Sacred Underworld - Death From Above (Stomping Gladi)

[AngryNinja 6]

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Skills
3. Stats
4. Combat Arts
5. Damage
6. Gear
7. Trading
8. Gameplay
9. Conclusion
10. Screenshot

 

Introduction

Hello people!
This will be my very first Guide and actual post on these forums. Long have I been a lurker, coming here for guides, advice and general information about this old but yet so fun game to play every now and then.

I do hesitate to call this a guide as I'm starting it, because I don't think it'll be nearly as fleshed out as a guide ought to be, not to mention that I'm still in the process of testing it myself.
Try to view it as me attempting to share my thoughts on this approach to the Gladiator.

At the time of writing this very sentence my Gladiator recently hit level 140 playing in Platinum. It's going very smooth but the leveling speed is slowing down considerably.
I have Niobium unlocked and I've tried it a bit but the enemies at Valley of Tears were almost 50 levels above me and the time it took to kill one enemy was simply not worth the experience yield, which I must say was quite lackluster, but I digress.

I feel like I should also preface this by letting you all know that, although I've played this game quite a lot over the years, this is the highest level I've ever been. I'm by no means a pro at the game. There's still so much I'd like to know about the game but information is really hard to come by nowadays.

I should also disclose that I followed R00ster's very detailed and informative guide for a long time, intending to play a dual-wield Gladiator. I have some points of contention with that guide, which I feel might be more a testament to my areas of ignorance in the game. He appears to be a legend in the community and I would not presume to know better. It's just that as the game got tougher (in Gold and upwards) I found it harder to follow his guide and when I transitioned to a Stomper I found it much more enjoyable.

Seeing as I started my character following a different guide and the fact that I've actually not played Gladiator all that much throughout the years, I'm not at all convinced that my approach is even the best for a Stomping Gladiator. Perhaps my skill-set is not optimal. I'm not sure for instance, if dual wielding is good for Stomping, seeing as you'd jump just as fast with a two-hander, and probably do more damage as well (you miss out on some sockets though).
I'm more than happy to get input from more knowledgeable members and to correct this "guide" accordingly.

And lastly, English is not my native language and I'll surely butcher the structure on some of my sentences, so bare with me, or bear at me.
 

Skills

As I said, I initially followed R00ster's guide so my skill set-up mimics his. If someone provides me with a better alternative I'll likely change this section.
I've listed the skills in the same order that you'd pick them when presented with the option of picking a new skill.

• Weapon Lore
• Concentration
• Constitution
• Dual Wielding
• Agility
• Armor
• Parry
• Trading

As I leveled I did not follow a strict "1/3 levels in this skill, 1/2 in this skill etc etc". I honestly don't feel like it is THAT important. I'll write down some key points below:

1. Early on your highest skills should most likely be Weapon Lore, Concentration and Constitution.
2. You get Trade at level 50 in this order, it's a good idea to start hoarding points at level 40 or even earlier and then dump it all in Trade to get it to your level ASAP.
   Always keep Trade maxed.
3. Put points in the skill that you feel is most needed at any current time.
4. Once gear starts giving high amounts of points to certain skill levels, it might be wise to start saving points so that you won't be screwed over when you need to switch out a gear piece
   that has a huge bonus in a particular skill.
5. Dual Wielding is the only skill you're better off not putting too many points in. I've read 1 is enough, or 10 at most. Luckily I had not wasted more than 10 in my own skill when I found this out.

 

Stats

A lot of guides recommend Physical Regeneration as your leveling stat. R00ster argued for Strength and I've got to agree with him, I've been very satisfied so far with this choice.
Picking Strength makes the item line: "Weapon Damage [Element]: +X% Strength" so much better and it's one of the best lines for boosting your damage big time.

Although there is a similar line that boosts damage based on your Physical Regeneration (and other stats) but the best Axe weapons gain a big increase from your Strength stat so I'd argue that you'd gain more from that.


Combat Arts

As I did not start my character with the intention of having Stomping Jump as my primary skill my current setup does not reflect that either.
However thinking about it, I don't think you necessarily have to use Stomping Jump from the get go, and I think it's fine to transition to it much later on if you'd prefer to.
The beauty with Stomping Jump though is that you don't really need to have a high level in it to be effective.

I'm honestly not sure how the mechanics for rune drop rates work. I've read that you should only use runes for the skills you intend to use to ensure as high of a drop rate as possible. Maybe someone could clarify this a bit more.
For instance: Does using runes converted from 4 other runes at the Combat Master effectively lower the overall drop rate of runes.

Idunno, I suppose my recommendation would be this: Only learn skills that you'll actually intend to use.

The Skills I have learned are:

• Attack - I tried to keep it at 2-3 seconds cooldown. I liked to interrupt the animation before the last couple hits and then reset it because it felt faster to use it that way.
• Hard Hit - I feel 1 second cooldown is ideal for this skill, 1.5 at most. But at the same time you'll want it to be strong enough to 1-hit most normal enemies. It's a good skill to put in Combos too.
• Heroic Courage - This skill is just the best. Love it. I don't really think you can increase it too much, but if your defense and attack rating with it on is comfortably high you could lay off it for a while.
• Dagger Stare - I've not yet incorporated this skill in my arsenal but I suspect it would fit very well with this build, definitely try it out! (thanks to user Augmint for pointing this out)

Honorable Mentions:

• Awe - I used this occasionally early on, it's certainly nice in a clutch, especially if you're not using Stomping Jump.
• Fist of the Gods - I've actually leveled this skill quite a bit and I used it when grinding Valley of Tears in Gold. But honestly I don't like the skill all that much.
  I find it too unreliable when it comes to how many targets it'll hit and the slow casting time really has you praying your Defense Rating will have your back during the barrage
  of hits you'll take while channeling it.
  I think my DR is pretty high and I'm only hit at a 10-20% chance in Platinum but there's always a risk that you'll be unlucky while channeling FotG and you might die in higher difficulties. No bueno.

