Game Mechanics And Gameplay-Related Technical Questions

[Shinryuu 15]

Thank you so much, I'll go check to see where what appears on which items

Edited November 6, 2023 by Shinryuu

[Shinryuu 15]

Alright, if double posting ain't allowed let me know and I'll move this to an edit of the previous post, just easier to keep it separate:

No Dryad shoulders or Inquisitor Armor can have Mastery DM. CLF_SHOULDER seems unused, and CLF_SHOULDER_FULL doesn't appear for the Dryad. High Elf doesn't get Mastery DM on armor either.

Mastery DM is on these items:

Seraphim:

Generic/Iron/Ancient (Shoulders and Armor), Angel Dust (Armor only)

Shadow Warrior:

Iron/Enforcer/Redstorm (Shoulders and Armor), Colossus (Armor only)

Temple Guardian:

Iron Will (Shoulders and Armor), Punisher (Armor only), Default (Shoulders only, not sure which set, unused?)

Dragon Mage:

Iron (Shoulders and Armor), Dragon Magic (Shoulders only, weird, could've sworn I saw an armor, clearly mistaken!)

Important EDIT:

It seems DM can only occur on 1 type of Iron Armor and Shoulders. Only 1 color. Maybe this is a mistake, and DM shouldn't have gotten Mastery DM except on Dragon Magic Shoulder.

Inquisitor:

Generic/Iron/Blood Poison/Special (Shoulders only)

Dryad:

Crystal (Armor only)

 

So much thanks to Flix for that crucial info, also nice all the previous work for the names has already been done, as I only knew ID's for some Seraphim and TG Items (11275/11276 for Iron WIll Armor, etc).

My gameplay pretty much confirms this, as SW was the easiest to find DM for (it has the most sets, so best chance of appearing) while TG was considerably harder. Drowning in DM Shoulders for Inquisitor, but no armor. Dryad was annoying to find the armor, double DM on it is a pain. I've never seen an Iron set Dragon Mage DM Shoulder, but clearly they exist, and I was obviously mistaken on my idea that  Dragon Magic Armor could have DM.

Unfortunately it seems the Inquisitor loses a ton of DM from only getting the rare DM from Q11+ Armor. And no buff that gives armor. DM seems especially OP, it's a Mage with spells far more powerful than Dryad and Inquisitor, has Int/Will boost plus gets double DM and Toughness.

Edited November 15, 2023 by Shinryuu

[idbeholdME 394]

13 hours ago, Shinryuu said:

Unfortunately it seems the Inquisitor loses a ton of DM from only getting the rare DM from Q11+ Armor. And no buff that gives armor. DM seems especially OP, it's a Mage with spells far more powerful than Dryad and Inquisitor, has Int/Will boost plus gets double DM and Toughness.

Inquisitor has Purifying Chastisement. Innure is the single most powerful damage mitigation mod in the game. You can get 23+% of all channel mitigation just from that and you can also get Toughness. Also has Reverse Polarity, which can be modded for all channel reflection. Dislodged Spirit completely neuters even the toughest bosses. Paralyzing Dread negates any enemy relying on fast, hard hitting normal attacks. He has the means and can be plenty survivable, nigh unkillable pretty easily if you want to. 

So him not having both chest and shoulders with mitigation is pretty understandable.

Edited November 7, 2023 by idbeholdME

[Shinryuu 15]

Innure is only 5% stronger than TG DM mod, while even at level 75, DM mastery mod is close to 9-10% with enough +all skills and 15%+ at higher levels/difficulty. TG knees give an easy 8% at low level too. Apart from TG, other classes can use shields and gain 5-10% even at low levels. So TG will have over 10% more DM than Inquisitor, HE and Dryad have insano armor while the DM has amazing spells and same DM.

Just not sure what the point is of an Inquisitor. Dual kaldur Doppleganger for bosses and AS for mobs? I just think the similar TG does just about everything better, and even the TG ain't that great. One of the biggest Area of Effect attacks, can lower DM below 0, can gain huge DM vs Fire (Or Ice), energy shield, free 100% double hit (no dual wield needed), LL% set. Inquisitor to me is kind of like playing an LF TG. You could be doing something more effective but for some reason feel compelled to do this... Which has it's merit, but I just feel that classes are very unbalanced. The Seraphim and DM in particular are just "What were they thinking?"-classes. The whole damage mitigation property makes me go "What were they thinking?".

