UC (in General)

UC seems pretty expensive to get a decent rating above 1.0. Has anyone used it effectively? If so, how? Do you use it on low strength minions? I think the rating is based on the UC level vs ST level, right? What kind of balance between ST and UC has sorked for anyone? And does it work well with the GS and Haste spells? I tried retooling some chars to use GS, Haste, and AS with UC and get pretty sucky damage so I figure I'm doing something wrong.

It'll never be the number 1 for damage, however it allows you to put your money into other areas, great if you use two tanks as you can dump all the money into one tank and get a small ax/exbow for the UC minion.

Yea, I figured that out - gathering enough money to get the nice items is a problem for me - which is why I'm seriously looking at UC. I was planning on creating a cheap team with UC, GS, Haste, and AS, but can't figure out a decent % of experience to put into UC to make it work.

UC 'rating' is not based on a ST vs UC ratio...

UC is like any other melee weapon, so you need both a high UC and high ST/DX to make best use of it. Because Haste/GS also increases your DX/ST they work just as good for UC as for any other weapon.

An UC level of 10 for example means it is the same as a [?x10] (+10) melee weapon, with ? being an unknown number. Training UC means that both the damage multiplier and the plus-to-hit increase.

Beware of armor, most armor has penalties for UC, a few have bonuses.

Does that mean you are better off just having even a simple +x7 Rapier unless you have enough experience points to put into UC to give you rating of 7? I have over 3000 in UC and have only a 4 rating. +X4 is not much. That 3000 would seem to be much more valuably spent in ST.

It seems that the cost in experience to get a decent level in UC is prohibitive. Has anyone made a UC strat work? If so what have you learned that I could learn from?

Your best bet for UC is to obtain a Combat Gi, Helm's Gauntlets, and Displacement boots. Any cloak is okay for UC, though an Elven Cloak will help boost your UC stat, though a Shadow Cloak may be wanted for the higher AC.

Yah, I'm not exactly sure WHY Helm gets down with the Kung-Fu fighting, but apparently he does.

Read the extra material at the end of Return of the King in the Lord of the Rings...:)

> Your best bet for UC is to obtain a Combat Gi,
> Helm's Gauntlets, and Displacement boots.
> Any cloak is okay for UC, though an Elven Cloak
> will help boost your UC stat, though a Shadow
> Cloak may be wanted for the higher AC.

But you miss the whole point. The whole point is that I can't afford all these million dollar items, particularly if I want to field a 4 man team with UC, EC, AS, H, and GS. I was looking into UC precisely because you did not need to buy a good weapon and keep upgrading it. But when I tried it I found that after 3000 points in the skill, I got to a lousy level of 4. I might as well put that 3000 points into strength and keep using a cheap weapon - I'll do better damage that way.

So when does UC become worth it? Do you need to be up around 20000 in it? Is it only decent if you have a few million of extra equipment? Right now, unless someone comes up with a feasible use for the skill that will beat out a pure STR + Weapon strat, I'm going to abandon the whole idea.


Will UC work with a UC, EC, AS, H, and GS team? Has anyone tried it? At what level is it more effecdtive than just buying a weapon, or is it ever worth it?

I don't believe it is cost effective unless you at least have hg's and combat gi. If someone else has a different answer, that's okay, but it is almost essential to have that +15 boost to your uc from these items.

Why don't you use your Jig on your multi team - he's a UC tank after all. Maybe make one of your 4 minions a real tank too - ie build up his hp/st/dx and then arm him or save cash and make him a mage.

Make the other 3 enchanters only and concentrate all their xp into a spell each to make sure those spells are really powerful. Don't bother trying to arm them all, even if they have st/dx from the spells because that will only be really expensive in the long run. Ammo costs alone will go through the roof if they're all armed.

The benefits of building up your tank/mage(?)'s basic stats will be obvious when you're up against dispel magic. GS, Haste and AS will all fall down flat if the dispel magic is powerful enough.

Thanks for the confirmation guys. That is about what I expected. UC is not a way to cheaply build tanks.

Actually in the long run it is, as you would have to get a good melee weapon and that means big bucks. Also with UC you don't need to worry about buying a helm or a shield, so it is cost effective in the long term. If you are going on the super cheap, meaning no rares, then no it's not for you.