ReluctantlyHuman

So I'd gone through SacredWiki to look up the Sets, but had not considered using Wolfe's Lair. Now that I have, at least I know what I am missing out on. My Daemon found a unique sword that increased my chance to find magic items by a considerable amount, so I find myself dual wielding swords quite a bit now, if only in the hopes of finding some nice stuff. Unfortunately this means I tend to ignore most of the items present at the shopkeepers now. With the exception of the hand claws and knuckles, I rarely find anything better than my current armor in the stores, which is a bit of a shame. And back to the Sets, I was disappointed to see that most of the Daemon ones include a sword weapon if one is included at all. I knew claws would be asking for much, but the one that gives the constant Battle Daemon effect (man I wish there was a set that gave permanent vampire effect) includes a sword and shield. Alas. -KEvin

Alright, sorry for not having responded sooner. I had to clopen (close last night and then openthis morning) at my job just now, but I'm glad I got some responses here. As for the whips, I am glad to see I am wrong. ONe of my characters has disarm, but I thought I read a build where someone mentioned it was not very useful, so I don't think it is on my main. That being said, quite often I'll approach an enemy as my Daemon (who last time I checked did not have Disarm), and they will just up and drop their weapon. I am specifically thinking of some skeleton archers, so perhaps it's specific to that 'species', but it was curious to me. What skill do the whips take? Blade Combat? And I'd noticed that the Ice Elf Captains have the same shield as the seraphim in the Monastery (which themselves remind me of the gungan's shields in Episode 1). As for my characters... yeah, I like to give everyone a fair shake. At this point I am definitely all about my Daemon, but my Dark Elf and Vampirss have been doing well enough that I would not mind playing them to completion (atleast of Silver). The Vampiress is so far pretty similar in playstyle as my Daemon is, so she might get left behind. I really wanted to make sure I got an idea as to the others playstyles and whatnot. And now that I have, I can get rid of the dead weight (Gladiator). I have not completely given up on the Dwarf yet, but things are looking grim. I mean seven characters is a lot to maintain *grin* I double checked the Sets on sacredwiki, and unless I am mistaken, the Daemon is the only character who has an image of what she looks like in the Set, at least for the entire Set. I could tell from the item icon that the Set of the Gods is likely the one I was thinking of, though I did find a not-so-Set pair of Wings that looks like they might have the same look on the avatar for the Seraphim. Of course I did not find it for the Seraphim however. I've appreciated the change in stance my characters take with different weapontypes, however with some of the Daemon's weapons she runs kind of strange. She really lifts her knees up looks almost like she is skipping. I notice this with her crossbow and dual wielding swords. But with two claw/knuckle weapons, she runs fairly normally. And someone mentioned the drops being better in Niobium. I'm curious, do different items drop in different difficulty levels, or will I simply find stronger versions of the same items? I'm pretty content with beating Silver difficulty only with some of my characters since I figured the stuff they'd get in the higher levels wouldn't necessarily 'be' any different, they'd just be scaled up in difficulty. I think that is all for now. I can't just go into a message board and post a small little post no no, I need to write a monologue each time... -KEvin

