What was your first character - let's get nostalgic

[chattius 2,531]

Why did I start this thread?

Many of us started by reading guides. But some wanted to do their own ideas, trying out new ways. Some succeeded and some failed. If they were successful they perhaps wrote a guide. But it is a pity that all the other ideas never appeared. I think it would be useful to learn from failures of others too.

 

I will start with my first character. We bought 2 copies of sacred2 decembre 2008. We had no internet at home but hoped that our kids could play at a youthclub in town. My oldest started with a disease dryad, stumbling into the bug on her own and wasted the character as too easy. Her next try was a pyro elf. My wife, our second and me shared a valkyrie character: a polearm storm elf. I had severe eye damage from my army time which got worse with time. So I had to undergo eye surgeries. The docs said that playing computer games might train the eyes. I was not yet able to read small stuff or even aim my icicles well behind an ememy, so I decided to play a melee character. I zoomed really in and did a big radar to keep control on enemies. I read all the guides and then read that a melee elf would be impossible to play. So I decided to give the melee elf a try. I studied maths and I always had as much fun in playing a game as in understanding the formulas in it. So I didn't want the obvious melee elf wearing a shield. I decided for a polearm elf. I had lot of fun with my javazon (javelin amazon) in diablo2 or with my hunter-seeker polearm seraphim in sacred1.

I thought the people who wrote that melee elves are impossible already tested the shield using elves - I learned that they never tested scalable blockchances on a shield half a year later. So if a shield seemed to be not useful, what if I use spells for defense. What if I use crystral skin versus mages, fire skin against weapons, cascading shroud, expulse magic, ... . So I started my "Lola - die Trifokusale Stangenelfe" which means "Lola, the polearm elf with 3 foci". Lola was inspired by the movie "Lola running" and that a key combination at character creation gave her pink hair. (You could not choose hair and skin colour inbeginning).

 

The old character

 

Lola, the polearm elf with 3 foci

 

Skills:

• 2 tactics - 5 points to unlock polearms
  
• 3 armour
  
• 5 concentration - I was using all kind of unmodified combat arts early on and I wanted them quick
  
• 8 polearms - for hit chance
  
• 12 arcane lore - to modify magic coup and give more damage
  
• 18 storm focus - to modify crystal skin
  
• 25 arcane focus - faster regeneration on magic coup (regeneration per hit was not working in old patches)
  
• 35 speed lore - for even more hit chance, defense and run speed were not bad too
  
• 50 constitution - reflecting turtles and polearm damage made me to do constitution on 50 and not 65
  
• 65 fire focus - One third of my melee damage came from this: just take a melee weapon with high natural fire damage both fire buffs can boost the damage.
  

 

Abilities:

I was unsure if I would use polearms which would be based on strength or ones which would be based on dexterity. So I did a mathematical self balancing way. I would always push the stat which affected my current weapon.

 

Combat arts:

I modified them in this order:

Magic coup: heavy damage, life leech, stray damage

Obvious the main combat art of a polearm elf. I wanted as much damage as possible and area of effect on my main attack.

Grand Invigoration: Mystic Stormite Expertise, Life Energy , Fleetness

I wanted life regeneration because I wouldn't master constitution for a long time. I wanted run speed, because speed is defense for a melee character. Storm or fire, I decided that storm defense spells would be more probable to be cast

Crystal Skin: Glacial Mirror, Feel Cold, Frosty Breeze

I wanted spell reflection. If I would run into enemies with a high resistance against magic damage I thought I could fight them with normal hits: using a weapon with natural cold damage and additional socketed with cold.

Expulse Magic: strength, pentagram, protection

Enemies should remain in melee range, so no bigger radius. I wanted as much protection as possible and I would do my damage with a weapon.

Shadow Step: Phase shift, sanctuary

I wanted quicker cooldown and I thought that melee hits break invisibility.

Cascading Shroud: Faint

Less chance to be hit by weapons of all damage types.

Incandescent Skin: Combusting Arrows, Revenge, Fiery Ardor

Better protection and more fire damage if wielding a weapon with natural fire damage. I did the single player character quest and got the merciless avenger.

Fire demon: renew, guard, power

I wasn't casting spells and the firemonkey was just there to boost my damage from 11000 to 12000 with the merciless avenger.

