OT: Sacred 2

@felixbavaria: Yeah, I knew about the rune exchanging (thankfully before I started to sell runes for other classes for almost nothing...). That quest is now solved and I made some runes for CAs I want to use.

@zaphodbrx: 'Pick up all' is great. I have remapped 1-6 to potions, though (I've played the Diablo games too much to have anything else) and the CA buttons to Z, F, E and R (in that order).


Question: Some armor pieces have a listed 'speed' penalty. Is this tied to run speed or to attack speed?
EDIT: found it. It's weapon speed for weapons and run speed for armor items. And it's tied to item level vs. character level. There is a penalty if item level > character level. So an otherwise great item that I didn't like because of a speed penalty may be useful later when I have levelled up more. Geez, this gets more and more complicated...

Another question: I think the 'Armor' ability is a flat number damage reduction. Is this correct? And only those armor pieces with actual listed Defense will improve my chance of not getting hit?
EDIT: found some more info on this on the wiki. Ah, it's not a flat reduction, it's a value that is used in a calculation. If I have the same physical Armor value as the amount of physical damage I get hit with, I'll take 58% of that damage. Diminishing returns if Armor>>Damage. That's a clever way to do it, so it won't be reduced to zero too easily.



Going great now. Found a much better blowpipe for sale, and I currently run both Sinister Predator and Ancient Bark (just unlocked Constitution) with still not too bad regeneration times for my attacking CAs. Plain Attack is still the bread and butter and that goes a long way now. Feels like I am currently way ahead of the opposition. I'll enjoy that while it lasts.

I also feel like I am the Sloeford police force. :)

Oh, one more question: my blowpipe now does part poison damage (I also see green stuff dripping from it, which looks cool) but I can't see anything about it or on my other gear that suggests why this is happening (and I haven't put anything in a socket). Any idea where the poison damage comes from?
 
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The poison dmg is coming from your blowpipe, which most if not all blowpipes naturally have.

Just check your damage bar. It will be partly yellow ( physical ), partly green ( poison )
 
Question: Some armor pieces have a listed 'speed' penalty. Is this tied to run speed or to attack speed?
EDIT: found it. It's weapon speed for weapons and run speed for armor items. And it's tied to item level vs. character level. There is a penalty if item level > character level. So an otherwise great item that I didn't like because of a speed penalty may be useful later when I have levelled up more. Geez, this gets more and more complicated...
Armour Lore will reduce the CA regen speed penalty for armour above your level, as well as increasing the max level of armour you can use without incurring a movement speed penalty. The relevant weapon skill does the same for weapons, so putting points in Ranged Weapons will increase the max level of ranged weapon you can use without getting a penalty to attack speed. For a BFG Seraphim, this, along with the +Ranged Weapons bonus from BFG, makes it easy to use a much higher level BFG weapon & do insane damage (especially if you cast BFG while wearing gear that adds to the level of your BFG CA).

Oh, one more question: my blowpipe now does part poison damage (I also see green stuff dripping from it, which looks cool) but I can't see anything about it or on my other gear that suggests why this is happening (and I haven't put anything in a socket). Any idea where the poison damage comes from?
Some weapons have elemental damage as part of the base damage of the weapon, if you then socket an elemental damage converter thing into the weapon, all of that original elemental damage will be converted to the "new" damage type along with the stated % of physical damage.
Some CAs will then also convert damage to a specific element (to further complicate things).

IIRC, blowpipes are instant-hit weapons, so a decent blowpipe with enough regen per hit & Darting Assault will do ridiculous amounts of damage in a very short time. As the attack hits instantly (due to the weapon) the RpH is immediately applied to the CA cooldown & as long as you have enough RpH you can continue to spam Darting Assault (or any other attack to be honest, but DA has 3-4 projectiles which reduces the amount of RpH you need from your gear).
 
The poison dmg is coming from your blowpipe, which most if not all blowpipes naturally have.

Just check your damage bar. It will be partly yellow ( physical ), partly green ( poison )


Yes, I noticed the damage bar, but I did not understand that the poison is a natural ability on the weapon that is not mentioned in any other way. My old blowpipe was all physical.