So I'd like to think at this point, I've got a pretty good idea of what I am doing. My Daemon is level 43, and is about to head to Zhurag-Nar for the Elements quest. I've got her into a grove that basically means she kills everything and anything very very quickly. I am not unhappy with that situation. The only problems I've had with her, were with some dragons, and with the loads and loads of ice elves up in Tyr-Elvennamedplace. When I ran into the two dragons in said place, along with their ice elf retainers, I simply ran past them. Now as to my questions; 1. Is it possible to get one of the Ice Elf's whips? I want one of those things super bad. It didn't look like it was a unique part of their art (being recolors of the Dark Elf and all), and I figure if it's just a 'spell' one of the other characters would have had it. I'm guessing no to this question, but I figured I'd ask. 2. Along the same lines, does anyone know what the equipment is that the Seraphim up in the Monastery of the Seraphim is? Her 'wings' look like 8 beams of light pointing in the 8 directions of the compass. They were so cool. Is this a set item, or just general equipment that I might someday find. My Wood Elf has some skill in trading (like literally two points), but I noticed she found a lot of stuff at the store that has not become available for even my Daemon. Unfortunately, this brings me to the 'bad' part of my post. I am just not feelin' it for the other 6 characters. My Daemon and Dark Elf are both carefree and joyous with their asskickery, but I am having difficulty with most of the others even getting past Urkenbach. Mostly, this is my fault. I have read the guides, and I still chose to play these characters in different ways. My Wood Elf - First, she was all about ranged combat. I read about multi-hit and companion of the woods, and she was actually doing really well; until Urkenbach. At that point she sort of ran around in circles until MH would reload so she could get another shot off, meanwhile Wilbur and the Unicorn are dead. I restarted her as a magic only WE since someone mentioned in a post that a COTA WE is actually boring to play since she kills everything so effortlessly. I want that. The biggest draw for me in these games is how cool I can get my characters to look. Set items are both a blessing and a curse for me. But if I can get a character pretty far with them ebing pretty powerful, I don't mind if the challenge is stripped out for me. Which brings me to... My Seraphim - Mostly, I wanted to play a character with cool metal wings. Then I decided she was lame, and thats when I started my Daemon. Now that I've seen the lightsaber wings, I want my Seraphim to be cool too. Unfortunately, I thought a nice melee oriented Seraphim would be a good idea. Not yet. I thought I was onto something when I realized that while mounted her attack speed (seemingly) shot up. That doesn't change how long it takes me to kill any given monster. I know I should just reroll her as a magic wielding lady, but I'm very fond of swords over spells. Despite... My Battle Mage - Actually, I just haven't played him much. I don't dislike him, though Fireball is a little slow for me sometimes. I'm working on beefing up Lightning now that I've got it, but it is still slowgoing. My Vampiress - After the Daemon, the character I wanted to play the most before actually getting the game. And then I realized "Permavamp" meant "Permanent-so-long-as-you-recast-everytime-duration-ends". She has actually done pretty well for herself so far. I've stuck to beefing up Turn Into Vampire to bring up the duration, and I've got a pet wolf (who smells) and a pet bat (the confusing kind, who seems stronger than my wolf), but at the end of the day, her claws seem to be where here strength lies. Which I suppose is the point. But after my Daemon being all about dual-wielding claw weapons, I kind of wanted someone who used a different kind of weapon. My Gladiator & My Dwarf - Honestly, these two have barely been played. I have not disliked the Gladiator, but pure melee characters are never my bag, and I hate hate hate his little baby arms. And you know, if that was his thing (born with the disease that makes it so his arms never fully developed), that'd be fine, and very forward thinking of Ascaron, but I suspect it is not. As for the Dwarf... I normally like dwarves, I do. But none of his CAs appeal to me. And his gun, well it doesn't seem very powerful. I started playing with the Underworld provided one, to get a feel for the character at a higher level, but so far I'm having trouble getting past his name. "Hi, I'm Dwarf, the last Dwarf. No I don't think my name is ironic, why?" This might seem like a big bad rant, but mostly I'd wanted to get my State of the Game up for posterity's sake. I am actually quite enjoying the game, and am sad Sacred 2 is not coming out sooner (aren't we all), and mostly sad Sacred 2 doesn't have a cool werewolf for me to play as (don't we... all?). And hoping that someday, someday soon, my Daemon will start finding Set items that she can actually wear. That is all. -KEvin

I mainly use it for the Combat Arts that I don't use often, but I do use (ex: Healing & Phase Shift). Selecting the Fkey causes the mapped CA to be placed into whatever CA slot is active - my biggest problem is remembering to switch my active slot before using the Fkey, so I don't replace my main attack CA instead. Since I do not use many CAs with my Daemon, it is less useful for her, but it will be nice for my BM and WE for just those CAs and then some.

So far the Temple Guardian is sounding the most interesting to me (I like robots, and hand to hand combatants), but if I am not mistaken, I think the T-Energy is what caused all of the zombies to show up in Resident Evil, so I'm a little leery of that. -KEvin

You open your CA screen, hold your mouse over the desired CA symbol, then press the Fkey you want it mapped to (then the Fkey name will show by that CA, in case you forget what you mapped). Unfortunately you can only use F1-F6, and I'm pretty sure you can't do the same kind of mapping for combos Most excellent. And I'm glad to see I didn't just miss it, but it's something I have to set. Not that htiting F1 is that much closer than just hitting 6, but that is neither here nor there. -KEvin

