Good farming places per region

[Androdion 880]

So here's the story. I'm playing in Niob at a really low level, something like 30 levels below mobs' level in Tyr Lysia. If that wasn't enough of a challenge already I tried browsing around in Artamark (Light campaign, did the "through the wall" main quest) and I found myself being severely assaulted by some of the locals. Seriously, those Assassin champions are a definitive no go! Anyway, I need to level up (duh!) so I've been going through the entirety of Tyr Lysia doing all sidequests to get better loot and more XP. And then it hit me, since the level difference between my character and the minimum spawn level is so big it will most likely always be like that throughout the ten (twelve?!) regions in Ancaria. So the point is, what are the best farming places per region? And I mean the best for both XP and items, including uniques and sets.

 

On a related matter, my character has EP to have a better shot at magic find. Though the Wiki says that in I&B the bonus is always displayed regardless of being pre-mastery or not I'm not getting it. I only get the sum of the gear bonuses, which is odd. But my question was more in line with how high should EP be in Niob for it to be truly effective, since I'm relying on +EP bonuses to have it higher. If I can have EP as high as necessary while farming for XP I can fill in the level gap as much as the stash.

[gogoblender 3,069]

IM a huge fan of the swamp region... I think I did most of my leveling there...it can get especially hairy with this trapping olms and SUPER scary reflecting turtles!

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:The_Swamp

Also Jungle...LOVED the jungle...you can run and grab tons of those little guys and hit 'em all at once...course you get the occasional really REALLY nasty boss...then you run...

 

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Eastern_Jungle_Area

 

 

gogo

[gogoblender 3,069]

Oh wait, I LOVED Turtle Island... cept for the few times I died...

Ancarian Geographic Presents - Attack of the Deadly Turtles!

 

 

gogo

[Augmint 109]

Swamp region is pretty much top of everyone's best place to farm. Orc cave is good, undead hordes around thylisium, jungle is good but garema champions are annoying. grumwald and ruka are good too. I'm very fond of farming the forest guardian for gold and set items

Regarding EP - only playing fallen angel but full bonus chance to find valuables % only displayed properly with mastery.

Apart from a few things like tinworas, officers sabres and other good items most of the best stuff is from shopping. There was a thread about nameless guardian boss runs with high EP somewhere if you look for it. Personally haven't picked EP on most of my builds.

[Augmint 109]

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/13352-ice-blood-legendary-unique-and-set-weapons/

[Androdion 880]

Thanks for the replies mates.

 

A few points though. I'm playing single player mode, so closed net runs for goodies are no good. What I wanted to realize about EP was if it has any kind of limitation like Bargaining, which has to be kept at a certain level to be effective. And referring to the bonus showing up pre-mastery, well, the Wiki states that in I&B it should appear normally. Mine doesn't though.

 

I can't say for sure if I'm having better drops or not since it's my first time building a toon up to Niob with the CM patch installed, so I don't have a base for comparison. I'd still be interested in hearing more about the usefulness level by level of EP and its tricks. Since the melee HE is a very gear intensive build I went for it to try and balance out my chances, so I'd like to be able to take the advantage of having it.

 

Regarding the farming, yeah, Swamp and Orc Cave are my usual go to places. But my point here was more about high mob concentration areas per region, as to be able to level up between changing from one area to another. I couldn't farm the Orc Cave in Platinum due to the level difference, in Niob it should be pure suicide so that's also a no go. Areas with many spell-based enemies are also bad for my HE's health since they hit really hard! Places I usually go through are: in Tyr Lysia I usually go for the Kobold camps near Gahanka, the Toxic Elementals outside Thylysium and the Undead hordes between that and Clearview (or just teleport there and go for the XP statue). In Artamark it's Kufferath Castle and Grunwald, though I fear the Elementals there will tear my HE to shreds in Niob. I faced one in that "Strange Rituals" quest and he redlined me twice with too much ease... Nor Platt, yeah, Ruka and adjacent camps are nice and varied (Kobolds, Orcs, Bears). I guess there isn't much to go to in Seraphim Island and Carnach Caves (straight ahead, mow everything down), and the following regions are pretty much a given. I dislike farming in the Jungle because my game tends to CTD too much there, and by the time I get to Dryad Island I'm thinking about the Wastelands already, ha ha. Well, I guess that's about it. Turtle Island you say? It's not bad, I actually go there but it's not one my favourite places. Then again, single player right?!

 

So to sum it up, what other places are good to go (I.e. safe) in Artamark and Nor Platt? What good quests/chain quests are interesting experience wise? What mini-bosses should be feasible without becoming a two-shot suicide? All of this in Niob of course.

