Thorin Oakshield

As said, screenshots of my current build: And to end the confusion: This character is currently in SILVER, not Platinum. Thorin

Since I've edited my first post with the new build, I'll explain here. My mastery goals in that build were Tactics (level 50), DW (level 51), Toughness (level 26) and Constitution (level 10). I ignored Armor (lvl8), EWF (lvl9), RTL (lvl8) and CR (lvl8) to makes sure that each and every of the main skills was on par with my level. As a result, I entered platinum with a level 39 char, having too low amounts of points into the other skills, resulting in a +150% armour penalty when using level 45 Niokaste's Set items. Combine that with a low level EWF and it'll give me a much higher regen on below level 10 CA's as it has to be. The downside of all of this, was also that the armor didn't offer the maxium defence it should offer as AL was too low. Sure, using the Holy Protection Cuiras helps a lot, however if the skill meant to improve the resistances is too low, having high protection on the armor is just as useless as having the engine of a VW Beetle in a F1 car. It gets you somewhere, but it won't get you there in the way you want to. You won't notice much about this problem in Silver and Gold, but in Platinum with a 22 level difference between me and the monsters, it did. And very painfully as well. That's why I revised my build and for now it's working a lot better as the previous one; even despite it's in silver. One of the things I noticed is that keeping your DW on par with your level will keep your attack speed at 150%, however, when you skip a level chances are the attack speed still is at 150%. So there's no need to put points in that skill if you're doing maximum speed already. Same with AL; it's nice to have the regen penalty below 100%; however, you won't note the difference between 97% and full resistances and 100% and some lower resistances if you make sure you're able to compensate with another skill. Same with EWF; having a 1-2s regen is fine when using the single CA, however when using some of the CA's in combo with Flaring Nova, making sure your regen is close to or just below the regen of the CA having the highest one, will do. Especially when putting RpH items into your weapons. As for the build, at the moment I got TL and AL at 20, DW and EWF at 10 and RTL, Cons and CR at 9. I'm nearing level 30; in the desert area, just switched to the level 30 Niokaste's and level 35 Holy Protection, so at next level I'll bring RTL and CR at level 10, while starting to put points into TL, AL, DW and Cons to bring those equal to char level. I'll do some screenshots with both hard and soft points and including the sigma overview tomorrow before heading off to find the scroll of fire. Thorin

Thanks for the tip, Hooyaah. Looks like I got some jumping back and forth to do. I tried that with my previous attempt and it didn't work out, Androdion. There's a big difference between rushing through difficulties or exploring / questing a difficulty. With the focus at a few skills I got problems when facing Numonuil and the guardians near the end of Gold level. With a more balanced set up I got problems with several quest bosses in Platinum. It's no use to have a 150% attack speed and doing maximum damage, if your armor's regenpenalty is 150+% and some defences are near zero because there's only one point invested in them. So right now I'm hoping to turn the things around by setting up a leveled character in Silver and Gold and focussing at the prime skills as soon as that's done. I hope that having focussed at some of the defensive skills, I will be able to survive longer, despite doing less damage until the point I'm able to do more and faster damage. Thorin

