Hard Core for Consoles challenge

[essjayehm 58]

Chapter 3 of Gaia's story will begin with some divination of the future of our Hero. I did skew the order that I chose the first skills to keep the game afoot... but it did not affect her survivability (not taking any defence skills yet) Ancient Bark is very powerful! But, it can't do everything itself, so we'll have to form a plan before moving forward.

I haven't worried about where I put points so far, except to earn CA modifications. Typically, about level 20 I'll stop and start to form the master plan. Now that I have the mods I feel are necessary, I bust out the electronic abacus and start calculation shenanigans.

Looking at level 75, I want Divine Devotion and Ancient Magic masteries (to keep with the theme of the toon). 20 points in Armour Lore is enough for her for @ level 75, and I see there is still over 100 points left to distribute. Now, the million dollar question is - do I want another mastery @ 75... or am I better served with a balanced skill point distribution? From experience I know that with Bargaining, the 3rd mastery (a defensive one) would be best (with the other skills getting a boost from lotsa +allskills). Without bargaining, I am confident that the spread out approach will make a stronger overall toon.

After over an hour of "hrm"-ing and "ORLY"-ing I finally forumlate the future for the next few levels. Since pumping DD and AM don't add any mod points, those 2 will be the last to get their points, even though they are planned 1st 2 masteries! To accomplish that, I have to dedicate all points from level 44 to 75, to get them up to mastery @ 75. I form a mid-way plan how she'll look at level 43, before the AM/DD beeline starts, which gives a good guideline for placing points as I level up. Witout further ado, the culminaton of the preceding wall of text looks thusly: [skill, current points (level 19), level 43, level 75]

Divine Devotion---------1----1---75
Nature Weaver Lore------9---35---35
Cabalistic Voodoo Focus-17--21---21
Concentration-----------1----1---10?
Cabalistic Voodoo Lore--5---21---21
Nature Weaver Focus-----5---20---20
Shield Lore-----------------12---13?
Armour Lore-----------------20---20
Ancient Magic--------------------75
? <-unsure------------------------1?

I'm still unsure about skill #10. There are 3 choices, IMO... Combat Discipline, Constitution and Capricious Hunter Focus. Also, I'm not totally sure where I'll put my 3 'optional' Nature Weaver modification points. I have decided to mod Twisted Torment (2 mods left) to help dropping 2-star shrunken heads from bosses, but with weaver I'm not sure if a gold-modded Tangled Vine, Lances or GGT/Ancient Bark (both) is best. Probably not lances, as I have a bosskilling 'move'

 

Armed with the power of the knowledge of the future, our heroine sets out into Ancaria's Silvery realm. Appearing in Orcish Byway, I ponder teleporting across Nor Plat, but decide that I want a few levels before I hit the dragon boss fight in the caves.

I set out to take a 'tough' route across the Orc region - the Northern shoreline... Damn, those piggies are tough! And those pig... riders, lets say (keeping it family-friendly here) are quite strong as well, so choosing one shrunken head or another (animal or goblinoid?) is tough. But, with AB level 3 and GGT level 2 defence is still good, and the rest of the trek to the orcish naval port goes relatively uneventful, only stopping in Karagh for a sell-off and a couple more 1-1 rune trades, 1 each GGT and Totem.

Of note, I did pick up my first Unique drop... some crappy polearm, sold it so fast I don't even remember which one it was! Ohwell. Level 22 finds Gaia at Seraphim Island.

Beelining the main quest still, I go about my normal run, run, run (and a couple of teleports thrown in for good measure) and I find myself almost to the dragon fight in the caves... only along I've gone along the evil campaign trail ><. Stoopid me and mental mistakes (I've been an avid evil-camp player from day 1... trying the good camp "for a change") I decide that I'm tired, and it's quittin' time, kitten. So, I runrunrun along the evil pathway under the Dragon Sea, stopping only when I come across a good pile of "slaves".

Thru this area, I find that her defence is still OK, but the baby dragon fireballs can put the hurt on, and those fire-damage dealing, halberd-weilding underground elves *coughdrowcough* can dint the HP-bar if they connect with a couple of consecutive criticals. Nothing that GGT can't laugh off, though.

Only 1/4 of a level before I hit 25.. not too shabby, if I do say so myself. Even with fully-supported toons I'm still level 20-25 before I get to the dragon caves, so I am feeling good about her so far. But, now... I do have to find a shield, I've gathered a couple of one-handed weapons for options but no "good" shield so far, and Shield Lore will get added at 25, for added defence for the dragon boss fight.

The beauty of advance planning and sandbagging my skill points is going to pay off, as I have 24 points unassigned right now, and +4 when I ding 25 means that I will pump the 2 Voodoo skills to 21 each(meaning I can mod Twisted Torment and hope for a rare shrunken head), and bump Weaver Lore to get the second insight mod on Acute Mind. For the first time in a long time, I think this is going to be a fun bossfight!

Or she'll die and that will be the end of the story.

[Toya1905 0]

Cool I recently joined the forum, however I plan to join this hardcore challenge.

