Concerns of a new player

[Farnor 0]

Hi all

Following gogoblender advice I am making this thread to discuss some technical issues which might encounter new players who started playing this nice game recently (lets say in 2011).

 

(Because I myself have only Sacred 2 FA (latest patch 2.6 something) and not Ice and Blood and intend to play only SP and this only up to the gold difficulty, many question are going to go in this direction but any other questions are welcome)

 

First question is how to recognize whether a certain guide/build/walkthrough was made for Sacred 2 FA (orig, release)or for the add on Ice and Blood.

 

Here are some answers:

 

Majority of the builds here began in Fallen Angel. A rule of thumb you could use is that if the build was posted before October 2009(02/10/2009) then it is a Fallen Angel build.

 

This raises the second question automatically: How about the compatibility of Ice and Blood guides for FA chars. Again here are some replies:

 

As an extra note, pretty much any build for ice and blood will work in fallen angel, unless there is an extreme reliance upon regen per hit which on works consistently with ice and blood. Other than that, an Ice and Blood build will be stronger in fallen angel because of higher +all skills bonuses and deathblow and the like working with spells.

 

Which led me to ask (I know I could be annoying sometimes )if there is any skill (tree)/build for any certain class which has been really and radically changed (buffed) in Ice and Blood so that any build based on it wouldn't work in Fallen Angel.

Answers:

 

 

For what it's worth - none of the CAs I've come across have been nerfed in Ice and Blood. And I've at least played pretty much every character for a little while.

 

The things Ice and Blood nerfed are the + All Skills, + General Skills and + Combat Skills items - roughly cutting those values in half - and Deathblow.

 

As far as I know, all the things that were significantly changed in Ice and Blood were the Item Modifiers. And they were weakened (some of them were halved, others stopped to work with some certain Combat Arts). So all the builds that were made for Ice and Blood would work fine with the original Fallen Angel. The only thing you should note is that the add-on increases the importance of magical resistance. So some of Ice and Blood builds have a lot of suggestions about increasing it, which is not all that useful in the original game. So for Fallen Angel you can change the Spell Resistance skill for something else that you find useful. But it won't be bad if you keep it.

 

Also, there is no Combat Art that was significantly changed in add-on. Ice and Blood just made some defensive modifications more useful and necessary than they were in the original.

 

On a side note - the CM patch significantly rebalanses some spells (though not TG's ones), but I've seen no builds that were made specifically for CM.

 

So thx for all who answered my question and any new thoughts are heartily welcome.

 

Now 2 new questions :

- Does the CM work with FA only? and if yes can I convert already existing chars to the CM patched game?

 

- Since I play only SP and don't have any Shoppers/smiths/friends with higher chars, I would not have access to high end gear. But from my previous experience with similar games I think that till a certain difficulty level, that wouldn't influence any build dramatically (that is the reason I gave myself the gold difficulty restriction). Am I right with applying this assumption to Sacred 2? And would heavily Item depended builds (like some of dobri's) would work if I hadn't the right items from the begin?

 

greets

farnor

[lujate 578]

AFAIK, the CM patch requires Ice and Blood (sorry).

 

Do not feel that since you are starting from scratch, you cannot get past Gold. Ask yourself, how did the first players do it? Check out these links:

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacred_2:Tips_on_how_to_get_off_the_right_foot_in_Sacred_2

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacred_2:Sacred_2_mini_FAQ_%28PC%29%2C_A_compilation_of_general_info_and_useful_links

[gogoblender 3,071]

AFAIK, the CM patch requires Ice and Blood (sorry).

 

Do not feel that since you are starting from scratch, you cannot get past Gold. Ask yourself, how did the first players do it? Check out these links:

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacred_2:Tips_on_how_to_get_off_the_right_foot_in_Sacred_2

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php5/Sacred_2:Sacred_2_mini_FAQ_%28PC%29%2C_A_compilation_of_general_info_and_useful_links

 

 

wow...lol Lujate, you know the Wiki well

 

Great links!

