Looking for a little advice with Temple Guardian

[nygyg 0]

I've allways been curious about the TG, I've only played him a little bit (for the most part only to get the trophy). I felt he was a very weak character for the way I like to play, I prefer to be overly aggressive. I've finally decided to give the TG a try after spending a few hours going over his Combat Arts on the wiki and reading some of the different builds on here.

For the most part I'm not doing to bad so far (level 29 and just going onto the seraphim island) but keep running into the same problem, when my shield fails I'm on the brink of death in seconds. I was planning on going with warding energy lore to try and get more out of the shield but I'm starting to wonder if that might be the wrong way to go.

 

So the question I have is what would be the better choice of skill, warding energy, toughness or constitution?

 

I'm building him with 2 aspects, devout guardian and source warding and using the buffs from both aspect. I'm experimenting so the choices I've made so far with modding the shield probably aren't the best way to go but I'll end up rebuilding him once he dies.

 

For attribute points I've been splitting them between vitality and intelligence.

 

Skills: (level with bonuses)

 

SW lore 29 (45)

Armor 13 (29)

Concentration 1 (17)

DG focus 22 (38)

Tactics 9 (27)

Sword 8 (24)

Combat Discipline 1 (17)

 

The remaining 3 skills I was planning on doing EP (I have no TG armor in my chest), SW focus and ? (WE lore, toughness or constitution).

[Rndm 1]

I think if you plan to go melee constitution is a must, and you might want to take warding lore, as I've read there are ways to get insane amounts of shield hp and 100% shield protection. Also, I have a tg at 40-something and I have to say, spamming his Area of Effect spikes and using combat alert to give him a huge damage boost is fun, you also might want to take lost fusion focus/lore w/ just enough points to get jolting touch fully modded (faster regen times on CAs, plus damage reduction for the duration of the ability).

[wolfie2kX 528]

Unfortunately, I can't give you the exact recipe for my TG - my system is still down.. But I've got one that just finished Gold at level 131 without a whole lot of grief.

 

But I can give you some advice on stuff I know works well for him.

 

1.) Dedicated Blow - Beach slap the baddies into next Tuesday. Get DB high enough and general mobs drop in one hit. Most Champion level mobs drop in 2 - maybe 3 hits depending on their level.

 

2.) Put more into Concentration and DG Focus. You want to keep Dedicated Blow spammable with a max of maybe 2 - 2.5 seconds regen time. Preferably less - especially if you don't have RpH (see #4).

 

The idea here is to NOT give your opponents the chance to take your shields and hit points down.

 

3.) I'd get a mix of armor - all set items for what to wear for everyday mobs and grinding and one other for the big bad bosses.

 

My "everyday" armor consists of 3 items from the Technical Modules - Helmet, Shoulders and Arm. This gives you a + x to All Skills boost. The rest of the armor consists of from the T-Energy modules set (chest, battery, belt, legs and boots.) This will also give you a + x boost to All Skills plus a boost to the Source Warden aspect. The amount of boost will vary with the level of the armor set. Having armor from TWO sets effectively doubles the All Skills boost.

 

For Boss hunting, I go with a full set of the Combat Modules set. The idea here - there's a bonus of %Leeched Life that's very useful for taking them down.

 

4.) If I recall correctly, Regeneration per Hit works on consoles. I'd make sure I had plenty of RpH socketed. Having as much as you can socketed means once you hit something, it drops dead, and Dedicated Blow is recharged so you're ready to put the smackdown on the next baddie. Lather, rinse, repeat and the bad guys are no more.

 

5.) Life Leech runes... In addition to RpH, I also like to socket lots of LL runes into my armor. Every little bit helps. You can choose from any of the 5 Dryad Cabalistic Voodoo aspect runes or the Inquisitor's Nefarious Netherworld aspect runes. It doesn't really matter which ones you socket as long as they have the secondary effect of +x Life Leech.

 

Having a character that's on a higher level is always a good thing. In other words - if your TG is on Silver, having another character on Gold who can get Gold leech runes for you is a good thing. The higher the difficulty level, the higher the LL. Yes, getting the blacksmith to socket your runes can be expensive. But it's worth it if you can take baddies down that much faster.

 

6.) I'd use the best possible sword weapon you can find, preferably with high damage, and if you can find one - with LL. I'd recommend a hafted weapon, but you've already taken Sword Weapons. Without the appropriate lore, swinging an axe or hammer is a bit too slow. As I said before - the faster you kill them the less chance that they will hurt you.

