Christian_Kiss

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.

Thanks. It's simple but works. I'll add some tips about hardcore gaming early. ***UPDATE 11/05/07*** Finished the Hardcore section.

Melee-Fire Daemon Guide (This guide I wrote first in Sacred's official forum) This was my first guide that I've created. It's about creating a Melee Daemon that deals a lot of fire damage. Basically, you'll use Fire Daemon and Infernal Power CAs in this one. Hope you like it. I've chosen four Combat Arts: -Tentacles: Very good against large groups. It grows tentacles from the Daemon's victims that deals poison damage until the aura ends. As more enemies were killed, more tentacles will appear. Try to learn Tentacles runes until it reaches 1/3 of your level, always making the regeneration time equal to the aura's duration time. This CA is very very very good against undeads, because when you beat then, the tentacles explodes their bodies, so the effect is far better than the Undead's Death Potion. Also, remember that Tentacles deals magic damage too. -Infernal Power: The heart of Daemon. Without this, forget playing with it. It increases a lot your fire damage dealt. Combine this with Fire Daemon and it will be literally the hell. The regeneration time must be less than the aura's duration time. This is because you have to use Tentacles too. Also Infernal Power is very good when combined with Wall of Flames. Infernal Power also increases your attack with a good percentage. -Fire Daemon: For a period of time, your physical damage is converted into fire damage. The Fire Wall, Fire Daemon's CA, is good to damage large groups. The best thing here is that you can use, at the same time, Fire Daemon with Infernal Power, because the last is a spell, so the regeneration time is not the same to both. -Soaring Daemon: This CA is used to avoid melee opponents and attack ranged opponents, like that pig orcs in Fields of Urkuk. It's also good to explore the world. Try to combine it with Tentacles, it's worth of it. Generally I'd like to keep the Combat Arts regeneration time lesser than the Combat Arts duration time, to make it more versatile. Look, you don't need more than four Combat Arts in this build. More than that is pure cosmetic. When you reach level 30, you'll have five slots to Combat Arts. Put the last one a Combo with 1x Tentacles, to use it when using Infernal Power, so you can use the three main Combat Arts simultaneously: Fire Daemon, Infernal Power and Tentacles. About Skills, choose (in this order): -Weapon Lore: MAX.* -Magic Lore: 1/2 level until 100.* -Meditation: 1/2 level until 100.* -Agility: 1/3 level.* -Concentration: 1/2 level.* -Constituition: 1/2 level. -Sword Lore: 30 points. -Hell Power: 1/2 level until 51. (*) Your must important Skills. Weapon Lore must be MAX every four lvls. For example, you reached level 30 and your Weapon Lore is 29. Put points in other skills until your char reaches level 33, and at this level, put all your points in Weapon Lore, making it MAX. About Constitution (thanks Quantilho [sacred's Official Forum user] for warning), it's not that important in Bronze and even Silver, but you'll need it on higher levels. So, put points in Constitution when you reaches level 30. At this level, you have four Skill points to improve your char, use one of them to improve Constitution. Hell Power must be improved only when your Sword Lore is equal to 30 and when you don't have to put points in another Skill. Hell Power is not that important for this build. Your Attributes... put all your points in Physical Regeneration. Your regeneration time of physical Combat Arts will be decreased and your life increased. Far better than Mental Regeneration. Also gives a few percentage of regeneration in your Combos (here, the 1x Tentacles Combo). Special bonuses: -Use items that strengthen your fire damage, like rings and Daemon runes. -Life-Leech is always good, worth of socketing, works fine with Tentacles and Wall of Flames. -Split also works fine with Tentacles, it will help you to leveling. -Critical Hit (!!) is very powerful, even better than Life-Leech. This bonus works OK with Wall of Flames and Tentacles. Items: -Sets are always good, but remember that are unique items with huge bonuses. Don't imprison yourself in Set Items. -Use swords and shield. By a strange reason, the Daemon uses one-handed swords far better than any char, even Gladiator. The swords must deal only damage physical or/and fire (Fire and Physical is the best option here). -Use Items with +X% Regeneration Special Move and +X% Regeneration of Spells. -Prefer amulets and armors that protect you against poison. ***UPDATE 