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essjayehm

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essjayehm last won the day on March 4 2020

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About essjayehm

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    London, Ontario
  • Interests
    Basketball, fishing, camping and other ass't outdoor adventuring!

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    Pepperoni
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    Tequila
  • All time best video game ever played
    Sacred 2
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    Scott
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    Canada

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  1. Onward to Niobium! When I last left off, I had just killed the dragon boss under Seraphim island. Progressed through the Carnach caves and onto the demon himself without issue. In the swamp, the most annoying area of the game, I decide to get some map reveal done however did end up dying twice... both times because of the pesky spitting spiders. After the first time, I put the recovery elixirs on R to reach easily but even the second death I was spamming both health and recovery elixirs and couldn't overcome the massive stacks of DoT. There is some amount of lag (esp. with health pots) sometimes and I am unsure if that is possibly contributing to these deaths. I do confirm this later on vs. Nimonuil. I hit level 80 and reach mastery with Dual Wield. It's really hard to figure out what this 'double-hit' bonus that brings. Too many enemies and numbers flying around the screen however I do think it's not a "double hit" but a chance to roll double damage on hit... just a feeling with no real testing behind it. After beating the Swirling Mist I get the third piece of the Flesheaters Implements set. I am using the ring actively already but not the amulet (as I have a double-rolled allskills ammy) and now the Ghoul Axe; it doesn't seem too bad (massive -enemy evade stat is juicy) and I have a look at what I get for having all 4 pieces of this dual-wield focused set and it's LL%. So obviously I'm now on the lookout to get the 4th piece as this would just be the bee's knees After reaching the Desert and doing the northern part with all the t-mutated enemies; I think its time for another shopping spree. It's kindof an awkward time for shopping as it seems that sometimes I find allskills +4, and sometimes +3, and it's not even directly tied to item level I don't finish out a 'full' re-gear but get a couple of improvements (or so I think). I make my way through the desert but something seems off. Even though I pushed my Callous Execution about 10 levels above malus, it's getting regenerated on only 1 hit (with only 1.7 rph + tenacity mod) which is wrong since with about 4.5 sec regen time it should need both hits to fully regen. Moving into the southern desert the little red scorpions are tearing me apart and I truly begin to fear I made a mistake with the re-gearing. At one point I have to start running from the packs of scorpions and have no less that 12 little red guys and 3 big green ones on my tail! At this point I'm just praying I can reach the monolith to save and gtfo to have a good look at my gear and figure out what's wrong. Manage to shake my pursuers, click the savepoint and tp back to a town to have a look. And wouldn't you know it, I look at my CE and it's level 27... when it should be 57-ish. Open up the inventory and have a really good I've been wearing my Purifying Chastiment buff suit for this whole time crossing the desert! Oh man do I feel like an idiot. Put on my proper gear, head in to fight the big badass scorpion boss and... it's almost over before my Frenetic Fervor ends (30 seconds) however I did run away when he summons the adds since those little guys seem more dangerous than the big bad himself. Head back out after the fight and find that the little red scorpos, and their brethren are not (much) of an issue... of course they are dangerous but not like when I was wearing the wrong equipment set Speed through the jungle, to my first 'real' fight with Kral. He does almost one-shot me with one of his moves but again since his AI tries to back off to range to fire his moves this fight is