Jump to content

A few questions regarding mechanics


Recommended Posts

Hi guys !

 

Thanks again for your help installing Sacred 2 from Steam :)

I am already back with game-mechanics related questions, as I am already designing the concept of a couple of future toons.

 

I found a lot of info on this forum and on the wiki already, but some things need to be clarified (either I have not found any final answer or it was not made clear) :

1) if I understood well, bargaining is great until a certain point, then the diminishing returns make it somewhat useless? Or is it still useful for a reason (rings etc.)?

2) Enhanced Perception (I can see you guys rolling your eyes already :p) : is it worth taking? Some context on this : I am thinking of an Inquisitor with double-bladed lightsaber (because if you get to kick ass, it's better to do it with style). The inquisitor is squishy and I find myself hesitating between picking bargaining + EP to gear him up (I fixed a rule for myself of having self-sufficient toons, that means no use of shopper network) or picking Spell Resistance and Toughness (Constitution, Combat Reflexes and Armor Lore will already be picked). Would the extra loot from EP improve my toon more than these 2 skills? If I pick EP, how many skill points should I invest in it?

3) I am confused about Blacksmithing, I read sometimes that it is a required skill at high level, sometimes that it is broken and should be ignored. So... what is the truth?

4) Are energy weapons viable (I was thinking of a SW focused on ranged combat) or are they dealing too little, the projectile is too slow, ranged combat is not worth considering (I have not found many guides for range combat, even with dryads...), etc.?

5) is there somewhere a list of skills with explanations on how many points are worth investing in each of them? (This question concerns a lot diminishing returns on skills)

6) what exactly is the effect of the skill Riding on a special mount? Does it actually do anything?

7) about the mounts... Would I always go faster with a mount (with no temporary buffs, I hate these as I keep forgetting about recasting them, even more since in this game there is no timer on remaining durations of temporary effects), or with the right investments (speed lore, permanent buffs etc.), the difference is barely noticeable (maybe even you go faster running)? The question becomes particularly relevant for the Inquisitor (fast natural run speed, low base mount speed)

 

Thanks! :)

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Durmir said:

Hi guys !

 

Thanks again for your help installing Sacred 2 from Steam :)

I am already back with game-mechanics related questions, as I am already designing the concept of a couple of future toons.

 

I found a lot of info on this forum and on the wiki already, but some things need to be clarified (either I have not found any final answer or it was not made clear) :

1) if I understood well, bargaining is great until a certain point, then the diminishing returns make it somewhat useless? Or is it still useful for a reason (rings etc.)?

2) Enhanced Perception (I can see you guys rolling your eyes already :p) : is it worth taking? Some context on this : I am thinking of an Inquisitor with double-bladed lightsaber (because if you get to kick ass, it's better to do it with style). The inquisitor is squishy and I find myself hesitating between picking bargaining + EP to gear him up (I fixed a rule for myself of having self-sufficient toons, that means no use of shopper network) or picking Spell Resistance and Toughness (Constitution, Combat Reflexes and Armor Lore will already be picked). Would the extra loot from EP improve my toon more than these 2 skills? If I pick EP, how many skill points should I invest in it?

3) I am confused about Blacksmithing, I read sometimes that it is a required skill at high level, sometimes that it is broken and should be ignored. So... what is the truth?

4) Are energy weapons viable (I was thinking of a SW focused on ranged combat) or are they dealing too little, the projectile is too slow, ranged combat is not worth considering (I have not found many guides for range combat, even with dryads...), etc.?

5) is there somewhere a list of skills with explanations on how many points are worth investing in each of them? (This question concerns a lot diminishing returns on skills)

6) what exactly is the effect of the skill Riding on a special mount? Does it actually do anything?

7) about the mounts... Would I always go faster with a mount (with no temporary buffs, I hate these as I keep forgetting about recasting them, even more since in this game there is no timer on remaining durations of temporary effects), or with the right investments (speed lore, permanent buffs etc.), the difference is barely noticeable (maybe even you go faster running)? The question becomes particularly relevant for the Inquisitor (fast natural run speed, low base mount speed)

 

Thanks! :)

You are certainly welcome, Durmir. I am certain that I speak for all who aided you that we are always happy to be of assistance.

