A new Seraphim test has started!

[Dobri 55]

Yesterday, I was lying in bed, thinking about the utility bosskiller. She's still alive and doing ok, but I was kinda getting bored with the "dashing alactiry + right click and hold" type of play. Granted - it is easy, it is fun, levels fly by like crazy - a new level in less than an hour at level 135 sounds nice (especially as I recall how was it with the veiled buffer SW - a level almost every 2 hours at that point). However, I couldn't shake the feeling that I could do something different, something crazy, something I have never done before.

 

You all know how pedantic I am when talking about defense, prerogatives, single aspect builds, main and supporting aspects and so on. This is why I decided to put that pedantic Dobri to rest and make a build that has everything I do not like to see in a build or do while playing:

- 3 aspects

- very few defensive skills

- no toughness

- no constitution

- a lot of micromanagement

- to put damage above defense

- the need to change sets to fit the requirements of the current hunting ground all the time

- to use buff suits

 

Of course, I decided to go with the Seraphim, as I am the most familiar with that character and have a decent idea how would she carry herself throughout the game. Then I decided to go with 2 + 1 defensive skills and the rest would be all out aspects and damage boosting skills.

 

And this is where I ended up:

 

level 2 - Exalted Warrior Focus - believe it or not, this is our main defensive skill, and the "+1 defensive skill" I mentioned above. Since I am going to put 75 points in it by level 75, I will be able to fully mod only 3 of the 5 aspect skills. These are going to be Battle Stance, Dashing Alacrity, and... gulp... the CA that few Seraphims use at all - Assailing Sommersault. I'll explain why later. In addition to that it will keep Battle Stance's penalty on the regen times withing tolerable limits.

level 3 - Armor Lore - I'd love to go without this one but I can't. It reduces the regen penalty from armor. I'll have to master it in order to ensure better protection. I'm planning to master this skill "second" (as you know, you can master three skills by level 75, so they're all "first"), around level 80.

level 5 - Revered Technology Focus - mastering the focus early will give me the opportunity to play with lower regen times and keep the Warding Energy's penalty on the regen times within normal parameters. I'm planning to master this by level 75 as well.

level 8 - Warding Energy Lore - my second and last defensive skill. It is in the first skill tier, so no need to invest in armor lore early on in order to unlock it.

level 12 - Concentration - to use both buffs - Warding Energy and Battle Stance. If I'm really happy with the regen times from level 170+ (since I am going to master it last), I may add Cleansing Brilliance as well.

level 18 - Combat Discipline - extra damage and -10%/-20% (at mastery) flat reduction on the regen times for Combat Arts in a combo. So I put all my Combat Arts in a 1-CA combo to utilize this bonus.

level 25 - Revered Technology Lore - I decided to take this skill now because I wanted to try some guardians runs and the extra damage would not hurt. She performed superbly with niob smith arts and some + all skills.

- at the moment, I'm right here - level 32. There's plenty to do yet.

level 35 - Ancient Magic - Combat Discipline and Ancient Magic greatly improve the damage of a spellcaster's combat arts. Since I want a lot of damage (it isn't likely that a seraphim can outdamage a High Elf, but more damage is always welcome), I want both these skills present.

level 50 - Celestial Magic Focus - regretfully, I decided to pick this final aspect last. I am going to abuse AW + Shuriken + Warding Energy + Battle Stance against the guardians for quite a while before everything in this build starts to fall in place.

level 65 - Celestial Magic Lore - final aspect complete.

 

There it is. I agree, it kinda looks like the Sariel's Thongmage Seraphim, but this one has much more firepower and is far less invincible. She also needs a lot of care and careful mod picks in order to compensate for the lack of decent defensive skills:

 

1. Battle Stance - Premonition (better atk value, it will help to get a better chance to hit with AW in general against any enemy), Flexibility (evasion - since I want defense, I am going to work on it, so drill is out of the question), Retaliation (reflect close combat - I am going to abuse that).

