Hard Core for Consoles challenge

[Numerii 1]

I agree with you completely! And my rant about cheating had more to do with the post about turning off the console mid save so as not to incur the penalties that come with dying. This is clearly not an unintentional " feature of the game". And by all means the practice of slotting high level jewels into low level equipment is not an obscure "cheat" available to a lucky few. I'm referring more to those that purposely use these cheats to make an unfair advantage over others in online games.

 

My decision to start this challenge or to convert to PC was not a morale one. But merely a desire to find that challenge that keeps the game fresh. after all, throwing on +200 all skill to your level 1 character and getting to noib by level 65 starts to not be much fun after a while

 

Pfft, I'd give it all up just for the camera options on PC. The camera views in the console version were nearly enough to make me discard this game within the first hour

[stephentheheathen 0]

Saw this post and I'm giving it a go. Thought that this would be a bit of a walk in the park until my level 24 Shadow Warrior died when the cat distracted me in a fight by knocking over my drink on the end table. So I started a seraphim instead because the build was developing too slow for the Shadow Warrior. (Still have him around to see how he develops) I'll try to keep the progress posted.

 

If this works out and I do beat niob with a toon this way maybe we could make it harder, like for instance no buying at the merchant. Socketing and converting runes would be ok, but just use what you find and to make it even harder - campaign mode only, no free world farming allowed. Now that's HC, but first things first..........

[locolagarto 15]

Saw this post and I'm giving it a go. Thought that this would be a bit of a walk in the park until my level 24 Shadow Warrior died when the cat distracted me in a fight by knocking over my drink on the end table. So I started a seraphim instead because the build was developing too slow for the Shadow Warrior. (Still have him around to see how he develops) I'll try to keep the progress posted.

 

If this works out and I do beat niob with a toon this way maybe we could make it harder, like for instance no buying at the merchant. Socketing and converting runes would be ok, but just use what you find and to make it even harder - campaign mode only, no free world farming allowed. Now that's HC, but first things first..........

 

 

Ahh! The imagination to make things more challenging. Exactly the point of the challenge. good luck. I killed a couple toons right off the bat because I had gotten used to all the perks of having a chest full and a high level char to socket stuff for me. makes you slow down and plan more. Have fun

[stephentheheathen 0]

The seraphim died in the cannon cave on the gold coast. Didn't see a trap and zap - dead seraphim. I had wanted to build an ice HE for a while and so far so good. I've had a few good drops and started her on bronze, about to move her to silver because the experience just isn't there anymore. Should hit level 50 this weekend, I'll post again then (if she's still alive).

 

Steve

[locolagarto 15]

The seraphim died in the cannon cave on the gold coast. Didn't see a trap and zap - dead seraphim. I had wanted to build an ice HE for a while and so far so good. I've had a few good drops and started her on bronze, about to move her to silver because the experience just isn't there anymore. Should hit level 50 this weekend, I'll post again then (if she's still alive).

 

Steve

 

Believe me I know the experience. I hit the one on the blacksith tutoria cave by Sloeford with brand new toon and Zap! Pow! Done

 

You can bet I know exactly where that bugger is now and nail it as soon as I turn the corner.

[Numerii 1]

The seraphim died in the cannon cave on the gold coast. Didn't see a trap and zap - dead seraphim. I had wanted to build an ice HE for a while and so far so good. I've had a few good drops and started her on bronze, about to move her to silver because the experience just isn't there anymore. Should hit level 50 this weekend, I'll post again then (if she's still alive).

 

Steve

 

lol I remember that trap now. My first character hit that and was one-shot by it. I was stunned and had no idea what had happened. Went back in and walked right back into it lmao. That time though I did see the symbol on my mini-map. Definitely a lesson learned.

[Rusto 0]

Lol, its the one in the hireling cave that kept getting my new characters. I'm always exceedingly carefull at that point now hehe. On a more related note, this 'hardcore for consoles' idea is how I normally play the game, the character is dead to me if it dies. Unless I'm playing with my gf, sometimes we die =)

[ka243 3]

Building a dryad shopper.

