Androdion

Sacred 2, a game that still bottlenecks PCs in 2020! Last investment I did in this rig was the GPU, anything else I'd throw at it now would only be "covering the sun with a sieve" as we say here. And I haven't gotten to the point where I feel the need to invest heavily into a new rig as I feel like I wouldn't take out the best of if. I barely play any recent games. Thanks for the input though.

Yes, of course SSDs will always be faster. I was simply pointing out that for a game as old as Sacred 2 an SSD vs a 10k HDD most likely isn't a cause for a bottleneck. And basically yeah, DSR on/DSR off changes that behaviour for me. Mind you that like I said above DSR does make a much better improvement on the game's graphics than any other Nvidia CP setting, no doubt about it, but it also introduces (at least on my end) that kind of lag in the spawning. At first I thought I was seeing things but today I could trace it to what we're talking now. I even tried out other resolutions above 1980x1024 and the result was always the same. I know @Hooyaah has a better rig than myself, it'd be interesting to hear his input on this matter.

Just make a post in the builds section and the discussion will carry it onwards, any help we can give you we will.

Uhm, interesting. So my setup is a first gen i7 with 12GB RAM and a GTX 960. I don't have an SSD as system drive but I do have a WD Raptor which does 10k RPM. It should be more than enough for Sacred 2, yet I avoid using everything maxed out in the Nvidia CP since it causes slowdowns here and there. So DSR at first seemed amazing because it did cause a massive visual improvement, yet in terms of entering different areas I've started noticing that lag in enemies spawning. As soon as I've disabled DSR that stopped happening though, so I'm guessing that maybe it has something to do with the game's engine rendering the spawns or something? @Flix - I haven't noticed it before because it never happened to me before, but after activating DSR I started seeing that effect. Going after Gahanka and finding the camps empty, only to notice them suddenly filling in was my first warning shot. But that cave near Sloeford is the perfect place to test since enemies both in and outside respawn on entering/leaving the cave. With DSR turned off the spawn is immediate, so no issues on my end. That's why I assumed it was a bottleneck on my end.

Sorry to keep highjacking the topic but I wanted to report a side-effect of using DSR, which is very easy to test for. Turn it on and on Sloeford head to the side road below the Runemaster, enter the cave and get back out again. Do enemies have a lag in spawning, as in, do they take a couple of second to appear as well as their enemy markers? Well, to me they do and whichever up-scaled resolution I use causes the same thing to occur. Sometimes it even happens in the wild (Kobold camp for instance). I'm assuming this is a bottleneck on my PC since I still have a first-gen i7, even if it has a more recent GTX960. I'd be happy to hear if I'm the only one experiencing this though, as to realize if it really is just a bottleneck on my system or if the game engine dislikes DSR in any way.

Gladly DSR set for 4K takes care of all those jagged edges. The grass and trees' foliage in particular look "anti-aliased" even if they aren't.

I also only turned on the DSR options, everything else on top of it seems to make the game engine behave worse. AA from the Nvidia CP introduces stuttering much like the in-game AA, and Anisotropic Filtering doesn't add much after DSR is working its magic, though it still taxes on the game engine. So I'd say that the no-brainer option is DSR and in-game resolution both set for 4K.

Seems like a decent tree to me.

Thanks.

This is an excellent tip! I've spent the last couple of hours testing different combinations and there's definitely a huge improvement, animations are extremely fluid and more noticeable and even damage/XP counters appear to be much better. May I ask you what settings you're using? I've settled for 4.00x with 33% and in-game resolution to 3840x2160 and it looks awesome!

I think so, lest we end up with a bunch of vanilla and mod-related items all together without any proper distinction.

Ha ha, that's gold right there! Totally unrelated discussion I reckon, but that's kind of another thing that irks me about the game, that you never get to be level 200 and have enough time to enjoy it. More like you grind your way to it and then that's that. Kind of like getting to 100 in Dungeon Siege 2, by the time you can get there you barely have anything else to do, so it's just about getting there and not about enjoying your 900+ skill points in Sacred's case.

