SLD

You cannot really avoid in Sacred 2 and have a lot more ways for mitigation than in Sacred 1. will just get you oneshot by a spell. Sacred 1 has no proper mitigation. There is nothing else to scale there than def rating, life and resists. In sacred 2 you have life, some have energy shields and flat mitigation, theres still armor and def but also dot reduction, mitigation, certain block, reflect and evade mechanics, high amounts of regeneration. And I'm sure I missed something in that list... The levelling build takes skills that are useful along the way but might become obsolete in the end. I hope I did. Even though only on a superficial level, for now. And now we have a third way of enjoying the game. Isn't that great

You can fight bosses, just not ones that are still dangerous. That's how I think of it. It is all contradictory, that was the point. You want to reach high level and build tanky to ensure that but on the other hand you want to trade tankiness for speed. Well I guess that takes quite some skill. Skill I would never have, so that is something I can't give advice on. You're right about that. I build characters for their endgame goal, you build for the way there. Those are two very different things. You want to beat the game quickly, I want my character to beat the game for me. So our build goals are different. On the game mechanics side however I can only suggest you learn about all the mechanical ideas I use, so you can find out which of them might help in your playthroughs. Some of them are quite important, like the attribute damage. Honestly I really would like to understand your approach, how you go through the game and how you deal with the games difficulties. I am certain, that from a gameplay perspective you are far better at this game than I am. I can't beat hard bosses, I just make them easy with build and gear. I'd love to see a build guide from your perspective. What choices you make and why. I want to hear about all the things that get you through the game faster. As I have learned from @xeyp the wise, understanding comes with time and effort.

Are you sure you can't make Imessage work on pc? You are telling me a man of gamer descent has a pc that can't run sacred 2? Or why don't you use that thing for it?

currently there are 2 slots no longer needing runes so I put dot reduction amulets in there. But I'll have to rework my gear for the llech% set bonus. Not sure how much space I'll have then. The gear is really not that interesting, it's all self found with neither ep nor bargaining after all. I thought you would like that cuddling with the orcs, to see with your own eyes what phys mitigation does. The only regret I have is that I didn't turn off the warding energy buff in the middle of them Opening the inventory and skills screens was just something I could do while waiting for the orcs to not do damage. The gear pieces are all set items so they should be recognizable that way already. The jewellery is one "-% evade chance" and one "regen per hit" ring combined with an amulet that gives like 4 or 5 to toughness. I just don't have a third dot reduction oneand nothing else to put there. I don't think I have to explain the bfg, the wapon slot 4 contains a buff bonus set for the warding energy buff containing a celioth's ward and a parashu each socketed with +all skills amulets. The relic holder I think is quite well visible again, for the non colourblind. But by now I only ever use the mixed triple with magiic, poison, fire. Everything else should be covered by the "diary".