 

 

gogo

[Farnor 0]

thx lujate

fast and precise as usual . I went through both guides in the last days. They are very informative.

 

There is another reason for my gold level self restriction which I skipped in the opening post: TIME, games like Sacred are very time demanding.

I want to play as many classes as I can. But who knows, maybe I'll find THE class for me and go with it farther.

[gogoblender 3,071]

hmm, Farnor, here is something you can do as well. It's a trick of Schot's that's now spread everywhere. You can build a level 2 Expert Bargainer with a High Elf. Just get her to level 2 then max her bargaining skills...then go shopping. Everything you buy will be MUCH better than what you can find or buy normally for about 20 levels, tons of sockets, tons of item mods per item...oodles of goodies...your eyes will pop.

 

This'll give you a nice boost, it's easy to do...and when you see how huge the scope of the game is with options via gear, you may find yourself hanging out with us a little longer than you thought &&

 

 

gogo

[locolagarto 15]

So thx for all who answered my question and any new thoughts are heartily welcome.

 

Now 2 new questions :

- Does the CM work with FA only? and if yes can I convert already existing chars to the CM patched game?

 

- Since I play only SP and don't have any Shoppers/smiths/friends with higher chars, I would not have access to high end gear. But from my previous experience with similar games I think that till a certain difficulty level, that wouldn't influence any build dramatically (that is the reason I gave myself the gold difficulty restriction). Am I right with applying this assumption to Sacred 2? And would heavily Item depended builds (like some of dobri's) would work if I hadn't the right items from the begin?

 

greets

farnor

 

The CM patch is for Ice and Blood Only. As far as I have seen any build from Ice and Blood will work in FA as the others appropriately responded already. Console version is a bit unique in that, it is FA, however has a few features found in Ice and Blood. such as Regen per Hit, and has some features that weren't implemented, such as Blacksmith. However no matter what version you have, FA-PC, FA-console, Ice and Blood-PC, or Ice and Blood-CM, you will find plenty of folks here to help you with any thing that comes up.

 

As for playing without high level gear, the game is unique in that the difficulty of the game is directly proportional to the pace set by the player. High level uber gear is not required to play the game at any level. Uber gear simply opens up for the possibility of pushing the limits and goals as set by the player. As an example if you want to finish the Silver Campaign by level 20, you may need some gear to make that happen. However the game has so many facets of entertainment, ( Grinding, Exploring, Easter egg hunting, Character customization((through gear, build etc)), Boss fighting, Over leveling, etc..) that you will have no problem playing at a pace you are happy with.

 

Although some of our builds do depend on Gear, They are all viable with or with out. Although, you might not be bashing Platinum level Bosses at level 75 without spending some time shopping or grinding for gear.

 

Cheers

[lujate 578]

thx lujate

fast and precise as usual . I went through both guides in the last days. They are very informative.

 

There is another reason for my gold level self restriction which I skipped in the opening post: TIME, games like Sacred are very time demanding.

I want to play as many classes as I can. But who knows, maybe I'll find THE class for me and go with it farther.

I think I can answer your post and gogo's at the same time.

 

A lot of people kill time by playing amusing little games on their smart phones. Me, I am browsing the net. My first stop is always here, followed by the wiki.

[Silver_fox 397]

- Since I play only SP and don't have any Shoppers/smiths/friends with higher chars, I would not have access to high end gear. But from my previous experience with similar games I think that till a certain difficulty level, that wouldn't influence any build dramatically (that is the reason I gave myself the gold difficulty restriction). Am I right with applying this assumption to Sacred 2? And would heavily Item depended builds (like some of dobri's) would work if I hadn't the right items from the begin?

