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Hell on Wheels


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Demon Build Guide

 

“Hell on Wheels”

 

By Jeff Bouley (a.k.a. wordsmith or jbouleyjdog)

 

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All right, let’s get the preliminaries out of the way. I haven’t been playing Sacred long, the only character I’ve taken past Silver is a daemon, and she is currently level 83 in gold difficulty in the Ancarian campaign. I’ve made a lot of rookie mistakes since she was my first character and I’ve since learned things I wish I would have known before (like don’t eat every demon rune I get and have points in every single combat art). But this character has been pretty successful so far, including in Underworld silver difficulty, and seems to be holding up well in the Ancarian campaign at gold difficulty. I play her in various styles, because she is such a jill of all trades, but I’ve played her most often on horseback.

 

Hence, the build I outline here, which I was tempted to call “B**ch on Wheels,” but I don’t want to irritate any swear filters at forums nor offend any female players, so “Hell on Wheels” it is.

 

I’m not sure if anyone will appreciate this build aside from Pevil, who is well renowned for her love of horseback combat in Sacred, but I’m going to write this even if it appeals only to a small crowd. Feedback from people with more experience in Sacred (especially on horseback) is appreciated.

 

Because my current stats probably aren’t ideal, given mistakes at levels 1 through 20 or 25 or so, I am not giving specific number recommendations in this guide but rather general advice.

 

DESCRIPTION:

 

The Hell on Wheels daemon build is, in its simplest definition, a horseback-mounted hell sphere/tentacles daemon. She is a mob killer, though also effective against most bosses and small crowds as well.

 

ATTRIBUTE AND SKILLS:

 

The key attribute to pump your points into will be Mental Regeneration. At earlier levels (say, perhaps, up until level 25 or 30), you might want to put points into Strength and/or Physical Regeneration as well as (or instead of) Mental Regeneration. But after that point, all your points should go for Mental Regeneration.

 

As for skills, I early on focused on dual wield (personal preference to wield two weapons), weapon lore, sword lore, hellpower and meditation. I have since also taken on armor, concentration and riding. There is a great deal of flexibility here, though.

 

Having said that, you MUST have hellpower and meditation at high levels because you want to keep your regen times for daemon spells as low as possible.

 

Weapon lore is useful because you will need to melee at times. But melee combat is a support skill in this build and not a primary means of attack, so while weapon lore should be fairly high, whether you put points into a specific weapon skill and/or dual wield is solely up to you. I took on the armor skill late in the game, and I never took parry, but both would be valid options for their defensive capabilities, in lieu of dual wield and/or a weapon-specific skill like sword lore.

 

I currently have only 4 points in riding. I’m not even sure if the skill is really all that vital in this build, but it may be at higher difficulty levels. In this area, I have to plead ignorance, having only progressed to gold so far.

 

Concentration I have at a healthy but not necessarily high level, in order to keep down my regen times for “elemental” demon forms. But, of course, you could also find items with regen bonuses for special moves to handle that, either as a supplement to Concentration or instead of it.

 

COMBAT ARTS:

 

Your primary combat arts will be: Hell Sphere, Tentacles, Abyssmal Choir and Battle Daemon.

 

Secondary/recommended arts are: Dread, Poison Daemon, Fire Daemon and Blazing Disc.

 

All other combat arts should be considered optional and perhaps counterproductive in the long run. (OK, you might want to have at least a point in Energy Daemon for the battle against the Forest Golem in the Dryad Forest, if you do that “path of a true warrior” quest line.)

 

Obviously, you want to manage your regenerative capabilities and your demon spell levels so that you get maximum punch for your spellcasting without having to wait too long to recast. Keep hell sphere regen times under 5 seconds whenever possible. And keep Abyssmal Choir and Dread to under 3 seconds, and, ideally, as close to 1 second as possible.

 

EQUIPMENT:

 

Equipment that boosts your combat art regeneration times, both for spells and elemental/battle daemon forms, is highly recommended. Heavier focus should go to spell regeneration times rather than special move regeneration times.

 

Critical to this build is good life leech. I was fortunate to obtain the Monster Frightener unique dagger at a fairly early level. Even though it doesn’t deal much damage, I still use it along with a better sword (I dual wield, if you recall) because it has over 20% life leech. I have also socketed and equipped various pieces of jewelry that add even more life leech to that.

 

Also, anything you can equip or socket to increase your resists is helpful.