 

Started I Inquisitor lv26 atm in Silver Campaign will see how for he goes

[essjayehm 58]

Cool I recently joined the forum, however I plan to join this hardcore challenge.

 

Started I Inquisitor lv26 atm in Silver Campaign will see how for he goes

Awesome! Very cool, Toya... welcome to our little corner of the known universe!

 

Good Luck with your Inquisitor... don't be shy about keeping us up to date on his progress!

 

Ciao,

[Mavverik 0]

I have to add to this discussion.

 

I am pretty new to Sacred 2 and never got a character higher than level 50. I tried multiple builds and every classes.

 

With that being said, I wanted to try this challenge since I can't get anything from chest (empty lol) and don't have another high level to help me.

 

I started a 2 handed SW, FR as my main attack with 2 buffs. I am having a blast!

 

I will run it until it dies then I will try something else.

 

Thanks guys, you made the game a lot more fun for me.

[essjayehm 58]

Awesome, Mavverik! Good luck with your run.

 

My only hint at this point is not to forget about health potions. There are so many to be had that there is no reason not to use one if your health goes below 50%. I had many, many HC toons die becaue of my stingy nature and not using a potion, then getting hit with a double-critical or other such nonsense bad luck.

[Mavverik 0]

I was having a blast up to last night. I noticed when I got to level 35 that my 2 handed SW was barely doing more damage than my dual wield seraphim at level 22... So I decided to leave him at that for now and return to my seraphim.

 

I still do the hardcore challenge since all my toons started fresh (no help) and thats how I like to play the game.

 

I feel a lot stronger on my seraphim. At level 29 now, I do 800-900 per hit (no crits) and I went the lazy road and took const and spell resist. When I get hit, I barely lose health and I love it.

 

Will keep you guys informed when I reach level 50+

[essjayehm 58]

Heya Mavverik... that's usually either a badly needed weapon upgrade, or your Combat Arts need a couple of levels. Learned that lesson last night.

 

Played Gaia for a bit, and actually started finding some decent gear. Magical (1-star) and Rares were popping up all over the place, and a few of them were actually 'good' for my toon. 3 uniques dropped last night: Seyr's Klinge (cringe), Mysterious ring (pile of electric llama poo) and Boots of the Vine Leaves (beauty buff suit piece). Kept the cringe just in case I want to make a weapon for buff-suit purposes. SOcketed the boots with another bark rune.

The start was quite shaky, as she was in need of upgrades. As those dropped, I noticed a huge improvement in offense (defence is still OK, but I added a shield for block chance to replace the evasion I lost when I swapped out gear).

 

Bosses - the dragon was easy as pie. I immediately contacted Testa for assistance, and he halved the big lizards' HP. He never flew nor breathed fire so it was actually the quickest (and 'safest') bossfight for Gaia yet. And, to boot, he dropped a head. Yay Twisted Torment spam! Now running with the awesomesauce that is a baby dragon ghost.

Carnach was another exercise in As I thought, as soon as I hit up on the d-pad (godspell), he uses the knockback move. Ohwell. After disposing of his summons, I go toe to toe with the big fire-damage dealing baddie, but he cannot hit me more than 1 in 10 swings, so the rest of the fight is quite boring, if long. I think I need some spell intensity? Totems were not stellar in this fight

Miasma round 1 - Well, Testa isn't helping with these fights (much) but acute mind boosted totems quickly dispatch of these undead.

 

The biggest boost was finding an Torso armour piece that gives Aspect: Nature Weaver +3. Immense boost for GGT and Acute Mind, and now Lances are doing noticeable damage again. For reference, I now have my "used" Combat Arts at the following levels:

Twisted Torment - 2 eaten runes

Mal. Totem - 9 eaten runes

Ephadic Lances - 4 (1 rune +3 gear)

Goldenglade Touch and Acute Mind - 8 (3 eaten runes, 5 gear).

And buffs

Moribund Animus buff suit level 7

Ancient Bark - 1 rune plus 3 from chestplate and +5 from buffsuit for level 9 casting.

[haGrOck 6]

Sounds funny and often I thought how good it would be to have that moment again playing Sacred 2 the first time.

I think I will attend that challenge and I choose the temple guardian! (to be honest I never looted much stuff for the temple guardian, so it is not THAT heavy to lurk in the chest LOL)

[Zaraki 0]

Well, I got my DW Seraphim through Gold. That wasn't terrible, although those Guardians were hitting pretty hard. Started playing Platinum at level 56. Got to the Griff town or whatever it's called and things got pretty hard after that. I did make it to the first boss, but after attacking him and seeing his shields basically not drop from my attacks, I got out of there before he could down my DP shield and critical me to death. I'm back in Freeworld Gold to level up and find some gear. Currently level 63 farming Orc Cave. I will probably do this till at least 65, but probably 70, before going back to Platinum. We shall see how things go from there.

 

Also, figured it's time for a buff suit, so I started making one and collecting pieces specifically for it. It seems like it really is helping so far. Let's see how it will do in Platinum once I go there again.