A very specific Exalted Warrior only build.

[idbeholdME 390]

The idea behind the build is simple. I wanted to cram as much stuff as possible I haven't tried yet in Sacred 2 into a single build. So:

1) A build without Concentration. Never made one before and come to think of it, never really tried a single aspect build either. Finally gonna try Master's Touch too. Time to get out of my comfort zone of using multiple buffs on every single character I play.

2) Wanted to try out Damage Lore. This also made me plan for Dual Wield, as I want to have a Fire/Poison weapon and constantly apply the two DoTs.

3) Wanted to finally see how Enhanced Perception would perform at higher levels. Only tried it once shortly before.

4) I always sat on hundreds of Alchemy trophies without ever using a single one of them (besides the ones dependent on Warding Energy Lore). It's finally time to change that.

Combining all the requirements above, that pretty much landed me in the single aspect build territory as there is simply not enough room for more. The idea would be squeezing maximum value out of a melee Exalted Warrior Seraphim and nothing else. But not really sure if it would be viable in Niobium. So just gonna throw this idea out there and hear what people think.

 

Skills (not in pick order, mastery order in brackets):

Exalted Warrior Focus (7)

Combat Discipline Spell Resistance (6)

Tactics Lore (2)

Dual wield (9)

Damage Lore (1)

Armor Lore (3)

Constitution (5)

Toughness (8)

Enhanced Perception (4)

Alchemy (10)

 

As far as stats go, it would most likely be a Vitality dump (due to missing the defenses from other buffs) sprinkled with some Stamina. Probably an 80/20 or 70/30 split.

 

Scouting all the characters and options, EW Seraphim seemed the most viable. The other option that I thought about was Devout Guardian Temple Guardian, but he does not have access to Alchemy.

My main concern here is:

Are single aspect builds viable in Niobium? I have no experience with them so can't really judge it. Mostly in the defense department. I was thinking about more defensive skills, but wanted to use EP and Alchemy. If this was a standard build, I would just slap Spell Resistance and Combat Reflexes or Speed Lore in there and be done with it, but that would void 2 of my requirements so a no-go.

 

Thoughts? Would hate to start this char and find out at level 100 that it completely sucks in Niobium 

 

NOTE:

This assumes completely self-found gear. No bargainer network or anything (thus the Enhanced Perception). I've already spent so many hours of my life staring at shopping screens in Sacred 2 that I've had enough. I want to play the game, not click merchants for hours 

Edited April 27, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Vishanka 236]

8 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

2) Wanted to try out Damage Lore. This also made me plan for Dual Wield, as I want to have a Fire/Poison weapon and constantly apply the two DoTs.

We've tried this build some time ago and it works great, a friend played HC to 140 niobium and lost interest then, I played to around lv 80 when I started to miss some magical pewpew

Poison and Fire Weapons on DW and Damage Lore work great.

I don't think you will need Concentration if you just get yourself some CA Regeneration jewelry.

Later they will regenerate so much per hit that you practically won't have to worry about Regeneration Times ever and you can just eat any rune you can find.

In the beginning you should look for items with

+ Chance that Opponents cannot evade Attacks

- Opponent's Chance to Evade

- Opponent's Defense Value

And you'll be fine

Kaldur's Legacy might be a weapon you will want someday since it has %Lifeleech, at least on a 2nd Slot for bosses.

Someone here in the Forums said Combat Stance would provide much tankiness and would suffice for anything but I've never really paid attention to how much it really does.
In the end you can just throw on some damage mitigation items (endijian wings, revelation/niokaste shoulderss, revelation chest) and I don't think survivability of any Seraphim will ever be a problem (save for Blood Forest).

Edited February 20, 2022 by Vishanka

[idbeholdME 390]

3 hours ago, Vishanka said:

We've tried this build some time ago and it works great, a friend played HC to 140 niobium and lost interest then, I played to around lv 80 when I started to miss some magical pewpew

Poison and Fire Weapons on DW and Damage Lore work great.

The numbers on Damage Lore always seemed pretty insane to me, but never forced myself try it out. Mostly because it only really becomes relevant at Mastery. It will definitely be my level 50 or 65 skill. Not much point in picking it before. But having DoTs that on every tick hit about 75% as hard as the hit that inflicted them does definitely sound tasty.

3 hours ago, Vishanka said:

+ Chance that Opponents cannot evade Attacks

Indeed. This affix alone is usually enough so you can almost entirely ignore the attack x defense calculation for a long time, as it just simply adds this % to your chance to hit.

3 hours ago, Vishanka said:

Someone here in the Forums said Combat Stance would provide much tankiness and would suffice for anything but I've never really paid attention to how much it really does.

The scaling chance to reflect melee from the Gold mod will definitely provide a near immunity to melee on the higher levels. Most of the Buff mods in general, that provide a chance to reflect/block a source (spell, melee or projectile), will regularly give you 60-70% chance of doing so in the later stages once you've pumped the level high enough. That is the reason I wanted to avoid Revered Technology in the first place. Battle Stance blocks melee and Warding Energy Reflects projectiles and spells, resulting in almost an immunity to all sources of damage, on top of an extremely beefy shield. That is why I always ended up going with multiple buffs, due to most of them having scaling chances to greatly negate incoming damage from various channels. You don't need to have tens of thousands of HP when 65% of the attacks don't end up hitting you in the first place.

3 hours ago, Vishanka said:

In the end you can just throw on some damage mitigation items (endijian wings, revelation/niokaste shoulderss, revelation chest) and I don't think survivability of any Seraphim will ever be a problem (save for Blood Forest).

That was my hope and also the reason for picking Toughness instead of, say, Spell Resistance. I like the synergy between Armor Lore and Toughness and the way Toughness stacks with other mitigation sources.

 

2 General Skills and a single aspect is a build I never tried seriously before. Also never played around with Master's Touch (always had it off), so it's finally a chance to also make a character using it. Once I get bored of my ranged tri-aspect Shadow Warrior. This will be the build I'll roll.

Edited February 20, 2022 by idbeholdME

[idbeholdME 390]

An update:

Decided to change Combat Discipline for Spell Resistance for several reasons:

1) The damage bonus weapon CAs receive from Combat Discipline is greatly diminished. Especially when the build is already going to have massive % damage increase from Tactics and the Battle Stance bronze mod.

2) The 10/20% regen from Combat Discipline should be easily covered by Alchemy potions and trophies, should the need arise. I also decided to change from the planned evasion silver mod on Battle Stance to the regen penalty reduction. With 4 defensive skills, the evasion should not be needed.

3) I recently found out that when dual wielding, weapon CAs (Soul Hammer and Pelting Strikes in our case) only use the main hand weapon to determine their damage and damage types. I originally planned to just Pelting Strikes spam through everything with a fire/poison weapon combo, but it's not going to be so one dimensional now, needing to weave in regular attacks (which do alternate the used weapon) or swapping weapons to apply as many secondary effects as possible. This reduces the importance of Combat Discipline to maximizing the damage from the secondary effects. It would still help, but not that much. Spell Resistance Mastery on the other hand is a massive increase in survivability.

 

And I also added the skill mastery order to the OP.

Edited April 27, 2022 by idbeholdME