Foosnark

Another nice thing about using non-CA weapon attacks, at least on PC, is you can hold down the mouse button and sweep the mouse across your enemies to target them, killing continuously. Works very nicely with blowguns and melee, not so well with other ranged weapons. (Subsequent attacks keep targetting the first enemy that was highlighted, and you wind up wasting several shots while waiting for the first one to land.) So it's not even a left-click attack at that point, it's just a "kill everything you point at" attack that winds up being faster and more satisfying than many AOEs.

SP's gold mod Hunting Focus lowers regen times for Capricious Hunter CAs. I only went so far with my dryad, but I regularly ate 5 SP runes at a time, usually with 0 or 0.1 second effect on my RI/DA combo. With that in place, investing in AB didn't have huge consequences either. Tangled Vines still regenned fast enough to throw it on a boss, retreat, and hit them a few times before recasting.

As my company is finding out (based in the US but setting up servers in Asia), remote servers are really a pain in the butt, and an extra expense that needs a lot of justification.

Heh... with my dryad I always kept a bow in case the blowpipe couldn't hit something. Like traps for instance. Those big lightning towers in the Great Machine just could not be hit with a blowpipe. But normally I loved the blowpipe since the instant-hit meant auto-targetting was more likely to work.

Has anyone else noticed that set item drops seem to be very streaky? Doing orc cave runs for instance, I might find three pieces of Endijian's, one Revelation and a Inquisitor piece within 15 minutes. The next time I start up the game, I will find nothing good in the cave for two hours. I realize the nature of random numbers can lead to this sort of result, but I have to wonder whether there's not an additional factor on drops. Level? Current time? Some luck factor initialized at the start of play?

I"m not a big fan of bows in this game, but pistol or shuriken with shield might be okay. Pelting Strikes should work okay too, and you might want Archangel's Wrath for *some* semblance of Area of Effect. I'd find it difficult to motivate myself to try this build though; it'd always be too tempting to just use BFG.

I've never really kept count, but I wind up accumulating them until I have several rows and I realize how ridiculous it is. Then I sell down to a point where I still have more than I will ever even think about using. I never sell mentor pots though, I just start chugging them more aggressively. I almost consider drinking a red potion during a fight a sign of weakness... almost a small defeat. That attitude plus a bit of overconfidence got my seraphim killed in the Orc Cave though

I didn't notice anyone mentioning this as a great place for low level characters too, but it is. I started a BFG seraphim in Silver on a free play server. Rushed to the Isle of Mounts to get my tiger at level 8 (I was close to 10 by the time I killed the requisite T-energy monsters, which were a pushover -- I may do this with all my characters in the future). From there I headed straight for the orc area, killing goblins/orcs on the way there. I was level 12 by the time I reached the cave, 14 about 2-3 minutes later, and though I didn't time myself, reaching level 20 took hardly any time at all. I stopped mostly because I wanted to read more runes for my buffs. (I wound up switching to single player campaign mode to unlock the map portals, but I'll be back.)

I haven't looked into how much less instant selling brings in, but I have this habit in games of picking up EVERYTHING and trying to sell it for the maximum price, until it just gets ridiculous. But my Dryad has something like 18 million gold and little to spend it on, so I'm not sure I should bother

Okay then.

Oh, that's so true! Ancient Bark is fantastical for reducing damage. Especially if you get it buffed up a bit ;3 I've eaten a fair amount of bark runes and it's gold-modded, so yeah, that's probably it. I occasionally start taking damage in the orc cave, but I don't have to worry much in typical fights unless I catch on fire. But those Fen Fires in the jungle are NASTY; I'm surprised they didn't kill me. They'd be offscreen (even though I've changed my camera settings to zoom out farther), be aiming for the bear, the graphics wouldn't reach me, and yet they still knock off half my life before I can blink. I think my last skill choice is going to be Spell Resistance rather than Armor Lore.