To answer your questions:

1) Bargaining is very useful when shopping for jewelry, weapons, and armor and this is especially so for the latter during the early game. Jewelry is always helpful throughout the game, most particularly the rare or "yellow" type. I have uploaded some that you can use to augment your build(s). There is a diminishing return on Bargaining and any skill after it is mastered at level 75, However, by adding some jewelry with "All Skills + x%" one can boost Bargaining and all other skills to help make more of a difference.

2) If you select Enhanced Perception it will help you to find much better items and then you may use the items of build up gold to pay for Blacksmith services to enhance your armor and weapons. It may be more difficult to have a powerful and protected toon if you select two of more secondary skills like Bargaining, Blacksmithing, and Enhanced Perception.

3) Blacksmithing makes it more affordable to forge items and you can forge rings into bronze slots. However, if your goal is a self-sufficient character then you really need to select skills that will help them survive through effective combat arts and defensive skills.

4) Energy weapons are more a matter of preference. That having been said, I prefer to focus on making Combat Arts as effective as possible by selecting what makes them most powerful. Each character has specific CAs that are either Weapons-Based or pure Casting. The damage output, critical hits, and leech life of weapons is crucial with weapons-based CAs. For Casters, focus on increasing the output of the specific types of damage the combat art does. Increasing the level of the Aspect(s) and Combat Arts themselves works well for either a Weapons-Based CA of a Pure Caster.

5) Get skills up to mastery, level 75. Some Skills may be built just high enough to get the modifications that you want and do not need to be mastered. The Buff Reverse Polarity offers Rebound Counter-blow and Exploit, for example and one may not wish to master the Buff and level up high enough just to reap only the desired modifiers. Work on the most important Skills first. Get them to Mastery, or to the level you need as in the Buff I just mentioned, otherwise, bring them to mastery and then focus on mastering the next one which is most important. Don't just spread them out intending to master them all at relatively the same time. Your character will likely not be viable at Platinum because Mastery grants a huge boost! (emphasis added)

6) Yes, but "Riding" has been deemed by most as a wasted skill. I concur, and agree that selecting something to better suit a particular character's needs is the best course of action.

7) I suggest that you remain unmounted. That is, at least until you have the option of a "Special Mount." Always have two Buffs active, the benefits of Concentration are great.

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Thanks a lot for all the info!

 

I think I have a pretty solid idea of what to do from there, although my noobitude will indubitably lead me here again :D

 

cheers!

Edited by Durmir
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Durmir said:

Thanks a lot for all the info!

 

I think I have a pretty solid idea of what to do from there, although my noobitude will indubitably lead me here again :D

 

cheers!

You're welcome, indeed. It is impossible to become a seasoned veteran without first being a noob. You are making your first steps for what I trust shall be a long journey, Durmir.

  • Thanks! 1
Link to comment

My two cents, for free.

  1. Bargaining is a high maintenance skill as you need to have it much higher than your character's level for it to be effective, thus the more you advance with your toon the harder it becomes to have a proper level on the skill. I've played extensively with Bargaining in CM 1.60 and I can say that even if you don't go overboard with it it's still an incredible skill to have since you can buy dedicated jewellery. Having a decent Bargaining level will allow you to visit shoppers and purchase gear with the specific modifiers you require, whereas by not having it a trip to a shopper is essentially useless. If you intend on playing with Bargaining you should keep it at char level until either lv.75 or lv.100, depending on if you intend on getting a proper bargaining suit for when you go out shopping (just keep an eye out for armour with +Bargaining and you'll have three to five pieces that boost it significantly, put those on your stash and equip when needed). By my experience Bargaining's breaking point is around the early 100s, so in my opinion more than 100 hard points in the skill is just a waste. Oh, it's a gold sink by the way so be aware of that.
     
  2. EP is a skill that will essentially make all your RNG drops be yellow, simple as that. By my experience it doesn't dramatically increase the drop rate of high tier gear (sets, uniques and legendaries) so if your idea is to get it because of those I'd say it isn't worth it. Hooyaah got it right though, you'll have better drops that rend more gold which you can sink into Bargaining sprees. Keep it at char level until mastery and then leave it be. Having it around without being properly levelled makes it worthless.
     
