The Shield Maiden -a Valkyrie From the Land of Fire and Ice

[chattius 2,652]

The Shield Maiden - A Valkyrie from the land of Fire and Ice

 

Edit 16.03.2010: This character was created on PC patch 2.40. Console and AddOn players should consider to use regeneration per hit to recharge combinations with successful weapon hits.

Edit 27.04.2010: Added a link to the build in attack value of Magic Coup, a link how to use an Artamark's Star, both from the new 'Lady in Black'-Character.

 

The history:

This character was custom made for my 11 year old daughter in may 2009 when she started playing sacred2. So it came with a (german) fantasy story and it was planed that the character would be good to try out some different elves: being able to play melee, archer and caster styles. So no time would be wasted if she noticed that a certain playstyle was nothing for her. The character is giving away higher possible damage for more defensive and more flexibility. It includes an archer, an ice elf, a melee elf...

The build had no bargaining, because my daughter had access to a chain of bargainers and a niob smith. She is around level 140 in niob now. She did both new AddOn Bosses with the character. Playing was mainly in 2-3 people LAN.

 

The idea:

After playing melee elves for 9 months, I know that a weapon skill is not really needed for a melee elf:

• Double hits from mastery have no affect for magic coup.
  
• Weapon speed for magic coup is arcane lore.
  
• Magic coup has a modifier for sure hits and has a buildin not shown attack value climbing with its level.
  
• Most unique one hand weapons have nothing unlocked from a weapon skill.
  

We will have equally hit chance with all weapons, so we can use a bow for distance, sword and shield for close combat, or shuriken for intermediate... . If we miss too much a few jewels with 'enemy can't evade' will be easy to get. So we won't take a weapon skill and we won't take bargaining. Let's see if we can attach a full melee elf to an ice elf. There is more about the buildin hit chance of Magic Coup in this thread.

 

Looking at Pyromancer and ice mages I saw that many of them did both: arcane lore and arcane focus for better hp regeneration and modifying the arcane spells for better defense. Ice (and to a lesser degree Pyromancer) mages suffer from the fact that it needs some time to get quick and powerful attack spells, so the first levels are hard. A melee elf starts a bit easier: GI hp regeneration helps a lot in beginning.

So why not change the priorities: Not starting with ice and working on arcane later, but to start with arcane and work out the ice tree at high levels when you have way better regeneration and a good defense already.

 

The Attributes

Every point till level 75 is put in vitality. Life leech from magic coup and hp regeneration from GI, our 2 main defense won't have any effect if we are dead because of too low hitpoints. If you decide to go ice do a mix of stamina and vitality later on, for melee continue vitality.

 

The Skills

• 02. arcane lore (75) [4]
  
• 03. armour (75) [9]
  
• 05. arcane focus (125) [3]
  
• 08. concentration (75) [10]
  
• 12. ice focus (100) [1]
  
• 18. ice lore (100) [2]
  
• 25. shield (75) [6]
  
• 35. constitution (75) [8]
  
• 50. fire focus (75) [7]
  
• 65. ancient magic (75) [5]
  

That are 850 points, at level 200 61 would be left free for distributing them.

 

The distributing of the first skill points

5 points in arcane lore to unlock arcane focus

5 points in armour to unlock shield

26 points in arcane focus to modify GI-regeneration buff and magic coup

1 point in concentration to get a second buff

ice focus + ice lore: after having done all the other skills as described here, all free points move here till we reach 100

1 point in shield to unlock shield modifiers

1 point in constitution, let +allSkills do the rest till reaching mid/end game

5 points in fire focus to modify fire skin for melee reflect

1 point in ancient magic, we need it later when we perhaps fight fully with spells

After this is done you can bring the skills to mastery following roughly the order in the [] brackets.

 

Modifying the main combat arts

GI-Buff: ice[1], life regeneration[2], ?[9]- my daughter has speed for an easier start

Magic coup: hit chance[3], life leech[4], stray damage[5]

raging nimbus: hurricane[6], roar[7], extended nimbus[8]

glacial thorns: fussillade[10], pierce[11], fussillade[12]

crystal skin: mirror[13], focalize[14](works on arcane spells too and we don't focus in intelligence), frosty breeze[15]

fire skin: arrow block[16], melee reflect[17]

[] order in which modifiers were done.

This character was made to test out different styles in a single character. So there are no hard rules which modifiers for a combat art are best for this character, it depends on your playstyle. Glacial Thorns are modified to kill big groups, but still powerful enough for bosses. Raging Nimbus is modified to assist a hybrid style with a bit more defensive orientation. Without lore the Pyromancer spells are chosen for defense.

