Viper7

Well it should at least help people get started. Too bad my highest level character is around 87 atm and haven't yet explored niob at all so can't really tell anything about it. Same goes with Barter skill which only on of my characters posses (and hes way too low in levels to be of any use for my Temple Guardian :/) So any additional info about these are of course welcome. [Edit] Added some improvements to the guide. Including quick find and some extra builds

Does this forum software even have edit feature? one is pretty important for forums such as this. Imo there should be no time limit for edits as it only makes building and improving this kinds of threads a bit troublesome if mod needs to edit everything to the text. Seems there's a time limit for edits, hopefully admin of these forums will remove it or Ill just have to repost the guide if I make any major changes.

::reserved:: Posted this here too as asked by gogoblender. It might have some grammar errors and typos etc as I am no native English speaker, and I tend to write things down pretty fast so might miss a thing or 2. Any questions or information you'd like to see in the guide, just post it here or at the official sacred 2 forums: http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...ead.php?t=67358 Ill try to answer all things I know or have at least a hunch so feel free to ask/add/correct.

Introduction This guide is made to help new and old Sacred 2 players to understand how to build a good Temple guardian. Like with any build there are a lot of preferences and oppinnions about skills and combat arts. However I will try to provide as much info from the both sides of the coin for both skills and combat arts. I am not a native English speaker so this guide will most likely have plenty of grammar errors and bossibly typos. Feel free to point these out and I might fix them. By the time writing this guide I have build up to 8 Temple guardians (more than half of them were scrapped before reaching level 50 and plenty of them are experimental.). Probably the most successful one is the Paladin build I made a guide for which is currenlty around level 87. I have little to no experience on Sacred 2 HC (Playing on Ps3 and got platinum trophy recently) and I have little to no experience on Niob dificulty so much of the later game experience has been gained from more experienced Temple Guardian players like Zinho, Llama8 and Vaclaf. Also thanks to tapir for providing valuable test information about shield recharge modification and showing of his effective Source warden build. Mods are free to add info, correct typos/grammar and modify this guide as they see fit. Also making this sticky might lessen the amount of same questions asked over and over again in this board. This text is free to use/copy by any1 as its only here to help people understand this exotic class/race Quick Find (ctrl + f) - Guide Contents [CG01] Weaknesses [CG02] Strengths [CG03] Attributes [CG04] Skills [CG05] Melee based Temple guardians (DG - DG/Shadow Warrior) [CG06] Magic based Temple guardians (DG/Shadow Warrior, DG/LF, DG/Shadow Warrior/LF) [CG07] About Skill levels and masteries [CG08] Some Temple guardian basics [CG09] Aspects and combat arts [CG09][1] Aspects and combat arts - Devout guardian [CG09][2] Aspects and combat arts - Source warden [CG09][3] Aspects and combat arts - Lost fusion Weaknesses [CG01] Temple guardian is probably by far the hardest class in Sacred 2 to build. Temple guardian suffers from plenty of handicaps compared to many other classes and many make some more or less bad choises with its skills and combat art modifications which will futher increase the dificulty of the game. 1 hand only If you have not yet noticed, one of temple guardians arm is a weapon itself. Most players who have never played Temple Guardian or just went trough the first 15 levels (trophy/achievement) probably dont know that it has around 4 forms. - Battle extension passive: Increases the number of double hits) - Dedicated blow passive: increases chance to hit - Arm cannon: a ranged weapon. These useful features remove the possibility of Dual wielding, use of 2 handed weapons and shield. So every Temple Guardian will have to make do with one weapon/staff only. Low hp and armor Temple guardian starts off with rather low hp and armor values, this makes building up exotic less melee based temple guardians rather tough on lower levels. Low armor and hp are usualy countered with T-Energy shroud (energy shield), warding energy lore and Armor lore. More about: how to improve the defensive part of your Temple Guardian later in the guide. Arm cannon Arm cannon damage and element is based on the equiped battery, The damage and attack speed can futher be increased trough increasing the atribute that increases the weapon damage (most swords/hammers use strenght, some light once use dexterity) Ranged weapon lore does not improve the damage or attackspeed but the lore of equiped weapon does. Arm cannon cannot be used with ranged weapon (if you dont count lost fusion skills as use of arm cannon.) High cool downs on some of the combat arts Temple Guardian has plenty of combat arts for differend purposes but expecialy source warden combat arts suffer from high cooldowns. With cooldown I don’t mean regeneration time but additional unreducable penalty that is added to reneration. Usualy around 10-30s. So even with 0.1 regen time you will still need to wait additional number of seconds for the combat art to be usable. Restrictions on hybrids This probably is one of the rules in sacred in general. But as many have made this mistake including myself ill say it again. YOU CANNOT BE A MAGE AND A WARRIOR AT THE SAME TIME. Within the 200 levels the game will give you a lot of skillpoints to master most if not all your skills, but most of those are gained on lvls 