gasconron

@ Colif and Spunky: I won't lie... Silver and early Gold were not completed in a jiffy. It was a grind getting from 1-75. However, from that point onward playing through the campaign and levelling became faster. I was never concerned with atk/cast speed to begin with, but I did mention that the build itself suffer from chance to hit (or attack rating). And you will have to rely a lot on items to address that issue. With enough -opponent's chance to evade%/+chance opponent cannot evade attack, socketted on your gear, you will be able to hit the opponents you want to hit. As for killing speed at early levels, it was never an issue. Trash mobs and champs were cleaned up fast primarily because I was always (IMHO) over levelled going into an area due to excessive Orc Cave farming, especially during Silver. This guide was designed to the Shadow Warrior from Silver to Niob quickly mainly by playing the necessary Campaign and lvlling in the cave. Which is cleared pretty fast especially when your setup is really designed for it. Early game campaign bosses (Silver-early Gold), were dealt with the "Wiki-way" assuming you've cleared then campaign before, you should be knowledgable which type of damage they are most vulnerable. I don't care how much HP regen or life leech they have, but spam demonic blow with your hardest hitting 1h, elementally modded against them and they go down all the same. note: yah this actually an SP char. But I have a habbit of playing SP chars solo on a LAN game free-play when lvlling. Thus, explaining the Orc cave. It may be boring as heck, but it sure beats running around Ancaria killing things one at a time, at least in terms of levelling efficiency. It's also more carpal tunnel friendly. @ Colif: once again... this was designed to endure any kind of beating an Shadow Warrior can handle in the end-game for Hardcore. Now, if you start building up defensively, it's obvious your damage will suffer early on. @ azamantes: Weapon Lore has 3 uses: atk value, atk speed & enabling you to equip higher level weapons. 1. atk value/"chance to hit" - like I've already stated several times THIS is the ONLY fall point of this build, I stand by this statement until now. But it is easily remedied, by overlevelling yourself at early stages, and equipping yourself with the right jewelries at mid to late stages of gameplay. 2. atk speed - was never a concern for me. I got by silver and gold just fine without much of it. By late Gold until level 194, my DPS never really needed to get any higher or faster. 3. equip higher level weapons - this is probably the only reason why I considered weapon lore, and was tempted to get it instead combat discipline. But that was something that only mattered at the early stages of gameplay, when you need more damage. However, the damage you gain at mid-game to late-game by having your Combat Art's assigned to a combo slot is BIG! also considering that you gain a whopping -20% regen to Combat Art's at mastery, freeing up precious jewelry slots/equipment options or resorting to putting attributes to Stamina... summary: let the gear handle the "chance to hit" problem. keep Combat Art regen fairly low to spam DB and FR. Trivial matters like atk speed immediately get thrown out of the window. @ all: 1h + shield Shadow Warrior vs. Dual Wielding Shadow Warrior - I will openly admit that DW hands down beats 1h+shield in terms of DPS early, mid or late... I have a DW Serra, and I am not blind not to see it, this fact is especially obvious at early stage gameplay. However, it does not make 1h+shield Shadow Warrior weak. It is a late bloomer and equipment-dependent, which I already stated in the Introduction of the guide. Patience is required during Silver and early Gold, from there it get easier. Given time to mature, and with a nice investment on gear the DPS lvls can easily come close - - if not equal, a Dual Wielder. In return for sacrificing a bit more time in the early stage of gameplay... you are rewarded with a whopping bonus to your survivability. It goes by the name of "Stalwart Defender" (early game) and "Glacial Defender" (mid to late game). Using Stalwart Defender in early game when damage mitigation bonuses from low level Glacial Defenders are almost negligable. Glacial Defenders at mid to end game is priceless because it reduces 1000's+ worth of damage from anything that actually manages to get through your defense, armor and evade. Believe me if you are playing alone and SP, and didn't jack the xp lvls in your balance.txt getting to level 190+ takes a long time, a really long time. After