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Hard Core pure Mentalist


chattius

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As a sort of remembering the day I bought sacred2 4 years back I decided to do my first hard core character. Small twins climbing on knees while playing were a big nono for hardcore till yet. I always liked builds which mix combat and magic, so it will be much like a sohei build. The idea is to use lifeleech weapons and to recharge spells with reg per hit. Also planed is to test out some new CM-patch features.

 

§1 Alchemy

1A Healing

You all know or should know how healing potions work. They have a 5s cooldown and they loose healing power at higher difficulties. So if you hammer space again and again at red screens: only the first time the potion will have its full power. While you are still in cooldown the follow up quaffing will have less and less effect till the cooldown of your last quaffed heal potion is gone.

With alchemy the healing power of a potion is multiplied. So even in cooldown the potions will have better effects.

A light heal without cooldown will still heal 100% in niob!

You have a healing trophy which you can use while in heal potion cooldown!

The dragonmage has no healing spell, so alchemy is considered a musthave.

 

1B Experience

Mentors lasting minutes at high levels... more to say?

 

1C Trophies

Lots of useful ones, mainly trollteeth for 1000% attack value in niob at alchemy mastery. Orc cave allows to get a trollteeth trophy at nearly every visit.

CM patch now has a magic find trophy :)

 

 

§2 Defensive Skills

Armour lore, toughness, constitution, spell resistance

 

 

§3 Combat Art skill

Mentalist lore and focus, ancient magic, combat discipline, concentration

 

§4 Progress

Finished silver at level 44, now near end of gold. I know I should level a bit more between difficulties because of hardcore, ....

 

§5 Playstyle

For moving between Bosses:

Energy Blaze modified for range, staff and shield with combat art range, sigil set with combat art range, and DM draagen set with combat art range.

Energy Blaze has around 8s regeneration time, so 2 weapon hits t orecharge it. It has +42.6% to its range at this screenshot, see the dead skeleton left upper corner when I targeted my feet?

Most often I target the EB at screen ends, so half of its effect is outside the visible screen. EB does most of its damage as damage over time, so monsters are low on hitpoints, attack slowed, sometimes weakened when they reach my close range zone.

Add that runes of protection have a higher radius of stun, maelstrom wins range too. I am not sure if I will use the Elementalist Draagen set at higher difficulties, but currently I find it useful.

DM.jpg

 

Bosses

Currently switching to a lifeleech weapon and trying to have maelstrom and EB effects on them all the time.

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Looks like a very solid build chattius.

 

I always wanted to make a pure mentalist build, but could never make any work. Tried 3 different variations. All failed once they got into platinum.

 

All 3 variations lacked the power to aquire fast kill speeds. Although I never tried % life leech. Also as pure caster I never engaged in close combat with left mouse clicks.

 

Please follow up on your progress. Seems like you may be onto something. I know I tried and FAILED!

 

I remain, :inquire:

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I love how you stuck to your guns always during this game's release for the importance of the trophies Chattius. After reading about your findings back then, setting out two of my toons with uber powered (community drop aided :P) trophy collections was wonderfully natty and a strong appeal to my collector's side ^^

Setting off trophies and seeing monsters literally melt from the onslaught of bufs and debuffs always made me crow with delight.

 

I had actually done an almost pure mentalist build, the animations for the energy Combat Arts were outstanding. Never got around to pairing the concept with trophies though.

 

:)

 

gogo

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You know the frustrating part of a mentalist?

Unmodified Destroyers without focus and lore do as much damage as my full modified Energy Blaze at 8s reg time. :(

Reached dryad island at main quest in platinum, level 81. Damage doing s still left clicks and Energy Blaze. Quaffed 3 healing potions in platinum so far, and I think I may even have survived without them. So alchemy is not really needed for healing so far. But for banning undeads with pink potions it is nice.

Well the low damage could be partly because I wear nearly full elementalist set for extended combat art range rather than the mentalist set.

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Okay, the character is currently transforming. Orcs are 30 levels above me so I have time to collect stuff for level 120 equipment change.

It will be my first modular dragon mage. So what is a modular dragon mage? Around level 120 in niob I found enough half regeneration time, reg per hit with sure hit and other jewelry to socket. So here is the idea:

A) Weapon and shield will have 3 possibilities:

Slot 1: all sockets half regen time for a pure caster build

Slot 2: all sockets sure hit/reg per hit for a mage who recharges with weapon hits

Slot 3: Kaldur x% life leech weapon, all sockets with sure hit/enemy can't evade combining rings

 

B)Gauntlets, bracers and shoulder

1) reg per hit, sure hit, enemy can't evade stuff

2) half regeneration time stuff

3) not needed for boss fights

C) Jewelry not in sockets

standard defensive stuff

D) Rest of armour pieces

1) alll fire damage

2) all physical damage

3) all magical damage

4) all normal damage

 

It is allways the same set and weapons: Draaken except shoulder for maximal combat range, therefor nlovae and ice shield too. So it doesn't matter if the set is used on a 3 aspect dragon mage, single aspect dragon mages, ...

