Jump to content

Energy shields. Better synergy with Toughness or Constitution.


Recommended Posts

Hi. I last played the game 6 years ago and now decided to come back. Still having great fun.

Currently playing a BFG Seraphim (level 21 or so) and I'm having a conundrum. I know that Constitution is generally viewed as the better defensive skill, but am I correct that Toughness will have better synergy with E. shields? Because the damage reduction is applied before the shields and shields absorb an absolute amount of damage, they will be able to fully absorb much stronger hits. It also has great synergy with Armor Lore. Still not sure if it beats out the sheer HP gained from Constitution though. My thought process is that if Shields are going to be my main buffer against damage, the Health without Constitution should be sufficient to take the hits. But then there are critical hits which go through shields much more easily and higher health would be more beneficial.

 

For those interested, here is the planned build:

  • Revered Technology Lore
  • Revered Technology Focus
  • Concentration (BFG, Warding Energy, Battle Stance)
  • Exalted Warrior Focus
  • Combat Discipline
  • Ranged Weapons
  • Tactics Lore
  • Armor Lore
  • Warding Energy Lore
  • and either Toughness or Constitution

* A small note to the build: I plan to rely on energy shields heavily for defense (with Warding energy and Divine protection). Which of the 2 (Toughness/Constitution) will give me more survivability? Or do you think I should drop some other skill and take both? I feel like losing any of these skills would be a great loss to the overall power. Even had to drop the formerly planned Enhanced Perception to fit Combat Discipline in.*

So the main question is, which skill is better with energy shields.

Thanks in advance for any insight/opinions.

PS.

I didn't read any guides (build related). I like to theorycraft the builds I'm going to play myself, not just straight copy others.

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Years ago in players vs player matches toughness was the better one. The main reason was that the only damage type you couldn't resist was life leech. For fixed life leech damage constitution would win, but for x% life leech....

Running into a beast with 34% life leech .... if you have toughness and 1000 hitpoints it are 340 damage, if constitution and vitality stat are pushed  you may have 2000 hit points and receive 680 damage. Without an energy shield you would be dead in 3 hits , independant if you take toughness or constitution. With energy shield, the shield receives only half the damage and lasts double so long if you take toughness.

 

The next reason I would go for toughness is as you said damage mitigation. It is the better the closer you are to 100% and a seraphim can use damage mitigatio gear without too big compromises.

 

Damage reduction by armour: Toughness gives base arnour too all 4 damage types. So it is less probable to run into a damage peak on low levels.

 

But that is just my opinion. In the end: if you have full chests from playing a lot you can optimize the gear to cover weaknesses be it from toughness or constitution.

 

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Yeah, if you use Warding Energy and Divine Protection for your basic defensive countermeasures chances are that you'll hardly get redlined, so in that respect an additional buffer of defense in extra armour for all types plus damage mitigation for all channels will make more difference than an HP bonus or its in-combat regen. Constitution isn't seen as nearly mandatory because of the HP bonus as much as it is (at least in my opinion) for the ability to constantly regen HP when it's mastered. It allows you to take hits and regen at the same time if mastered, which is a great defensive measure. Toughness however can be present with just a single point and you can let socketed +All Skills raise it, still making it efficient and without needing it to be mastered. You can find more use for it that way because you need to master several skills before that one, so it's more likely to be more efficient than Constitution in your build.

For kicks, I have a BFG Seraphim without Warding Energy Lore but with Constitution and Thoughness mastered. She lives, safe and sound. ;)

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Thanks for the replies. I was thinking about ditching Warding Energy and taking both Toughness and Constitution, but then it would be like most characters that I made in the past. I wanted a change so shields ARE going to be in my build. Good to know that my suspicion that Toughness would be more beneficial to energy shields was correct. I should focus on improving shields as much as possible and not compensate them being weak by additional health.

Cheers.

Link to comment

It's funny because I was thinking myself about letting off Constitution in my redone Shadow Warrior build, mainly because he does ranged damage, enjoys the company of an elite Hound of Havoc and uses three buffs. You see, your build doesn't need that specific skill that every build has (unless it's Armor Lore) if it has the means to circumvent that shortcoming. If my BFG Seraphim causes ranged damage and kills fast enough, has Constitution/Armor Lore/Thoughness masteries why do I need Warding Energy Lore? I can still use Divine Protection and have 15-16k worth of shields so what's the point in raising the shields even further?! With my SW I'm considering dropping Constitution in favour of anything else since I run Grim Resilience/Reflective Emanation/Nether Allegiance and use magic staves, so why do I really need Constitution when, furthermore, my Hound of Havoc gives +attack/+defense/+HP bonuses? I might as well choose a different skill and expand the gameplay, know what I mean? ;) And that's totally valid with most builds, as like I said you don't need that specific skill that everybody uses, you just need a way around it with different skills or gear.

