will take about 1k of arrows. I suggest Skeletons in graveyards because you can stand behind the fences without being damaged and they are not smart enough to get out usually.

Arms Lore
See that dagger in your pouch? Macro using "use skill = arms lore, last target" and macro on that. Will GM in an hour.

Animal Taming
Buy up to 30 from an animal trainer.
30 – 60 tame small animals, anything you can find. The Jholem farms work well for this one.
60 – 70 try to tame hinds, polar bears, snow leopards, and Grey/white wolves.
70 – 80 continue to tame the wolves, try maybe dire wolves, and add great hearts. Moonglow is best for these.
80 – 100 you can tame many different things but most of them will bite you. Most people will GM buy bulls in deluccia, some gm off white wolves, and others say hellhounds and lava lizards. Whatever works best for you, and where you can stay alive is what you need to be using.

Many people have found that locking your animal lore at 0 until you GM taming will help alot. Having 0 Animal Lore will make you fail to tame creatures more and give you more gains. Then after you GM taming, go for lore.

Anything that you do not have a 100% to tame will give you gains, however the harder the pet is to tame, the quicker gains come.

Begging
Go to a place where there are a lot of NPCs and beg your little hearts desire. Doesnt take too long to GM. However, after you succeed from Begging from an NPC they will not let you beg from them again for 5 minutes. So gains are few and far between in a small NPC town.

Blacksmith
0 – 35 I recommend you buy your skills. 350gp is a lot easier to get a hold of then the ingots you’ll be using to get up to 35.
35 – 45 Making ringmail. Start with the sleeves and work up to the legs and tunic.
45 – 55 Making heavy weapons. Start with heavy swords (long, broad, Viking) then add in krysses, and as you get mid 50s start with big two handed axes.
55 – 65 Making Short Spears and plate gorgets.
65 – 75 Making Long Spears and gorgetes.
75 – 85 Making plate sleeves and helms
85 – 95 Making plate legs.
95 – 100 Making Breast Plates.
100-120s You will use about as much ingots as you used to get to 100 so be prepared.

The following list is the most economical way to GM Blacksmithing, here is listed the skill you need along with the required materials.

0 29.1 Buy with Gold
29.1 49.5 Dagger 3 Ingots
49.5 95.2 S Spear 6 Ingots
95.3 106.3 P Gorg 10 Ingots
106.3 108.8 P Glove 12 Ingots
108.8 112.5 P Helm 15 Ingots
112.5 116.2 P Arms 18 Ingots
116.2 118.7 P Legs 20 Ingots
118.7 120.0 P Tunic 25 Ingots

Bowcraft/Fletching
Start by making arrows one at a time. Separate the logs in your pack individually and have a pile of feathers near by. Carve each log into shafts one by one, and then fletch the shaft into an arrow one by one. This should take you from 0 to 30.
Once at 30 carve bows from logs till you reach 40.
Once you hit 40 continue to craft bows.
Once you reach 60 in skill you’ll want to craft heavy crossbows. You can still gain off bows and regular crossbows still, but you gain faster with heavys.

Carpentry
0 – 50 Craft Mostly small boxes and crates, alternating with a few of the hardest item you can make at your skill level.

4-mid 50s craft trinsic or Vesper chairs
50 – 65 Craft Wooden shields mostly, alternating with a few large crates, plain thrones, and benches.
65 – 75 Craft same as 50-65, but maybe add writing desks.
75 – 85 Craft Gnarled Staffs and Quarterstaffs.
85 – 95 Craft Gnarled Staffs mostly..
95 – 100 Craft Gnarled Staffs mostly, but try to make easels, beds, or water troughs. That will gm you fast.

Cartography
From 30 - mid 60 make local maps
mid 60 - 99.5 make world maps. making city maps will also work but I have found its slower
99.5 - 100, find Lv2+ treasure and decode by yourself.

Cooking
Grab those raw fish steaks I know you all have laying around and cook them singly. Yay its so exciting!

Cooking is one of those skills that was left in the dark while developing it. Past about 60 skill you have few options to GM it quickly. So if you really want to be a cook be patient.

Detect Hidden
Grab yourself a few GM made trapped locked boxes and macro away.

