essjayehm

Thanks for the welcome and info Ah ok, that's what I figured as I noticed that one of my inquisitor's moves did in fact recharge more slowly after using an extra rune. I ended up remaking him (he was only 6) because of that. I'm still confused though, about the comment that said console versions had "unlimited rune eating" - do you have any idea what they meant by that? Something about "allskills" was also mentioned in relation to it, but I don't know anything about that either. Thanks again for the help . So... the "unlimited" amount is 15 thousand someodd number of runes. IIRC it's 2 to the power of 32... but amassing that many runes without some type of glich or cheat seems quite improbable. Stormwing's link explains the allskills... IIRC on the consoles you can get +30 allskills on one ring. Don't know about a double-dipper, though... +60 on one ring... how about those odds? Happy Hunting!

Boring... Even the unknowns sound run-of-the-mill. Let's see something like split, something that you have to think about using before slapping it on.

Good luck, guys... and have fun! :jealousstare:

I would agree with DaveO... some kind of Astral-based build would be easiest. But any way you slice it, Niob difficluty will be a chore and a half. Shadow Veil gives you the ability to never take damage... Alchemy will be your best friend for boss fights, but without the Focus skills, you will not be spamming high-level combat arts. I would go with a Skeletal Fortification-based build. Astral Lord Focus would be the only other skill that is required, and work on getting your Shadow Veil set up for perma-invisibility (lots of topics on it around here). After that, the only things you need are runes to put into the SF, and a lot of levels to boost up your skills, modify your combat arts, etc. Interested to see what Knuckes has to say here, I feel any melee character is gimped at this point, and a good player would find challenge to make it to the end of Platinum fighting hand-to-hand. Maybe with the downloads available (dual-Kaldur's comes to mind) it is possible, but not without some of that type of help (Uber-gear).

Don't forget Survival Bonus, and map explored also boost your "chances to find awesomesauce". It pretty much makes EP the "must-have" if you're looking to find unique items. I am still pretty sure that modifying console games is a very touchy and possibly illegal subject, so we must avoid it here. As Lujate said, there is one patch for the consoles, that is applied the first time you play Sacred 2 "online". It does fix droprates (IMO), so if you've only been playing offline, by all means, start up an online campaign and get patched! When the boards were more active, I compared other peoples experiences farming items to mine, and found that anyone with the patched versions saw many more uniques than I did, so I do believe that the patch fixed droprates, somehow.

Again, by "feel"... I would say yes. I didn't do any research on it, though. Literally my first "self-built" toon (not following a guide) was a Seraphim sword and board... and I was able to beat Platinum difficulty at level 82... with very low deaths. IIRC, the only death she had between gold and platinum difficluties was when I decided to see how fast she'd die without her buffs. Melee elves also demonstrate this... all the shield-using elves have had no real issues before Platinum, but polearm elves are very squishy in comparison, easily killed by Orcs in gold... and getting worse from then on.

Heh... no doubt. The other thing I forgot the consoles have going for them over the PC versions is "plug n' play". No worries about the woes that some PC'ers have to go thru to get this game working.

Full-power allskills and "unlimited" rune eating give consoles an edge... and I still love the gamepad setup. After playing Sacred and Titan Quest on PC, I definitely prefer the gamepad (esp. with camera control). Hrm, no windows partition on your mac? Where there is a will...

Yeah... I forget about the achievement crap. Actually, the Bronze difficluty is for getting the no buying, no dying and less than x% of map explored all in one playthrough, IMO.... but maybe not with your first toon. Maybe not

Ah, I see. Level 23 in Bronze... if you're not having any issues with bosses, I suggest moving up to Silver... unless you are going for your class-quest Legedary item... then just beeline that quest, grab your item and get out of Bronze. There are a few reasons: Finishing it doesn't unlock Gold difficulty, only finishing Silver... Getting set and unique pieces in Bronze is not great, as they will have reduced stats, compared to getting them in Silver... You hit (maximum) level caps very easily in Bronze... when the circles under the enemies are green or white, you are not getting very good experience or drops (level of drops are tied to the enemy level)... And other reasons that I am probably forgetting about... the only reason I played in Bronze was for starting a toon, up to level 12 or so to get some health potions and runes for my combat arts. It is a touch tougher to spam Combat Arts with caster-types... but not really much harder with the awesome power of the allskills on the console. RpH does make spamming very easy, I do admit

Oh, yeah... she'll handle it, no problemo. Just no connection for d/l. I guess I could've done it at my work at some point, but now I don't even have that option. Not too worried about it, tbh, when I do manage to get it it can be like a whole new game It is 'planned' to have high-speed infrastructure in place in my area, but not for years... 2 or 3? I can be there in spirit! :trans:

Colour me jealous. Sad that I couldn't get to play some with others... damn internetless regions! I'm gonna go sulk at my beach with a frosty beverage or 10 and drown my envy. Have fun, everyone!

