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Sacred Underworld - In Trouble at Frost Dragon


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I have played Sacred Gold many times, but I have never finished it.  Most characters I get to the desert, find it too hard, and give up.  I once before got a little further, but similar problem.  I have just gotten a character up to the Frost Dragon and, prior to this, was thinking I may finally finish Silver.  I was not making any meaningful headway, however.  I am playing a Wood Elf archer.

 

My build, if relevant:

Level 36, every attribute point into Physical Regeneration (gear is boosting Dexterity and Physical Regeneration).

Agility 18+2, Weapon Lore 36, Concentration 18+1, Constitution 17, Ranged Combat 10, Armour 8, Moon Magic 1.  My plan was to get Constitution and Armour to 1/2 my level (the same as Agility and Concentration) before level 50, then keep that proportion going forward.  At level 50 I will pick up Parrying, which I will gradually raise with Moon Magic.

I am using Multiple Shot (6+1), then Exploding Arrow (1+1).  Against bosses I have been using a Combo of 4 x Penetrating Arrow (1).  I also use Companion of the Woods (5+1) as a meat shield.  I have not raised these higher yet due to regeneration times.

 

I had a little trouble approaching the Frost Dragon (Level 40), but was able to kite my way there.  Once I engaged the Dragon, however, it was quickly hopeless.  Every time it nicked me I was down 2/3 of my health and my Multiple Shot->Combo->Exploding Arrow was barely scratching it.  What should I do?

 

As a side question, I have a spare Combat Art spot and nothing to use in it.  Looking over the remaining options, however, nothing seemed terribly appealing.  I had originally planned Quick as a Flash, but by the time I had the slot for it my equipment had obsoleted the spell.  Is anything else worth adding to this?

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I have tried most of the classes, mostly several times in the past.  In the past I usually played as far as the desert where I would find the character usually gets stuck (those desert Orc groups of a Leader, three melee, and two archers chew-up my characters, and often spawn 2-3 groups near each other), but when I reinstalled this time I made a whole bunch of starts (about 1.5-2 hours each) and quickly gave up on all bar the Wood Elf.

  • I quickly gave-up on the Battle Mage (Bronze/clvl7) as I was finding him too hard (fragile + regen times).
  • The Daemon was strong but I was finding it dull to play (Silver/clvl12).  It felt very passive constantly casting a Daemon form, then a buff, and then a spell that feels no different to a buff, then maybe, occasionally, having a few seconds to do something active.
  • I skipped the Dark Elf.
  • The Dwarf was OK but I was not overly excited by him (Silver/clvl14).  I do not generally enjoy melee-focused characters, and I found his guns less satisfying than bows.
  • I skipped the Gladiator
  • I like the idea of the Seraphim (and she is my favourite in Sacred 2) but gave up because I was struggling in Silver Creek (Silver/clvl14).  Every group of goblins was causing me to use a health potion or two, so I kept running out (and the store would run out forcing me to backtrack), resulting in me making no progress.
  • I found the Vampire OK but again not overly excited (Silver/clvl14).  Again, I just do not enjoy melee-focused characters.  I enjoyed her more than the Dwarf, but I still got bored of pure-melee after a while.

I tried the ReBorn mod, but quickly uninstalled it.  They seem to have shifted the balance to suit the most-skilled players, as I kept getting bodied around Bellevue.

I managed to get past the Frost Dragon yesterday.  On a hunch I backtracked to Bravemart, spent an hour buying gear with more fire armour (halving my physical armour in the process), then bought a bunch of gear with sockets so I could give myself +16 Penetrating Arrow, which I made into a Combo.  The extra armour reduced the Frost Dragon's damage to half my health, and I was doing 1/4 of his every time I used the Combo.  The Fire Dragon ended up being trivial, as I had the room to circle him (the Frost Dragon fight was in a narrow corridor) and he only took two of the Combos and a couple of Exploding Arrows.  I am just about to enter the Dark Elf city for the third element.

How do you finish the game without fighting the bosses?  I know there are optional dragons and things scattered off the main path, which I do intend to skip until later, but I thought these main quest fights were necessary.  The way I have been playing is roaming from town-to-town as I follow the main quest, doing most of the side-quests I find there before I move on.

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I currently have three bows: one with physical & magic damage, one with physical & fire, and one with physical & poison.  My gear mostly has a mix of +skills, +CAs, -regen, and +speed/attack speed.  I currently have a Vampiress rune socketed too for some life leech (I do not feel like it makes a huge difference, however).

I recently gained a +7 Multiple Shot item, which has slightly blown the regen out, but otherwise I have kept it at duration.  Exploding Arrow regen is not too bad and I use it as my every second attack at the moment (regen is marginally longer than attack time at my current attack speed).  Companion of the Woods seems fine too.  I keep the unicorn's level at the level of my opponents (roughly) and it usually regens shortly before it dies.  My Penetrating Arrow Combo has a huge regen, but I only use it for bosses and just use Concentration Potions to spam it.