sounds more like all of them Didn't you say something about orc champions? The end part of my recently uploaded bfg sera video shows what or champions should look like and what threat they should pose... I can't speak for what the constitution mastery does here, but for item bonuses and the buff bonus you get that regen permanently, in combat or not. And having someone like Gahanka pummel a low level char you can see every hit takes your hp down but it also constantly regenerates, so you are unkillable. Your version would suggest that getting some kobolds to help gahanka would suddenly turn off your entire regen, or even more insane, you could leave gahanka out and still die. I can't believe that, as I rely on regen with many builds and never had such a problem occur. Now there might be a problem with constitution mastery, as that one is a bit different, but I wouldn't know as I never used that. Btw. you do have a very small in combat regen without any bonus, not just an out of combat regen. Both are based on your maximum life afaik. Yes, please try reproducing this effect. Once regen turns off basically anything in the starting area should be able to kill you, but with a functioning leveled grim resilience almost nothing should(get the runes from sp start chest in the unsaved campaign). But melee has "regen per hit" to solve all regen problems. You can eat all 200 runes and still not get in trouble with both defensive buffs. The skeletons are useless and when you use the invisibility you don't need defense at all so there are no triple buff shadow warriors. Well, if you can oneshot an enemy more damage is not getting you anywhere further. Against bosses your actual damage doesn't matter much as %leech will be far more effective here. unless you really do sick amounts of damage. And for the champions in between you'd still need to reduce the number of hits needed to actually see a difference from increased damage. Most of the damage bonus from attack CA's is in form of a normal +%damage bonus that gets watered down by tactics lore and gear etc. It does still do something but not that much. On top of that, the CAs scale really inefficiently beyond the penalty so wether you eat 100 frenzied rampage or 200 is only a tiny increase in effect, but a huge increase in regen time. Up to that point however the CA does still do quite a lot for your overall damage, so I agree with trying to keep regen times low. I just would never consider throwing a powerful buff away for that. That is some serious uderestimation of attribute damage. The low level weapon with high damage sockets will do a lot more damage and not require a weapon lore, which is why I suggested using that. Here is a link to my recent guides: https://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/72710-an-easy-character-for-a-returning-sacred-2-player/page/3/#comment-7146227 Part 1 is the relevant one for attribute damage. No those were never really meant as a guide just some stuff I tried to help someone with who disappeared before I could write it all No, Lightsabers in anything CM-patch and beyond(like your EE) are scaled by willpower of which you can have tons when using grim resilience. There is a guide on a Lightsaber SW in that link above as well Well, I won't "force" you to play it no leech set?, no leech weapon? How about using the unlock code for tom felde's? I think I'ts in my SW guide... Alternatively there's always a throwing star for the desperate. EE should have a unique one as a fixed quest reward. That one is correct. So that would be missing from the 6 defensive skills bs character. I like that one as well, but I don't take 6 defensive skills with it So it will allow raising the combat art level by around 25%. If you are already in the penalty area, that will do nothing, if not it might do anything up to 25% more damage. On top it gives some %dmg increase as well. But you were playing melee so regen doesn't matter and in that case combat discipline is a really bad choice. Now it is getting ridiculous. Speed Lore has no place in any build. Attack value is such a bad stat to scale. It does basically nothing compared to the other hitchance affecting modifiers. And well, the xp gain stuff is a choice that makes characters weaker. Why use 6 defensive skills when you don't want a strong character. If you want to socket everything with +xp just make the invisible sw build... On second thought, that might not work in EE anymore, don't know. So far all we sacrificed was: -combat discipline which is only the %bonus as regen doesn't matter on melee -sword lore or dual wield, for the attack speed -potential extra xp sockets... Yes there is some damage lost, but I never claimed 6 defensive skills are a good idea. All I said was it should be doable, as my SWs usually have enough space for 3 or 4 green skills and picking yellow ones instead shouldn't make much of a difference. I usually would pick a weapon skill but no combat discipline so technically all my characters do "less damage" than yours. But on the other hand including attribute damage a normal lvl200+ weapon ends at like 1000 damage while my nice lvl 10 lightsaber might make it past 8000... depends on patch version again, but I think EE is a good one for my approach. Yeah, I'm currently trying the campaign on my bfg sera. Platinum has already been reached and at least she'll never die of orc champions... But she's still in dire need of gear upgrades. From what I can tell, the campaign is not a good way to get to LVL 200 without deaths So as a summary, you like to play a lot of Sacred 2 but not a lot of Sacred 2, you are patient enough to play forever, but not without xp bonus, you want to reach level 200 but do everything you can to not make that happen, so you build your character for maximum dps and risk your life on campaign bosses. That makes so much sense now

So here we are, after 10 hours of trying to upload a 5 minute video that I basically had to record twice as a whole and once split up in 5 parts now you get those 5 parts split across three download threads: Edit: Links were removed as per Gogo's cleanup Video can now be viewed on youtube, see below. The rest of this post has not been altered. @gogoblender I hope you have at least as much fun cleaning up that mess My guess is there is some kind of upload size limit but not for a single file or a single account, no it's for a single download thread. We got a relatively precise measurement of it being somewhere between 149mb and 19Xmb so I guess it's 150mb? If you could allow some 330mb I could upload that four and a half minute video as a non- hackjob. For now this forum massacre was the best workaround I could find. Edit: Gogo has made a youtube playlist for those who don't want to download that mess. I highly advise watching it there

HC BFG Sera Showcase 3 View File And here is part 5 of my bfg sera showcase... yes, I know this upload system is bs, but so far it is the only possible way. Submitter SLD Submitted 10/15/2024 Category Download Sacred 2 Gold  

HC BFG Sera Showcase 2 View File And here are parts 3 and 4 of my bfg sera showcase... yes, I know this upload system is bs, but so far it is the only possible way. Submitter SLD Submitted 10/15/2024 Category Download Sacred 2 Gold  