Or you can just Macro "Use Skill = Detect, last target" and target the ground.

Evaluating Intelligence
Go into a store and use the macro "Use skill = Evaluating Intelligence, last target" Just macro that for and hour and you will gm.

Fencing "Weaponry"
Use it. Try sparing with a friend. And heal each other so you gain that too.

Fishing
Go to a dock and fish. If you dont want to do it yourself you can get something like EZmacros and record your fishing technique. Rinse and repeat!

Forensic Evaluation
Go to a place where there are usually bodies. I just did this at brit bank and targeted bodies that got guard whacked. Just macro "use skill=Forensic, last target." Should be no time till your GM.

Healing "Weaponry"
Spar with a friend and heal him (not yourself, thats takes too long). Have him do the same and both of you will be just fine.
Once you get to 70 skill the quickest and most efficient way to GM is by finding a ghost and attempting to resurect him. Of course the ghost does not need to accept the resurrection, because you gain when he dead..

The reason you always need to practice healing on someone else is because the healing timer is significantly lower when healing someone else. You can GM from someone else in half the time then you can from healing yourself.

Hiding
Run around and hide. or you could just macro it standing in the middle of a field. I made a space bar macro for Hiding so whenever i would talk I would use it subconsciously and I gmed it without ever training it.

Inscription
40 Train from NPC
40 – 50 High 4th level spells or low 5th level spells. I recommend recall because people will buy these from you.
50 – 60 Scribe high 5th level. I like to scribe mark spells because again people buy these.
60 – 70 High 6th level and low 7th level. I like gate travel scrolls because - well because of money.
70 – 80 7th and low 8th level spells. These scrolls will sell to vendors for like 200 apeice too so they are nice.
80 – 100 Summon elementals because they use less regs

If you do not have the resources to get to 50 by scribing recalls, then you can go to a provisioner NPC and buy their little purple books. Right something in the book and close it. Now use inscription skill on them and target the other book. You should be able to gain until 50 by copying the book back and fourth.

Item ID
Use that Dagger in your bag and macro "use skill = Item ID, last target" It will go fast.

Lockpicking
Get a hold of 20 to 30 locked chests/crates (remember - not magic locked)
You will not be able to unlock GM made locked boxes so get crappy ones from a crappy carpenter.
Line everything up neatly and start at one end of your rows of chests.
Pick chest A, then B, and so on. You will GM before you know it

One way I was able to GM this easily was by having a carpenter the same skill as I was. I would have my carp make boxes at 30 skill and pick them until I was 40 skill and then my carpenter would be at 40 skill and so on and so fourth. Therefore, you are staying in a gainable difficulty.

Lumberjacking "Weaponry"
Use an axe while sparing. Or you can go chop trees!

Mace Fighting "Weaponry"
Use it while sparing with someone.

Magery
50-80 Invis
80-GM Mana Vamp

If you're training magery & resist and do not want to macro healing your target, the best gains for both skills are:

50-65 Mana Drain
65-100 Mana Vamp

If you'd rather damage/heal for quicker gains:

50-65 Mana Drain
65-85 Energy Bolt
85-100 FS


Meditation
This goes up on its own. If you want you can just lower you mana some and it will GM before you know it. Med goes up when your mana is down.

Mining
You cannot macro this for the most part unless you use a bot or some other evil thing. Just go to a mountain range and mine. If you want to keep your ore then go to places around Destard where they have forges set up along the mountain side. Make sure you can recall or something. Miners = easy pray for pkers.

Musicianship
Go get a few instruments and macro "last object." Instruments break so dont go afk and expect you to be GM with one instrument.

Parrying "Weaponry"
Spar baby, spar!

Peacemaking
Go to a bard and train your skill to 30ish
Macro peacemaking on yourself for a while
When that stops you can go to destard and make good money while you are GMing the rest of the few points.

Poisoning
You can gm this skill of of one item
I would suggest using a piece of food because it doesn't corrode and its easier to target
50 use lesser poison
50 – 68 use normal poison
68- 95 use greater poison
95 – 100 use deadly poison

You can get to 95ish skill by using greater posion, but the gains slow tremendously. This skill take a long time to GM after 99, so stick tight. To gain that one more point get ready to use about as many potions as it took to gain half of your skill.