 

Great way to level up new characters:

Do the kobold cheiftan quest and the quest where you have to find the stolen equipment for the guy in soleford. Very easy to do simultaneously because the stolen equipment is on the way to the kobold cheiftan. Accept the quests then teleport to west tyr-lyasa. On bronze difficulty until its easy then repeat in silver. Got my shopper dryad to level 25 very easily this way.

 

Current skills are:

Tactics

EP

Concentration

Nature weaver focus

Bargaining

Combat reflexes

 

Next planned skill is armor lore.

I havent actually used ancient bark yet to keep my regen times low, only using sinister predator fully modded.

 

No deaths yet and buying the equipment. You can get +experience modified by EP on rare belts and shoulders. The kobold cheiftan quest gives me almost 10K experience each time!

I also bought a 0.3 regen per hit ring that is quite useful!

Edited November 16, 2009 by ka243

[Varthlokkur 0]

I'm up for this challenge. I was going to start a new seraphim to work on a build. This would be a great addition to working my theory.

[locolagarto 15]

I'm up for this challenge. I was going to start a new seraphim to work on a build. This would be a great addition to working my theory.

 

 

Good luck. If you like to find new ways to make a game harder. this is def one of them.

[Nikarah 0]

I'm up for this challenge. I was going to start a new seraphim to work on a build. This would be a great addition to working my theory.

 

 

Good luck. If you like to find new ways to make a game harder. this is def one of them.

 

 

level 124, beaten niob, 0 deaths (without any resets).

my third seraphim overall (1st one abandoned at level 11, second at level 18; discovered that riding and speed lore=useless to me).

 

pretty strait forward build;

(in oreder of skills learned)

 

tactics -maxed stays at 75

 

dual -maxed (I didnt take thrust on pelting; and instead maxed his for the double hit)

 

exaulted warrior -maxed will get to 125 for all mod points

 

armor lore -maxed

 

rev tech -31 points (6 mod points divine prot/nova)

 

celest mag -11 points (3 mod points all hallowed; for party heal not DoT as I didnt know DoT HR=rigged at the time otherwise I woulda taken to make my life easier ^^)

 

constitution -maxed; will take to level 199

 

enahanced -5

 

bargaining -5

 

toughness -30 I foolshly dumped 30 points into this before figuring out it does the EXACT SAME DAMAGE MITIGATION with or WITHOUT mastery. I began to suspect this at level 25 and did some experimentation (ie switching all skills gear/comparing pre/post level 75 with the skill table for pre/post mastery on sacred wiki...exact same DM percentages, maybee a bug?)

100 left over points which im not sure where I will dump. (prob EP/Bar though I have no real problems gear wise atm)

 

gear:

helmet of the sereish

divine protection

shoulders of the sereish

wristguards of dusk

niokaste's gloves

niokaste's sash

sofias protection

niokaste's boots

edijians wings (sp?) -will be replaced by wings of seraish as soon as I find some

 

so far ive traded/inherited no gear.

with the current gear setup as a base theres good DM, armor, and plenty of sockets.

I use most of the bronze sockets for hallowed restoration; so my evades at over 300% in conjunction with sofias protection. the ones I dont use for hallowed I either use for anneal or enhance from blacksmith. this keeps my level 99.8 pelting strikes at between 2 sec and 2.3 sec depending on if I switch my gear for +xp or +find sckets.

2 of my gold sockets are for tanits collar and darwinas circlet; which increaes my DM by 6% between the two, with added evade and armor lore.

I use 1 silver socket for a +60hp leech/1.5sec regen ring, another for a +64 hp leech/+17% chance to find ring; and the rest are for +skills and whatever mods I deem necissary. (usually skills/+exaulted aspect.)

for weapons my primary are ice flash/ker's sceptor or flame smiter/ker's sceptor.

my offhands are dual ysandrifa's law with +skills (for shopping).

 

regularly im at 300ife leech, 26,000 hp, 17,000 damage, 24,000 armor, appx 40% DM, 60% find, 32% xp and +appx 200 all skills.

if I switch gear ive gotten near 200% find or appx 400 bargaining (from level 5) depending on what im doing.

[locolagarto 15]

congratulation! Nikarah,

 

Looks like a nice build. Any serious close calls or spots you had to seriously rethink gear tactic?

 

That would make you our first to post a victory ib this challenge! Great job

[Nikarah 0]

congratulation! Nikarah,

 

Looks like a nice build. Any serious close calls or spots you had to seriously rethink gear tactic?