The Main Course:

• Stomping Jump - The game really doesn't tell you much about how this skill actually works, I'm not sure I know how it fully works but I'm pretty sure I know most of how it works.
  I prefer to keep this skill at a really low cooldown, say 0.4-0.7 seconds at most. You'll want to be able to use it in quick succession. The cast animation is actually pretty fast when you use it right next to an enemy.
  
  This skill only hits 1 target but it has an area of effect stun around the point of impact which will ensure that you'll hardly every die VS normal monsters.
  
  Although it's a single target skill it actually has a benefit to being used among more than one enemy: each nearby enemy will add ONE more hit to your target, with a maximum of six (I think),
  but only if the target can survive that many hits, otherwise it'll only show as many damage lines as needed to actually kill it (so don't be confused if you think you should see more lines).
  The game is fairly generous with how close the surrounding enemies need to be in order to add more hits. I'm not sure if leveling the skill increases this range.
  
  When it comes to the hit % of Stomping Jump I'm not entirely sure how it works. You can definitely miss with it (although the stun effect can still occur). I'm pretty sure each hit is checked with your hit chance, and since this skill has no added Attack % you'll want to ensure your base Attack % (with Heroic Courage on) is fairly high. I'm not convinced though because my hit chance on Platinum is only around 50-60% but I don't miss that often with Stomping Jump.
  
  A tip when using this skill to travel is to always move with a mouse click an inch or so forward before leaping again. This will make it much faster because you'll reset the animation when you manually move in between jumps and thus you'll be able to jump much faster. Hitting a target with the skill seem to reset the animation much faster than hitting nothing with it though so moving in between jumps when fighting is not necessary, but I usually do it.
  
  Also since this skills gains an important benefit from having more targets nearby you'll want to collect a bunch of them before stomping them all to death. And the stun effect will basically render you invincible in the process, neat huh?
  The only danger comes from hoarding monsters before stomping them, so make sure your Defense rating is still comfortably high.
  
  Lastly regarding this skill: prioritize low cooldown over high damage. If you lack some damage, simply add one more enemy in the mix to gain one more damage line.
  You can always use Hard hit instead if there's too few enemies around.
  Most of my points in this skill comes from bonuses from items.

 

Picking a damage type:

This is where I don't fully agree with R00ster. It's very likely that I'm missing something or that his point about having one weapon set of each element damage type is much more important in Niobium than in earlier difficulty levels. I can certainly see that being the case.

For those of you who've not read his guide I'll try to summarize his point about having one set of weapons for each element type:

1. Pick a main element damage.
2. Have one of each type in your 5 weapon slots: Undead, Physical, Fire, Magic, Poison.
3. Only socket physical damage in physical and magic in magic etc etc.
4. Don't socket damage in armor, focus DEF and RES in armor sockets.
5. Know which element type to use vs enemies and switch accordingly in battle.

I think that's the gist of it.

Now, anyone feel free to correct on what I'm about to say, but know that I'm just telling you of my experience playing the game.

R00ster says you should aim to establish all these points by the time you're level 100 but I think it's way too hardcore.

I'll give my opinion point by point, and tell you what I did:

1. I agree you should pick a main element damage and stick to it, don't mix.
2. I never found this to be all that necessary. I picked Physical as my main damage type and no matter how hard I tried to buy a weapon set for each element my damage with the "correct" element almost never came close to my physical weapon set up and I'll explain why I think that is further down. I did however find that having a weapon set with +fire damage to undead was worth it.
3. I agree, you should put pure physical damage rings in a set of physical weapons, and the same for all the other elements.
4. As I've progressed through the game I found that having more and more DEF and RES was vital to my surival and at level 140 I've got mostly defensive amulets socketed into all my armor. However before Platinum I did not find this necessary at all, and I actually had plenty of damage rings (physical as it was my main damage type) socketed in my armor as well. Just balance it depending on your defensive needs, sometimes hitting like a truck is a good defense too.
5. My problem with this point is that, even when I transitioned to mostly defensive sockets in my armor, which would mean less emphasis on physical damage (which obviously was contributing to physical being so superior) my physical weapons almost always out-damaged my weapon set with the "correct" element damage by a lot, with a few exceptions. Honestly up until platinum I was killing most things so fast that switching elements were not really needed anyway. But I've actually tested my damage a lot in Platinum and even then my physical weapons are almost always stronger.

Buy spending a LOT of time looking for each element damage type at the merchants I found that most other element weapons paled in comparison to Physical axes. First of all it's very rare to even come across a weapon that has a pure element damage line aside from physical, and when you find one, they don't have the innate element bonus lines that a physical axe often has.

You see, two very important lines on a weapon that'll seriously boost your damage gain are:

1. Weapon Damage [Element]: +X% Strength (a certain % of your strength is added as a FLAT bonus in that element damage)
2. [Element] Damage: +X% (a certain % increase in that specific element damage, same as the bonus from Weapon lore I assume)

These two lines very often appear on physical damage axes. It doesn't take you a whole lot of time to find two good axes with these two lines and 3 sockets.

When it comes to fire, poison and magic weapons on the other hand... Not only are they very rare to come across in my experience, but most of them never have +X% stat to damage lines which is so important they also rarely have +X% in element damage either. The lack of these two lines really gimps your damage output with those elements, and I've found that, up to platinum difficulty at least, they simply can't compete with a strong physical weapon set-up. There are a few exception enemies though, for example if you're grinding Valley of tears there is a variation of the Shadow Guard enemies (the white ones) that appear to have insanely high physical resistance, magic weapons work well against these. Also a strong +Fire Damage to Undead weapon set is usually stronger than physical VS Undead, not by a whole lot though.