I was pretty sure I needed more levels; however if your opponents level up just as fast as you do, the difference remains 22 levels. Meaning they would be able to one shot me no matter how many levels I gained. Especially when SB kicked in, as that seems to increase levels faster when you reach higher difficulties. Anyway..... Being stubborn and all that , I decided to give it another go. One of the things I wondered about after looking at the build, was the order I picked my skills. In most of my games I'm an "agressive" player; meaning I go for offense first and think about defense later. Usually after I've seen my char die a bit too often. So what I did was revise my skills, change the order and the allocation of the skill points and start over. Right now the build works out better as it is a bit more balanced. Most important change is to move Armor Lore up and making sure I won't suffer from its influence at CA regen as it did the previous attempt; in which I had over 150% regen penalty at some point. And even with many RpH rings smithed into weapon sockets, the regen of my CA was way too high. So, this is how the build is planned to look right now: 1) Tactics Lore: Aiming for mastering after having most skills at level 20 2)Armor Lore: Keep it high enough to remove the armor regen penalty 3) Dual Wield: Equal to level until mastered 4) Exalted Warrior Focus 5) Revered Technology Lore 6) Constitution: Aiming for mastery after having most skills at level 20 7) Combat Reflexes 8) Concentration 9) Revered Technology Focus 10) Warding Energy: To boost the shield(s) Atribute point allocation: With constitution chosen pretty late, I decided to drop the atribute points in Stamina, Vitality and Willpower in a 30 / 40 / 30% rate. Chosen Combat Arts and their modifications: 1) Battle Stance: The must have Buff for any Melee Seraphim. Premonition, Drill and Retaliation are chosen as upgrades 1a) Warding Energy: The second buff. Currently considering Field Force, Magic Mirror, Block. 2) Pelting Strikes: Upgraded with Succession, Focus and Precission 3) Assailing Somersault: Upgraded with Athletic, Impetus and Concussion 4) Flaring Nova: Upgraded with impulse, Stun and Laggard 5) Divine Protection: Modded with Capacity, Boost and Improved Mirror. I will start using this CA only after I managed to get the regen time lower as the duration. 6) Combo 1) Flaring Nova + Pelting Strikes 7) Combo 2) Assailing Somersault + Pelting Strikes Equipment: Niokaste's Blade Dance as primary armor, with the Holy Protection cuiras as body armor as it has amazing resistance stats. Since a Seraphim has 9 armour slots, I decided to smith all three Blacksmith arts equally into the used armor. By doing that I will increase damage done, chance for crits, armor and defence values etc. With the Niokaste's Set having 2 sockets on each piece, I started with smithing runes in the other socket and change that into rings / amulets giving migitatioin, DoT reduction, Opponents chance to wound reduction etc over time. For the Holy Protection, I will add a RpH or a +x skill ring combined with the amulets and Blacksmith arts. Weapon slot 1: Bone Blade of Zhurag-Nar + Parashu (Crypt Raiders) or Ghoul Blade (Flesh Eaters) Weapon slot 2: Dual Seresish Steel of Thunder Weapon slot 3: Nikotaste's Stinger + Boneslicer / Huntress of Light / Holy Wrath or any weapon doing lots of damage and having Magical damage as well. Weapon slot 4: Ysandryfa's Law / Ragno's Slayer and (legendary) Kal'dur's Legacy Weapon slot 5: Free choice weapon. At some point I may use this slot for a bow to "fight" the Great Machine Egg or equip Light Sabers in it. Each slot has at least one weapon with a ring doing RpH to keep the regentimes of the CA's lower. I'm also using the pearls, fangs etc to boost the elemental damage of the weapons; hoping to be able to do DoT on my opponents. Orbs: I have collected a lot of orbs - either set or unique - over time and try to use those whenever possible. Since I don't use any of the skills most orbs have, checking for skills isn't needed. However, whenever possible I try to use the yellow ones, as they are slightly better. Planned quests: Bronze: Main quest until Ancaria's Airlines is unlocked and done. Silver: Main quest, Class personal quest, Ancaria's Airlines, Tutorial Quests Unique mounts and auto triggered quests. Gold: Main quest, Class personal quest, Ancaria's Airlines, Tutorial quets, Blind Guardian quest, Undead Legion quest, Seraphim Monastry Quests, Whoops! quest, Unique Mounts and auto triggered quests. Platinum: Full exploration and questing. Why Ancaria's Airlines in Bronze? Because that quest gives 1 skill point and one atribute point the first time you log in the game after doing that quest. Doing that particular quest in either difficulty, would give me a total of 5 extra skill and atribute points; which in turn may be a big difference between success and failure in Niob. So, how am I doing with this build? So far so good. Managed to get to Seraphim Island and about to enter the Carnach caves without a single death or even a hairy situation. GC and Octo went down faster as in my previous attempt and hopefully the dragons and Carnach will do too. Having a lower regen penalty because of concentrating at Armor Lore instead of DW has paid off so far. Right now I'm going to level up the other skills and leaving both Tactics and AL at level 20 for a while, only increasing AL when I equip new armor and have to deal with the penalties again. I'll keep you posted! Thorin

After experiencing my 6th, 7th and 8th death within 5 minutes (1 skelly priest with fireball, 4 kobold mages + several stonethrowers / archers and bosses and last one was that skelly priest again), I decided to give up on this build. Facing monsters 22+ levels above me and being one-shotted by mages with fire or poison spells when having another orb selected several times in a row isn't fun. More important, the light health potions only give 30% recovery and that's not enough to counter the damage done. So I will reconsider the build, and start over from scratch. Current plan, start in Bronze to get the Ancaria Airlines quest done (one extra skill and atribute point), rush through silver but doing a few more quests this time, do the same in gold and depending at my level, enter platinum close to level 75. Given that platinum monsters start around level 70, it should give me a few less headaches. Thorin

Thanks for that link, Desm. It prooved to be very useful for both this char and a HE I brought to Niob. For this char I removed Toughness and instead added Concentration and the Warding Energy shield. While that shield proved its uses in Gold, it was worthless when fighting Nimonuil and the guardians as those were able to destroy it with one hit. Result: I added a few more deaths to my count. It's not of much use in Platinum either, although I managed to get to level 50 and added WEL to my skill list. The main reason it isn't as useful as I thought it was, is the 5 second delay to do the attack / defence check, before recharging. With a partially depleted shield that recharging isn't taking long, but with a fully depleted shield that recharging takes 20 seconds after that check, so all in all it means waiting for half a minute before entering the next fight. Something almost impossible with all those pesky anoying Kobolds near Sloeford. Either way, I've made it to platinum and although I had decided to do more quests there, right now I'm wondering if I shouldn't do a full explore and question in that difficulty. Monsters are 22 levels above me - that is, if SB doesn't kick in - and although most of them are easily defeated - for now - they're quite numerous, compared to previous difficulties. What I had in mind, was to add the Blind Guardian and Undead Legion quests to the list of Main quest, Class quest, Tutorial quests (only part of CM-patch) and the auto-triggered quest (like Hold Up near Thylysium). When in game, I decided to do the two Seraphim related quests in the mountain area's north of Sloeford as well, plus perhaps some other follow up quests too. Hopefully the slowed change of region will help me leveling my character a bit easier, giving me a chance to catch up on the minimum level of each region. If not, I'll move to plan B; which is fully exploration and questing in Platinum. The other thing I'm currently thinking about is which mods to pick for the WE-shield. I had in mind to pick the two Field Force mods at Bronze and Silver and Resource at Gold, however with mages being able to fire bolts with their staffs now, I'm wondering if picking Magic Mirror wouldn't be a better choice as Silver mod, althoug it's still a chance to reflect the spell damage, so damage will get through. I've decided to ignore Block as Gold mod in favour of Resource, as Block is just a fixed amount, instead of a percentage; while resource is giving a percentage decrease in regeneration penalty. I've also decided to add Divine Protection to my lists of CA's the moment I managed to get the cooldown under the duration of the CA. Right now the cooldown is about 4x as long as the duration, making it pretty useless imho. As soon as I have turned that around, a combination of WE and DP may be very useful. @ Dragon Brother: I got some RpH rings smithed into my weapon slots and some of my weapons got that modifier as well, if I'm not mistaken. They are useful, given that I'm currently focussing at getting some skills to mastery asap, leaving little room to increase other skills as well. I had in mind to do the same thing with armour, but decided I stick to the various damage reduction amulets and defensive black smith arts for now. I'll keep you posted! Thorin