over before he has a chance to shoot again. Feeling good about the toon, I push straight thru the Dryad island, with Facetteleon giving one big hit before shattering into a thousand million pieces. The Wasteland is somewhat more interesting now with the EE installed, as the high-elf fighters seems to have a lot more HP than in vanilla. I am disappointed to find the 'ambush' point - there is a place where you exit a cave and there is usually 6-8 enemies waiting just outside and sometimes eating you before you can even move - isn't fixed. IMHO there shouldn't be multiple enemy spawns just outside an area transition; but it is what it is and I move along. The challenge of the area seems about right, and am happy to see the bugged demon mage damage not slaughtering me Ding level 86 just before entering the great machine and re-set my relic setup for the guardian fights. Seems just about the same as vanilla; the first 3 being relatively easy and the 4th a real white-knuckle experience with a couple of potion-spamming moments. As alluded to earlier I did have 1 death against Nimouil; with part of the reason being health-potion lag and the other being I didn't switch to CE after casting my FF so I was essentially just auto-attacking haha. After respawning when I actually use CE both phases of the fight are done within the 30-second duration of FF Jump into Niob with the minimum enemy level of 111, 25 levels above me. I let the bartender and the customer beat on me for a second and not receiving much damage so dispatch them and head up to Sloeford; finish Runemaster and Blacksmith quests so I can set up a shopping run.... and log off. Now it's time to finally play Sacred 2 in its full glory
  2. That was kindof my personal take on the Ice Lord... but seeing as he's not in the console version I had no experience with him in "vanilla". I approve of your thinking there and it is the way most optional bosses work for (all) RPG's. The only real takeaway I had was that Bloodclaw didn't have such a pronounced difficulty spike however he's still VERY dangerous if you don't know about his WIDD (even for vanilla). IF Ice Lord does have some serious phys armour/mitigation then I am not sure fire vulnerability is needed since some lava chunks/conversion gloves will do wonders for the fight... but if not and its just a massive hitpoint pool, then it's a good balancing tactic (the vulnerability). My .02 and still only Plat. difficulty to boot.
  3. Running around Nor-Plat I came across the Ice Lord. As I don't ever recall fighting this guy I thought I'd take a "Schot" at it Got thrown off with the fact you gotta interact with it to start the fight, which really threw me off and ended up getting KO'ed trying to re-cast my FF and applying DS and not watching my HP Went back to give him a second go; and holy moly either his health is ridiculous, or armour/mitigation is super high vs my Phys damage. Since I'm rofl-coptering the story bosses I know it's not my raw damage output so maybe I'll have to socket some lava chunk and try again some other time. I didn't want to do that just yet since I was heading into Seraphim Island and fire-areas right away but maybe after I'll try that strat. after reaching the Swamp. Then I'll need to start setting up some elemental damage weapon sets anyway. Ding level 75, master Bargaining, Constitution and GI Focus. Dual Wield is next as I wanna see how the mechanics of the double-hit work. If I'm not impressed by it I will use the Character Editor and re-spec into Armour Lore to have a look at the mitigation levels at Mastery; if that's as nerfed as I think then I'll go for Spell Resistance. Getting REAL tired of stuns and roots Tactics and Toughness would be the next 2; the rest can be 1-pointers until late-late game.
