Temple Guardian build, looking for skill advice

[MyrrDisparo 3]

Hello, long time lurker, new to posting in the forums!

I have been using the wiki and some guides for a long time before, and I'm now writing for the first time to ask for advice on building a TG mostly for utility, but that can also reach and run niobium if need be.

Here's my outline and concept:

I want to focus my TG on the shield deffensively, and deadly Spears offensively, and I want to take bargaining, blacksmith and enhanced perception. So, here are the essentials in my skill outline:

Devout Guardian Focus (CA regen and level)

Tactics Lore (damage and all)

Armor Lore (everyone takes it, might as well. It also synergises well with the shield mitigation)

Warding Energy Lore (shield focused)

Toughness (because it synergises well with the mitigation provided by the shield, better than constitution)

And the three utility skills available: BS, EP and Bargaining.

So, 8 skills of a total of 10:

Now, here's the options I'm juggling for the 2 remaining spots:

Concentration/Sword (or Hafted Weapons) Lore: faster DS casting, more damage, but concs extra buff slots mostly go to waste.

Concentration/Source warden focus: Tankier through Untouchable force modification, possibly could modify fiery ember with churn and DS with singe to provide higher damage from DS.

Combat reflexes/something: Crits are the biggest problem I see for the defenses, so increasing evasion and reducing crit seems like a godsend for this build, at least on paper. It could go with the SW focus, and then substitute Toughness with Conc for that extra buff slot for Untouchable force and the regen bonus.

Combat discipline, probably paired with sword or hafted weapons lore too, for extra damage, could be an option, provided I find some way to fit it in there.

I've also got questions for the CA mods (specially shield and battle extension), but this will do for now. Thank you, Dark Matters community!

[Lindor 435]

Hey MyrrDisparo, welcome to the foum

What game version do you play? If you're playing CM-patch or later, I'd suggest taking a look at Ancient Magic, it works with deathly spears

[idbeholdME 388]

Yeah, whether you're playing with CM patch or not is important. If you want to use Deathly Spears, Combat Discipline and Ancient Magic (if CM Patch) is pretty much mandatory to make it effective.

For Deathly Spears spam, you absolutely want Concentration to bring the regen time as low as possible. And even with 1 point, it will allow you to run both T-Energy Shroud and Battle Aura simultaneously. Avoid Combat Reflexes, your shield is there to prevent damage. If you gear properly and focus on items with damage mitigation, you'll eventually be near invulnerable. If you absolutely want more defenses, consider Spell Resistance. One of the best defensive skills in the game, but HAS TO be Mastered. Whatever you do, don't drop Toughness. Shields + damage mitigation in this game is the most powerful defensive combo.

As for the mods, T-Energy Shroud should be modded: Power, Reduction, Reflection.

As for Battle Extension, if you're playing without CM patch, it has an extremely long animation, so much so that you'd get more DPS by left clicking instead of using it in a fight. The main draw of Battle Extension in that case is that it allows you to perform double hits with normal attacks. With CM Patch, the animation is greatly sped up. If I were to mod it, I'd go: Double Attack, Impairment, Double Attack.

 

I recently made a utility pure Devout Guardian Temple Guardian (Bargaining + Blacksmith). Originally also wanted to go the Death Spars route, but sadly, the damage was very lacking, especially as I don't have access to Ancient Magic (no CM Patch). Worked surprisingly well. Allowed me to immediately pump Shroud and Battle Aura to 200 since I don't care about regen times. Easily farming Niob and reached the stage where most enemies can't even damage the shield because all the damage gets mitigated.

Edited August 6, 2022 by idbeholdME

[gogoblender 3,069]

3 hours ago, MyrrDisparo said:

Hello, long time lurker, new to posting in the forums!

I have been using the wiki and some guides for a long time before, and I'm now writing for the first time to ask for advice on building a TG mostly for utility, but that can also reach and run niobium if need be.

Here's my outline and concept:

I want to focus my TG on the shield deffensively, and deadly Spears offensively, and I want to take bargaining, blacksmith and enhanced perception. So, here are the essentials in my skill outline:

Devout Guardian Focus (CA regen and level)

Tactics Lore (damage and all)

Armor Lore (everyone takes it, might as well. It also synergises well with the shield mitigation)

Warding Energy Lore (shield focused)

Toughness (because it synergises well with the mitigation provided by the shield, better than constitution)

And the three utility skills available: BS, EP and Bargaining.