100-200. The ammount of experience needed increases by every level and the ammount of experience gained increases by dificulty and gear. So if your character can’t handle platinium before level 70 or niob around level 100 you’ll be in for some really tedious leveling. Not to mention the level of mobs increase along with your character so if your character is weak at level 80 he might as well be weak at level 90 as well. Pick Melee or Magic. Do not take this too literaly however, many source warden Combat Art’s may be used as debuffs instead of Area of Effect damage and you only need to increase Combat Art level to increase the effect. Strengths [CG02] To even things out, Temple guardian has plenty of strenghts that make it a viable class for differend purposes. Team player There’s no healer or buffer like Temple guardian. Combat arts like combat alert, Charged grid, fiery ember, Icy envanescense and jolting touch can greatly help team. Combat alert with right modifications can increase damage, attack and defense and give a nice reflect with correct modifications. Charged grid may be modded to become a Area of Effect skill that heals every team member in the whole screen including yourself. Fiery ember and Icy envanescense can be modded to slow down enemies and eather increase teams resistance against fire/ice attacks or decrease the elemental resistance of enemies. The Best Area of Effect damage dealer in the whole game Yes high elfs can do pretty nice Area of Effect damage with some of their skills, but Source warden based Temple Guardian build can deal nice high DoT Area of Effect damage to the whole screen (bossibly even larger area). The duration increases by every Combat Art level and these can be casted in chain to destroy even the more powerfull enemies. Utility character like no other Only Temple Guardian is able to pick all 3 bargaining, blacksmith and enchanted perception. Get a good utility Temple Guardian and youll be able to support all your characters with a single character. (note: Ice and blood all skills modifications might make this a lot less effective) (Console gamers note: Blacksmith doesnt work on Ps3/X360) Boss killer Maybe not as good as BFG seraphim, but with jolting touch and deadly spears Temple Guardian can take out most of the bosses without breaking any real problems. (Console gamers note: the bug on jolting touch modification! – Self repair heals enemies) Attributes [CG03] Strength This attribute is only inportant for Temple guardians looking to deal massive ammounts of melee damage. It also provides some additional attack(accuracy). As damage and accuracy can be gained from differend means, strenght is adviceable for builds that focus almost purely to melee. Stamina The most important attribute for temple guardian, you can really never have enough of it. It will reduce the regeneration times of all compat arts and as most of the combat arts only gain damage or effectiveness from levels. Ignore this only if your aiming for a very exotic build. Dexterity Not very usefull, however if your looking to increase both your attack and defense ratings and your happy with your oher stats this might do the trick. Vitality Usefull only if your building a Temple Guardian that doesn’t use 100% absorbtion warding energy shield at any point of the game. With insane ammount of shield energy fully absorbing the taken damage it makes having hp or hp regeneration rather useless. Intelligence Not as usefull as Stamina, it increases the spell base damage by 0,1% and increases the chance to deal max spell damage. But as Temple Guardian only has no min-max damage on his magic based combat arts it makes this atribute a bit useless. Consider inteligence only if you are happy with your current stamina level and want to increase the base damage of your spells a bit. Willpower Although the game doesnt mention it, it increases the overall shield power. This is very usefull as most of the shield energy is gained by using shield energy + x% item modifiers and warding energy increases also increases shield energy by certain %. It also increases the magical resistance and resistance against status aliments. Skills [CG04] There are plenty of skill’s that temple guardian can use, and as there is sacred wiki I will not fully describe the skills here. However ill go trough some basic skills important for certain kinds of Temple Guardian’s and some additional skills that might be usefull for Temple Guardian. As there are really only 2 kinds of Temple Guardian ill use them as example. (*)optional (has some benefits but not a must have skill, all utility skills are classified as optional skills so I wont be discussing them in this guide.) Melee based Temple Guardian: Devout guardian or devout guardian + source warden hyprid. [CG05] Melee based Temple Guardian usualy uses sword or a blunt weapon to deal massive ammount of hurt to the enemies. It also focuses mainly on devout guardian aspect and tries to make use of Battle extension, dedicated blow, deadly spears and combat alert. Melee based Temple Guardian might want to get additional combat arts from source warden aspect but they should instead of trying to make the skills do damage they should focus on untouchable force, modding Area of Effect Combat Art’s to debuffs/healing. Devout guardian focus – A must have skill for all Temple Guardian’s because of T-energy shroud Armor lore – more armor + lower regeneration penalties Warding energy lore – More shield energy Weapon lore – Attack accuracy and attack speed Tactics lore – your melee damage will be poor without this Source warden focus and lore(*) – Focus for debuffs, take lore only if you want additional healing Concentration(*) – 2 buffs T-energy shroud + Unctouchable force Toughness(*) – more armor and mitigation(damage reduced by %) Constitution(*) – More hp and faster regeneration (dont