Thanks for the explanation. That goes for you too, Llama8. Armor Lore will be unlocked in the near future, I think.
 
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(No questions this time, just some ramblings)


The world really is HUGE! 10.5 hours in I had revealed 1.4% of the map...
(of course, that was exceptionally slow because I had so much to learn about everything)

Favourite NPC so far: the bard in Sloeford. He's awesome.


I am generally uncomfortable at the very beginning of a dungeon. I am disoriented and have no space to fall back on. The most exciting fight I've won this far is in a wine cellar with rats and skeletons. One of the few times I've needed healing potions.

For the first time, I've had to back off from a quest: the kobold chieftain. I could not overcome his fast regeneration (never got him down below 85%) because I often had to take some time off from attacking in order to stay alive. Well, it IS a 4 stars difficulty quest...
Looks like he resists mostly physical, and a little fire. I'm going to try an ice converted weapon next time, because I have some items that boosts that type of damage. I also think I need to bring down the regeneration time for my Tangled Vine*, so I can cast a new one at least almost right after the other. He still throws rocks when he's entangled, but they are fairly easy to dodge.

* That will have to wait at least until level 25. I am level 15 now, and the next skill will go to Armor Lore and then at 25, I will open up Nature Weaver Focus and pump it quite a bit.
 
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The kobold chieftain is kind of weird. You see, you can never defeat him if you approach him at the same level. But the catch is, the first time he spawns lets say if you go there at lvl 5, he'll be around lvl 5. Then leave it and come back later at lvl 20 and he'll still be lvl 5 ( saved games/ breaks doesn't matter ). Then beat him.
 
You should be able to defeat him at your level if you are able to spam Ravaged Impact (concentration pots, concentration skill, regeneration per hit, chance to halve regeneration time, etc.) I did it with a few characters at around level 10 (on silver), Dryad was tough but doable. Fire elf was impossible, for example. Easiest was with dual wield Seraphim and melee elf.
 
So fellows, what are the hardest opponents you faced so far?

I didn't face some bosses yet, but I plan on facing them all on higher difficulty seeking for challenge. From those I did face, there are some troublesome I believe at higher difficulty. I didn't go beyond Gold, and Gold supposed to be "easy" compared to Platinum and Niobium. Anyway.

For starting players, Gahanka that mountain troll and first boss Gar's Colossus might be strong, until you figure out how to battle them. I remember Colossus 1-shotted me with stone, and I was like "wat" back then.

Garganthropod
I didn't have problems with him yet, but I can see he can be problematic for melee characters. He did quite much damage randomly when I faced him with melee Seraphim. I believe he can be very dangerous on Niobium. Also very easy opponent for any ranged character who can outrun him or slow him down. He didn't lay a finger on my ice elf on Silver and Gold so far, also I just shot him with Archangel Wrath with that Seraphim from distance until he died.

Forest Guardian
Dat healing spell of his! You just think he will fall, and he heals himself. Luckily that spell has certain cooldown, so you do have some time to kill him. But overall annoying opponent. If he has some decent regen and resistances on higher difficulties, he can be quite strong opponent to face. Not that strong as much as he is hard to kill then.

4.th Nameless Guardian
Only one worth mentioning since he is stronger than other 3, but still nothing strong. He can hit hard, but from what I see, he pretty much does nothing but hit. Lure him away from machine and he won't have energy shield protection. I put him as potentially dangerous since with critical he can probably 2 shot some character with regular attack? Who knows. Otherwise easy to kill just like other 3 Guardians.

Narmul the Phoenix
By far strongest opponent I faced in Sacred. Much stronger than any main quest boss I would say. You are forced to pay close attention on his spells and his spell to drag opponent to him can be quite devastating for casters like I found out.

Abishai of Dissension
I didn't face that thing yet, but I'm looking forward to do so. I mention him because he seems to be feared among players as probably strongest thing you can battle against in Sacred with 1-shot-killing potential, debuffing stuff and so on. Honestly sounds stronger than Narmul, but we shall see about that when I get there in time.
 