 

That would make you our first to post a victory ib this challenge! Great job

 

a couple times ive come nervously close.

the first was probably the golem boss when I entered platinum at level 42 (I fought him 6 levels later), which proved kinda difficult using gear rarely above level 50. however, not too long after I was able to finally use the level 65 holy protection armor which made the middle part of platinum fairly easy in comparison.

the next time was against the final nameless at the end of platinum which I fought at level 67; he hit me twice back to back and probably had me within 50 HP of death but I landed a quick divine protection to save myself.

the best armor piece I had at the time was still my level 65 (gold mode) holy protection (which I was unable to replace with better gear until level 102 when I finally found a level 125 holy protection), so when I fought the nameless I literally had one hand focusing on bracing the controller and just holding down the attack key, while the other hand potion-spammed.

 

when I got to niob the drops were at least level 100+ and at the time I could only use gear up to about level 80 or so. so for a while I just went back to platinum ad gained some levels and improved my gear substantially before giving niob a try again.

when I finally did at level 95 it was easy going.

 

as for my gear;

ive been using holy protection since level 58, I believe. at the time most of my gear was niokastes. my primary item loadout was holy protection armor, niokastes helmet, sash, shoulders, gloves, greaves, boots and wings with wristguards of the celestial being an armor I used up until I aquired wristguards of dusk in the mid 70's.

this gave me a considerable boost to exaulted focus/aspect for good dmg and regen times. and I didnt replace this item loadout entrely until about level 90 when I finally had enough gear form other sets at apropriate levels to scale back niokastes to 3 pieces without suffering too much of a damage penalty.

 

 

edit:

im currently working on another seraphim; whose build I've nicknamed "the deathdealer"

its a char I plan on taking to niob as a "purist char"

no farming, no bargaining, no trading, no inhereting gear, no xp farming; nadda. just plain doing the storyline and seeing if I can make it with no deaths.

should be very, very difficult; the build doesnt even possess bargaining or enchanced perception, the idea behind this madness of pure solidarity is to test the overall function of a build I have put A LOT of time into revising and revamping.

 

the idea was to take my prevously mentioned build; suck out all the "frills skills" and substitute them with pure combat effectiveness.

bargaining, EP are gone in favor of concentration and warding energy lore.

I know rev tech as far as offensive capabilities goes will suffer without rev tech lore, but I feel the ability to get celest magic modification points+use cleansing brilliance modified to reduce attack speed will more than make up for this deficit (and I believe given the restraints ill be providing myself I'll need all the defesive assistance I can get). I still MIGHT sub ward energy lore for rev tech lore; but I wont find that out till she hits level 65, as that will be the last skill slot I use.

but, that would be a massive sacrifice as once I get to niob ill be quite glad to see energy fields at 10k dmg absorbtion instead of much, much lower.

Edited December 4, 2009 by Nikarah

[locolagarto 15]

Excellent post Nikarah.

 

good luck with your new build and thanks!

[darkmoore1978 0]

going to try this challenge, not exactly by choice, PS3 died, couldn't retrieve old data, so I'm basically starting fresh, hopefully I'll be able to make it( hadn't had a char deathless yet)

[locolagarto 15]

Ah! great to hear. about the challenge not the misfortune of your saves. Since switch to PC every hour of play on HC Closed net servers is payed very much tis way. and it's tough, very tough. How in the world we ever got the first toon to the end of gold is a mystery.

 

Good luck to ya and keep us updated with you adventures( good or bad)

[bigfoot69 0]

I cant even tell you how I got my first dryad to gold even. I was a ranged dry, with very very low damage. I spent like 100 hours to get her to level 40 (Mostly the bosses took up a looong part of my day. I would go through 1000 health potions. Whats crazy is I think I was doing like 80-120 damage at level 40. and now if I were to make some gear up for her, it would probably be around 60,000 damage I kind of want to start a new character hardcore and try it out It could be fun...but 1 thing is, this game is fricken hard if you have no tweaked gear! who wants to start out a new character with me

[locolagarto 15]

I cant even tell you how I got my first dryad to gold even. I was a ranged dry, with very very low damage. I spent like 100 hours to get her to level 40 (Mostly the bosses took up a looong part of my day. I would go through 1000 health potions. Whats crazy is I think I was doing like 80-120 damage at level 40. and now if I were to make some gear up for her, it would probably be around 60,000 damage I kind of want to start a new character hardcore and try it out It could be fun...but 1 thing is, this game is fricken hard if you have no tweaked gear! who wants to start out a new character with me

 

 

If I was still on the BOX I would be there in a flash. 1 of these days I'll have to load it up and give away all my stash.