 

2. Warding Energy - Projectile Reflection/Magic Mirror/Block. No surprise here. I want defense through reflection, and even though I really like the field force mod, I have to make this seraphim stand her ground well almost everywhere.

 

3. Dashing Alacrity - Bloodlust (better atk/cast speed)/Delay (improves duration)/Ardor. The playthrough with the Utility Bosskiller has taught me that at some point, when Exalted is mastered, DA modded for Impatience + 1 buff sits at 41.2s regen time, while the duration slowly increases. At level 135 with around level 92 in DA, I have 44.3s duration vs 41.2s regen. This means that the duration will slowly improve, and I'd rather pick the Ardor mod for better regen time of all aspects while DA is active.

 

4. Assailing Sommersault - Spurt/Impetus/Bewilder. What matters for me here is that EWF is a defensive aspect for me and I will use AS as a defensive CA. When you hunt in a well populated area, it's easy to get surrounded, and sometimes even a bigger capacity shield can be dropped down. Bewilder mod greatly helps in this instance, as I am well aware that since I don't have constitution, I'm generally low on HP.

 

The rest of the offensive combat arts will be modded for crits, stun and damage, nothing new here. I will also most likely mod Radiant Pillar for hypnosis, because there is a really nice synergy between RP and AW. Slap a RP, monsters go to the center of it, hit an AW with Explosive mod at the enemies and you get a nice carnage.

 

As for armor, I'm planning to use a Celestial set + Niokaste's Wings (they provide substantial close combat reflect, which is better than a little more damage mitigation in this case) and a mixed set with a lot of sockets with Endijian's Paudrons and Niokaste's Wings, as they both provide close combat reflect, which greatly improves that Battle Stance has to offer me.

 

For a weapon, I will use a shuriken with LL% against the bosses. AW modded for salvo + Celestial + Shuriken is like 2xLL% at the same time. I might even add some deathblow later in the game to make the AW even more dangerous. Stacked DB in niob can go over 60% on a single ring, which is amazing. My secondary weapon will be the wicked Soorn's Doombringer. Only 1 socket, but it boasts +Chance to Reflect Close COmbat and + All Combat Arts. Amazing.

 

For a shield, unless I find a decent rare, Kira's Wall or the Impenetrable protector (for even more close combat reflect), I will alternate between the Glacial Defender and the Stalwart Safeguard, depending on the set I wear. For the Celestial set, Glacial is better, as I trade off defense for Damage Mitigation. For the lots of socket set, Stalwart is better, as 10-18% damage mitigation alone isn't much.

 

It is going to be a fun playthrough.

[locolagarto 15]

Sounds exactly like the evolution that brought me to my la Chusa 3 aspect seraphim. and at level 132 I have not even begun to explore all her potential.

 

good luck with your test. it sounds like a fun one.

[Ryanrocker 200]

After hitting up those guardians with you Dobri, I must say this build is looking very promising

[Dobri 55]

Thanks And I must say you are a great team player, Ryan. Keep up the good work and the niob servers are yours to conquer

[Dragon Brother 619]

Looks interesting...I kinda wanna make a seraphim again soonish...as my next toon, but I really dont know how Im gonna play her...this could maybe be fun though...

[Etherian 76]

Best of luck with your test Dobri. This 1 looks very interesting.

 

Please keep us updated in her travels.

 

I remain, Etherian

[Dobri 55]

Yes, Sir, I'd love to do that

 

The biggest problem with this build so far is balancing the combat art regeneration times. Yesterday I got her up from 1 to 43. For now, if I hunt normal mobs, I can go without turning on any buffs and work with level 1+ on AW and Flaring Nova (1+, because it's boosted by +all combat arts and +CA modifiers on items) for quite a while. Versus bosses however, when I turn on both buffs - I kinda got carried away here - both my buffs are close to: CA level = Charlvl/2, while the game gives 1/4 as a rule of thumb - I'm looking at 2.7s regen time on the AW. Not that it's much of a problem though - I just need to keep the proper relics on and do the battle with both mouse buttons pressed, so that she throws a star while the CA is regenerating.