Have fun. :thumbsup:

PS: I just realised I lied on my earlier post... I don't have Constitution+Toughness, I only have Armor Lore+Toughness! :D And yet she still kicks ass!

Link to comment

Warding Lore + Constitution + a little damage miti on gear IMO is stronger than just Warding and toughness and no constitution when you take critical hits from bosses into account.

But from memory you can get belts with 1K extra HP in Niob as well as amulets. 

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

It also depends on your life leech abilities. From my perspective, and being that I tend to approach bosses with %LL weaponry, there's more HP coming in than going away. ;) In that respect Constitution mastery dependency will vary with how well and how fast you can leech life from bosses.

Link to comment
On 8/10/2018 at 5:20 AM, idbeholdME said:

Hi. I last played the game 6 years ago and now decided to come back. Still having great fun.

Currently playing a BFG Seraphim (level 21 or so) and I'm having a conundrum. I know that Constitution is generally viewed as the better defensive skill, but am I correct that Toughness will have better synergy with E. shields? Because the damage reduction is applied before the shields and shields absorb an absolute amount of damage, they will be able to fully absorb much stronger hits. It also has great synergy with Armor Lore. Still not sure if it beats out the sheer HP gained from Constitution though. My thought process is that if Shields are going to be my main buffer against damage, the Health without Constitution should be sufficient to take the hits. But then there are critical hits which go through shields much more easily and higher health would be more beneficial.

 

For those interested, here is the planned build:

  • Revered Technology Lore
  • Revered Technology Focus
  • Concentration (BFG, Warding Energy, Battle Stance)
  • Exalted Warrior Focus
  • Combat Discipline
  • Ranged Weapons
  • Tactics Lore
  • Armor Lore
  • Warding Energy Lore
  • and either Toughness or Constitution

* A small note to the build: I plan to rely on energy shields heavily for defense (with Warding energy and Divine protection). Which of the 2 (Toughness/Constitution) will give me more survivability? Or do you think I should drop some other skill and take both? I feel like losing any of these skills would be a great loss to the overall power. Even had to drop the formerly planned Enhanced Perception to fit Combat Discipline in.*

So the main question is, which skill is better with energy shields.

Thanks in advance for any insight/opinions.

PS.

I didn't read any guides (build related). I like to theorycraft the builds I'm going to play myself, not just straight copy others.

Just getting back in from Vacation and really loving your first post here as it's really what Sacred is all about ... mechanics, mechanics and wondering ^^

Very delighted you have made your way over to us idbeholdME, and even more happy that the community here was able to post some great posts together for you

Welcome to DarkMatters!

 

:)

gogo

 

Link to comment
On 8/11/2018 at 0:45 AM, Androdion said:

It's funny because I was thinking myself about letting off Constitution in my redone Shadow Warrior build, mainly because he does ranged damage, enjoys the company of an elite Hound of Havoc and uses three buffs. You see, your build doesn't need that specific skill that every build has (unless it's Armor Lore) if it has the means to circumvent that shortcoming. If my BFG Seraphim causes ranged damage and kills fast enough, has Constitution/Armor Lore/Thoughness masteries why do I need Warding Energy Lore? I can still use Divine Protection and have 15-16k worth of shields so what's the point in raising the shields even further?! With my SW I'm considering dropping Constitution in favour of anything else since I run Grim Resilience/Reflective Emanation/Nether Allegiance and use magic staves, so why do I really need Constitution when, furthermore, my Hound of Havoc gives +attack/+defense/+HP bonuses? I might as well choose a different skill and expand the gameplay, know what I mean? ;) And that's totally valid with most builds, as like I said you don't need that specific skill that everybody uses, you just need a way around it with different skills or gear.

Have fun. :thumbsup:

PS: I just realised I lied on my earlier post... I don't have Constitution+Toughness, I only have Armor Lore+Toughness! :D And yet she still kicks ass!

I get what you mean, but I wanted to make a character specifically utilizing shields. I would have probably taken all 4 of the defensive skills, but they probably cannot fit into my build.

