Well there has been a lot of discussion lately in pvp circles about which build is better or if a certain one is overpowered.  I have personally played both builds and I think they are balanced. It's just a matter of play-style and preference.   Mage Vs Dexxer

-Some people are saying that Eval-Intel  mages are overpowered because spells bypass parry. I will show in my next examples that this is not entirely true and that they are both pretty balanced  builds. Dexers are just as strong if not stronger if the person using them correctly, has skills and basic spell combo usage.

1) Mage malus.   Mages only have 1 weapon with -5 mage malus. If they don't want to use the Mystic mayhem they take at least a -20 to -29 skill loss just because they decide to use magery. -20 skill loss in main  weapon skill is huge.    Dexers can use any weapon they choose and suffer no penalties.They just add "use best weapon skill'  This means that their weapon skill will always be higher then a mage.  (weapon skill is factored into chance to hit)  This means that assuming 2 people with same amount of ED gear up,  mage would get to about 250 max on magery and that's being generous(most run with  220-240), where as a dexer(swordsmanship stacker)  can get to around 305 (yes 305 with new dragon cloak,royal legs, and emperors favor earrings, and I didn't factor in shoes or robe slot since there is a lot of variables) but lets assume 280 to be safe.  That's still at minimum 30  more points in weapon skill then a mage.

2) Spells and Buffs  -   Both builds have the same opportunity to use every spellbook available in game if they choose. Yes certain magery spells are affected by eval intel, but not as many as people  think.  Mages really only have a handfull of good damaging spells and their casting time is calculated according to circle and intensity.  Curse,  Magic arrow(just a fizzle spell really) fireball, harm, lightning, e-bolt, explosion, and flamestrike.  8 spells. Now keep in mind that most mages run with spell protection off so any hit from an opponent or monster can fizzle them. The higher damaging spells take at least 3 seconds to cast.  Dexers swing once every 1.25 seconds. So toe to toe a dexer would fizzle any high circle spells that a mage would try to cast. Leaving them with only low circle- fast casting spells unless they run a lot.
- Although dexers have access to all the spells, and buffs, very few use them properly. Mages know how to use buff spells which gives them bonuses. Just cause dexers don't know or use doesn't mean they are less effective.  Some buffs that benefit all builds(eval intel has no affect on these)  and rarely used by some people are - Magery- bless,  Spellweave-arcane empowerment/attunement, immolating weapon,gift of health,   Cleric-sacred boon,trial by fire,   
- Now that is all just buffs which I normally only see mages using, although dexers could and should be using these. They help make your character a lot stronger in many differant ways and like I  said, evaluating intelligence does not affect them as far as I know except the bless spell and magery affects the curse spell(only stat wise).

-3) Passive Offensive Spells- Like I said mages use many passive offensive spells that dexers can use too and evaluating inteligence has no affect on spell intensity.
Magery- Poison-(keeps the mage fizzling and bandages have to heal poison before heal health)  Curse-drops 4 resistance down to 60 no matter what.(allowing weapons to hit more)  Energy,poison,and paralyze fields-anyone can use these to their advantage causing opponent to be paralyzed or poisoned causing mage fizzles or paralysis.    Teleport- a way to escape stone  circles (more on this later)
Necromancy- Evil omen- increases all spells intensity for a short time, corpse skin-makes opponent more succeptable to fire.  bload oathe-reflects back physical damage   Strangle-underused but can be a mage's worst nightmare since it makes them fizzle a lot.  Mindrot- makes spells cost more mana.    As far as I know eval intel doesn't have any effect on necromancy spells. a 120 skill in necro/spirit speak is all that's needed.(some based off karma as well) In fact only spirit speak intensifies it.
Chivalry- spells are only affected by karma and chivalry skill.  Remove curse-awesome spell that gets rid of curse and stat loss, Divine fury-fills stamina to full instantly, consecrate weapon-makes your weapon hit opponnant based off of their lowest resist.
Druid  - Based off animal lore and taming skill-  Grasping roots-binds person in roots paralyzed     Stone Circle- Awesome spell. I don't see a lot of dexers using this but it should be one of their  main spells.(should be stone circling themselves in with a mage so they can hit them and mage cant run. (mages only  have the advantage at long range)    Blend with forrest- good spell to immobilize someone for a few seconds or if you are outnumbered, can tree one and kite the other opponent away so its 1v1 for a short time.   Dexers could and should be using these spells also.
Bushido- I don't use bushido but again it is only affected by bushido skill. Great passive spells for a dexer to use. Evade is awesome against  mages.
Ninjitsu- I don't use much of it either but it can be very effective also. only ninjitsu skill affects it. Mirror image absorbs damage from melee  and spells.
Spellweaving- wildfire is nice. area affect damage(causes fizzles)
So as you can see there are many great passive spells that can be used by both builds to help win a fight. Weapon skills really don't have much of an affect on any of these spells.

