OT: Sacred 2

Yea, I remember being very hyped for this, especially since it has Blind Guardian in it. Sadly, I didn't really enjoy any of the Sacred games as much as I did D2. Maybe I should give it another whirl, after being very disappointed with the little bit of Diablo 3 Blizzard let me play for free. Also, I just noticed that Sacred 3 is around the corner, so maybe that'll be good, who knows?

Edit: Some research on Sacred 3 saves me 50€
https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/a-few-quick-words-on-sacred-3
 
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Maybe if you played Sacred 2 only when it was just released, and it used to have a lot of bugs and problems as I have heard. But then you take the newest patch + Ice & Blood Expansion + and then apply community patch , it is a damn solid game. It really is.

Pity about 'sacred 3' though.
 
zaphodbrx said:
Blind Guardian's Sacred Worlds song is the reason I keep coming back to the game. IMO this is among the best songs I have ever listened to, but its more than that. Sacred worlds is not just there, it provides a lietmotif for the game. It appears in the intro video, various bards play parts of the song in towns, even orcs 'sing' it ( very badly ). I also love the Instrumental version that plays in the main screen.

Apart from that the music is just great. Every character class has its own music, same with every region/ area, it feels really cool. they really put a lot of effort into little things, that's why I love the game.

The realm's .. bleeding
It suffers.. old and weak
No further arguing there is.. war at hand
System's failing!
Engines running

And now that all can sense the end is dawning
These lunatics deny the truth!
And I know I will not fail.. anymore

War! It's now or never
We shall stand together
One by one
This world is SACRED!

I'm coming home!

...

I'm bleeding, I'm fading,
Here in my final hour
When long lost memories.. return
And a voice is calling..
All is dead and gone..

..
Click to expand...


As I said....never bothered with Sacred 2, esp not after I kept losing my horse in Sacred 1. I did like how they made the world in Sacred 1 though, beautiful looking, varied, big - just not enough town portals and if you tried to cut corners with a horse, the monsters popped back up and killed your horse and for some reason horses were not refreshed at the shops so I ran out, as most I couldn't use at all.

I seen that Blind Guardian song performed live, now that was quite awesome.
 
Yea, just a glance at any one of them is quite enough, really. Personally, I usually go with total biscuit because his honest gamer rage is kinda funny. The funny thing is, if I hadn't fallen for a preorder scam at least once before, I might have actually preordered sacred 3 because it doesn't look that bad on screenshots. You might mistake it for a real sequel, which I'm almost sure, is what they had in mind :D
 
Yeah, "Sacred 3" is a transparent attempt to grab some cash based on a brand name. Diablo 3 was the same, just a lot less obvious .
 
I completed the bronze campaign on my first hardcore character today - a BFG seraphim ( pic )

Pretty strong character. I opted to start on bronze first rather than going directly to silver because silver is more dangerous. Even bronze is dangerous. When you can not afford to die at all, one has a different way of looking at things.

This character was also used to get the "Dedicated" achievement- playing through the campaign without exploring more than 20% of the map. This is harder than it seems- you really have to focus on the main quest and ignore almost everything else that isn't already on the pathways of the main quest.. I finished leaving a little to spare and got the achievement ( 17.4% explored ). Hence the name of the character is apt "Dedicated".

One annoying thing about HC sacred 2 is that the shared stash is same for HC and SC. This sucks imo, no other game has this. For this HC character I decided not to use the shared stash at all, as I am not a fan of muling between HC/SC.
 
Congrats zaphodbrx. I recently got it from GOG for 20 bucks, and it's pretty entertaining. I'm playing silver difficulty with an ice-based High Elf (level 37) and a multishot-based Dryad (level 50), both feel quite OP, although they both did die a couple of times. The game is pretty stable with the latest patch, though it crashes sometimes when opening the world map or teleporting to another area. I would definitely recommend trying it, it's great value for money.
 
Regarding the crashes, I found an easy way to solve it.

Just set the graphics to the lowest level.