Gial, you rock! Not that the bow idea isn't good, but I'd yet to stumble across the hotkey for giving another character a red potion. I know I'd read the hotkeys in the game sometimes left something to be desired, so I am glad to see some light at the end of the tunnel. I'll double check the eletronic manual to see if it mentions it, but is there a hotkey to instant use one of the CAs, or do I have to mouse over/hit the corresponding number and then right click? A button that would instant cast recuperation or what have you, without me having to switch away from multi-hit would be swell. And I am noticing the Daemon can be a little more difficult, but thankfully I chose to play her first, so I'm not realizing how 'difficult' she can be. Though, on silver dififculty, she just Ginsu's right through most of the opposition she comes across. I've only fought one dragon so far (the one you get to from DeMordrey's castle), and it wasnt hard so much as time consuming. I did test out my vampire again last night, and had much more success than I had previously. One 'difficulty' I noticed though, is that Turn Into Vampire doesn't refresh until after you've turned back into a Knight. So even though my regen is lower than the duration, I still have some 'vulnerable' time. But now that I have a wolf, not-so-vulnerable. Thanks again everyone -KEvin

Man I had not even considered that. Part of me assumed if I headed back towards Bellevue, they'd get all angry at me, but now I know better. Rockin, thanks.

I do not know how I missed all of these replies. It seems like the last time I'd checked there was only the one, but this is excellent... sort of. I'm glad I was right about my questions, but I was hoping for some of those magic answers that'd make the game all totally make sense to me. And actually I've kind of found one. I sort of stopped worrying too much, and just played how I wanted to. And so far, it's rocking. I ended up just focusing on Battle Daemon with the occasional Tentacles thrown in for undead with my Daemon and so far so awesome. She's only level 20-something-ish and pretty early in the quest in Silver Mode, but heck, I'm having fun. And I think I've got a grasp on most of the systems and mechanics in the game. I've also been messing around with a Dark Elf who seems to be able to do wonders just using Combat Kick and a weapon that gives off some poison. He still failed that Escort quest from Silver Creek, but I'm going to tell myself everyone fails that quest. Er, long story short, thanks for the replies everyone. Off to play now. Let us see what DeMordrey is really up to.

So things are going better. I read some FAQs, I think I know a little bit about what is going on. I've tried out some other characters, and am quite enjoying the Wood Elf and the Dark Elf. I really want to like the Seraphim (wings!) but she is just not doing it for me (yet). Same thing with the Vampiress. I had visions of perma vamping it from here to over there. And then I realized I'm not so good with CAs that have durations. But onto my queries. 1.) Whenever I kill certain NPCs (quest monsters? Bosses?) a circle of like stars or something will shoot into the sky from their corpse. Is this anything, or just a graphical effect to make me feel all strong. Stronger than I feel after already severing someone's head that is. 2.) I read the manual (well the electronic one that came with mine), and I am still confused about Defense. Alright, there is a defense statistic, and there is a resistance statistic. Is defense like whether I will be hit, and Resistance how much damage I'll take? Armor doesn't make it much clearer. "Expected protection"(I think that is the phrase) Is that fluid based on my statistics, or just some random number they came up with? And it seems like sometimes I'll put on a new shiny piece of armor with stats that seem to be 'higher' to me, but my listed defense/resistance will fall. I might have found the cause of that now that I've read about equipping items that are higher level than me, but any clarification would be super. 3.) Some of the items I find give weird bonuses that I cannot figure out. For instance, "Weapon damage +37% Dexterity". I'm kind of paraphrasing that one since I did not write down the whole bonus. Does that mean my weapon gains an additional damage bonus that equals 37% of my dexterity? If so, that's kind of weird, but ok. Sorry for all of the questions, but I had no idea some of the systems in this game would be so, esoteric, to a newcomer. -KEvin