Small update: I encountered one death today. Reason, when trying to clear the area around Xantiar, one of the young dragon buffers moved my seraphim to a side, just when I was going to click at that particular dragon. Result, the conversation and the fight with Xantiar triggered and that wasn't fun in an area with lots of baddies. So it was goodbye to over 60% of SB. After returning to that area, I was able to take out all dragons as well as those pesky human "game keepers". Surprisingly, the Carnag was a lot less of a hassle to kill. It became a bit tricky when he summoned those fire elementals, but this time I took them down first as he was leeching a lot from them and after that he began teleporting. Which I was able to counter with an AS - PS combo. That fight was followed by a journey through the swamp; which isn't really my favorite area. One reason is that dreaded lightning whiping out your screen for a few seconds. It's already a pain when doing one on one fights, but with multiple opponents and even the Miasma it's terrible. Not to mention, the major fights are done with either a companion or guards nearby, resulting in NPC's blocking your access to those who try to hurt you. Still, Miasma is down and I'm back in the desert. Despite the death, I was having fun for quite a while. First with the bugged cavenear the Octo; in which monsters spawn at a much higher level as outside. And although they were 20+ levels above me, I was able to kill them quite fast: After dealing with those, I expected a hard fight with the Octo. I managed to clear the area from Harpy's - which are doing that blinding spell - before triggering the fight. That certainly helped, but despite that the fight itself was fully under control the moment I was able to fight right under that monster: After that it was Xantiar and I've already told how that fight ended. So, that leaves me at level 43 right now, with the first bit of the main quest done and ready to pick up that scroll. With the Desert being more my favorite area, as it's open, it won't be too hard to continue. However, I'm also wondering if I should consider a restart. One reason for that is my chosen skills; I got the feeling Toughness isn't really kicking in at level 26, given that it's only giving a +1.x% change atm. The other reason is that I'm still doubting about the last skill. If I do a restart and if I do drop Toughness, I could indeed pick Concentration and Warding Energy Lore for the Warding Energy shield, which in turn will give me an extra defensive buff as well. I know that when I do that restart, I will be able to correct some mistakes I made; despite it's also a loss of time. I think I'll sleep things over for the night. Thorin

Problem with that is that I would have to drop Rev.Tech.Focus if I want to do that, as I was already past level 25 when you wrote your previous comment about CR and Toughness, meaning I had already taken both skills. So basically I'm having the choice to pick Concentration for a second buff, which would be the Warden Energy shield; but without the Warden Energy Lore. I'm still wondering if I even need a shield for the damage migitation, with CR giving me better evasion and Toughness reducing the changes to be hit by a Crit. Or I run without a second buff, but use Concentration to reduce the regen times of my CA's and combo's. That would allow me to eat more runes as well, if that's needed, although the increase of the gear certainly helps a lot already. Or I skip concentration and use both EWF and RTF to decrease the regentime of my CA's, but always having that slight penalty when using my CA's in a combo. That would open up the last skill for Combat Discipline, although I'm still wondering if that would be a good idea, given that the only way for me to get the FN - PS combo work properly, is to click at the ground, instead of an opponent when firing the combo. Either way, I'm skilling more slowly, now I got to level 36, so I got the time to think things over before hitting level 50 and picking another skill. Things are progressing well up to now, although I run occasionally into monsters being 14+ levels above me, while others are 13 lvls above me. Resulting in: Yup, that's right; that's a blue-purple-ish ring under that zombie's feet. Despite that, I'm still able to kill most things without taking a potion as the leech is still good enough to heal me. That is, as long as I don't forget to switch to the right orbs when fighting some bigger monsters like the GC. That one almost did me in because I still had the poison orbs active, instead of the magic ones. Still, one potion, the right orbs and a bunch of hits later were enough to do him in: And to think he was actually 12 levels above me, I think I didn't do that bad overall: Not to mention, this time I was able to kill those demons from the personal quest with ease. So - I think I mentioned this a dozen times already, but still.... - I think I'm doing well right now, I'm certainly enjoying this build and considering how well she's slicing things up, I think I'll keep enjoying this build for a while as well. Until I start with a next project, which is bringing another char to Niob........ Thorin