 

The playstyle:

I had the regeneration time of magic coup around 3 normal hits. So the sequence was: normal hit, normal hit, magic coup. I used my run speed to collect enemies close together, then I started with normal weapon hits. So the following magic coup already had deathblow on its stray damage. I used expulse magic to scare enemies and used the range of a polearm to hit them in the back when they run away.

 

 

How I would do it now

 

Lola NG, next generation 3 focus elf

The AddOn brought regeneration per hit working as planed. So no need to fill the regeneration time of a magic coup with normal hits. I now understand how hit chance and armour works. I wouldn't take a weapon skill again because magic coup has a very high hit chance on its own at high ca-levels and we can reach these elevels because of regenration per hit. So tactics, polearm and speed lore wouldn't be taken.

So if I would start new:

 

• 2 concentration - Grand Invigoration and crystal skin early in game
  
• 3 armour
  
• 5 combat discipline - using all kind of unmodified combat arts early on
  
• 8 arcane focus - modify magic coup
  
• 12 fire focus - modify fire skin
  
• 18 arcane lore - better healing from GI, more life leech from magic coup
  
• 25 storm focus - modifying raging nimbus to reduce enemies attack value and it does damage, so perhaps triggers deathblow
  
• 35 constitution
  
• 50 ancient magic - so raging nimbus can trigger deathblow against ice immunes
  
• 65 ?
  

 

One skill would be free. We have a bargainer chain already, so there are a lot of options:

Fire lore - and we could swap between playing melee or full pyro by changing the equipment

Storm lore - would do the same for ice

Sword lore - trying out the new fist weapons and more easily to get laser swords in CM-Patch, mainly to unlock their modifiers

Shield lore - if we don't want to play with two-handed weapons

Edited October 20, 2010 by gogoblender

[Dobri 55]

My first girl was a wannabe BFG Seraphim who spent most of her time hunting with djalek's annihilator rather than the BFG itself

 

Here's the build:

Tactics lore

Ranged Weapons

Concentration

Enhanced Perception

Revered Technology Focus

Armor Lore

Toughness

Warding Energy Lore

Combat Discipline

 

I'm surprised, really, as I'm looking at her now. This build is really solid, but she was softcore and I have 3 resurrections on her by level 70 - the first one after dying to the bugged 2.34 ghostly garema warriors (which I made a really big fuss over it here on the forums and people like gogo, schot, putrescine, stephane tried to calm me down), 1 death thanks to the TG traps (I had almost no survival bonus) and 1 death with the 0% SB from the nameless guardians.

 

Those were the days I discovered how much I like +XP per kill stuff. I also discovered how great the seraphim was and just how well protected and all-round character she is. And there you go - I became a seraphim lover, as many people put it

 

OH, BTW: I still have some old-style uniques equipped on her... Like Emperor's Cuirass of ancient knowledge, Effulgent Waistband... Things like that - there were many items with decent qualities to pop up as uniques back in the day

Edited October 20, 2010 by Dobri

[Rathmaker 0]

My first character (after trying them all out a bit) was a foolish attempt at a 3 aspect High Elf. She looked like this (not in this order):

 

1. Arrant Pyromancer Lore

2. Arrant Pyromancer Focus

3. Mystic Stormrite Lore

4. Mystic Stormrite Focus

5. Delphic Arcania Lore

6. Delphic Arcania Focus

7. Concentration

8 Armor Lore

9 Ancient Magic

10 Bargaining

 

Although she was a fun to play, it became evident after some time that trying to keep all three aspects plus Bargaining up to par was not the...easiest...task. Then, there was the fact that it was hard to keep her alive in Gold and above with no Defensive skills other than Armor Lore. I really enjoyed playing her, but I enventually gave up and went with an Arrant Pyromancer build something like what most use today.

 

I love to play characters that are really active to play, and have alot of options in terms of attacks/play style. That is why, after getting Ice and Blood recently, the Dragon Mage has really caught my attention. In testing (and now on the first "real" build try) I have been able to successfully run a three aspect build with both Elemental and Mentalism Lores, as well as all three foci. The Elemental and Mentalism Aspects are doing great damage. And since the 2 Dragon forms are not affected by its Lore skill (it seems), the Focus allows for some melee fun from time to time for a change of pace.

 

Good hunting to all of you!

 

~Rathmaker~

Edited October 20, 2010 by Rathmaker

[essjayehm 58]

After trying each of them... I LOVED the Inquisitor out of the gate... To the best of my very poor memory, here's what I did:

 

not in order, OBV

 

Dual Wield

Hafted Lore

Swords Lore

Armour Lore

Constitution

Astral Supremacy Lore - strictly to mod doppleganger buff.