I definitely intend to finish the game, if possible.  I know from Sacred 2 that it takes all of Silver for your build to take form, then it only gets good by the end of Gold.  I presumed it was the same in Sacred.  If I can (I almost gave-up at the Frost Dragon), I aim to get this Wood Elf to Gold.  I am then torn on whether to get her through Gold, or return to the Seraphim and try to work out how to get her working (I still like the *idea* of that class, even though I am struggling with her).

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I can hardly believe it.  I finally beat Sacred on Silver!  When the game prompted me to do so, I exported her to move into Gold.  I have a few questions.  Two are very straight-forward, but the other may be trickier to find answers for.

The first is simple enough.  I was at clvl46 (almost 47) when I finished Silver.  Is it OK to start Gold at this level, or would I find myself struggling and should grind in Silver first?  I have a save from just before I exported that I can use if I need to grind.

The second is a little longer.  My understanding of the skills in Sacred is that the diminishing returns on skills is such that it is usually not worth raising them past 50, with some exceptions.  I know that Trading is special and needs to be at clvl.  Most guides suggest leaving the weapon skills (eg Sword Lore, Ranged Combat, etc) at lower levels, often around 20.  Guides then tend to suggest some skills to raise to 100, but other guides may say leave those same skills at 50.  When is it worth raising a skill past 50?

The third may be a little trickier.  Before starting Gold, I thought I would like to try and get a second class through Silver.  I have started and given-up on perhaps four or five hybrid Seraphim, but I still find it the most exciting-sounding build.  Is there anyone around these days who knows the Seraphim well-enough to help me out?  I always find that, very early on, I feel extremely weak --- she has a glass jaw (I use potions like crazy).  I usually push-through to the Desert, but give-up there.  My last attempt only got to Silver Creek, in Silver difficulty.  Their current build is:

clvl14, alternating attribute points between Physical Regeneration and Magical Regeneration (up to clvl10 I put them all into Physical Regeneration).

Magic Lore 3, Weapon Lore 12+1, Concentration 11, Heavenly Magic 3, Constitution 4+3.

Attack 1+1, Combat Jump 1+2, Rotating Blades of Light 2+1.

At present, I am alternating each level between Magic Lore/Heavenly Magic or Weapon Lore/Concentration and the remaining point into Constitution.  Going forward I intend to pick: Armour, Agility, and Meditation.  I am casting RBoL before entering combat, then using Assault; I use Combat Jump to deal with archers/casters.  When I unlock another CA slot I will add Celestial Light, and when I start facing Undead I will add Light to use in place of RBoL.  When I get the fifth CA slot I was thinking maybe Strength of Faith.  I was thinking at some point I would make a Combo Suit with Hard Hit runes to use against bosses.

Is there anything obvious that I am doing wrong?  How do I get a hybrid Seraphim past this early game and into a point where they start to feel effective?

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In case you ever wonder how to get through the low levels with decent gear and runes, use the Goblin Lawn, it's a great low-level farming area where you can get a bunch of runes and EQ for your character (and others) and also a bunch of gold considering the low level. I recommend farming in this area if you find the desert too difficult for your current character. It's always a good idea to figure out your build before you hit level 50-70 and just continue with it, there are builds that are weak pre-level 100 but shine after that level in base Sacred, after you get a hold of the game I recommend using either Veteran or ReBorn mod and get the Sacred experience one notch up. Using either of those mods increase the experience gain and also the drop (it's like starting at gold but the mobs stay level 1 with +25%HP). Just in case you didn't know each difficult of level in sacred increases the experience gain and drop rate in Sacred by a lot, that's why it's important to farm in Niobium instead of Bronze with a max level character. I'll do my best to upload my level 57 BM farming the Orc Cave in the next hour and show you how fast my fav character can level and farm (on ReBorn mod atm./can use base Sacred as well).

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I started the Wood Elf in Gold, and there was definitely no need for me to be concerned about her level.  If anything, I am finding the start of Gold easier than the start of Silver.  I should be able to visit the Desert with her soon, so that will be a very interesting experiment.

I have obviously completely misinterpreted the Goblin Lawn!  Because it is mostly Goblins, and they are one of the first enemies you encounter, I assumed they were not worth the effort and try to get my characters to Porto Vallum ASAP.  Based on this information, that is likely half the problem I have had in the past.  What should you do when the Goblin Lawn feels too hard, as is the case with my Seraphim?  I pop a health potion with every group of Goblins and keep running out of them (a lone Vampire Rune + RBoL does not seem to make enough of a difference yet).