Only the stuff under D) has to be changed to the mainly used damage type.

 

So this character will be playable either as:

pure caster

caster who recharges with weapon hits and uses Kaldurs for bosses

...

The used equipment will be to 80% exactly the same what a to come same level destroyer build or dragon strike build would use.

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  • 3 months later...

Level 105 and the animation of Energy Blaze has a nice range, even better that the area of effect seems a bit wider than the animation. I marked where the animation stops.

I recharge a 5.5s Energeryblaze with a single hit (4.2s reg per hit are in the weapon slot). Because I have no weapon skill and I use high level weapon my attack speed is just 80%. It is enough to kill whole areas with 50 beasts at once. At bosses I swap to a Kaldur (not that much range needed) and use a leatherhat trophy which boosts attack speed by 53% and if needed I can do a demon tooth trophy for all the reg per hit I need. I really like that I can use small heal potions for a full heal in niob thanks to alchemy.

ENERGIEBRAND_zps51862b21.jpg

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Alchemy can really be a useful one, and really overlooked too. Kind of regret neglecting it almost completely on most chars I've played it the past.

Might make few Alchemy-reliant builds once I get the spark to play again all ignited. :D

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  • 2 weeks later...

Level 152:

Wasn't able to kill Undead Prince just with spells.

The character is really robust, even having a bit low kill speed. But I have a quite funny playstyle. I call it 'flower power'. Because it is so robust I can collect lots of enemies. Then I place my energy blaze circles in a over lapping way: all direction of the compas/wind rose I place a blaze. So it looks like a flower with 8 pedals.

Enermies affected by blaze are slowed in attack speed and often weakened, enemies affected by runes of protection are 2-3 times stunned before they are even close. Also runes give a nice 56% CA-block by now and a similiar protection against missiles.

 

Stats: first 100 in stamina, rest in vitality

 

skills:

Masteries I reached in that order:

1. mentalism focus, kept at level, now 152

1. mentalism lore

1. ancient magic - only a single damage type, so its needed

4. spell resistance - with the willpower from companion buff - less nightmares at spitting spiders

5. constitution - no combat art with heal or life leech, wanted the healing in combat

6. toughness - virtual hitpoints

7. armour lore - mainly for lowering regen times after the change from hybrid to caster

8. combat discipline - more damage and 10% turn the regen-clock

next ones will be

alchemy, currently 3 points

concentration, currently 1 point

 

200 runes read into each buff, 120 runes read into energy blaze.

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  • 2 weeks later...

OMG, I watched my 13 year old playing this character. She has double to trible my kill speed :(

 

She rotates with 'A' key and clicks in the upper left corner in a certain rythm and the energy blazes are nicely placed killing around, affecting a field of 4 screen sizes at minimum zoom.

I was shocked when she fought around 30 spitting spiders in the swamp with this tactic - with my HARDCORE character.

 

Well with spell resistances at mastery a DOT attack lasts hardly 2 ticks and damage over time is reduced by 50% anayway. Around same for over all damage mitigation. Energy blazes reduce enemy attack speed to just a third of normal and enemies are stunned by shield of protection most often before they enter the area. But still, it makes me nervous seeing her fighting such an amount of spiders.

 

If this would have been 2 years ago I would have considered writing a guide ;)

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She'll be something great someday. :D

Well, jokes aside. I'd be crapping my pants on such situation... Guess it really holds true that older you get, more careful you get. I think.

And mind you, I'm not that old. xD But never been a HC-player, so there... Looks like this build sure would be worth trying out one day. When I get myself into it.

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Level 155, Epic bureau quest finished together with 548 other quests.

This is normally the level I stopped my earlier characters. Without CM-patch it normally got easier from now on: enemies running into their level cap while your character still raises power.

 

I like the multilayer defense of this character:

runes of protection to reduce chance to get hit: block CA, block ranged, % defense value ,% to stun in extented range

52000 over all armour - lowers peak damage. Look at the damage to armour graphs and you know what I mean

50+% all type damage mitigation

45% all type reduce damage over time

spell resistance mastered to reduce time DoT is on

high willpower from companion together with spell resistance helps in that

alchemy to heal and fill any hole in the defense for special enemies (trophies with root block, evade, ...)

more than 3 times the duration of mentors, concentration and undead ban potions - with a single point in alchemy right now

maelstrom and energy blaze covering a real big area - close to full screen, in which enemies are slowed, reduced in attack speed, weakened...

 

Runes of protection are at CA-Level 141 with 155 points in mental focus

companion is at CA-Level 70 with dragonmagic not taken at all, but even unmodified 1000+ in willpower and intelligence

 

Both buffs have 200 runes read in. 99.5% chance to half regeneration time makes a 2s energyblaze spammable in 1s.

 

Mindstrike for single champions and a weapon slot with a Kaldur socketed with hit chance items and using x% attack value and x% attack speed trophies allow hitting the forest master tree with 148% attack speed with 97% hit chance at 2.5% life leech.