use 100% absorbtion warding energy with this 80% or 90% might be good) Combat discipline(*) – combat art damage + less regeneration note: combat discipline decreases regen times of Combat Art’s in a combo, combo can contain a single Combat Art so use the Combat Art in a combo instead Combat Art itself to reduce the regen times. Spell based Temple Guardian: Source warden and lost fusion [CG06] Spell may be a bit ankward word for Temple Guardian combat arts, but it is used to describe the fact that your weapon damage has no effect on your combat art damage. All lost fusion and source warden damages are strictly based on - level of your combat art - Modifications of your combat art - Level of combat disclipline - Lost fusion lore (if LF Combat Art) or Source warden lore (if Shadow Warrior Combat Art) - Inteligence - +x% or +x element(ice/fire/magic) damage - +x% damage(affects all damage melee and magic) Using staff doesnt increase your spell damage, but item modifier in the wand might. Using staff/weapon that decreases regeneration, increases casting speed, is very usefull. Temple Guardian’s focusing fully on source warden or LF combat arts use the weapon only for its item modifiers so it really doesnt matter if your wielding a lollipop as long as it has good item modifiers benefitting your spells/Combat Art’s. Spell intensity is useless for Temple guardian, because temple guardian Combat Art’s have a single damage value meaning that all spell based Combat Art’s do the same min and max damage (example: 100-100 min-max). Spell intesity increases the chance to deal max damage but as the Min damage = max damage theres no real use for it. Devout guardian focus – A must have skill for all Temple Guardian’s because of T-energy shroud Armor lore – more armor + lower regeneration penalties Warding energy lore – More shield energy Source warden or Lost fusion Lore - decreases casting speed and increases the max damage by % Source warden focus or Lost fusion focus – decreases regen times and increases the max level without penalty. Combat discipline – increases Combat Art damage and decreases regentimes of Combat Art’s in a combo Toughness(*) – Extra armor and mitigation help to sustain the shield Tactics lore(*) – Increase the damage of deadly spears Combat reflexes(*) – more evasion. Constitution(*) – incase your shield drops youll have a better chance to survive or if you arent using 100% warding energy might be usefull for some builds Damage lore(*) – Increased chance to apply status effects. About Skill levels and masteries [CG07] As I said before, spreading skills to openly may severely handicap your character. Here are few reasons why. Mastery, when skill reaches level 75 (with hard points (toughness is exception)) you will unlock new bonus or increase the effect of the skill. Skill mastery may also unlock specific bonuses on certain weapons and gear. Armor lore opens mitigation properties on armors etc. Focusing on specific skill, may give you great benefits. If you keep a skill close or even to your character level (highest possible without all skills item modifiers), the items marked with "modified by *skill name*" will get better bonuses. Having high armor lore may give you higher mitigation x% if the item tells the values are modified by these bonuses. So spreading points too openly will not only affect your character but also his ability to use certain kind of gear. Some Temple guardian basics [CG08] T-energy shroud This is a main buff of every respectable Temple Guardian build, without it you will suffer heavy damage and if you have not bumbed your hp and armor you might even die. Shield has very confusing values so let me clarify them a bit. Firstly T-energy shroud is a energy shield almost identical to the one Seraphim has, however it starts with basic 60% absorbtion warding energy value. This means that the shield takes 60% of the damage shown above your character. So even if 100 damage shows above your characters head, your hp will only suffer 40 points of damage. If the shield goes off you will take 100% of the damage. This is very important to understand when playing Temple Guardian as you might feel safe taking only 40% of the damage but as soon as shield goes off your hp will be depleting way more rapidly. Absorbtion warding energy can be increased to 100% by item modifiers making shield take all the damage. Many counter the low hp of Temple Guardian by increasing their Absorbtion warding energy to 100% and getting their shield power to insane levels (sometimes even at levels of 100,000! think about enemies having to deal over 100k damage to even touch your hp! Not to mention that the shield regenerates outside battle.) Warding energy lore DOES NOT INCREASE ABSORBTION WARDING ENERGY (atleast not directly). Instead it increases shield energy by a hefty ammount while also increasing shield Block warding energy (more like shield “thickness”) that reduces the damage by fixed ammount shown in the T-energy shroud info. Warding energy lore also affects strenght of the item modifiers and bossibly unlocks some additional modifiers to boost absorbtion and shield energy values. Recharge modification, in battle recharge amount increases by increasing Tactics lore skill level. However the amount is not really enough to compensate the mitigation gained from reduce. (No need to start a char over tough if you already have it, having reduce helps but picking recharge instead doesn't break your build.) Passive Battle extension Battle extension is a passive skill that you activate by a) activating the Combat Art attack or b) activating it while doing another Combat Art attack like deadly spears, combat alert etc. You know that the battle extension is active if you see that your arm cannon has runed in to a claw and your Temple Guardian has a tentacle growing from his back. Passive battle