Celestial seraphim and spell damage.

[Llama8 8]

I've got a level 70 nearly-pure Celestial seraphim that doesn't have any issues in Gold (used my Gold template to get her into Plat rather than running through the Gold campaign again), she can kill the Guardians without too much difficulty (once she gets ~3-4 RPs up, they do comparable damage to my 1.5% leach throwing star, not sure what level the RPs are, but they're a lot higher than they're "supposed" to be ). I chose the Delude mod on RP & combined with the insane % chance to evade (from socketted Niobium RP runes, ~11.2% per rune, I've got quite a few socketed ) so I don't really worry much about being hit by melee/ranged attacks. What I do worry about is some of the CA attacks that the Guardians use, it's not much of an issue at the moment since they don't do more than ~10-20% of my HP at the moment in Gold, but I expect that to increase in Plat.

 

So, I had a thought on how to deal with this while playing to my strengths (ie, having stupid numbers of RP up at once): Knockback. It procs on spells (at least, it used to) & it procs per pulse of RP, so hopefully all I'll need to do is carry a weapon/shield socketted with lots of knockback & switch to that for bosses. I think I should be able to kock the boss back into a corner & then spam away, though I'm not entirely sure how Sacred 2 deals with knockback & corners/walls (does it ignore the knockback since there's nowhere for the monster to be knocked back to, or does it keep it inactive for the duration of the knockback?).

 

That's assuming that the Guardians can be knocked back...

[Dragon Brother 619]

Ive never seen the guardians get knocked back by a dryad with darting assault modded for knockback, and that happens so often with normal enemies that they almost fly backwards...so I dont think they can be knocked back...

[Dobri 55]

I don't think bosses can be knocked back at all. In theory, socketing a lot of chance to evade + decent toughness and damage mitigation from armor + chance to block combat arts should do the trick, but that's a lot of modifiers wasted...

 

Since it's no secret the Seraphim are my favorite, I spent a lot of time wondering what to put in a pure celestial build. So far the best I came up with was:

 

Celestial Lore

Celestial Focus

Armor Lore

Constitution

Toughness

Combat Reflexes

Combat Discipline

Ancient Magic

 

And the least 2 skills could be:

1. For pure Celestial, no other aspects taken:

- Spell resistance

- Shield Lore

 

2. For pure celestial in terms of "no other Combat Arts from other aspects used"

- Exalted Focus (to get Battle Stance up and running, since it's much better buff then cleansing brilliance)

- Shield Lore

 

Shield lore is a big asset in any case. Shield lore grants chance to block close combat at mastery level, and that combined with a decent amount of chance to evade and chance to reflect combat arts and close combat can be quite nice. Combat Reflexes + Battle stance is also quite nice, and it may also save you from using a full celestial set (nothing to Leech Life with anyway... for the Pure Celestial girl that is), which will allow you to work on other interesting items: like Niokaste's Wings (inherent Chance to reflect: Close Combat), Endijian's Pauldon (Inherent Chance to Reflect: Close Combat), and other nice rare/set/unique items that provide similar stuff.

 

I haven't gotten around to doing this, but in theory, it should work nicely. The battle stance buff (provided one's willing to stray away a little bit from the standard pure celestial girl) is a great asset in this occasion. If not, Shield Lore and Spell resistance should compensate for it... Technically.

Edited June 29, 2010 by Dobri

[locolagarto 15]

When I first started dreaming of la Chusa I really struggled, because I wanted to make a pure caster seraphim. I just couldn't give up on the buffs from EW and RT aspects. And there is no doubt that pure casters can be a little slower to start at low levels. So that is how the 3 aspect/ dual wield/ caster came to be.

 

I like what you have there Dobri...Could there be another Comprehensive Guide by Dobri in the works?

[Llama8 8]

Yeah, I've taken RT Focus (not sure about Lore) & WEL already, just haven't put many points in them yet, I've been keeping Celestial Lore/Focus & Ancient Magic maxxed (& IIRC putting the remainder in Constitution). Once I get to level 75 I'll probably stop putting points in AM & shift over to the energy shield-affecting skills.

 

I'm not really worried about melee, since I've got a lot of evade & there's the attack value reduction from Radiant Pillar as well. I'll post my build when I get home.

[Dobri 55]

When I first started dreaming of la Chusa I really struggled, because I wanted to make a pure caster seraphim. I just couldn't give up on the buffs from EW and RT aspects. And there is no doubt that pure casters can be a little slower to start at low levels. So that is how the 3 aspect/ dual wield/ caster came to be.

 

I like what you have there Dobri...Could there be another Comprehensive Guide by Dobri in the works?

 

Well, we will see, loco... Since the new Ice and Blood style technobabe died because of the windows problems, I started thinking on another build. Even though I didn't manage to make her get to plat or niobium, I am 100% sure that the Ice and Blood technobabe works perfectly and all she needs is subbing shield lore for ancient magic in soldats' build.

