Cassial

Thanks for confirming what I've been thinking, although it sure sucks being pure DW/shopper melee and having absolutely zero Area of Effect, but I can't see the AS area damage being good enough, I'll stick with the pure damage mod. That's the same combo I do, pelting + AS to get to targets quicker >_>

Hey all, I'm fairly new to the game and pushing 50 with a DW shopper Seraphim. The second mod of this skill according to the Sacred 2 wiki has me on a fence, to say the least. ~20% weapon damage on Brawn versus inflicting area damage on nearby opponents with the somersault, the Impetus mod. Thankfully the wiki at least tells players what the exact value or an approximation of brawn equals to, because the ingame tool-tip leaves one to wonder "increases weapon damage" is just plain vague. Anyway, I was hoping to get some feedback on those with experience on melee Seras, do you find that you need the Area of Effect damage on the somersault or that not taking the straight up weapon increase damage is fail? I'm in this boat because my build excludes the other two trees and I'm really really hoping to make use of the area damage somersault, doing nothing but pelting strikes spam is getting kind of redundant for killing huge groups. The next Seraphim build I try will most definately be a celestial build or something with some crowd killing power, anyway. I've done my homework and have read up on what proper mods to take for my other abilities, obviously keeping my Combat Arts at level 1 to pump battle stance, I even have myself some rare boots with +4 battle stance, socketed with a +3 battle stance ring, so I'm trying to be thorough. But specifically pertaining to the somersault, I don't see any guides mention it remotely, or anything on the wiki about it, and this will be the third Seraphim I've taken to 50 now for messing up my builds, trying to get it right this time, completely :>

Me personally like when I'm able to play without pots at all. It's my 'thing' Even with both Inure and toughness, 70% phys and 40% rest types DM, const mastery and 30k armor, the fire nameless guardian takes away half of my hp in 2-3 hits. I find it funny actually when people socket only +all skills rings and then wonder why they have to bash spacebar all the time. Now you guys have got me kind of concerned, but we'll see when we get to Niob. I'm playing the same hybrid idea with just toughness/armor lore/constitution, I'll make an invincible character later when I get the stacked damage mitigation gear to pull it off, as mentioned in the demi-god guide. I don't expect it to be a cakewalk either, challenge is a good thing. My Inquisitor happened to find a Vlandhar's Revenge unique hammer, level 48 today in a chest after talking to Giles at Seraphim Isle, heh, nice little surprise. Do you guys just run General Terus every 10 levels for Boneslicers when you outgrow your weapons? Or is that considered cheesing? =P

I use the AS spider because when I'm using the mount it generally means I'm grinding or overland traveling. For those circumstances, I want better performance from my Area of Effect, which of course is AS based. I don't need fast regen on debuffs or melee while grinding, and I pretty much always dismount for bosses. As for regens, its a complicated issue. I'll try to explain how I make those decisions, but ultimately its something that everyone just needs to get a feel for to match regens to your personal playstyle. I use a sliding scale, and a fair bit of subjectivity, but my general rules are to keep buffs levels to focus penalty level first. Second, I try to keep enough 'regen on hit' such that 2 hits (1 CE, if both hit) will fully recharge my melee CAs (and my debuff combo: I picked the exploit gold mod on RP this second time around and as such sometimes like to quickly raise minions with the IS combo, though leveling this one higher would be fine as well, which is what I did the first time around). I usually try to keep the AS combo regen down to where around 3-5 melee hits will fully recharge it (depending on how its been performing and my mood, sometimes I'll go higher). So for me, its not a matter of keeping everything to X number of seconds; that value is all relative to the amount of regen on hit I'm toting around. For example, say I'm using gear that gives me 1.0s regen on hit: I want RM and CE to have a regen of 2.0 seconds (you could keep RM a bit higher if you want to and just use CE alone on bosses), and the CM/RT/LA combo to have a regen of about 4.0 seconds. The IS/DS/MP(CE) combo I'd want at around 3.0s as well (to be capable of quickly raising minions if/when I care to), although it could also be kept at very high regen to maximize CA levels, if you only use it on bosses. For the AS combo you can definitely get away with a much higher regen time if you need to; I've had success with it up to around 8.0s, but after that, RM vs. a small group won't reliably recharge it anymore (unless you're going a bit overboard with regen on hit). Finding the right balance of regen on hit and actual regens, while keeping buffs leveled up is pretty subjective business; more RoH is great, but you don't want to devote many gear slots to it. I devote a single slot, either a socket, or a gear piece like those Ilgaard's gloves, and it seems like more than enough to me. When I wrote to keep things at 1 rune, I just mean "for a while". Basically, you'll want to get a feel for how everything performs together before reading runes, but reading some later on is definitely good as long as it doesn't negatively impact how you're playing. I don't usually start reading runes on attack CAs until around level 75 or so, but you certainly could if you had a good idea of what you want everything to do long term. Just to give an idea, on my previous Inquisitor, I ultimately read runes for all the AS attack CAs up to focus penalty level and still had regen where I needed it to be. On that character though, I had to leave GI CAs at 1 rune (but boosted via gear) because I didn't have GIF. This time around, I expect I'll be able to pump the GI CAs quite high as well. Anyway, glad to hear you're having fun! This class, and especially the hybrid builds I've run for it are so much fun, every other class is pretty much ruined for me in comparison... Thanks again man, yeah, that clears things up, I'm using your build except bargaining for toughness, and TL for GIF, so my GI Combat Arts are wicked low sitting at like 1.4 seconds. It's definitely time to read some runes. I think I'd rather do 150+ Combat Discipline though as opposed to just 75, and letting AS Focus be a little weaker, what do you think on that specifically? I saw your comment on r00ster's video by the way, saw his profile and his build is basically same as ours with the exclusion of Toughness for Tactics lore, going balls out offense (I'm betting he took Inure though, I'm starting to see how this all fits together now =P) he's going to have insane melee with that but will probably be quite squishy. Anyway, on that note, I dumped a ton of points into Toughness immediately upon hitting 35, I've felt very squishy in the Orc lands, but it's great, zero deaths and keeping it that way :>

