so coming back everything is new?!?! so confused..

So used to be able to do decent with just magery or sword skill setup but once i enter help chat everyone is saying you have to do crafting now to be good.... I dont mind crafting but i have to have 2-3 crafters to be successful or any good now?

you can always buy the items you need if you don't want to make a crafter.  Also except for pvm weapons, legendary items are better than crafted ones.

cobb said:

you can always buy the items you need if you don't want to make a crafter.  Also except for pvm weapons, legendary items are better than crafted ones.

I dont mind making a crafter but i want to be a mage and be able to take care of my self without hand outs what crafting would i need to be successfull?

Welcome back @Caige ,
I'd suggest leveling imbuing to 120 (sounds terrifying and it's not). You can unravel loot for skill ups, and the cool thing is you can put whatever items in a bag and just unravel the container so long as it's located in your back pack.. don't unravel your back pack though. That will not turn out so well.

 Next I want to say, depending on what you play (not sure how familiar you are with the "in" templates), level crafting skills pertinent to that. Typically most people i know are running studded armor for the inherent Lower Mana Cost if they are using crafted gear. I'm using a mostly crafted set of armor myself and just about smoke all pvm content solo that you'd care to do. Weapon skills for whatever you'll be leveling should govern the type of weapon crafting skill you'll want, archery = bowcraft/fletching, blacksmithing for melee most likely. Carpentry has black staffs which are pretty good mace fighting weapons. Mace fighting is not that bad of a skill really, and a 120 scroll is typically the absolute cheapest.. and some people just toss it in the trash for whatever reason in the past. I think it is just this stigma that it's hard to get mace fighting weapons up to 1.25 weapon speed etc.. nah, not really in today's uo, but all that stuff will start making sense in time.

 Other than that, I'd say go 120 tailoring. With an imbuing tailor you can suit up every one of your characters decently enough to do just about anything that leads to better "loot" drops. Depending on your server it may be hard to get the scrolls/resources necessary to expedite this process, so don't be afraid to ask in general chat or help chat. I just recently came back and still enjoy the old Classic Client. I just can't get into the EC for whatever reason, and I've given it a real shake in the past. Just so not my bag.

 Back on subject, the skills and stats sub forums has some semi non-gabbledegook template talk, so give that a browse and don't be afraid to ask for advice on whatever it is you're doing. Once again, welcome back.

Doing magery so i guess tailoring would be good so trying to figure out what other stats ill need to be self sufficient

Ok, a good "mage" set up.. hmm. I don't know I haven't really done any mysticism yet. It's been out for a while, and while I do think it's pretty cool to see an RC rocking and rolling things up and down the block, I just never leveled it up. But I do have a 120 mage/eval/scribe with resisting spells and spellweaving and for standalone, it does alright, but a better build would probably be drop that scribe and resisting off and pick up animal taming and animal lore.. train it up to about 80, and slap a couple of +15 taming jewels with fc 1 fcr 3 and slide a little spell damage increase on them and viola, you'll be stomping stuff down pretty quick, and be on your way to making some gold.. the reason I suggest the 110 approach is, people almost giving them away and it's a lot faster than it sounds. I made a tamer from scratch and did this same thing and when I got to a point where gold was decent enough I sat down and made him the suit he's still wearing to this day and added some real necro skill (like 20) and carry a necro book with necro skill on it, and a bloodwood totem for the extra bump in necro to get into wraith form, then switch back to slayer spell book or scrappers. Spellweaving is an amazingly helpful skill to have, word of death even with no spell damage increase in wraith form is basically your ticket to winning on peerless bosses.. just keep pet alive til it gets within range of word of death and then start zapping it.. you'll keep your mana to about full this way, and if you did like I said with fc 1 and fcr 3 jewels you can do it quickly enough to keep it from spamming healing spells on itself to survive your onslaught.

 But it's whatever you decide in the end.

Edited to Don't disagree with anything already said but adjust to fit your play style. What works for one player may not be the best fit for the next.

As to the rest of my original post Never mind (rereading it I can help think I am getting to be an old fart)
Playing since 2000 and still finding new things to do.

Thanks for the replies ive made a mage with tailoring but also made a gathering alt and crafting alt that i guess ill dev into later i need a house for xfers but that will come in time