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Question regarding HCALWP and reading runes


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When reading runes after reaching the highest combat art level without penalty (HCALWP) and the respective combat art (CA) only increases by a fraction of a level, is this adjusted retroactively when increasing the corresponding focus skill?

In other words, let's say the HCALWP is 5 and the CA is at level 5, so when I read a rune of that CA it increases to level 5.7 (for example). Afterwards I increase the corresponding focus skill such that the HCALWP is 6. Is the CA automatically at level 6 now?

I'm unable to test this at the moment and I was hoping for a quick answer here.

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Yes, that's exactly how it works. The Focus skills but also your character's level increase both regulate the HCALWP value.

Just be aware that if you read too many runes and force the fractional numbers up then your regen time will be too high, so it's better to read fewer runes instead of too many. There are specific cases where you can ignore this advice, but mostly it's a matter of balancing CA level and regen time.

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If you have runes to spare you can eat them without fear of losing them as they'll still be accounted for when you raise the Focus skills, don't worry about that.

You should respect the lower boundaries like I said before, bur if you have a temporary buff that scales with higher CA level and has a fixed cooldown then you barely have to worry about its regen time. Thus you can climb over the limits and eat runes at will because it'll give you better bonuses.

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Or be like me, pay this no mind at all because you have at least a 100% chance to halve cooldowns and your actual regen time is way down in the green bar on your character sheet, so you gobble runes like Pez.

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Yeah, but in order to have 100% chance to halve regen time you need to have a considerable level and be at a higher difficulty. So until then you do need to ration those runes you're eating, otherwise you'll get in trouble. Even more if you get hit by enemies with magical damage which makes your stats temporarily decrease (weaken effect), and as such a manageable regen time suddenly just isn't anymore.

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4 hours ago, Androdion said:

Yeah, but in order to have 100% chance to halve regen time you need to have a considerable level and be at a higher difficulty. So until then you do need to ration those runes you're eating, otherwise you'll get in trouble. Even more if you get hit by enemies with magical damage which makes your stats temporarily decrease (weaken effect), and as such a manageable regen time suddenly just isn't anymore.

Yeah, the toons I have this on are all above L150 and in Niob, but even on lower difficulties I found certain abilities you can get away with it, usually physical combat arts, but even many of the magical combat arts. It can be mitigated in large part by stacking attack speed, casting speed, intelligence, regen per hit, and stamina, so even if you get hit with a Weaken there is little to no effect whatsoever. It's one of those things where if you are aware of where the limits should be, then you should also be able to figure out how to overcome those limits by essentially nullifying them. In Sacred 2, they seem to have decided to be much more lenient in allowing players to bypass such things if they choose the right items to slot in the right gear pieces, especially in comparison to the first game with Underworld installed. I think I saw that you never got a chance to play it, but man in Underworld there is an NPC type that had a beam attack that would set all of your CAs on cooldown, and drain your charge, and it would also debuff you so that Concentration pots didn't work for a short period. Basically you either ran if you were a squishy, or you had to facetank them and use regular auto attacks to defeat them if they zapped you. They also came in fairly large groups and another subtype of that NPC also had a shield removal debuff, which made them especially deadly to the Battlemage. Sooooo many people lost HC characters up in there :)

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1 hour ago, thejynxed said:

 but man in Underworld there is an NPC type that had a beam attack that would set all of your CAs on cooldown, and drain your charge, and it would also debuff you so that Concentration pots didn't work for a short period. Basically you either ran if you were a squishy, or you had to facetank them and use regular auto attacks to defeat them if they zapped you. e :)

these?

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Cerebropod

I hated those...terrifying in HC... 

:viking:

 

gogo

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Well, I can't argue with your reasoning there. The game does lets us overcome most (if not all) of the issues it throws at us.

The worst part though is if you get too confident at the later part of the Blood Forest, those nasty LL eyes can bring you a lot of pain. Remember, LL can't be resisted in Sacred 2. Other than that, yeah, fair game.

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7 hours ago, Androdion said:

Well, I can't argue with your reasoning there. The game does lets us overcome most (if not all) of the issues it throws at us.

The worst part though is if you get too confident at the later part of the Blood Forest, those nasty LL eyes can bring you a lot of pain. Remember, LL can't be resisted in Sacred 2. Other than that, yeah, fair game.

Yeah, LL from some of the Tree Spirit things too, think it's the champs and the one boss that does it. How to counter LL: You also do LL (which some players don't in favor of other things depending on their build choices). For instance, my Seraphim has both LL% and +LL rolling on her weapons with Magic Pearl inserts. Combined with a very nice healthpool due to Constitution & Vitality, the LL from NPCs won't be entirely nullified, but very manageable. She's also a Blacksmith, so it helps greatly to be able to stack certain amulets in my silver slots and rings in my bronze slots in order to put LL amulets in all slots that I can, combined with a Jotun's Maw in the gold slot to increase damage and Health Regen. This is also doable on Shadow Warrior, but much more difficult on say Dryad or Temple Guardian where stacking for LL is not as optimal compared to in the case of Dryad, stacking for Poison Damage/Chance or Armor/Resists for TG. Inquisitor is an edge case. If you're leaning towards one of the caster aspect trees, no, Gruesome Inquisition, yes.

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Well, that goes without saying, but using Sneaking Demon with certain other things installed to the slots, you get both health regen and life leech, enough that those eyes weep with envy. A polearm Seraphim on the other hand, might be in for a wild ride.

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