So, 8 skills of a total of 10:

Now, here's the options I'm juggling for the 2 remaining spots:

Concentration/Sword (or Hafted Weapons) Lore: faster DS casting, more damage, but concs extra buff slots mostly go to waste.

Concentration/Source warden focus: Tankier through Untouchable force modification, possibly could modify fiery ember with churn and DS with singe to provide higher damage from DS.

Combat reflexes/something: Crits are the biggest problem I see for the defenses, so increasing evasion and reducing crit seems like a godsend for this build, at least on paper. It could go with the SW focus, and then substitute Toughness with Conc for that extra buff slot for Untouchable force and the regen bonus.

Combat discipline, probably paired with sword or hafted weapons lore too, for extra damage, could be an option, provided I find some way to fit it in there.

I've also got questions for the CA mods (specially shield and battle extension), but this will do for now. Thank you, Dark Matters community!

Welcome to the forums mon ami MyrrDisparo!

Meeting "lurkers" as they say is always one of my favorite posts of all.  That readers we have not met yet are connecting to whats going up, and that Sacred is still making people happy. 

We're happy you found us And... now that you've done your first post and are family, we are looking forward to seeing your beautiful avatar!  ... and, maybe you'll get awarded a delicious picture of some Montreal style poooootine!

Welcome to DarkMatters!

gogo

ps, the cow stays with us

[MyrrDisparo 3]

Thank you for all the responses!

And really sorry for the late reply, stuff got in the way. Anyway, I'm playing on PC, without the community patch, so Blacksmith is viable, but ancient magic isn't.

If I understood you correctly, then, my best bet would be concentration and Combat discipline, but it worries me that not picking a sword/hafted weapons lore will leave me at a disadvantages in casting times for DS, should I abandon the DS focus and try to make up for it with other CA's? Using battle extension as passive and just left-click bashing things sounds a bit boring.

I take it armor+shield+toughness will serve me well defensively if correctly geared, although I'm still a bit wary of boss crits, but I can't really afford any more defensive picks, tight as the spots are. In fact, I may need to drop one deffensive to boost DS casting times, I don't know.

So, mod choices, with the setup I'm leaning now, seem pretty clear cut, specially seeing as I'm not going to be moding more than one aspect:

Let's start with the Shroud: Derogate is tempting, but since I have Concentration, I can put an unmodded untouchable force there for more or less the same effect, so power seems okay -> reduction is the obvious one -> again reflection is obvious.

Combat alert: depends what I am doing with it, but if I were using DS, I'd take Barricade, if left-clicking with BE out, Assault (gotta push the attack numbers to hit something) and riposte (since I wouldn't need attack that much, and less damage sounds more tempting than life regeneration for a shield char). The third pick is mostly useless whatever I do, because I'm playing solo, so party protection is not very useful, and turning it into a buff would sound nicer if it didn't cut the value of the CA in HALF. That's a huge nerf, and I can't see it being that useful in that state. I'd rather recast it from time to time than kill it like that.

Deathly Spears: this one's easy: Gore (no use for knockback), singe (fiery ember increases damage, even unmodded), jab (5, 6 waves of spikes at high levels sounds gooooooood). Also, Area of Effect is kinda lacking in this build.

Battle extension: might as well not mod it, it's mostly the passive I want, and that gets no benefit from modding. Seeing as how I've got nothing better to do with the points, Double attack, impairment, intent, but it's no big deal

Dedicated blow: I see two routes here, one for damage to big meaty guys, one for "soft" crowd control. First one goes Transformation, intent, impact. Second goes bedazed, confident, impact, because again, it will go towards the biggest frakers in the mob, so deep wounds always sounds more tempting than just more damage.

About attributes, I was thinking: stamina at first (because it will be useful no matter what), willpower second, int for the ds route or str for the left click route third, and spring vitality when needed.

What would you say has more chances of progressing?

PS: I'll see about adding an avatar, gogo!

Edited August 8, 2022 by MyrrDisparo
Answering pogo

[gogoblender 3,069]

4 hours ago, MyrrDisparo said:

Thank you for all the responses!

And really sorry for the late reply, stuff got in the way. Anyway, I'm playing on PC, without the community patch, so Blacksmith is viable, but ancient magic isn't.