 

silly me I made a rhyme without even trying.

[keyser soze 0]

I cant even tell you how I got my first dryad to gold even. I was a ranged dry, with very very low damage. I spent like 100 hours to get her to level 40 (Mostly the bosses took up a looong part of my day. I would go through 1000 health potions. Whats crazy is I think I was doing like 80-120 damage at level 40. and now if I were to make some gear up for her, it would probably be around 60,000 damage I kind of want to start a new character hardcore and try it out It could be fun...but 1 thing is, this game is fricken hard if you have no tweaked gear! who wants to start out a new character with me

 

 

If I was still on the BOX I would be there in a flash. 1 of these days I'll have to load it up and give away all my stash.

 

silly me I made a rhyme without even trying.

 

This is pretty much what my wife and I are doing since we are yet to play online with anyone thus we only have what we started with. Our original characters both died VERY EARLY (like first 5 levels) because we had ZERO idea what was going on. We then died again in gold at which point I decided the HE was not my thing and researched a dryad to go along with her SEPH BFG build. Its the one reason I am reluctant to "trade or take" gear from anyone because its kind of cool to be doing this all on our own and every time we look at our items we found we are in huge hopes of something useful. However, trading would be nice because we find all these sets that we don't use and we could "exchange" them for one we could use. I actually wish this was in the game where we could exchange like 3 set pieces for 1 from a merchant or something....

 

We are currently level 62 with zero deaths although we have had a NUMBER of close calls mainly because we still don't really have a clue. First time we faced the mini boss in the swamp I almost died. It was like 1 hour later that I realized why, he took my buffs off which is BAD for a dryad! So we will likely die due to not knowing something about this game at some point.

[keyser soze 0]

Wanted to report that the wife and I made it to Niob on her quest last night at level 88 with zero items from outside our finds. We didn't have as many problems through Platinum as I had anticipated. Wife is doing so much damage with that BFG gun that the bosses are actually dieing FASTER and FASTER. We are having a lot of fun playing together but now I think the game will SUPER SLOWDOWN for us. In platinum the kobalds were hitting me doing anywhere from 3 to 50 damage to me.... well we did the chieftain run and I was seeing stuff up around 1,000! Now I don't know how this scales but I know that we will have to hang out here for a while until my shopper can now do some shopping for us and hook us up with +Skills items to throw in every socket we have. I don't see either of our builds really benefiting from +Combat Art stuff so I will be looking for all +skills, regen/hit (probably just one with good second mod), %damage (probably smith), %defense (probably smith), maybe some -DOT, new relics from shopper, +hit points, DEATHBLOW 40% (have suspicious feeling that this will matter more now in Niob), and a final tweaking of our gear (sets).

 

I am pretty pumped about making this level with zero deaths. Now we still have to go back and walk my guy there (which should get us a couple more levels) but then we will play exclusively there which I am happy about. Our mission is to do every single quest in the game now and uncover every inch of the map starting in the first area. My wife has been bugging me to do all the question marks since the start and I have promised her that we would in Niob so now its time.... well after we get my character there.

 

Again, to anyone out there who is just getting this game (assumption that you have no gear to start) and you are looking to play this game with a friend/child/wife I STRONGLY suggest the RANGE DRYAD + BFG SEPH combo team. They work brilliantly together and if you pace your play style they are EXTREMELY safe. The only time we really get into "trouble" is when we carelessly hold down the combo shoot button which sometimes gets locked onto a target far off the screen which will cause our character to go walking away or even off the screen which can make play very difficult for BOTH players. The next most dangerous thing in the game is the stupid WP spawns when it decides to put us an entire screen apart and we are stuck! This is crap and now in Niob if I see this happening I might simply LEAVE GAME before we actually spawn because this can be certain death.

