Melee-Physical Dwarf - Guide

[Christian_Kiss 0]

Melee-Physical Dwarf - Guide

(This guide I wrote first in Sacred's official forum)

 

-The idea is to build a character that deals a lot of damage and, at the same time, kill groups fast. Then I was thinking about which class to use: Gladiators do a lot of damage in single opponents with Hard Hit, but Multi Hit doesn't work very well with groups; Vampiress can use a combo with 4x Attack (Ripping Claws) in Vampire Form to hit a lot of foes, it works well but not quite as I wish, since you'll need to wait for the regeneration time and use a lot of Concentration Potions. Now, Dwarf can hit groups with Vehemence when using two-handed weapons, this is very nice. The problem is that Vehemence will work well only with strong weapons, like axes and hammers, and, in general, those weapons deals physical damage for most, instead poison, fire or magic. It's unusual to find a two-handed hammer that deals a lot of magic damage, for example. Now we have a problem, since almost all enemies in Sacred have a high physical resistence. Here my build begins.

 

ATTRIBUTE POINTS: Put all your Attribute points in Physical Regeneration. This will decrease the regeneration time of Special Moves and increase your Health Points. Remember that you'll receive one Attribute Point per level to spend, and plus some points that the game automatically distribute between your Attributes.

 

SKILL POINTS: This is very important. Dwarfs already come with Weapon Lore and Constitution. This is handy, you'll need those Skills a lot in this build. Before anything, remember that the max. Skill level depends of your character level. So, if your Dwarf is level 80, you'll be able to spend 80 Skill points in Weapon Lore, no more than that.

 

-Weapon Lore: Try to maximize this Skill every time you gain a level. This will increase your physical damage dealt by your weapon. The magic, poison and fire damages doesn't matter;

 

-Contitution: This is very important to make your survive against large groups or bosses (this include dragons and Sakkara Daemon). You don't need to maximize this, but try to make it higher than 1/2 of your character level. This means, for example, that if your Dwarf is level 100, Constitution must be around 60 or 70;

 

-Concentration: This will decrease the regeneration time of Special Moves. In this build, you'll use only Vehemence as Special Move, but it's very important to maximize this, every time you level up;

 

-Dwarven Lore (!): Maximize this. Period. You'll have three Combat Arts that receive bonus from Dwarven Lore: Greed, Dwarven Armor and Dwarven Steel. This Skill will decrease the regeneration time of those Combat Arts.

 

-Forge Lore (!): Another great Skill, only for Dwarfs. This makes your character a mobile blacksmith. With this you can upgrade your socketed items everywhere in the game. We will discuss this later, but in this build you'll prefer socketed two-handed hammers or axes to use Forge Lore to put the smith's attack bonuses (those ones that gives +X of all damage types). Try to put points here until 1/3 of your character level.

 

*NOTE: Until here, try to put those Skills in that order. I mean, put Concentration, then Dwarven Lore and then Armor. The other Skills it's up to you to decide which order to put them.

 

-Armor: Don't bother with this Skill until your character reaches level 50. Start putting some points here until 1/2 of character level (it means, if your character is level 100, you'll have about 50 points in Armor). Armor will increase your Speed and Resistences, but will be more important in higher levels, not in Bronze or Silver. Your character will be level 50 when you finish the Ancarian Campaign in Bronze;

 

-Parrying / Axe Lore: Now what? I can't just say what you have to do here. It's really up to you. Parrying will add a huge bonus in defense. Axe lore will add bonuses in Attack Speed and +X% Attack (chance to hit) when using axes and hammers. I really prefer Axe Lore, since it will make you hit more opponents when using Vehemence, instead missing all over the time. Try to put a bit more than 1/3 of your character level in those Skills, no matter what your choice was.

 

-Agility: Unfortunately, Dwarfs are only be able to choose this Skill at level 50. Put it! This will add +X% Attack and +X% Defense to your character. Try to spend points here until 1/2 of your character level.