I will say this though: For overall play, it's nice to have a set of weapons for each element I suppose, especially in Niobium, and possibly Platinum too. But if your goal is to grind in Valley of Tears for the most part. A strong set of Physical and Magical weapons have worked just fine for me. Save yourself the headache of looking for each weapon type until much later in the game IMHO.

I'm sorry for mentioning R00ster so much, I certainly don't mean to bash on the guy, his guide is great and he definitely knows his stuff I personally just felt that his guide was a bit too hardcore and some aspects seemed needlessly... tryhard, for lack of a better word. I honestly feel bad for mentioning it so much... It's just that I used it initially myself and then branched off into my own playstyle and now I'm using his guide as comparison to my own and I'm starting to feel like a dick.

Alright now that I got that out lets proceed shall we?

Actually I sort of feel like we're nearing a close here, there are just a few more things I'd like to touch upon, some tips regarding the Trade skill and what not. I'll also provide a picture of my current stat screen and some closing words, kudos if you've read this far it certainly got longer than I'd initially thought it'd be!

Getting geared up!

I won't give you a step by step, level by level strategy here. Getting gear is so incredibly random and telling you to go for a specific set item or unique is quite pointless seeing as you could re-load a boss 100 times and not get the one item you want. When it comes to set items and uniques, just play and pray you eventually get one of the good ones. Most of your gear will come from trading anyway. I will mention some set items that I find useful for my build though!

Personally I value sockets more than anything, and I think most players do. I always mainly look for items that have the max amount of sockets they can have and THEN I look at the other lines, this also makes your life easier when you eventually start trading, seeing as it means less items to keep a lookout for.

I should add that I didn't really think of writing this guide until literally today so I've not really written down anything prior to hitting level 140.

But this game offers such a vast array of item possibilities that you could honestly go for a bunch of different set ups and they could work. I think I read somewhere that most any builds work up to Gold difficulty.

Before you hit level 50 and pick the Trade skill you won't be able to be very picky about what item upgrades you go for. You simply kill, get an item, try it, perhaps replace your previous item if the new one fits your play better. Heck, even when you get trade you won't be able to be THAT picky about your items.

I prefer a strong offense early on up to the point where you're getting hit way too much and way too hard for your liking, then some defense is to be considered. Save all the decent damage rings you find and socket them into your armor, compliment with some amulets that have a flat bonus to Defense in your sockets if the going gets tough (Both rings and amulets can occasionally roll flat Attack or Defense. which works wonders with your added %'s from skills, but amulets inherently has much higher resistances which makes them the better choice when opting for defense)
A good place to grind jewelry in the Ancaria campaign is in the mansion basment south-eash-ish from Mascarell. The Ghosts (or energy beings) there really like to drop the bling bling.

If you decide to pick Physical damage as your main damage type (I recommend it) then I suggest you use physical damage rings to socket in your gear.

Aside from liking sockets on items I also very much enjoy the "Regeneration Special Move: +X%" lines, and currently most of my items have that line. But generally only look for that line when you actually need it, if your cooldowns are currently at a comfortable rate, then maybe opt out on that line until later.

Much like weapons, armor can also gain a bonus to resistances, either as plain % increase or based on some of your stats, like Strength for example. These bonuses can become really significant later on, and with the massive bonuses your socketed amulets and Armor skill will give you, a certain resistance may skyrocket by equipping an item with the lines "Fire resistance: +30% strength" and "Fire resistance: +50%" for example.

Item lines that give a bonus to a certain combat art can always be a nice addition, so long as it won't make the cooldown suffer too much.

And lines that give a bonus to skills are also a nice addition, but beware when changing these items later on, you might've grown used to your current skill level, hence why stocking up on skill points occasionally is a good idea, to compensate for the loss when changing an item with +skills.

So far I've never used a full item set, I've mostly used magic or rare items and the occasional single or two piece set item that I found useful. some of them include:

• Lorgars Amulet - At high levels this gives a nice bonus to Physical resistance based on your strength and a nice boost to Physical Regen as well as some poison damage based on charisma, some flat defense and some other goodies. Really nice amulet to put in sockets, not that you're likely to find that many of them, I've found two so far...
• Raane's Plated Greaves - Gives a bonus to Stomping Jump, has 2 sockets, huge amount of All Resistance % and +Magic Find, with some flat Defense, %Def and a bonus to the Parrying skill. All around nice item.
  I saw a significant increase in Set and Unique items from just having this one +MF item equipped.
• Raane's Heroic Tunic - Give a boost to Heroic courage, high Physical regen, some constitution and a % increase in experience per kill.
• Raane's Masterful Headgear - Has a nice boost to life leech but that's about it honestly. It lacks 1 socket and you can get life leech from other sources such as a ring/amulet in a socket. You don't need much for this build.
• Andiell's Titanic Claws - I have this in my storage and I intend to use them as soon as I can adjust the rest of my gear. It has some real nice lines such as high life leech, + to Stomping Jump, highi speed and agility and some spell resistance. My SJ cooldown would be too long if I use this currently though but I intend to fit them in eventually.
• Siridan's Shiny Ring - A nice ring for socketing. Has a nice boost to Physical regen, endurance, concentration and agility as well as a % increase to all resistances!

There are likely more useful items you could find but these are the ones I've been using at one point or another so far during my play. Check the Sacred wiki for more details on Set and Unique items!

Lastly let's touch on the Trade skill a bit.