HC BFG Sera Showcase View File Just a quick walk of my work in progress BFG Sera towards orc cave, showcasing the shoot and walk playstyle and the up and downsides of ranged combat and of having me at the helm LVL 96 Platinum CMpatch160. Sry for pulling out the map all the time. And yes, I did get stuck in the trees and on a rock. Nothing to be ashamed about. Sry2 for having to rip it up into 5 parts to circumvent an upload problem. Sry3 for that not being enough so for now it's only part 1 and 2 Submitter SLD Submitted 10/15/2024 Category Download Sacred 2 Gold  

like aspect lore, combat discipline and ancient magic? Why do you make characters that at such high a level(150) still take damage? And what kind of enemies are you fighting there? I mean reaching level 200 is enormously time consuming, but other than that not very challenging. Though I must admit, for me time consuming and boring was reason enough to never make it that far. that statement is already being contested by Eru here: https://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/22121-dev-diablo-2-fallen-mod-for-sacred-2/page/43/#comment-7146393 I would agree on that. However critical damage isn't that much larger than the normal one. Base game factor 1.2 I think EE raises it to 1.5 and in both cases it doesn't affect attribute based damage. I'd certainly prefer never to drink a health potion and survive a hundred crits... I've heard that one before, but never encountered this problem. Would love to hear more about those scenarios. What bosses can do that, other occurences. What is "being hit often". Roughly how many times per second do you need to get hit there? You intentionally leave out buffs to get better regen times? What the hell are you doing? And what combat arts would do measurably less dps with another buff/higher reg? You say you don't take death warrior focus that leaves two potentially reasonable combat arts: frenzied rampage and spectral hand. But the second is instant so it never has regen issues. So you are shooting with frenzied? That would be the only remaining scenario where that argument might make sense. In that case however you won't need much damage as you do so many hits per time that you can rely on %leech even against non bosses, right? hmm, what is the problem with a sw that takes all defensive skills? Assuming you leave out Pacifism as it does absolutely nothing outside pvp, that leaves 6 defensive skills. You want to be tanky so concentration with double focus for the buffs is a must, the last skill is tactics lore. You wear a shield to get shield lore's effect, equip a low level lightsaber... Should hit like a truck... what did you do wrong there? I mean taking all 6 defensive skills is nowhere near needed but it shouldn't hurt your dps much at all. I am always slow and tired, that's why I build around not needing potions. And don't go into dangerous encounters if I want to survive. I think you're "unfocused" on your goal of hitting lvl 200 without dying

In the end you are not socketing "everything" with mitigation stuff. But of course you are right that if you put in "whet" arts instead you get a miniscule amount of damage instead. Now I did round 4. This time I watched that upload progress all the way to 100%. I had to watch it for about an hour... And it failed at completion. With an "error code -200". Googling that one interestingly enough quickly led to a thread on the invision community forums, even though I didn't even google for such specifics: https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/462553-error-code-200/ So at this point I am convinced, that there is nothing I can do about this. Maybe really short videos could make it through, if it has anything to do with the upload time, but I mean it's only 4:28 mins. Well I just did some research and it turns out that my 4 and a half minutes video is a tiny bit larger than ric's 3 min guardian fight. Just a tiny factor of ~4.5 or so Sadly the xbox game bar recording solution doesn't allow me to reduce the video quality any further. I will try some stuff and see if I can upload something shorter or otherwise diminished

I doubt that. But you can just clean up your installation and after that point only ever play on xrystal's servers. That would basically be the same. HC characters can be created without the need for it to be "closed". Of course that way it would only work if you obey the rules out of your own free will. It can't be enforced.

what about alternate spells or challenge mode versions? Bah, there are just too many combinations to make out of those I guess... don't worry there's noone there yet anyway. Gogo is still waiting for a MacSacre, ric is boomsticking away and I'm playing a SP Sera. But maybe someday we might wanna meet up for some fun