 

Finally, you need at least one good bridle. And by “good,” I mean something with the best possible +speed to your horse, to the exclusion of ANY other concerns. If you can get high speed bonus and resist boosts or some other good bonus, great. But I’d rather have a +22 speed bridle with nothing else as far as bonuses, than I would to have a +14 speed bridle with attack and resist boosts. I shopped at Bravemart (the easiest and most efficient way to do this) until I got myself a bridle with close to +25 speed on it.

 

MOUNT:

 

You want the fastest horse you can get. That means a light riding horse, ideally, with a good bridle (as noted above). I shoot for speeds of at least 220 and preferably more than 240.

 

From strictly an aesthetic standpoint, I prefer an undead horse (like the light riding horse hanging out by the Fields of Urkuk portal) because a daemon looks so darn good right sitting on one.

 

STRATEGIES:

 

This build is fantastic for mob control. In fact, it is fantastic (from my experience at least) for purposely running around like crazy to make as many folks as possible mob me at once.

 

You want to keep Battle Daemon and Tentacles running pretty much all the time. Manage their levels so that their respective durations are roughly equal to one another. Make sure your regen time for Battle Daemon is less than or equal to the duration of Battle Daemon (this shouldn’t be a problem with Tentacles because your regen should be WAY less than the aura’s duration). If you don’t mind carrying around Potions of Concentration and getting off your horse to cast the combo, put the two skills in a combo. I personally find carrying concentration potions a pain in the behind and I don’t like constant dismounting, and so I have thus far avoided the combo route and done quite well without it.

 

Basic attack goes like this: Drop a couple hell spheres before you actually trigger opponents to come after you, if you can. Then move forward and let them mob you. In fact, as I said before, see if you can get even more monsters to mob you by running around a bit with the previous enemies trailing you. When they’re all nice and bunched up around you, cast Abyssmal Choir, run away, and keep dropping Hell Spheres as often as you can. Run around in circles around the area you originally cast Choir so that enemies remain bunched up and can more easily fall victim to the Tentacles that will sprout up as their comrades die. Watch the massive numbers of pretty pink tendrils flow toward you to replenish your health (assuming you paid attention when I told you life leech is important).

 

As necessary, recast Abyssmal Choir. Try to maintain at least three and, if possible, five to six Hell Spheres at all time if there is a large crowd of monsters or a small crowd of very tough ones (like Hell Golems, for example, which hit way too hard for my tastes since patch 2.28…don’t let too many of THEM mob you) .

 

If you find yourself getting hammered a bit, you can use Dread to reduce the damage and defenses of your enemies.

 

Battle Daemon will give you protection against what will likely be mostly physical attacks in much of the game, while the horse and your equipment make sure that your other resist don’t suffer either. And the beauty is that Battle Daemon can be cast from horseback, unlike the Soaring Daemon and elemental daemon forms. It will also boost your damage for melee, and chances are that you should be whacking at opponents from time to time to help supplement your spell damage. Tentacles gives you extra help in damaging opponents. And Hell Spheres just are fantastic for taking down most enemies in the game (including Sakkara Demons).

 

If you need to, bring the horse’s ability to charge into play, either to soften opponents up or to get out of a jam. The wonderful thing about Battle Daemon in this regard is that that combat art itself can be cast from horseback, but the Assail attack in that form cannot, so after you cast Battle Daemon, your combat art slot will now be configured to give you a charge attack whenever you need it.

 

Like I said, Dread is also useful from time to time. I sometimes use Blazing Disc because I can have them follow me, instead of having to watch out for approaching enemies and cast Hell Spheres in advance of combat. But by and large, I prefer Hell Spheres because I can control their placement and because it can be easy to outrun Blazing Discs and have them lost or lagging behind you.

 

One of the beauties of this build is that you don’t take much damage usually, and you are dishing out a variety of damage types all at once with the combo of Tentacles and Hell Sphere and some whacks from your melee weapon (physical, fire, magical and poison).

 

Even in situations where I cannot use my horse, the strategies remain largely the same; it’s just that I lose the extra hit point and resistance bonuses. It is in these situations that specialized weapon/armor choices can come in handy or where a few points in Soaring Demon might be helpful for speedy getaways (or just to fly over obstacles like the Dryad Forest trees, all the rivers in the game, etc.)

 

I specifically mentioned Fire Daemon and Poison Daemon as worthwhile skills, even though they cannot be cast from horseback, and you might wonder why.