 

PS: I'll see about adding an avatar, gogo!

I was never really a TG Player, a little too much Pinnochio in him for me  however, there's a ton of builds here on the forum where players have had incredible success with him at high levels.  And whilst TG building has never been my forte, rewarding community here with POutine certainly is! Your avatar is awesome, and so here is this beautiful Quebec (province i live in) specialy ... extra grease, more cheese pleeeeeeeeeze...

 

gogo

[killshoot 6]

I played a character with Lost fusion focus, but without Source warden focus and whatever I was using a spell from Lost fusion with regen of 1 second, 2 seconds were adding to Fiery ember, so it's always was on big cooldown.
Apparently with expert touch enabled, any school focus only decrease regen time for this school and spell will still give big unredused regen to all others. That regen can be reduced by other school focus. When I took Source warden focus and leveled it, problem was resolved.
So I advising Concentration and Source warden focus.

[gogoblender 3,069]

33 minutes ago, killshoot said:

I played a character with Lost fusion focus, but without Source warden focus and whatever I was using a spell from Lost fusion with regen of 1 second, 2 seconds were adding to Fiery ember, so it's always was on big cooldown.
Apparently with expert touch enabled, any school focus only decrease regen time for this school and spell will still give big unredused regen to all others. That regen can be reduced by other school focus. When I took Source warden focus and leveled it, problem was resolved.
So I advising Concentration and Source warden focus.

 

Woo hoo...I was sinking there...thanks for helping out killshoot

gogo

[idbeholdME 388]

The left click build is definitely simple. But as I built him as a utility char, I was not really after engaging gameplay. It's just load game, start Shroud and Battle Aura, enter Mobiculum and hold left click until bored

 

That being said, I would have definitely diversified him if I had made non-utility TG.

I plan to park mine at around level 120-130 so that he can socket rings into Bronze sockets for chars of any other level and otherwise just use him as a Bargainer from time to time. The 120 or so range on Niob Bargains for +6 all skills jewelry and means that other characters that hit level 100 (the level I usually enter Niob at) can immediately make use of the prepared jewelry. Currently have him at level 114, and occasionally just play him to grind a level.

 

When it comes to weapon lore, consider if it's worth picking up a skill simply for execution speed and nothing else. You can balance the lower execution speed by pumping the level of Deathly Spears a bit higher as you will be able to afford a longer regen time. So instead of spamming it every 0.4 seconds, you are going to be spamming it every 0.6 seconds but with higher damage. You can also get casting speed from gear, although it may be a bit difficult to reach 150%.

If you don't have access to Ancient Magic, then Combat Discipline is absolutely mandatory or the damage will be too low. Most enemies also have a decent amount of Physical armor, so they will be reducing the damage of Spears quite a lot. And the CD regen time reduction is very good too.

 

As for the mods.

Shroud:

Derogate looks good on paper, but the damage will be irrelevant pretty quickly. If anything, it's good for proccing Weaken on enemies and that's about it. Plus the range of it is abysmally low. Power is the clear winner to me.

Reduction is no contest. While the in-combat shield regen loses in effectiveness as you progress to higher difficulties (it simply can't keep up), the permanently scaling Damage Mitigation (the most powerful defensive stat in the game) gains in power the further you go.

And yes, Reflection because Spells are one of the most dangerous things in the game.

 

Combat Alert

I modded Combat Alert for the aura, because recasting it constantly does get somewhat annoying after a while. Plus it also makes use of the Concentration slot. It does halve the bonuses, but attack/defense rating are not that important anyway. The halved bonuses are sufficient there. It's much more efficient in the late game to use rings with opponent's chance to evade -X% instead of attack boosting stuff. Defense is not really needed since shield tanks everything and defense only works against weapon attacks anyway. That leaves the damage bonus as the only thing that actually hurts a bit, but it's not really that much of a deal since it's additive with all other damage bonuses. So in the end, you might end up doing 10-15% less damage then you would otherwise. Also keep in mind, that if you don't make it a buff, the duration will only start matching the cooldown at CA level 75, which is pretty long into the game.

Other than that, the Repair mod is actually not that bad because it scales with Tactics. In the later stages, it can easily mean many hundreds of HP/second and basically serve as a 2nd constitution Mastery. It will easily take care of the 40% of damage that goes to your health through the shields. But yeah, the melee reflect chance of this CA is massive. I have it with Battle Aura and it's still providing 49.5% chance to reflect at CA level 88.3. The non-buff version would probably eventually reach about 70%.