Edited November 7, 2023 by Shinryuu

[idbeholdME 394]

On 11/7/2023 at 6:31 PM, Shinryuu said:

Innure is only 5% stronger than TG DM mod, while even at level 75, DM mastery mod is close to 9-10% with enough +all skills and 15%+ at higher levels/difficulty. TG knees give an easy 8% at low level too. Apart from TG, other classes can use shields and gain 5-10% even at low levels. So TG will have over 10% more DM than Inquisitor, HE and Dryad have insano armor while the DM has amazing spells and same DM.

Just not sure what the point is of an Inquisitor. Dual kaldur Doppleganger for bosses and AS for mobs? I just think the similar TG does just about everything better, and even the TG ain't that great. One of the biggest Area of Effect attacks, can lower DM below 0, can gain huge DM vs Fire (Or Ice), energy shield, free 100% double hit (no dual wield needed), LL% set. Inquisitor to me is kind of like playing an LF TG. You could be doing something more effective but for some reason feel compelled to do this... Which has it's merit, but I just feel that classes are very unbalanced. The Seraphim and DM in particular are just "What were they thinking?"-classes. The whole damage mitigation property makes me go "What were they thinking?".

Well, with the Inquisitor, you want to be taking manageable amounts of damage if you want to squeeze full value out of Purifying Chastisement. But the simple fact of the matter is that Inquisitor is meant to be an offensive class.

I played a dual wield melee Inquisitor with Damage Lore without Life Leech %, focusing on Poison and Fire damage and it's doing very fine. I can hit most things just once and they die passively. He is the only character that can go above the attack speed cap, has probably the best debuffs. He has tools, but yes, it's not the character for you if you want to be stacking mitigation.

Mitigation stacking additively without diminishing returns is definitely questionable, but then you have stuff like Divine Protection, which can just make you invulnerable no matter what and can eventually be chain cast, or Viperish disease which deals ludicrous amounts of % max HP damage and you realize balance was not exactly the game's strong suit

As for the "free" double hit with TG, it only works for 2 of the 4 basic attack animations. So it translates to 50% chance of double hit. If you are in the Mobiculum however, then every hit will be a double hit.

[Shinryuu 15]

I meant Mobiculum. Not sure if the BE passive stacks with mastery passive... My guess is it doesn't, but would be even better if it does so even in caves you can achieve 90% double hit or so.

And yes it's not balanced at all. Unfortunately the Inquisitor seems to have gotten the short end of the stick. Yes you can play it until level 200 just fine, sure, but another class is almost always better. Purifying Chastisement is just... what's the point? It would be way better if it gave Deathblow, but Rage is just... bad. If Sacred 2 was the kind of game where gathering tons of mobs that hit you down to like 50% hp, after which you Area of Effect and get back to 100% using lifesteal while wiping them all due to DMG bonus, it would be insanely good. Unfortunately it doesn't work well, spike damage can wipe you out and so you generally want mobs to do damage that you recover so you don't drop below like 80%.

The SW just does this but way better thanks to the charge upgrade with SS and no need to lose HP. PF would also work way better with higher mitigation because the less damage you take, the less danger you are in. If PF and Soul Reaver were combined into 1 buff basicly, where lower HP increases Defense/Mitigation etc it would work. Imagine 1% HP loss = +1% DM at max CA level. Or if Soul Reaver would increase damage per soul, as attack/def is basicly for melee while it's in a pure magic tree, for whatever reason.

If I want to be forced into using 3 aspects, I'd rather go for a DM. Kill bosses in seconds, wipe large groups without having to even seek them out, Stun resist, high spell resist without needing skill (so you free up a skill to make room for those 4 aspect skills). Inquisitor just doesn't have that liberty, Spell Resistance, Constitution, Toughness are all essentials. No room for 3 aspects.

[idbeholdME 394]

On 11/9/2023 at 4:07 PM, Shinryuu said:

I meant Mobiculum. Not sure if the BE passive stacks with mastery passive... My guess is it doesn't, but would be even better if it does so even in caves you can achieve 90% double hit or so.