so many orc cave/boss runs in niob... something hard is bound to hit you. And when that happens you'll be thankful for the damage mitigation you have, and not the humungous DPS that Dual Wielders "oh, so proudly wear..." comment: if a certain player is like me and get's easily bored grinding lvls and tends to get careless this build is designed for the user to have a lot of leeway and a LOT OF ROOM for error in Hardcore gameplay. The defensive measure taken in this guide, (yah, I am aware) are in the extremes. But nothing sucks more having a level 150+ HC with a lot of nice gear (a lot of HOURS invested on jewelry shopping and EP farming) on it die just cuz you: afk'd in a dangerous area, wasn't really paying attention to the health bar or just being plain complacent. It's stupid I know, but I am sure we all agree FECAL MATTER! happens... That and I've always been biased towards 1h+shield melee chars vs. DPS monster chars in RPG games... case in point 1. Diablo 2 - preferred Smiter and HS + Zeal Pally vs. Barbs 2. Titan Quest - preferred Aionios + 1h wep Conquerors vs. Dual Wield Conquerors Heck, I could've made a 1h+shield Seraphim, if I really wanted to and make it work. but that would be really stupid, since: primary "damage mitigation vs. all" sources (Shadow Warrior vs. Seraphim): Shadow Warrior - Torso Armor, Shoulder Armor, and Glacial Defender... anything else is supplemented by how much Tanit's and Darwagon's you are willing to waste. Seraphim - Torso Armor, Shoulder Armor, and Edijian's Wings... putting Glacial Defender on top of that is just pure folly, easily enabling you to hit the high 90's% damage mitigation level, should you have all 200+ level items and a couple of Tanit's and Darwagon's you are willing to waste. Not mentioning the fact that you have the Warding Energy buff, that soaks up additional damage too.

I'D like to know where is the cave http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10049 That would explain the Orc Cave, but it is true to its reputation for being no joke (my now-50 seraphim's first and only death so far was from that specific cave because they chained a string of 700s and 800s along with the normal hits, instantly dropping her health bar). As to adz1983's issue: best you can do is try to kill them individually in 1-2 Combat Arts a piece with health pots to chug. Otherwise you'd be better off roaming around the Orc Realm for easier kills as Orcs tend to give high levels of XP. Jungle may work, as well as the Dryad islands... Get armor that mitigates for physical, if you don't have access to such, then items that add to physical armor base or percentage... I'm quite familiar with Inquisitors primarily because they are the type that you actually have to sit down and think about, and read forum guides to build. So I'll try to give you my opinion on it. I played a GI + AS Inquis and an AS + NN Inquis, but never GI + NN, primarily because the 2 buffs in both aspects don't synergize, in fact they clash against each other. However, what I do know is that in my two chars, AS aspect has always been the mob farming Aspect, while the GI/NN is the utility used for killing champs and boss killing Aspect. This works into your favor in the Orc Cave, because you want to kill each orc 1 by 1, while chugging pots of course... Strategy: since you're melee... its all about good spikes. Focus on 1 target at a time, to decrease the threat on you. IS a couple of mobs outside having at least 2-3 souls with you when entering the cave for distraction. Mortify Pillory on a target for chance to turn 2/4 against the target. IS>DS (combo 1)... Cast FF then Spike with Ruthless Muti > Callous Execution (combo 2). Your spike is more effective depending on the buff you have on. Purifying Chas would be nice, but waiting to get damaged b4 getting the damage boni to kick in, especially by those Orc Champions (known for killing a lot of low-level HC chars), is simply suicidal. If you are playing hardcore, I recommend Soul Reaver to be on the safe side. Remember, IS a dying Orc Champ if you have the chance (meaning if he's close to death and you have IS ready to cast), this way you summon a new minion which will take off the heat on you. From the remaining Orcs around you. Of course, this is only in theory... as I've never done Orc Cave on an Inquisitor below level 40. I usually have AS Aspect developed for early mob farming in the Orc Lands. Also make sure your weapon is elementally modded, as they have only physical resistance (if I remember correctly), if not go "fire" I am 100% sure they have no prot against that.