extension disapears every time you activate another Combat Art, so to keep it active be sure to activate it everytime you cast combat alert or something similar. NOTE: Mods do not affect the passive battle extension (or so I have read) Combat alert Combat alert increases your attack accuracy and ability to defend against enemy hits. It also increases the Melee damage Temple Guardian deals (by ½ the value of attack/defense boost (if attack +100% damage = +50%). Very usefull for melee Temple Guardian to get some additional damage. Combat alert can also be modded to provide melee reflect which makes even the weakest Temple Guardian’s nearly invulnerable to melee hits (maybe not at lower levels but around level 80 character level it may offer over 80% chance to reflect melee damage!) Learn to cast this skill at the begining of combat and try to achieve Duration > regen time to gain near invulnerability against melee attacks. When attack is reflected it is also completely nullified, meaning you will take no damage. Aspects and combat arts: [CG09] Note most of these are based on preferences, feel free to explore your own modifications and addapt them to your own play style. These are mainly to warn people about possible mistakes on how a certain modification works and if its is as good as the tool tip says. Recharge for example sounds way more useful than it actually is. Devout guardian [CG09][1] Devout guardian aspect is mainly melee based, but it has plenty of good combat arts to use with builds focusing Source warden or Lost fusion. Best Combat Art's to mod first: T-energy shroud and Combat alert. Combat Alert – Battle Aura Combat art that can be turned in to a buff with the last modification. However before turning in to a buff think it trough clearly as it will halve all its values including reflect and damage. Not to mention that combat alert can achieve a point where its duration is longer than time needed for regeneration. In most chases party protection is better choice but there are few expections like the Lost utility build invented by Vaclaf. Bronze: Barricade is usualy the more viable option as Temple Guardian gets pretty good attack accuracy trough Battle extension(BE) and weapon lore. Silver: Healing or near immortality? Riposte is the way to go Gold: aside from few builds party protection or neather is the way to go. Battle Extension The Combat Art attack is rather poor, but the passive bonus that this offers is great for all melee Temple Guardian’s. Be sure to get this as fast as bossible with T-energy shroud as it helps with dealing damage on lower levels. I usualy take all the double hit modifiers as more hits usualy defeats small damage boost and critical hits. Mods do not effect the battle extension when using it as passive. Bronze: Both are fine Silver: Impairment as the higher the regen for this skill the better Gold: Both are fine Dedicated blow Not as good as battle extension as passive (except maybe when fighting mobs with high elemental resistance to your attack.) However the Combat Art attack deals some heavy damage when it hits. This with character that has high melee damage may deal serious damage to any opponent with a single hit. Bronze: If combat alert has reflect its more viable to not stun enemies so they can kill themselves. So Transformation. Silver: Intent as many prefer to have their DB with high damage. Gold: Enforce as inflicting wounds is unnecesary combared to damage boost. Deathly spears Generates a ring of spikes around the Temple Guardian that damage everything around you. The amount of rings depends on the level and last modification of your deadly spears. Clafication to the ammount of rings: only 1 ring activates at the time so deadly spears basicly damages like this: 1st ring spikes - 1 second wait - 2nd ring spikes - 1 second wait - 3rd ring of spikes. Great Combat Art to activate when fighting bosses as the rings will continue to damage the boss for a long time after casting it. Not to mention a single ring of spikes may hit the opponent for multiple times making it really deadly with high damage. Bronze: Gore but not for the increased damage but for the fact that you dont want to knockback to this skill Silver: which you prefer (note the fire and magic status aliments) Gold: Jab = extra ring of spikes! T-Energy shroud This is a must have for all Temple Guardian builds. see section T-energy shroud in Temple guardian basics section for more info. Bronze: Both are good, Derogate damages everything around you by fixed ammount. The damage can be increased trough leveling T-energy shroud, x% magic damage, combat disclipline and tactics lore. Silver: Reduction as the combat recharge value is way too low to even compare with the ammount of damage reduction the reduction mod offers. (in battle recharge =/= out of battle recharge) Gold: Both are good but for magic reflect pick Reflection. Source Warden [CG09][2] Primal mutation Mainly used to reduce target’s attributes as deadly spears is often more viable “spell” to deal damage even as source warden focused build. Bronze: both are fine Silver: Helpless Gold: Helpless Fiery Ember Area of Effect Spell with very good range, however as the Combat Art spawns multiple volcanos to the field to damage mobs. However if the mob gets away from the volcanos range it wont be damaged any longer. Best to gather around a lot of mobs around the player and cast this to damage them while they are hitting you. Low base damage can be increased trough leveling the skill and the methods described in Spell based Temple Guardian section. Melee Temple Guardian might use this to slow enemy attack speed and and increase/reduce Ice/fire resistance. Mods heavily affected by build, increase damage if you want to use it as offensive Area of Effect spell. Conservation is also a better choise as lower regen means a lot higher spell level and duration. Icy Evanescence Identical skill to Fiery ember but instead does Ice damage and rather than slowing down enemy attack speed it can be modded to slow down enemy running speed. Charged grid Area of Effect Skill that does magic damage and also heal team members including the caster. This skill can be modded to eather deal damage or heal team members. Its adviced to choose one instead of mixing the choises to gain the max benefit. Healing and damage are greatly affected by source warden lore. mods: healing or damage. Longetivity is better choise for gold modification to countier the heavy cool down. Untouchable force (Buff) Firstly, this skill sounds a lot better than it actualy is. The 0,2 pulese frequency doesnt mean that it hits every 0,2s. It means that it hits every 5 seconds. 