  3. The Blacksmith skill allows you to bypass the NPC Blacksmith, and with the added advantages of forging things by yourself costing less gold, as well as being able to "underforge" slots. Like Hooyaah mentioned you can forge one tier below in slots with the skill, so you can put rings into bronze slots and amulets into silver slots. That's something to consider because you can go above the curve, but again you need to have the skill properly levelled because it has a property where you can only forge items of a certain level accordingly to the skill level. So if your skill level is too low in comparison with the item you're trying to forge you won't be able to do so. There's another property of the Blacksmith skill that's important. When you go to the NPC you get the chance to use Enhance/Anneal/Wet enhancements, and those have fixed values that increase with each difficulty level. But when you have the skill on your toon those three enhancements level up with the skill, so eventually you're able to overcome the highest value on the Niobium NPCs. So when your skill is around 125 or so you'll be able to provide better bonuses than the best NPC smith in each town. Neat isn't it?! The thing is that again it requires a heavy investment, even more than the prior two since you can, and should, keep it at char level up to lv.200. Now try forging lv.200 enhancements on lv.2 armour for your newly created toon and see how much of a kickstart that is.
     
  4. Energy weapons are nice and fast, they provide good damage and usually have a different approach from other ranged weapons. They can provide several types of damage at once and usually have cool modifiers, so if you're willing to invest in that go for it. Combine them with Frenzied Rampage for instance for several rapid-fire hits, it'll look like you're firing a seraphim's BFG. :D
     
  5. It's more like each specific guide has a bit of different knowledge, so in short no. There's no such guide like that. But it's very important to focus on rapidly mastering the most important and relevant skills on your build. Endgame is level 200 and with over 900 skill points by then you can have all ten skills mastered way before since 10*75=750. And you'll find out that most of the time you don't even need to master all ten of them. Master the most important ones, keep just a few at char level if needed and then start mastering the other relevant ones.
     
  6. It does, it reduces the regen penalty on the special mount (and any mount for that matter) to the point where it negates it. But yeah, it's as much waste of a skill as Divine Devotion. Don't waste your time with it unless you're after a very very specific scenario like using a modifier it unlocks. Can't think of any useful one though.
     
  7. You should walk most of the time, but if you're planning on using Elite Mounts then it's worth using the Inquisitor's due to its Willpower bonus. Plus I love the attack animation of Ruthless Mutilation while mounted on the spider! Just awesome. It just depends on your playing style, but you can always equip +%run speed gear. Speed Lore is also a choice, but its run speed bonus is really small.

Still regarding your second question, and taking into account that scenario with the Inquisitor, it will depend immensely on how you're planning on playing that toon. The Inquisitor is extremely versatile and allows for many many variations depending on what buffs you use, what modifiers you choose and how much aggro you're planning on drawing unto yourself. For instance, Purifying Chastisement's gold mod Inure gives you what is essentially the Toughness skill, so you can play it from there if you don't mind dropping Hallow for it. Hallow gives an immense damage boost though so it's a choice to be pondered. I wouldn't drop Spell Resistance on the Inquisitor since it has a very low Willpower value, and if you don't mind my recommendation I'd rather drop Combat Reflexes in favour of it. If you're willing to sacrifice some of your damage output then I'd say that you can use Inure and just swap SR with CR and you're done. He's too squishy indeed, but it depends on which buffs you'll be playing with. Reverse Polarity can act like the Shadow Warrior's Reflective Emanation buff so it'll help a lot, and Soul Reaver can pretty much negate any kind of incoming melee hits, assuming you can charge it up. So it all falls down to playing style and what your choices are.

  • Like! 1
Link to comment
7 hours ago, Androdion said:

My two cents, for free.