More updates, this time with pictures! I'm starting to wonder how strong this build actually can be. By the time I managed to get to the Garganthropod I was level 30 and having enemies 2 levels above me because of SB. I thought the Garganthropod would be a hard fight, but it was quite the oposite. I needed only 5 potions and 4 of those were consumed when it had spawned those T-mutant scorps with their magic damage. Once those two were down, the Garganthropod was an easy kill as well: So, it was off to the Jungle, still at level 30. Encountered Krall of the Winged Demons after destroying those powerstations, needed a few potions, but he too went down pretty fast: So it was off to the Jungle where the Fenn Fires were anoying, most monsters were easy kills and only when encountering an army of Fenn Fires and Blood Dryads I had to take a couple of potions. Somewhere in between I gained a level, but even despite of that, the Facetteleon was some kind of anti-climax after that: So it was off to the wastelands for the final encounter. I upgraded a part of my gear when being at the docks and that certainly made a difference for the last part, as my Sereish swords are now having an x% LL mod as well. And it made me very happy to see me leeching the heck out of those leeching demons for a change. Even the Demon Bosses you encounter at some point weren't a match to my seraphim. All the kills done there - and most were 1K kills by now - slowly pushed me higher and higher into level 33. Nimonuil went down quite fast, although I had to use a potion again. As soon as the last ressurrection monolith was secured, I took a side stap to Sonnenwind to finish the seraphim's personal quest, then jumped back and prepared to face the four guardians. I was a bit worried about them, but eventually they were actually a lot easier as I had expected. Each of one them went down faster as I thought. I used my usual tactic for that fight, being disableing the portals at the side first and then facing the guardians. But unlike my other encounters, I didn't have to lure them away from that room into one of the hallways. The T-energy shield they were occasionally given was gone quite fast and the guardians themselve went down fast as well. And this time the LL I got at some weapons really proved to be beneficial, as I was easily leeching 900 HP a hit, while getting 3-500 HP damage for each hit done to me. After they went down, only thing left to me was pushing the button: And that brought me to where I am now, back in Sloeford, but at Gold difficulty this time. And so far I had two surprices: 1) Because of my SB, enemies are 7 levels above me and for the first time I'm seeing orange-yellowish rings under their feet. 2) Ring colour isn't really telling all as the bandits and wolves I encountered went down with 2 hits. I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this build. Thorin

@ desm: I'm currently running around using Battle Stance only. However I got that one free slot giving me the opportunity to add Concentration or Combat Discipline. The advantage of picking Concentratin will be that I'm able to add that Energy Shield to my buff's; giving me even more damage reduction. Combat Discipline gives me the opportunity to add a 3rd and even 4th CA to my combo's. However seeing that my PS won't fire often in the FN - PS Combo, I wonder if having 3 CA's in a combo with FN as a 2nd CA won't even work. So right now I'm inclined to pick Concentration as last skill, or perhaps even before Rev.Tech.Focus to get that shield up and running before entering Gold. @ Hooyaah: I'm currently looting my mules to get the required amy's and rings. Problem I have to deal with is the lack of funds; of which I can "cheat out" by just loading some of the downloaded chests into my personal inventory and sell the items. Most of these are worth several K in gold, so it's an easy way out of money problems. However, I think with downloading the armor and most of the weapons I intend to use I've done enough "cheating" for now. The combination of near full Niokaste's Armor, Twilight of of the Gods Cuiras and Dual Wielding Sereish Steel of Thunder swords is a pretty powerful one. Even without protective amulets forged into slots. One of the reasons is that both swords add 2 FN to my CA, making it already more powerful, while the Niokaste helmet gives 10LL. I'm also wearing a set-amy, giving another 9LL, so in that way I'm getting a little compensation to the damage done to me. I've noticed I also got a weapon equiped doing x%LL; totalling my total leeching to 34 at the moment. Which means that I'm able to recover quite some health within a few hits. And seeing the stats on later items, I may be able to get even more leeched back later. But first I have to pin that Garganthropod to my stilleto heels. Thorin

Minor update (knowing me, that means a medium sized post ) I've had some hairy situations, resulting in one death; but so far progress is going nicely. The only death occured when I had to face the Demons in Skook's Corner; of which one had LL while the others all did magic damage. Add a few rats including two champs to the fray and death was there before I was able to hit the space bar. Gar Colossus was pretty easy and went down faster as I thought he would; the Octo was a pain because I had to deal with several Harpy Champs as well. Lost my special mount up there, but was able to replace it. The dragon in the Carnagh-caves wasn't that hard to do; which was because you need to talk to him to start the fight, giving me the opportunity to clear his entire area before fighting him. The Carnagh itself was harder, mainly because he summons those champion fire elementals. I knew he would summon them again when killing all of them; so I kept one alive for some time. Until the moment he teleported away, that was, because the PS I just had started killed the last elemental instead. His next summons were used to leech from, so I had to kill those as well, but after that he kept teleporting, so all I had to do was spamming the AS - PS combo to get him done. Misama was done at level 26-27 and proved not to be that much of a difficulty. I've made it to the desert right now, at level 28 with Tactics Lore and Dual Wield at that level, Toughness at level 7 and the rest at level 4-5. As a result regen is higher as it should be, but with unique / legendary weapons equipped, it isn't that bad. The only two problems I've got to deal with are lack of money to smith anything into sockets and that sometimes the when using the Flaring Nova - Pelting Strikes combo, the last one won't fire. Fortunately it does when I use the Assailing Somersault - Pelting Strikes combo, meaning those far away from me, but moving towards me still get hammered pretty fast. Next boss will be the Giganthropod and that one is going to be fun; given his high level of poison damage he does, combined with the high magic damage of his summons. Fortunately - for me - there's always the option to kite some of the monsters and kiling them off one by one. Overall, things aren't going that bad and I expect to enter Gold without too many difficulties. Thorin