0,2*5=1! As once every 5 seconds is not much many prefer to use it to pulse debuffs to mobs. Bronze: Both are good but with good level combat alert stun might slow down the speed on which enemies kill themselves. But it might save your life as well. Silver: Same as above many prefer calm Gold: Crumble as combat alert doesnt reflect projectiles. Lost Fusion [CG09][3] If you think your truly hardcore Sacred2 player, Lost fusion based Temple Guardian is for you. Not only is this the hardest aspect to use efficently it is probably weakest aspect in the game (aside from jolting touch skill). Most of the skills are ranged and only hit few opponents at the time. Furious emplazer and Archimedes beam both bind the player to its spot when activated making them sometimes even rather dangerous to use. Battery damage and weapon damage do nothing to increase lost fusion Combat Art damage as they are considered as “spells”. The damage of Lost fusion Combat Art’s can be increased by increasing the level of combat art, Lost fusion lore, intelligence, combat discipline, damage +x%, element of Combat Art +x% Amplifying Discharge Shoots a small orb that hits and bounces from enemy to another. Best to use with small regeneration time and fast casting speed. Bronze: Ricochet – hits maxinium of 3 opponents Silver: Ricochet – hits maxinium of 4 opponents Gold: both are good Furious Emblazer A flametrower, which hits multiple opponents in front of Temple Guardian. Rather hard to use as you can’t move while using it and enemies tend to move away from it. Easier to use when using special mount. Bronze: Both are good Silver: Incapacitate, as we want to kill the mobs since game only rewards experience and loot from kills no? Gold: Both are good Jolting touch Probably the most usefull Lost fusion Combat Art and many take lost fusion focus just to improve this Combat Art. It binds the opponents while damaging them. This alone isnt so good but the modifications like payback, self repair and shelter make it bossible for Temple Guardian to become invulnerable or nearly invulnerable while they are using this skill against the enemy. Very effective against bosses as they cant really do anything while your binding them down and slowly killing them off by repeating deadly spears and jolting touch. Bronze: Paypack since reflect is very effective against pretty much everything, console gamers might consider life leechs as silver mod Self repair is bugged. Silver: Pc: Self repair console gamers: Voltage Gold: Shelter: this with high mitigation gear = 100% damage resistance. Archimedes Beam Locks on to an enemy and shoots a powerfull beam that does DoT for a while. It has slight Area of Effect element as everything the beam touches it damages. But as enemies tend to spread the Area of Effect effect is just slight extra. usefull against escaping enemies and does decent damage overall. Mod as you see fit, but consider leaving this as last Combat Art in lost fusion because of its very limited usefulness. Build guides [CG10] Fully tested (niob cleared) Temple Guardian Utility Fusion Build - "Dwarf in my left arm" (HARDCORE!) Alpha D.O.G. a NON-utility Temple Guardian Well tested level 75+ Source warden Temple Guardian Temple Guardian - Combat Support build - "Paladin" Other Purity Warden Build Dreadnaught and Centurion Builds Theoretical Maximum damage build The Muttronic, A Guide to the Swiss Army Knife of Ancaria Temple Guardian guides in DarkMatters forum Seen a good Temple Guardian build guide or want to promote your own (preferably good) build guide? Ill be happy to add it to the list.

Ty Well the build is not yet, complete as I have yet to beat gold or niob (currently improving my bargaining character (just to make sure that my gear will be efficient enough or overkill). This build has few down sides tough, depending on deadly spears first mod the leveling with normal mobs cab be a bit slow(if modded knockback) as you cant really use it as Area of Effect, but the characters survivability allows rather efficient training in the orc cave. Another downside is that while you have great tanking cabeabilities it will limit your damage a bit, normal mobs take 1-2 hits to kill(thanks to double hits you can still 1 hit most) but most elite mobs take few extra hits to take down. Orc cave orcs (and many other mobs with high damage) will do their best to assist you because of massive melee reflect. Bosses go down fairly quickly as long as you don't have to run away to regain shield, deadly spears does great damage, combat alert -> battle extension combo gives you rather high chance to hit depending on your weapon lore level. Main reason for lack of damage is lack of points distriputed to strenght, so theres a margin of preference for more experienced players to distripute some points to strenght instead of the atribute I used. However putting the first 50 points to stamina are imo rather important part of this build as Combat alert and T-energy shroud both help a lot, and having these at highest level bossible helps even more.