there were 2 instances that I can remember, wherein my Shadow Warrior almost died and both times were at the Great Machine bosses, when my Damage Miti gear was still was only 30ish%. It was nothing special, just running the boss for some spankin new gear upgrades. It only took my 3-5 sec from full life to critical level hp. Of course I wasn't really expecting that to happen, given that this setup was made designed to take hits anyways. 3-5 seconds is an awfully long/slow to react to your situation before mashing the SPACE BAR for pots, but like I said I wasn't expecting it to happen having ran those bosses multiple times. Spikes that usually lead to a HC char's death almost always happen during unguarded moments. The build is designed to take stress of your shoulders and give you lee-way making a lot of room for error and time to respond. If you were fully alert all the time playing, despite the many hours of grinding for xp and gear, then ~50% damage miti should be more than enough. But this is designed for certain groups of people. 1. has a lot of gear, unique/rare jewelry to spare 2. play and forget, minimizing "micro managing" (if you even consider healing yourself as micromanagement ) 3. or those who have a god complex... taking almost no damage but at the same time capable of dishing out a truckload of damage. all three of this I happen to be when playing melee in a hack-&-slash RPG. "Leave care and caution to smooshies and casters..." is my general RPG motto.

spell resistance was not taken for its spell resist... but for it's Mastery Bonus - - - %chance to evade Spell/Combat Arts Criticals. Combat Reflex - unfortunately, I am led to believe only protects you against Weapon Crits/non-Combat Art attacks, which are mediocre to begin with. We have some very nasty bosses in niob that can crit a big chunk of your life, despite having 50-80k hitpoints. It doesn't happen too often, but it does. Funny thing is that I lost my evade/hitpoint regen HC HE Pyromancer that way after being critted 2x in a row, despite having godly evade. This is especially dangerous for this build at Mid-game (early niob) at 110-130's when our damage mitigation is swimming mediocrely around high 20's-35%. again, let me quote Kaiden as he sums it up beautifully:

1. attack speed/casting speed isn't an issue. At regular attack/cast speed... each hit that reaches the target hurts a whole lot, what matters it we we hit what we intend to hit. This build is not a DW Serra, with insane number of swings per second. Think of him as swinging his weapon or doing a Combat Art at regular speed, but each hit hurts like a ten-ton truck. "Big Damage+%chance to hit" vs. mediocre benefit from increased attack/cast speed. If I was to force the issue and replaced all the damage mitigation jewelry to increase atk speed/cast speed significantly to make a phenomenal increase in my damage numbers, it would hurt me more than benefit me. Afterall, Hardcore is still Hardcore. +10-15% dam miti to all types of damage is way more valuable than an increased 500-2.5k damage; especially, when youre already hitting 50-80k damage per demonic blow, and 9-18k damage per Frenzied Rampage hit on a NIOB boss. Not to mention that you can spam this combo ever 1-3 secs, depending on how many runes you read. 2. With 5 skills, majority of the gear and jewelry, overkill Grim Resilience and overkill Reflective Emanation all devoted to defense, damage mitigation, chance to evade and +armor to all types, reflect all damage types, avoid wep & spell/Combat Art crits, etc; I felt that there was no more need for that certain mod. That is especially true, since you want to be able to spam demonic and FR as much as possible in the early stages of the build development, and for me all little things add up. You have no access to -Combat Art regen at early game except for your DW Focus and MC Focus...that much you can sacrifice. ***However, if you feel that your killing speed is respectable at early game and have no need for spamming demonic blows, then by all means you can take the defense mod. Although, it's overkill. Not that I have a right to complain, because the concept of this build itself is overkill.

