Devastating Mystic Stormite Build

[Furupawa 2]

just cleared bronze campaign...it was a really good ride ( I did pretty much only the main campaign, after clearing the first 2 cities).

Build was fantastic, thanks a lot ( again) for posting it. Now it is time to try another ( think melee this time , maybe seraphim queen of blades)..

Furupawa O/

[rhs408 7]

On 3/23/2018 at 5:57 AM, Hooyaah said:

I usually mod Raging Nimbus first to take care of mobs and level up; then I mod Glacial Thorns to off bosses. Frost Flare is last. Glacial Thorns is best modified Bronze: Frost, Silver: Devastation, Gold: Fusillade. Modify Crystal Skin early with Bronze: Glacial Mirror to defend against magic attacks (like that of the White Griffin). I usually finish out modifying Crystal Skin before Frost Flare and go for Silver: Focalize (because, instead of Feel Cold we will be using Ancient Magic to lower the opponents resistance to ice damage). Gold: Frosty Breeze, because more ice damage is a good thing.

Hello all, I just started playing Sacred 2 again after a hiatus of a few years, good to see people still posting here! I came across Hooyaah's build here as I'm now working on an Ice Elf. I noticed that in the first post you say to pick Feel Cold for the Silver mod of Crystal Skin, but then later in this post you say to get Focalize? I ended up picking Feel Cold because Spell Intensity can be added easily via items but lowering ice resistance cannot, aside from Ancient Magic. Although later on I thought that Glacial Thorns and Raging Nimbus also do physical damage, which Feel Cold won't help with, so still not sure if I made the right call there. 

For my Ice Elf, since I'm playing offline on PS3, I don't have access to the armor set that you mentioned. I also can't have a separate shopper to get items from, so I picked Bargaining and Enhanced Perception really early (3rd and 4th Skills) - by getting these early I can start snowballing my character with good items and + all Skills jewelry, I'm currently breezing through Gold at level 50.  Spell Resistance doesn't work on console so I won't be getting that, I might pick Shield Lore for my last skill though at 65, debating between that and Toughness. All of my other skills are the same as in Hooyah's build. 

Just to confirm, does chance for Deadly Wounds and Deep Wounds not work on HE's spells? What about chance to disregard armor? I think some of her sets come with chance to disregard armor, so it wouldn't make sense if it doesn't get procced from her spells... Her legendary class quest item also comes with Chance for Deadly Wounds. 

[claudius 104]

Back when I played Sacred 2 I did a test with two computers and accounts and I had a Elf test Spell Intesnity (one variable) against a Shadow Warrior varying a stat (forgot the name of the stat).  The Elf could vary spell intensity by changing the amount of runes (from gear not eaten) on her Focalize modded Crystal Skin, and she could also change her gear.  The Shadow Warrior could change his defensive stat versus spells (forgot the name) by varying amount of runes on Grim Resilience buff and his gear.

I can't remember specifically which spells, but I tested out different configurations of SI and the defensive stat (Willpower?).  I didn't just test one shot from each but I gathered data sets and data is familiar to me having been a chemistry graduate student.

I couldn't find any beneficial effect from Spell Intensity.  I can't remember if I detected or did not detect a benefit from Grim Resilience.  Seeing as Shadow Warrior was my most played class (to level 177 and a couple other builds) I think I would have remembered if I found GR is not helping as much versus spells as I had previously thought. 

I don't know if my attempt to find how big an effect of SI was done with something wrong, but it seemed to me that SI is not a good stat to build around.

Edited June 28, 2023 by claudius

[idbeholdME 394]

Spell Intensity only increases the likelihood of the spell passing the SI vs SR check. It works like attack x defense for spells. If you fail that check against an enemy, your spell will do 30% less damage before any other calculations. Picking Focalize on Crystal Skin makes it so that the intensity you get from Intelligence is enough for everything and you don't have to gear for it at all. Can free up some slots. Also note that the Feel Cold mod has a limited range. Enemies won't be affected by it if you are casting spells from max range. It will boost damage a lot, especially if you level Crystal Skin a lot, but can be a quite dangerous playstyle. The range of the Feel Cold mod is 75% of Temple Guardian's level 1 Icy Evanescence/Fiery Ember for comparison AND the enemies have to be in it for a moment to be affected. Chances are that if you're kiting, you will often not benefit from it.

Here are a couple demonstration screens of where the range limit is.

The demon is heading towards me and I hit it with Frost Flare - it's not taking increased damage from Feel Cold. An inch closer, and it would. You can play around it if you like dangerous playstyles, but can become pretty hairy around bosses, which is where you'd utilize it the most.