Trading

I'll be honest with you, I don't totally understand this skill fully and I've had a really hard time finding specific information about it. However this skill is extremely helpful in finding powerful upgrades at a cost though, besides gold: time, lots of time.

Compared to finding all these upgrades from killing enemies though, not nearly as much time. Also you only have to trade occasionally, every 20-30 levels or so is fine, starting at 50.

Basically what you want is to always keep trade maxed out to gain the most from it, even better is to have it higher than your own level, which can be a bit tricky seeing as there are quite few sources as far as I know of to gain +Trade from.

The trade skill does a couple of things to my knowledge: Lower the costs at a merchant, gives you more gold for selling an item AND most importantly the Merchant will offer gear that has the potential to be way better than any you'll find from killing enemies. You'll also see plenty of rare and mostly blue items being offered for purchase.

I suggest making your "trade suit" at around level 50 when you start "merch'ing". Your trade suit will consist of a full set of armor and weapons (either two weapons or a weapon and a shield) that all have the max amount of sockets on them. Having the line +1 to all skills is a nice bonus, but time consuming to find those items. Settle for max sockets first.
Then, you start looking in the potions and jewelry tab at the merchant and specifically look for rings or amulets with +1 to all skills on them, or even better and amulet with +3 trade (this line gets higher depending on your level AND difficulty level I think, but mainly your level). Then you progressively fill all your sockets with +1 to all skills and +3 trade.

Then of course you'll also wear this "suit" whenever you're merch'ing, and when you're done store it away in your handy chest.

To make your life significantly easier when browsing merchants you should know that a merchant restock their supply when certain conditions are met, such as warping to another location via a portal OR more importantly when you talk to another merchant. So walking between two merchants would keep restocking their supplies, pretty neat huh? And there are a couple merchants that are pretty close to each other to make this easier.
Still though, that's a lot of walking in the long run... no bueno.

Instead follow the steps in the link below to have the option of having two merchants right next to each other! No walking, yay!
http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred:Bravemart

 

My approach when merch'ing is to only check one tab at a time. On the one hand it feels like I probably missed the sickest weapon by only looking at armors, but it generally feels faster and more efficient to focus on Weapon, Armors OR jewely, one at a time.

When picking a weapon I only look at items with 2-3 sockets (1-handed) then I look for "strength % -> physical damage" and "+X% Physical damage" lines. Or, you know, the equivalent of the element type you're looking for. At this point you're already stretching your luck thin to be honest, but another nice bonus is +X to Attack (Defense is always nice too but on weapons I prefer Attack). Some neat blue lines such as +X to Weapon Lore/Concentration, Regen Physical etc is also a nice addition. But first and foremost look for: max sockets, element damage bonuses, attack/defense and some nice blue lines.

Certain axes have a line with a high % of your strength added as fire damage to undead, I recommend to get a set of those for undead enemies.

When picking armor pieces I only look at items with max amount of sockets, that's not to say that you can't find some sick items with no sockets or 1-2 sockets, you definitely can, but I generally prioritize sockets over any other line. Besides it makes your browsing much more limited and faster.
Other than that I look for lines that'll benefit me, such as "Strength % to resistance" / "X% to resistance" / "+ combat arts (mostly Heroic Courage)" / "+ Regen Physical Move" / "+skills" / "+stats", stuff like that.

When picking jewelry I tend to look at all rings and amulets. You'll learn to gloss over them real fast with time. Always look for +Trade amulets, they're few and far between, completing your "trade suit" with only +trade amulets will take some time, but do remember that you CAN socket +trade amulets that can only be used for other classes, they don't have to be for Gladiator specifically. I learned that the hard way.

Look for amulets with a high flat bonus to Defense and Attack (mainly defense until gold/platinum+). You'll notice that some lines can only appear on certain item models. The trade skill is always on the pin shaped amulet for example. And only the green/gray amulet that always has medium phys res and high poison res will ever roll a really high defense bonus. I tend to get 4 of those and put in my torso and then put some phys/magic res amulets(with defense rolls as well) in other sockets.

When your trade skill and character level is high enough you'll start seeing some really good rings at the merchant occasionally. Keep a look-out for damage rings that have +X damage in fire to Undead and socket those in your "banish undead" weapons. Look for rings that have +X% in [Element] damage, those are a huge damage increase. But the cream of the crop is the ring which has "+X% Strength to [Element] damage". Eventually you'll even start seeing both of those lines on the same ring, that's a keeper.
You'll see similar lines but for other stats such as "+X% Phys regen to [Element] damage" but the strength line will always be the best, and usually the % element line will beat other stat lines as well.

Current Gameplay

I feel like I should mention a little bit about my gameplay as well.

At this point I have Niobium unlocked but the enemies are way too high level, in Valley of Tears especially. I didn't really have any trouble surviving with this build but the effort was not worth the payoff so for now I stick to Platinum.

Feels like the only point is to grind them levels and to merch' occasionally.

When leveling I stick to Valley of tears, it's gotta be the best and fastest experience, although at this point "fast" is relative.

I don't follow a hard set route when going on my rampage but I typically start at the portal, work my way to the "Bear cave". After clearing the cave I work my way down to the Sakkara demon area and then back to the portal to sell off loot. I usually stick around a bit longer since a lot of areas respawn as you go.

It's probably not the most efficient way, but I'm not sure if there's a sure way to respawn the Sakkara Demons or the bear cave which are probably the quickest areas for experience. Respawning seems a bit random and the bear cave does not respawn by going out and in like other caves.