[gogoblender 3,069]

Turtle Island you say? It's not bad, I actually go there but it's not one my favourite places. Then again, single player right?!

its very useful because you can draw in mass numbers of turtles and they are of mentor pot dropping class. Because of the mentors, you can cast them in an attempt to keep it going almost 24/7... this is a fifty percent bonus on experience... very significant

 

 

gogo

[Androdion 880]

Nice one Gogo.

 

About EP, here are a few screenshots I did with a Lv.200 blank char. Note, the 24,2% bonus is there at Lv.200 and naked, so it should be from revealed map and not from the skill. I hope this will explain why I can't understand how EP works.

 

 

 

 

[gogoblender 3,069]

I never took EP

 

... I was so hooked into working with my bargainer's network... they would buy any toon I needed's items on their way up the ladder. Maybe others here have had success with it?

 

 

gogo

[Dragon Brother 619]

EP should work, I doubt anyone ever went to the effort to rigorously test the effect though. But remember, if your chance for a legendary to drop is (for example) 0.01% or 1 in 10,000 then +100% chance from EP only increases it to 0.02% or 2 in 10,000.

 

So yes, twice as many expected drops overall, but over each individual kills its not really much of a difference. I don't recall taking it very often except for on toons designed for farming the nameless guardians, otherwise general consensus was you'd probably find decent gear regardless plus, like gogo says, a lot of us had decent shopping networks set-up for ourselves. Having said that, its definitely a nice one to take if you can fint it in, more goodies dropping is always sweet!

 

Now if you're playing the CM patch that means you have Ice and Blood. The blood forest is definitely one of the best areas for experience. Run as much of the quest chain as you feel comfortable because it has a decent drop chance for set items, but the end boss is devilishly fiendish, even for characters at appropriate levels! Some of the creatures in the area can be tough too, the pink floating eyes (I think it is) in particular due to some form of %LL spell or similar.

[Androdion 880]

In all honesty I do notice some benefits when I go into "drop gear mode", by using EP rings and farming in areas where I can have some control in terms of level difference between me and the mobs. I guess it just isn't as pronounced as I hoped it would be, thus my question if it demanded some kind of maintenance as Bargaining does (I.e. keeping it at a high level). I could squeeze it in my melee HE; hell, I've actually began a new one from scratch to accommodate its use and finally try out the game with the CM patch. But now that I'm nearing my fifth mastery I'm beginning to wonder if I should really invest points in EP or put them elsewhere. Know what I mean?!

 

Yeah, Blood Forest is cool because of its massive concentration of mobs. Those weird feathered warriors that spam small demons suddenly fill the minimap with red arrows, ha! But those eyes with LL are indeed tricky. Nothing that EM and some ranged attacks don't solve but I really need to pay attention to what I'm doing there.

 

Speaking of shopping networks, I've explored the mechanics of it but I don't think I'd have the patience to actually do it. Level up toon to X level, keep it there, sell high level merch for gold, buy great low level merch for other toons, rinse repeat. Sounds cool at first but in practical terms don't you just stop playing the game and instead spend your time just shopping?!

[Dragon Brother 619]

EP doesn't require quite the same investment as bargaining, it's one which you can master and then leave to only increase through +All Skills.

 

As to the shopping network...yes, you do end up spending a lot of time shopping. But a few of us enjoyed it and the benefits it provides certainly helped with making sure we stayed alive playing hard core online with oft laggy servers! Did definitely require decent investment though. I believe the network we as a clan set-up is available for download now if you wish to use a pre-built shopping network.

[Androdion 880]

Yeah, EP shouldn't be as high maintenance as Bargaining. But still the question remains, is it worth being a sixth mastery when in Niob and nearing Lv.100? In your opinion of course.

 

As for the shopping, well, sometimes I just can't resist my curiosity so I started a new HE and made the trip to Sloeford in Bronze while going up one level. I then put the two skill points in Bargaining. Did the smith and rune sidequests and managed to not climb to Lv.3, sold a Lv.120 Pulsar I had in my shared stash and started buying bargaining relics (+3), started entering/exiting Sloeford (the game actually) and went picking up some gear with "Bargaining +1", rinsed/repeated. Then I thought about what someone said a few weeks ago, that I could do a LAN with only myself, so I started the lobby with my Bronze HE in Free Play in Silver and started teleporting between Start Island and Sloeford, picking up stuff between the four merchants available (the quests reset though, otherwise they'd be six) and managed to get more gear and a few talismans that boosted Bargaining. Bottom line, I managed to get a Lv.2 HE have 12 points in Bargaining through relics/gear, which results in only yellow items in the merchants. Cool! Now I just need money, though I have two Niob HE up and running so feeding meat for that grinder isn't a problem. Cool! Now I can buy ubber Lv.2 items! What else?!