With smaller enemies, it gets even worse:

The Assassin is walking towards me and is still NOT taking increased damage from Feel Cold even at this range. He most likely is in the area of effect, but the delay before it gets applied is at work here. Good luck trying to benefit from it against ranged enemies like fighting a swarm of Fen Fires or a group of small dragons in Niobium 

Anyway, there are not that many enemies with high spell resistance, besides some exceptions like Scorpions in the Desert. Overkilling your intensity will not do anything besides making your spells always do their listed damage, but having a decent amount so that you can punch through most enemies is still desirable. Bosses also have very high amounts of spell resistance.

The main benefit of Willpower (besides increasing shield strength for TG and seraphim) is that it reduces the duration of secondary damage effects, along with boosting your spell resistance. Still not worth putting actual points into on non-energy shield characters.

The wound effects from gear only work for weapon attacks. The HE can use it with Magic Coup, but that's about it, besides regular attacks of course. I think that disregard armor also doesn't work on spells, although not a 100% on that one.

Edited July 8, 2023 by idbeholdME

[claudius 104]

Interesting idbeholdME

I thought about this awhile and I think maybe player versus player (PVP) the effect from intensity is not showing up.  But player versus monster (PVM) it may be quite valuable.

I once tried PVP where a group chose a level to compete at and they could go any class.  If I recall correctly from a long time ago the classes that used combat arts struggled to deal damage.  I think melee classes also struggled unless they had life drain (name?) on their weapon to help them damage.  I think around 25:) was the level so flat life still outpaced %life:)

I mention the PVP because it's also an example of PVM and PVP being a different case to look at.

But I'm thinking PVM being different from PVP explains why tests I did with PVP characters did not uncover any effect from Spell Intensity.  I didn't have the means to (do controlled with data etc) test against monsters.

Edited July 9, 2023 by claudius

[idbeholdME 394]

3 hours ago, claudius said:

Interesting idbeholdME

I thought about this awhile and I think maybe player versus player (PVP) the effect from intensity is not showing up.  But player versus monster (PVM) it may be quite valuable.

I once tried PVP where a group chose a level to compete at and they could go any class.  If I recall correctly from a long time ago the classes that used combat arts struggled to deal damage.  I think melee classes also struggled unless they had life drain (name?) on their weapon to help them damage.  I think around 25:) was the level so flat life still outpaced %life:)

I mention the PVP because it's also an example of PVM and PVP being a different case to look at.

But I'm thinking PVM being different from PVP explains why tests I did with PVP characters did not uncover any effect from Spell Intensity.  I didn't have the means to (do controlled with data etc) test against monsters.

Yeah, I just fought the Gar'Colossus in Gold and hitting him with Glacial Thorns, I saw 4 different numbers show up when hitting him.

1. Regular hit, passed the SR check.

2. Critical hit, passed the SR check.

3. Regular hit, did not pass the SR check

4. Critical hit, did not pass the SR check

So a level 74 Gold Gar'Colossus had enough Spell Resistance so that a decent number of my Thorns did reduced damage with Spell Intensity of a little over 600 on a level 65 character. By late game Niob, if you want to have a decent chance of winning this check against bosses, you should aim for well over 2000 Spell Intensity. For anything else, much less is needed.

Spells that do not pass the check will deal 30% less damage baseline and also make it so that any enemy armor is much more effective. If the enemy has a decent amount of it against the element of the spell, you can expect even larger drops in damage.

 

As for PVP, note that any built-in spell DoTs, like Frost Flare or Blazing Tempest are not affected by this, they can only be reduced by damage mitigation or detrimental effect reduction. So it could be that if you were testing with those, you did not see a difference. Also, there is this line in balance.txt:

AdjustPvPFactor = 200,

which most likely means that PVP damage is only 20% of regular damage. If the characters also had Pacifism, Toughness etc., I can see early level characters having trouble dealing a lot of damage to each other. Life Leech would indeed not be affected by this scaling.

Edited July 9, 2023 by idbeholdME

[Hooyaah 2,823]

For the High Elf to be truly "devastating," the best combat arts are Glacial Thorns and Raging Nimbus. The former is normally best for bosses, while the latter typically is best for mobs. (I only use Frost Flare to "toy" with weaker opponents.) It is always best to pump skill points into Constitution and Ancient Magic and master the two before Niobium. Also, it is wise to invest Attribute points boosting Intelligence from the very beginning. It is also very helpful to add rings which will boost physical and most especially ice damage.