Any strong solo Temple Guardian builds around ?.

[Dreez 0]

 

I made a TG base on a build that was using Deathly Spears and apparently (and according to forum) that build is lame because DS is not strong enough to rely on .   Problem is that I've always wanted to play the TG because he's unlike any of the other classes due to shielding and his 3 arm-ability .   I would greatly appreciate any help to find a strong solo TG build .

[Lindor 438]

The issue with temple guardian on Vanila/CM as I see it was always:

• weapon damage based build are too boring and ordinary. The left arms projectile dmg is too low and can't be used in conjuntion with combat arts, he can't go for proper ranged builds, nor for shields and neither for dual wield builds, you're stuck in close combat with his battle extension forever.
• Source Warden spells kinda suck, extreme range with low damage combined and then theres primal mutation, the t-energy-transformation which has the ability to transform enemies into 1-xp-chickens.
• So all that's left is Lost Fusion. It has good single target spells, but the only proper Area of Effect spell here is furious emblazer, but the damage of furious emblazer didn't match the animation at all. It is a very bad experience. Propelled levitation is Area of Effect but has cooldown and low dps, archimedes beam is technically also Area of Effect but in reality you won't hit a lot of opponents. Therefore one would go for amplifying discharge with the ricochet mods as mobkiller, but that's orders of magnitude slower than a proper Area of Effect-spell.

 

Lucky for you you're playing EE which makes things much better. Lost fusion furious emblazer experience is way better, it better matches the casting animation, the amplifying discharge is now also much better since it has a greatly increased chance to hit additional opponents. Now it can actually repace Area of Effect as a proper chain attack. EE doesn't really attempt to fix the issues I see with the other two aspects, but his lost fusion experience is now much better.

I'd go for:

• Combat Art skills:
  • Lost Fusion Lore
  • Lost Fusion Focus
  • Ancient Magic
  • Combat Discipline
  • Devout Guardian Focus (just for T-Energy-Shroud, reduces penalty with CA-level and adds modification points)
• Offensive Skills:
  • Tactics Lore (just for T-Energy-Shroud, improves the recharge, the "block warding energy" and adds modification points)
• Defensive Skills:
  • Armor Lore
  • Toughness
  • Warding Energy Lore
  • Spell Resistance

Constitution is not really necessary if you go for the shield. As for spell modifications, definitely take the recharge mod of the shield. Other than that, experiment and have fun!

I still don't like playing temple guardian because he is so slow unmounted and I don't like his music, but if that doesn't bother you, then have fun!

[idbeholdME 394]

Another alternative I've had incredible success with even in vanilla would be the Area of Effect Guardian. Main focus on Icy Evanescence and Fiery Ember, supported with Charged Grid. You just walk around, herd enemies into large groups and melt them with all your Area of Effect. Normal enemies don't stand a chance, and you can pepper elites either with Amplifying Discharge or just melt them with Jolting Touch if they're alone. Everything dies by itself in a couple of seconds so you can just focus on the tough ones. But this build takes a while to get going. Initially, all the relevant CAs require high levels to reach their full potential.

My skills in order:

Lost Fusion Lore

Lost Fusion Focus

Devout Guardian Focus

Armor Lore

Warding Energy Lore

Toughness

Combat Discipline

Concentration

Source Warden Lore

Source Warden Focus

If you are feeling brave, you could probably switch Toughness for Damage Lore to squeeze out a bit more damage out of Fiery Ember, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Attributes go mostly to Intelligence. As TG does not have access to Ancient Magic in vanilla, the extra power is needed. But you can sprinkle some Willpower, Vitality or Stamina if you want.

 

Mods

Devout Guardian - only mod the shield and Combat Alert

T-Energy Shroud: Power-Reduction-Reflection

Combat Alert: Barricade-Riposte-NONE

Nothing else in this tree matters.

 

Lost Fusion:

Amplifying Discharge: Ice Bullets-Ricochet-Ice Bullets

Furious Emblazer: Accelerant-Incapacitate-Burnout

Jolting Touch: Life Leech-Voltage-Flux

Archimedes Beam: Bundle-Intent-Annul

Propelled Levitation: Doesn't really matter. Mod last, I'd probably go for: Super Charger-Jet Stream-Flux. But you probably won't be using this CA anyway due to the prohibitively long cooldown.