 

Anyways, there you have it. 2 NOOBS made it to Niob at level 88 with SOLID builds from this board and zero help gear so that at least is doable. If we make it through Niob without a death it won't be for a LONG while as I saw my wife take 2,100 damage from a single hit from a kobald! We need to greatly level up our skills first and get some defensive masteries for her defensive skills like (armor, toughness, warding energy, constitution) Once we get all 4 of those to 75 I think she will be much more rugged then she is now.

[locolagarto 15]

Excellent to hear! good job and have fun

[keyser soze 0]

Excellent to hear! good job and have fun

 

Yeah man, thanks. From what I can tell (from very little time in Niob) the step from Platinum to Niob is like 4 times greater then any other step up in difficulty! Since we play to NEVER DIE, I think we will be a while before we push on for XP in NIOB.

[essjayehm 58]

Excellent to hear! good job and have fun

 

Yeah man, thanks. From what I can tell (from very little time in Niob) the step from Platinum to Niob is like 4 times greater then any other step up in difficulty! Since we play to NEVER DIE, I think we will be a while before we push on for XP in NIOB.

 

Awesome job! Kudos, for sure.

 

I had started my Seraphim just for this challenge. Then around mid-40 levels, I was in co-op, mini-boss hunting with my friends' shadow warrior. Something glitched, for sure, but we both were dead. No crying about it, I thought, there's plenty of time to regain that survival bonus, and carried on with her. That ended the hardcore run, so I ended up raiding my chest for 1 set piece of armour (to get the 5-piece bonus on Niokaste set) and about 100 runes or so, since my Divine Protection was at very low level.

 

I think the very best thing about getting into Niob at this level (80-90), is that now I am forced to look at maximizing every inch of my character (without restarting, of course!) just to survive the damage dealt; even thru to the start of the wasteland of Plat, I was still using level 20 & 30 set pieces (1 was level 75). I spent a few hours shopping at the merchants outside the hub, and that managed to get me into Niob. Then, in Niob, I took a couple of one-shot kills, and decided to put a lot of effort into shopping armour and jewellery if I was to have any hope of surviving this madness.

I like the minimum monster levels in Niob (111 in the starting areas), but unforunatley, the good drops are not useable for a little while yet.

 

Enjoy the crazyness!

Scott

[keyser soze 0]

Excellent to hear! good job and have fun

 

Yeah man, thanks. From what I can tell (from very little time in Niob) the step from Platinum to Niob is like 4 times greater then any other step up in difficulty! Since we play to NEVER DIE, I think we will be a while before we push on for XP in NIOB.

 

Awesome job! Kudos, for sure.

 

I had started my Seraphim just for this challenge. Then around mid-40 levels, I was in co-op, mini-boss hunting with my friends' shadow warrior. Something glitched, for sure, but we both were dead. No crying about it, I thought, there's plenty of time to regain that survival bonus, and carried on with her. That ended the hardcore run, so I ended up raiding my chest for 1 set piece of armour (to get the 5-piece bonus on Niokaste set) and about 100 runes or so, since my Divine Protection was at very low level.

 

I think the very best thing about getting into Niob at this level (80-90), is that now I am forced to look at maximizing every inch of my character (without restarting, of course!) just to survive the damage dealt; even thru to the start of the wasteland of Plat, I was still using level 20 & 30 set pieces (1 was level 75). I spent a few hours shopping at the merchants outside the hub, and that managed to get me into Niob. Then, in Niob, I took a couple of one-shot kills, and decided to put a lot of effort into shopping armour and jewellery if I was to have any hope of surviving this madness.

I like the minimum monster levels in Niob (111 in the starting areas), but unforunatley, the good drops are not useable for a little while yet.

 

Enjoy the crazyness!

Scott

 

We are yet to really play Niob other then for a few minutes in that first day. We are probably going to continue to "farm" in platinum and gradually work me through my platinum quests as well. I would like to be around 100 before we really push through the campaign.... However, this is just the plan and I wouldn't be shocked if we push through much sooner.

[galei 0]

ive decided to take the challenge. starting it tonight with a summoner Shadow Warrior or a BFG seraphim not sure yet. Wondering anybody out their wana start it with me or am I soloing the good fight?