No worries. And by all means, copy away! If I wanted to keep it a secret, I wouldn't have posted build ideas here The more people we've got working on similar builds the more perspectives we can offer to the next guy. There seem to be plenty of counter intuitive mechanics in this game, which is what makes putting something like the wiki together so difficult. Anyway, I've never personally tracked reflect damage to make sure it stays the same with SR active, but based on how the game mechanics work, it should work that way. I can say that I still notice RP reflect damage doing its thing with SR active. Considering the impact of SR on the frequency you actually take damage, I think I'd notice if it was reducing reflected damage frequency in a similar fashion, and I don't notice a change. For what its worth EDIT: Also, keep an eye out for the EOTS v2.0 thread. I'll probably put it up within a couple weeks (home computer is kaput atm, so whenever they get me a new motherboard/power source is probably when I'll get to it), and your in game experiences and feedback would be most welcome! Just a quick update, burned through from starting over to level 35'ish, although I don't think it matters too much, I just got the GI spider. Do you guys rock the generic one or AS? I'm thinking that keeping my maelstrom combo at 10 seconds is perfectly fine, it's at 7 when not on the GI spider - it takes every bit of 10-20 seconds to find good sized groups to crush anyway (and the whole point is to take them out in one cast, I'm maximizing AS lore and keeping my spell damage up) although if I took the AS spider I suppose I could eat runes. :> This build is insanely fun. About how many runes do you guys try to eat or what's *your* general rule of thumb? My GI melee combo is at 2 seconds, my Maelstrom combo is at 7, and I really think it could use some more runes but I'm just paranoid about eating them. The single target debuff DS+IS+MP combo is roughly 10 seconds as well for me, since it's used maybe once per boss fight, it should be way more leveled than that, probably. Playing a seraphim without concentration or tactics lore severely limits regeneration and has me in the mindset of just leaving stuff at level 1 and letting +skills compensate, but that's the beauty of this game - managing your own timers and figuring out how much is excessive. Anyway, just curious on what the regen timers are and what levels your combos are at~ You suggested in your guide to leave LA, Maelstrom, and RT all at just 1 rune, yet putting so many points into the focus, so that's why I'm wondering :< I'm thinking the points could go into Combat Discipline past 75 anyway without 4 combo chains for added CA damage if we're leaving the Combat Arts at just 1 rune?

Thanks so much for the timely replies, this clarifies exactly what I want to do now - I've fallen in love with the triple combo of CM + LA + RT, so combat discipline is a must, but beyond just that it will be the option that keeps my spell damage as high as possible. Basically exactly what you're doing MT, keeping the melee CA on a seperate timer, I'll go with this build now for sure. Hallow seems far more versatile to me now looking at it, than just straight up Tactics Lore, since it'll increase the spell damage as well, but yeah, it's making sense now. I also had no idea Soul Reaver would still work at full capacity with RP, it's such a subjective situation with the two skills, and looking at it completely on the surface one thinks, hey, they're contradicting each other, it must be bad. I'm currently starting over for like the 5th time now, but I'll keep my Seraphim as my shopper, she found my Inquisitor the Catharsis' robes last night to boot. Hope you don't mind me copying your spec, thanks again for setting me on the right path, splatting tons of mobs together with maelstrom sure is fun :>