  4. ... and the story continues The initial shopping spree in Plat - 20 million going in and only spent around 10 mil; however I wasn't too crazy about how the final gearing worked out. Wandering around western Tyr Lysia feeding on a diet of kobolds, brigands with the odd side of bacon and things didn't seem too bad. Clear speed OK, however I felt that the defenses weren't quite there. This feeling manifested itself when I headed east out of Thylisium at level 62 and started encountering some purple-circled level 75 undeads. They were manageable, depending on the texture of the group. 1 champion with 4 croneys was a bit of a chug-fest depending on how many times the banish chance failed. Then, I came across an unfortunate situation where 2 groups of skeletons had converged, and instead of choosing a tactical retreat, I thought I'd test the toon, but ended up dead With a certain amount of frustration and not looking forward to grinding out levels and money to push forward I looked for something new. I have been looking around and Flix's Enhanced Edition mod looked interesting with a few new CA's to try out. Grabbed the CM Patch and the EE and gave the Hight Elf a run up to the Octogolomus with a Delphic-only build but ended up not really liking it (probalby mis-built) and felt a pull to come back to my Inquisitor. With full understanding that loading up the character with CM / EE enabled will possibly break something, and definitely mess up the gear I did it. Indeed, absolutely every piece of gear I had was re-rolled (except the one set piece I was using) so I had a lot of work to do. A LOT of work, as both my shopping and PC buff suits were completely useless as well! So, full disclosure, I used the character editor to give myself a few extra dollars so I could sort out some gear to get moving again. 25 million spent this time around, and still not even fully socketed yet The changes in the EE with the nerf to damage mitigation values has me somewhat concerned; however there is a 'replacement' in armour % so I am hopeful that is a suitable placeholder for now. The one thing I did not get was any RpH jewellery. I am not sure if I saw any, or if it just didn't show up with a suitable second mod; but I ventured forth with only the modifier on Callous Execution as my source of RpH. I also note that it seems either the CM-patch or the EE has fixed the exploit of using buff suits to benefit from high-level buffs without high-regen penalty. Where my CE was running above malus with about 3s regen it is now over 6! Welp, it seems I now have a use for the 100's of concentration potions I've stashed in the first 60 levels Unfortunately, that's not enough to make my combat art spammable, and there's a lot of auto-attacking happening. That's not good. So after some more grinding on weaker enemies, I did find a suitable weapon with high base damage and RpH to get back into the groove. Good news is, the setup seems a lot better; no more huge issues with undead, notwithstanding the buff the EE gives to champions of course. Nothing interesting to report as I meander my way onto Orcish Byway and the first (real) bossfight of Platinum. With some trepidation I head down into the pit and wait at the bottom for the stupid AI to make his way back down the ramp After he reaches the bottom, I Dislodge his Spirit; pop my Frenetic Fervor and start smashing. And smash I did! Wowzers No real danger, a few health potions but I was definitely impressed with how fast I was able to take him down. In no real hurry to advance, I start exploring western Atamark, then back into east Tyr Lysia and then back around to eastern Atamark where I find myself in a slightly familiar place. There's a miniboss here... dragon? I forget exactly however there is a random girl here with a quest, I think I'll give a go; aaaaaand... the Werewolf boss! Ahhh yes, enslaved lycanthropy IIRC, this dude has WIDD so gonna have to keep that in mind, and indeed the final half of the fight was a potion-spam fest and I truly thought I would get one-shot however that didn't happen and I continue on my way into NW Atamark. Where we leave it for now... I have hit level 70, and still not entirely sure what I should grab as a last skill. I have: Bargaining, Dual Wield, Armour Lore, Constitution, GI Focus, Tactics Lore, Alchemy, Spell Resistance and Toughness. The short-list is: Nefarious Netherworld Focus - to get the modification points for Dislodged Spirit (and to boost CA-level, ofc) Combat Reflexes - to protect from crits Enhanced Perception - to unlock experience. per kill and (obv) chance to find valuables mods Weapon Lore - to get more Wounding (swords), ignore armour (hafted) but at the high-levels the game's gonna want mastery to unlock these mods and I'm not in the market for a skill to take to mastery. Any community input?