If you mean weapon Mastery, then it doesn't give a classic chance for double hit  but a chance to use a different animation that hits one additional time. When it proccs with Battle Extension (or on Mobiculum), you can get 3 hits in a single attack.

On 11/9/2023 at 4:07 PM, Shinryuu said:

Inquisitor just doesn't have that liberty, Spell Resistance, Constitution, Toughness are all essentials. No room for 3 aspects.

Well, I did it and he's far from a glass cannon. Spell Resistance is very good, but can be compensated for with gear.

[Shinryuu 15]

Wow. Ok cool, so it's just 42% + 50%(or 100%). Same damage output, I guess. Gear double-hit stacks in the same way?

Spell resistance can be compensated for, but only in a realistic way by Dryad/DM/SW. It gives like +400% SR and 80% -DME at level 200+. I think you need like 17 amulet bonuses. So even with double-bonuses on amulet, it ends up being like 8-9 full sockets to replace SR. One of the most expensive skills to replace. And unlike, say, Speed Lore, the effects are really good (and basically required for a low DM char like Inquisitor). Dryad, DM or SW can skip it with their massive Will bonus CAs and higher Armor/DM, but I've found it's just terribly underrated. CA's are the deadliest stuff you run into, and aren't easily blocked like CC.

Not saying you can't play it or it doesn't work, just that it's already a weak class, and not getting Armor Mastery DM on Armor just makes it even worse.

 

[idbeholdME 394]

On 11/12/2023 at 10:08 PM, Shinryuu said:

Wow. Ok cool, so it's just 42% + 50%(or 100%). Same damage output, I guess. Gear double-hit stacks in the same way?

Spell resistance can be compensated for, but only in a realistic way by Dryad/DM/SW. It gives like +400% SR and 80% -DME at level 200+. I think you need like 17 amulet bonuses. So even with double-bonuses on amulet, it ends up being like 8-9 full sockets to replace SR. One of the most expensive skills to replace. And unlike, say, Speed Lore, the effects are really good (and basically required for a low DM char like Inquisitor). Dryad, DM or SW can skip it with their massive Will bonus CAs and higher Armor/DM, but I've found it's just terribly underrated. CA's are the deadliest stuff you run into, and aren't easily blocked like CC.

Not saying you can't play it or it doesn't work, just that it's already a weak class, and not getting Armor Mastery DM on Armor just makes it even worse.

 

Double hit on gear is a different thing. That actually is simply a chance to double any hits that occur. So if you theoretically had 100% chance on Weapon Mastery, Battle Extension, 100% chance of Double Hit and were mounted on the Mobiculum, your every attack would hit 3x2, so 6 times.

Also keep in mind, that the special animation can trigger even without weapon lore, the skill just massively increases chance. Even before you master it, the bonus chance just becomes visible and receives a big bump once you Master it.

This was the vanilla behavior and it was recently found (before PFP 1.4), that most mods broke this behavior and the weapon masteries were considered to be bugged for the longest time because of that. It's fixed in PFP 1.4, but not sure if the other restored this behavior.

One last thing - the special animation can only trigger on normal attacks. If you only spam weapon CAs, it does nothing. But the standard Double Hit on gear (and CA mods that give a chance to double hit) CAN double any hits that occur when using a weapon CA.

As for Spell Resistance, the actual Spell Resistance stat bonus is not the main thing. It is the Mastery bonus, which provides an equivalent of a very high detrimental effect reduction. That can be found on items in decent amounts, but having the skill frees up  2-3 slots that'd be best suited for detrimental effect reduction otherwise. The Spell Resistance increase from the unmastered skill is nice to have, but far from being highly impactful. Doesn't matter if you have 2000 or 10000, it will still always be a 30% reduction in Spell Damage at most. On gear, I'd take Chance to Reflect/Block spells every time over whatever amount of Spell Resistance increase.

Edited November 15, 2023 by idbeholdME

[Shinryuu 15]

Wow Double-hit gear is really good. I assume CA bonus is the same as DH on gear?