Note: this build has only been tested to level 87, (silver and gold difficulties completed). This is console build so theres no guarantee that it works as well in PC version(mainly due to difference in hot key system). At least based on the changes that I have heard on the upcoming expansion it should not have much effect on this build, all skills rings will just not help as much but death blow should still work rather well with melee, however the gear I have used to level 87 is not all that good so the changes should not affect this build much. The build should be very Hardcore cabeable as it goes a bit overkill on the defensive features of TG by using shield, armor and HP. The build is NON-utility build so its recommended to have a high level character with at least bargaining to support the character with all skills rings and other good rings such as shield energy +X%, absorption warding energy +X%, etc etc. The build is Paladin build (a bit like in Diablo 2) which means it was build to be a "tank" with high supportive elements like healing, boosting teams damage/attack/defense, while fighting along their side. . What kind of char will this build develop to?: Atleast based on logic and my knowledge Paladin should become a TG with really high survivability because of insanely high reflect(high level combat alert.), damage migitation(Toughness, armor lore mastery, shield[reduce], gear), armor(armor lore, toughness and gear ) and HP (constitution mastery.) The melee damage probably wont be as high as with some TG builds, nor will you do much damage with source warden (PALADIN is not an Area of Effect MAGE!) so we tend to focus on having SW-Combat Arts as more of debuff's or boosts to help ourselves and the team.) However trough tactics lore and battle extension/Dedicated blow the char will do fairly good damage to take down the bosses without too much trouble. Attributes I use these mainly to balance the atribute growth so if you want you can also - But points to stamina (to get high level buff's and Combat Arts as quickly as possible) - But points to vitality (to get insane hp regeneration and overall hp) - But points to willpower (increased spell resistance and more shield power) - But points to strength (to improve the overall damage and attack accuracy) why not int you may ask, well main reason is that this build is not aimed to be an huge Magic damage dealer and putting enough points to int for it to actually matter might severely handicap your char. Attributes like stamina, vitality and dex increase far more things than just spell damage. 1-50: Stamina (100%) Stamina is great since it lowers your ca Regen ratios. This allows you to have higher level CA:s at beginning. 50-80: Dexterity and Vitality (50%/50%) combat alert gives nice boost to defense, but we need more base defense for it to be more useful. Dex boosts both attack and defense and TG:s normal growth rate in these 2 attributes is poor so increasing them manually doesn't hurt. 81-100 Since around level 80 and 81 the dexterity starts to be quite high compared to other stats its nice to use these attribute points to balance out other stats as well. At 81 I decided to swap dexterity with willpower to increase the shields power. As shield gives nice damage migitation its good to have it around for much longer. 101+: havent decided yet *unsure* Skills: 1. Devout guardian focus (good to keep high, also gives mod points to dg Combat Arts) Well we need this to improve DS, Combat alert, T-energy shroud and battle extension and dedicated blow so its great to have it as soon as possible. 2. Armor lore (master as soon as possible) Paladin has always been a class that can take damage, with armor lore mastery we will open up these great damage mitigation modifiers in armors and pauldrons. Also Armor lore + toughness will improve your armor and mitigation a lot. 3. Tactics lore (good to keep high, also gives mod points to dg Combat Arts) Combat alert is one way to improve our characters damage dealing cabeabilities. Now lets combine it with another one to really increase the damage. at level 40 or so combat alert gives me around 200% dmg boost while tactics lore gives around 200% as well. 4. Constitution (having around 30-40 points at it before level 75 helps) This is one skill that lets us stay alive in combat, it also makes the character more "fool proof" against situations where everything else just fails. It also increases the HP regeneration quite nicely when mastered. 5. Sword lore/ hafted lore (increase when ever you feel that you miss too much) Since combat alert improves our accuracy based on %, it would be nice to have a good base value on our attack. Not to mention that it also increases the attack speed and provides us with nice unlock able modifiers. 6. warding energy lore (depends on how much you want to rely on shield) Since TG is "handicapped" and can't wield a shield, we will be using a energy shield instead. Energy shield absorbs 60% of the damage dealt to tg while it has the energy to sustain the shield, this skill both increases the energy amount and regeneration rate while opening new modifiers as well!. 7. Toughness (2nd skill to master) This might feel like it would have only little effect, but mastering this gives you around 10% damage mitigation on all elements, with this and armor lore mastery modifiers we can shoot our damage mitigation trough the roof! It also gives extra armor to all elements which get boosted by armor lore as well. 8. or 9. Source warden focus (do not bother with this untill your survivability and killing power is high enough ) One could think that untill getting this skill our character will be just a knight in shining armor. But Source warden skills gives our character some magic abilities to heal our team mates, improve magic resistances, debuff enemies etc etc. Area of Effect damage dealing skills are not bad eather. 