The game still looks extremely good ( obviously not as good as high graphics ), it runs smoothly and without lag ( important on my laptop ) and I haven't experienced any crash since then ( or very few ).

P.S. By latest patch I hope you mean community patch for Ice & Blood? Because that is really good.
 
So I finished the light campaign on silver with a dual wield seraphim (level 60). Self-found, almost full level 60 Niokaste set (lacking the wristguards). Didn't die once and got the survivalist achievement. The last act of the campaign is very good imo, very short and tough, not grinding through hordes of high HP monsters like in other games.

I will probably take a break now (more than 40 hours into that character) and then respec and finish my Dryad. She had eaten way too many runes before I figured out how the skill system works in this game.
 
Almost in spite of itself this kind of game seems to be going through a bit of a rebirth. Path of Exile is good even though it seems to be explicitly built around the worst of battle.net, and the TQ developers have Grim Dawn out as an alpha or maybe beta by now that looks pretty interesting.
 
JihadJesus said:
Almost in spite of itself this kind of game seems to be going through a bit of a rebirth. Path of Exile is good even though it seems to be explicitly built around the worst of battle.net, and the TQ developers have Grim Dawn out as an alpha or maybe beta by now that looks pretty interesting.
Click to expand...
What do you mean by what you said about PoE?
 
I'm playing this game these days. After improving my first Seraphim (Archangel Wrath + Radiant Pillar + Flare Nova hybrid of some kind), now I'm farming last bosses with her on Gold difficulty. She is level 61 currently which is probably too high for Gold difficulty since bosses can hardly damage me with lifesteal and stuff, but I want to level her up to 75 before going to Platinum to get mastery skills. In one day improved her chance to hit bosses from 55% to 100+%, so farming gear is going very fast now.

Started new Seraphim, this one will be dual wield pelting strikes + radiant pillar hybrid, and 1 point Archangel Wrath for kicks. I'm enjoying her style for now, she is really slashing through enemies so far. Difference compared to first Seraphim will be also in Enchanted Perception skill, I'm planning on taking this skill and mastering it before level 85 to get better drops. It seems to me that this character will be mad boss killer. Comparing to Archangel Wrath skill, damage output with Pelting Strikes might be similar per hit, but she hits like 3 times faster. If I'm able to kill main boss in 20 secs with not perfectly geared AW Seraphim, this one might kill him inside 10 secs with similar gear.

Only thing I kinda miss is Energy Shield which seems fun to use, but I'm not planning on taking it on any Seraphim so far. That pretty much means I have to use Concentration Skill and probably Warding Energy Lore in combo, and I'm not willing to assign 2 skill slots just for that. I'm even less inclined to use it since Divine Protection is free Shield whenever you need it, with only 60 sec coldoown on it. Energy Shield seems like skill that makes you invincible, but I think you can be tough enough without it and with Divine Protection backup, so I think you can profit more with going for Perception or more damage output. However I didn't yet experience Niob difficulty so can't say how safe can you feel there. I mean I would say they will either 1 shot you or they won't kill you at all. 100% chance to hit + lifesteal = pretty instant full hp. It's even less likely to be killed if you use Divine Protection skill, and if you can kill stuff in few seconds, even bosses... You can probably kill them before they even touch you, let alone kill your shield.

Special mention to life leech %. Without it it's world of difference. Not that much against monsters, but it is against bosses. I've found weapon Kal'dur's Legacy. Just take a look at that mad weapon, and imagine now you dual wield that thing. Insane damage, insane staying power. I think this and another sword are the only one % life leech one-handed weapons in the game along with random stars? Only two handed stuff drops such mod. For those who might read this thread and not having much knowledge about Sacred 2, % leech life from opponents in Sacred works totally different than in Diablo. In Sacred 2 it offers unresisted! damage, it takes x% life from opponents and heals same amount to you. Yes, you read it well. This means with 5% life leech it takes 20 hits to kill boss if we ignore any other damage and regenerations. Pelting Strikes hit things like 2-3 times per second for example, so calculate how fast can you kill any boss in the game with just this mod alone, even if its like 3% instead of 5% since you deal your own damage as well.