My first char was a TG (SW, after I got stuck on Gar I just switched to Devout, lol). So I figured out rather soon that BE and normal hits are only way to trigger the DH, and the figured out hafted mastery works the same. I guess it still works exactly the same as that very first FA release. Just had no clue on how exactly DH on CA/items functioned. I also thought that the "weapon mastery broken" story was due to it not working on CA's, had no clue it originated with the mods.

SR in general I think is underrated. -DME is godlike, but the 400% SR reduces damage by a lot, especially for chars without high mitigation. Turning 20k damage into 14k is immense. It also blocks crits, char killing spike damage is usually spell crits (and crits start to happen often in Gold). Spell block/reflect is of course the number one go to, but we simply can't get 100%, and even pushing it to 90%+ requires very high level Buff CA block combined with a lot of items. For a HE, SR can reduce OHKO's into 2HKO's and 3HKO's into 4HKO's. You still want to stack expulse magic, but unless you have some very important skill instead, SR is a great 2nd layer in case expulse is down or not fully up. SR is debatable for SW (Especially if picking the -DME mod for the stealth buff), Dryad and DM, mainly due to willpower boosts pushing SR high enough to get by with only a few +SR items, and DM has no room for the skill, but for all other chars, foregoing it really eats into your defenses.

DME is also not so easily replaced. At level 200 it's like -79% DME, in order to achieve that you need Armor Mastery DM item + like 7 slots worth of -DME amulets. That's a lot of slots for an entirely required bonus (running around without -DME is suicidal in some areas). Not only that, but you can push -DME much higher (Does it stack like shield mastery? Or is it just like another item?) which is vital for roots specifically. 1 item for 17% or so DME duration or 7 slots + 1 item and 20%. The whole problem is also -DME on CA as mods is just crappy, with the sole exception of the SW that gets -60% at higher levels. Not sure how much it screws the stealth on niob, but combined with Grim Resilience it means going for Death Warrior Focus over SR has a point.

 

[Flix 5,116]

10 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

This was the vanilla behavior and it was recently found (before PFP 1.4), that most mods broke this behavior and the weapon masteries were considered to be bugged for the longest time because of that.

The real story is even dumber than that. They were considered to be bugged just because someone said so and it kept getting repeated. Removing the animations was an attempt to "fix" the non-existent problem so that players weren't burdened with extra animations that didn't work (or so the thinking went).

10 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

It's fixed in PFP 1.4, but not sure if the other restored this behavior.

All the current ones do.  CM Patch remains in its last buggy state. No one should be playing CM Patch without putting Enhanced Edition, D2F, or Addendum on top of it afterward.

 

One other note, I've seen Paralyzing Dread mentioned a few times in this thread. That spell is not working in the base game without a good spellclass replacement, this can be done manually in spells.txt for those allergic to mods.

[idbeholdME 394]

On 11/15/2023 at 4:17 PM, Shinryuu said:

SR in general I think is underrated. -DME is godlike, but the 400% SR reduces damage by a lot, especially for chars without high mitigation. Turning 20k damage into 14k is immense. It also blocks crits, char killing spike damage is usually spell crits (and crits start to happen often in Gold). Spell block/reflect is of course the number one go to, but we simply can't get 100%, and even pushing it to 90%+ requires very high level Buff CA block combined with a lot of items. For a HE, SR can reduce OHKO's into 2HKO's and 3HKO's into 4HKO's. You still want to stack expulse magic, but unless you have some very important skill instead, SR is a great 2nd layer in case expulse is down or not fully up. SR is debatable for SW (Especially if picking the -DME mod for the stealth buff), Dryad and DM, mainly due to willpower boosts pushing SR high enough to get by with only a few +SR items, and DM has no room for the skill, but for all other chars, foregoing it really eats into your defenses.

DME is also not so easily replaced. At level 200 it's like -79% DME, in order to achieve that you need Armor Mastery DM item + like 7 slots worth of -DME amulets. That's a lot of slots for an entirely required bonus (running around without -DME is suicidal in some areas). Not only that, but you can push -DME much higher (Does it stack like shield mastery? Or is it just like another item?) which is vital for roots specifically. 1 item for 17% or so DME duration or 7 slots + 1 item and 20%. The whole problem is also -DME on CA as mods is just crappy, with the sole exception of the SW that gets -60% at higher levels. Not sure how much it screws the stealth on niob, but combined with Grim Resilience it means going for Death Warrior Focus over SR has a point.