  5. Soooooo... another unfortunate "user error" - tried to rush thru Givrm and Caenach island portion of the Dryad Isle and forgot to pop a health potion Suffered the first 'real' death in Gold going thru the Wasteland - Demon Mage. TBH, I was aware of them and always healing early - taking a few shots from them here and there I figured they were doing 33-50% of my health pool so was playing safe but I was almost out of the demon area to the last save point before entering the machine area (where the TG's first start showing up) and BAM - the very last place one could spawn did spawn, caught me with my skirt down (at about 40% hp to boost damage from PC) and died. With the survival bonus RIP I definitely had no qualms about trying my luck with the Nameless ones... as expected not much ado with the first 3 but the 4th was a nail-biter but I got thru it. Into Platinum at level 59 Started out positive with a set piece drop from the first chest... Ilgard's helmet. Now got 5 pc of the set however it entails using this sub-par helm, and the chest plate which is really nothing special either. Which can only mean 1 thing: Shopping Spree!!! Got a lucky double-skills ammy (+6) but nothing else noteworthy as yet so I feel this will be the longest shop yet, as I'll have to layer defense instead of just leaning in on the mitigation. Gonna focus on not dying for Plat, so it'll be a lot of map explore, fighting trash and (probably) running from the hidden mini-bosses
  6. The story continues... Pushing quests in Tyr Lysia and suffered a death trying to tank a boulder toss from Ghanka at 25% HP. <sigh> Dumb ass is as Dumb ass does I guess. I was questioning the value of questing for XP gain when I came across the "breaking the news" quest - which involves an escort portion of this chain. I *LOATHE* the escort quests and this dumb ass goes running off getting himself into trouble with mobs on multiple occasions; and then eventually get myself killed jumping into a fray to try to rescue him, opening the map to try to tp back to town to save us both... and ends up with both of us dead. At this point, I am sure that doing quests is definitely not worth the time it takes, nor the frustration of doing those effing escort quests. So wandering around just exploring, killing, leveling and saving up for the next shop around level 45. 4 million gold up... and 3.8 million spent got 2 gems as weapons: one +3 allskills; rph 0.9 and 27 life leech and the other +5 to all GI CA's and +2 to CE (after socketing). But the real win was getting up to 22% Phys. dmg mitigation. I got the Orc cave in my sights and this is gonna be well needed. The final step is grabbing the Inure mod for Purifying Chastiment which I get to pick up at level 46. I arrive at the dreaded locale at about level 46.5; and with great trepidation enter into the cave of pure death. Had to use a few potions but emerged victorious! Took note of my health pot count, did a few more runs and it seems I am using more than I gain, but only -2 or -3 a run. Farm up to level 48 and end up quitting since the uniques really weren't dropping well (got 1 set piece and a couple of garbage tier uniques). I did make back about 3 million gold scrapping all the blue+ tier drops and a level and a half in (relatively) short order so not gonna whine about it too much. Continue with the exploring a little to help gain levels and progressing the quest. Somewhere in the dragon caves or early swamp I did see on the wiki (and, thus remembered) that map explore helps with chance to find valuables... so lucky me for choosing to do that. Not extensively, but each bit done helps in the end Arrive at the next big 'test' of the build - Garganthopod. With Toughness chosen at level 50 I do feel like the fight shouldn't go too bad, and indeed it is fine except when he summons his adds at which point I break off to tackle them before re-engaging the big baddie. Travelling thru the jungle I do have to use the odd health potion if there's a couple of champions in a pack, but that's the first that's happened since getting the mitigation flowing. Kral was a joke as he was in Silver, spending more time backing away than trying to kill me. Arrive on the dryad island, and re-discovered the 'turtle island'. Actually forgot about this gem of a levelling spot so might do some farming here on and off since I am not too sure I should be heading into Platinum at level 54 (maybe 55 after getting there). I do plan on doing another spending spree at level 60 (or earlier if skills+3 start showing up on jewellery), and it would be nice to do that in Platinum which I think is possible but that dangerous 4th Nameless is the big question mark. Haven't died since that unfortunate cluster-mess escort mission so not too interested in losing the valuable survival bonus. Back to the grind