Anyway perhaps that mod alone is killing the purpose of the game because it grants too much staying power (unless you play for grinding like I do). But even without it I somehow think you can still kill bosses before they properly damage you.

There are certain skills I find too good to pass for any character out there.
1. Armor Lore is fantastic, I can't really imagine playing the game without that skill. It improves chars in so many ways.
2. Constitution. HP bonus is really nice, but I'm really wondering how it is to have in-battle HP regen on mastery level. Seems incredibly strong skill to have. Now I'm using in-battle regen from Hallowed Restoration and it's damn strong thing. If I can have constant regen like that with any char, AND use it in combo with restoration skill...
3. Combat Discipline. Hey, 10% free regen time and ability to use combos. It's so useful, I'm always using combos. Also improves damage, what else to ask for.

On new Seraphim I'll try Toughness along with Armor Lore for mad resistances. Damage mitigation is always welcome.
 
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In platinum and Niob your main problem is gonna be levels. It gets slower and slower to level later on while enemy min levels shoot up dramatically.

Niob mobs are minimum level 112. I finished Platinum at lvl 77. You can't proceed much when enemies are all in deep purple. Not very fun.

Other option is doing quests in Platinum to get levels up. I did all but one of the community patch quests ( which btw you should get the CP ), and still only got to lvl 80. Keep in mind I was playing Dryad with alchemy boosted mentor pots permanently on ( +50% exp ) and still took like 1.5 hours to get from lvl 79 to 80. Supposedly it gets even worse after lvl 100- massive drop in exp.

If farming and grinding is your thing then you might make it. I just don't have the time or inclination for it these days. There isn't even any reward or achievement for completing Niob. The only achievement I still have to get is the one for 80% map coverage. And you can do that at any difficulty.
 
I must say, I'm really enjoying developing characters, that's mostly what makes game interesting to me. I like the fact this game is much more complex than Diablo, and just last week I compared some mods on rings to see what benefit me more for my char. I like that game is not so explored in detail, there are like tons of viable builds. Very nice natural enviroment is also huge bonus for the game. Sometimes I go in that crystal region just to enjoy the environment with killing mobs around.

That satisfaction when you get nice small thing to improve your gear is priceless.
I can see levels being problem later, sure. There are certain areas in the game where you gain XP rather fast, depending on your build. That south-east part of Swamp is super full with monsters, you just do circles, pull tons of mobs on you and kill then with aoe. Single circle takes like 8 minutes and it fills xp bar almost at half on level 60 for example. Unfortunately I don't really have that good AOE skills to deal with creeps super fast. Generally rerunning crowded areas are fastest way to gain xp, unless you can beat final bosses very fast for them to be better targets due to mad item drops. It takes 2 runs to have full inventory to sell stuff, and run takes like 6-10 mins, depending on gear. So every 12-20 minutes full inventory of goodies just like that.

For some characters that orc cave toward noth is great source of both xp and items, but I usually find them to be too dangerous to deal with comfortably. They can't do a thing to you for 10 runs, and then on 11th run they almost kill you instantly. Happened so many times.

Grunwald area is crowded... some parts of jungle and dryad island, even though I don't really like those areas. Annoying creeps there. Sometimes I go crystal region, it is also pretty crowded area toward middle and south section (there is also boss which respawns sometimes, but I'm not sure about conditions when that happens, he respawns once when you leave his area via teleport and come back on foot, sometimes not, but he never respawns for the second time for whatever reason).

That's pretty much it, areas where I gain my xp fastest.
 
I am almost sure I'll buy the Gold version. Just one question: how do you control the camera angle and zoom?
 
Easy: scroll wheel to zoom / adjust camera angle, A and D keys to rotate. At min zoom the visibility range and camera angle are pretty much like D2. You need to rotate sometimes in order to see enemies covering behind walls etc. You can also choose to auto-rotate based on the direction your character is going (shoulder perspective) but I don't like it.
 