9. or 8. concentration (same as sw focus but less important) Well we want the 2nd buff don't we? it also decreases the regen times of both dg and sw ca:s so its nice to have around. Even if its increased only by all skills +X modifiers 10. Source warden lore (when you start to want more damage on sw skills) To increase the effectiviness of Sw combat arts. It also improves casting speed and critical ratio while providing modifier points. CA:S DG Combat alert - <1st> - Barricade (TG cant use a shield so everything that adds defense is welcome addition) - Riposte (the insane reflect ratio at higher levels makes this your favorite ca) - Party Protection (We want to help our friends and this build is heavily based on this skill as cast able ca so..) I keep the regen time at 10s, the duration improves at every level so it will eventualy be more than the cooldown + regen. T-Energy Shroud <3rd/4th> - Power (makes the shield last a bit longer) - Reduction (more damage mitigation = less damage = win) - Reflect (combat alert already offers great Ph-reflect so magic reflect is great addition!) Deadly spears (extra "skill" for extra modifications) Both are fine, but I picked the Batter, since it can save your life. (note: but it will make your Area of Effect killing cabeabilities lower) Singe - this with fiery ember sounds nice Jab - more hits! Battle extension (2nd extra "skill" for extra modifications) Double Attack - For more hits! Impairment or efficiency - doesn't really matter as Combat alert already improves hit rating. Double Attack - Guess we could use some more hits? - Very good when used as passive, not really efficent as skill but not completely worthless. LF No skills from here are needed. Source warden These are skills that you wont be upgrading at lower levels. But getting charged grid, untouchable force to max modifications will help you. Since we dont have repair in our combat alert it could be nice to have combo where combat alert + charged grid are both activated. This will make our character pretty much unkillable for duration of both effects. (health regen + insane reflect + insane defense boost) Charged Grid <2nd> - Substance - Substance ("the healing spell") - Longetivity (Since the spell needs some serious leveling its good to keep it active for longer) Note, with constitution master, high level source warden lore and good CA level this should also grant us with pretty much immortality. Untouchable force (mainly making the char more annoying to kill) <2nd> - Mind control (whats more annoying than to be stunned?) - Calm (Whats more annoying than to be stunned while having attack speed lowered?) - Crumble(to add annoyance factor to even ranged enemies) Icy evanescence and fiery ember are both good skills, however I would like to leave them for you to decide what to use them for. They are great debuffs but also have nice damage dealing cabeabilities as well. but I am planning to pick: Fiery ember scald churn sustain - this makes fiery ember the debuff that lowers enemies attack speed. icy evanescence Ice needles deep frost conservation (makes it easier to level and faster to regen) - this makes icy evanescence a effective Area of Effect damage dealer. (note: its not bad idea to have 2 debuffs/boost, but as you can only do one at the time) I personally like to have my enemies hit slower than making them run slower as Paladin is melee char after all, Slowdown from fiery ember + untouchable force = slow motion for every1 else except you and your team Slower running speed for enemies has it uses too tough, it may save team members who are underleveled compared to other team members, or just lack defensive power. Damage migitation or bonus damage are both good, bonus damage makes your team do more elemental damage, but migitation makes your team take less damage. Gear getting those All skills rings for your sockets will help a lot. Toughness which I am planning to leave at level 75 will continue to get boosted by all skills rings. Armor lore will be at really high levels because of these as well. These are rather important as many of the skills are important but we only have so little skill points to spare. Skills like sword lore, source warden skills, constitution DG focus and tactics lore all need points. At level 80 my sword lore is still around 20 which would make me miss a lot but since its boosted by all skills rings and the attack rating is boosted by combat alert my hit accuracy is actually quite good. getting the Armor lore mastery as fast as bossible actualy has a reason thats related to gear. There are Armours and pauldrons that have armor lore mastery modifier that gives damage migiation. At level 80 I have 8% damage migitation in both my armor and pauldrons and 10% migitation from greaves of demiurge. The shield also gives me 7% and toughness probably around 12%. this lessens the damage quite a lot. Leveling. I have done my leveling from 45-87 mainly in Orc caves, mainly because they do high damage so I can keep in check that my defense is good, and they give loads of experience and good drops. This lessens the amount of work I need to do with utility chars. However if you dont want to grind in the orc cave you are free to find different methods of training like doing quests or using deadly spears or possibly SW Area of Effect CA to do some Area of Effect killing at higher levels. Early levels: Just try to do the first 2 main-quest missions and fetch yourself a bit ca:s trough the rune master quest or get at least combat alert, T-energy shroud, Battle-extension. If you dont have these just to get enough ca runes to trade something for them while you are leveling your first levels. Its also advice able to buy yourself a full gear from the shop as fast as possible, try finding the ones with best armor. Armor lore is good to start with as it offers you decent armor boost at the beginning and lets you wear gear of higher level so that it wont slow you down. However spend your mainly to devout guardian and tactics lore at the beginning to unlock modificatiosn to combat alert and T-energy shroud. Depending on are you playing with your