Now I managed to get my Pyro HE "safe" into Niob, I've decided to try the same thing with my favorite Sacred Character, the Seraphim. Although I do have a seraphim parked in Platinum at level 103, I think I should be able to get a new build in Niob, using a different approach which is based upon the things I've learned with my HE. Not to mention, some parts of that build didn't work out as I hoped for, so while she's able to do the killing, I got the feeling I can get a better build. After reading through some guides, I decided to follow the one Antitrust posted here, but with a few changes. Skills overview: 1) Tactics Lore: Aiming for mastering after having most skills at level 20 2)Armor Lore: Keep it high enough to remove the armor regen penalty 3) Dual Wield: Equal to level until mastered 4) Exalted Warrior Focus 5) Revered Technology Lore 6) Constitution: Aiming for mastery after having most skills at level 20 7) Combat Reflexes 8) Concentration 9) Revered Technology Focus 10) Warding Energy: To boost the shield(s) Atribute point allocation: With constitution chosen pretty late, I decided to drop the atribute points in Stamina, Vitality and Willpower in a 30 / 40 / 30% rate. Chosen Combat Arts and their modifications: 1) Battle Stance: The must have Buff for any Melee Seraphim. Premonition, Drill and Retaliation are chosen as upgrades 2) Pelting Strikes: Upgraded with Succession, Focus and Precission 3) Assailing Somersault: Upgraded with Athletic, Impetus and Concussion 4) Flaring Nova: Upgraded with Expand, Stun and Laggard 5) Combo 1) Flaring Nova + Pelting Strikes 6) Combo 2) Assailing Somersault + Pelting Strikes Equipment: Niokaste's Blade Dance as primary armor, with the Holy Protection cuiras as body armor as it has amazing resistance stats. Since a Seraphim has 9 armour slots, I decided to smith all three Blacksmith arts equally into the used armor. By doing that I will increase damage done, chance for crits, armor and defence values etc. With the Niokaste's Set having 2 sockets on each piece, I started with smithing runes in the other socket and change that into rings / amulets giving migitatioin, DoT reduction, Opponents chance to wound reduction etc over time. For the Holy Protection, I often added a RpH or a +x skill ring combined with the amulets and Blacksmith arts. Weapon slot 1: Bone Blade of Zhurag-Nar + Parashu (Crypt Raiders) or Ghoul Blade (Flesh Eaters) Weapon slot 2: Dual Seresish Steel of Thunder Weapon slot 3: Nikotaste's Stinger + Boneslicer / Huntress of Light / Holy Wrath or any weapon doing lots of damage and having Magical damage as well. Weapon slot 4: Ysandryfa's Law / Ragno's Slayer and (legendary) Kal'dur's Legacy Weapon slot 5: Free choice weapon. At some point I may use this slot for a bow to "fight" the Great Machine Egg or equip Light Sabers in it. Each slot has at least one weapon with a ring doing RpH to keep the regentimes of the CA's lower. I'm also using the pearls, fangs etc to boost the elemental damage of the weapons; hoping to be able to do DoT on my opponents. Orbs: I have collected a lot of orbs - either set or unique - over time and try to use those whenever possible. Since I don't use any of the skills most orbs have, checking for skills isn't needed. However, whenever possible I try to use the yellow ones, as they are slightly better. I have collected a shipload of uniques and legendary items over time and as a result I got several weapons stockpiled at muling chars. To get the items I didn't have, I "cheated" a bit by downloading them and adding them to my chest; giving me the opportunity to exchange them over time. Quest progress: For now things are going as planned. Meaning: she hasn't died yet. The plan is to do the Main Quest, the Seraphim personal quest and the Unique Mounts Quest in Silver and Gold, then checking how she's doing in Plat and whenever needed remain in an area to do side-quests and more leveling before moving on. I will most likely do the Undead Legion Quest in both Gold and Plat as well; as the Boneslicer is still one of the better swords in this game. First 5 levels were slow, as she was only using a single weapon. Getting a magic pearl helped things speeding up a bit, as the side effect of magic is the weakening of your opponents resistances; thus making them a bit easier to kill. I managed to get to Thylysium with a few near death experiences. Tactics is currently equal to my level, while Dual Wield is not that far behind. Despite the slow start, she's doing well at the moment, kills are becoming easier now, while my main point of concern is to lower the regen times of my CA's. Something that may go faster as soon as I got DW equal to level as well. I'll keep you posted! Thorin

Oh man. I feel your pain. Decided to do what I already said and finish Platinum. I noticed I had one quest open while I thought I had finished it, so went back to the Crystal plains to finish it, then went on with the main and the Epic Office quest and finished both. One of the machines almost managed to kill me when dropping a trap on me and immediately hitting me with some combo, but somehow I managed to survive. Don't ask me how much health I had, coz I really don't know. I do know it was near zero; so that was a real close call. Started in Niob, but didn't do much other then the opening "battle". Will see how things are going in Tyr Lysia soon enough. Fortunately my HE got one of the most powerful Area of Effect CA's, being blazing tempest. And I've noticed it's capable of even killing mobs before they get to me, so at least I will be able to decimate most opponents before they get to me. And in case things are heating up a bit too much; there's always the Forrest Gump tactic.... Thorin