 

Fire Daemon I find useful when dealing with large numbers of undead opponents, because they tend to be weak to fire. Poison Daemon I used heavily in the latter stages of the Underworld campaign as hell golems and cerebropods are weak to poison. I could find no other effective way of fighting those enemies without Poison Daemon (and, obviously, those battles were off horseback).

 

LIMITATIONS:

 

The Underworld campaign has too many enemies that will scoff at your Hell Spheres and too many areas that are physically constrained and make horseback riding too much of a pain at times. For this reason, I try to have backup strategies to cover that. I used my horse very little in that campaign. But I used it A LOT in the Ancarian campaign.

 

Also, speaking of Underworld, this character could NOT stand up in the final boss battle with Anducar. That may be lack of skill on my part rather than the character build itself, but I was unable to survive Anducar’s final transformation, having exhausted my potions in battles to get to his fortress, survive his palace guards, and defeat his human form. I was able to handle all other boss-type battles in Ancaria and Underworld without dying.

 

Also, the reliance on Tentacles can be problematic in multiplayer when other characters may need those corpses. For that reason, this build may be more suited to single player games than to multiplayer ones.

 

COMMENTARY:

 

Yes, I know people will tell me that a daemon should fly (Soaring Daemon combat art) rather than ride. I know people will tell me that you can get items that will make you run fast enough to make this build work without a horse. People will probably tell me that horses die too easily, even though I’ve never had one die on me short of being caught by a massive blast of dragon breath.

 

But here’s the thing: Horses give you boosts to your hit points and your resists. And they also give the option of charging opponents. What other way does the demon have to knock down folks and run away from a sticky situation…or to just soften them up before a battle if she’s feeling particularly ornery?

 

Also, horses gain levels as you grow in power, so a light riding horse will eventually yield you some nice hit point bonuses and other advantages if you stick with them and show them some love.

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  • 1 month later...

UPDATE on the Hell on Wheels Build with regard to Riding and horse choice:

 

Having played my daemon a bit now in Gold difficulty and remaining mounted most of the time, and having "accidentally" invested a point early on in Riding (this was my first-ever Sacred character, and I didn't know that you stopped getting new skill choices after 50th level), I wish to revise my advice on horses slightly.

 

I got a look at the stats of the Heavy War Horse in Pergatori and decided that (a) I wanted those hit point bonuses and that nice charge damage and (b) I wanted an undead horse so I didn't want to go shopping for my war horse in Mystdale.

 

So, I leveled my character up a bit and put on the shoulder guards in the Pandora's set, which gave me +13 to skills, and got my riding up to 25, then exported my character, got into Pergatori in Underworld, bought my heavy war horse and then exported again and started a new game in Ancaria in Gold, since I hadn't gone very far in the main quests anyway.

 

What I have discovered is that with the bonuses to my hit points and resists, and the ability to do some NASTY charging damage when I decide to use charge, I am more than happy to give up some of the speed that I had with my faster light riding horse.

 

As I came to conclude, since I am using Tentacles and Abyssmal Choir to do most of my dirty work, with Hell Spheres shooting from the sidelines, and since I have very high life leech, I don't need maximum speed.

 

What I need is enough speed to keep running in circles around mobs and keep them all bunched up for Choir and then being ripped to shreds by the Tentacles in one concentrated area. Because I now have much more hit points (60% bonus to them at the moment with this horse), I can take enough hits to let myself get mobbed, cast one or two Choirs and then starting running in circles and let the life leech heal me up while everyone dies. And if I happen to be using potions of the mentor, so much the better. I'm levelling pretty fast still, even though I'm at the mid/high 80s right now in terms of character level.

 

So, my advice in the end is this:

 

1. If you don't want to put any points into Riding, stick with a light riding horse and give it a decent speed boost with a bridle, trying to get some resist or damage bonuses on that bridle if you can.

 

2. Or, if you are willing to invest some points in Riding, go for a heavy war horse instead, and get it the best possible speed boost you can with a bridle.

 

It can change the strategies slightly, but both options seems to work well thus far. I will try to report back on how well it's working when I get to Platinum and Niobium.

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Daemons are absolutely fantastic at going hybrid. It takes some work and the inclination to do so but Wordsmith has done a great job of detailing his work with this here as well as how he runs this build.

Great job!

:4rofl:

 

gogo

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