Variatio delectat- The different Astral Lord

[chattius 2,653]

Background

This character was designed for a handicapped boy who plays sacred with my second daughter at the local youth club. He lacks a bit on fine motoric moves and eye to hand coordination. So the idea was to roleplay a warlock who died and was resurrected by his wife, a voodoo priestess. The idea was to teamplay and use auto-targetting combat arts if possible. My daughter played a totem build with alchemy to unlock bargaining. She had time for bargaining when the boy had to rest for a bit. So the planed teamplay was to use skeletal fortifications and totems to spam an area with a hail of arrows. The shadow warrior gives some team protection from his buff while the dryad does party healing while the totem cooldown is active. The character had to be done in a way that even at level 150 on niob there would be still some fun in trying out freshly modified combat arts. On the other side he had to be quite robust, because running away would not always work because of the illness of the player. Playing invisible is not nice in teamplay as is having too much skeletons which may block the movement of the characters.

 

The skills and combat art modifications

Lev Mod Arm MCF ALL ALF CNC DWF Shi CDI AMg Con
..5   2   1   5   1
..8   4   1   8   5   1
.12   6   1   9  12   2   1
.18  11   1   9  18   6   1   9
.25  12   1   9  25  21   1   9   1
.35  12   1   9  35  35   1   9  17   1
.50  12   1   9  50  50   1   9  48   1   1
.65  15   1   9  65  65   1   9  65   1  29   1
.75  19   1   9  75  75   1   9  75   1  49   1
.90  19  50   9  75  75   1   9  75   1  75   1
100  19  75   9  75  75   1   9  75  26  75   1

Lev-Level, Mod number of modifications(see list below), Arm Armour Lore,
MCF Malevolent Champion Focus, ALL Astral Lord Lore, ALF Astral Lord Focus, 
CNC concentration, DWF Death Warrior Focus, Shi Shield lore, CDi Combat discipline,
AMg Ancient Magic, Con constitution

Reflective Emanation: tough(1), antimagic(2), idol(3)
Skeletal Fortification: focus(4), arcane power(5), scatter shot(6)
Grim Resilience: fortify(7), readiness(8), reflex(9)
Spectral Hand: swiftness(10), chill(11), double attack(12)
Rallied Souls: armament(13), vivification(14), contagion (15)
Shadow Veil: avoidance(16), nimble(17), shadowmaster(18)
Nether Allegiance: sharp blades(19)

Attributes

All in intelligence

 

combination

skeleton fortification, (rallied souls), spectral hand

 

Playstyle

The RpH (regeneration per hit) is at 6 seconds and recharges the combination except the cooldown. When the cooldown ist still active (unmodified) frenzied rampage is used with a x% lifeleech shuriken.

 

Which damage can the skeleton fortification do?

Skeleton fortification does 5900 damage (without acute mind from the dryad) at level 100 and Combat Art level 50. It has a cooldown of 6 seconds and does 9 doubleshots in 10 seconds (jumped from 8 to 9 at Combat Art level 50). So the theoretical rate of fire at full areas is at 3 towers , 9 double shots in 10 seconds: 3*9*2 in 10 seconds = 5.4 shots a second. You have 4 seconds per tower creation you can fill with other combat arts.

At a Combat Art level of 100 it should be a cooldown of 4.3 seconds (4 active) and 1 double shot per second so rate of fire should be 8 shots per second. Ancient magic and combat discipline add to the damage of the fortification and both are at mastery at level 110.

[gogoblender 3,305]

Bravo Chattius. I am always impressed with your ingenuity and resourcefulness. Sacred 2 for everyone it seems and you've made it a part of your daughter's friend's life as well.

 

If it makes him half as happy as the game makes me when I play, this has probably been your most enjoyed creation for this game.

 

Very clever with making auto targeting a part of this build. Beautiful work.

 

 

gogo

[Furian67 15]

Once again Master Chattius has hit the mark on a well thought out build. Love the story line and background you fill your builds out with. This looks like a build we could have our younger kids play. Amazing how much damage a Skeletal Tower can do.

[chattius 2,653]

I modified this character for my little 15/3/4 project. The project is to play a character of each class hardcore to niob with all 15 Combat Art's modified with all 3 modifiers played in a 4 player lan. Sadly I lag the time to play that much so I did multiaspect characters most of the time to be able to follow discussions on the forum.

 

The only change to the above build was to take away constitution and take tactics instead (gives more hitpoints for the buff). I had some experiments running and most of the early levels I played like a singing barbarian from diablo2. Using belligerent vault to jump to a group and pre-damaging it so deathblow kicks in for the explosion of demonic blow. BV is a spell attack so it wins from intelligence, combat discipline and ancient magic.