 

Spears

The only choice here is if you want more damage over time from the fire damage mod or Weaken from the magic damage mod.

 

Extension

Definitely mod last.

 

Dedicated

I prefer it Transformation-Intent-Enforce. Note that Enforce provides a 16.7% damage increase at level one, but it improves the per level scaling of Dedicated Blow by 50% (weapon damage multiplier goes from +0.2% per level to +0.3% per level). So it will slightly gain in power the higher level it is.

 

And lastly attributes:

Generally avoid Strength and Dexterity no matter what. It's been nerfed in Ice & Blood to the point of irrelevance. You are going to want mostly Intelligence, Stamina and maybe some Willpower. Vitality is not necessary, shields will be taking most of the damage. In my left click build, I dumped all points into Willpower.

I'm currently sitting at 12.6K HP and 24K shields with 78.7% damage mitigation and 162 flat mitigation from shield. Pretty much unkillable. Normal enemies usually hit for double digits, bosses for triple. If pushed further, could probably reach 85-90% mitigation, so basically immortality. Although I must admit that I got ludicrously lucky and scored this piece of armor with a double mitigation roll at a random merchant in Gold. Probably never exchanging that for anything else and every single Temple Guardian I may make in the future is going to inherit this 

 

Edited August 8, 2022 by idbeholdME

[MyrrDisparo 3]

17 hours ago, gogoblender said:

I was never really a TG Player, a little too much Pinnochio in him for me  however, there's a ton of builds here on the forum where players have had incredible success with him at high levels.  And whilst TG building has never been my forte, rewarding community here with POutine certainly is! Your avatar is awesome, and so here is this beautiful Quebec (province I live in) specialy ... extra grease, more cheese pleeeeeeeeeze...

 

gogo

Thanks for the poutine, gogo, looks delicious! There's a place where we used to go that actually had really good poutine!

12 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

The left click build is definitely simple. But as I built him as a utility char, I was not really after engaging gameplay. It's just load game, start Shroud and Battle Aura, enter Mobiculum and hold left click until bored

 

That being said, I would have definitely diversified him if I had made non-utility TG.

I plan to park mine at around level 120-130 so that he can socket rings into Bronze sockets for chars of any other level and otherwise just use him as a Bargainer from time to time. The 120 or so range on Niob Bargains for +6 all skills jewelry and means that other characters that hit level 100 (the level I usually enter Niob at) can immediately make use of the prepared jewelry. Currently have him at level 114, and occasionally just play him to grind a level.

 

When it comes to weapon lore, consider if it's worth picking up a skill simply for execution speed and nothing else. You can balance the lower execution speed by pumping the level of Deathly Spears a bit higher as you will be able to afford a longer regen time. So instead of spamming it every 0.4 seconds, you are going to be spamming it every 0.6 seconds but with higher damage. You can also get casting speed from gear, although it may be a bit difficult to reach 150%.

If you don't have access to Ancient Magic, then Combat Discipline is absolutely mandatory or the damage will be too low. Most enemies also have a decent amount of Physical armor, so they will be reducing the damage of Spears quite a lot. And the CD regen time reduction is very good too.

 

As for the mods.

Shroud:

Derogate looks good on paper, but the damage will be irrelevant pretty quickly. If anything, it's good for proccing Weaken on enemies and that's about it. Plus the range of it is abysmally low. Power is the clear winner to me.

Reduction is no contest. While the in-combat shield regen loses in effectiveness as you progress to higher difficulties (it simply can't keep up), the permanently scaling Damage Mitigation (the most powerful defensive stat in the game) gains in power the further you go.

And yes, Reflection because Spells are one of the most dangerous things in the game.

 

Combat Alert

I modded Combat Alert for the aura, because recasting it constantly does get somewhat annoying after a while. Plus it also makes use of the Concentration slot. It does halve the bonuses, but attack/defense rating are not that important anyway. The halved bonuses are sufficient there. It's much more efficient in the late game to use rings with opponent's chance to evade -X% instead of attack boosting stuff. Defense is not really needed since shield tanks everything and defense only works against weapon attacks anyway. That leaves the damage bonus as the only thing that actually hurts a bit, but it's not really that much of a deal since it's additive with all other damage bonuses. So in the end, you might end up doing 10-15% less damage then you would otherwise. Also keep in mind, that if you don't make it a buff, the duration will only start matching the cooldown at CA level 75, which is pretty long into the game.