 

Where is Trading?! Yes, I also like Trading, but this time you'll use Greed instead. See below.

 

COMBAT ARTS: You'll use four combat arts in the Melee-Physical Dwarf guide: Vehemence, Greed, Dwarven Armor and Dwarven Steel. All of them must be improved using the same number of runes for each one. Of course that you'll might want to improve a bit more Vehemence, as it is your main Combat Art. But Greed, Dwarven Amor and Dwarven Steel must be in similar levels.

 

-Vehemence: This is your main CA, as I told before. This Special Move requires that the Dwarf wield a two-handed weapon. You'll use axes or hammers, as they deal a lot of damage. This CA increases your damage dealt by X% and your attack by X%. The problem here is the regeneration time. For a main attack, Vehemence has a high regeneration time, higher than Hard Hit. So that's why I recommend a lot of points in Concentration. You can use Vehemence to kill both single foes or large groups. In general, it's possible to kill a group with one or two Vehemence attacks. This is handy;

 

-Greed: Because of this CA, you don't need Trading Skill. Greed is far better to find special items. The problem is that it reduces your defense by X%, but it will add a lot of chance to fing special items (this includes sets and uniques). Use this when you're almost killing a boss (dragons, Sakkara Daemon, orc/goblin leaders etc.). But you can also use Greed when killing groups of enemies, if there isn't archers to shoot you.

 

-Dwarven Armor: This CA will increase your resistence to fire and poison. You already have Armor Skill, so this one will make your Dwarf even more hard to kill. Use this when fighting against spell-casters and dragons.

 

-Dwarven Steel: This one will almost eliminate the problem when using physical damage against high resistence foes. Above, we talk about how hard is to kill a dragon only with physical damage. This is past now. Using Dwarven Steel will reduce the physical resistence of your enemies, making your hammer to crush their bones more easily. Combine this with Vehemence and Greed and just watch your foes dropping a lot of items, in just one hit.

 

-War Cry (?): You can use this if you want. I have two Dwarfs, one of them I play in multiplayer (via LAN) and it has War Cry, to increase both attack and defense of my party. If you choose to use this, split your runes between Dwarven Armor and War Cry. The problem using this is that will trouble you when using Vehemence. You'll need even more Special Move bonuses when using War Cry. I also noticed that the bonus received for each spent rune of War Cry drops significantly.

 

EQUIPMENT: As I always says, don't imprison yourself with set items. My actual Dwarf uses an unique Axe that gives poison damage, a lot of physical damage, life leech and also has some sockets. Far better than some set hammers/axes that you can find.

 

But remember to remove your sockets from your items before sell them. Also remembers that when you removes a socketed item, all of the others sockets will disappear. So, socket only one rune in each piece.

 

-Life Leech: Very important. You'll boost your life to max every time you hit a group with Vehemence. Use one Vampiress rune (+3% of Life Leech) for each piece of your gear;

 

-Critical Hit: This increase your damage dealt, helping you to quickly kill your opponents. Works even better if you're fighting against large groups, when using Vehemence. You know, the chance to deal a Critical Hit will be higher as the number of enemies your hit at once;

 

-Regeneration Special Move +X%: This will decrease the regeneration time of all your Combat Arts, not only Vehemence. The CAs Greed, Dwarven Armor and Dwarven Steel are also Special Moves;

 

-All damage types +X%: This nice bonus will increase your physical damage, and makes Dwarven Steel even more effective when using Vehemence together. Of course, prefer to use your own craft skills with Forge Lore instead using a blacksmither to socket your items;

 

-Split: This cool bonus gives to your attacks a chance to divide by two your opponents. But the experience received for each divided one will not decrease. It means, if you divide an entire group by two, you'll receive +100% of experience after killing it. Far better than those Battle Mages runes, isn't?

