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Help with Duel Wield /Revered Technology Build


Eliriana

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Hi everyone,

 

I am new to Sacred 2 and this forum and could use some advice from more experienced players. I have invested quite some time now in reading guides and looking up builds for my shopper-seraphim build but as there is no respecing I would realy apreciate some input.

The idea of this build is a dual wielding Seraphim with bargain and some Rev Tech.

 

 

Skills

 

1 Tactics Lore 2

2 Armor Lore 3

3 Dual wield 5

4 Enhanced Perception 8

5 Bargaining 12

6 Exalted Warrior Focus 18

7Revered Technology Focus 25

8 Toughness 35

9 Revered Technology Lore 50

10 Constitution 65

 

CA (Mod)

Pelting Strikes[/s2wiki] (Successio, Focus, Precision)

Flaring Nova (Expand, Stun, Laggard) [I am still undecided if to go for expand or impulse, what do you think?]

Battle Stance (Premonition, Drill, Retaliation)

Dashing Alacrity (Sprout, Delay, Impatience)

Assailing Somersault (only for fun and traveling)

Soul Hammer (Aim, Battering, Coup de Grace)

Divine Protection (Capacity, Boost, Improved Mirror)

Archangels Wrath (Salvo, Lock, Vulnerable)

 

Stats: (as realy nicely explaned by soldat's)

Stamina 1 point/level (1-50)

Stamina/Vitality 1 point/level (50-...)

 

My thoughts about the Skills:

Tactics lore, Armor Lore and Dual wield are as I understand it not up for diskusion for a dw-build (maybe not in that order but still).

Enhanced Perception is in this case my prereq for bargain, so the next 2 are sadly necessary.

Exalted Warrior Focus for -reg and combined with Tactics Lore for mod points

The last 4 are the ones that make my head hurt:). Rev Tech Lore/Focus I chose because Divine Protection sounds too good and to work properly with Dashing alacrity it has to be moded. The other reason is that I think without Flaring Nova this build lacks utility (stun) and Area of Effect-dmg and some ranged CA like archangels wrath would also be nice.

For survivability I chose Toughness and Constitution.

 

Problems and Questions:

One of the Problems of this build are in my view of a devensive nature. With the Rev tech Lore/Focus and PE/Bargain I have no Skills to spare for Concentration (therefore no need for warding energy lore) , so no second buff and also no combat reflexes. Theoreticaly later on I can keep divine protection nearly constantly on (console version), but is this enough to keep me alive? And is it even posible or practical to ceep devine protection (in a combo with dashing alacrity) up especialy in long boss fights?

 

So a lot of compromisses have to be made and I am not quite sure if I did the right think, so if you have any suggestions or see an error in my reasoning or tried something like this and didnt like it pls tel me. The Problem is that I will probably have not the time to play a lot of different Chars to high level besides my work, so input from you would be realy wellcome.

 

Ok thats it for now and thanks in advance and pardon my spelling (thats not even in my mothertoung (not english as you probably noticed:)) my strong side).

Edited by Eliriana
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On the console version, you can keep Divine Protection up 100% of the time. On the consoles, IMO, Battle Stance is the only buff you need. Divine Protection is so powerful you do not need Warding Energy.

 

I never used a combo for Divine Protection/Dashing Alacrity, since I never got the cool downs anywhere near close to each other.

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The defence looks OK, this would be survivable the way it is now. Combat Reflexes is nice skill, but it's not the main source of defence. However, if you're going for melee as your play style and exalted as primary aspect, you can swap RevTech Lore for Combat Reflexes as you won't get a lot of damage from revered CAs anyway.

 

As for Flaring Nova, the mods can be either Expand-Stun-Flux if you're going to use it as main attacking CA, or Impulse-Stun-Laggard if you're going to use it only as a support CA (in order not to deal big damage, but to weaken the opponents before attack). Impulse doubles the chance to stun, so it's a good choice for a close combat fighter.

 

Also, it may be better to take Constitution at level 35 and Toughness at level 65, because Constitution is more beneficial for low-level characters and Toughness comes into play on higher levels.

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Also, it may be better to take Constitution at level 35 and Toughness at level 65, because Constitution is more beneficial for low-level characters and Toughness comes into play on higher levels.