I'm wondering if I should rename this topic or have it renamed into "That moment you realize your worst foe is yourself." The reason: I just discovered that I somehow messed up the Excel spreadsheet, giving me the impression I was only 3 points away from mastering Pyro Focus. But when that didn't happen at my next leveling, I stripped my HE at a save zone, only to find that she wasn't at 72 skill points, but at 62. Well, 67 now. Which in turn means I need to gather over another 14 million of XP to get that level. At first I thought it was a bug. I've experienced a few with quests not updating properly in the blood forest, so I thought it may be related to that, as I did level in that area once or twice. However, after comparing my skill points with the stats I posted at the first page when my char was at level 99 and ading the 75 points of the 15 levels I gained, I ended up with the amount of spend points I got now. So I can only conclude I made some errors at some point, and kept working with those, resulting in the current state of disapointment I'm in now. So right now I think I'll just finish the Epic Office Quest as well as the main quest and take the chance in Niob. If that's going to be to hard, well, there's always the option to jump back into Platinum. Thorin

Been a while since last update, so here I go again... *waits for most readers to run away* Right. To get one thing straight, I didn't enter the fight with Narmul, thinking it would be "easy". English may not be my native language, but I have read several times this fight would be a hard one. And seeing who wrote those warnings and knowing the amount of top level chars that person made, I'd be a fool to ignore those warnings.Thus I went into it with one thumb at the spacebar and one finger at F8 to teleport to the nearest ressurrection stone if that was needed. And it was needed, so I was glad I had made my preparations. Anyway.... ...things are progressing well so far. I managed to get two more levels and with Blood Forest for about 50-60% done, I will gather enough XP to gain another level; which should boost my Pyro Focus to mastery and even have me drop some points in constition (currently 38) or Ancient Magic (currently 30). Both will be beneficial to me, as one would give me the health points to survive longer, while the other will give me the more damage to make faster skills. So I may even consider dropping a point in both as mastery is far away for either skill anyway. Fighting has been fun so far, although I've been hitting tge spacebar more as in the previous fights. And surprisingly not because of encountering unique bosses or champions and not even because of those eyes, but more because of a combination of several damage types combined. One of those were the Harbinger of Death with their physical / magic damage combined with their servants doing poison damage. But usually it was a combination of being rooted by spiders, harbingers, servants and flaming horses. Meaning I had to deal with 3 (or 4, depending at how you look at it) of the 4-5 damage types. Fortunately, I do have blazing tempest and it's really a blessing, simply because I managed to get this spell doing enough damage that a lot or even all of the monsters are dead shortly before or after they reach me. And this spell is a great weapon vs the eyes too, as you're able to destroy them before they get to you. Which is very useful with the yellow eyes, as they got that nasty cooldown reset, making it impossible to cast spells. Oh well, they're called "Mages Curse" for a reason. So, right now I'm at the 3rd waystone, starting to do another load of quests for the zombies. I've defeated Dijaana's hellhound, defeated the archaeologist and even gave him his memory back. From memory I think I got about 75% of the quests in that area done. And I still have to fight the endboss. Which will be done similar as fighting Narmul, one thumb at the spacebar and a finger at F8. Some may call it cowardice, some may call it smart. For me, it's just a way to make sure this lady enters Niob with her SB at the highest possible level. Thorin

Small update (again) I cleared the Crystal region and it was fun to do. Encountered two bosses and both went down, although the one holding that Seraphim captive was a lot harder as that fire based turtle. Which I found a bit surprising, considering I'm using a Pyro Elf. Eventually ended up at the Phoenix, didn't have much problems with the frozen monsters it released, but that flying spawn of it nearly killed me. I had the luck I used the special mount, thus that one died first. And seeing I didn't even scratch that bugger, I felt ther was no need to continue fighting it. Especially not on foot. So.......... ...........I decided to fle......... execute the "Forrest Gump movement" as fast as I could after loosing my special mount, so it was F8 to teleport to the nearest resurrection stone. Decided to head to he Bloodforest afterwards - with a slight detour over special mount island - and am having fun there for now. XP over there is a lot better, but the LL some of the monsters have is maddening once in a while. I've had occasions in which I lost 90% of my health because of 3-4 of those attacks. Yet, Blazing Tempest is king there, as long as there isn't anything obstructing the arc. Meteors are great eye-killers as long as I see them before they see me (pun not intended) and given most monsters are vunerable to fire, things are ok. At least I got to the level of Bilbo's Birthday and with SB still giving me +15 on monster level, I'm also starting to find items above my level. Which in a way is nice too, as some will certainly benefit my DW seraphim. So the plans: Blood Forest for as much as possible. I know there's one nasty boss in it near the end and I think one of the quests will put me up with one of the mages that started that war in the first place. Wastelands and farming XP in the canyons after that. Hopefully it'll be enough to get the required 2-3 levels for mastering Pyro Focus; which is currently at level 62; but somehow I doubt it. If not, I'll see what I do next. Up to now I'm having fun and eventually that's what matters most. Thorin

I'm usually not playing all zoomed in, but when I do it's always to look for strange occurances. So today I was out in "the portal", a cave between the northern Crystal plains and the southern area, when a skellie attacked me. Needless to say, even while he was level 125 vs my footed level 110 Pyro Elf he was no match. (and that's all the bragging for today :D ) But while killing him I noticed something you won't notice when playing zoomed out. So when next skellie showed up, I made sure I was having the right angle to do a screenshot: Which can only leave me to the conclusion; even after they die, the undead won't stop scaring you. (btw, undead dying, isn't that a pleonasme? ) And another thing that occured to me, sometimes the HE uses quotes which are clearly from movies or books. When it comes to killing undead, the one I heard most is: "Sometimes they come back..." Doesn't that ring a bell, Gogo? Thorin