Nefarious Netherworld Focus

Riding? or Alchemy? one of those for sure.

Tactics Lore

Gruesome Inquisition Focus

 

My friend and I were sold on the fact that you MUST have both Hafted and Sword lore to unlock the bonuses you find on the weapons... we did understand that Dual Wield overrides both for the attack speed, etc... We had no clue what Bargaining was, other than you get more $$ for your crap... but there wasn't ever anything to spend that $$ on, so it was useless to us. Didn't know how to exhange runes at the runemaster (he only sells jewellery? USELESS!)

 

We were pretty sure that you had to be level 60 before you could start a gold-difficulty game, so I ran him up to 59.9 and went on to the Guardians, ding on 60 during the battles, and on to gold. Things were going OK up to the Human Lands, I decided I'd go try to fight this "Boar Boss" thingy that was indicated on a map I found at a GREAT site called Dark Matters . He one-shotted me a couple of times, but I had the doppleganger buff rocking so eventually I managed to beat him. That was my first time fighting a boss with other monsters around, what a HUGE pain that was! Went on towards the Gar'Colossus, I spent a few days trying to beat him (he kept killing me before I could re-cast the twin), frantically searching the wiki/forums for HALP!

 

That was pretty much the end of that toon; I moved onto Dobri's BFG guide to gain some understanding of the combat art system (I was quite clueless about it, still) and then was back to designing my own toons from there... mostly based on guides with one or two skill substitutions. Single-aspect builds to start, moving up to 2 aspect builds for a bit, and I've been trying to perfect my understanding of triple-aspect builds for each of the characters since.

 

I tried for a while to build toons without any defensive skills, thinking they were overrated because the combat arts provide most of the protections needed, and with better values than what the skills gave. Nowadays, I think that the Offensive skills are the useless ones (except Tactics Lore and Dual Wield). Damage Lore is OK, but on the console, the mastery effects do not work, so it's definitely sub-par.

 

More than anything, I would say that I learned the most, by far, from FOLLOWING a guide. Reading them gave some conceptual understanding, yes, but until I acutally wrote it all out, and followed it to the letter, did I learn anything from them.

 

Well, that was a good trip down memory lane, thanks for the topic, Chattius!

[Dragon Brother 619]

Well, my first toon was a temple guardian...Online HC...portaled to sloeford, ran out, got killed by some kobolds...appalled by the terrible ping. Gave up and went and played SP. Then, when I got better a internet connection I went and rolled a dryad online which did much better.

[Etherian 76]

My first attempt at a build was QUEEN OF BLADES written by AntiTrust.

 

I remember being so lost in those early first few weeks.

 

Eating runes to pump Combat Arts was something totally original. Remember being so affraid of eating a rune and harming the regen. time. I didnt eat any runes, even till the day she got 1 shoted in the Cursed Forest.

 

I have learned what has become my most valuable lesson. I used to rush builds, wanting to see them flourish faster & faster. Now my #1 HC rules to live by is actually #19.

 

The early days...how we tend to miss them!

 

I remain,

[colif 36]

Trying to remember back to Oct 2008, I think my 1st was a TG, I remember getting as far as the portal near Wargfels and finding a rare pistol and restarted a Inquisitor who went on to conquer world (though in bronze and he died once, fighting a dragon) but I knew he wasn't going to last long in Silver as he took 30 minutes killing the guardians. I can't remember his skills, but I know they were wrong

 

If you want to go full nostalgia, my 1st character was probably a Wood Elf, but that is another story.

Edited October 21, 2010 by colif

[podgie_bear 184]

After trying out all the characters briefly, I liked the Inquisitor, but my builds kept dying against bosses. Then I built my "Podgie the Bearbarian" Shadow Warrior, the rest is history!

Edited October 21, 2010 by podgie_bear

[Stormwing 40]

Great topic!

 

For my first char... I honestly can't remember, for the love of Goddess... Must'vee been some sort of melee-Seraphim, as she was my number 1 choice in original Sacred. I know for sure it wasn't even a bit balanced and the skill choices were far from optimal. Since I've lost some/all saves in some system/hardware faults I don't have the original saves anymore. Anyways, gotta give a big cookie to peoples here, as those wonderful builds and topics have given me a great deal info how things work.