 

However, I am noticing that combat arts slowly begin to balance themselves. 6-7 levels back with a lotal of 130% penalty on the regen times imposed by the buffs, I had 3.0s regen time on the AW. Now with the same value, the time is 2.7s.

 

Now the biggest challenge is to drop that regen time to under 2.0s with both buffs running at a respectable level

 

EDIT: I'm starting to think that this is becoming a build for Sacred 2 Masters... you really need to put everything you know about the game in it in order to slowly make her effective. A Caster Seraphim with 1 buff was hard to manage, now with 2 - that's a whole different matter

Edited July 20, 2010 by Dobri

[Dragon Brother 619]

Are you using buff suits at all? Even if you only use plat runes, a 3 socket sword and a 2 socket shield, thats 5x+4 runes socketed gives you 20 bonus levels to you're buffs, using niob you get 5x+6 or 30 levels. Saves you having to read runes for a while and really cuts regen. I know you mentioned you would use buff suits but with the regen you're complaining of I dont think you have used them yet. With just a sword and shield buff there's no need to swap armour which annoys me so thats all I normally do.

[dreeft 9]

Are you using buff suits at all? Even if you only use plat runes, a 3 socket sword and a 2 socket shield, thats 5x+4 runes socketed gives you 20 bonus levels to you're buffs, using niob you get 5x+6 or 30 levels. Saves you having to read runes for a while and really cuts regen. I know you mentioned you would use buff suits but with the regen you're complaining of I dont think you have used them yet. With just a sword and shield buff there's no need to swap armour which annoys me so thats all I normally do.

Also very handy if you get debuffed in combat!

[Dobri 55]

Yeah, I will work on the buff suits later. So far there isn't much that can trouble me at all. Even the nameless guardians do about 200-250 damage at most with the special attack (if it hits) and less than 90 damage with a regular attack (if it hits). Keeping in mind I have about 2.3k HP and 1.2k shield, I barely feel anything.

 

However, as the game progresses, I certainly start to feel the need of making a buff suit. Honestly, I never made one - I was too lazy to do so. In this game, though, I will definitely make one - but all in good time

 

BTW, when I switch back to my original gear, does the improved buff stay? Because I noticed that shield value changes to anything I wear right now.

Edited July 20, 2010 by Dobri

[Dragon Brother 619]

With any buff you get the effects of the level at which you cast it while regen-ing at the level which you leave it at. So cast your shield at level 30 with say 2k energy then ir keeps 2k energy even if you take of the gear and it drops to level 1 as long as you dont get debuffed. Even if the shield goes down. Modifiers like shield energy +xx% dont stay though, only CA levels.

[Dobri 55]

Thanks mate. I will certainly try it out when the time comes... Probably when I get to gold difficulty.

[locolagarto 15]

I have found 2 methods of buff suits.

 

1. with only 1 rune in the buff - make a suit socketed with Runes

 

2. With runes read into buff above Focus level - make a suit socketed with +all skills

 

Both my la Chusa and Piromante are buff suite builds, And with la Chusa I had no problem with regens at all. I was able to keep three Buffs up at level 75 with a total of less than 35% penalty to CAs. But the Buffs were cast at near character level giving me wonderful bonus from the mods I took. It is a pain to make the suits, and to buff up at your chest before heading out. And I avoided the buff removers like Griffen, undead prince etc. But it allowed my to read runes into my attack CAs almost all to focus level. Making for a very strong build.

[Dobri 55]

Thanks for the input, loco.