 

A question (since I was also planning on taking Toughness before Constitution)-why is this better? Con gives more health/regen but Toughness reduces the amount of damage you take,right?

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A question (since I was also planning on taking Toughness before Constitution)-why is this better? Con gives more health/regen but Toughness reduces the amount of damage you take,right?

Toughness is a great skill, but its effect is more significant for high-level character than for a low-level one. Toughness adds some damage mitigation, but the amount of mitigation added isn't very big. Usually, the effect of Toughness can be noticed only if you have both this skill and some decent gear that adds some percents to Damage Mitigation. When you don't have such gear, this skill can't be a life savior. At lower character levels, the item levels are also low, and the amount of mitigation these items may add is not great either.

 

On low skill levels Toughness adds less than 1% of mitigation (0.3% on level 1). The enemies that level 35 seraphim can encounter don't do great damage (number-wise), so 1% mitigation would be barely noticeable. At the same time, Constitution adds some % to hitpoints (4% on skill level 1), which even for level 35 seraphim can result in significant numbers. So on low levels the effect of Constitution is more noticeable. As I said, it changes as the character grows in levels and gets access to better items (and stronger enemies).

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Defense should not be a problem. I would try to master Constitution by 75, or shortly thereafter. Just get your first two Divine Protection mods ASAP and pump the runes.

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Toughness is a great skill, but its effect is more significant for high-level character than for a low-level one. Toughness adds some damage mitigation, but the amount of mitigation added isn't very big. Usually, the effect of Toughness can be noticed only if you have both this skill and some decent gear that adds some percents to Damage Mitigation. When you don't have such gear, this skill can't be a life savior. At lower character levels, the item levels are also low, and the amount of mitigation these items may add is not great either.

 

On low skill levels Toughness adds less than 1% of mitigation (0.3% on level 1). The enemies that level 35 seraphim can encounter don't do great damage (number-wise), so 1% mitigation would be barely noticeable. At the same time, Constitution adds some % to hitpoints (4% on skill level 1), which even for level 35 seraphim can result in significant numbers. So on low levels the effect of Constitution is more noticeable. As I said, it changes as the character grows in levels and gets access to better items (and stronger enemies).

 

Ah one of the best comphrehensive yet simple explanation for the majority of players picking up and mastering Consititution earlier. Nice one Silver :thumbsup:

Only thing I have to add is that the hitpoint bonus from Constitution is based on a static value, not percentage. But still, it is the generally more preferred choice among the Sacred 2 community at the lower levels :)

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Thanks a lot for all of this helpful replys.

 

 

One more Question :) :

 

Silver_fox you proposed to substitute Rev Tech Lore. That sounds very interesting but is pelting strike as only Area of Effect-dmg-source enough? And is it even possible with this build to use flaring nova as a main dmg-source? I ask because boss-vice the debuff-version (impulse,stun,laggard) sounds better but for aoefarming purposes the dmg-version may be better.

As you can see I whant it all :D . But seriously, is it possible to use pelting strike and flaring nove (Impulse,stun,flux:tradeoff between boss and Area of Effect) in conjunction to get high damageoutput or do I gimp myselve to much with this comination?

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A question (since I was also planning on taking Toughness before Constitution)-why is this better? Con gives more health/regen but Toughness reduces the amount of damage you take,right?

Toughness is a great skill, but its effect is more significant for high-level character than for a low-level one. Toughness adds some damage mitigation, but the amount of mitigation added isn't very big. Usually, the effect of Toughness can be noticed only if you have both this skill and some decent gear that adds some percents to Damage Mitigation. When you don't have such gear, this skill can't be a life savior. At lower character levels, the item levels are also low, and the amount of mitigation these items may add is not great either.

 

On low skill levels Toughness adds less than 1% of mitigation (0.3% on level 1). The enemies that level 35 seraphim can encounter don't do great damage (number-wise), so 1% mitigation would be barely noticeable. At the same time, Constitution adds some % to hitpoints (4% on skill level 1), which even for level 35 seraphim can result in significant numbers. So on low levels the effect of Constitution is more noticeable. As I said, it changes as the character grows in levels and gets access to better items (and stronger enemies).