Provocation
I use this macro for my provoking
"Use skill = Provocation, Wait for Target, Last Target, Wait for Target, Next Target, Last Target"
Or you can just click the creatures yourself.
You will not GM this just sitting around
Go to Moonglow and provoke the bigger animals like bears and deer.
Then move to monsters that can bite back.
Go fight Dragons and make good change while your at it.

Resisting Spells
0 – 50 Fireball & Lightning
50 - 70 Mindblast or Mana Drain. Mana Drain doesn't gain you as fast but saves mana and Health.
70 - 90 Mana vamp
90 - 100 Mana Vamp

Snooping
Go to Brit bank and get to see all the UOG L33tness!

Stealing
One of the best ways to gain i have found:

Get a wooden box, Exceutioners axe, short spear, and long spear.
Put the shortspear in box and steal from 0 - 50.
Macro = Steal Target Short Spear, Drag back to box. Wait 10 secs, Loop.

at 50 replace short spear with long spear
75 repleace long spear with Ex axe

Skill Vs. Stone:
10 - 1 stone
20 - 2 stones
30 - 3 stones
40 - 4 stones
50 - 5 stones
60 - 6 stones
70 - 7 stones
80 - 8 stones
90 - 9 stones
100 - 10 stones

Stealth

Buy skill to mid 30s
30 – 63 Start out naked/normal clothes.
After you pass 50 put your clothes back on in many layers (pants, skirts, aprons, robes, cape, hat, ect) and do the same thing you did to get to 50
60 – 80 with the clothes you have on add plate gorget and plate gloves or studded suit.
80 – 90 you will want to add plate arms some time soon.
90 – 100 take off all clothes and armor and just wear a chain tunic or closed helm.

Swordsmanship "Weaponry"
Use it! Spar with a buddy!

Tactics "Weaponry"
This comes from sparing!

Tailoring
0 to 33 buy skill
33 to 45 make plane dresses
45 to 55 make cloaks
55 to 75 make robes
75 to 99.6 make oil cloths
99.6 to 100 make studded tunics
100-120 You get to make studded tunics forever!

The following list has been suggested as the most economical way to GM tailoring. Listed is the skill needed along with the required materials.
0 33 Buy 330 Gold
33 49.7 Short Pants 6 Cloth
49.7 54 Skirt 10 Cloth
54 58 Fancy Dress 12 Cloth
58 66.3 Cloak 14 Cloth
66.3 74.6 Robe 16 Cloth
74.6 99.6 Oil Cloth 1 Cloth
99.6 103.7 Studded Gorget 6 Hides
103.7 107.8 Studded Bustier 8 Hides
107.8 112 Studded Armor 10 Hides
112 116 Studded Legs 12 Hides
116 119 Studded Tunic 14 Hides
119 120 Bone Legs 10 Hides, 6 Bones

Tinkering
0-30 buy skill
30 - 48 make keys and copy them
48 - 65 make lockpicks
65 - 90s rotate between lockpicks, heating stands, scales, and spyglasses.
90s - 100 Drop the lockpicks and just roate the three over and over till you GM.

Tracking
Just macro it ever where you go.
After you get past the 20 skill mark you have to choose humans to gain.
Just macro this and you will be GM in no time.

Veterinary
I would assume you have animal taming and possibly pets. get your pets and make them fight each other.
Get your bandiads ready and heal.
Try doing something like 2 bears because they dont take too much health off each other.

Wrestling "Weaponry"
Yes! The best skill ever! Just go bare fisted and attack everyone!

[sunfiregt]

A Bump for new Players

[gfilla]

thanks for the post... this should be stickied.

[sunfiregt]

I have to bump myself.. *cries*

[Hollywood]

i jsut came here to play you answered almost all my questions ty

[billyb-hybrid]

bump for newbe

[sunfiregt]

Originally Posted by Hollywood

i jsut came here to play you answered almost all my questions ty

Yay glad i could help

[Nick-hybrid]

ianno why the fuQ this hasnt been stickied yet.

[Cebrious Arcane-hybrid]

I love the icons man.

[excius]

can''t this be made sticky ?