Guide is now complete more or less. Comments and criticisms are very welcome, and do say if there is another aspect which I must address in the guide. I know it's a fairly expensive and gear dependent/demanding build. But with 2 EP farmers,a Niob Shopper, and a lot of unused Shadow Warrior gear. It was something my Shadow Warrior evolved into, eventually. I originally played Shadow Warrior until Gold and parked him there while making my Utility Char and playing other Farmer potential chars like EP High Elf and Dryad. My Dryad got him the good gear he needed at late Silver - late gold, while my niob High Elf got him the stuff he need playing through Early Plat till Niob. Then, I suddenly realized he just became self sufficient on his own and got pretty good equipment on his own, except for the jewelry (provided most of the stuff he is wearing are yellows, with the exception of the Glacial Def, the Weapon and Armatin Belt)

soz, I'm doing the guide in parts... and there is a reason for that and a way around it. This will be a very gear dependent build, since mine was well pampered by my niob shopper and EP Pyromancer farmer.

Shadow Warrior - The Knight (1H-Wep & Shield) *Updated (02/02/14) - recommended gear & interesting fact about using this build in the expansion Introduction: This is an Shadow Warrior build for HC and done in Single Player with 15+ days worth of game time. Rayearth, plowed through the campaigns fast and hard. *Warning* Even the the gameplay is simple and generic. This type of character is fairly expensive/gear-dependent, building him made me detour into fully maturing my niob smith/shopper TE and my niob EP Pyromancer HE. When you talk Shadow Warrior melee, there are FOUR things to be considered: 1. how hard you hit 2. how often you hit, what you wanna' hit 3. how often you get hit 4. how hard you get hit. Skill Structure and Gear addresses priority 3 & 4. Your Combat Arts, the way they are modded plus the jewelry your shoppers get you will determine how hard you hit... but it is especially true with "how often you hit." - - this will be explained further along the guide. Skill Selection: FIRST PRIORITY (Skills that need to reach Mastery Level A.S.A.P.) Level 2: Death Warrior Focus - 75pts max keep to your charlvl until you get Demonic Blow 2-3 secs regen, then increase accordingly Level 3: Tactics Lore - 100+ (100-125) pts keep to your charlvl until level 75, enemies level with you and your damage needs to increase along with it. From experience, damage is only satisfactory at low levels and will take you long to kill champions from random trash mobs. Keep it 100, further pts added (if necessary) at the end for least priority. Level 5: Armor Lore - 75 pts no brainer, any melee lass needs it. At level 75, DW focus, Tactics and this are the only skills recieving pts. Thus, they are the first 3 skills reaching Mastery level, except for Malevolent Focus (see below for details). Keep it 75, further pts added (if necessary) at the end for least priority. --- Level 8: Concentration - 1pt Only MC Focus & DW Focus at mastery + "+skills" will take care of the regen times, you only need this for 2 buffs. Any leftover pts. at the end can be invested here if you feel your regen is not to your liking. **personally, I doubt you'll need it.** --- SECOND PRIORITY Level 12: Malevolent Champion Focus - 75 pts max. up until the "level 75 grind," you only need enough points on here to fully mod 1-skill of your choice...that being Frenzied Rampage. Once the first priority skills are mastered build this up to make Frenzied Rampage spammable. Level 18: Constitution - 100+ (100-125) pts. increase this according to your gut instinct, if you feel like you are getting overwhelmed by mobs or if your gonna be up against a really nasty boss then go ahead and increase it by all means. EVEN IF IT MEANS MESSING UP THE POINT ALLOCATION for the 1st priority skills. After all, there is no use building up a HC build, if you are gonna end up dead. Level 25: Combat Discipline - 75 pts max at mastery level we gain -20% regen + chunky damage goodness from any skill/skills in a combo. Master this before even touching skill 8, 9 and 10 (which should all be at 1pt up until Combat Discipline is mastered) THIRD PRIORITY (What Makes a Tank, a Tank...) Level 35, 50 & 65: **There is no real order, this will be up to your preference. Whether you gradually increase all 3 skills to mastery, or you prioritize one over the other is up to you as a player** Toughness - 150+ (150-200) pts You're a melee toon built to be tough so go crazy on this. I personally maxed mine at end game but I got it to 75 first, and mastered the last 2 skills before adding on to it **I don't think I can provide a reasoning as sensible and more convincing as Kaiden's, which is why I'm gonna quote this passage from his guide.