One of the platinum goals is reached: I managed to get to level 110 today; so the slightly better potions are now available. Still, with all the normal potions I got, I think I'll use those for the time being. So far the Crystal plains are easier as I thought they would be. When facing the level 123 monsters with my level 109 Pyro HE, I was often killing them in one or two meteor casts. Champions too longer, but not real worrying longer. Only time I had a hard time, was when I was fighting 5 champions at once, while being near one of those enchanted crystals and a Dracolin (dragonfly); as those two did magic - and thus weakening - damage, compared to the ice damage of the rest. XP-wise the game is getting harder. Not just because the amount I need for next level; but more as I got the feeling the XP is slowly dropping. Perhaps it's just the region, but so far the normal monsters gave me between 1.8-3.3K and champions gave me between 3.6-5.4K. Fortunately there are mentor potions and although I'm not a big fan of those - higher XP from kills means getting less SB as you need to fight less to get your required XP - I decided to use them to get to level 110 anyway. The Campaign goal and thus moving to niob is almost finished. All that's left for me is doing the Wastelands, but I may head back to some other area's to do quests and farming XP. I haven't made up my mind about it, but if mastering Pyro Focus is a pre, I will need 4 more levels before that's done. And that can only be done with quests and exploring. Still, since I got the Epic Office quest still open I will need to "explore" a bit of the wastelands anyway. Not to mention to get there will help me getting more XP as well. So with that in mind, getting one and perhaps more levels should be possible. Especially since I've done about half of the Crystal region. Which means there's still more to do, there's the X-mas island quest as well, so I do have some opportunities to get nice XP, great items and - hopefully not! - possible deaths. Oh and as for screenshots, even in the Crystal region you can get those good looking ones. This one's taken while she was wearing her bargaining suit and decided to smash some of those Crystals near "The Old Camp", as they float nicely in the sky after being destroyed And Hooyaah, question: Do you level any skill beyond mastery, or are you simply aiming to master all? Thorin

Not going to post screenshots, but something I wonder if anyone has ever considered how well the Dev's had thought of the details of this game; being....... The enhancements and the artifacts. Has it ever occured to anyone there's a pattern in the drops of both the enhancements and the artifacts? The first is rather obvious and therefore easily overlooked - Magic pearls: drops from any creature using magic as main attack. In general turtles, desert wariors and the pirates around Blueston lake - Ice Crystals: drops from ghosts and ocassionally; bears and Ogre Shamans - Lava chunk: drops from cratures using firedamage; mostly young dragons and Blood Dryads Poison fang: drops from all poison dealing creatures; being it rats, spiders, scorpions or scarabs As said, pretty obvious. Next batch are the trophy's used for Alchemy, which are obvious too; with the exception of one. - Branch: from tree spitirs at Tyr Laigh ànd the former x-mas trees at X-mas island - Mechanical: from temple guardians in the Wasteland - 4-leave clover: from Kobolds - Skull: from undead and usually from the skelletons - Tooth: from either troll / orcs / goblins (troll tooth) or demons (demon tooth) Now all these are obvious, but this one isn't: Roasted Joint: From any creature killed with a firebased weapon or spell. Meaning, you kill a wolf using Fireball as a Pyro HE and you got a chance it drops a roasted Joint Trophy. You kill a rat as a seraphim using a Sword with a lava chunk smithed in it and you got a chance to have it dropping a Roasted Joint Trophy. As I mentioned elsewhere, it's these kind of things that make me return to the game and enjoy it over and over again. It's the amount of detail you barely see in many games these days anymore. Thorin

Isn't that what this forum is about too? Sacred, Sacred 2 and Skyrim got a special place in my heart. The first because it was not only the first RPG I played, but also the one I played in MP after having a disastrous encounter with a cheater in another game. It was the game that showed me that there's a very good community among the HC players - even after the problems with Clan RUS - where players were able to help new players or killed players out with money and items. I was involved in Sacred 2 when it was develloped and regretted it when it was basically slaughtered by Deep Silver; seeing how much potential it had and still has. Check the comments at the Steam forum, lots of players tell how beautiful the game is; while almost a similar amount complain about being unable to run a 32 bit game at a 64 bit OS. Looking back at Sacred 2, I think it was in fact ahead of its time. Something that got proven with Diablo 3; which has a bit of the same atmosphere. Yet, despite all that, I never liked D3 much. Basically because the autionhouse made it pay to win. Skyrim gave me a similar feeling as Sacred 2 did. It looked great, it felt great gameplay wise and you were able to acomplish great things in it. I got the same feeling about ESO too, btw; although I haven't played both games in a while now. Yet, Sacred 2 is special. Even now, 10 years after its release and doing the light and shadow campain on two different characters, I discover new things. Not big things, but small details, like the placement of items near one of the NPC's of the main campaign, which after looking at it from different angles could be an easter egg. The known "Don't feed the trolls!" sign in the Orc territory, the "Don't eat the yellow snow!" sign at X-mas island. Both are known, but I keep enjoying them every time I see them. Not to mention, all the references to other games, tv-shows, movies, bands, books, players! (including Scot, Gogo and some other members of this forum) and last but not least; all the player made comments they collected at the International Sacred Forum; it all shows a level of dedication and detail I haven't seen in any other RPG so far. Despite; or perhaps because of that, I never managed to get a character over level 110. I got a Seraphim who's close and this HE is going to be the second one. At least in Sacred: Underworld I managed to get several chars over level 110 and even one up to level 170 before the servers shut down. So I do have a goal with Sacred 2 and that's not only getting a char in niob, but getting 4 of my chars in Niob, the HE being the first. It will take me some time, but eventually I'll mange. And while doing that, I'll try to keep you entertained a bit with what I'm doing, asking for advise and then ignoring most of it if I don't like it, just to realize 5 levels later that the advise was solid after all. Thorin