You can't respec in any way. It definitely is a game where choices are permanent, and it's possible to make a character that is... less effective than it could have been. Sometimes weaknesses are what make the character interesting -- and often they are not really weaknesses, and can be compensated or taken advantage of through equipment, tactics/playstyles, and future choices. Some "mistakes" are no big deal -- reading the wrong or too many runes for instance, is eventually made up for by raising skills and getting regen-lowering equipment. Others are more permanent -- you only ever get to choose 10 skills and every character build could benefit from about 15 of them, so picking the wrong one can be pretty serious. Often if you plan ahead though, you can choose the "wrong" sets of skills and playstyle for a given class and do very well with it. If you just pick stuff more or less at random, and they don't compliment each other, you could be in for a difficult ride

I just spent a little while in here from the start of level 53 to midway through 54. I didn't even take notice of what level the orcs were, but probably around 62 I'm guessing. Found a much better blowgun, and earned a lot of cash. I think I need to not carry so many potions and runes on me so I have more loot room, and insta-sell more stuff so I spend more time running it and less time running back from a merchant

As it turns out I was misremembering, and my Dryad was 48, not 58. But I played her to about 54ish last night. Between picking up a slightly better blowgun (more damage, but no leech), getting Combat Discipline, and swapping out a couple of rings, things are dying faster. I'm mostly killing with my RI/DA combo (which is now at 1.8 seconds mounted) and only taking single shots, if any, in between. A single click of the combo will kill most champions, though the bigger scorpions in the desert are sturdier than that. Against bigger things I'm finally using vines (still unmodded so far) and spamming an RI-only combo. Works nicely. The last skill choice I haven't made yet is probably going to Armor Lore. None of my items right now actually show any Armor Lore unlocks, but it'll still be useful eventually I imagine.

I have two favorite characters: -- a ranged Dryad, similar to Chrona's build: all DEX, finder/shopper, almost no defensive skills, high-speed hunter combo, occasionally has to use vines on bosses, predator/bark. Around level 58, silver SP, in the desert. -- a melee tank TG, along the same lines as Llama8's: VIT/STR, lots of defensive skills, almost entirely left-click, passive battle extension, aura/shroud. About level 35 (?), silver SP, in the swamp. You'd think the dryad would be a glass cannon (or machine gun), and the TG would survive everything unscathed -- but it's the other way around. The TG will plow through mobs like a hot knife through butter, but often takes huge hits when not on his wheel -- he was killed by the first dragon boss, and I've lost count of how many times he *almost* died. The Dryad has never died (but did lose a mount once), but takes as many as 5 shots to kill some normal enemies. Granted, she *does* have the broken Mother Bear's Favorite distracting stuff for her, which has helped for part of a couple of boss fights. Gear-wise, the Dryad has superior armor, and a blowpipe that does +22 leech but not a lot of base damage. The TG has 3 set items but otherwise not so great armor, but has a sword that does more base damage than the Dryad's blowpipe despite the level difference. The Dryad's high survival bonus is probably also working against her a bit. Both builds are fun to play, but I wonder if I can't do something for the Dryad's damage output...

I'm using something somewhere between Putrescine's, Chrona's and Unipuma's. At level 48ish I still don't use vines, dust devil, or forest flight at all. I have my Darting Assault/Ravaged Impact combo that I use pretty much as often as it comes up (something like 2.3 seconds now, while mounted and with Bark/Predator buffs), and I use Goldenglade Touch if things look like they're going to be a little rough, or if a fight leaves me at less than 100% health. But honestly I have an excellent killing speed even if I use no Combat Arts, even though I didn't focus my build on that. Were I to restart I'd probably move a little more toward Unipuma's idea -- maximizing left-click attacks. I'd push Bargaining to a later level but keep a point of Enhanced Perception early in the process. But my girl is doing so well as is, I don't feel the need to tweak. I haven't been able to make myself stick with other characters for very long because none of them kill as quickly and easily, and survive as well doing it, as this one.

It really seems to me like Bargaining is worthwhile either at very low levels (that level 2 HE with 6 points), or with extreme investment and a Bargaining suit. Anywhere in between, it's just not very good. The 5 hard points my ranged dryad has in Enhanced Perception, combined with a good survival bonus, have paid off better than 40 points so far in Bargaining. Literally all my gear at this point is from drops. I'm actually thinking I will stop investing in Bargaining for a while, and concentrate on skills that give me short term results -- and then catch up later.