 

All of us started playing this game without having any gear stored. Actually, I don't have a lot of high level characters even now (I'm more amused with trying different characters than with levelling the same one to level 200). I can say that High Elves and Voodoo Dryads become fast levelling shoppers. The trick with level 2 shopper for the beginning was described above, but you can continue this practice - it doesn't take a lot of time to level the shopper up to level 15-25 when most of the good item modifiers already can spawn of the items. It's good enough to have a small level shopper in Silver, since low level items don't differ much in quality between difficulties. Then, when you have a character in Gold, you'd have a nice boost for the new characters you start in Silver. Platinum characters can help the Gold ones and so on. Also, when you play your first character, it may be good to do side quests - the more you do, the bigger is your chance to get a set item for the quest. In the last FA versions for PC (2.40 and 2.43) there is a pretty good opportunity to collect a lot of set items with a new character who had nothing in the beginning. So you'd have some gear when you end the Silver difficulty.

[DaveO 88]

I've noticed that there is a fair amount of set item dropping from either monsters or thru quest rewards on my current trek thru Bronze in Ice & Blood. I did not notice as many set items dropping in Fallen Angel. At the moment it seems that sets and unique items are easier to obtain in Ice & Blood.

[Silver_fox 397]

I can't say that good items drop more frequently in Ice and Blood - as I remember in v2.40 a chance to get a set piece as a quest reward was higher than in add-on. Unique drop rate changed drastically through the Fallen Angel version history. The first versions (before 2.31) had quite low drop rate, I remember getting to level 60 on Silver with only one set item dropped to my character. The most frequent set item drops I can remember were on Fallen Angel v2.40 - as soon as you reach level 12 you start getting set pieces for quests frequently. The last FA patch v2.43 has lower drop rate than 2.40, but it's still possible to get all the items you want. Also, the drop rate depends on how much of the map you have explored, how high your sirvival bonus is, and how high is your character's level is for the current difficulty. High level characters get set items on Bronze frequently (more frequently than on Silver), so if you have a level 50 and up character, you can go to Bronze and start gathering nice items for your future characters (most of set pices that drop on Bronze are of low item level).

[Farnor 0]

Thx @ll for the replies.

Sure I know that at the beginning all were noobs in the game without any high-end gear and thus had to live with what the find and try different builds. My question was more about the dependency of some builds/guides to high-end gear. Its just the laziness of a late beginner .

 

I began 2 chars in bronze. I just want to explore the whole map and enjoy the landscapes unhurried. And since I'm a quest junkie, I'll accept any quest I can find. Ill tell u about any set items I find/get (by the way thx for the tip with the survival bonus, my wanna be shopper TG has a very bad one ).

[lujate 578]

Thx @ll for the replies.

Sure I know that at the beginning all were noobs in the game without any high-end gear and thus had to live with what the find and try different builds. My question was more about the dependency of some builds/guides to high-end gear. Its just the laziness of a late beginner .

 

I began 2 chars in bronze. I just want to explore the whole map and enjoy the landscapes unhurried. And since I'm a quest junkie, I'll accept any quest I can find. Ill tell u about any set items I find/get (by the way thx for the tip with the survival bonus, my wanna be shopper TG has a very bad one ).

The problem with mass questing in Bronze is that you will quickly exceed the level cap, which means you will earn pittance for XP. As soon as the enemy targeting circles turn white, you should really move on.

[Silver_fox 397]

Most of set items start spawn from item level 15 (others fron 20), which means that you need to be at least level 12 to see them drop. Some uniques can spawn starting from item level 6, but most of the good ones start from 12-15 too. Levelling to character level 12 on Bronze may take some time, since the enemies don't give a lot of experience. So you unlikely would see some high quality item during the first several hours.

 

As for the builds, the question about their gear dependance has a different answer for each build. Of course, all the people who write down guides list the most optimal gear in their opinion. But it doesn't mean 'must have' in most of the cases. However, some builds really depend on gear. I suppose that the ways to know for sure are to try building the character, or to ask a person who wrote the guide.

 

Also, there are several approaches to playing that game. Many people here play only to develop the character, so they rush to the next area as soon as the mobs have green circles. That means that they constantly put their characters to the test and therefore have to be prepared to face some tough opponents. But doing all the quests and exploring the map would force you to stay in the area when the mobs are green and sometimes even grey (because the quests are multiple and there would be time when the mobs aren't interesting to fight already, but some quests still remain open). So they couldn't be considered much a threat and fighting them won't require to be all that prepared.