 

Well, I'd have to say that my regen time plight is over for now. As soon as I hit level 49, everything fell into place. It would have been easier and faster if my previous caster seraphim hadn't died with the 60's Celestial set, but it is bearable, especially because I managed to revamp the equipment and I'm feeling much better. Up until then I was used the 20's 3-socket equip with a lot of niob smith runes in it, and that gave me few options to balance the regen times.

 

Well, things have changed. AW is at 0.8s without buffs, 1.0s with Battle Stance and 1.3s with both buffs running. My first revamp was a mighty failure, I took on 3 +CA/Shield capacity and the rest +All Skills and I found myself back in the 2.5s+ regen on the AW. So I sucked it up and left only 1 of those. It was nice to have the shield at 4.5k on level 51, but the regen penalty was too much and got to the times I mentioned above. I even slapped in +65% XP per kill for faster leveling.

 

In the end, it appears that it's all about keeping everything at low CA level with a caster seraphim. Even the buffs.

[Llama8 8]

The Shield buffs are a bit odd, most of their values remain at their cast level (eg, damage reduction, CA reflection, etc) but the shield energy is partially based on CA level, character level & Willpower, so the shield energy changes to a new value (not always lower, especially if you have some +skills to increase your WEL level) when you switch back to your normal gear.

[Dragon Brother 619]

The Shield buffs are a bit odd, most of their values remain at their cast level (eg, damage reduction, CA reflection, etc) but the shield energy is partially based on CA level, character level & Willpower, so the shield energy changes to a new value (not always lower, especially if you have some +skills to increase your WEL level) when you switch back to your normal gear.

 

But it gets to keep the high CA base to work with if you use a buff suit

[Dobri 55]

I took your advice about the sword + shield + runes buff booster. I admit I was missing out on a lot. Even with 5x6 things are a lot better. Makes me want to "unread" like 10 runes out of Warding Energy

[gogoblender 3,073]

Dobri, this is awesome! I love how you keep adding more beauty to the mix of your favoritest class... Seraphim.

 

One day, I'll be there, ready to build one from Sacred 2...one day

 

It's an amazing discovery you are doing here (of course ^^)

 

Thanks... a glorious afternoon read you have given me here in Montreal!

 

 

gogo

[Dobri 55]

I'm glad you enjoy it, gogo

 

And now it's time for a progress report.

 

Got her up a whopping 22 levels today - from 43 to 65. The only problems I encountered were when entering gold difficulty. The levels from 60 to 63 were a bit of a pain, mainly because of my outdated equipment. The poison guardian was dropping down my shield almost every time. Well, no more!

 

As soon as I hit 63, I remade her entire equipment. I put on the Celestial set + Endijian's Wings + Glacial Defender for a base of 28% Damage mitigation. For now, 28% damage mitigation is better than about 35% close combat reflect, hence the reason for my decision to stick to the scheme I'm most familiar with. As soon as the values start to improve, I will go all out reflection - but not now.

 

With this equipment, she started shining right from the start. The regen time of the level 1+4 (5) AW suddenly dropped to 0.3s without buffs, 0.4s with Battle Stance or Warding Energy and 0.5s with both buffs. Amazing. Add to that 65% deathblow and +64% Xp per kill. Top that up with 5k HP and 7k shield and you get a very tough girl. She's also a very quick guardian killer - the current set has 3% LL per hit, and since AW double-hits all the time, that's 6% LL per hit at level 65. How about that! I even slapped on 2 amulets with +4 all skills/+duration of potion effects and she can kill all the enemies in the Heart (Egg) room in less than a minute while the mentor pot is running.

 

In the end, I am very, very pleased with the way she handles herself. Heck, she's even faster killer than the Utility Bosskiller I'm running as well. Levels fly by like crazy, but she does need a lot of care and attention.

 

All that's left for me is to start developing the celestial aspect as well. Since in my opinion the real game and the real hunting starts in niobium, I will most likely farm the guardians throughout Gold and Platinum, abusing the wicked dual LL% I have now. We'll see

Edited July 21, 2010 by Dobri

[Etherian 76]

This is fantastic news Dobri. She has become of sorts, "a revelation". When I read your first introduction, it was merely a simple test build, with a solid idea in hand.