 

Thank you for the heads-up! That makes it easier to chart my path here. But,this leads to another question:I was planning on working both Combat Reflexes AND Toughness into my current Seph but if Toughness requires both high-levels AND good gear,would I be better off going just Combat Reflexes and skipping Toughness altogether?

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Silver_fox you proposed to substitute Rev Tech Lore. That sounds very interesting but is pelting strike as only Area of Effect-dmg-source enough? And is it even possible with this build to use flaring nova as a main dmg-source? I ask because boss-vice the debuff-version (impulse,stun,laggard) sounds better but for aoefarming purposes the dmg-version may be better.

As you can see I whant it all :D . But seriously, is it possible to use pelting strike and flaring nove (Impulse,stun,flux:tradeoff between boss and Area of Effect) in conjunction to get high damageoutput or do I gimp myselve to much with this comination?

 

I can't vouch for Silver, but I'll add my opinion on the matter :) As I see it there are two ways to go about modding Flaring Nova: One option is for damage and the other is for utility. You have to look at how each will benefit your build and playstyle. For the best damage, I recommend Impluse, Stun, Flux. This turns the combat art into a very spammable attack that can take out waves of monsters on it's own. Adding pelting strikes afterwords in a combo when modded this way, will help mob up any stragglers or champions that made it through the nova. This is very effective form of modding it and Barristan's Archangel Build uses this form of setup to get success. If you were looking to mainly focus on using pelting strikes and dual wield to boost the damage, then I would suggest modding flaring nova for utility. This would involve modding Nova for Expand, Stun, Laggard/Flux. Although this may seem almost exactly the same modification setup as the previous damage one, it is for several reasons. Stun is picked over Perplex because the mod is supposedly broken. Stun is also a better choice IMO because it also acts as a defensive ability. If the monsters are stunned, they're not hitting you! Regarding Laggard/Flux...I always mod the damage way I said earlier, so I'm going to say go for Flux. But if you truly want to make it utility, then pick Laggard. I usually don't because I can never tell if it's working or not. Expand is the choice here that also makes it utility instead of damage. Being able to stun a huge group of enemies will be a very good defensive tactic and trick vs the two pulses with minimal range. Sorry for the big block of text! :D

 

Thank you for the heads-up! That makes it easier to chart my path here. But,this leads to another question:I was planning on working both Combat Reflexes AND Toughness into my current Seph but if Toughness requires both high-levels AND good gear,would I be better off going just Combat Reflexes and skipping Toughness altogether?

 

Hey there Slyborg! I feel that this is a matter of personal preference. Combat Reflexes and Toughness are two very good skills and defensive tactics in the game. Combat Reflexes provides a chance to avoid attacks all together and lessens the chance for a critical hit. Toughness mitigates a portion of the incoming damage and provides an armor bonus. As I see it, you have to decide which skill will fit your playstyle more. Combat Reflexes is great for the player who never wants to get hit, dodges all the strong attacks, but kind of lives on the edge because of that. If a really strong hit comes through, the character's health might take a heavy drop and redline. Very "living on the edge" playstyle. Toughness will appeal to players who like to play it a little safer and like to micromanage a bit. When that massive attack comes through, a percentage of the damage gets discarded before it hits your hitpoints. You WILL get hit, but it will be less hard and you can watch your health and keep the boat afloat :) Furian here on the forums mentioned that he would "like to get hit less often, rather than get hit less hard" while on the other hand Dobri suggests "I would rather like to take a lot of damage spread over many hits, instead of taking a lot of damage all in one hit". My opinion? If you have room in your build, go for both! :D

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A idea I was kicking around-take Toughness as my second to last skill pick and Enhanced Perception last. This would give me both defensive skills...and I really,really,REALLY enjoy taking loot off the bodies of my foes,as opposed to buying it at a store. Is this a good approach?

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A idea I was kicking around-take Toughness as my second to last skill pick and Enhanced Perception last. This would give me both defensive skills...and I really,really,REALLY enjoy taking loot off the bodies of my foes,as opposed to buying it at a store. Is this a good approach?