If you're going to socket an elemental converter, magic is probably a better element to use, since magic damage (the elemental type) has a chance to weaken the enemy which reduces their attributes by 20% for a short duration, whereas ice will "only" apply a 25% attack & movement speed debuff to the target. Also, damage that has been converted to another element is only boosted by +physical damage (since the conversion is done after all bonuses are applied).

As Felix said, spamming your high damage CAs is the best way to kill him, rather than trying to use CC (unless you can stunlock him).

Combat in S2 is, in a way, broken, as certain item mods are incredibly powerful, +% life leech, the cannot evade/dodge, deathbow (to a lesser extent) & regen per hit all provide such a large increase to your killing power, either directly, or by keeping you alive.
 
ROFL! This could not have been more spot on:

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@Llama8: I do have a decent magic damage blowgun now as an option. I will stick with my original plan, though.
I need to practice with my Vine and quick hotkey switching. Plus it's a roleplay issue. Not knowing anything about the game, I had a vision how I wanted my character to play. Sneak up on critters and gun them down with my bow (OK, blowgun...) and use Vines on bosses while I pelt them from afar.
(In most areas, monsters swarm a little too much for that to work, so I've deviated quite a bit already.)

Also, is there a setting that slows down monster respawning to, like, 1/20 of what it is currently? Ideally, I would not want them to respawn at all within a game session.

If I do defeat the kobold chieftain, I would really like to read a scroll of genocide for kobolds after that (NetHack players will understand).
 
Just for your information: The developement crew behind Sacred/Sacred2 is working on a new ARPG. It's still in conceptual/pre-production stage, though, thus informations are still a bit thin. Due to the old publisher having acquired the rights on the name Sacred, the game is called Unbended. 'til then...
 
Yeah.. Abhishai is definitely toughest boss. Hits really hard and slows/stuns you so you need some escape mechanism, and also I think he regenerates hp ( or shield ). I beat him with Sera on silver though..

Plus the entire quest to reach him is incredibly long, and the cursed forest area is kinda hard. Not just for the tough enemies, but also the psychological factor, sounds, atmosphere etc. very creepy.

Also, honourable mention for Xanthiar as far as Quest bosses go. Gar-Colossus too if you go there with low level character.
 
I have started Dryad for the first time. She is also first char I'm going shadow path with and having shadow god. Plan is to make Darting Assault beast using two buffs and supporting spells from Natural Weaver aspect for maximum healing effect.

I'm not sure about some things for her. I wonder is Ranged Weapons skill very useful for her, or is Combat Discipline better? Plan is this:

Tactics Lore
Capricious Hunter Focus
Natural Weaver Focus
Natural Weaver Lore
Concentration
Combat Reflexes
Armor Lore
Constitution
Enhanced Perception
Combat Discipline / Ranged Weapons

I really want to have Perception on her, so I have to pick what to toss out of mentioned skills. Natural Weaver Lore I figure out will actually boost me quite nicely for buff and healing so ruled that out of consideration. Constitution another possibility, but since I focus on healing, having more HP and in-battle regen is something I definitely don't want to miss, especially since I put all the points to Dexterity.

So, choice is between last two skills. Combat Discipline seems to be boosting damage output quite nicely for my two damage skills and lowers regen time as a bonus. Ranged Weapons on the other hand provide IAS which doesn't seem that useful, some attack bonus which could be nice to have, and I could use higher level item without penalty. Overall it seems to me that Ranged Weapons is not really necessary to have and C.D. seems to offer more. I build char following one guide, but even there is not clear what to throw out to put Perception in. One guy made char without R.W. and it seems to be working for him, and other guys said it is better to leave out Combat Discipline...

So, what to leave out in the end?
 
Depending on how what difficulty you had planned to play in, you'll need the attack bonus from Ranged Weapons. Desperately so, as it's simply not enough to get your attack rate up via items alone later on. Personally, unless playing hard core, I'd let go of combat reflexes and take both CD and RW.
 
Kobold chieftain is now defeated, yay! He was actually the same level as me, 25.
Level 25 marked a great change for this character, because she got her Nature Weaver Focus, and enough points in it to do 4 modifications right away. I pumped up Vines and G-Touch a bit and put these two in a combo. 12.9 seconds needed between castings of that combo, where the Vines last 7.5 seconds and G-Touch 12 seconds. Almost 300 hp regeneration per second while it runs.