 

The early playstyle

[] are the modifiers from above.

[0]-[5] Without runes it is best to start with a bow and shoot from a distance. Once we have thr needed runes:

Mainly melee with magic coup and GI as buff. At level 8 take crystal skin as a second buff.

[6]-[9] Hybrid style: Slow and damage close enemies with nimbus and finish them up with magic coup. With speed from [9] collect the enemies first and use your speed advantage over the slowed enemies to dictate the combat.

[10]-[15] You can start to train using glacial thorns and you still have melee as a backup if you fail.

[16]-[x] You should now be able to play as a pure ice elf

[17]-[x] You should now be able to play as a melee elf

 

Boss Fights

X% life leech weapons, meteor stuns, expulse magic, raging nimbus, cacading shroud, teleport, mastery in ancient magic, 2 different skins... . Just choose what you need, depending on the defenses of your enemy:

The boss reflects melee: life leech shurikens, spells

The boss reflects ranged: life leech shaft weapons(1 unique), spells

The boss reflect spells: life leech weapons.....

Block his Combat Art's with expulse magic, keep him stunned with meteors, slowed with nimbus, .....

 

The equipment

She has a chest, she is a girl and so she spends a lot of time choosing the optimal dress for the day. The easiest is to have a caster and a melee equipment and equip yourself for the playstyle you like for today. In the AddOn there is the chest carrying imp you can call, so you can redress mid on the battlefield. Alternativly you can design a more general equipment and can do some tuning with the weapon slots:

Putting all hit chance jewels in the weapons and shields you use for melee and ranged, leaving general damage jewels for your bodywear. And use caster weapon slots for power slot buff doing or combat art range and something like this.

There is one amulet which should be taken if you have it: The Artamark's Star.

 

Why Pyromancer focus?

Fire skin because of its melee reflect is better for close combat. With 75 points for mastery it will be enough to modify the Pyromancer spells which don't profit much from the lore: fire skin, meteor for stun(not damage) and the fire demon very late in game (level 180+). In the AddOn crystal skin with reflecting combat arts ( = spells) is very good at these nasty life leechers. So by not doing bargaining and taking the focus of a third aspect the character is better able to adapt to changes because of an AddOn or a patch.

 

Pro and Contra of this build:

The disadvantages are no bargaining and with not having combat discipline you lack some damage.

The advantages: you have an ice elf which has very good melee protection if needed at the price of lower damage, you have meteor showers (modified for optimal stun, duration and numbers) to help you at bosses, you can play melee or hybrid, ....

 

This was a quick transformation from an answer I put in the general discussion of elves. I may not always hit the correct english terms for modifiers and skills - if I have some spare time I will work this out a bit more. I have the german version with the AddOn already, and the character is still playable there.

Edited April 27, 2010 by chattius

[BlackJAC 3]

ok, im fairly new to the game, so I'm probably missing something here, but why mod both Incandescent Skin and Crystal Skin when both can't be combined?

 

I know you're going for a unique build, but to me it just seems picking pyro is a waste of a skill. After all, Crystal skin provides insane bonuses at higher levels. In fact, you could argue it's very overpowered

[Epox 2]

the idear is to use Crystal skil in the eraly levels and afterwards when grown in higher level IS Chance to reflect will be a better options to end game

[obie191970 0]

ok, im fairly new to the game, so I'm probably missing something here, but why mod both Incandescent Skin and Crystal Skin when both can't be combined?

 

I know you're going for a unique build, but to me it just seems picking pyro is a waste of a skill. After all, Crystal skin provides insane bonuses at higher levels. In fact, you could argue it's very overpowered

 

Maybe I'm missing something here, but why can't they both be run? I have played only one HE and ran IS with GI instead so I'm not aware of the reason you can't go with those two. He's taking Concentration which allows the two buffs.

[Epox 2]

well the simple thing is fire melt ice IS is a fire Shield and CS is a Ice Shield so like dark and light fire and ice are worst enemies

[FrostElfGuard 9]

So, I'm guessing that you could flip this build a little bit... and instead of focusing more strongly in on Ice, you could focus more strongly on Fire.

That is: take Fire Focus and Fire Lore instead of Ice Focus and Ice Lore at the lower levels, and focus on using fire spells with a small amount of Ice.

 

Very beautiful concept. Totally gets around the fragility of the High Elf at lower levels.