 

Hmm, I seem to be a tad lost here :Just_Cuz_21: Are you including both Toughness and Combat Reflexes into the build? Along with Enhanced Perception? Because if you can fit it, that'd be the optimal setup. All of those skills are beneficial to your character, and you can never go wrong with better loot! :)

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I'm at work,so I don't have my gal's character info to hand. I THINK I can shoehorn both skills into her build but the only supplemental skill she would have is Enhanced Perception. If I can't though...tough choices time.

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Only thing I have to add is that the hitpoint bonus from Constitution is based on a static value, not percentage.

I wasn't sure about it when I was writing my reply yesterday, so I checked the wiki. Its article about Constitution lists a hitpoint % bonus. Maybe the wiki is wrong, but from what I remember, Constitution adds more than 4 hitpoints on the first skill level.

 

I know that there was a very good description of Flaring Nova made by Ryan several posts above, but I'll write my opinion too. Flaring Nova can be used as primary damage dealer (very effective against usual mobs, though champions usually remain alive after it), but in this case you should pay a lot of attention (and put points into) the Revered skills. If you are going to actually fight with Nova, it'd be better to keep RevTech Focus at level until 75 and then try to master the RevTech Lore (or vice versa, whatever you prefer). If you don't plan investing many points into revered and prefer to pay attntion to other skills, it'd be better to use Nova as utility CA because it will lack damage.

 

As for mods, the second is obviously Stun (because it is useful and its alternative is broken). If you plan to use Nova against bosses, the first mod definitely should be Impulse (more damage + double chance to stun). For the utulity CA I prefer Impulse either because of the same double chance. For the main damage dealer, the first mod is debatable and actually depends on your preferred playstyle: Impulse provides better damage total, but affects significantly less mobs, so you'd have to keep the Nova spammable in order to get rid of a bigger crowds. This means that you have to watch the regen and not read too many runes. If Expand is chosen, the Nova affects more enemies at the same time and you can clear the area with less Novas. In this case you can afford a bit longer regen (because you'd have to spend some time gathering the next crowd around you) and boost damage by reading a couple more runes. The third mod is Flux for the damage and Laggard for the utility CA.

 

Thank you for the heads-up! That makes it easier to chart my path here. But,this leads to another question:I was planning on working both Combat Reflexes AND Toughness into my current Seph but if Toughness requires both high-levels AND good gear,would I be better off going just Combat Reflexes and skipping Toughness altogether?

What are your other skills this far? How many defensive skills do you plan to include. I'm especially interested in Warding Energy Lore. Also, are you planning to use the Warding Energy buff or to buff-up Divine Protection? You can skip Toughness if your character would have a good energy shield, but you'd better take this skill if Warding Energy Lore isn't included in your build.

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I am going with a Exalted Warrior build-I currently have her to 20.

1:Exalted

2:Tactics

3:Dual Wield

4:Armor

5:Sword (1 pt only-unlocks Sword bonuses)

6:Concentration

7:Combat Reflexes

8:Constitution

9:Toughness

10:Enhanced Perception

 

I know I want to master EW and Dual Wield first. I'm not sure,though,which defensive skill I should master.Given that I am going with both Combat Reflexes AND Toughness,would taking both to 20 or so give me a decent defense? I would really like to max out Enhanced Perception but don't know if I will have the skill points to do it...

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I wasn't sure about it when I was writing my reply yesterday, so I checked the wiki. Its article about Constitution lists a hitpoint % bonus. Maybe the wiki is wrong, but from what I remember, Constitution adds more than 4 hitpoints on the first skill level.

 

Haha, yes I'd hope it adds a bit more than 4 points :D I always have the description reading a hitpoint bonus of +74 at Constitution level 1, so I assumed it was static. Maybe it is a percentage, I'll do some double checking.

 

I am going with a Exalted Warrior build-I currently have her to 20.