I almost feel tempted to start playing hardcore toons in SP mode, least if they die I have a new assignment.

Thank you both for your replies. It's nice to have a different perspective. I'll be honest. I've been tired and a bit disheartened with all that's going on at my work, with Covid and plain stupidity of customers, so some feelings I have tend to become amplified. One of those is a huge issue that I have with Sacred 2, and that as it seems I'll continue having. Which is, I tend to loose the motivation to keep playing when the build starts being "more is more". You know, more grind for more items, low progression from one level to the next past 100, more grind for more levels for more slow progression for more items... You guys get the picture. So having an added challenge was a point of motivation, but like a Crucible you begin to wonder just how whimpy you actually are, so you turn the needle into focusing on it, but then you loose the edge of the campaign, yada yada. Basically I don't know what to do. I start designing a char and build only to begin wondering that a Barbarian with almost 30% damage mitigation still gets slapped silly here and there. I wonder how a squishy toon would be then. And once I start thinking like that I'm stuck in a loop. So yeah, I'm more releasing steam here than complaining. It's just that I have no idea where to go now with the game.

Was about to post something and noticed how I never got an answer to this question. @Flix @chattius - I have a question for both of you, the dev and the master tester. Would you two say that a build which can survive the Arena in any difficulty is the ultimate build in D2F? My short time in Nightmare seems to indicate that I won't have as many issues in other places as in the Arena, but since both of you are more savant in the higher difficulties of the Mod I'd like some input on that. Regular, Elites and even Campaign/Mini-bosses alone don't seem to have as much bite as some rounds of the Arena do, with as much as four bosses or six superuniques at the same time in a crowded space. Now why do I ask this in particular? Because thinking about the endgame when building a toon had more to do with finishing the campaign. Can you beat the Guardians in Niob? You're good to go. But now it seems to me that the end goal is the Arena itself, and as such if a build can survive the Arena it can survive the entire game. So if the objective becomes that then when planning a build the emphasis should be on the Arena itself and not "just" the twelve areas of the game. Is this reasoning solid or does it have some flaws, and if so which are those? Chattius seems to have made his last few builds more Arena-centric, so maybe he's been on to something that I've only now understood?