Other than that, the Repair mod is actually not that bad because it scales with Tactics. In the later stages, it can easily mean many hundreds of HP/second and basically serve as a 2nd constitution Mastery. It will easily take care of the 40% of damage that goes to your health through the shields. But yeah, the melee reflect chance of this CA is massive. I have it with Battle Aura and it's still providing 49.5% chance to reflect at CA level 88.3. The non-buff version would probably eventually reach about 70%.

 

Spears

The only choice here is if you want more damage over time from the fire damage mod or Weaken from the magic damage mod.

 

Extension

Definitely mod last.

 

Dedicated

I prefer it Transformation-Intent-Enforce. Note that Enforce provides a 16.7% damage increase at level one, but it improves the per level scaling of Dedicated Blow by 50% (weapon damage multiplier goes from +0.2% per level to +0.3% per level). So it will slightly gain in power the higher level it is.

 

And lastly attributes:

Generally avoid Strength and Dexterity no matter what. It's been nerfed in Ice & Blood to the point of irrelevance. You are going to want mostly Intelligence, Stamina and maybe some Willpower. Vitality is not necessary, shields will be taking most of the damage. In my left click build, I dumped all points into Willpower.

I'm currently sitting at 12.6K HP and 24K shields with 78.7% damage mitigation and 162 flat mitigation from shield. Pretty much unkillable. Normal enemies usually hit for double digits, bosses for triple. If pushed further, could probably reach 85-90% mitigation, so basically immortality. Although I must admit that I got ludicrously lucky and scored this piece of armor with a double mitigation roll at a random merchant in Gold. Probably never exchanging that for anything else and every single Temple Guardian I may make in the future is going to inherit this 

 

Ok, so no hafted/sword weapons. I can probably boost my attack speed through some other means (although I think attack speed mods are mostly locked behind sword/hafted skills, right?), and attack shouldn't really be a priority. Conc and combat disci it is, then. I was more or less right about modding choices, specially if I don't pick buff for combat alert. One important part of modding Deathly spears for fire damage is that it gets boosted (although not much in this build) by fiery ember, which could be useful. I can probably spread weaken if I gear for it with untouchable force, making use of the concentration extra buff slot.

Oh, and yeah, that's an incredible breastpiece! Incredible roll there.

Thank you all! I'll let you know how it goes!

[idbeholdME 388]

14 minutes ago, MyrrDisparo said:

Ok, so no hafted/sword weapons. I can probably boost my attack speed through some other means (although I think attack speed mods are mostly locked behind sword/hafted skills, right?), and attack shouldn't really be a priority.

One last note. For Deathly Spears, you want Casting Speed, not Attack Speed. Attack Speed only affects left click attacks.

The Weapon Lore is an exception. It says it gives attack speed, but it also doubles as Casting Speed. But on gear, it's always AS - left click, CS - Combat Arts.

So if you can afford to squeeze the weapon lore into your build, at least you won't need to gear for Casting Speed and it will free up item bonuses for something else. But that is for you to decide. Sacred character building is full of choices and one just has to weigh all the pros and cons.

Edited August 9, 2022 by idbeholdME

[chattius 2,522]

Whenever I played a Deadly Spears -TG I removed the battery. I want to run close for the spears, but if your mouse pointer hovers over an enemy your left click move is a shooting ...

Must be my last TG was while babysitting with young kids on the knees. My eye hand coordination suffered a bit because of this.

[idbeholdME 388]

4 hours ago, chattius said:

Whenever I played a Deadly Spears -TG I removed the battery. I want to run close for the spears, but if your mouse pointer hovers over an enemy your left click move is a shooting ...

When I was shortly playing my TG as a Deathly Spears one before pivoting into left click build, I didn't have a problem with this as I mostly W and S + camera rotation to move around and use mouse mostly just for targeting and attacking. But I can imagine that being annoying if you use mostly mouse for movement. But my most pressed mouse button when playing Sacred 2 is by far the middle mouse button :D. Come to think of it, I wonder how many people use mouse for movement vs how many people use the W and S + camera combo.

But either way, I absolutely wouldn't want to lose that stats from the Battery.