I feel like the killing speed is pretty good with Stomping Jump. I usually clear about 80% of the bear cave with one Mentor potion.
The damage varies of course but typically I one-shot the big golems (their name escapes me), 2 shot Hell Golems (green ones) and 3-shot Sakkara Demons and Cerebropods.
But if I stack a bunch of enemies together I'll naturally one-shot anything due to Stomping Jump hitting more times depending on how many enemies are nearby.

Gotta say that I hate Cerebropods with a passion and whoever designed them and thought they did a good thing should re-evaluate their life. Trying to get the "jump" on them (get it) by doing a long distance leap is usually effective, after that they'll be stunned. You can also use corners to your advantage so that they cant beam you with their anti-CA beam. Sneak up on them using corners to your advantage and if you're face to face you can leap real quick and shut them down (leap has a faster animation the shorter the leap is).

I'll look to incorporate some split% soon I think, feels like I should really get some but I'm not sure how effective it is because I'm not sure the added hits from Stomping Jumps all have a chance to proc split.

Conclusion

Alright I think that's about it for now! I'll probably revise this wall of text later on, especially if I get some feedback.
Let me know if you'd like me to add some information and I'll see what I can do.
Any Feedback is appreciated~~

 

Finally I'll add a picture of my character for you to use as reference (only really useful for level 100+ and/or Gold+ difficulty I suppose)

Edit:

I would like to add that I think it would be fine to sacrifice some defense in favor of more attack rating with this build (I'll do that during my next merch' round). You're already very safe when using stomping jump due to it's stunning effect and it's relatively easy to pop a potion if you're getting hit while gathering enemies to stomp.
Since Stomping Jump has no bonus to attack rating like the Attack or Hard Hit CA's you might notice a lot of misses on higher difficulty levels. As you can see I only have 58% hit chance on Hell Golems in the screenshot.

However I'm fairly sure each hit from stomping jump is checked on your chance to hit. So the more enemies you have nearby the more chances you'd have to hit.

For example: Stomping Jump gains one more hit per enemy near your target, but no more than is needed to actually kill the target. If two hits are required to kill a target, but you have 4 enemies nearby, you'd only see two damage lines. BUT if you were to miss on one of those lines you'd have two more chances to hit, so even if your chance to hit is only 50%, you're pretty much guaranteed to kill a target that can take 2 hits from Stomping Jump if you have plenty of enemies around.

Even so, you'll not be gathering hoards of enemies all the time, you'll only be gathering 2-3 or just one (although vs one target a strong Hard Hit is usually the better option) and in those cases having a low hit chance can be annoying.
But if your Stomping Jump is strong enough to 1-2 shot most enemies, and your cooldown is very low, it's not a very big deal if you only have 60% hit chance.

 

Cheers!

[Hooyaah 3,198]

You certainly put in a lot of time an effort to present this guide. Please update anything that you discover works better or differently than you may have expected. Nice work!

[gogoblender 3,583]

Genius guide, Rolf, so detailed!  I never really played the Gladiator ,but so many of my online friends did...and I was lucky enough to play with the legendary r00ster who was apt with game mechanics and loved to min max all his builds... kind of a visionary for all of us at that time, and I'm very touched that you referenced him in your guide.

I'm sure your guide will find its followers, theres a few thousand a day lurking at this forum, always reading (thank you for mentionning your time here reading its always rewarding thinking that others out there are following this game  ) and looking for builds.

Thanks for registering and making your first post, and going full epic as well.

welcome to DarkMatters!

 

gogo

[Augmint 109]

Interesting guide. I agree somewhat with the criticisms of R00sters guide. +% attribute mods are pretty hard to find and while they sound effective they seem like end game - grind NIOB for hours - stuff. With the exception of Lorgars amulets I can't remember finding a really good +% attribute mods (maybe on weapons vs undead)  

Elemental damage is still important, you notice it when you fight trolls with a poison mist build, or having fire vs undead  and the right one vs specific dragons. Very hard to use Lightning BM on magic resistant creatures.

If I could add anything dagger stare and split % might be something to explore if you use stomping jump.

[podgie_bear 185]

Isn't there a guide for Daemoness called Death from Above based around Soaring Demon?

[gogoblender 3,583]

I think I remember seeing that guide name somewhere too

 

 

gogo

[AngryNinja 6]

Thank you everyone for your encouraging replies, much appreciated!

I'd like to reply to some of the comments.

 

2 hours ago, podgie_bear said:

Isn't there a guide for Daemoness called Death from Above based around Soaring Demon?

I checked the Daemon sub-forum and you are indeed correct! "Death comes from above" is the name of a guide there.
It was not my intention to so closely copy that name. My initial idea for the post name was "Victory one stomp at a time" and then I changed it to it's current name just before posting.
Then I remembered there's a skill in a game called "Heroes of Newerth" where the character yells "death from above!" when executing it and I thought it was a more fitting name. I'm not opposed to changing it if the title would be too confusing now though.

 

 

3 hours ago, Augmint said:

Interesting guide. I agree somewhat with the criticisms of R00sters guide. +% attribute mods are pretty hard to find and while they sound effective they seem like end game - grind NIOB for hours - stuff. With the exception of Lorgars amulets I can't remember finding a really good +% attribute mods (maybe on weapons vs undead)  

Elemental damage is still important, you notice it when you fight trolls with a poison mist build, or having fire vs undead  and the right one vs specific dragons. Very hard to use Lightning BM on magic resistant creatures.

If I could add anything dagger stare and split % might be something to explore if you use stomping jump.

Yes allow me to elaborate a bit.

I agree that resistances are important and with spells I'd say even more so. My point here was that very strong physical weapons were so much easier to come by that even up to Platinum you could use a set of physical weapons and still out-damage all the other element types on MOST enemies, and I just thought that going through the effort of getting a set for each element as early as silver/gold (or below level 100 ) was a bit much. Especially since I've noticed how hard a good magic/poison/fire weapon is to come by in the first place.