@Flix - I've noticed a couple of visual bugs, nothing remarkable, but I'm not sure if they have to do with the models/graphics. Lucreti's Harmony and every helmet based on that model are missing their spikes, though if you turn on Iron Skin you can see them. I'm not sure if it has to do with the kind of hair that I've chosen or not, but it could be since I've noticed that with some other helmets the hair shows out of the helmet itself. The other one is with Sszark the Burning inside the Arena. If you turn the camera around near him you'll notice that a black shade appears vertically, like a tear on the screen, which is weird but has no practical impact at all. I don't think I've noticed that when fighting him in the Desert, though I'm only 99% sure of that. I've "cheated" my way over the Arena in Nightmare difficulty since I've made a backup for my save and reloaded at every death, as I wanted to battle all enemies in equal conditions. With 29% damage mitigation and 2%LL from opponents, a fairly decent if not excellent setup in terms of gear and relics, I went there trying to notice if some of the opponents would make a huge jump in danger from previous levels. I've found some interesting things that could be seen as a possible need for re-balance, so here they are and not in the dedicated Hellfire Arena topic. I hope that's OK with you. Phase 1 was OK with its mix of fighters rangers and casters, not easy but nothing that would make me go through shoots and hoops to come out victorious. Zero deaths and as far as I can recall no jump scares. I still think Fire Eye is an extremely hard one to damage, but it could be related to the damage type I'm wearing plus his (supposedly huge) evasion/reflect chance. For an Elite he does tend to take a very long time to go down, similar to Kujin but without the absurdly high HP count that one has. In my opinion all rounds and enemies are well balanced. Phase 2 was where things started to heat up, expectedly. Had a bit of a jump scare in Round 3, probably got overconfident and Lord Tannenbaum applied some extra pressure. I always thought those christmas trees were dangerous but I believe that in D2F they're hitting as hard as an Elite Dragon Berserk. I have no idea if the Mod changed how they hit though, and if it didn't then my apologies for pointing it out. Round 6 was a bit too hard but I'm pretty sure that it was due to battling the three of them at the same time, as doing one by one should be a normal affair. I've battled Shelob not too long ago and while she is and was always hard %LL does cover the distance well enough. As expected Round 8 was brutal, but in all honesty this has been talked to death. I've found that the Lords grown in danger by a good amount, but since they're supposed to be battled alone when campaigning they're tough but manageable. Lightning Lord as a curiosity managed to instantly "double-one shoot me" with his favourite one-two punch. As I had expected and predicted by Nightmare his attacks are already capable of bringing any build down in a couple of seconds. I've managed to kill him solely by spamming health pots every 2 seconds while hitting him as fast as I could with Frenzy. Still, two deaths to my nemesis, but it was more than expected. In my opinion all rounds and enemies are well balanced except for the Lightning Lord. Phase 3 brought some interesting discoveries. Rounds 2 and 4 were hard, though mostly because of the conjunction of several crippling abilities from the enemies. Round 5 was one of those cases where you forget tactics and just spam Whirlwind until everything on screen dies from %LL, but again it's the fact that the Ghosts, Banshee and Evocator where all in the same crowded space. Round 6 was enlightening. I mentioned in the Captain America topic that I've noticed a nasty trap coming from the Warlord of Blood in Hard (why is he called Lachdanan in the Wiki?), and that one is there alright. It's a yellow trap similar to the one the Poison Lord uses, and it seeks you once you go near it. But what I've found really nasty about the Warlord was seeing him one-shot me some three or four times! And it's not a special animation that you predict so you can kite it, he would just get close and hit me for 16k of damage all at once, which were apparently reduced to half after switching to Magic relics and using Howl on him, but I'm not sure if the lesser damage output was due to crippling him or because the "bypass armour" characteristic of Concentrate didn't kick in. It's a nasty "what was that?!" moment and it happens really fast, so if you have a melee toon you're bound to be one-shot by him. In my opinion all rounds and enemies are well balanced except the Warlord of Blood, since his use of Concentrate can easily one-shot any toon. He's a russian roulette for melee toons, which isn't fun. Phase 4 was made of ups and downs but I resisted it with zero deaths, so basically I only died in Phase 2/Round 8 to the Lightning Lord and Phase 3/Round 6 to the Warlord of Blood. In this final phase I'd say Round 2 was nasty, all of those six demons at once become harder the more you climb the difficulty ladder, but once pulled apart and dealt with individually or in smaller packs they get more manageable. Much like the Elemental Lords it was an health pot chugfest though. Round 3 was a remake of Phase 3/Round 5 and I didn't stop to ask questions or Howl, it was all too fast to have a proper understanding of things, but it's likely to be the combination of those three bosses and how fast they shell out damage. Round 5 was, as in every other difficulty, rather easy I'd say, which is odd considering that Andariel and Duriel are supposed to be tough enemies. Maybe it's the fact that my toon is formatted for them, being a solid melee type, but I always thought these two bosses were a bit "soft". Round 6 was manageable, even if Mephisto's Charged Bolt is becoming closer to the one the Lightning Lord unleashes. It's still not that strong and %LL can counter it, assuming that you kill Diablo first. Still, it's quite OK and a fair fight. Round 8 (Light Path) brings two of my most hated enemies, Malthael and Witchmoon. The former's Ice Chain Lightning spell is assuming very dangerous proportions, chipping a good 50% of my nearly 16k HP, which for a mandatory campaign boss is something to be reckoned with. I still think he's a fair fight, albeit maybe too hard for a campaign boss as that attacks stands. Witchmoon is a nasty enemy just because of how it cripples you, but she is a fair fight in the end. In my opinion all rounds and enemies are well balanced, but the Zakarum Council, Mephisto and Malthael should be watched closely in Hell difficulty to see if by the end game they don't go over the curve, while Andariel and Duriel could probably be given some extra bite since in every difficulty they've never managed to be an issue, and they should be at least a bit harder. Yeah, for once I complain about a boss being easier than it should, ha ha. Anyway, in terms of the other D2F bosses and superuniques I've battled all the Dragons except for the Mutated Dragon (not sure if altered from standard CM 1.60, but I'll assume it isn't) and they're all very well balanced. I particularly love the design on the Blood Dragon, it's incredible! I believe the Dark Elder suffers from the same issue as Fire Eye by being extremely hard to damage, but maybe it's just my physical build. So those two could need some tweaking or maybe not. I can't really say in the end. So, that's that. I hope it's useful.