Man you guys have already been so helpful, I'm already feeling guilt for when I inevitably move on to another game. One of the reasons I don't tend to play too many games online is because I'll suddenly just 'switch' and decide another game is calling out to me. I really enjoyed playing Diablo 2 online, back when it first came out, because I had some good relationships with a lot of people who played it. Those people still play it, whereas I've probably played 20+ games since then, with no real intention of looking back. I mostly got drawn to Sacred since I am sort of 'between' games right now (though the heavens know I have a huge backlog), and I suddenly remembered thinking I wanted to play that game where you were an Angel-lady and could ride a tiger. As that game is not out yet, I figured I'd give the original one a chance, especially since Amazon had it for 14 dollars. So I am not against playing online with you folks, but I think I'll be sticking to not-so-Hardcore for the moment. Heck I am still in Bronze difficulty (switching to Silver when next I play). As for dual axes/swords, normally I'm all for it, but not enough games give dual fist/knuckle weapons as a valid option, so for the moment I am sticking with them. Though with the extra 2 weapon slots I have right now, I should probably get something a little different. Naturally it was my Seraphim who found the Set Daemon sword. And somewhat back to the problem at hand; I brought out the Infernal Power rune I'd been saving for a rainy day, and started using it and Fire Daemon instead of Battle Daemon. Well I cannot say I've noticed much of a difference (again, only level 19, and the CAs are both about level 1), however, for whatever reason, Infernal Power of all CAs, simply decimates my frame rate. It seems to only happen when there are already monsters on the screen (so basically constantly). I've been using Tentacles up until now, and read how it's a good CA but it's not very computer friendly, so it's weird to have this problem with IP. Especially since from what I can tell, IP has no graphical indication of it being active. Speaking of which, is there anyway to tell how much longer a CA is going to last? Tentacles gives me an aura/circle under my character, and the Forms are obvious, but I cannot notice anything with IP. -KEvin

Excellent, this gives me a lot to think about. And I am glad I asked about the combos, since that means I was in fact just being lazy and assuming I wouldn't possibly have to click on three CAs and use them individually. I'm an American, I want all my spells to be one click away. I did stumble across the extended guides located here, and I am digesting them as I type this. I kind of knew about the balancing of CAs regen and duration, but I don't have many items or skills that lower them, so I was not sure why mine didn't seem too super yet. Now I know. And we know how that turns out. One last possible query, something I read about on one of the FAQs, and I'm going to see if I can't find the answer on my own, but as a proper dependant, I'll ask it here too: I know Physical Regeneration raises certain CAs regen time, and Mental (Magic?) Regen does some others. But is that dependant on character, or CA? Some part of me believes I read that only the Battle Mage uses MR for CAs, but that just seems like a waste of an attribute. -KEvin

I apologize if this is neither the time nor place for this, but this place is much more active than the GameFAQs board, and I had a few questions. I just recently picked up the Sacred Gold edition, and while I am enjoying myself, I think I am playing it 'wrong'. That is to say, before the game arrived, I went ahead and did myself the disservice of reading some FAQs and guides so as to ascertain which of the characters I might want to focus on. While doing so, I also read about the Combat Art runes, and how it is not always best to immediately use them like you might think. This has got me paranoid. I've used one rune for each CA I did not have, but have been concerned about boosting them any further. Approaching level 20 now, this has me feeling like my character is a little weak in that field. I assumed the Combat Arts would cap out at 10 or so, and so I'd want to keep their level low while I can. And then I read the stats on a level 50/100/150 version of them. So now I am confused. Question 1.) Approximately how often should I use a CA rune? How many can I use before I start 'noticing' them no longer dropping? I've built up a large stockpile of other character's Runes for trading in, but that still leaves me wondering how high I should raise a CA at any given time. While reading the FAQs I decided that the Daemon sounded like a character I would enjoy. Nevermind that she can fly, having super quick skills with claws and knuckles floats my boat. I've been building up her dual wielding and weapon lore skills, and occassionally using some Battle Daemon form to heighten her battle prowess. But now I reread the FAQ on SacredWiki, and it suggests favoring the Fire Daemon form, along with Infernal Power and Call of Death (I think). I have not fully grasped the hot key placement/Combat Art placement yet, but I can barely manage to get Tentacles and Battle Daemon form working at the same time. I suspect my problem is Combos. Question 2.) My computer is trying to load a combo guide right now, but just in case: What the heck am I doing? I have not messed with Combos too much yet, but I placed Battle Daemon and Tentacles in one, and it did just what I thought it would... and then I have to wait three minutes for it to refresh. I am assuming if I level up the CAs so that they last longer, the refresh time on the combo will simply get longer itself. Am I wrong? Should I have a seperate combo for each? Man I hope that combo guide loaded by now... Lastly, I just have some minor questions. 3.) Is it possible for me to transfer items from one character to another? I am assuming not, at least not without exporting, playing multiplayer, and then importing back, but that sounds like a hassle. At least at level 17. 4.) Back to the Daemon, I read how good she is with claws/knuckles, but her statistics say she is much better with her bare hands. Is this right? Have I wasted countless skill points on Dual wielding for nothing? And lastly, 5.) Defense/Resistance confuses me. But I just realized the 'missing manual' is actually on the CD, so I am going to try and resolve that one on my own. Oh, and hello, I am Kevin. Wonderful to meet you all. Please help me be less stupid.