1:Exalted

2:Tactics

3:Dual Wield

4:Armor

5:Sword (1 pt only-unlocks Sword bonuses)

6:Concentration

7:Combat Reflexes

8:Constitution

9:Toughness

10:Enhanced Perception

 

One quick question for ya Slyborg if I might ask? What was your reasoning for picking up Concentration? It would appear that you are using a one aspect only build, and the Exalted Warrior tree only has one buff. Did you pick it to keep the regeneration times down a little? Just a little lost :) Your build looks very similar to Antitrust's Queen of Blades Build minus the bargaining, so give that a glance as well? Might help with the decision making a little :)

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Of all the attacks that a melee Seph has,I like Pelting Strikes the best. Seems to be great whether you are fighting mobs of guys or just one. The recharge on it is high compared to the others,though.With Concentration,I can pretty easily keep the recharge speed at or even under 4 seconds. Usually,the skill is recharged by the time it finishes firing! :heart:

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I agree, IMO Concentration's sole purpose is to run a second buff.

 

Edit:

For PS, skip Concentration and invest in RpH. With RpH around 1, and a 5 sec regen for PS, it will be charged before the animation is complete.

Edited by lujate
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I agree, IMO Concentration's sole purpose is to run a second buff.

 

Edit:

For PS, skip Concentration and invest in RpH. With RpH around 1, and a 5 sec regen for PS, it will be charged before the animation is complete.

 

Lujate has hit it right on the head. Concentration's main bonus lies in having 2 or 3 buffs up at one time. There are plenty of other ways to lower regen time through armor/socketables, so I feel that there are better skills that can be taken to support your character up into the higher difficulties, mainly niob. Regen per hit (RpH) modifiers found on mainly rings and ammys can be a powerful tool on a melee build, allowing for instantaneous recharging of Combat Arts. Especially with a really high attack speed :D

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Well dang-I already have Concentration on this one. I really don't want to scrap her. What's a good secondary buff to run with her?

 

Well as you only have one aspect, I'd say nothing. If you don't want to scrap her, just keep Concentration in the build. It's not going to be game breaking or anything drastic, you might have just missed out on some extra protection or attack power. To be honest, it's all gonna be fine :) Taking Concentration is not completely useless, and in fact there are quite a few builds that use it just for the regeneration bonus. Just stick with one buff and take the extra regen as a bonus. Just don't invest points in the skill! :D

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Starting over might be a good idea if you are not too far along. I know from personal experience that you can muscle thru a less than ideal build, but I would not recommend it.

 

As for another buff, I would not take one. Warding Energy just gets in the way of Divine Protection. BFG is a build untu itself. I guess you could take Cleansing Brilliance, but it would be unmodded. Even modded, I think it is waste, although others would disagree. Unmodded though, most would agree, why bother?

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I guess you could take Cleansing Brilliance, but it would be unmodded. Even modded, I think it is waste, although others would disagree. Unmodded though, most would agree, why bother?

 

You are most correct about it not being of any help if you were not going to mod it, but modded this buff can be a real powerhouse, both offensively and defensively. Let's examine the mods

 

* Distract - Reduces opponents' attack speed within the area of effect. (20% + 0.2% per CA level decrease)

* Blind - Reduces opponents' defense values within the area of effect. (65 + 1 per CA level decrease)

 

Distract is clearly the better mod, and acts as a defensive skills by slowing down the incoming damage. Blind seems very helpful in the early levels, but it does not scale well with CA level very well at all.

 

 

* Purify - Increases damage against undead creatures. (66.7% increase)

* Cleanse - Increases fire damage against T-mutations. (66.7% increase)

 

These two are pretty self explanatory, adding damage against respective enemies. There are far more Undead enemies throughout the game than T-Mutants, so Purify is the better choice. With this mod, you can drop champs in the swamps with one pulse. Very impressive :D

 

* Eagerness - Increase damage per second. (50% increase in hits per second => 50% increased damage per second)

* Illuminate - Increase the area of effect. (26.7% increase)

 

Tough decision here. Eagerness really pumps up the damage, and will really knock out those undead even faster, which is very awesome to see them go flying all over the place as you simply walk by. Illuminate increases the area of effect, which is also very important due to the limited range on the buff. I tend to pick Eagerness to add so extra damage when I go Xping in the swamps, and hope that the skellies are aggravated enough to come to me :D

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All right-I had planned to delete this one and start again. But...I stumbled into this huge group of Skellie Legionaires while heading to the elf capital city.And when the dust settled,I had me a Officer's Saber,with 4 slots. :xmastree: If that isn't a sign from the gaming gods,what is?

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