 

STRATEGICAL TIPS: Above I told all things you must do when fighting, leveling up and using items/bonuses. Here is just a little help about gameplay.

 

-Always explore the Ancarian World: I love exploring Sacred, each place. Do not only follow your main objective, but try to do a few steps around the region you are. This also helps you to receive more experience, runes (those ones that improves your Combat Arts) and items. Remember that this is a greedy Dwarf , so use Greed while exploring the world to pick up some real good stuff.

 

-Complete all side quests: Side quests (or secondary objectives) will increase your gold, experience and gives some items (some of them are set ones). When you see, in a town or region, a flag in the world map, it means that you have accomplished all quests in there.

 

-Swap your weapons: Sometimes you'll find weak weapons that have some interesting bonuses, like Chance to Find Special Items. If you find one, put it in a weapon slot and swap to it to hit the last attack in a boss, instead killing him with your main weapon. Combine this with Greed and you might find some good set or unique items.

 

-CA slots: You'll have five slots to put either a CA or a Combo. If you're not using War Cry, you'll have one slot free. Put a Combo with 4x Vehemence to use when facing a strong opponent or really large groups. You can also put a Combo with 1x Armor/Greed, to quickly use all your CAs at once. If you're going to do this, carry with you some Concentration potions (that yellow ones).

 

-Always carry Health / Undead's Death potion: You don't want to die. So try to carry a several of Health potions. Also, Undead's Death potion will help you to kill skeletons and liches faster.

 

-Do not equip your hirelings: Some quests you'll have to escort a maggot to a given place. This can be cool, but some hirelings are weak and you can fail your mission if they die. Press 'B' to heal them if you have enough Health potions. Of course, the major maggot Wilbur doesn't die, so don't spend your potions with him.

 

-Sell stuff that you've found: Exploring every place in Sacred's world means that you'll find a lot of useless stuff. Some of them are magical (blue names) or rare (yellow names). Always pick them up and sell to the nearest trader. Be patient if you find a lot of magical/rare items...

 

I think this is enough. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free, naturally, to post them here.

Edited May 6, 2007 by Christian_Kiss

[gguirao 1]

Got a question about Dwarven Steel CA. Does the amount of physical resistance piercing decrease as you invest more into it? What's a good level to stop?

[Christian_Kiss 0]

Got a question about Dwarven Steel CA. Does the amount of physical resistance piercing decrease as you invest more into it? What's a good level to stop?

 

Sorry about the time to reply. =)

 

Dwarven Steel's physical reduction increases as you learn additionals Runes, although there is no way to set the physical resistance to 0. You can stop upgrading this CA when it reduces the opponent's resistance to 20%.

 

Your most important CA is Vehemence, but will only be effective at higher levels and with low regeneration time. So, there is no cap for this particular CA, however I don't recommend to let the regeneration time above 2.5 secs.

[Augmint 109]

Got a question about Dwarven Steel CA. Does the amount of physical resistance piercing decrease as you invest more into it? What's a good level to stop?

 

Sorry about the time to reply. =)

 

Dwarven Steel's physical reduction increases as you learn additionals Runes, although there is no way to set the physical resistance to 0. You can stop upgrading this CA when it reduces the opponent's resistance to 20%.

 

Your most important CA is Vehemence, but will only be effective at higher levels and with low regeneration time. So, there is no cap for this particular CA, however I don't recommend to let the regeneration time above 2.5 secs.

 

Giving this a run - at level 44 - close to finishing bronze.

Got a thodrans hammer - serious damage. Liking this build. Just want to add that at earlier levels 2 handed weapons cost alot, and that yellow potions are really handy.

[ololcat 3]

I was building a dwarf, similar to this, and even liked it. Until I logged on Hamachi server: there's a bug with Vehemence, when damage sometimes applied not only to dwarf's opponents but also to himself, when playing MP. Since I was building a WIDD dwarf, I received ~40k damage in one hit, which was an instant death.