 

And therein lies my predicament with this system in SP. I now can feed ubber gear (apart from proper class armour, though it does appear it isn't "dedicated" so it's hit and miss) to all all classes of toons I create, just shop what I need with the Lv.2 Bargainer and place it on the shared stash, and I don't even need to get to Sloeford since I can just start a new toon call the imp and dress it up from scratch. Cool! But what else now? I repeat all the proceedings for another shopper that will be of a higher level? Well, I actually tried that (yeah, I'm that curious!), but the funny thing about Bargaining is that as soon as you can't have it pumped up more and more on each level (and I'm not talking about hard points but bonuses) it'll loose its effectiveness. Sure, that's how it works, but then again it demands me to start teleporting back and forth again at each level to get better "+Bargaining" gear?! I got this show up to Lv.8 on my second shopper and actually managed to pick up a pair of boots with "Bargaining +2", but relics where still +1 leaving me with no choice but to start the lobby and repeatedly travel between Start Island and Sloeford, searching for new gear and amulets that could further boost the skill.

 

Suffice to say that this was when I realized that to make such an apparently simple thing as a Lv.20 shopper I'd have to spend a lot of time doing two things; one, the aforementioned cycle of levelling up/buying new gear, and two, actually levelling up. Now, I spent something like five hours doing what I just described above (the Lv.2 and the Lv.8 shoppers, with the later not being yet "optimized"). And it doesn't take a mathematician to realize just how time consuming it would be to climb that second toon to Lv.20 while maintaining its Bargaining effectiveness... To think about repeating this procedure again and again for additional steps in the ladder (I think I've read something about doing shoppers for levels 2, 20, 40, 80) is daunting to say the least. I'd be loosing dozens if not more than a hundred hours just setting up the stage for then actually start playing with other toons fed by that shopping system?!

 

I don't know, maybe I'm making a big deal out of this, or maybe it was a very cool thing to have when playing MP. But in SP? Do correct any wrong assessments in my reasoning here, I'm all for knowing how things really work. Otherwise I wouldn't have spent those five hours like I did just to see how it worked.

[Dragon Brother 619]

If you have chosen EP, I would take it to mastery and then park it. But, if you're already in Niob and don't think you need it, put the points elsewhere.

 

Shopping networks, well for starters, on MP we managed to sort it so we had all of our toons shopping in Niob difficulty so had access to much better gear which made both the benefit of having the shopping network greater, but also meant you could boost bargaining higher due to the larger bonuses.

Yes, setting up the shopping network can take time. Playing online meant we could ask someone to boost us part way, and after a while getting boosted from 1 to 40/50/60 wasn't too painful if you had someone to help you out (benefit of playing in a clan I suppose). But if you have to do it yourself, best way to do it is pick bargaining last and just run a toon which you can level quickly/efficiently/have fun playing to your target level and save enough skill points to bump bargaining to character level by the time you reach your target. Only then do you need to focus on bugging the bargaining skill.

 

While tedious, having the setup (niob access is key here/high level black smith), was hugely beneficial. Especially for getting through the slow early levels, and also for developing some more obscure play style toons which were highly gear dependant.

 

In saying all this, a toon could play either shopping for itself, or without bargaining at all, no doubt about it. I guess a lot of our play at the point we had the networks set-up was about the higher levels and getting there as fast as possible and this made that much easier.

[Androdion 880]

Thanks a lot for the thorough explanation.

 

I get it now, having the lower level toon shop in Niob would turn the bonuses up very easily and that should prevent the tediousness of it. Just tell me, how can a Lv.2 toon shop in Niob? That's the part I don't get. I thought that even to join a MP game you'd be limited by level so how can that be? Another thing, and the sad part of it, is that since I don't do MP I can only use the LAN mode to play by myself. Kind of kills it when you're not doing it like you explained above.

 

Even if I went for Lv.20/40/etc. shopper toons in SP, how would I be able to balance the odds with the Bargaining bonuses if I'm still stuck to a lower difficulty level? Shame there are only two sets of blank characters on the download section (Lv.41 and Lv.200), otherwise it'd be cool to test a SP shopping ladder like that.

[lujate 576]

There's a shopping network in this download: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/files/file/320-dark-support-characters/

 

The SP/LAN method of getting a L2 Niob shopper is via modding.

