What's "must use" abilities for PvE?

[Cronk]

Hey all!  Got the UO itch again and found myself here.  I like the idea of the server, and I've already been fooling around with it some, but it's been years since I played anything but t2a or earlier and I'm struggling with figuring out what buffs I should be keeping active and how best to take advantage of all these extra skills.  To say nothing of all the new special abilities!

What things are "standard" casts you keep up all the time?  or at least for big fights?  are there different "builds" for different things, like champs, or is there just one major OP set of skill combinations that really stacks well?

Of note: i'm used to barding and taming, so i'm incorporating that easily enough.  but I'm struggling more with what to cast when and what's worth the hassle.  I figure if i can build up a beefy enough main character I can explore well enough to build up gold and stuff.  Thanks!

[Horns Nigel]

Barding and taming are musts here, since you Havnt played since t2a, the best thing you could do is join a guild, then the other players can help you in game.  There are several available like ours SOP, NPA, WSF KON and others that are very player freindly......And, welcome to Pandora......Nigel Horns

[Cronk]

thanks!  I'll probably join NPA since that seems to make the most sense, but I figured I'd ask here on the forums for something more specific.  I looked through the forums pretty heavily and didn't see anything relating to general "roam around and kill stuff" "builds".

That way you can at least point towards a forum post if people feel overwhelmed by all the information.

And i *did* play a shard a couple years back for a bit that had the samurai and necro stuff in it, so i'm loosely familiar with that, but how to combine it with all the new stuff is a bit... much. 

If someone didn't mind listing out a few key abilities they use a lot, it'd help for when I get off work later and immerse myself in UO for hours on end like the days of old!

[Thatperson]

Basically you want go for a powerful vampire warrior with magery and pets backing you up. everyone uses spell channelling weapons unless you really want to go for a full mage.
start by using vampiric embrace (necromancy) and live in that form, it reduces fire resist by 25% so make sure your armour has enough fire resist to compensate. this will mean you leech life on all damage you do.. that's weapons, magery, you bare fists, everything.
then in order to leech as much as possible you need to start beefing up your damage.. start by getting 100% damage increase imbued on your suit. in battle use chivalry all the time, enemy of one gives you 50% more damage to that particular type of creature (beware other creatures do 50% more to you so use it wisely) divine fury gives 25% damage increase and 10% swing speed (but lowers defence chance by 25%) concecrate weapon allocates all your damage to the lowest armour resist of the enemy, which can be worth potentially enourmous amounts of damage.
use the virtue, honour, to "honour your foe" before you do any damage to it and over the course of 8 consecutive hits you will gain 100% damage increase (this requires bushido).
slayer weapons also give 100% damage, the cap on osi is 300% I believe its the same here, the simple goal being to get to that 300% damage and stay there..
use a weapon with armour ignore, like a hammer pick or composite bow to do huge damage to individual foes, and use a weapon with whirlwind like a double axe for group situations, this allows you to hit everything around you at once, adding a "hit area damage effect" to your weapon with imbuing will reach out and do damage to a wide circle, a portion of all this is being leeched back as health for you as a vampire.
of course discordance will make your life much easier too.
the only buff you will really keep up is bless, there are several nifty little buffs in spellweaving and also immolate weapon adds a little damage to your hits too you will use magery for some healing and arch cure and chivalry's remove curse to remove curses.
don't worry, you will get mana leech on your weapon to keep you topped up
you can dust this off with bushido stances if you like, you will hardly notice them but they have their uses.
providing you have a suit with 70% all resists and lower reagent cost 100% that template will see you storming through champs in no time
for tougher bosses if you want to tank you can use ninjitsu's "mirror image", it will take the full hit for you, sometimes, hehe.. or mysticism's "animate weapon" to keep it at arms length, or your pet of course.
set your strength and dex very high, you will make up the difference for int with items, you want to swing fast and hit hard to keep that life leech going.
of course theres a tonne of other little things you can do with no skill skill cap, you have stealth to creep around, if you see a corpse in fel use forensics to see whos lurking, then tracking to see if theyre near, I could go on all day.. but that is the most used and efficient way to be a pvm monster..
its a template known as a "sampire" (samurai-vampire) but here you can garnish it with every other trick in the book.. good luck

[Cronk]

that gives me tons to work with man, thanks!

i'll have to work with what i have and start building towards a suit, thanks!