12/02/05*** (It's not a big deal making a guide without strategic tips. Here are some to improve your gameplay with this build.) Strategical Guide: Init Game: -OK, a Melee Daemon like this may be hard to build in lower levels. So, pick up all missions that you can in Bellevue. This will increase your Combat Arts and give you some gold. Explore all the land and then you go to talk about the "Book of Wisdom" quest, with the Combo Master. To complete this quest, you'll need some healing potions. Don't forget to use Mentor's Potions when killing the Orc Leader before getting the "Book of Windom". Use Mentor's Potions to kill bosses. -If you're lucky, you'll find some runes that you use in this build. Learn all of them; don't care too much about the regeneration time for now. It's very high until you find items with +X% Regeneration bonuses. Complete the Seraphim quest, in a secret place just up the Bellevue cemetery. The Seraphim will give you a Soaring Daemon rune (ironic, isn't?). -The runes that you don't use, trade to Fire Daemon and Infernal Power. If Fire Daemon CA is high, trade to Tentacles runes, but keep Infernal Power always your must high CA. -Don't use horses, please! -Don't use the Split ability too early. It will trouble you. It's good on Silver or higher levels, not in Bronze. -Soaring Daemon is not a good fighter, but explorer. It's just an improved seraphim's Combat Jump or BM's Phase Shift. When fighting against archers, Soaring Daemon is good, and better with Tentacles. Don't read much Soaring Daemon's runes, focus on Fire Daemon and Infernal Power. Read only that Soaring Daemon's runes that you found. -In lower levels, put your Skills points in Weapon Lore (in higher levels too!), Agility, Concentration, Meditation and Magic Lore. As I said before, the others you'll put points only when reaches level 30. But use the good sense: Constitution is good, as Hell Power is. If you find your Daemon too weak, put some points in Constitution, but if your spells are slow, put points in Hell Power. I can't just say what you have to do because all players have different ways to play. -Use only one-handed swords, even if Axes and two-handed weapons are stronger that your weapon. You'll never regret it! Swords are very good in Gold, because there are faster. -Always carry with you: Some Undead's Death Potions; Healing Potions; Mentor's Potions. Don't sell them, but put them in your Personal Chest. Undead's Death Potions only in the init game, because Tentacles explodes those undeads, even if you're not using the potion. -If you find Icons (Dragon Statue, for example) keep them in the Chest until you have all of them. Then put the Icons in your inventory. It's a set that gives you a fire aura. The damage is terrible, but works fine with Split. -The Daemon runes gives 10% of Fire Damage each, use one of these runes in some items. But remember: When you remove a socked item, all of the others sockets will disappear. So, socket only one rune in each piece. Use the Smith Attack's bonuses. They give 5% in all damage types (fire is one of them) and +12% of Attack. Don't use the others types of sockets, only this. -In lower levels, read more Fire Daemon runes than any other until reaches level 15, to convert a good percentage of physical damage to fire damage. But still learning Fire Daemon runes in higher levels, because that bonus in Fire Resistance and Wall of Flames. Combat: -Combining Fire Daemon, Infernal Power and Tentacles is very powerful. When you meet large groups, use Wall of Flames instead hit the foes. The Wall of Flames must be used only when the opponents are near to you, because of the constant fire damage, just like BM's Fire Spiral spell. If you face a dragon, use Wall of Flames first and THEN fight melee against him, the constant damage will kill the dragon in few seconds. This also works with the Sakkara Daemon. -Now, this is important: Using this mix of CAs (Fire Daemon, Infernal Power and Tentacles) allows the Daemon to deal all the four types of damage: Tentacles deals poison and magic; Infernal Power and Fire Daemon/Wall of Flames cause fire damage; your weapon [probably] deals physical damage (remember that Fire Daemon will convert only a percentage of physical damage to fire damage, rather than 100%). So why is this important? ‘Cause there isn't an enemy that you'll have trouble to deal damage. -Use Tentacles only against large groups. This CA is weak against bosses and ranged foes. Use it when fighting with melee guys. Use it ALWAYS against undeads, as I mentioned above. Don't trouble your Mental Regeneration , use a Combo with 1x Tentacles instead the spell. -When you meet a Dragon, don't be