[podgie_bear 185]

Looks a very good build. Reminds me of my grouchy little dwarf, loved him and his sarcastic comments. Dwarf is a fantastic character for dealing damade in Underworld, I built one that fought bare handed (had to keep removing weapons equipped by the auto-pickup loot) and fought my way into Gold difficulty on the harcore server with him. Even beat dragons to death barehanded (took a looooong time for each dragon), by spamming the "Attack" CA since the dwarf was able to hit 8 times per attack and monsters couldn't hit back while being rocked by the punches. Great fun, but took patience. Finally lost him to that worst of all enemies, the lag monster, lag was the greatest killer on the servers.

 

Hmm, knuckles are starting to itch, may have to build "Wee Jock" the dwarfish hardman again!

[Augmint 109]

Gotten to level 60 in UW. Vehemance at around 16k damage with some sockets free. I'm thinking of putting points in strength instead of physical regen. Strength increases fire damage iirc and there are some good items with fire damage boosts (e.g thodrans set items).

 

Plus fire damage on rings is easier to find if you haven't picked trading. And like the gladiator there are some good items/jewelry with % strength modifiers.

 

Build is pretty fun - might use mortar or cannon blast as well. Attack level needs to be high, sucks to miss and wait to use vehemence again. Geuss I need to use war cry too.

[wulfgardt 8]

Hey all,I appear to be asking a lot of questions lately so please be patient with me as I am fairly new to sacred gold ,having decided to use this build for my melee toon I would like some advice on how many runes to use on each of his CAs,this seems to be the main part of the game I struggle with at the moment,learning to get the correct balance.

[gogoblender 3,304]

On 2/13/2018 at 2:40 PM, wulfgardt said:

Hey all,I appear to be asking a lot of questions lately so please be patient with me as I am fairly new to sacred gold ,having decided to use this build for my melee toon I would like some advice on how many runes to use on each of his CAs,this seems to be the main part of the game I struggle with at the moment,learning to get the correct balance.

Ahh, the Dwarf... I remember how exciting it was when him and the Daemon got released... those new characters were apparently so much more "dense" as a poster wrote it years ago, and were difficult to move around through the game as easily as the older ones, hence, and wouldn't u know it... a little more laggy...but their CA's and gameplay were so extraordinary... I spent so many hours on that Daemon's exploding tentacle combo, and used to trounce around the servers with many players who'd love to use the Dwarf's very useful treasure hunting skills to bring in the loot!

 

gogo

[Augmint 109]

On 2/14/2018 at 5:40 AM, wulfgardt said:

Hey all,I appear to be asking a lot of questions lately so please be patient with me as I am fairly new to sacred gold ,having decided to use this build for my melee toon I would like some advice on how many runes to use on each of his CAs,this seems to be the main part of the game I struggle with at the moment,learning to get the correct balance.

 

Vehemance is one of those CA that have alot of initial regen. You will find it hard to get it to < 2.5 seconds tbh in the early levels.

Pump Physical regen, concentration, and find gear with regen special move % (common on boots). Always have yellow potions.

 Stick to a single rune, you can always socket another vehemance rune for the bonus. You want to find a balance between damage, attack value and regen.

Damage you can get from the base weapon, % damage rings or from the smith, Dwarven steel and weapon lore - you can find it on items easily. Try have weapon lore at half your level and get the rest from bonuses.

Thodrans 2H hammer - if you are lucky enough to find one - has incredible base damage.

 

[Augmint 109]

Forgot the actual question - number of runes

Vehemance - just one. Socket another vehemance rune somewhere if you can handle the extra regen.

Dwarven steel - as much as possible. If you have 4 unwanted runes you can swap them.

Dwarven armour - a few runes. I use to combine it with war cry before bosses. Never used greed all that much.

I would also use the combo master to make a vehemance combo x 4 (or swap one for war cry).

[wulfgardt 8]

Good stuff,thank's very much for the pointers.