I'd say for now my greatest char is 76 level shopper-Seraphim.

[r00ster 1]

Great topic.

 

My first build,

 

It was a seraphim, sword and board with no less than 7 defensive skills.

 

Tactics lore

Exalted warrior

Sword weapons

Shield lore

Armor lore

Constitution

Toughness

Combat reflex

Spell Resistance

Enhanced Perception

 

Funny thing is, I actually have this exact build going again on the live servers now! It makes a great magic find character.

 

My first 'LIVE' character was a Shadow Warrior;

 

Tactics lore

Concentration

Death warrior

Malevolent champ

Axe lore

Armor lore

Constitution

Toughness

Blacksmith

Combat Discipline

 

Second, was a 'trader' elf;

 

Arrant pyro lore

Arrant pyro focus

Concentration

Delphic focus

Ancient magic

Shield lore

Armor lore

Constitution

Bargaining

Combat Discipline

 

Then, went back to seraphims. They are the class I enjoy the most.

 

Cheers,

Edited October 22, 2010 by r00ster

[Gordius 6]

I remember mine too well ... read on to find out why. She was a Seraphim.

 

I bought two copies of the game, in Spanish, for Christmas 2008 because my wife wanted a break from Diablo 2 (LOD). She was going to buy WOW but no way was I going to play that thing so I figured the best thing to do was buy a game I thought I would enjoy. I found the patches same day, must have been about v2.34 I think.

 

I was just looking through a folder I have called "Sacred 2 Archive" and found files for every type of character dated December 30th 2008, I suppose we looked at all of them as you do. I copied the files into the game a few minutes ago and AMAAAAAAZING.

 

Six characters, Single Player. None have names the Seraphim was called Seraphim, Shadow Warrior was called Shadow Warrior and so on. I remember that well, took a few days to notice the place where I could give them real names

 

Every character I found is level 200, has learned no CAs and no skills. Maybe no Attribute points have been allocated. WHAT A BUG! The chest is a mess with low level items.

 

So, now I have six characters in Niobium all ready for build testing, assuming I can get any Niobium gear.

 

I do know that the first character I played for anything more than a day was a Seraphim, called Seraphim. I read every Rune I found and sold those not for her so her regen times were a bit slow. Because at that time I could speak only enough Spanish to ask for a beer and cigarettes I understood almost nothing of what CAs or skills did. My wife was a bit confused but refusing to RTFM (normal) so what she said to me was an attempt at direct translation which didn't help at all. She died a lot (the Seraphim not my wife). All I did was run to the first resurrection point and then ran around killing some things, took ages to find Sloeford. Needless to say that it wasn't long before I was on the phone telling my son in England to buy an english copy and send it to me.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Gordius

[claudius 104]

My first to make it to gold was White Cheetah

 

Tactics 30ish

Armor ?

Shield 1

Constitution 75

Rev Tech Focus 9

Concentration 1

Sword 75

Enhanced Perception 5

Bargain 75+

Exhalted Warrior Focus 50ish

 

 

Pretty heavy duty tank considering... Made it to platinum even but I only got to like artamark on platinum..

Edited October 22, 2010 by claudius

[chattius 2,531]

We are currently trying to 'rescue' the first character my wife created on her own at release of the AddOn. She hasn't much time to play and the character was just to have fun and being able to swap between caster, melee fighter, ranged in a single character

 

Celestial Seraphim (points at level 75, as I remember them)

 

warrior focus - 9 points (for the buff)

armour lore - 1 point

shield lore - 75 points (prevents nearly every melee hit with 'scalable block chance' melee shield)

celestial focus - 75 points (pillar, buff and healing modified)

combat discipline - 75 points (20% faster regeneration, damage to all aspects)

concentration - 47 points (she wants all 3 buffs)

celestial lore - 1 point (planed to push later, but not done yet)

constitution - 1 points (again for later use)

ancient magic - 1 point (will become 5th to mastery)

technic focus -1 point

 

Celestial set is used for the x% life leech, and the normal playstyle is to use Reg per Hit normal attacks to recharge the pillars which are used in melee range. The order of the first 4 mastery skills are not mainstream. She planed technic aspect for spell protection from the 2 shields and hopes that nothing will ever damage her enough to make the shields drop.

I have no experience if this can be reached, never had fun playing e-shield characters.

 

She needed more than one year to play the character to around level 130 I think, but mainly caused by less time to play.