 

Now @ level 65+ she has become a real killer. I hope this holds true in Niob.

 

Please keep updating with the progress reports. Love the information & progression.

 

I remain,

[Dobri 55]

Well, I was very interested in seeing what will happen after I hit the Exalted Warrior Focus, Revered Focus and Warding Lore masteries, but I guess this is not going to happen today - or tomorrow, for that matter. The servers today were crap for the most part, and tomorrow I'll be visiting my cousins, so no Sacred 2 time for me.

 

I did manage to get her from 65 to 73 today, and it was very easy and quick. It takes about 5 guardian runs to gain a level, each run lasting between 4 and 6 minutes on my rather low-end PC (from loading till the end, including killing all the enemies on the way to the Heart room). All 4 guardians drop in about 60-80 seconds, so in essence, as long as you have a decent equip, Celestial + Shuriken + AW (Salvo) is a wicked combo. You should really try it out guys

 

I'm still very much psyched up about this build. I thought I would hate it, but I find myself enjoying it immensely. Still, I consider it more of a "master" build - for experienced Sacred 2 players with good support chars, as it requires a lot of tinkering to balance damage and regen times (that honestly is the biggest grief), a lot of micromanagement and the usage of as many "tricks" as possible - like level 1 CA boosted by + All CA/Aspect, buff suits, alternating between Life Leech%, Damage suit, Reflect suit when it counts, various optional defensive tools (evasion, reflects, resistances, etc.), HP management, extreme care and so on.

 

Takes quite a bit of effort, but it's well worth it in the end.

[Dobri 55]

OK... Time for the next status report.

 

The rollback dropped my Seraphim back to level 62, but I managed to get her up 20 levels today, so she's sitting pretty at 82 now. I was also forced to redo all the equipment improvements, but this time I went for +XP per kill (got that up to +142% at level 63... sheesh!) and Spell Intensity rather than deathblow and additional + all skills (had +69 the last time, this time I settled for +45). Nothing much changed, she performed just as good and leveled up very quickly (from 3 to 5 guardian runs per level).

 

When I hit level 75, I took a long hard look what changed when the Revered Focus and Exalted Focus mastery bonuses kicked in. AW without buffs recharged in 0.2s, 0.3s with one buff and 0.4s with 2 buffs. Buff penalties dropped down over 15%. This got me confident and I ate a bunch of Battle Stance and Warding Energy runes - I got BS to CA level 38 (that's about char level/2) and Warding energy to 45 (that was focus level -10) and decided to keep the 2 buffs around that value. Archangel's Wrath regen time remained 0.4s to my surprise and I decided to see what will happen if I add a rune there. It jumped to 0.6s. Nothing to worry about though - as soon as I hit level 77, I got the Armor Lore mastery and AW got back down to 0.5s.

 

That rune gobbling improved the Energy shield and reflect chance quite a bit. At level 82, I have about 37% Close Combat reflect and about 42% Projectile and CA reflect. Along with 7k HP and 16k shield (with only 3 shield capacity booster items), that looks very good.

 

Hitting level 77 also had me make a hard choice - what skill to master next. Revered Lore was my first choice, but I went for Combat Discipline, and then Revered Lore. In the end, having -20% regen for CAs in a combo looked better, because when I reach Platinum, I would want to add a few more +CA equipment, and that might unbalance my regen times a little. Since I will master CD by level 92, the extra +CA will not be that much of a problem.

 

Another thing I had to consider is "absorption warding energy". The Seraphim starts with 50%, unlike Temple Guardian's 60% base. So I decided to follow a simple scheme, which I will modify later if I must:

When:

Warding energy < Char HP or WE = Char HP => I will keep it at 50%.