friends a lot you can eather take the party protection mod or just leave it for later since it doesn't really help YOU at all. Magic reflect of T-energy shroud can also be less useful than battle extension modifications at start of the game (only few mobs actually use magic at the beginning). when you have modded combat alert and T-energy shroud with the modifications you want, you might consider getting armor lore to your level. This build isnt as "just" as many others so your free to but some points to wpn lore if you feel that your missing too much with combat alert, its good if you miss without combat alert as it reminds you to cast it (I had like 15 wpn lore at level 75 so..). Constitution is rather good to improve too as it increases your survivability quite a lot if you get in to situations where you don't have nether combat alert or shield on. Don't bother with the bosses before gaining like 20-30 levels. Especially optional ones since considering their time + effort/experience value is rather poor. Also don't bother with quests so much as they are more of a nice "extra" before getting to higher difficulties where you might actually get some experience and items from em. But if you get bored to "grinding" they are a nice alternative. - Keep armor lore at your level, it will make you take a lot less damage and if you have utility char to provide gear, your paladin can get his hands on these a lot faster. - improve Tactics lore, toughness and devout guardian focus as your secondary focus - Put points to warding energy lore, constitution and weapon lore every now and then(WEL=CST>Wpn lore). (weapon lore usually gets boosted enough by all skills rings) - when you get concentration put atleast 9 points to sw focus to fully modify the buff Untouchable force, Do not waste too much points on SW skills as its more important to get armor lore mastery and toughness first. After those you might want to but few points in to both to get better healing spell and buff. All skill rings are godsend for these skills as with high skill level boost you can get more use out of these. - Try to master armor lore and Toughness both before level 80 (I mastered armor lore at 75 and toughness at 78) Battle: - Against mobs Just gather some nice ammount of mobs and when ready cast combat alert and battle extension and beat them to death. Deadly spears is nice too, but not very good at leveling if you took batter like I did, batter is better for tougher mobs like bosses as if they get push back they usually have this moment of "***" which allows you score a few extra hits and it might save your life at least in early game. Gore is far better choice for Area of Effect leveling. - Against bosses Depending on the boss, normal bosses fall down fairly quickly if you just cast combat alert -> run next to them -> cast deadly spears and activate battle extension simultaneously (press BE while deadly spears works with combat alert as well) depending on your level the bosses will go down rather quickly and the damage they might give to you is rather controllable. Gar colossus If your fighting him on lvls 17-25 he might be rather tough opponent because of the shield. But theres a trick to make his shield last a lot less damage. Just destroy the T-energy rocks that appear when he throws them. Octopus This is probably easiest boss with faccettelion, however he doesnt seem to be damaged by deadly spears.. This makes the battle a bit longer as he also has rather high evasion. On every difficulty I have used maybe 1-2 potions when fighting him (mainly because of the poison) but he still takes a while to take down. Faccettelion however is a joke atleast against the paladin. Swirling mist of miasma Defeat the skeletons he sends to damage him, however BEWARE of the dangerous mist swirl he tries to cast on you. It will deal some serious damage to any character no matter what the build is. So try not to run trough those small tornadoes and try not to stay on the same place for too long. surest method is just to run around casting deadly spears as you can move and damage at the same time, it will make the fight a lot longer tough. The nameless guardians They all have different attack element, so many receive a lot damage from these because they lack the armor for certain elements, try to get as good armor against the 3 elements and once you get one down check its element from the last monster you killed and remove the elemental runes from that element to other elements. However avoid fighting without combat alert and the shield. - You'll take 60% more damage and even more because of T-energyshields reduction mod. This is more of "just to make sure" rule or method to save potions on early levels and I cant wait every1 to have a secondary char to support their char with uber items or the support is limited. - Without combat alert you'll take a lot more hits, not only your defense will be down but the Combat alerts (mod) reflect 50%+ as well. If you know how to recast the combat alert as often as possible in battle this will not happen. - Check sacred wiki for the element of the boss, this can help you alot since high armor lore boosts both elemental and p-armor. For example its far easier to kill a dragon if you are equipped by top quality fire relics and bossily accessories. After level 75 it gets a bit easier as you'll get access to Damage mitigation armors. As for levels I prefer to keep combat alert - 15+10s T-energy shroud - +30% battle extension - just but all runes to this you can find, the more the RG on this the better.. Dedicated blow - under 1s SW-Area of Effect combat arts 25-30s Charged grid 30-40s Untouchable force +30% Controls PS3/X360 - My preference Triangle/Y - combat alert R + Triangle/Y Fiery ember square/X - battle-extension R + square/X Charged grid Circle/B - Deadly spears R + Circle/B Icy Evanescence Cross/A - Attack button R + Cross/A Dedicated blow - I was asked to post my build here by member of sacred2 official forums member gogoblender so I did.