  7. Thanks for the welcome backs Lujate and Gogo No I really have no urge to play Diablo 2 so that mod really has no interest, but it's some amazing work to put in to transform I am sure so kudos to Flix for his creation Continued to push my Inquisitor thru silver; ending up in the Wasteland and facing down the Guardians at level 33 I do recall being into Gold typically mid-40s but not this early. This is waaay too early. Then the "logical" thought popped into my head... while I'm here why not give it a try? Had a 9th death climbing the hill to get here so nothing to lose by it. If its too hard just backtrack and level up. Potion check... 60-ish health pots - probably not enough but I'm not expecting to survive long anyway. Set up my relic wheel to focus on the single elements and jumped right in. Yep they hit hard. Real hard. But not too hard. First 3 robot overlords down, and still with about 25-ish health potions. Am I actually doing this? Magic, Fire and Ice based bosses down, now for the Poison one. Lets do this! Run in and.... NANI? Damage is huge, way more than his 3 friends... and... wait it's an all-element boss? run run run run run. Re-set the relics and try again. Still hitting me like a truck but manageable; however the 25 pots I had are running out fast! Run back to the merchant in the hub and buy the 10 he has, then back into the fray... those 10 pots gone like green beer on St. Paddy's day (I.e. FAST). At this point, I consider the outcomes... if I leave the hub, do the guardians re-spawn and I have to fight all 4 again? Welp really what choice do I have. Jump around from merchant to merchant buying up about 60 more and head back in. Good news! no reset and although the final boss has healed back up to about 75% that's fine. Let's dance I have 29.9% deathblow however it does seem like these guys have a good deal of resistance to it as they are not insta-dying until about 5% hp but die they did! Whoop onto gold! Jump in, watch the opening scene and fight the bartender and patrons after poisoning my colleague and notice the menacing red circles under their feet. OH YEAH! Minimum enemy levels are a thing. Lets see... level 41! Aha... this might be a good reason not to be here at level 33. Decide to make my way to the Happiest of Cow Farms and see what's what. Bandits are dying fast and not hitting hard; that's a relief. Onto Sloeford - throw on the shopping gear and look for some stuffs. Some slight improvements since the rolls are a tad higher in Gold but nothing I am gonna invest in at this point. I did get lucky and got an allskills +2 ammy with +xp so a small win but not worth doing a big shop at this point. Double-checking the wiki and indeed not gonna see +2 skills until level 45ish so I got some levelling to do. Crossed the bridge out of town and ran into the kobold/bandit fight, jumped in to the fray only to be met with PURPLE CIRCLES.. holy moly I don't know if I've ever seen the legendary purple circles. Anyway they're level 42 and not posing a huge issue (sure, need a pot when mobbed by the leather-hat wearing midgets, but meh). So started reacquainting myself to the vast ocean of sidequests available in this game. Monster xp would be much better in late silver; however I did get a set piece drop and its level 42; which made my decision to grind out in gold, maybe at a slower pace but with much better rewards - drops with stats based in the higher difficulty even if I have to wait a few levels to be able to use effectively. Back to the grind, folks; will chat again soon if there are any exciting updates. Ciao for now
  8. Hello all Some may remember me, but I wouldn't blame you if ya don't... it's been almost a decade since I last posted After luckily avoiding the hot mess that was the Wolcen release, I had an urge to play a different ARPG other than PoE which I enjoy quite a bit. As I was still a mod here I get the occasional email when someone uploads a file or whatnot it put Sacred 2 into my thoughts, and I thought "why not" give it a good honest revisit. Back in the day I did 100's of hours; albeit on the console (PS3) and had bought the Gold version on Steam when I first got a PC but didn't enjoy it as much even with the I&B content. So I downloaded Sacred onto my new PC; came back here to look around for a bit and since there really isn't anything *new* that requires the CM-patch I decided against that (for now). With my fondest memories being from playing Dryads and Inquisitors (with the TG being third) I had to choose a toon that Even the builds and discussions involving the I&B expansion were not very plentiful so I eventually settled on a console build: Primarily because it started with Bargaining haha. Starting fresh I recall I will appreciate having a reliable (although