Dragonform allows a bit of teleport to shortcut runs.

 

---

 

Of any pure single aspect characters I played, this is my best.

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Our second played a bit at hospital when she was there for scar treatment

Level 170, 602 quests done. Killing ghosts to get nice rings and amulets for the change to the level-195 set.

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The God

Choosing Forens for the CA-Reflection is probably the best choose. Gefahr is german for danger, so the G is not for God-power in my eyes but for danger. Whenever approaching a known spawn point of devil eyes or demon champs who can do x% life leech attacks, pressing the danger-button is a must-do when playing hardcore I think.

Only chance to reduce their damage is to block or reflect this life leech combat art.

 

Really don't wait with the G power until you see a x% life leech enemy if you know you are close to a known spawn point. Do it a bit in advance.

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  • 1 month later...

Played a bit, change of equipment and I was able to repeat doing the bosses at the big machine without x% life leech, just with mentalist spells. Pressing right mouse buttom for a minute :)

Sadly if trying to do a video the frame rate is down to 2fps :(

Got some more high level rings with the beautiful combinations:

-x% regen time/y% chance to halve regen time

x to all skills/y to all combat arts

 

Read 200 runes into every mentalist CA and the familiar. Able to spam mindblast or energy blaze. Boss fights are with the combination: Mahlstrom/Energyblaze/Mindblast.

The enemy is ropped of most of its stats, slowed in attack speed, slowed in redoing ca's, stones from trolls drop short, ...

 

Remember this is a hardcore character, so I am not using the fastest way to kill but the savest.

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Familiar is at CA-level 71 with 200 runes read in, but no dragon magic lore or focus. So it is not modified at all. It is just for the willpower to boost spell resistance skill and intelligence for more spell damage.

 

Runes of protection are at CA-level 144:

stun:

every 2.5 seconds there is a stunning pulse and the normal range is nearly doubled because the character has optimized +CA-range equipment.

ranged-reflect:

Stunning works nice for melee range, so no big need for better physical melee protection,ranged reflect is also good for non physical ranged attacks

CA-block:

This is mainly to reduce number of lifeleech attacks hitting me.

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Here is the reason why I like this character:

Mahlstrom with and without CA-Range equipment. Both, Mahlstrom and Energyblaze are modified for full range in my character build and have same range. So the same area would be covered by an energyblaze.

Without equipment the Mahlstrom has a radius of 1500, with equipment around 2700 at my current character level.

Shield of Protections normally does a stunning pulse every 2.5 seconds in a radius of 400, with the equipment the radius is 720, so modifying it for stun is no mistake in this build.

Now imagine the energy blazes placed at screen corners and how far away away you will be able to attack enemies. Minimap at lowest zoom and biggest size to see enemies in advance is no mistake.

 

post-4779-0-41918600-1370425598_thumb.jpg

post-4779-0-10743400-1370425618_thumb.jpg

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  • 4 weeks later...

I did a video showing the dragon mage in the swamp at the spitting spiders. No healing done while the video, frame rate was just 3fps or so.

The mini-map isn't really a minimap because I place energy blazes at the screen corners in front of approaching enemies, well I would if the frame rate would have not dropped this amount.

I hope you can see the 7oclock effect for the first combination which is just energy blaze: 101% chance for half regeneration and 20% faster because of combat discipline mastery results in the regeneration clock starting at 70% = close to 8o'clock.

I hope also that you can see the range covered by an energy blaze and that the damage received is not that bad.

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  • 2 months later...

Hi everyone, I bought Sacred 2 last week and I've been reading on the forums almost as much as I've been playing it.

Chattius I have been reading your posts on Dragon mage builds and I've decided to go with a pure mentalist. I have a few questions I was hoping you could help me out with.

1) How are Mindstrike and Combat Stance modified?

2) Also, I checked out a screeshot you posted here http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/322-hardcoredragonmagementalist/ and I was wondering how often you use the CA's from the other aspects? Is it worth it for me to invest runes in those? Right now I'm planning on only Familiar + the Mentalist CA's.

3) What kind of combos do you have set up?

4) Do you use any other weapon sets besides the combat art range set?

Forgive me if these questions have been asked before, filtering through 4 years of posts is a lot of catching up to do!

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Hmmm, starting this character I used destroyers a lot. Then was a phase when I recharged the energy blaze with weapon hits. Once having 100% chance to halve reg times and mastered combat discipline I was able to spam the blazes without a weapon hit.

 

For the mind strike, I would modify it for boss killing. It is more fun to be able to kill with spells alone. But here again... This is late game.

 

I fear my screen shots are in german, but you should see the Regeneration pro Treffer numbers. It are several seconds. I have to read this whole thread again myself. It was never planed as a guide so probably a lot is not written. I will fill the holes hopefully this week.

 

Sadly combinations at dragon mages are bugged. So don't use them early on.

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