 

SR definitely is underrated. The Mastery is one of the most impactful in the game. The problem with the base skill is it only reduces damage from regular spell hits. -DME reduces damage from DoTs, which IMO is much more impactful, not to mention also duration of all debuffs and as you mentioned, roots. As for the crit reduction, I'm not entirely sure that part works. I have Mastered SR on my level 200 Seraphim at a very high level (245), and the Dragons in the caves are still critting me like no tomorrow with their Fireballs. It's more of a gut feeling, but it definitely does not feel like the enemies have 80% reduced spell crit chance. And at the end of the day, Sacred 2 is one of the few ARPGs where crits are not that important, because they only ever result in +20% damage.

Whenever I pick SR, it's exclusively for the Mastery and in that case, it's amongst the first 5 skills I Master on that character. The Mastery in this case works as if you had an additional item with that amount of -DME. So adding more to it is mostly a waste. Shield Mastery is the only bonus in the game that's additive. And with block/reflect, it's not really necessary to go for ludicrous amounts like 80 or 90%. Anything between 50-60% is already quite good, which many buffs will provide just on their own. If your character can't afford to take a couple hits, you are severely lacking in the HP/damage reduction department. Even something as simple as equipping 3 Fire Relics while in the Dragon Caves for example does wonders and cuts the received damage by thousands from every single Fireball.

The 80%+ from SR Mastery alone is nice of course, but I find 40,50-60% enough for general operation on most characters. That already reduces all DoTs from 4 to 2 damage ticks and makes them a lot more manageable. There is also an often forgotten method to compensate - the green potions. When I get hit by a particularly nasty DoT like from a boss or unexpectedly swarmed by spiders, I spam several of them at once and get rid of any DoTs instantly. Ever since I bound these potions to my F key, I've actually been occasionally using them.

And regarding buffs, they are fine I feel. I can squeeze over 42% -DME even from something like Grand Invigoration. And most importantly, it doesn't have to be only -DME on gear. -DoT can honestly suffice. And some items can have a very decent amount of it. To be honest, the best is a combination of the 2 because of the diminishing returns if you only stack one.

If I have a skill slot left open, SR is of course my go to. But that rarely happens these days and the moment you play a non-single aspect character, you will most likely not have the space for it.

[Shinryuu 15]

Most casters have room for it. HE for instance, unless you want DA focus for extra HP regen with GI... Same with Dryad, unless you also want Capricious hunter to block spells.

Usually I stack DM, but those bloody roots... even with like a CM Seraphim (like -50% DME/Break roots with healing) I'd rather just get -80% DME instead of having to use a CA every time I get rooted. The movement speed boost has my preference for GI, although -DME on top of the mastery bonus is nice to get even less root nonsense. On it's own, I just don't find like -50% to be impressive enough.

On 11/16/2023 at 12:10 AM, Flix said:

One other note, I've seen Paralyzing Dread mentioned a few times in this thread. That spell is not working in the base game without a good spellclass replacement, this can be done manually in spells.txt for those allergic to mods.

Wait... really? Too bad I can't run the game now... actually I don't have any of my old chars so it doesn't matter...

but I just thought PD was bugged in FA (some weirdness with applying debuffs on yourself), while the spell's slowing effect did work. In I&B I always thought the whole thing worked.

Edited November 19, 2023 by Shinryuu

[idbeholdME 394]

On 11/19/2023 at 5:48 PM, Shinryuu said:

Wait... really? Too bad I can't run the game now... actually I don't have any of my old chars so it doesn't matter...

but I just thought PD was bugged in FA (some weirdness with applying debuffs on yourself), while the spell's slowing effect did work. In I&B I always thought the whole thing worked.

It is possible. The Fear mod on Augmenting Guidon was also bugged in vanilla. But both are fixed in the PFP, I was testing the Guidon fix myself and PD has been working correctly on my Inquisitor in PFP 1.4

Edited November 29, 2023 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

Vanilla: PD doesn't work.

CM Patch: in an attempt to fix it, the "applying debuffs to yourself" fiasco was created.

PFP/EE/Add.: The spell functions as intended.

Similar story for Augmenting Guidon.