  1. Bargaining is a high maintenance skill as you need to have it much higher than your character's level for it to be effective, thus the more you advance with your toon the harder it becomes to have a proper level on the skill. I've played extensively with Bargaining in CM 1.60 and I can say that even if you don't go overboard with it it's still an incredible skill to have since you can buy dedicated jewellery. Having a decent Bargaining level will allow you to visit shoppers and purchase gear with the specific modifiers you require, whereas by not having it a trip to a shopper is essentially useless. If you intend on playing with Bargaining you should keep it at char level until either lv.75 or lv.100, depending on if you intend on getting a proper bargaining suit for when you go out shopping (just keep an eye out for armour with +Bargaining and you'll have three to five pieces that boost it significantly, put those on your stash and equip when needed). By my experience Bargaining's breaking point is around the early 100s, so in my opinion more than 100 hard points in the skill is just a waste. Oh, it's a gold sink by the way so be aware of that.
     
  2. EP is a skill that will essentially make all your RNG drops be yellow, simple as that. By my experience it doesn't dramatically increase the drop rate of high tier gear (sets, uniques and legendaries) so if your idea is to get it because of those I'd say it isn't worth it. Hooyaah got it right though, you'll have better drops that rend more gold which you can sink into Bargaining sprees. Keep it at char level until mastery and then leave it be. Having it around without being properly levelled makes it worthless.
     
  3. The Blacksmith skill allows you to bypass the NPC Blacksmith, and with the added advantages of forging things by yourself costing less gold, as well as being able to "underforge" slots. Like Hooyaah mentioned you can forge one tier below in slots with the skill, so you can put rings into bronze slots and amulets into silver slots. That's something to consider because you can go above the curve, but again you need to have the skill properly levelled because it has a property where you can only forge items of a certain level accordingly to the skill level. So if your skill level is too low in comparison with the item you're trying to forge you won't be able to do so. There's another property of the Blacksmith skill that's important. When you go to the NPC you get the chance to use Enhance/Anneal/Wet enhancements, and those have fixed values that increase with each difficulty level. But when you have the skill on your toon those three enhancements level up with the skill, so eventually you're able to overcome the highest value on the Niobium NPCs. So when your skill is around 125 or so you'll be able to provide better bonuses than the best NPC smith in each town. Neat isn't it?! The thing is that again it requires a heavy investment, even more than the prior two since you can, and should, keep it at char level up to lv.200. Now try forging lv.200 enhancements on lv.2 armour for your newly created toon and see how much of a kickstart that is.
     
  4. Energy weapons are nice and fast, they provide good damage and usually have a different approach from other ranged weapons. They can provide several types of damage at once and usually have cool modifiers, so if you're willing to invest in that go for it. Combine them with Frenzied Rampage for instance for several rapid-fire hits, it'll look like you're firing a seraphim's BFG. :D
     
  5. It's more like each specific guide has a bit of different knowledge, so in short no. There's no such guide like that. But it's very important to focus on rapidly mastering the most important and relevant skills on your build. Endgame is level 200 and with over 900 skill points by then you can have all ten skills mastered way before since 10*75=750. And you'll find out that most of the time you don't even need to master all ten of them. Master the most important ones, keep just a few at char level if needed and then start mastering the other relevant ones.
     
  6. It does, it reduces the regen penalty on the special mount (and any mount for that matter) to the point where it negates it. But yeah, it's as much waste of a skill as Divine Devotion. Don't waste your time with it unless you're after a very very specific scenario like using a modifier it unlocks. Can't think of any useful one though.
     
  7. You should walk most of the time, but if you're planning on using Elite Mounts then it's worth using the Inquisitor's due to its Willpower bonus. Plus I love the attack animation of Ruthless Mutilation while mounted on the spider! Just awesome. It just depends on your playing style, but you can always equip +%run speed gear. Speed Lore is also a choice, but its run speed bonus is really small.