I'll naysay the co-op experience. Being stuck on one screen together sucks when you both know the game... it's OK for teaching someone the game, or running a really weak toon with a strong one... but most of the time it boils down to fustration for one or the other when the killspeeds start to differ. Drops are randomly distributed between the toons, and there is no trading unless you have 2 accounts... very fustrating when you pick up runes or items the other person really wants/needs. Freeworld sucks if you don't have online accounts (cannot party together offline) Cannot change zooms... this game is beautiful and being stuck at a mile high loses a lot of the value of the game (IMO) But as Mystix says, I don't know how you will view these things... to each their own, yes?

Welcome to Dark Matters, Soulcry! A little late to the party, but I'm fasionable that way

When I originally saw the spoilers, etc... I thought "skip it" (hate that camera angle)... but then I found out it's a Todd McFarlane IP, that that kindof piqued my interest. (Fan of his work, mostly because I collected his comics when he worked for Marvel... and Spawn, ofc) Glad to see it is a decent game and that peeps are having a good time with it!

Really all I could think of saying is that a list of skills doesn't get you thru the game. They are important, yes, but which skills you master, combined with a good gear setup and knowledge of the game gets you to the end of Niob difficulty withot dying. Maybe I'm reading too much into the question, but I assumed the OP meant a "hardcore" playthough... But I definitely agree with Knuckles' posts... drop CD and Speed Lore, and one of Dual Wield or Swords. Get MC Focus and EP for sure. The last slot really won't affect your survivability or killspeed, so whatever floats your boat there. Riding to make bossrunning faster, Astral Lord Focus for a utility combat art (Shadow Veil for emergency disappearing acts, or Rallied Souls for summoning fun, yada yada.) Happy Hunting!

Meh, LF is quite powerful on its own, JK... should be no issues... get JT modded correctly for bossfights and just shock them with the 'easy button'. Happy Hunting!

Not having an internet connection at home, of course I have to use one of these. I bought a 32 gig a few months back... just before the bottom fell out of the price Paid ~50 Canadian dollars for it... and now the new ones (64, as the OP) are the same price. I Technology.. with a

Glad I could help?

I'm in. Need 3 more peeps to split on one of these bad-boys. Where'd the Holos brothers go?

Could be viable, for a caster I suppose... but then you need all the debuffing power of DS you can get for bossfights... so it pulls your modding of DS in different directions. CM + Thrust or LA is the go-to combo for caster-Inquisitor's. As a hybrid, CM + Rutless Mutilation is somewhat better, considering that with RM, you can get RpH (among other effects...). If you're just looking for something different, it's just fine. If you try hard enough, DS with wildfire can do great Area of Effect just on it's own! ED is too random to be dependable. Laughably, about half the time, it will asplode a corpse that isn't in range of any of the CM survivors... like one behind you or somesuch BS. But IMO you always want both range mods on CM.

Yes, the placebo effect. I saw a news piece on antidepressants, and that only 1 in 10 test studies actually showed that the drugs they were testing had any discernable effect above the placebo. Of course, the companies that do the tests only submit the postive studies to the FDA for approval... and the regulatory body doesn't consider unsubmitted results.

Good to hear your Elf is coming along nicely, Dordledum! (save for a couple of speedbumps...) Nimrod - he reflects He's and inquisitor that casts Reverse Polarity. If you were Coup-ing with shurikens, you most certainly killed yourself. Melee, I'm not so sure he always has the cc reflect mod on his RP, can't remember exactly. Demons! quest is actually the hardest quest in the game (IMO), from a Hardcore point of view. Only the most borken toons I've had have not had to use thier god-power to survive the 3rd wave without getting killed.... If I don't want to lose my SB, I don't do that quest.

Not too sure about that, Augmit. I think it was, IIRC. Pre Ice and Blood there was no real cap on ca level/runes read so with alot of runes and a lot of un-nerfed +all skills some high numbers were possible, I'm not sure how high people ever got their Combat Arts though. @Lujate: Careful shopping can get you items with both +Aspect: and +Combart Art (all, or buff) AND 2 sockets. The highest I've seen around level 120-ish is +12 to aspect and buff, 2 sockets for jewellery (since Niob runes only give +6, rings and ammys go higher, we want jewellery)... 400 seems like a good challenge to hit, but not unfathomable with the pre-IB game. I can't say I've gotten anywhere near level 200 Combat Arts. Definietly not enough patience and too many "total restarts" (ie console crashes, erasing all saved data) to get higher than that. I've eaten that many runes, but the toon never got high enough level to properly leverage it - add more levels via gear, raise HCALWP enough, yada yada.

EP as a secondary skill on the SW... so since you're on console (Blacksmithing doesn't work) you should pick either Divine Devotion or Riding. 8) Either, really but I like riding if this is the summoner you want to level in the swamps... using the movespeed of the hellhound is fun when your army has pretty much obliterated the screen and you need fresh enemies for your XP addiction... and the bonus is that your army will teleport to you when you move far enough away, so no need to wait fo them to catch up! As to weapon - 2H hafted! But you do not need hafted lore with Spectral Hand (at all) as the Astral Lord Lore skill actually determines the speed at which that combat art fires at. Ruthless Mutilation uses your attack speed to determine animation time, which is affected by Hafted, but is still not really necessary (even with a 2H weapon). There's a crapload of attack speed out there, it can be capped with just one item in the lategame. please note carefully used wording