afraid to use Fire damage, because that cursed Dragons resists all damage types, not only fire. And you have a good protection against fire using Fire Daemon, remember that. Don't be afraid in using fire damage against foes with high fire resistance. You have Infernal Power, remember this! As I said before, even Dragons don't resist so much fire damage. So, is that? So simple? Yes, it is! If you follow the tips above, you'll never die. ***UPDATE 17/04/07*** (As gogoblender has asked for, this section is here to add some basic support to hardcore players.) Hardcore Players: -Hardcore is that mode which, when turned on, your character will have only one life. If it dies, you won't be able to play with it again. It's cool to play like this way, but it can be also frustrating. Take care! General Tips: -You don't want to die in Hardcore. So, this time, your most important bonus is life-leech instead critical hit. Never trade your Vampire runes that adds +3% of life-leech. Use them in all pieces of your gear (weapons, armor, boots, shields etc.), but never more than one in a single piece. -Always carry a lot of Health Potions and Potion of Viper´s Antidote. Remember that when you're poisoned, your character will have its speed reduced. This is not good in Hardcore. Also do not allow your health to lower less than 50% of your max life. Yes, this means that you'll spend a huge number of Health Potions. -While dealing with dragons, never stop to run. They cast high level Meteor Storms that can kill even the strongest character. Remember this Melee-Fire Daemon is an hybrid character, so it doesn't have a lot of health points. Dragons are relatively easy to kill, but also merciless with mistakes. When fighting with them, NEVER forget to use Fire Daemon form. This will boost your fire resistance, then your character will be harder against fire breathes. To kill dragons, simply cast Fire Wall and keep running away in circles until it dies burned. Also, if you have a good percentage of life-leech, your health will be always at max. -Maybe Armor skill is more important than Hell Power in Hardcore, for this build. This is really up to you to decide: Will you use Hell Power to speed up your spells, or will prefer Armor to get harder? I personally still prefer Hell Power. -Agility skill becomes more important now. While the +X% Attack bonus is useless, the +X% Defense is great to take less damage. If you're really worried about this, prefer to put Parrying instead Agility, but remember that you'll become less effective in melee combats, as you'll miss more often. Adventuring Alone: -My favorite style! It can be a pain in lower levels, so more than ever buy a lot of Healing Potions. Do not face hard enemies too early (this include spell-casters and archers). Avoid facing a lot of enemies at same time. -While hitting foes with your sword can be nice, especially if you're using Fire-Daemon and Infernal Power, you'll prefer to use Wall of Flames (Fire Daemon CA) to kill them in distance. This hint is to be used with ALL enemies, including dragons, spell-casters, archers and warriors. When you face a group with archers, like those orcs in the desert, try to divide them. This can be done by simply running away until the archers are far enough to not fire against you. Then the warriors can be killed more easily, and your character is receiving less damage. This applies against groups with spell-casters too. If there're only a few ranged foes, about one or two, use Soaring Daemon to reach them faster. Also Soaring Daemon can be used to avoid projectiles if you're really skillful. Adventuring with a Party: -If you're playing over the net with a team, let the hard work for melee characters. I mean, if there is a Gladiator or another tank in the party, let him/her to take damage in your place. But don't forget to help them with Wall of Flames! ‘Cause of this, the Fire Daemon becomes a good support character: Cast Wall of Flames in the middle of the battle; while the melee characters are fighting, Wall of Flames will reduce a lot your enemy’s health. -Battle Mages are very useful in teams. They can cast Ring of Ice (most BM builds use this) to slow and damage enemies. This can be especially nice against faster/ranged, like Sakkara Priests, Goblin Shamans etc., and Flyers opponents like those bugs in Underworld. Then, Ring of Ice and Wall of Flames will be a good combination. Also Battle Mages can cast Stone Skin or Flame Skin in allies. -Dwarfs use Warcry to boost the Defense of all the nearby allies (the Attack bonus isn’t so important). OK, I think this is enough. Good [hardcore] gaming!

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.