Having racked up quite a few hours starting at merchant wares at this point I gotta say I'm a bit disappointed in the variety of element choices you're provided with. Granted I only bother to check 1-handed weapons so I'm surely missing a lot of magic/poison/fire weapons. Even so it's so rare to see anything but physical and often you see hybrid weapons which I would not bother with either. And when you find a pure magic weapon for instance, I've yet to see a solid +x% in stat to damage line on it, even +X% magic damage is quite rare on them. While most axes usually spawn with both "stat to damage" and % damage.

I actually bothered to make a strong set of each element back at level 120 before going into platinum and with only a few exceptions my physical weapons have always been the strongest in platinum. I suspect it's not the same in niobium though.

I've been thinking that dagger stare would be a good choice for this build. I might level it now, but having no points invested in it at 140 puts me off a bit. I'll probably keep a look out for some + dagger stare items on my next merch round though!

I'll also add this CA as a recommendation in the guide, thanks for the input!

 

Edited April 4, 2018 by AngryNinja

[podgie_bear 185]

1 hour ago, AngryNinja said:

I checked the Daemon sub-forum and you are indeed correct! "Death comes from above" is the name of a guide there.
It was not my intention to so closely copy that name. My initial idea for the post name was "Victory one stomp at a time" and then I changed it to it's current name just before posting.
Then I remembered there's a skill in a game called "Heroes of Newerth" where the character yells "death from above!" when executing it and I thought it was a more fitting name. I'm not opposed to changing it if the title would be too confusing now though.


 

I have no problem with the name if you want to keep it, just couldn't remember if the "original" was here or on another site that specialised in Sacred.

Now I know it is on here, I will go look it up. I always meant to try that build but had never got around to it. Seeing your name made me remember it is all.

Edited April 4, 2018 by podgie_bear

[Augmint 109]

With dagger stare I'd just shop for a belt and boots with +DS, find some +CA jewelry and make a combo. You could get to 45 - 50 easily. Buy yellow potions and you're good to go.

RE Elemental damage - I think there is a middle ground between focusing on elemental damage. In platinum you can go physical
and (except for a few situations) not notice much of a difference. But tooltip damage in Sacred has always been higher than real, on screen numbers esp. in Niobium.

Agree whole heartedly on shopping for elemental damage.

 

[AngryNinja 6]

8 hours ago, Augmint said:

With dagger stare I'd just shop for a belt and boots with +DS, find some +CA jewelry and make a combo. You could get to 45 - 50 easily. Buy yellow potions and you're good to go.

RE Elemental damage - I think there is a middle ground between focusing on elemental damage. In platinum you can go physical
and (except for a few situations) not notice much of a difference. But tooltip damage in Sacred has always been higher than real, on screen numbers esp. in Niobium.

Agree whole heartedly on shopping for elemental damage.

 

Aye, I'll likely stick to the 1 point invested to learn it and get the rest from gear to try it out.

I actually incorporated level 1 Dagger stare yesterday while leveling in VoT while having some split% equipped. I'm not exactly sure how split% works but I would assume the extra hits from DS would help to activate it, which would be the biggest reason for using it (unsure how significant the damage would be at ~50).
Unfortunately it had one nasty downside when used in VoT... The long range on DS tends to attract the attention of far off Cerebropods which then become aggresive and instantly beam you with the anti-CA beam of doom... Quite annoying. Without DS it's easier to get the "jump" on them, pun intended, before they beam you.

[Zhurong 2]

well the build is interesting but why don't u use the Butcher Machete? 

[Sethi22 373]

Great guide mate, I don't know how I missed it for so long! Are you still around? My gladi is still low level, I think 60ish. So far I've been following R00ster's guide as well, apart from the trading part. I had lots and lots of stored items even from really high levels, so I decided against it, and took up Axe lore instead, just to be able to use Fadalmar set:) I wanted to see those fireballs, as I've never used it before. (Thain's axe is also a guaranteed drop that's better with axe lore so you don't have to oversocket it.) Oh well, I think I was just too lazy to trade...

But what I wanted to ask you is about Stomping jump: So how many runes have you actually read? And what's your stun percent on the tooltip? Is it 100% even with less runes read? And how does it fare against bosses, dragons and such? Does it stun them at all? And against much higher level enemies in the Valley for example? If they're like 30 levels above you, does it still stun them?

Cheers!

(And thanks for making me think about my build a bit more, I don't do that too often!)

Edited July 22, 2024 by Sethi22

[Sethi22 373]

On 4/1/2020 at 9:30 AM, Zhurong said:

well the build is interesting but why don't u use the Butcher Machete? 

Anyone interested in this will find a bit more info about it here: http://pctalk.info/Games/Sacred2/Wolfes.Lair/SacredUnderworld/Pages/Eggs-JasonItems.html

It's actually called Battered Machete, and I almost gave up on this great sword because I always played singleplayer, and for some reason, the Jason items are missing there. The place was empty. But now I read it somewhere, that in multiplayer it's still there. So I just tried it, and it's true! Both the machete and the hockey mask are there, if you start a multiplayer session and go in alone. 

Edited July 21, 2024 by Sethi22

[SLD 524]

On 7/20/2024 at 11:35 PM, Sethi22 said:

Great guide mate

I took a look at his guide. Only skimmed over it as I already just dumped the longest post ever so I wanna get done for the day. Skills seem fine both his choice and yours(Trade->Axe). Attribute both choices are valid, though strength isn't good on its own only when paired with items that make use of it, which is also what the guide suggests. The CA pool is useless sticking with stomping jump and heroic courage should do. The weapon damage, if I didn't miss anything, he came to the conclusion switching damage types is dumb. If I read that right I agree. Stick with a big number it will break through all armor in the game just make the hit big.
Hisdescription of the stomping jump mechanics seems pretty accurate though I'm not sure about the hit cap of 6. Also him claiming he barely ever misses might be a misconception due to the fact that he might not have known how many hit attempts were made due to the area thing. For the number of hits I always guessed it attempts to hit the target once for everything that was stunned, which is also probably a bug and those hits should go like one to each stunned enemy not all to the one directly targeted. All conjecture though.