 

7.) For those rare occasions where there's a baddie that you can't reach because it's hiding out on a cliff or on a wall, use the Archimedes Beam CA to take them down. If they're behind a wall, I let 'em have it with Fiery Ember or Icy Evanescence. It may take a few tries, but that's OK... As long as you're not exactly busy with anything else attacking you - might as well get every last XP you can.

[chattius 2,533]

I don't play console, I think on consoles

 

you don't see how high your energy shield level is

x% lifeleech behaves a bit different

targeting is different- on PC I played my TG without a battery because I disliked the arm-gun when I played a deadly-spears build

 

What is fun: setting whole area in flames, aggravate the enemies and let them charge into your activated spears.

[lujate 578]

On consoles:

* RpH works fine

* LL% is healing only

* There is no status bar for shields. The only reliable method to tell the shield is out is your HP will drop like a stone.

 

For melee attacks, certain Combat Arts will automatically perform conventional melee attacks while they recharge and the CA will automatically fire when charged. I played a TG on ps3 for a couple a days while my pc was down. I think I used Deathly Spears for that.

 

To your question about skills, Constitution, Toughness or Warding Energy. I would rather pick two, but, based on my ps3 Seraphim experience, I would vote for Constitution.

Edited May 5, 2011 by lujate

[nygyg 0]

Ok so I'm now at level 32 (played him for awhile when I got off work last night) and almost finished traveling through the dragon caves. Most enemies go down in 2 hits (with Dedicated Blow I'm coming up just a little short on damage to take them out in 1 hit), I have death blow at 56% so elite monsters go down in 2-3 hits. The hardest fight I've had so far was the demons in the seraphim arena (had to use around 70 healings to keep alive), they knocked out the shield in seconds.

 

I have some regen per hit socketed but not as much as I need to have yet, I have very little TG armor so most of what is socketed in my armor is the blacksmiths damage and armor modifiers. I'm planning on opening EP at level 35 because I know the fights are going to get harder without some good armor, I have alot of all skills amulets in my chest but they don't do me any good without armor to put them on.

 

I've been playing him using both aspects, I'm casting either FE or IE depending on which I think is going to be more effective as I'm running into mobs to start doing damage to everyone, then using DS and DB to deal with everything that swarms down on me, I have some life leech on my armor and when the mob that swarms me is dead I switch to the gun arm to finish off anyone that isn't in melee range. I know the gun arm isn't very powerful but the enemies that are still alive but not in melee range have taken alot of damage and both life leech and death blow work on the gun arm so it finishes them off quickly and helps replenish my health.

 

I haven't figured out a strategy for fighting bosses yet other then just running up to them, cast my divine gift (Forens 70% reflection) and start attacking with DB and DS and hope to get them down to death blow level before the reflection wears off. It's not pretty but it's been working so far.

 

I haven't been using combat alert but I'm going to start (I'm guessing that it's better to not mod it to become a buff).

 

As far as weapon choice goes, I went with swords because I have quite a few bone slicers in my chest but when I get to the point where I'll build a new TG I had allready planned on going with halfed weapons.

 

For Combat Discipline I'm curious, should I be putting "hard" points into this? If so then should I also be putting my attacks like DB and DS into a combo slot? By only putting 1 CA attack into a combo slot does it still benefit from the regen bonus of being in a combo?

 

I'm guessing that from what you folks have suggested so far that Constitution would be the better way to go instead of Warding Energy or Toughness. Like I mentioned in my first post I know I didn't make good choices with my shield mods but I'm experimenting and wanted to see how the mods I chose would work (not to well btw). I went with derogate, reduction and power but I assume I should have went with power, recharge and power.

 

Well that's about it for now, time to get back to playin', I have a long way to go and ALOT of armor hunting to do. Thanks for the help so far, the TG is turning out to be alot more interesting then I though he could have been.

Edited May 5, 2011 by nygyg

[lujate 578]

Just an fyi, there are some issues with combos on the consoles.

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

[nygyg 0]

Just an fyi, there are some issues with combos on the consoles.

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

 

I've allready put them in combo slot but thanks for the heads up, I'll have to keep an eye on it and see if theres any difference in the attack speed.

[wolfie2kX 528]

Ok so I'm now at level 32 (played him for awhile when I got off work last night) and almost finished traveling through the dragon caves. Most enemies go down in 2 hits (with Dedicated Blow I'm coming up just a little short on damage to take them out in 1 hit), I have death blow at 56% so elite monsters go down in 2-3 hits. The hardest fight I've had so far was the demons in the seraphim arena (had to use around 70 healings to keep alive), they knocked out the shield in seconds.