 

1534 for the elf:

Full 3 Aspect elf

1534 for the dragon mage:

Elementalist

1534 for the dryad (planed):

shield, armour, tactics, hunter focus, nature focus/lore, voodoo lore/focus, ancient magic, combat discipline

Playstyle would be tangled vines and dust devils for defense and damage, totem to aggravate and let enemies run into the dustdevil and ravaged impact to recharge Combat Art's.

Edited March 19, 2010 by chattius

[Dewberry 0]

I really like this build. You are a great asset to the community. My question is by adding tactics and removing constitution do you get more total hitpoints and hitpoint regen ?

[chattius 2,653]

If you can only do tactics or constitution you will end with around 85% of the hitpoints with constitution if you take tactics. And you will have no hitpoint regen in combat from constitution mastery. But on the other side you win damage for your melee attacks which you can do while the cooldown of fortifications.

Depends on your taste what you like more.

[gogoblender 3,305]

ahhh, chattius, this guide is a gem again unearthed. It is a uniqueness. We'll bring it to SacredWiki asap

 

 

gogo

[Stormwing 40]

So many great builds to study. ^^

 

This one really is great, imho too.

I've thought about making a mainly Astral build one of these days, and this is a nice writeout about the towers.

[Dewberry 0]

I want to make Caster/Summoner type build. I was concearned about resistance and damage from my minions. This way I can ditch invis and still summon. I think it will also be more exciting than going the invis route also!

Edited July 20, 2010 by jdrdjr

[Dewberry 0]

If I wanted to use a polearm or hafted for more damage, could Combat Reflex or Toughness be a replacement for shield lore?

 

Edit: I have began to think that more damage may not be needed. With the Tower and minions from rallied souls fewer things are getting to me. I am now level 24 and loving the build

Edited July 24, 2010 by jdrdjr

[chattius 2,653]

A funny variation of this build is the HardRocker.

 

 

You want to jump around the stage (well battlefield), stun your audience (targets), use all these nice instruments which play the blind guardian song, have your own groupies (skeletons), ... and want be able to escape invisible as soon the audience starts to throw rotten tomatoes, ...

 

Then the Hardrocker would be your character: Maximum damage in all 3 aspects is possible, quickest possible jumping (which also stuns), ...

 

You have to be a bit more careful, taking away constition and shield lore and replacing it with tactic lore and toughness. Weapon of choice for our family hardrocker was a two-handed staff with a skull, but the instruments from blind guardian quest are also nice.

 

A weapon skill is not needed, but you can take good use of all 15 combat arts:

Attack speed:

To jump as fast as possible you need 50% casting speed. Casting speed speeds up weapon Combat Arts in Ice and Blood (see Kungfu Dryads). So if we have 50% casting speed we also have fastest possible weapon Combat Arts.

Hit Chance:

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=16530

In this thread it is discussed how hit chance is calculated.

To do a fast and easy optimization:

• kill a hard to hit boss.
  
• Teleport to town.
  
• Remove all OCE and COCE gear.
  
• Equip a weapon which has no weapon skill and no buildin hit chance modifiers.
  
• Write down your hit chance for normal attacks
  
• Look at spells.txt and calculate how many +x% attack value your main weapon ca will give at its level
  
• Fill dummy equipment with whet sockets till you reach this x% attack value
  
• Write down your hit chance for your main weapon ca attack
  
• Calculate 100-this_hitchance
  
• Add equipment with OCE and COCE till you reach this amount. (caution use scaled values, see linked thread)
  

 

You should now have a nearly 100% hitchance without a weapon skill, strike as fast as possible with any weapon you can wield, you just miss the unlocks on weapons. But you can now fight with a staff, a drum stick, a guitar, ...

 

It is a bit hard to start, but getting a 100% hit chance is easier the higher you are in level and difficulty. The reason is simple: the values in COCE and OCE are 5 times higher in niob so you need only a fifth of the slots to get hit chance. Same is valid for casting speed, the higher your equipment, the higher the casting speed on it.

[chattius 2,653]

R.I.P. Diethelm

 

The boy for whom this guide was done died at the age of 18. Aneurysm while having a sort of epileptic attack. My thoughts are with his family.

[gogoblender 3,305]

 

R.I.P. Diethelm

 

The boy for whom this guide was done died at the age of 18. Aneurysm while having a sort of epileptic attack. My thoughts are with his family.

 

 

My sincere condolences for your loss Chatius, such a young age, my thoughts go to the family as well

 

 

gogo