I like developing characters too, and I don't like the 'endgame' very much. I would rather suggest making new characters instead. Temple guardian and Inquisitor are very hard to play. Also HC is another option.

Twinking is very useful. You can buy runes from Niob or Platinum runemaster and pass them over to silver or gold characters. Same with items to some extent. You can do SC->HC transfers as well as the game basically permits you to do so. Although I finished bronze HC without doing that.

As far as DPS characters go there are two types of useful rings: Flat damage rings and RPH rings. These also make the best socketables. Rest all is mostly crap ( including all uniques ). You can buy rings from shops. Some people even get bargaining skill and make dedicated 'shoppers'.

In the South East swamp area there are too many spitting spiders and undead and that's why I don't like it generally. One character that's amazing there is High Elf with her AOE firestorm skill. Clears out everything real fast, the mobs there are also weak to fire. Also I wonder how you do boss 'runs' ? In free play multiplayer mode? Because bosses don't respawn in Single player.

But then I am not really into shopping, farming and so on anymore. What I mainly enjoyed was questing. Perhaps I'll continue my HC BFG seraphim and see if I can beat platinum w/o dying. That might get me back into the game! not played for 6 months.
 
Part of Swamp I had in mind is this, and this is how to clear it up:

AXheTI0.jpg


It's great because there are no undead in this parts, only spiders, werewolves and turtles. Carry higher poison resistance cause of spiders and so on. Once you get used to clearing this area, it will be great leveling area because mob density is among highest in the game.

Also some time ago I discovered this fantastic cave. No one is even mentioning this cave, everyone is hyped about Orc cave too much. Since there is Orc cave, I guess this can be named Goblin cave. It's easy to find, just follow the road up to that shopper that is in the middle of nowhere, and from him just proceed going to the mountains. It's one narrow passage there. You will get straight to entrance to this larger cave, but we are interested only for its entrance pretty much. You can naturally reach it faster from that portal to the north of cave and shopper.

IZSl38W.jpg


There is stable spawn of 5 champions at very entrance of the cave. Unlike Orc cave, this one is pretty safe to farm. You can level up very fast there since you are constantly killing 5 champions at rate once in... 30-40 secs. Not to mention how fast you farm actually, it's fastest farming place in game I know off, even faster than Orc cave since there you kill 4 orc champions, and here you kill 5 champions + random champion rat spawns there as well. It takes me pretty much 7 minutes to get full inventory of stuff to sell, which is 5-6 minutes faster than rerunning final bosses at this point.

Then you go to that alone shopper down the mountain, sell stuff and get back to cave to farm more. It's crazy spot, try it out and let me know do you like it. Leveling should go pretty fast there. I get there with level 20+ char, and after that my farming and leveling is going like crazy.

As for rerunning bosses, it's free playing multiplayer mod. There you can kill anything you want on map.
 
I've compared so called "Orc Cave" with this "Goblin Cave" I talked about. And its even more confusing to me how this cave is nowhere mentioned. Let's compare them.

Experience gain: They offer very similar xp. In Orc cave you kill 2 spiders + 4 orcs, here you kill 1 orc, 4 goblins and goblin shaman + occasional rats that spawn there and can become champions. Overall I would say Goblin Cave offers slightly more xp gain over time (even without rats champions), but I didn't test it too much, I've just compared xp gain per run since they are similarly fast to run.

Drops: I can't really be sure since I don't know do orcs and goblins drop similarly rare items. But going with logic that both caves are not too far apart and they share same champion, then if we compare that in Goblin Cave we kill 5 champions compared to 4 in Orc Cave, I would say Goblin Cave wins in drop department hands down. Really, that cave is just mad place for farming.

Safety: Goblin Cave is much safer to run. Orcs hit very hard from time to time, and here you are almost two times safer since goblins are rather weak compared to orcs.

Overall I don't really understand how is this cave nowhere to be seen, it seems considerably better place for farming than famous Orc Cave.
 
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