How to hurt pharos... bad

[Barwick11]

Ok, tactics for pharos keep changing, and we've found a way to do between 150 and 180 damage to pharos every 0.8 seconds (according to prax). I myself actually do as much as 193 I've seen, but that's another story...

Anyhow, it all centers around Mage AI. Doing fireball every second or less.

This is a very powerful tool to have in your arsenal. It's very very hard to solo a mage, you have to be very careful and can't just tank monsters like you're used to. However, in pharos, it's a great way to end the encounter fast. 5 Mages doing 150 damage every second would take roughly 30 minutes to do Level 5 Pharos, if my numbers are correct.

The basics of Mage AI, you have a spellbook OR a Mage Weapon weapon in hand, enable the weapon primary or secondary ability (special attack), and cast the spell you want. At 150 int you do 35% of the base damage through their armor. At 151 int you do 36%, etc... up to 200 int where you do about 85%. After that it levels off drastically, but basically at 245 int you should do 100% of base spell damage THROUGH their armor... Over 245 int you do slightly more, but you get the point.

So, what do you do? You get a ton of Int and SDI items, that's what you do. Eval Int helps a ton too. Here's my current stats:
185 (or 195) Eval Int, depending on the setup
319% SDI
220ish Int (with Angel Form)

With my equipment, I can do a fireball every second or less, for about 170-180 damage average. As long as someone is near with an ancient hat of the magi, my mana stays high and I'm golden.

To set it up, you obviously want high FC/FCR, and also to NOT cast protection on you (uncast it if you have it on), this makes the spells cast speed slightly faster.

Here's what you do to get there, for each item slot, ignoring the evokers pieces (which are another option, but require an item morph deed from a high level smith BOD to morph to a tribal mask, not fun...)

Shroud of Wonder
Cloak of Wonder
(go with these, or if you can find a hood robe, that's a close second)

Helmet Choices:
Kasa of the Raj-In
Athena's Crown

Tunic Choices:
Rune Beetle Carapace (best tunic in game IMHO)

Weapon Choices:
Elemental Wand (+50 eval int, my favorite)
Book of Might & Magic (not a good choice in my opinion, unless you can't find an elemental wand)

Wings/Shirt Choices:
Ruby Curiass
Wings (pick what you got, I like the Eostre Mmx, they rock, but are ultra rare)

Other:
Reading Glasses of the Trades
Zot Socks
Leggings of the Royal Council
Shield of Intellect (highest SDI you can find)
Stormgrip (gloves)
Evokers Arms (10% SDI)
Merlin's Magical Sash (Follower works too if you need LMC, but LMC doesn't matter too much in there)
Talisman: whatever you got, the mage talisman is great.

Jewelry:
Whatever you can find that has High SDI (sorcerer's necklaces can be enhanced with up to 12% SDI, hint)
Jewelry of the mind *rocks* here
Ornament of the Magician is a great one to have for higher FC/FCR and it's also got SDI on it.
Ring, go with SDI or possibly the ring of stats if you need more Int.

Basically, the idea here is to get high SDI, but also get your int up to 200 (with angel form is OK, if you *have* to bless to do so, ok, but not ideal...) Much past 200 isn't a whole lot of help.

In order of importance:
SDI over 100+
Int over 200
SDI over 200+
Eval high
SDI over 300+

Here's the gist of my Razor Macro to do this:
for( 1 to 3 ){
Cast Fireball
Set Ability Disarm
Wait for Target
Execute Last Target
Pause 0.05 sec
}end for
say [bandself
Dress "Elemental Wand and Shield"

[Sorthious]

Had to make some comments about this.....

The time calculated to do L5 is really contingent upon 2 things. How long, and how many times the Statues are up are the first factor. Each Statue blocks 33% of damage done to pharos. With all 3 statues out pharos is only taking 1% of the damage dealt to him. Next, the Nuke Pharos spell does massive amounts of damage to Pharos. This is the spell that will help make Pharos go down faster. If you have 2 Mages working the Sphynx you can speed up the tiles and cast Nuke Pharos more often. The Nuke Pharos spell does thousands of HP's of damage. No matter how much damage your players are doing this spell will do more than all your players combined. But again, if the Statues are up the Nuke Pharos spell is basically worthless. FYI, Pharos L5, as I've been told, has 1.2million hit points.

With all that said, I do agree, every extra bit of damage players can do will help speed up the levels. The order of importance I have a problem with though. I did some basic testing to see the difference in effectiveness between INT, EVAL, SDI. Here is a breakdown of the increase in Damage done using Mage AI with increases to each of the aforementioned attributes.

Attr. Damage Increase

1 INT = 3.5hp

1 Eval = 2.3hp

1 SDI = .67 hp

As you can see from above, 1 INT provides more than 5x the amount of damage increase that SDI does. Evaluate Intelligence provide almost 4x more damage than SDI. So, SDI would be the least important thing that you can have. I know everyone wants to use the wands in pharos which is great but i would suggest using some of the items Snuckgross listed to raise your INT,EVAL,SDI(in order of importance) first. Also, the further you can go over 200 INT the better and you do need at least 150INT(at all times) to do Spell AI. If you are cursed and drop below 150 INT you will not be able to use this feature.

The Might and Magic spellbook is a great choice for mages. You can still do high damage with a spell book if your INT,EVAL,SDI are high. One great thing about the M & M book is that the higher your INT is the more bonuses you get on your book. The most important bonus the book gives you is EVAL. In my current gear i get +12Eval on the book. Using the numbers above that gives me an extra 28hps(potential) damage to my target. Also the M & M book gives SDI bonus which in my setup is 43. Again, using the numbers from above, I recieve an additional 29hps(potential) damage to my target.