Honestly, I think the way to go is to try things out with your first few characters, just to get a feel for the game, different play styles and CAs. Don't worry about making an optimal character or planning for higher levels, at first. Along the way you can accumulate some runes and items in your shared chest, to help out your future characters. You'll quickly have a whole bunch of extra ones and can start going to the runemaster to convert them into CAs you want to try out. Just keep in mind that many of the CAs that seem terribly slow will get faster and/or more powerful as you level. Low-level characters tend to use the plain left-click weapon attack a lot more than higher level ones. Once you've tried each class and have played with the different options available to each, then it's time to start reading guides and stuff to decide what you want to try next. Some guides are meant for high-level power but are kind of dull to start; I personally like characters that can do well from the start and just get faster/better later. I might not ever get a character to gold because I've got a busy life and there are always more games to play, but I enjoy the process of trying out different things before settling on one or two characters to play further into the game.

please share build details I'm using a variant of Chrona's build here and am quite happy with it. I recommend you do try to keep Tactics and Bargaining at character level; I have let Bargaining fall behind to try to lower my regen time, but I'm not sure diverting the skill points has paid off. I so look forward to seeing that Ravaged/Darting combo regen time hit 0 that I tried to push it, but I haven't bought anything from a store since level 20 (and I'm around 35 now). Left-click killing is still extremely quick so it's not dependent on the Area of Effect killfest... but it's very satisfying

I've just started playing with this build, and I like its simplicity. Run up to stuff, left click, they die and I don't. I do wish for some shopping in there, but I'm not sure there's room for it and still have nice swift killing from the start and good defense later. I might instead bring up a left-click dryad ranger shopper type in parallel, 'cause I think that would work.

So it sounds as if, if you really want to build a TG that specialized in Lost Fusion, you'd want an INT-based staff. Hmm.

Oh, love the gore. I'm gonna have to try energy bolts after all...

My demoness got stuck in a wall as I was nearing act 2 in silver, and I had to export and restart so she's not that much further along. My dwarf is continuing in bronze and is about done with act 2. He does massive damage relative to anything else I've tried, but occasionally has to drink potions if mobbed. Landmines don't help that much (but are fun to toy with); I might give the flamethrower a try but I'm concentrating more on cannon blast. I tried a number of other builds and few of them really seem to qualify for my "lazy fun" category, but the Combat Ranger (according to the guide Myles posted) does. She can get away with only Multi-Hit and rare recasting of CotW. Explosive Arrow once in a while just for fun, but it's unnecessary. Might invest in CotA, but regen time looks pretty horrible right now so I'm not motivated to. She's found some nice items, given that she's only gotten as far as Porto Vallum in bronze so far.

I picked up Sacred Gold a couple weeks ago on Steam. I've been wanting some kind of RPG experience and none of my old games are doing that for me -- even Titan Quest was getting dull. At first the interface and some of the gameplay stuff about Sacred seemed old-school and awkward (but then, it's an older game) but I've been drawn into it more and more. Newbie tip for less frustration: nevermind the CA slots on the lower right, except maybe for combos. Assign function keys to CAs in your character screen and just use the same slot. (I haven't found a way to make that work for combos though, sadly.) I don't really want to play builds that are more awkward, frustrating or require lots of micromanagement. I don't want to mess with muling and so on either. Fortunately there are a couple of builds that have worked really well for me so far: -- Soaring Demon/Hellsphere. Soaring Demon just gets rid of a million little obstacles as well as a plain old speed boost; the defense is just icing on that cake IMHO. You'll basically want to cast an orb near some enemies, then zip around like mad getting close enough to attract their attention and focus the orb's beams. You'll rarely use weapons (maybe when there's a lone straggler, or when narrow hallways make the orb's job difficult) so I wouldn't invest skills there. You don't need a big investment in Soaring Demon, just enough to fly around and add a little to your defense. With Hellsphere you want a nice balance of damage and regen time, but it's not picky. You might want Infernal Power for an occasional boost, and Tentacles to deal with undead and for the giggle factor. I have lots of life leech, and so long as I have at least one sphere going, health fills up much faster than anything can knock it off. I went about 22 levels in bronze before exporting and going to silver. In bronze I had no trouble with the island dragon or anything else, and silver is going pretty smoothly so far as well. -- Cannon dwarf. Pretty similar to the guide here, except I use a mix of Cannon Blast and Mortar Grenade, depending. (Very satisfying to take out 7 thieves with a single mortar...) Fast regen time is key here, but I have no trouble finishing most things off with melee. I don't find myself using Dwarven Steel all the time, but it's there if I need it. I rushed through a bit and might be ahead of myself now; this one doesn't feel quite as indestructable as my daemon. I wish the stumpy little guy could fly (rocket jumping or a backpack helicopter maybe? heh) but I like his attitude a bit more than hers.