Aye, that could be it. The same thing happens when there's a ton of criticals all at once, even the sound stutters a bit. I think the stuck arrows on mobs could also have some negative impact. PS: There's one thing I forgot to list, adding Blacksmith and Alchemy to the relic modifiers pool. That one's so easy that even I could do it in a few minutes.

You're most likely right about Inferno's issues being caused by those Elites being exacerbated, I guess it's a matter of checking them out beforehand and see the practical outcome in Inferno.

Greetings! So, after spending some 200 hours in this build of D2F I have to say that I haven't ran into that many issues. Game is solid and mostly everything works well apart from a few issues that were already identified and talked about. I'm leaving a short list here, but that's basically it folks! Some instances of stun lock found on a few enemies (Baal, dragon bosses, Snapchip Shatter, and probably others), which should be removed. Re-balancing the Lightning Lord, mainly casting speed and damage output. One of the major issues is that he casts Charged Bolt and Lightning Fury pretty much simultaneously, which at higher levels could result in an easy insta-kill. Re-balancing some Elites which have Hard Hit attacks and cause, in my opinion, too much damage (Dragon Berserk, Moon Clan, Jungle Hunter, for instance). Grim Ward at high levels sometimes causes an FPS drop as it starts hitting some enemies instantaneously, not sure if it's just on my end but it's a recurrent behaviour. Re-balance Inferno mode (yes, I know it's daunting). That's my two cents on it. I hope you appreciate the feedback @Flix. I know I've been having a ton of fun with this mod!

Ah, long sleepless nights. The perfect setup to play a grindy ARPG such as this one. Steve 2.0 is up and running in Nightmare, spending the night in Sloeford before heading out for more adventures in Ancaria. This remake of my original Captain America build is feeling definitely better, with the different skill set performing very well. Magic Find in particular has been a very good friend, I've gotten nearly five sets completed and a few other parts awaiting the remaining pieces. Shame that I couldn't get the helmet for the Infernal Torment set since I have the other two pieces. With those three I'd have a huge bonus to visibility range and I could get some extra mileage on revealed map. Nevertheless I've been getting lucky with legendaries since I've got a Silala's Ring and the amulet from the Bergonix set (which is legendary tier though set item). I'm guessing that I'll be able to snatch some more goodies. I was able to make the whole run (main quest, extra points quests, Wild Twine and Blinded quests, Elemental Lords, Hellfire Arena) and unlock Nightmare seven levels below and with some 16 hours less on this toon, so yeah it's going very well. My nemesis nearly gave me a heart attack though, but I was able to survive. I'm pretty sure he's going to have me in Nightmare though, even with %LL. Just a gut feeling, ha ha. Anyway, my biggest doubt right now is if it's worth investing in Blacksmith mastery to have much better variable bonuses so I can have more flexibility in my gear choice. I'm still using the same config, with five pieces of Pandamonium's Pride, but a mastered Blacksmith skill should provide bonuses good enough to start using more of the Blacksmith Arts in my sockets. As funny as it may be I'm still using an arm piece I've got in Normal. Why? It has bonuses to spell intensity, deadly strike, damage %physical and casting speed, which is modified by Armor Lore, plus a silver socket. It's just brutal, and even provides better casting speed than a level 100 Silithar's Finger Hoop! Very very cool. I hope I can start finding stuff like this in Nightmare, but with much higher bonuses. Fingers crossed.