[Androdion 880]

Ok, I opened those toons and I just drooled uncontrollably... HOLY MOLLY!

 

Two question then:

The SP/LAN method of getting a L2 Niob shopper is via modding.

One, how?

 

And two, imagine I want to build a shopping network like this in SP. Is it possible?

[lujate 576]

That download was the [D.a.r.k] Closed.Net support account. We exported and posted it to the downloads section when Closed.Net shut down.

 

I can't help with the modding question, but I'm sure someone else will come along with the answer.

[Androdion 880]

OK then, I'll wait for someone else to pitch in.

 

But is it possible to replicate something like that in SP/LAN all by myself?

[lujate 576]

You can mod the script files to lower the minimum level for Niob. That way you can start a Niob game on any level toon. To start your shopping network, you can mod the experience gains to quickly get toons of the desired level. Then you gear them up. To do the shopping start a LAN game and shop on Start Island. To reset the vendors, port to Sloeford and as soon as you start to teleport spam F8 (I think that's the key to teleport you). You'll reappear on Start Island and the vendors will be reset. This way your under-level Niob toons won't risk getting ganked by high level mobs.

[Androdion 880]

So basically I need to:

 

- Mod the script files to have access to Niob difficulty from Lv.1 in LAN, which was also made for the Closed Net accounts

- Mod the script files for XP to emulate the XP gain you got in CN from having a Lv.100 toon level up a Lv.1 toon via XP share (I've seen that video of the quests in Aerendyr) and level up the shoppers to the desired level

- Return XP gain to normal in the scripts for toons outside of the shopping network, leave the access to Niob from Lv.1 available for LAN shopping

- Gear up the shoppers via LAN

- Enjoy (?!)

 

Is that it or did I miss something? By the way, you can just travel by portal between Start Island and Sloeford and the merchants change their stock. I've noticed one or twice that didn't happen, but another travel back and forth does the trick.

[lujate 576]

You couldn't do modding on Closed.Net, so a level 2 Niob shopper there was a lot harder to get. But that's purely academic now that Closed.Net is gone.

 

For reseting the vendors on Start Island, I think if you spam F8 too soon they don't reset.

[Androdion 880]

Thanks mate!

 

I was searching for a way to change the characters names after creation and I found this tool called "Sacred 2 Character Editor". I've only tried it a bit but the way to Niob is very easy to obtain through this EXE. Seems more like a trainer where you can alter your toon's variables with much ease, but I do have to ask if I risk corrupting savegames by using it.

 

PS: I've used it a bit, on a superficial level I may say, and it doesn't seem to cause any issues with the game. But if anyone has any feedback on this please share it. I'm using the EXE Flix linked in this post: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/21611-possible-to-change-name-of-single-player-toon/&do=findComment&comment=6966036

Edited April 3, 2016 by Androdion

[Knuckles 904]

There is a way to reset the merchants without teleporting...there was a timer setting for merchant wares...it was somewhere in the scripts..I did it when I was doing a wiki project...unfortunately I don't have the game installed on my pc anymore....so hopefully if you want to do this, someone can find it again

 

I did it and I'm horrible at modding files, so it should be pretty easy for someone else

 

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/18409-sacred-2-balancetxt/

Did a quick search and found this thread Dragon Brother put together....if you scroll down a bit you'll see my entries for merchants

[Androdion 880]

That's a great thread, lots of cool info!

 

So I've played around with the S2CE.exe I pointed out above and it works like a charm. It also makes setting up a ladder of shoppers stupidly easy since you can change any statistic applied to your character. Watch this:

 

- Create a Bronze HE, save the toon and exit the game

- Open S2CE.exe, pick the savegame created, change the level to 2 and give it one skill point available, save changes

- Start the game, load the savegame, put the skill point in Bargaining, save and exit the game

- Open S2CE.exe again, pick the savegame and change the amount of hard points the Bargaining skill has to 255, also change the amount of gold to 1.000.000.000 and level reached to Niob, save changes

- Start the game, go MP/LAN and pick that toon, start the Lobby and run Free Play in Niob

 

Et voilá, you have a Lv.2 shopper with 255 in bargaining and a bilion in gold with no need to shop for "+Bargaining" gear! If you want to create the ladder all you have to do is copy-paste the save files, change the number of the save and edit the level and name of the toon. Since everything else is already configured all you need to do is adjust the name of the toon and the level you want it to be.

 

Repeat the procedure with a SW to produce a Lv.2 Blacksmith with 255 in the skill and you have you have just created your own SP/LAN home ladder of shoppers/smith. And the best of it all? You haven't touched one single script file, which in my opinion is awesome!