 

Source Warden:

Primal Mutation: mod last. Doesn't really matter, you won't be using it but if I were to mod it, I'd probably go: Combust-Mutate-Helpless and use it just as a novelty to see some rare enemy mutations, like Hydras, Plants and such which you have almost no chance to see in the game otherwise.

Fiery Ember: Incinerate-Churn-Sustain. Your main damaging CA. Will deal high damage at high levels due to the scaling resistance reduction, which increases its own damage. Everything about this CA gets better and better the higher level it is. Damage tic rate, radius, duration, resistance reduction - everything keeps increasing. Which is why this CA only really starts to shine past level 75.

Icy Evanescence: Icy Needles-Deep Frost-Sustain. Same as Fiery Ember except Ice. Your go to for fire resistant enemies and vice versa.

Charged Grid: Havoc-Unnatural Selection-Longevity. Another Area of Effect to support your Ember/Evanescence. Properly modded, adds a decent chunk of additional damage which will also periodically Weaken enemies with its magic damage. Also provides powerful supplementary healing. Put it in a combo with Combat Alert and use as often as possible.

Untouchable Force: Mind Control-Calm-Crumble. An optional buff you can run. Depends on you if you want to take the increased regen times for some extra utility/defense. Might not be worth it initially, but once you start Mastering some stuff at level 75 and on, you can safely add it. The attack speed slow is quite noticeable and will help keep you safe and the occasional stun is good too. And some extra block for projectiles to seal the deal.

 

CAs/Combos:

1 - Amplifying Discharge - sniping lone enemies/support damage for Elites. Synergy with Icy Evanescence.

2 - Furious Emblazer. Synergy with Fiery Ember. When something absolutely positively needs to melt. Cast Fiery Ember beforehand and watch this puppy simply nuke enemies with its Deathblow mod.

3 - Combat Alert/Charged Grid - You will eventually reach a stage where Combat Alert can be maintained indefinitely and I have about a 70% uptime on Charged Grid at character level 137. Use whenever off cooldown.

4 - Jolting Touch - your go to CA for melting bosses/Elites after you cast your Area of Effect spells. The Life Leech mod will also ensure that any damage that goes through the Shield will get instantly healed, removing any need of Constitution.

5 - Fiery Ember OR Icy Evanescence - the main CA. Which one depends on the region/enemies you face. Enemies with fire resistance/armor - Icy Evanescence and Fiery Ember if not. Both of them benefit INSANELY from and Combat Art Range bonuses. Nlovae's Mystery alone does wonders. They both eventually cover the entire screen.

 

A short example of the build in action:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nx9bo708p08vg0mwxj7kb/Sacred-2-Ice-Blood-2023-07-20-17-44-51.mp4?rlkey=3u0kqbfqs3ldmw9q8n3eht2d9&dl=0

Edited July 20, 2023 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 438]

I have a couple of thoughts on that:

• If you want to play source warden, then play source warden. Lost fusion has no synergies. Playing both would just make it so that you don't have a main damage source anymore. Having a main damage source and only buffing it with other aspects imho is the core of Sacred 2 builds. Going for lost fusion is wasting 2 skills, giving you trouble in the lategame by making your source warden abilities weaker than those of a temple guardian that focuses on it.
• He mentioned in another thread that he plays EE which means that he has access to ancient magic which is a missing must have.
• Tactics Lore is missing. Very important for the recharge mod of ancient shroud as it's buffing the effect.
• Speaking of which, taking the recharge mod on your t-energy-shroud is absolutely mandatory. It's the one and only mod which is better than % damage reduction, even in boss fights. In my experience, with high enough tactics lore and spell level, you outheal pretty much everything (if we account for boss spell regen times / cooldowns). Also I'd go for power instead of reflection.
• You dropped spell resistance for concentration. I wouldn't do that. Lategame incoming damage is so incedibly high that the spell resistance and detrimental effect reduction are super worth it. Don't try to replace those stats with your gear. You need your gear for other stats such as % damage increase and regen time decrease. Taking concentration for untouchable force is really not worth it. It's not a good buff in bossfights. Stun duration is too short on bosses. I think it's the high boss spell resistance which is causing that. The Calm mod is good on high attack speed bosses such as bloodclaw, but not good enough to justify a whole skill slot. Projectile block is completely useless as I can't think of any existing ranged boss. The damage is just tickling as if it weren't existent.
• Primal Mutation isn't useless. It's your main source waden boss killing spell.