** Stat Allocation: 50/50 ratio Vitality and Strength . However the way you increase your stats will vary, especially at lower lvls. You might want to invest your first 20-25 pts in STR first for +dmg & atk val%. Combat Arts: Demonic Blow - wounding > poisoning > trauma 1. This is your boss killer/champion killer, not your crowd control skill. It is designed to take out the highest threat opponent immediately in case you are overwhelmed at early levels, while waning down the rest of the mob. 2. We don't need to reduce the armor, because we are already "ignoring it" in the first place 3. personal preference... I'm a potion chugger, I don't need life leech at early levels. At level 140+, you don't even need to use a potion or life leech. this mod is useful for spikes Scything Sweep - force > intent > rage 1. Damage - we don't need mobs getting knocked back and out of reach of Frenzied Rampage, we just wanna soften them up. 2. Damage - stun? lol, we want them dead... period. 3. Hurl isn't really effective simply because SS is used in a combo with Frenzied Rampage. SS's purpose is to soften up the mobs HP, FR finishes everything within range. Rousing Command - persistence > spur > surge good buff for boss fights. This is GOLDEN during lower levels when you still don't have access to -opponent's chance to evade items. You will almost always not need this outside of a boss fight. Grim Resilience - rejuv > discipline > safeguard 1. you don't need more hitpoints... you have more than enough. 2. -regen goodness, spamming DB and FR is your key to victory. 3. this was chosen because the most efficient way of lvling up was the Orc Cave, due to the lack of Area of Effect and to avoid carpal tunnel by clicking too much Frenzied Rampage - 2x attack > 2x strike > envenom 1. crowd control - as this is used in combo with SS, it's main purpose is to finish off those weakened by SS...the way I kill mobs is like farming in Guild Wars or WoW, walk around grab 10-15, then Spike. More hits = more enemies dead. 2. crowd control - as this is used in combo with SS, it's main purpose is to finish off those weakened by SS...the way I kill mobs is like farming in Guild Wars or WoW, walk around grab 10-15, then Spike. More hits = more enemies dead. 3. I don't need life leech, thus more damage, even if it's DoT is better. Augmenting Guidon - elite > tutor or healing > fear good buff for boss fights... I barely use it outside of a boss fight. Belligerent Vault - reach > unaware 2 applications of this skill. Taking short cuts when your cross countrying and is a great way to start a boss fight Killing Spree - control > perseverance > sway good buff for boss fights... I barely use it outside of a boss fight. When used in conjunction with Rousing Command, this will solve all your chance to hit problems at low-level/mid-level boss fights. Reflective Emanation - backlash > antimagic > riposte 1 & 2. are modded so that you have this 1 buff reflecting close combat, ranged attacks, amd enemy spells and Combat Arts (since Combat Arts are counted as "spells") all at the same time. 3. damage - who doesn't like damage Booster Slots: Slot 1 - Allocate Combo 1. At low levels Combo 1 will just be Demonic Blow to enjoy the high -regen% of DW Focus (putting FR w/ in the combo will only hider it since the the -regen% on the Malevolent Champ tree is still low). At high levels, Combo 1 will be Demonic Blow + Frenzied Rampage. Uses: Spam for Boss Killing, or champion instant kill in case of a mob rushdown (combo assumed to be 1-2.5 secs regen) Slot 2 - Allocate Combo 2. Scything Sweep + Frenzied Rampage. Uses: CROWD CONTROL (combo assumed to be 1-2.5 secs regen) Slot 3 - Allocate Combo 3. At low levels Combo 3 will just be "Rousing Command + Augmenting Guidon + Killing Spree." Upon Mastery of Combat Discipline, Combo 3 will be "Beligerent Vault + Rousing Command + Augmenting Guidon + Killing Spree." Uses: Boss Debuff & Player Buff (combo assumed to be 1-2.5 secs regen) Slot 4 - Beligerent Vault - Utility for short-cutting