So, using my M & M book nets me approx. 57 extra hps damage potentional unmodified. If i were to use the books Offensive ability, using a charge which lasts 25mins, I can boost the SDI to around 68% and get 1 more point of EVAL also. This gives me an extra 16hps damage potentional which combined with the unmodified amounts allows me to, potentially, increase my damage to Pharos by 73hp.

STATUES:

Many people fighting Statues are using equipment that is very ineffective against Pharos. Spells work great on statues; Poison, Flamestrike,Stone Circle etc. but some dont have the Stats/Skills to cast spells effectively. Dexxers are a great asset whereas Statues are concerned.

Weapons that Whirl are NO GOOD against statues. Fencing Weapons do very little damage. The weapons that work the best against Statues are Hammerpicks and Bows. The main things that a weapon should have for Statues is Armor Ignore/Armor Pierce and Mortal Strike/Bleed Attack. Also, you want to have as close to 100%LMC as possible and have Mana Leech on your weapon. Without Mana you can't perform your ArmorIgnore/Pierce. If your Bow/Weapon doesnt have any of these or you don't have the the Mana to do the special attack then your nothing more than a mosquito to the Statues. They will heal more damage than you are inflicting.

Mortal Strike keeps a Statue from being able to heal. The main reason why a Bow is effective is because you can shoot the Statue as it runs. But if you dont have Armor Pierce/Bleed Attack on the Bow your wasting yours, and everyone elses time.

Spells can make statues so much easier. Poison Field on Statues keeps them Curing themselves instead of Healing themselves. The last thing you want is for them to Heal. Flamestrike or ChainLightning with Spell AI on a statue works great. When a statue gets down to below 1/4 health(approx.) it will take of running. Use Stone Circle(druid spell) to trap the Statue untill you can finish it off. Once they get in the pits it is very hard/dangerous to get to them.

NOTE: When using Stone Circle DO NOT encase the Tank or block the view of those healing the Tank!

Lastly, when killing Statues kill them one at a time. It does no good to have 3 people on one statue and 1person on the 2nd and 2 on the 3rd. You can kill them, yeah, but it takes a lot longer and in higher levels the Statues have more HP's. If you work as a Team you can take out statues Fast!

Designate roles for players doing Statues. Here are some suggested roles:

Leader- this person will determine which statue to attack 1st, everyone follow him/her

Poisoner/Flamestriker- keeps statues from healing with poison and damages them in between

FlameStriker/Trapper- damages Statue till about 1/4 health is gone then traps the statue with Stone Circle

Tank- this person will be a Dexxer and keep the Statue in place until it tries to run



If you Plan, Work and Adjust as a Team you will succeed as a Team!

Good Luck! (^8

[Barwick11]

Good stuff Sorth.

The attribute damage increase I believe is somewhat dependent on the other side of the equation... Actually, hm...

Int for Spell AI is the best per point increase, up to 200 int. High int first.

1 point eval is harder to get on its own than 1 point SDI, but more effective.

However, the actual increase per point is dependent on your SDI... it's kinda like X * Y (well, X times Y) If X is high and Y is low, the total is small. If X is low and Y is high, the total is low. But if both are balanced at a relatively moderate-high number, the total is HUGE.

Oh, and NO STONE CIRCLE on Level 5 pharos! No trees either, but that goes without saying, we never should use trees in Pharos.

Why no stone circle or trees? Because L5 Pharos has that lovely ability that the Blaze Wyrm also has, which is to turn trees and stones into damage *causing* rather than healing. Why it does the same with stones I dunno, but, it does...

If you *need* to trap the statues on L5, just drag them over by the bridge (the one you enter the room from), and keep them pinned against the teleporter to the exit.

[Sorthious]

If your referring to the Eval increase given by M & M books then that is contingent upon your INT and not your SDI. Your increase to base damage from INT is not capped at 200INT, though it does slow down significantly after 200. But, as I said, with an M & M book every bit of extra INT gives higher bonuses on your M & M book. As far as the overall damage increase it's not a simple a * b calculation. INT, EVAL, and SDI are taken into account to come up with the total damage range.

I wasn't aware of the Stone Circle causing damage. We used it on L5 pharos when we cleared it and no one mentioned it causing damage and it really speeds up statue kill times. The bridge is definitely a good alternative provided your not blocking people from getting back into the spawn for long periods.

[Barwick11]

I am pretty sure when stone circle was a little close to pharos he turned them into flaming something and we all died... I don't think anyone cast trees that time, but who knows... I may be wrong.

On the spell damage calculator, there's two halves to the equation. Well, not really two halves, but, eh, they're distinct anyhow...

Total Damage = Base Damage * Eval Int Bonus (which is ((Eval * 3 / 100) +1) ) * SDI Bonus (which is ((Int / 10) + 10% (if inscription >= 100) + SDI Items)

It's confusing looking at it on one line, it's a lot easier at stratics:
http://uo.stratics.com/content/basics/spelldamage.php

The whole thing I'm trying to say is, when multiplying, you want to maximize each factor (in this case there's 3, base damage, Eval Bonus, and SDI bonus). Here's an example where you only have 10 points to distribute:

8 * 1 * 1 = 8
7 * 2 * 1 = 14
6 * 2 * 2 = 24
5 * 3 * 2 = 30
4 * 3 * 3 = 36

So what I'm trying to say is, if you have to absolutely kill your Eval in favor of a buttload of SDI, don't do it. You'd be better off going moderate on both Eval and SDI.

Then again, it'd be *really* nice if we could make some spells with base damage of like 35, that'd be dangerous... I wonder what some of these new ancient spells can do for base damage...

So basically, 33 points of Eval Int is roughly equivalent to 100 points SDI. Though you always have to take into account the balance equation I put up above, maximizing each factor.