On 7/20/2024 at 11:35 PM, Sethi22 said:

But what I wanted to ask you is about Stomping jump: So how many runes have you actually read?

Don't know what he did, I would suggest trying to get by with only eating one, but I'm not sure how possible that is. If you have good gear sources, the red set boots and the legs from the perma heroic courage set(too lazy to look up both their english names but I think they're listed in the guide) both give stomping jump bonus and can help a lot. At the start socketing runes should work for a while. Without trading it could however be a problem later in the game if you need more levels in that skill and can't get rings to socket more. Don't know about that but I would try without, you can always read runes later. For Heroic Courage I would maybe eat one relatively early but if you want to eat more I would first start hoarding runes in the chest where they don't prevent more runes from dropping, convert them into Heroic Courage and gather as many as possiblebefore starting to eat some. Of course that would only matter as long as you don't have a rune supply from other characters or duping or whatever... Just some hints here...
For the stomping jump stun chance I don't think it works on bosses or dragons at all. There is a formula for CA-LVL required to get 100% stun chance. Not sure if and where you can find that formula, but it is a really simple one like 5monster levels per CA lvl or something like that maybe with an offset like MLVL=2+5xCALVL or something. The skill tooltip always shows chance to stun a normal enemy at your character level. So you can find the formula by testing around with a char lvl around 10 or something. Just look at what charlvls stomping jump lvl 1 or 2 show full 100% and you can guess the rest of the formula from there it is not more complicated than that, I just don't know the exact numbers or a source. For "champion" kind of monsters the fornula works the same it's however a bit worse like MLVL=3xCALVL. Again for 100% stun chance. This one is not as easy to test so maybe researching the formula might be worth it if you are interested. You should aim to always have 100% but if you don't I guess you'd notice. Keeping the regen time lower than the stun time is a nobrainer, right?

On 7/20/2024 at 11:35 PM, Sethi22 said:

in the Valley for example? If they're like 30 levels above you, does it still stun them?

Same formula once you figured it out. It doesn't matter wether they are higher level than you you just need the 100% stun chance for THEIR level not yours. Sakkara demons, hell golems those brain things all of it can be stunned.
sorry I don't know the source for the crowd control formula but I'm sure it was some kind of official information like the underworld handbook, the official forum/patch notes or maybe even an ingame loading screen tip. I don't know. All I know it was the same for all crowd control skills and it was a change that happened at some point though I have no clue how it worked before that change either. 
Ok, just checked it was not the uw handbook and as it was a change it can't be in the original one. A quick google search found neither the formula nor a compendium of patch notes from all the different versions.
The Sacred Underworld folder contains a readme folder with a file on all the UW patch changes, Though I couldn't find anything helpful in there either, I'm a blind guy and wouldn't know how to translate crowd control into my own language. I mean I have no clue how they would have called it in the patch notes so I could only search for guesses. No clue if the information is in there but I doubt it. Maybe it was before UW and an old Sacred pre UW installation might contain that information in a similar file.
I don't think that formula is important for playing stomping jump. With the assumption that you'll need around CAlvl 40-80 to stun everything in endgame I'd just aim for at least 80 and be done with it.

I hope this helped somewhat.

[Sethi22 373]

It sure did! I always keep asking these crowd control things. With my Vamp I wanted to know how many runes mind control needed to work on champs, with dark elf, I wanted to know cobra, stomping here... I never really got an answer that satisfied my curiosity, but if all are calculated by the same formula, it's time to stop asking I guess. (Both mind control and cobra was a big disappointment for me. Mind control I could never get to work on champs (although never made it to high levels with vamp). And in the "Epox the Cobra" guide it's said cobra can even stun bosses and such if kept at high enough level. I had mine way above character level and could never get a stun with it on dragons for example. What I got instead was a quick death:)) So that's why I'm a bit more cautious about these skills now. So far stomping looks fine, although as you said, it doesn't stun the big guys, but apart from them, everybody including champs are stunned left and right, really easy work. Its animation is much faster than cobra, and can be used from far away... It really is a great skill compared to the ones mentioned before. I only used it as a travelling skill until know, but with half my character's level of runes, it stuns everything apart from bosses. So it looks really promising! I'll try out the formula checking thing for sure! (And report my results for educational purposes of course...  

And about the rest: Andiell's set (the red one) would probably be my choice as well, although a bit low on reg spec move. That's my biggest concern about this build, putting all points into strength makes me feel starved for a bit more RSM. I guess I'll socket Lorgars amulets in most of them.

And about weapons: You have Thain's axe for fire, the Machete for physical, Thorwyn's club for magic, all of these are guaranteed drops that can be farmed easily. Trading is not necessary I think. The only thing missing is a good poison weapon, Jacquaire's ripping skull splitter is not that bad for poison, and I have quite a few of it stored away... I'll just skip the trading part.

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2024 by Sethi22

[SLD 524]

2 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

And about the rest: Andiell's set (the red one) would probably be my choice as well, although a bit low on reg spec move. That's my biggest concern about this build, putting all points into strength makes me feel starved for a bit more RSM. I guess I'll socket Lorgars amulets in most of them.