Edited August 9, 2022 by idbeholdME

[chattius 2,522]

1 hour ago, idbeholdME said:

When I was shortly playing my TG as a Deathly Spears one before pivoting into left click build, I didn't have a problem with this as I mostly W and S + camera rotation to move around and use mouse mostly just for targeting and attacking. But I can imagine that being annoying if you use mostly mouse for movement. But my most pressed mouse button when playing Sacred 2 is by far the middle mouse button :D. Come to think of it, I wonder how many people use mouse for movement vs how many people use the W and S + camera combo.

But either way, I absolutely wouldn't want to lose that stats from the Battery.

Keyboard AND mouse are a nono if you have playing little ones on your knees, try it

absolutly .... The stats of the battery are way less important than the little ones - at least the females in our house are of this opinion.

[MyrrDisparo 3]

Having a lot of fun with it, level 9 now, thanks everyone! Finally got a hold of a deathly spears rune. Still a bit low level to really get a lot out of it, but we're just starting

On 8/9/2022 at 12:38 PM, idbeholdME said:

One last note. For Deathly Spears, you want Casting Speed, not Attack Speed. Attack Speed only affects left click attacks.

The Weapon Lore is an exception. It says it gives attack speed, but it also doubles as Casting Speed. But on gear, it's always AS - left click, CS - Combat Arts.

So if you can afford to squeeze the weapon lore into your build, at least you won't need to gear for Casting Speed and it will free up item bonuses for something else. But that is for you to decide. Sacred character building is full of choices and one just has to weigh all the pros and cons.

I can't afford to squeeze it in, but it's no big deal. By the way, someone should edit the wiki about deathly spears, it does suggest that Weapon Speed is what affects casting time, not Casting Speed. It's probably referring to what you're saying here, but it would probably be helpful to update the description to clarify its behaviour.

By the way, does this happen with all combat arts? Dedicated blow and battle extension behave like that too? What about pelting strikes or other toons weapon arts? Thank you for all the info!

On 8/9/2022 at 7:27 PM, chattius said:

Keyboard AND mouse are a nono if you have playing little ones on your knees, try it

absolutly .... The stats of the battery are way less important than the little ones - at least the females in our house are of this opinion.

Hah! I couldn't play without a battery! The precious, precious stats!

Edited August 11, 2022 by MyrrDisparo

[idbeholdME 388]

4 hours ago, MyrrDisparo said:

I can't afford to squeeze it in, but it's no big deal. By the way, someone should edit the wiki about deathly spears, it does suggest that Weapon Speed is what affects casting time, not Casting Speed. It's probably referring to what you're saying here, but it would probably be helpful to update the description to clarify its behaviour.

By the way, does this happen with all combat arts? Dedicated blow and battle extension behave like that too? What about pelting strikes or other toons weapon arts? Thank you for all the info!

The info about Weapon Lore increasing its execution speed is correct. I also said in my previous post, that Weapon Lore skills are an exception to the rule. They double both as Attack and Casting speed for CA categories that don't have a relevant Lore skill, even though the skill description only says Attack Speed. So it would increase the execution speed of Deathly Spears too.

For gear bonuses however, it's Attack Speed = left click attacks, Casting Speed = CA execution speed.

One of the best weapons for this build would in my opinion be the Desert Saber, if you can get your hands on it. Has a very nice chunk of Casting Speed and 2 Gold slots.

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Desert_Saber

Also has very nice damage (maybe the highest in the game for a one handed weapon). I'm actually using this weapon on my left click TG too  It's honestly one of the best one handed swords in general.

Edited August 11, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 435]

1 minute ago, idbeholdME said:

The info about Weapon Lore increasing its execution speed is correct. I also said in my previous post, that Weapon Lore skills are an exception to the rule. They double both as Attack and Casting speed for CA categories that don't have a relevant Lore skill, even though the skill description only says Attack Speed. So it would increase the execution speed of Deathly Spears too.

For gear bonuses however, it's Attack Speed = left click attacks, Casting Speed = CA execution speed.

One of the best weapons for this build would in my opinion be the Desert Saber, if you can get your hands on it. Has a very nice chunk of Casting Speed and 2 Gold slots.

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Desert_Saber

There is a fundamental difference between spells and weapon CAs when it comes to execution speed: weapon CAs have a cap (with working overcap mechanic, so if you have more execution speed on gear than the cap, then it saves you from debuffs), while spells can get down to 1 frame per cast in theory.