Some additional notes:

I will probably drop Combat Discipline as it affects the related combat arts (Soul Hammer, Pelting Strikes and Archangel's Wrath) at below 50% efficiency from my testing (the damage part). Probably not worth the skill slot. Thinking about either Constitution or Enhanced Perception.

I've been experimenting with EP (made a test char using the editor) and the Enhanced Perception Bonus does not show up on the bonus overview. Is that correct? Does the skill work anyway?

On 8/12/2018 at 3:57 AM, gogoblender said:

Just getting back in from Vacation and really loving your first post here as it's really what Sacred is all about ... mechanics, mechanics and wondering ^^

Very delighted you have made your way over to us idbeholdME, and even more happy that the community here was able to post some great posts together for you

Welcome to DarkMatters!

 

:)

gogo

 

Thanks for the welcome.

Link to comment

Don't drop Combat Discipline, that skill is basically a damage multiplier for all your CAs. Plus it gives you fixed 10% regen bonus at level one and 20% when mastered, so it's quite the skill to have if you're mainly hitting foes with CAs. If you're hitting them with left-click attacks though... Word of advice, try keeping Pelting Strikes at level one and use it as your main attack. Once the regen time for PS is low enough you'll feel like you're wielding Robocop's gun! ;)

EP has always been working as far as I know, it's just a tooltip error, which I think was corrected with one iteration of the CM Patch. Sorry, my memory isn't at its best today.

Link to comment
4 hours ago, Androdion said:

Don't drop Combat Discipline, that skill is basically a damage multiplier for all your CAs. Plus it gives you fixed 10% regen bonus at level one and 20% when mastered, so it's quite the skill to have if you're mainly hitting foes with CAs. If you're hitting them with left-click attacks though... Word of advice, try keeping Pelting Strikes at level one and use it as your main attack. Once the regen time for PS is low enough you'll feel like you're wielding Robocop's gun! ;)

EP has always been working as far as I know, it's just a tooltip error, which I think was corrected with one iteration of the CM Patch. Sorry, my memory isn't at its best today.

It is a mandatory skill for any caster for sure, but the weapon CAs only receive a portion of the bonus. With base damage of Soul Hammer, Pelting Strikes and Archangel's Wrath being 86, 62 and 57 respectively, I tried in character editor (removed all gear and skills that could change damage) with all CAs being level 1 (AW was modded with salvo) to see the effect o CD on them. The results are:

  1. When CD was at 76% damage bonus, the numbers became 121, 89, 79 respectively. That is 53%, 57% and 50,6% efficiency of Combat Discipline on these CAs.
  2. When CD was at 90,4% damage bonus, the numbers became 129, 93, 83 respectively. That is 55%, 55% and 50,4% efficiency of Combat discipline on these CAs.

So that is almost half of Combat Discipline being wasted on the relevant skills. Yes there is also the cooldown reduction which is nice but that 50% of the damage bonus lost is really putting me off. It would essentially double my damage at level 100 instead of 48 if the CAs were affected fully. The only relevant thing in this build that CD would have full effect on is Battle Stance. Should I still pick CD despite all this instead of a fully effective skill like Constitution or Enhanced Perception? Is the damage needed? I had only one character that finished Niobium and that was 6 years ago so I don't know...

I am of course keeping all these CAs at level 1, the cooldown is not worth it but I am currently mostly left clicking my way to victory with the occasional AW salvo on champions.

 

The EP tooltip is fine (even in normal Ice & Blood), it's just the bonus overview doesn't list the bonus CtFV. So not sure if it is working.

Link to comment

I agree with you dumping Combat Discipline if you're using weapons.  That damage boost only affects the % boost that weapon-based combat arts give, it doesn't just apply to the overall damage.  And with Regen per Hit that little regeneration boost isn't going to be that vital.

Link to comment

Like I said, if you're doing regular left click attacks with your BFG then Combat Discipline isn't the best thing ever. I use Pelting Strikes more or less in the same way that I use Magic Coup on a melee High Elf, I have it at a low level and spam it as my main attack with regen per hit to cover the rest, so if you use your BFG like I do then Combat Discipline can help you cause even more damage, even if the skill is at level 1 with the rest being done by gear bonuses.

I've been fooling around with the game ever since 1.60 came out and have discovered the taste for builds that rely more on spamming CAs than using regular attacks. ;)

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up