grindy) way to get quality upgrades for gear so a Bargaining toon was a must. Also, since PoE is such a spell-meta game I thought some melee would be a nice change of pace. Started up the game... straight into Silver, yep... and bam... *DEAD* on the third enemy rofl.... and again on the 5th. Totally forgot how squishy this guy is. 3 more deaths before leaving Elysium on my way to the Human lands (damn Skeleton Champions) at level 10. Did I make an error playing a "more challenging" class I thought? I decided to press on; and continue with the "rush" of silver difficulty as if I recall correctly there is no purpose to lingering around in the lower difficulties and if the constant dying becomes frustrating, it's just an excuse to play something different. So after leaving Griffinborough at level 12, bought a couple of RpH rings and socketing some runes the build really came together. Now able to jump into packs without having to spam healing pots. Callous Execution nearly insta-recharged... as long as I hit ;) Gar'Colossus down at level 15; Octogolomous level 20.. flying through the campaign I think I got the hang of this game again All skills items were flowing, constant improvement of CE (via gear and socketing runes) and a couple of all combat arts/ all GI CA's items to help improve the PC buff too and push, push push the campaign. After beating the Dragon and Carnach I realize I had made a bit of a mistake. I had gone over a chapter and not seen any +all skills items in shops. I had forgotten to ensure that I kept an eye out for a "bargaining suit" on my travels. Pushed thru the Swamp (2 deaths due to overconfidence; somewhat embarrassing dying with 90+ healing pots in inventory Couldn't even find +Bargaining or General Skills Was I too late? Can I even find items to pump up the OP skill? Finished the Desert - with an 8th death from the insane DpS output from the Scorpion and his adds - and decided if I don't do a dedicated shop for a bargaining suit now, I won't ever be able to get my level high enough to see the "premium" gear anymore. So, 600k gold later, back into seeing good stuff again. Also without realizing have pushed my Callous Execution waaaay above "CA level w/o penalty" and above my RpH / spammable. So will have to pump up some GI focus to fix that but not a huge deal overall; as the higher the CE level, the more rph I get anyway so it'll sort itself out in a level or 2. Also I have decided not to follow Kudos' guide as closely as I thought I would. The final 3 skills - Concentration, AS Focus and NN Focus are only to run 3 buffs and a couple of debuffs but I believe I'm gonna try a different route - Toughness, Alchemy and :) something I am not sure. Welp that's it for today. Hopefully I can finish off Silver without too many more hiccups and hopefully into Gold within the next week or so.
  9. Cool.. Good to see some replies coming in. Since there doesn't seem to be a LOT of Darkies playing GD I think maybe the best way to organize will be directly thru Steam? Maybe whoever wants to can PM me their Steam handle and I can send a friend request, and we'll take it from there... or if you want to add me, I am essjayehm on Steam, but I won't accept an invite unless it is obvious who you are (so just PM me, please).
  10. Welcome to the forums, YoodenVranx! I have not played a lot of PC Sacred 2 but I do have some answers for you I inserted into the quote below
  11. Heyo everyone! Been away for a while sinking most of my spare time into Grim Dawn. Been in and out here and there but since I've not been playing Sacred I really haven't had much to say (or any comments I would have would be based on fuzzy memories of when I was playing). But now that GD is a mere couple of weeks away from Multiplayer being implemented, I wanted to get in contact with the D.a.r.k members to see if anyone is interested in some kind of playgroup. Personally I'm not against jumping in with a bunch of randoms but I would definitely prefer to have some friends to hack and slash away with! So, just a quick stop to say "Hi, everyone!" and get back to my "roots" (since DM was the actual first gaming forum for me)
  12. Welcome to the forums, NocheEstrellada! I have some answers for you 1) Fire/Magic/Poison damage +x% increases your "non-weapon" CA damage. Weapon Fire/Magic/Poison damage only increases damage dealt with your weapon - both normal attacks and CA's that use your weapon. 2) Weapon Fire damage +29 gives you a flat 29 extra fire damage when you hit with your weapon... whereas the Weapon Fire damage +8% Physical Regeneration increases your fire damage by a variable amount, depending on what your Phys Regen is. 3) Yes 4) I am not sure. I think not, but it could have an effect. 5) I don't know, sorry
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