-4) Protection on/off       Now we all know that mages have to run with protection off for them to cast fast and be effective. This means that any little damage will make them fizzle and have to start re-casting the spell again. Dexers do not have to have protection off and in fact might actually benefit from not using it.  If they don't have it on,yes they cast slower but never fizzle. Since the majority, if not all of their damage comes from weapons, and they mainly use bandages to heal, they can get away with not using it and always cast important spells no fizzle. People underestimate the power of greater heal also. We just don't see it cast a lot in duels because of cast time. Having protection on means you can cast it any time you want or need. 
-Scenario one- mage and dexer fight. dexer casts curse and runs up on mage. mage keeps trying to cast remove curse but can't cause he keeps fizzling 1.25 second swing twice as fast as time to cast remove curse spell .Dexer casts remove curse  once and immediatley makes it harder for mage to hit him with wep, but mage misses most hits since not cursed anymore. Hard for mage to re-curse since dexer is hitting him (causing him to fizzle)
-Scenario two-   dexer stone circles himself and mage into a cage fight. Dexer casts poison or strangle on mage. mage realizes hes trapped in a cage match and needs to leave. Poison and strangle keep him fizzling. Can't teleport out. dexer keeps bashing him. can't heal either cause dexer keeps hitting and poison/strangle has him. mage still cant teleport out. mage dies.   
If the scenario was opposite- mage stone circles dexer while being outside.(dexer can't hurt long-range unless with a bow/glaive)  Mage begins spamming damage spells, dexer realizes he's in trouble and casts greater heal, then casts teleport. Since he has protection on he doesn't fizzle. Immediately gets out and resumes fight at near full health. Mage has to re-plan atatck.



Conclusion  -  Mages are not any more OP then a well geared dexxer. Yes at first glance a eval mage is far superior to a dexer. but that's just at first glance. If the mage is well skilled in spell usage and the dexer only swings a weapon, of course he will die every time. That's not skill. That's killing a newb.   However If a dexer uses a few buff spells and passive-offense spells correctly he can be a very worthy opponent and even best a mage.  If  a very well skilled dexer is fighting even an intermediate eval mage, he will win.  If both mage and dexer are very skilled, It will boil down to skills, spell usage, weapons, gear, set-ups with combos, and ping.  So in conclusion I just have to say that the art of pvp is exactly that. An art. It requires a lot of knowledge, skills, hotkeys, and practice,practice,practice. I believe that the shard is very balanced. The builds are balanced, and it all boils down to real knowledge of game and skill. No fast way to be good.

I also hope this post enlightens some of the people thinking about getting into pvp. It can be very fun and rewarding and is skill based. I know people think its all gear but that's just part of it. It really does require spell knowledge and skill.  Ill be the first to say i'm not a pro but I learned the hard way.Lots of deaths and gear changes before I started learning the ins-and outs. Lots of practice. So if there are any nice tips in here please feel free to start using them in your arsenal and share with friends. Also lets try keep PVP friendly and mature. It should be a sport. Thanks for reading. :]

Tyvm for taking the time to explain this!