 

Thank you for posting it.

[pony 1]

sounds like a nice build, ill try it once I get my hands on ice and blood for sure

 

ride on

[obie191970 0]

well the simple thing is fire melt ice IS is a fire Shield and CS is a Ice Shield so like dark and light fire and ice are worst enemies

 

 

You're kidding me right?

[Epox 2]

no im not if ya have is on and wanna add in cs the other buff goes out

[obie191970 0]

no im not if ya have is on and wanna add in cs the other buff goes out

 

 

Wow - I had no idea. Like I mentioned above, I have just run IS and GI together and stayed away from Mystic Stormite tree. Surprised there is no mention of that on the Wiki.

[FrostElfGuard 9]

no im not if ya have is on and wanna add in cs the other buff goes out

 

 

Wow - I had no idea. Like I mentioned above, I have just run IS and GI together and stayed away from Mystic Stormite tree. Surprised there is no mention of that on the Wiki.

 

...from the wiki: Improves armor rating and resistance against spells. Slightly increases the regeneration time of all combat arts within the aspect Mystic Stormite while the buff is active. Crystal Skin cannot be used in conjunction with Incandescent Skin.

 

That's from Crystal Skin. The matching statement isn't yet there for Incandescent Skin. I just edited the wiki. It's there now.

 

 

Question for chattius:

 

Combat Discipline: Does the added damage from this skill apply to each thorn in Glacial Thorns (when GT is used in a combo)? If so, that is a lot of extra damage for 0 regen penalty. (Actually regen bonus! Double plus good!)

Edited September 16, 2009 by FrostElfGuard

[SolomonGrundy 1]

So, I'm guessing that you could flip this build a little bit... and instead of focusing more strongly in on Ice, you could focus more strongly on Fire.

That is: take Fire Focus and Fire Lore instead of Ice Focus and Ice Lore at the lower levels, and focus on using fire spells with a small amount of Ice.

 

Very beautiful concept. Totally gets around the fragility of the High Elf at lower levels.

 

Thank you for posting it.

 

The only change I'd make is to use Frost Flare as your ranged option vs bosses. The DoT and 100% hit chance make up for the lower damage overall.

(vs bosses)

[chattius 2,652]

Frost Flare is of cause nice, but as you can see I was only doing around level 75. You can fully modify all storm, all arcane and 3 of the pyro spells. As long as Ancient Magic is not at its mastery life leech shurikens are nice boss killers.

 

Combat discipline would boost the damage,but you would have to leave a skill behind for it. The idea behind this build is that it is more robust in playing, offering some damage. In pre patch 2.43 and still on the console a magic coup can easily do damage way beyond your hitpoints. Hitting a reflecting turtle may result in sure death, so why add more damage to magic coup.

If DoT kills in 1 second or in 2 doesn't matter much if you have a good protection, so again I prefer the protection and DoT isn't reflected back to me.

[Furian67 15]

This build is great and has been very fun to play. Totally differant than the pryo build I've done. I'm at level 28 now with no death and haven't had a hard time with anything yet. Took the kobald chief out at level 6. I knew this was an awesome build from that piont on.

 

Question I have is at what point do you start to eat runes? I've kept everything at one rune except GI which I keep at above level. My regen times are less than .5 for arcane and ice spells. I usually keep at least a 1.0 regen per hit on all the time. I usually play mainly as melée and augment the battle with spells.

[chattius 2,652]

It's a question of personal taste:

Keep the regeneration time of magic coup around the animation speed so you don't have to do left clicks: 0.6-0,7 seconds. For the supporting attack spells: if they are only supporting -keep them quick, like the nimbus, there is not much extra slowing effect later (char level 80+) between 0.4s or 2s regeneration time.

If you use the spells for hunting: some prefer 2-3 quick shots(regeneration like animation speed) , others one-hits but longer regeneration rate.

 

How much runes to read is a philosophy:

Some say only 1 for attack spells and get rest from equipment. If you use mainly set stuff this is working nice, you learn which sets give which bonus and you can calculate with this numbers.

Then there are people who are told by their family that the only reason they play elves is that they are half naked. So these people (like me: 4 daughters and a wife) use yellow (rare) stuff and dress the elf more like a warrioress. For rare stuff you can hardly predict what boni you will get, so we are looking for damage and protection but not for combat arts. So in this case every raise in a combat art is done by reading a rune and following rather the quick shot approach than the one-hits.

