So this is the best place I could ask this I feel. It's the most active community for Sacred 1/2 (3 never happened).
I play Sacred 1 to this day and all characters I played were either mages or classes that used combat skills rather than melee/ranged combat. And all of them used stat-sticks instead of weapons I actually used in combat. Like Dwarf-lore Dwarf, Poison-Demon, Mage, Poison-thingy Dark Elf, skills-only Elf and so on.
I decided to play the Temple Guardian because it's the clo
This. Even shorter is, once you're on start-island and desire refreshing merchants, just open your map, click on any portal (Sloeford for example), and as your map starts closing just press your travel back/soulstone key (should be F8, or one of those key, check in your game settings). This will make the game consider you're travelling away and generate a loadscreen, but will be faster for you as you'll stay on start-island at all times.
Alternatively, you can go Thylysium the area e