  Just wanted to mention that [Purge] (cleric spell) removes-- poison and curses [stat or otherwise]-- and is better then remove curse in my opinion.

  Below is the full OSI details on Divine Fury: [As of Publish 71, having 120 points in Chivalry skill and Level 5 Karma]

  Temporarily increases the caster's swing speed, chance to hit, and damage dealt while lowering the Paladin's defense chance. Upon casting, the Paladin's Stamina is also refreshed by an amount based on caster's Chivalry skill and Karma. Bonus effects and the duration of the spell is also affected by Caster's Karma and Chivalry skill.


    Hit Chance Increase: +15%
    Damage Increase: +20%
        {This is subject to the 100% DI cap from items}
    Swing Speed Increase: +15%
    Defense Chance Increase: -10%

  Note the following:
    Orange items are note worthy information-- related to PvP.
    Green items are definite bonuses-- related to PvP.
    The red item is something a PvP'er should think about-- trade-off wise-- is full stamina worth 10% reduction in DCI during combat. 

  In my opinion Divine fury is a solid PvP spell. Instant stamina, and damage potential is always a plus. Let us not forget how important full stamina is for fast bandage heals. 

  When opponents flee and you are melee'ing, and in pursuit, switch to a heavy-X, cast divine fury-- on the move-- and toggle Moving Shot for a fun victory.  [Repond/undead slayer = instant fatality]  {hard to find/make-- I know-- but try to have slayer X-bows free of physical damage, for the best effect, VS Reflect damage bunnies} 

 Well that's all I got to add/share. Good post Sultan. 


    --Sturger--

I believe the Divine Fury DCI debuff is -20% DCI according to the tooltip on your buff/debuff bar unless this is not updated.  Unless is is different at 120 chiv, which I don't think it is since karma and skill level determine sucess chance.  I might be wrong with the 120 chiv .  Socket and armor-up accordingly!

 @ Pidgyn

 I pulled the Divine fury information from a current UO-OSI site. It is accurate according to default Ultima Online settings.

  However, you could be correct. EVO-shard is totally different when Dante, and staff, want to make it so.

  Thanks for mentioning it though. I'll check into it and ask Kane/Dante if I see them before they see this post. Gives me something else to fact find/do when not gold collecting.


     --Sturger--

stone circle: dexxer without protection. dead. period can't heal through the harm spamming.  you forgot to mention that your first circle spells are cast faster than a dexxer can swing. plus, with op eval int, your harm and heals are 30+ each. when cursed a dexxer will most likely drop his armour even with 150 raw intel. happens to me all the time. if i use a magi cloak and tangle i won't lose my gear, but i lose swords, tactics, anatomy and healing. lower swords means miss more. mages don't miss with spells even if they are disarmed. all a mage needs is a disarm weapon.


a mage just sets up there scripts to keep recasting curse on a dexxer. scripts for pvp equals zero skill imho. hit one button, sit back and watch. not saying you sultan. there are no true dexxers on this server or mages for that matter. i very rarely cast any magery spells to heal. i have to have protection on to survive an op mage dump, therfore  magery for me is really out of the question.  slow casting times. even without protection, my mini-heals are worthless against an op eval mage.


i see your point about mage weapon, but, a dexxer needs more skills stacked to do damage. mages really only need 3 skills stacked. magery, eval and parry. 

     I have seen trends come and trends go. When I started on this server, I was told directly by players that pursuing magery and eval in pvp was pointless as dexers ruled the server. It was explained to me, in detail, how pointless a mage was in pvp. Most of those players left the server, I guess they couldn't handle being proven wrong. I would assume some of you still remember that. The old timers. Last time I forayed out into pvp I was rocking 120 eval and 120 magery. People still died. I've killed people with a crossbow, with necromancy, with pets, with magery, and even a little barding thrown in for flavor. I mostly killed people with ninjitsu, but hey, like I'm gonna reveal all the details of that The point of this is not to brag as I don't even pvp anymore. It's to prove a point.