during your cross country walking throughout Ancaria. Equipment (end game): **since this is a very gear dependent build, I will be as thorough as I can be on this, put forth what I personally used. I made various changes as I progressed to higher levels, and obviously as my farmer/shopper found better stuff** 1. Damage Mitigation - you should be looking for something ranging from 60-80% damage mitigation to all types of damage, depending on how many Darwargon's Circlets and Tanit's Collar you have to socket your your stuff with. At low to mid-level game, your only damage mitigation sources will only come from Glacial Defender/Armatin's Shoulder pads. AT END GAME: - Get your shopper/EP farmer and hunt for a 1-2 socket Torso Armor & Shoulder Plates with damage mitigation mod on it. **The one I am currently wearing is a godly 2 socket Torso Armor (+15% dam miti, 4x% deathblow), socketed with Tanit & Darwagon, 2 socket Shoulder Armor (+15% dam miti, -2x% DW regen) socketed with Tanit & Darwagon.** - level 190+ Glacial Defender, socketed w/ Tanit - optional: If you feel like wasting more Tanits/Darwagons, Bust out your level 190+ Armatin's Belt and socket them, this will take you to 71-80% total damage miti comment: combine this damage mitigation w/ max toughness, 50% vit, 100+ constitution, spell resistance & combat reflexes mastery. you'll be a "God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals." You can literally leave your Shadow Warrior on a boss on Niob and take a nap, and you'll wake up seeing the same thing going on (unless of course, you turned on Reflective Emanation, which would've killed the poor thing) 2. +chance your opponent cannot evade/-opponent's chance to evade - this is where this build suffers. you have godly defense and damage, but you can't progress if you can't hit for s***...this is where jewelries come into play. At low levels, you'll probably just Flame Smiter/Ronuil's Tears plus some jewelry assistance but at mid to end game this is when you'll depend on your shopper mostly. you'll need dual modded jewelries w/ this mod and another... Consider using Armatin's Battle Gauntlet's socketted w/ 1 Rare Duo modded ring (+chance your opponent cannot evade/-opponent's chance to evade), both items are a fairly easy find for someone with a mature Shopper and EP farmer. For early game until late game Flame Smiter is a very good source of this mod. 3. +chance to disregard opponent's armor % - This is a very under appreciated mod, but this one really shines at high levels. At 50+% you will be hitting anything as if they didn't even have armor on and will be taking the max damage possible (by the way I understand it). Well, regardless... your REAL DPS increases as opposed to the written DPS on your character screen. Sources are usually shopped rings or the rare Silala's Ring. Braise your shopper and go lose yourself. you'll need dual modded jewelries w/ this mod and another... consider using 1-2 Silala's Rings + Stradal's Hammer, both Legendary items though. 4. "Another" Being.... (anything that will boost your damage lvls or improve you overall), such as - + All Skills + All Combat Arts + Critical Hit Chance % - anything over 30% is good. **mine is at 48%** (30 is easily reachable with the 2 silala's prescribed + Armatin's Elbow Protector) + Death Blow % - should be 65-70% (jewelry in sockets) + damage % - I personally use + physical (at 157%), since my weapon is majority physical comment: unlike some character builds that require a lot of +skills and +combat arts (100+), this build with the prescribed gear does well at +40-60 all skills and Combat Art, which is pretty low by level 160+ standards. Primarily because, defense is boosted by the damage miti gear, while damage is boosted by the base damage, + damage and the constant proc'ing of crits, deathblow and armor ignore. My Shadow Warrior is in no way a 1 combo shot Boss Killer like a BFG+revered tech Serra, but it can kill all bosses I faced under a minute in niob. 5. Optional - If you still have jewelry space, 1 Artamak's Star would be a great addition. 6. Your Weapon of Choice, since all you jewelry slots and equipment sockets are now full to address the mods, your 1h-weapon should be all about damage. So get the highest base damage 1h-wep you can find w/ at least 2 sockets (silver or higher). Then find two rings with +50 (or higher) base damage w/ another useful mod. Ice Flash (sword) comes to mind. If you want something rarer, Stradal's Hammer (blunt) or probably the best choice. At end-game consider using a weapon with + x% life leech for bosses like Kaldur's Legacy. The leech simply beats out a pure flat-damage weapon. 