I wouldn't go with any full set. Mixing the pieces and potentially good rares as well should yield way better results unless you want to use the double heroic courage thing. The two pieces I mentioned, my stopming gladiators usually wore them both. Thats where you get all those bonus points to stomping from that you'll need. If you find tons of lorgar amulets or dupe them they are certainly a good choice for socketing.
 

2 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

And about weapons: You have Thain's axe for fire, the Machete for physical, Thorwyn's club for magic, all of these are guaranteed drops that can be farmed easily. Trading is not necessary I think. The only thing missing is a good poison weapon, Jacquaire's ripping skull splitter is not that bad for poison, I have some of them stored away... I'll just skip the trading part.

Yes you could make different weapon sets for different damage types. What I was trying to say is, it's not worth it. As you already wanted to use Fadalmar and took axe lore over trading for that, I would just pair Thain's with that and leave it at that. Thain's also has three sockets, according to the wiki, some split which is nice for levelling and a chunk of weapon lore. As long as you're doing good damage per hit the damage type shouldn't matter nuch, because of the way damage reduction through resistances is calculated.
I might be wrong about this but luckily you have the perfect test character, your cannon dwarf. Shooting CB at targets with and without dwarven steel should give you an idea what the difference would be like at high lvl play assuming you reach around 100k dmg with stomping jump. I guess you should be able to reach that amount at some point. Should you test that please add that to the educational report

2 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

And in the "Epox the Cobra" guide it's said cobra can even stun bosses and such if kept at high enough level. I had mine way above character level and could never get a stun with it on dragons for example

From the "Epox the Cobra" guide:
"Basicly this De like The trickster has no weakness because Cobra can stun all monster bosses magic monsters and so on (not sure about Dragons have not tested yet )"

so now it has been tested
not sure what he meant with "bosses" and "magic monsters" but I guess he means the two randomly appearing varieties of "especially powerful enemy". The ones you can also stun with stomping jump. Now I wonder... I'm pretty sure you can stun the valley sakkara demons, but what about the campaign boss version? And what about other campaign bosses. Anducar etc. Are dragons a special exception here or is it all kinds of big bosses? Looks like your educational report could contain some more information on that as well, should you continue playing through the campaign

[Sethi22 373]

1 hour ago, SLD said:

unless you want to use the double heroic courage thing.

 

What? Raane's set gives permanent HC, that I know. Although I have no clue about it's level. But you mean it actually stacks with yours? I didn't know that either, that sounds fun!

I wanted the red set for the "blood damage" bonus mainly, but maybe it's time to start thinking again...

Edited July 25, 2024 by Sethi22

[SLD 524]

15 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

What? Raane's set gives permanent HC, that I know. Although I have no clue about it's level.

Neither does anyone else. All sources I know of claim it's only lvl 1 but tested in game it's your current HC level even upgrades on the fly when you eat another rune.

15 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

But you mean it actually stacks with yours? I didn't know that either, that sounds fun!

Yes it can stack, but no not in a fun way. You can't activate HC while you have HC, meaning you have to take off one set piece cast HC and then reequip the set piece to get two HCs at the same time, until the casted one runs out of duration and then you're back to only the one from the set. Attack and defense stack additively meaning if you get 1000% bonus from one HC you'll get 2000% from two.

15 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

I wanted the red set for the "blood damage" bonus mainly, but maybe it's time to start thinking again...

I would want that too. Sadly it would only be worth it in a build that doesn't lose more from wearing the set than it gains. In which of these categories this build would fall probably depends heavily on available gear and some player choices. I just remember that even though I wanted the blood damage I usually did not end up using it. I mean do whatever you like, it's just Sacred, it certainly won't brick your build. And at least the blood damage looks cool

[Sethi22 373]

That is great news! (Oh, damn! No movement speed on Raane's boots! I guess I'll just Jump around then like House of Pain...)

Edited July 26, 2024 by Sethi22

[SLD 524]

9 hours ago, Sethi22 said:

(Oh, damn! No movement speed on Raane's boots!

Just pop in something like that:
https://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred:Sneaking_Ring_of_the_Dead

[SLD 524]

On 7/25/2024 at 6:42 AM, SLD said:

There is a formula for CA-LVL required to get 100% stun chance. Not sure if and where you can find that formula, but it is a really simple one like 5monster levels per CA lvl or something like that maybe with an offset like MLVL=2+5xCALVL or something.

Just ran some tests by accident and found out that it's probably a lot more complicated than I thought.

Here are some values from stomping jump.
On a LVL 77 character CAlvl 16 is not enough for 100% in silver difficulty, but CAlvl 17 is enough. In gold I need CAlvl 18.
On a LVL 79 character it now needs CAlvl 18 on silver and CAlvl19 on gold.
On a LVL 131 character you need CALvl 31 in Gold and CALvl 33 on Platinum.

Maybe these numbers help at least give some idea of what is needed.
Sadly I don't see a formula in there. I'm just not Maneus enough for this task

[Sethi22 373]

Great job man, You know my weakness for getting and reading many-many runes, so at level 75ish, I think I was already at 30 in silver. So I'm way above what's needed it seems. I promised to make this test myself, I know, but so far I haven't been able to find enough... mental strength.

But what you say fits nicely into my plans. I want to get Stomping  jump well below one second, Hard hit as well of course, 2 secs for Attack, and I'll max out Fist of the gods, I don't care about the reg there. That's the plan!

Luckily I stopped reading any more into Stomping, and I will try to defeat my inner demons who always urge me to read more. I'm still at 30, so (hopefully) I won't read any more into it, and see how many are needed in Nio. I'm nowhere close though, so it might take a while... But I'll report back for sure!

Thanks for the great info!

Edited August 4, 2024 by Sethi22