Wow! No hurries or anything, I know Sacred doesn't get anyone paid. It's done when it's done. And thanks for the help!

So you don't have duplicates, is that it? Seems like a plan. I think there's some room in there somewhere.

I get what you mean. I wanted to avoid the triple buff toon because of the investment in the weapon lore and general skills, but going with just two buffs choosing between Dodge and Inner Sight is kind of a hard thing to do. Inner Missiles seems definitely more in line with the general idea of debuffing opponents though. I see. So it's probably a dead end road for me I guess.

Last one is from Hellknight's Shield. All of those screenies were taken with maxed out zoom on the pages.

I'd appreciate some input on this sketch from you guys, if you will. It's supposed to be played as a pure ranger with a small twist. Skills: 2 Huntress Talents Focus 75 3 Ranged Weapons 75 5 Armor Lore 5 8 Concentration 1 12 Storm Combat Focus 9 18 Divine Devotion 75 25 Alchemy 1 35 Spell Resist Lore 75 50 Constitution 1 65 Tactics Lore 1 Attributes: 0-49: +1 VIT 50-74: +1 VIT, +1 DEX 75-149: +1 VIT, +1 DEX 150-200: +3 DEX CA Modifications: HUNTRESS TALENT > Penetrate - Eagle Eye, Hunter, Marked Shot (1, 2, 3) Elemental Arrow - Cold Arrow, Ice Arrow, Freezing Arrow (4, 5, 6) Multiple Shot - Reload, Throwback, Rotate (7, 8, 9) Strafe - Bleeding, Breach, Volley (10, 11, 12) STORM COMBAT > Dodge - Uproot, Galvanize, Payback (1, 2, 3) Lightning Bolt - Daze, Disarm, Siphon (4, 5, 6) Charged Strike - Weaken, Restore, Fumble (7, 8, 9) So, basically this sketch is about hitting fast, faster, fastest, while Penetrate's Eagle Eye mod covers the gap for criticals due to Tactics Lore being absent up till the tenth skill choice. Divine Devotion mastery for "spamming" Salvation, Spell Resist Lore mastery for resisting mages and spell-based attacks, and an emphasis on hitting while debuffing (Elemental Arrow as first attack CA modified). Lightning Bolt mainly for Siphon and not as much for damage per se, Charged Strike at later levels for its debuff value (and since I already have the Focus skill, why not I guess?!). Attributes into staying alive/hitting harder, gives a good synergy with Dodge's bonuses for defense, Alchemy for extra defense (full heals and better antidote pots). I'm a total noob with Alchemy but I guess this is as good of a time to try it as any other. The main idea is to completely reverse my playing style with this build. I tend to go all Rambo in this game, building toons that can deal with the punishment of rounding up mobs and killing them in groups. Now the main idea is to avoid general confrontations, hence the focus on Elemental Arrow being a slowdown/debuff vessel. Lightning Bolt's Siphon mod can turn the tides at mid level with bosses, if I'm able to balance it between spam level and a decent percentage of the %%LL bonus. Main issue keeps being smaller crowded spaces and my idea to counter that is Salvation, this assuming I can hit (and kill) fast enough before it wanes away. I'm guessing that the Arena in particular will be a terrible place for this build, but out in the open probably not as much. I'll take those Spitting Spiders and Dracolins with a healthy dose of Spell Resist Lore mastery. This is still a preliminary sketch though, haven't even created the toon. I'm going through what is probably the busiest week of the year at work other than Christmas, so I'm not playing much these days. Still, I'm enjoying keeping in touch with the game by planning ahead. Now I want to hear some feedback please. Fire away!