2 Gold Sockets to so you can just replicate your setup with the Stradal's Hammer. Levelling Up: It's sad, but you'll spend most of your time in this cave levelling up. I am ASSUMING you have played this game through before at least until Plat, and you should know what level your at a certain point of the campaign. This will be the summary of your Shadow Warrior HC life, should you be like me who wants to get to niob ASAP: Start Silver until Orc Region > Do some questing for gear upgrade> Orc Cave > Finish Silver > Start Gold until Orc Region > Orc Cave > Finish Gold > Start Plat until Orc Region > Orc Cave > Finish Plat > Now PLAY Sacred 2, the way it should be played, have fun, explore and kill them mini-bosses... Build Rating (personal opinion): Survivability (Early & Late Game) - 5/5 Damage (Early Game) - 3/5 Damage (End Game) - 4 to 4.5/5 Game Progression - 3/5 level'ing grind - 2/5... yah, you'll get sick of the Orc Cave. Equipment Dependancy - 1/5... to get to the desired damage mitigation level (60-80), deathblow (65-70+), crits (30-40), ignore armor (70-90), +all skills & Combat Art's (40-60) and still have slots on your weapon of choice to socket +base weapon damage w/ +damage% type rings. It takes a long hours of niob shopping, EP Farming. Interesting Note in Ice and Blood + CM Patch: If'you have the CM patch installed, there is an item there called "Gruma's Talisman" that has a higher possible max dmg miti than Tanit's. 60% is still the optimal damage mitigation, 70% for the paranoid, 80% for the one's with a god complex, 90% for the mentally insane (I did this on mine after I got mine to level 200). But with this item it is now possible to hit the 100% damage mitigation w/o sacrificing the necessary mods for this build (3 socketed Tanit's = 12.5% dmg miti vs. 3 socketed Gruma's = 21% dmg miti... big difference). Add this to the new shield item in Ice and Blood "Kira's Wall" that sports a 20+% dmg mitigation to all @ level 200s, which will replace the Fallen Angel's "Glacial Defender", and achieving a 100% dmg mitigation SW that can still deal a truck-load of dmg is now possible. This will free up slot's from your equipment so you can you can use it to improve the build further (not that it needs it). Is this really practical? No, not really... finding uniques even with a "acceptably generous" alteration in your balance.txt, is hard enough. Even with a ridiculously gimped drop rate, finding a Legendary is already a chore. Just saying that the possibility is now available, but you're just gonna have to grind it out if you really want the 100% dmg miti w/o losing damage, deathblow, crit, disregard armor, +skills and + CA.

Thanks a bunch Spunky...

well after finishing niob on HC Shadow Warrior and normal HE... I tinkered with the balance.txt to basically complete all the set items in the game for every prof. I know its not legit, but just for my personal pleasure, and it doesn't really harm anyone as I don't do it in Multiplayer (this is only in SP). there are some elusive items that have not popped out a single time, and I'm not really well informed if its because the drop rate is imbalanced on those specific items or they are just naturally like that, or if they are quest specific, area specific, or version update specific. So, for my sake, please tell me if I'm just wasting my time if they are not gonna pop anyway. I would appreciate any input on this, including "where you got yours, if you have one." With jacked up drop rate, quantity and qualities in the balance.txt Along with the fact that I am farming on an EP Pyromancer High Elf (MF gear), I have started this "quest" to completing this collection nearly 5 months ago (a good 60-100 hours per week). Here are the ones I am still missing. I only farm from the res glyph until the Great Machine 4 Bosses... Shadow Warrior - Cold Grave (Guantlets of Burial, Headgear of Graves) Executioner Aids (Executioner's Mask) Bergonix' Judge (whole set) Seraphim - Sophia's Benevolence (whole set) Illuminated Skies (Northern Lights) High Elf - Ashes of Perdition (whole set) Dryad - Glyphs of Torment (whole set) Tendrils of Time (Helmet of Time) thanks in advance for any info, help or advice...