[Furian67 15]

Thanks for the answer Chatt. I got ahold of an Officer Saber from my brother and smithed in a +10 CA and +8/+8 all skill/armor and a +9/+8 all skill/shield. At level 38 she is rocking. Only time I've really seen my health dip was in the Orc cave. I got nailed 3x in a row with crits my health dropped by 1/3 each time but immediately climbed to full from the vitality and GI buff.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Furian67

[chattius 2,652]

If you play the AddOn:

A combination with Raging Nimbus and Magic Coup is very very powerful combined with a high regeneration per hit. Probably the coders had that in mind when they added regeneration per hit into the gloves of the storm magic set. Regeneration per Hit builds needs a high hit chance. But the hit chance of magic coup climbs with more runes so it is worth to put some thought to play this build as a hybrid in the AddOn. For example: Have Nimbus and Magic coup at 3 seconds, RpH at 3 seconds and if you hit with magic coup your combination is recharged the same moment.

Edited November 16, 2009 by chattius

[sigma20xx 0]

With only 2 defensive skills and buffs. How does this build hold up in hard core?

[chattius 2,652]

It uses spells for defense: Expulse magic to block magic, shadow step to stay invisble for several seconds late game, nimbus to slow enemies for tactical maneuvres, meteors to stun.

 

The elf doesn't have access to that many defensive skills other races have and she uses 3, not 2: armour lore, shield lore and constitution.

 

This build played well before the AddON, so even without regeneration per hit. The AddOn brought Regeneration per hit so now you can have spells near the malus and don't have to worry about regeneration times cause of RpH, result the AddOn made this character more powerful.

 

In niob:

against spells stack several expulse magics

against arrows use HIGH level fireskin to burn them, and shield lore pushes your base defense

against melee: shield mastery to block and push base defense, fireskin with a high chance to reflect and if that is not enough: you can even get evade from that storm spell

Against all: quite high hitpoints and you regain life quickly with life leech from magic coup and GI buff.

 

You have to see a shield master character to see how powerful shield mastery in combination with a yellow shield which has blockchance scaling with shield lore is. Shield lore gets better and better the higher you are in level. Thats the reason the Spidergirl-Dryads worked out shield lore even earlier than the shield maiden.

 

In fact: this build is skill wise like a standard ice elf who offered combat discipline for fire focus. Since combat displine is offensive and all our 3 fire spells are defensive it has a better defense than (most) caster ice elves.

 

And some fun the AddOn brought:

You can wield a bow and do a combination of frostflare (modified for Area of Effect) and Magic Coup. You play sniper and fire the combination at long distances. The froistflare slows the enemies so the arrow has a greater chance to hit the moving target and a hit recharges the combination instantly with RpH. The slowed enemies need more time to reach you, so you can do a 2nd combination before they are at your place. 2 times frost flare Area of Effect and DoT, 2 Explosions of magic coup, often enough a whole group is dead before they are at your place.

 

I see you play console, hmmm, don't know if the console's auto targetting allows this playstyle. But the fun of the shieldmaiden is that it allows several different ways to play her.

Edited February 12, 2010 by chattius

[locolagarto 15]

Furian67 and I both have run versions of this character on Console. it Rocks! I have a version on Ice and Blood and it also is solid. once you start mastering the aspect skill the damage is incredible and crystal skin adds so much armor and defense along with Grand invigorations HP regen you are gonna love this build!

[sigma20xx 0]

Can the hit point regenration of GI overshadow the Constitution skill? I'd really like to put something else in. The way I see it, you shouldn't need 2 things regenerating hitpoints if one works so well. I have constitution on a dryad right now and it's not mastered yet. But aincent barks level is so high, I dobut I'll need constitution.

[Spunky 16]

I wouldn't drop Constitution as it will give you a great amount of health you could need if some enemy gets in some nasty crits, the HP regen then wouldn't be of much use if you take 1 hit and die.

[locolagarto 15]

If you put every available Attribute point into Vitality- Maybe, and thats a big maybe. as your vitality points are better spent in intelligence imo. if your heart is set something else, I dropped the fire aspect and kept if to magic and ice only.

[sigma20xx 0]

If this build uses 2 flavors of pain, why did you add ancient magic as a skill?

[locolagarto 15]

If this build uses 2 flavors of pain, why did you add ancient magic as a skill?

Ancient_Magic adds an increase in spell damage and reduces the enemies ability to defend spell attacks with mastery. So more damage for fire,ice,magic attacks is a good thing right?