Better pipe than last time, with a good potion of Magic damage. Thanks for the tip about the yellow potions, btw, that helped quite a bit. Now I could have about my every third-fourth shot be a Ravaged Impact. It wasn't a perfect performance, but good enough, and I got to fight the way I prefer. As a ranged attacker, a woman and a Dryad, I HATE being touched by ugly oafs!


Now I have another arch enemy, a white griffin. Nabbed about 1/3 of my life per hit (I had forgotten Ancient Bark, so it's probably a little less bad with that running) and I felt it was best to flee for the time being. I did not even have time to see what damage type would work best against it.


Some questions:
- I have not found any shrunked heads that I have deemed worth wearing. The little armor (and sometimes Defense) boost is not worth 4-5% added regeneration time. Maybe I should have kept a really low-level head? I do not see any use for these for a non-Voodoo Dryad. Is this a correct assumption? Also, do the other character classes have a third amulet slot instead?
- What do potions of undead death do? Chance to banish undead, how?
 
@ Silverfang
That would be great, but unfortunately I must pick one of "less favorable" defensive skills to unlock Armor Lore and Constitution. It was choice between Combat Reflexes and Spell Resistance, and since I don't really appreciate Resistance, I took Combat Reflexes as more useful, pumping 5 points to it just to unlock Armor Lore and Constitution. Unfortunately Dryad is only character that has Armor Lore as secondary skill.

Another thing I didn't consider, Ranged Weapons might unlock some stuff on ranged weapons, perhaps. I could go without Combat Discipline if I would use lifeleech % that will do most of the damage output on bosses anyway, but I hoped to avoid using that overpowered thing.

@ jiansonz

Those heads can be nice, you just wasn't lucky to get a nice one yet. I also don't use any for now since I didn't get anything nice so far. Also seems to me those heads do nothing but boost stats and give mods to non-voodoo dryad. Armor piece like any other.

High Elf has 2 amulet slots and 4 ring slots for example, while Seraphim has only 2 ring slots and 1 amulet slot, but uses more armor pieces than Dryad and High Elf.

Some undead have a chance to return to life, so you have to kill them twice, some of them even more times than that. Potion increases chance that undead won't return to life and that you will kill him permanently. I never used those potions, but in general I avoid killing undead unless it's for quest.
 
News regarding my dryad:
I did fast leveling thing solving The Unholy Crusade quest in free play mode over and over again. Shopped few regen per hit rings, and now Darting Assault is constantly firing killing everything on sight. This method of leveling is insanely fast, got 2 levels in 10 minutes of playing before level 20 with only 30% bonus experience (+50% mentor pots, but used them only in some occasions). Also guy gives set pieces every third time, so farmed some set items for dryad along the way.

Did same thing for pyro elf for who I shopped leveling gear with level 2 shopper (well, I shopped for much more than that, it was along the way to check leveling gear). This experimental pyro elf left first town with +95% experience and +75% fire damage gear on level 1. Everything died in one blow from Blazing Tempest except champions. Took me 3 hours 18 minutes to level up to level 35 solving Unholy Crusade quests. It can be done in less than 3 hours if you totally ignore main quest and rush for unique mount instead. Also it's possible to leave first town with 130%+ experience gain, but takes too long to shop for such items. I decided to do shopper out of her out of curiosity what can I get at level 35 from shops. Seems nice for fast farming rings to socket freely in equipment with other characters.
 
@ Silverfang
That would be great, but unfortunately I must pick one of "less favorable" defensive skills to unlock Armor Lore and Constitution. It was choice between Combat Reflexes and Spell Resistance, and since I don't really appreciate Resistance, I took Combat Reflexes as more useful, pumping 5 points to it just to unlock Armor Lore and Constitution. Unfortunately Dryad is only character that has Armor Lore as secondary skill.
Ok... that I'd forgotten. My last Dryad was a few years in the past ^^. Sorry 'bout that...
 
Gripphon: this is my dryad build after completing platinum.

Could have got alchemy earlier. Damn good skill.
Never a fan of enhanced perception sorry. You can find stuff just as well without it.

 
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