@ Dobri, I'm planning on the ff changes, I'd love to get your output on it if I'm on the right track. Would a Cordell's Javelin of War (socketed Legoril's Ammy Astute Boni) work instead of the Timora's? - I lose out on double wield but I gain a whopping ~50+% on D. Blow which solves the wicked nerf? Also I have spare +30 skill ammy that weren't affected by the update. I go GI focus instead of DW, to get my third buff Purifying Chasti (goes hand in hand w/ Toughness & some Darwargon sockets for dam miti & some evade chance %), I lose out on Doppleganger buff tough, but if I could get my Astute regen times down I could recast it anyways. I go 3:1 INT/VIT to boost spell intensity... then I'll ride a mount of course since I play HC all the time. The update doesn't really affect me that much since I don't play online anyways except LAN. And I have Sacred 2 installed on another computer with 2.40 on it... as far as Niob shopping goes, I'll just do it there.

equipment seems fine... He isn't really getting hit hard or anything but I noticed that my Willpower seems to have dropped significantly low even w/ the buffs added... used to be xx,xxx amount before but I just noticed now that my willpower only spikes up to 5k with Grim Resilience on... I read the updates of the patch but the list didn't really go into depth of what was changed skills, atts wise... can someone tell me what exactly happened here?

Okay, I actually gave High Elf Pyromancer a roll non-HC on SP and it went pretty well with minimal deaths, mostly due to carelessness. However, already having a utility character, who is both my Niob shopper and Blacksmith. As well as a HC Shadow Warrior finished with Niob, just farming gear and levelling to 200. I really don't want to waste 2 Skill Slots devoted to Enhanced Perception and Bargaining on my proposed HC High Elf. Skills Planned (developed in sequential order) Arrant Pyromancer Lore - priority, 100+ Arrant Pyromancer Focus - priority, 100+ Mystic Stormrite Focus - 75 Concentration - 75, 3 buffs Delphic Arcania Focus - 75 Armor Lore - 75 Constitution - 75 Ancient Magic - 100 Combat Discipline - 75 Delphic Arcania Lore - left over... *Equipment is almost fire-based, will have +skills, +combat arts, etc; but a more varied elemental boni rings will be used in contrast to pure fire boni. The rational is to combo the usual Pyromancer tools with different elements to make the game more refreshing to play, rather than the vanilla cast BT > BT > BT > BT... "oh, there's a boss..." cast MS > BT > MS > BT > MS > loot drops. Combo'ing BT and GS (increasing damage and further reducing skill cooldown time) Comboing MS with rune boosted Cob Stri for godly damage for boss killing. Taking combat disc at mastery level will enable me give less importance to regen gear and more into damge modifiers and xp boosting equip. Buffs used: Fire Demon, GI and CS EDIT: OMGZ, I updated to 2.43 today, only to find that my +skills ammy are now crap ... I was planning to spread myself thin amongst the focuses/lore and have the ammys boost it up, but I guess the nerf just made it much more difficult. Good thing, my Shadow Warrior Buffer, was affected minimally by the nerf. -36 skill didn't hurt him too bad ...

Hello Kaiden, Just a few quick questions? 1. Does this guide consider the bug enemies in Sacred 2, people complaining about 1-shotters,etc; 2. I've always favored weapon + shield over dual wielders in most RPGs I play, will it be viable to switch out DW for Shield Lore... If so, how will it affect the whole build? TY and thanks...