 

Now this one is much more unorthodox. Not many people take the celestial aspect exclusively. The celestial aspect has a single type of damage (Magic), which is a problem, and this seriously limits your hunting options. I must admit, it is completely against my nature to put my faith in a build that has a single type of damage, since I'm still not certain how the elemental weapon modifiers affect the spell damage (for spell CAs) and whether they do so at all.

 

As for defense, the experiences with the bosskiller seraphim have clearly shown that Battle Stance alone can provide great survivability against the toughest bosses even with minimum defensive skills taken.

 

Still, it looks like we're delving into something very interesting and it's well worth exploring it.

[Llama8 8]

Now this one is much more unorthodox. Not many people take the celestial aspect exclusively. The celestial aspect has a single type of damage (Magic), which is a problem, and this seriously limits your hunting options. I must admit, it is completely against my nature to put my faith in a build that has a single type of damage, since I'm still not certain how the elemental weapon modifiers affect the spell damage (for spell CAs) and whether they do so at all.

+% magic damage (& +% damage) are the only ones that affect spells (though I'm not sure what/how Direct Damage works).

 

My seraphim:

 

Celestial Lore

Armour Lore

Celestial Focus

Combat Discipline (doing it again I'd probably swap this for Spell Resistance)

Ancient Magic

Concentration

Constitution

Shield Lore

Rev Tech Focus

Warding Energy Lore

 

I'm wearing the full Celestial set except for the helm which is a Seraish helm (+all CA & Willpower) & I've socketted 11 Niob RP runes which is giving me a level 56.2 RP. Interestingly I've just found a 2.5% leech two-handed sword (bringing my % leech up to 4%).

[Dobri 55]

That is great, but you need a direct weapon or AW attack to trigger the life leech. The RP level is great, but in the end, AW will still do most of the damage, even at lower CA level, as long as your dual fireballs can hit the enemy. Honestly, I would feel very much tempted to use the AW in the end and that will very much destroy the idea of a pure celestial caster.

 

The biggest bonus that the Celestial aspect provides is that all CAs hit and don't do an Attack Value check. It is a pain in the backside to try and get a decent chance to hit against the guardians with a revered/celestial caster. It usually takes at least 7-8 opponent evade -%/COCEA +% modifiers to get to 80%+ at higher levels. I guess this is the biggest asset that should be exploited here. Maximize the damage, maximize the CA level, keep the defenses in check, and spam RP. With decent evade+reflect chance provided by Battle stance, boosted by shield lore's block and a decent damage mitigation provided by toughness + set items, everything should be ok.

 

I guess I went quite in-depth here, but that's justified. I was going to make a short one, but post number 1000 should be insightful

 

Now all I need is to come up with a decent amount of set parts that doesn't hinder the fighting capabilities of the seraphim.

 

Head: Wisdom of the Celestial - +Aspect, -Regen time. Since we'll be using the celestial aspect exclusively, + all CAs is not so important.

Torso: Garment of the Celestial or a rare armor with +Damage Mitigation/+All skills or something useful.

Shoulders: Gown of the Celestial/Endijian's Pauldrons - Damage mitigation+RP (for pure caster) or Close combat reflect (with Battle Stance) - still, I think Gown's better in Ice and Blood.

Wings: Endijian's Wings/Niokaste's Wings - Damage mitigation or Close combat reflect, same reasons as shoulders.

Arms: Justice of the Celestial - +Baneful Smite

Gloves: Righteous Hands of the Celestial/Blade Breaker (unique) - +All CA, +Block Chance Close Combat

Belt: Braid of the Celestial/Sash of Sacrifice (3-socket)

Legs: Fate of the Celestial - +Celestial Lore

Feet: Stride of the Celestial - +Celestial Focus, +Evade

Weapon: Soorn's Doombringer with battle Stance (provided you have one) - +reflect Close combat/+all Combat Arts or Tinwora's or something else.

Shield: Kira's Wall/Glacial Defender or something with big block chance +%

 

The biggest problem is that if we want to get the +Aspect bonus from the Celestial Set, we need at least 7 set items, which means we can have only 2 set/other items that do not come from the celestial set. In general, that should be Endijian's Wings (or Niokaste's) and Blade Breaker. But one can also opt for anything else that's useful...

Edited June 29, 2010 by Dobri

[rhs408 7]

Was Ancient Magic added for Seraphim in a patch or something? It is not available to her on PS3...unless I'm blind

[Ryanrocker 200]

Was Ancient Magic added for Seraphim in a patch or something? It is not available to her on PS3...unless I'm blind

 

Yes it was added for Ice and Blood

[rhs408 7]

Ugh... yes just confirmed this, AM is NOT available for Seraphim on PS3. FECAL MATTER!ty.