Still regarding your second question, and taking into account that scenario with the Inquisitor, it will depend immensely on how you're planning on playing that toon. The Inquisitor is extremely versatile and allows for many many variations depending on what buffs you use, what modifiers you choose and how much aggro you're planning on drawing unto yourself. For instance, Purifying Chastisement's gold mod Inure gives you what is essentially the Toughness skill, so you can play it from there if you don't mind dropping Hallow for it. Hallow gives an immense damage boost though so it's a choice to be pondered. I wouldn't drop Spell Resistance on the Inquisitor since it has a very low Willpower value, and if you don't mind my recommendation I'd rather drop Combat Reflexes in favour of it. If you're willing to sacrifice some of your damage output then I'd say that you can use Inure and just swap SR with CR and you're done. He's too squishy indeed, but it depends on which buffs you'll be playing with. Reverse Polarity can act like the Shadow Warrior's Reflective Emanation buff so it'll help a lot, and Soul Reaver can pretty much negate any kind of incoming melee hits, assuming you can charge it up. So it all falls down to playing style and what your choices are.

Thanks! That is very clear and interesting. This game is indeed very rich, it makes it all the more interesting!

 

Just to bounce back on Spell Resistance and Willpower: would a heavy investment of my attribute points to Willpower make a noticeable impact then? Especially since I use the community patch and intend to get myself lightsabers? Or vitality is still a better idea and Spell Resistance would cover all my needs?

Link to comment
7 minutes ago, Androdion said:

You should still invest in Willpower as an attribute, it counts towards your base spell resistance stat and improves base damage on lightsabers. One more point for Elite mount in that case since it also boosts WIL. Spell Resistance, the skill not the stat, is something like a reverse Ancient Magic. When you get targeted by a spell-based CA it makes a check against the skill and the higher you have it the better the chance it'll fizzle, the same way that in reverse AM will make you hit home more often when you're the caster. But the thing is that SR won't be any earlier than your fourth or fifth mastery, so until then attribute points into WIL and the remaining bonuses from gear should help you cover the gap.

I'd say that you could invest +1VIT until level 49 and then +1VIT/+1WIL from then on. Raising VIT on the earlier levels will make much more of an impact than raising WIL. Plus you can grab lighstabers with +%WIL, like Power of NIF from the Epic Office quest, so that helps. If you're going for Lightsabers aim for Power of NIF+Disturbance in the Force, killer duo and they're both fixed drops with 1.60.

Sweet, thanks a lot :)

Link to comment

As I foresaw, here I am again.

 

Quick question:

If I build a ranged SW (with energy weapons for instance), and I get a permanent full invisibility with no summons, does that mean no mob would ever attack me? Starting at what CA level?

 

If it does, would that mean:

- invicible toon, with no need for defensive buffs or skills

- potentially extreme damage (as he would be fully focused on offensive)

- extremely boring build (it'd kinda turn the game into a shooting galery)

 

So... if I want to have fun with my SW I should stay away from invis? Or just keep it as a non-perma buff to sneak away?

 

 

 

Also, completely random other question:

- what build would be the most varied (I.e requires brains and is not 1-button smashing) while still viable, regardless of the steepness of the learning curve? Sometimes I like to chill with a melee idiot, sometimes I like the challenging but rewarding experience more (still need to be fully viable though, otherwise it becomes only frustrating)

 

Cheers :)

Link to comment

Pros and cons, there's your answer: http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Shadow_Veil

It's a very specific build that may or may not turn into a borefest. If you prefer a more dynamic playing style then a fully invisible SW won't be much fun.

The most varied build is a hard thing to say, but any build that requires you to use all three aspects on a single class will always provide a challenge. More micromanagement and all that.

  • Thanks! 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, Durmir said:

Also, completely random other question:

- what build would be the most varied (I.e requires brains and is not 1-button smashing) while still viable, regardless of the steepness of the learning curve? Sometimes I like to chill with a melee idiot, sometimes I like the challenging but rewarding experience more (still need to be fully viable though, otherwise it becomes only frustrating)

 

Cheers :)

I would suggest checking out builds by Chattius. He often would come up with some interesting builds based on either enforced restrictions or non-standard playstyles that usually ended up challenging, but ultimately quite powerful.

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Thanks guys, I'll have a look :)

From my own screening on the wiki, I think I'll give a try to a dryad (the kung fu one looks crazy, I don't know if I'll go that far :D . But the rules and restrictions are interesting and there is much to learn from the results).

With 3 toons on the stove, I should be busy for a while :P

Edited by Durmir
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