Warding energy = Char HP *2 => I will add an amulet to improve it to 60%.

Warding energy = Char HP *3 => I will improve it to 75%.

and so on. When WE buff is about 50k, or like 4-5 times more than my HP, I will either have it take all the damage (because in theory, it should be enough) or keep it at about 90% and leech back the 10% of all the damage that I take.

 

That's where I'm standing now Tomorrow is a new day and we'll see what will happen.

Edited July 24, 2010 by Dobri

[Dragon Brother 619]

Nice update. Looks like you turned the rollback into a positive.

[Etherian 76]

+XP for the WIN!

 

Great turnaround here Dobri after the minor setback.

 

Reads like your Seraphim is on a Rampage of sorts? Coming back w/ a fervor!

 

I remain,

[Dobri 55]

Well, here goes the new status report.

 

I managed to hit the three digits today and got her from 82 to 100. I also did a single platinum run to see how things are going there. But more on that later.

 

The decision to pick Combat Discipline proved to be a good one. I mastered it on level 92, and with the improved equipment since level 86 (that required some extensive shopping, but it was very fruitful), I had barely any problems with the Guardians. I managed to slap +162% XP per kill and about +70 all skills, as well as about +120% shield capacity. AW was at level 6, but it was enough for the time being. Improving CD also improved the celestial aspect - even with lore and focus for the aspect at level 1, I enjoyed a Radiant Pillar of over 800 damage per tick with 1.7s regen time and Baneful Smite at 3500 damage at 1.5s regen. Pretty decent! This got me confident that I can leave the improvement Celestial aspect for awhile later and let it be as it is.

 

As soon as I hit 93, I decided to go for a walk and see how gold difficulty feels in the desert, the jungle and so on. That walk was very short, and I moved back to my guardian runs. At that time my Warding energy shield was providing 230 flat damage mitigation and few simple enemies could get past that. Boring... So I returned to farming the 4 big ones. The continuous farming got me to level 100 with ease - about 5-6 runs per level.

 

Hitting 100 put me in front of a few big decisions as well. On level 99, I managed to go over 10k HP, which I set to myself as a base value. Since I don't have constitution, I needed to constantly add all available points in vitality from level 1 to level 99. Now that I have a moderate amount of HP, I can turn to other attributes - like intelligence and stamina, for example. I am aware that Willpower has been proven to improve the shield, but I need damage along with the shield. That can be achieved by improving stamina for better CA regen and Intelligence, for higher spell damage and spell intensity. So for now, I will alternate between 1 vit/1 sta, 1 vit/1 int and 1 sta/1 int when gaining a new level till 150.

 

I also decided to drop the requirements I set to myself before and improve the buffs normally. On level 100, I have 56 runes in Battle Stance and 61 in Warding Energy, and that doesn't burden my regen times at all. AW is level 8 (3+5) and is still at 0.4s regen with both buffs active. That many runes in WE, along with the equipment and buff booster weapon+shield got my WE buff to 30k shield capacity.

 

So, with 10k HP and 30k shield I can feel relatively safe... for now.

 

The single run I did in platinum has proven something disturbing. Things are going to get harder and harder for this girl, unless I start gradually sacrificing my precious +XP per kill. The special CA attack of the guardians has risen to over 5k damage, which is not a big grief for now, but it will continue to improve and I will be forced to boost my shield more and more. Granted, the WE buff is giving me a relative safety (45% chance to reflect spells/projectiles), but that is about to change if I don't act on this problem. Not to mention that I will also need free sockets to add more +all CA/aspect in order to my damage on par. I will also have to think about switching from % damage mitigation to chance to reflect (like Niokaste's Wings, Clepidide's Talisman unique amulet and so on), as the meager 27% damage mitigation provided by the Torso + Shoulders + Wings is getting outdated and is not that much anymore.

 

I like dealing with problems. Platinum is going to be very, very interesting.

Edited July 25, 2010 by Dobri