It has nothing to do with mods. Yes you can make a mod where you already start as invulnerable, but excluding such cheating bull:eek:, many of the big mods actually reduce some access to mitigation again. The cm-patch brought a lot of set items with mitigation, some of which are a "bit" op. But most of that stuff is really rare or not that useful as it is on a slot where you can already have it. Then comes EE. I think that one already reduces the mitigation values on some items. Then there is the addendum which limits the maximum mitigation to 90% or something like that so mitigation is no longer that op anyway And then there's D2F until v15 everything is broken af there, but v16 also caps mitigation, this time at 85%. So CM patch is basically the peak of mitigation. But in most cases it is not much better than the base game. I already gave a rough breakdown for mitigation under base game conditions here: https://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/72710-an-easy-character-for-a-returning-sacred-2-player/page/2/#comment-7146208 It was always possibe. The people back in closed just didn't know much about the mechanics and people who play to high levels obviously are rare as well. And farming 5 high end tanit's collar amulets or similar stuff, is not gonna be done quickly either. Yes many of the current mods help somehow with the levelling process. That saves time there, but the items used are still mostly the same. not really. Mitigation doesn't necessarily cost you much, if you choose the right build for it. balance? with an invulnerable character? oh btw. the second upload attempt just failed, so I guess I'll have to record a shorter one. Edit: Shorter one is attempting to upload now... So I guess I'll wait for another hour... I wonder if it breaks of exactly at one hour, as there was the same problem when trying to download files for the addendum. Maybe there is always a 1 hour cutoff. Edit 2: This time it failed far quicker. So I guess playing Sacred 2 while uploading was not a good idea. I just have to sit here and babysit it. Edit 3: And it failed again...

from my sw guide...

I'm sure my guides touch on that one as well somewhere.

everyone can get full mitigation but it might take a lot of gear. Maybe you should read my guides I'm sure there's lots on mitigation in there already. The dream does however only come true at super high levels. That's why I thought it might be the theoretical best way for the endgame but not for the way there. I'm basically currently proving that it is good enough for the way there not just at the end. That you can actually play through the campaign without constitution, warding energy lore, combat reflexes etc.

It proves to myself that the idea of going with mitigation alone isn't some unrealistical wild dream. It proves that my theoretical way of scaling characters actually works in practice. After all, I wrote build guides for builds, that I never played Well at least not played the exact way/version as the guides. What about constitution? btw the upload just failed so no video for now....

I would guess my upload speed is the bottleneck here. I guess that one will be far faster for the same reason. Don't have and don't want that. But that's what we got you for, right? The hour has passed and it's still uploading

A few days ingame playtime? yes, otherwise we're at around 2 weeks now.

I've already recorded a quick 5 min demonstration of what it looks like right now. But those 5 mins will probably take about an hour to upload... so no smithing gear breakdown for you... With my upload those 5 min were already far too long. No youtube for you either but that is something gogo can handle as he already does for ric. Don't expect anywhere near your SW in power as this is a self found pure campaign(so no boss farming) hardcore run. So my gear is nowhere near what I would want and I still haven't put points in tactics lore or enabled the third buff so no damage scaling there either. All sockets are filled defensively so far. And that defense works out nicely as you will see... This playthrough under the hardest conditions I could come up with was just to prove that my guide is playable under these conditions, even though I've never played a campaign run or hardcore or fully selffound before. So it's supposed to prove the mechanics I bank on don't break under conditions I never played before. So far it holds up nicely and perfectly proves my point.

I'm not sure I want to use that, but I can look into it someday. Schot was right. That is an easy way. That one worked for me and I can even watch the results

no, that is a cm patch160 BFG Build. No EE there.

Doors, doors bring in the doors! We need to stop him

Well, I still play the original box release so no steam for me... Thanks for sharing your method anyway, it doesn't sound very complicated at all. So at least those that have the steam version shouldn't have a problem with it, now that you explained it in detail I'm not sure I want to use that, but I can look into it someday. I think it's supposed to be a chance, growing with CAlvl. That Arrow may have been gore king but it did not actually do area damage. It still only hit a single target. Maybe I could agree on the entertaining part, but "op"? Come on, only drinking yellow pots would have made them "op". I never really used them in underworld. What's the purpose of that combo. In what situation do you need both those skills? Well, there is a list of what it does, although I'm not sure if it is complete. When I played EE I also played with the alternate spells module. After consulting that list, checking that nothing one would ever want to play gets destroyed by that module. Most changes seemed beneficial or irrelevant to me. No. Alchemy certainly works fine in EE. But what would it get you that you can't have without it?