Hey all, first post ever, I just got this game about a week ago for the PS3, and I've already pumped probably 60 hours into it. TLDR version: blah blah blah, I want to run just 2 defensive skills (armor lore/high constitution and hope melee reflect via RP will carry me defensively), try a hybrid spec, but am worried my melee will suck. Oh, and just 2 buffs. It's killing me that I've read so much and digested so much general game knowledge, but have yet to get past the dragon islands in silver. In short, I got a Seraphim to 50, realized I made some bad choices on skills, (went balls out offense, so no defensive skills will ever make it through Niob from what I'm reading) started up another, get to 37, *accidentally* picked another wrong skill (went afk to read up on what to pick, get back and left the skill screen up and hit a wrong button upon getting back, FML), get another to 30, and then realized it was going to be nothing but pelting strikes spam for another 170 levels =P I could stick with her and make her a shopper from what I understand, that's a very solid choice I see players recommending for Niobium - which would free my Inquisitor to not require bargaining. Onto my concerns, being a very min/max player, and I'd like to think I have a pretty good understanding of game mechanics wherever I go; in this case I've spent probably a day researching the various build guides here and educating myself on the general stuff, yet I'm still unclear on a few things. Heres a few very specific questions to those who have tried the "Eye of the Storm" build or "Darth Sion" guides - These builds emphasize specializing heavily in Astute Supremacy and Gruesome Inquisition, and lightly in Nefarious Netherworld Aspects, basically, it's a hybrid build that still packs serious melee power. I'm drawn to the appeal of having such devastating Area of Effect capabilities while having more to do than just spam a one button melee strike CA. Anyway, for those who have tried these hybrid Inquisitor builds, these guides recommend EITHER Gruesome Inquisition Focus OR Tactics Lore, but not both. I've checked the Sacred 2 wiki even, and dug through tons of posts but nowhere does it really clarify this glaringly obvious question for me - If I'm understanding MTCityHunter's guide correctly, I'm reading that Tactics Lore ONLY effects normal attack damage, and not Combat Arts like Callous Execution at all. Here is the quote itself in question: "The great thing about the melee arts is how well they scale with weapon damage, etc. They require very little in terms of specific optimization to retain very good damage long term, so they'll always be there to fall back on when you need them. Bear in mind the one thing that tactics lore has over GIF for melee damage scaling though: normal attacks. GIF doesn't help those at all, while tactics certainly does, so if you don't keep regens to the point where you can spam melee CAs, you could well do more melee damage with tactics. IMO that's trivially easy to do though, especially considering you would after all have the focus to keep the regens down. Coupled with regen on hit, you can spam melee CAs pretty early on in a character's life and never use a normal attack." Okay, so, get Ilgard's gloves, and abuse the hell out of regen-on-hit gear, keep the regen times low for nonstop melee spam CA, I get that. But, how can this build claim to do great melee damage with just one or the other I guess is what I'm getting at, unless Tactics Lore *only* effects normal attacks? I can't imagine that Tactics Lore doesn't effect CA damage, it seems like a passive straight up increase to any attack made with a weapon, or at least how it's worded. Anyway, it's such a noob question and I'm perfectly aware of that, but it bothers me that this build is *one or the other* - I just want some feedback from those who have tried this hybrid spec, have they found their melee damage terribly lacking without Tactics Lore? Before I get another 50 levels into it and wish I had done something differently. Ideal skills at the end should look like this: Dual Wield Tactics Lore GI Focus AS Lore AS Focus Combat Discipline -I really really like chaining CM + LA + RA- Please tell me Combat Discipline is a pro choice, I'm seeing a lot of builds not take it- (Does this compensate damagewise for a tradeoff between Tactics Lore or GI Focus?) Concentration- 1 point, screw soul reaver, it seems so crutch to me =\ 2 buff build instead of 3! Not to mention it completely contradicts Reverse Polarity Armor Lore Constitution NN Focus - torn here, I don't really think I will need the modded soul reaver, but that's my inexperience at higher levels speaking Thanks in advance for anyone who sifts through this and gets back to me, I'd really appreciate just any insight from some experience. It's awsome having such freedom to customize, and this game has such complexity for advancing a character. But such complexity is a double edged sword,not at all noob friendly, and I've seriously spent a day or two just reading up here, this has been quite a gold mine of information. So many subjective questions, and no real experience yet, but I'm getting pretty into it as I go along.