Very small update: Made a typo in my previous post. The level of my HE wasn't 103, but 105 and is 106 by now. I got to the swamp at the moment and for the first time in a while I'm getting decent (3-5K on normal, doube on champions) XP from my kills. Progress of the Epic Office quest goes well, next one will give me a lot of XP, as he's located at the swamp dragon. After that it's off to my next spot of the Main Quest, the area where you need to pick those anti-miasma flowers. Oh, I don't think I mentioned this, but my HE is following the dark path, so occasionally she misses out on XP as that path skips some fights. Either way, progress is going well. I dropped all points in Pryro Lore, as suggested by Hooyaah, and increased damage of the meteors to a bit over 4K each. I do have to admit that when seeing how well the tempest kills things, as it's full fire, the choice of going physical with the meteors was a wrong move. But since we don't have respec in this game, I've got to live with it. Still got some backup spells for mobs or single opponents and bosses went down with the meteor so far. May take a bit longer, but eventually they go down. And with over 100 potions in stock (I always keep a full stock and one filling up), there is a good chance I will survive fights. (Says the one who's HE got killed 12 times now. ) Oh well, first the swamp desert, then finding the rest of the employees located in the swamp, finishing the personal quest in the swamp and heading to the desert to farm XP as it's one of the best area's for the tempest spell. After that, jungle and perhaps off to the icy area when Jungle is done. I haven't been in the icy area yet, so I may do questing and exploring there to kill two birds with one stone. But first, a dragon............. Thorin

Just a minor update: Did a long run yesterday to gain two levels, ending up at level 104, meaning I farmed about 10K in XP. Mostly by running from one Epic Office location to another, or to run to the main quest / personal quest locations, as well as by doing some of the other quests. Finished the Undead Legion quest that way - can use the sword on my DW 3-buff seraphim (which I need to review now as well) - plus the Easter Bunny quest and special mount quest, while I also put an end to the lives of the Grunwald Dragon and the Gar-Colossus. So far I've been dropping in Pyro Lore (54 atm), Pyro Focus (46), Constitution (36) and Ancient Magic (29). With 5 points to apply at each level it's going to be slow, but at the same time I'm also able to give each skill a second point from time to time; making leveling them a bit easier. When checking my Excel file, I saw the plan was to keep most of these skills at mastery, so at least the moment I get to that point with one of the skills, I got points left to be dropped in other ones. Still, for some it'll be a long way to go. And to answer Hooyah's question about the demon specs; what I had in mind were Power, Lively and Modesty. However, these names are the old ones, so I will have to look at how they're named now. And although I don't use it often - only occasionally when fighting inside a building - for Fireball I had planned to take Greek Fire, Globe and Fusilade. Once again, the old names, so will have to look those up as well. And last - and least - I picked up some strong potions earlier which dropped from monsters killing eachother. Monster level was 113 at the time, so at least I am certain to get them when reaching level 110 myself. Not it's just a matter to get there....... Thorin

I'm not fond of necro-ing threads; however I had problems with locating the start of this quest as well when playing the 1.6 CM patch. Did a search on the Wiki and couldn't find the location, so perhaps it may be a good idea for those keeping the wiki up to date to add a location to start the quest based upon CM patch location? It certainly would help a lot of players using that patch to find that quest. Thorin

Looking at my skills, my guess is that there are at least 3 I need to master for now. Those are Pyro focus (atm at 43), Ancient Magic (26) and Concentration (47) as my intention was to run this build with a 3rd buff (fire deamon for additional help) at higher difficulties. That's 109 skillpoints or 22 levels. If I want to master Pyro Lore (50) as well, I have to add another 5 levels before that's mastered. Which also means I need to stop dropping points in all the other skills, including constitution (33). Looking at that, I think that doing the main quest, personal quest and Epic Office quest (plus a few quests to unlock area's to pick up an employee) won't be enough to gain those skill points, so rushing to some area's to do full exploring and questing there seems to be the only option. And given my spell list, the Desert and most likely the Swamp will be the right area's for that. We'll see what happens up to then. Right now I'm trying to figure out when the strong health potions unlock. Wiki doesn't show that info - or at least, I wasn't able to find it - and given the times this char has died, I may need them a lot sooner or later. Most likely sooner. Thorin

Not yet. I've been wondering a bit about what to do next with her. Given my experiences with Gold, I think she may be able to rush through Platinum, doing the main quest, personal quest and Epic Office Quest only. Yet, given the times she died and the troubles I had with her from time to time, I'm also wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to have her explore Platinum completely again; as that would help her level up and enter Niob stronger. However, at the same time, doing all those explorations and quests would increase her SB and therefore having her ending up with higher - and most certainly - much stronger opponents in Niob as well. The irony of all is, that this build was actually meant as support build for my DW-seraphim and my tripple buff Dryad, just like a Blacksmithing SW I created. Over time I discovered I had so much fun with all four builds, that I decided to level them all to Niob; but doing the same quests four times in a row got a bit boring. Still, with the seraphim and HE in platinum, the question remains: should I rush for Niob or not. Thorin