     You are not a dexxer, you are not a mage, or a ninja, or a samurai, or even a bard. You are everything. EVERYTHING. I oft times use this phrase when describing my pvp tactics, I drop the entire world on peoples heads. It's a very accurate statement, as anything that can be possibly done to damage my opponent will be thrown at them instantly. 1 big hit for 60-70-80, hell even 150 damage can't compare to 5-6, 20-30 damage per tick damage sources. Couple that with some poison and strangle, which everyone can cast, and you have a disaster brewing.

     My point I guess boils down to this, if you aren't doing so well in pvp right now it's not because of eval or swords or tactics or triple slash or spike shield or magery or I dunno... Forensic Evaluation or whatever the hell its being blamed on currently. It's because you are failing to adapt to a system that encourages complex builds instead of a simple dexer/mage choice. You have options, so why ignore them?

     Feigning ignorance and blaming scripts is an excuse for people who can't be bothered to learn them. Yeah, people use macros and they use some extremely complex ones. That is a FACT. All the complaining about it in the world won't change it. Most people think its as simple as a 'press play to pvp macro' but it's really not. My pvp profile has (and yes I am counting it right now) 64 unique macros. That's just one profile. My dexer profile has even more. Most of them are one or two spell combos that I can easily repeat. Let me give you an example: If I am stone circled, I use my escape macro. What it does is hides me, dismounts, takes one step and shadow jumps, all in one macro. Its incredibly fast and works 90% of the time. The best part is that I made 4 versions of it that each target a different cardinal direction. If it fails to get me out it even tries the opposite direction automatically.

     It wasn't hard to make, and the haters will hate, but we all know the real reasons that you don't approve of it. It's always the same nonsense, I don't have the ping for that, or I don't know how to script that. If your ping is bad I understand, hey it is what it is, but being ignorant of how to do it is your own damn fault. The info is publically available and uosteam comes with a documentation file that explains how to use it. You want respect then get off your ass and earn it, cause whining damn sure won't get it for you.

     Now I'm not invested in any side when it comes to pvp currently and like ALOT (almost all) of you. 90 maybe 91% even I'm not pointing a finger at anyone or saying, "you yes YOU are a whiny bitch" cause I'm not. I have been there with you before. With all of you. I remember how hopeless it felt, going against the best. Bringing everything I had to the table just to lose and lose badly. Hell it still happens (#PumpkinEscobar; seriously, his reflexes are insane. I have played other games with him, YOU HAVE NO IDEA!). Don't let it defeat you. Step back, cool off, and ask yourself "what could i have done better?".

     So stop asking Kane and Dante to fix your short comings, cause whether you know it or not, when you complain over and over about something being over powered that's exactly what you are doing. I have my own, personal, reasons for not pvping, but an unbalanced system is not one of them. UOEvolution is the most balanced, right now, as I have ever seen it. Eval Mages have a glaring weakness that dexers can exploit to kill them almost immediately. Dexers have even more weaknesses. A true hybrid has none and can kill them both.

     I'll not say more on the topic. Figure it out for yourselves.
          Yours Truly,
       †Soulsunder†

Oh and SultanOfPWn That was a great post btw. Loved it. I just saw the ghost of a topic I hated and kinda spoke up early. So just so you know, I loved it. I would like to add that playing a good dexer seems like the easy way out, but its far harder than a mage to play. It requires patience, a keen sense of judgement, and exceptional control of ones movement. Most people never get that. You nailed it though. I'd go so far as to say your post is the best Evo related pvp post I've ever seen.

HEY DANTE! THATS THE GUY YOU NEED TO WRITE A PVP SECTION FOR THE WIKI!! .....Just sayin