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On 9/18/2020 at 12:54 PM, Thorin Oakshield said:

First of all,

 

gratz on getting through Silver. You basically got two options now, although you only listed one.

 

First is to move on to Gold as you already mentioned. If not mistaken the "server" sets according to your difficulty, so it won't be too hard. The level 60 requirement was only meant for MP.

Second is to start the Underworld campaign.

That one is going to be a harder ride, as it has some area's with very hard foes. But it's possible to do that in single player, as I have done it a long time ago, when Underworld was just released.

 

 

As for your Seraphim,

I used to play her a lot in MP and basically I made her a Dual Wield melee character using Rotating Blades of Light (aka RBoL) and lots of Life Leech to get through the various MP-servers.

The nice part is that with Dual Wielding weapons you could  combine the various additional damage types to weaken opponents a lot more. I used to run around in the desert area a lot, meaning the Sereish set was perfect to deal with the skellies there. Same goes for the Gloomoor area as most are resistant to poison over there.

 

As for skils, the 4 most important ones are going to be Weapon Lore, Magic Lore, Constitution and Concentration.

To make sure you're starting off nicely, there's a  trick to move to the Sacred folder and set the number of skills in a file at "0" (zero), which gives you the option to choose your own skills. For a hybrid choosing WL and Conc as the two starting skills is a good idea.

 

 

And finally:
You mentioned that you didn't like the Dwarf much as a melee fighter nor as a ranged one. But what you have overlooked is that a Dwarf can be quite strong when using a flamethrower (for close combat) and a cannon (for ranged) combat. It's a build I prefer to play a lot as it always offered me lot of fun.

There is a cannonblast Dwarf build on the forums, so it may worth looking into it.

Keep in mind you may start weakish, but over time you'll be able to do tons of damage and even two shot dragons.

 

Thorin :)

Thorin@!

Thanks for helping out with the life success rate of our community here in the game :lol:

You reminded me of all the builds that were published for this game... had a insane powerful coffee this morning and was able to do some digging up... Ta Dah... a guides build index with our adorable Dwarf!

 

gogo

 

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10 hours ago, Elric of Grans said:

I started the Wood Elf in Gold, and there was definitely no need for me to be concerned about her level.  If anything, I am finding the start of Gold easier than the start of Silver.  I should be able to visit the Desert with her soon, so that will be a very interesting experiment.

I have obviously completely misinterpreted the Goblin Lawn!  Because it is mostly Goblins, and they are one of the first enemies you encounter, I assumed they were not worth the effort and try to get my characters to Porto Vallum ASAP.  Based on this information, that is likely half the problem I have had in the past.  What should you do when the Goblin Lawn feels too hard, as is the case with my Seraphim?  I pop a health potion with every group of Goblins and keep running out of them (a lone Vampire Rune + RBoL does not seem to make enough of a difference yet).

If groups of 8 or 10 seem too much just try doing smaller groups like 3-5 or even some single enemies until you get a nicer drop, if you have a rather high trading skill it's always worth to re-visit merchants every once in a while and see if they have anything good for sale.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Silicon,

I'm new here, but thought I'd add my 2cents.

I noticed you said that you tried every character except the Dark Elf. Any reason why? I only ask because my 2 favourites are the Dark Elf and the Wood Elf (though I haven't tried the Seraphim yet). I find the Dark Elf is very powerful, especially if you choose Dual Wielding as your first new skill. 

For the Dragons, don't kite them and don't try to take on 2 at once. What I usually do is wait for a dragon to be turned away from me and then run in and under the dragon. It won't be able to use it's breath weapon against you that way. For the Frost dragons, I usually start by kiting one to get it to come after you 1 on 1. Once it runs after you, I run in under it. Once one is down, I repeat the process for the second one.

I also do every side quest I can find to get my XP/level higher. You said you were level 46 after finishing silver. I usually try to be between 40 and 50 by the time I finish bronze and then in the 70s by the end of Silver. But that's just me. As it was said above, the next tier scales by your level, so ending at a higher level doesn't really benefit you unless you're going into Underworld where things are much tougher (I've only ever gotten about half way through it).

Good luck with whatever you end up doing. 

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I have tried every class except Dark Elf and Gladiator.  Basically, they are the two classes that look least interesting to me.  Both are primarily melee-focused classes, and I never enjoy melee-focused classes in this genre.  That is ultimately why I became bored of the Vampiress very quickly too.

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Hi Elric,

I can understand that choice, but, the Dark Elf isn't solely melee, and depending on the build can be quite the opposite. Take a look at some of the builds here: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/forum/272-general-dark-elf-builds/

These focus more on the combat arts and less on the Blade Master melee build.

Not trying to force the Dark Elf down your throat, just hate to see my favourite class not chosen, lol.

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