I wonder wether weapon lore spells like deathly spears have a cap or not. I have no idea.

[idbeholdME 388]

3 minutes ago, Lindor said:

There is a fundamental difference between spells and weapon CAs when it comes to execution speed: weapon CAs have a cap (with working overcap mechanic, so if you have more execution speed on gear than the cap, then it saves you from debuffs), while spells can get down to 1 frame per cast in theory.

I wonder wether weapon lore spells like deathly spears have a cap or not. I have no idea.

I don't think that's the case. My spells also cap at 150% speed. Anything above serves to counter the penalty from over-levelling the CAs.

On my Shadow Warrior - Skeletal Fortification, Belligerent Vault, Augmenting Guidon - all stop at 150% speed.

Edited August 11, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 435]

17 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

I don't think that's the case. My spells also cap at 150% speed. Anything above serves to counter the penalty from over-levelling the CAs.

On my Shadow Warrior - Skeletal Fortification, Belligerent Vault, Augmenting Guidon - all stop at 150% speed.

Well I don't want to record it if I don't have to, but I have inquisitor builds with absolutely ridiculous casting speeds. It's a real machine gun, and even casting the buffs profits from it. I tell you, at least for this hero there is no cap. Don't know if playing mounted or on foot makes a difference.

[idbeholdME 388]

36 minutes ago, Lindor said:

Well I don't want to record it if I don't have to, but I have inquisitor builds with absolutely ridiculous casting speeds. It's a real machine gun, and even casting the buffs profits from it. I tell you, at least for this hero there is no cap. Don't know if playing mounted or on foot makes a difference.

The only thing I can think of that could do that is Frenetic Fervor. But even then, it's just supposed to increase the caps from 150% to 170%. Actually, it's probably only attack speed. Maybe the Bronze mod Faith ignores the cap with its Casting Speed bonus? Never played an Inquisitor for an extended period of time, so honestly don't know.

But I can safely say that I never could breach the Casting Speed cap on either a Shadow Warrior, Seraphim or High Elf.

Edited August 11, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 435]

2 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

Frenetic Fervor

Don't even play with Frenetic Fervor. It's all coming solely from items and the astute supremacy / nefarious netherworld lore skills.

4 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

Seraphim

Something worh mentioning: I don't really know how intended that is, but BFG combined with pelting strikes has ridiculous attack speed: all the shoots are happening during the casting period. Not saying that it is breaching the cap, but it's behaving dfferently to other weapon CAs.

[idbeholdME 388]

19 minutes ago, Lindor said:

Don't even play with Frenetic Fervor. It's all coming solely from items and the astute supremacy / nefarious netherworld lore skills.

Something worh mentioning: I don't really know how intended that is, but BFG combined with pelting strikes has ridiculous attack speed: all the shoots are happening during the casting period. Not saying that it is breaching the cap, but it's behaving dfferently to other weapon CAs.

Then I have no idea what's causing that. Might because of a patch/mod you are using etc.

 

As for the Pelting Strikes thing, it also depends on which patch/version you're using. In the CM at least, it was changed. It wrongly clones shots and shoots 5 if I remember correctly, instead of the original 2.

It's a machine gun only in the CM Patch. Similarly with ranged Frenzied Rampage.

I did research on the vanilla behavior of Frenzied Rampage and it seems it's hardcoded to add 2 shots, once every 0.6 seconds. Otherwise, it just clones a basic attack. This explains why in the CM Patch, it shoots 5 shots despite only having 3 ATTACK entries in the animation.txt and 3 shots in vanilla, where it simply clones a default ranged attack. Details here.

I did not do a detailed breakdown of ranged Pelting Strikes, but I'd assume it's similar behavior, as it also fired more shots that there were ATTACK entries in the animation.txt.

Edited August 11, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

Speed cap is much higher in EE.

[idbeholdME 388]

That would explain it.

@Lindor In that case, just check balance.txt and look at the number for "SpeedMax". If it's not 1500, then it's not the vanilla value.

[Lindor 435]

21 minutes ago, Flix said:

Speed cap is much higher in EE.

 

12 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

That would explain it.

@Lindor In that case, just check balance.txt and look at the number for "SpeedMax". If it's not 1500, then it's not the vanilla value.

Yep, that's it. 4500.