 

I have some regen per hit socketed but not as much as I need to have yet, I have very little TG armor so most of what is socketed in my armor is the blacksmiths damage and armor modifiers. I'm planning on opening EP at level 35 because I know the fights are going to get harder without some good armor, I have alot of all skills amulets in my chest but they don't do me any good without armor to put them on.

 

I've been playing him using both aspects, I'm casting either FE or IE depending on which I think is going to be more effective as I'm running into mobs to start doing damage to everyone, then using DS and DB to deal with everything that swarms down on me, I have some life leech on my armor and when the mob that swarms me is dead I switch to the gun arm to finish off anyone that isn't in melee range. I know the gun arm isn't very powerful but the enemies that are still alive but not in melee range have taken alot of damage and both life leech and death blow work on the gun arm so it finishes them off quickly and helps replenish my health.

 

I haven't figured out a strategy for fighting bosses yet other then just running up to them, cast my divine gift (Forens 70% reflection) and start attacking with DB and DS and hope to get them down to death blow level before the reflection wears off. It's not pretty but it's been working so far.

 

I haven't been using combat alert but I'm going to start (I'm guessing that it's better to not mod it to become a buff).

 

As far as weapon choice goes, I went with swords because I have quite a few bone slicers in my chest but when I get to the point where I'll build a new TG I had allready planned on going with halfed weapons.

 

For Combat Discipline I'm curious, should I be putting "hard" points into this? If so then should I also be putting my attacks like DB and DS into a combo slot? By only putting 1 CA attack into a combo slot does it still benefit from the regen bonus of being in a combo?

 

I'm guessing that from what you folks have suggested so far that Constitution would be the better way to go instead of Warding Energy or Toughness. Like I mentioned in my first post I know I didn't make good choices with my shield mods but I'm experimenting and wanted to see how the mods I chose would work (not to well btw). I went with derogate, reduction and power but I assume I should have went with power, recharge and power.

 

Well that's about it for now, time to get back to playin', I have a long way to go and ALOT of armor hunting to do. Thanks for the help so far, the TG is turning out to be alot more interesting then I though he could have been.

 

It doesn't sound to be all that bad. I would, perhaps, consider pumping a few points into Tactics Lore next chance or two you get. That will bring up the damage factor for DB and everything else.

 

I'd also look into using Charged Grid... While not quite as effective as the Seraphim's Hallowed Restoration or Dryad's Goldenglade Touch for healing, it does have healing abilities AND does damage to the bad guys at the same time. It's still cheaper than health pots. Oh.. And it can be stacked with Icy Evanescence or Fiery Ember - while the latter two can't be used at the same time.

 

Jolting Touch can also be modded for LL... That can come in handy as well.

 

RpH should also work on your gun arm. It won't do anything about a cooldown (for say FE, CG or IE) but if you have eaten too many runes, it will cut down insanely high regen times.

 

I'd definitely go with EP for the next skill. It's definitely time to go hunting up some armor. Btw... The reason I recommended the Technical Modules' - specifically the Shoulders the Demiurge item - it has RpH built into it. Therefore, I'd swap in as many EP based relics as you can find and go for a little hunt for good armor.

 

As far as Combat Alert goes... There's a couple of schools of thought on that. On the one hand, you can set it and forget it - until someone debuffs you. On the other, the Permanent mod does cut Combat Alert bonuses (except for Repair) in half. It's generally recommended not to mod the Combat Alert CA gold mod until you're at a higher level and can afford to eat more runes.

 

That being said, I did it - and it works quite nicely even with the nerfing of the bonuses. Later on, when you've got armor to spare, I'd consider making what's known as a Buff Suit for it - That would be a suit with lots of slots that have nothing but Buff runes socketed in them. When you start your day, you put on the Buff suit, activate the Buff in question and then switch back to your regular armor. The buff suit will temporarily boost your Buff's level and when you remove the armor after you've activated it, it will stay at the higher level until you've been debuffed or you turn the buff off or you exit the game.

 

Combat Discipline isn't a bad choice. It does add damage to your CAs - even if you put only one CA into the combo. Adding points to Combat Discipline is generally a good idea - as boosting it will boost damage. See the table in the link above.

 

Your choice for shield mods isn't THAT bad. The Derogate mod gives you close combat damage. Remember: Anything that takes your enemies down faster IS a good thing. Let the fools come up and run into your shields - and let their hit points get taken away. Your other two choices line up with the accepted mods - so it's not quite as bad as it could have been.

 

Anyhow.. Good luck...

[nygyg 0]

level 46, over halfway through the wastelands, surrounded by level 53 demons and it was more then my poor little doggie boy could handle. Its been a real learning experience at what the TG can and can't handle and hopefully the next one will be better built.