In the end, I would take the lost fusion build from above and just replace the lost fusion lore and focus with the source warden lore and focus.

Please don't take this as critique on your person. I'd rather like this to initiate an interesting discussion, like we had about inquisitor builds some time ago. I'd say chances are high that I'll learn something new from you.

[idbeholdME 394]

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

I have a couple of thoughts on that:

• If you want to play source warden, then play source warden. Lost fusion has no synergies. Playing both would just make it so that you don't have a main damage source anymore. Having a main damage source and only buffing it with other aspects imho is the core of Sacred 2 builds. Going for lost fusion is wasting 2 skills, giving you trouble in the lategame by making your source warden abilities weaker than those of a temple guardian that focuses on it.

Source Warden is there for Area of Effect, Lost fusion for single target, mostly Jolting Touch. And Lost Fusion does have synergy with Source Warden through the resistance reduction of Fiery Ember and Icy Evanescence. Properly modded Amplifying Discharge (Ice damage) and Furious Emblazer can benefit from it tremendously. AD on an enemy in Icy Evanescence can hit for 30K+. Having CAs that can make use of that resist reduction other than FE/IE itself is definitely good. Archimedes Beam can be used with it's Annul mod to lock down enemies who have some buff as it will keep disabling it and the enemy will keep recasting it in place. Going for a main damage source and just supporting it as much is possible is definitely the easiest to do, but by far not the only viable thing.

But the build I posted is more focused on Lost Fusion build until level 75 and more on Source Warden build after level 75.

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

• He mentioned in another thread that he plays EE which means that he has access to ancient magic which is a missing must have.

True. Although I find that the Temple Guardian doesn't really need it. He has the most powerful resistance reduction in the game and I feel Ascaron didn't give him Ancient Magic for that exact reason. He would be obscenely powerful with it, being able to melt even things like Fire Elementals with Fiery Ember.

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

• Tactics Lore is missing. Very important for the recharge mod of ancient shroud as it's buffing the effect.

It is missing, but I find that picking a skill just to boost one CAs mod is mostly not worth it. Jolting Touch along with Charged Grid and healing potions takes care of any in-combat healing needs. Shield strength is not a problem, it will hold, but in late Niobium you can run into scenarios where you'd run out of health while still having shield remaining. Going overboard on healing is not really needed I feel, and using up a skill slot for that? That's a nope from me.

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

• Speaking of which, taking the recharge mod on your t-energy-shroud is absolutely mandatory. It's the one and only mod which is better than % damage reduction, even in boss fights. In my experience, with high enough tactics lore and spell level, you outheal pretty much everything (if we account for boss spell regen times / cooldowns). Also I'd go for power instead of reflection.

Depends, but in the vast majority of cases, Reduction will be superior. The further you go in Niobium, the more that will be true. Assume a level 100 Shroud and Tactics bonus of say... 400%. You will be looking at 15% all channel mitigation vs about 515 shield regen per second. That 515 is not going to mean much in late Niob. The only thing it's good for is that you will be under the effects of the shield all the time, even if the enemies do manage to take it down. But the priority here is for the shield to never go down completely. Shields benefit tremendously from mitigation. Reduction + Toughness alone will increase your survivability by an insane amount (as long as the shield holds).

Power is unfortunately nothing stellar. It's nice, but 10+0.1*CA Level % is nothing to write home about. I still picked it at Bronze because I have no use for Derogate as this is not a melee build (for the most part) but picking it at Gold? Over Spell Reflect? It's no contest. A single reflected spell in late Niob is already more powerful that another Power mod. Power would give at most a couple more thousand of shield strength. Reflecting a single Life Leech Lightning or Dragon fireball is worth thousands upon thousands of damage every time it procs. At CA level 80, I have 49.5% chance to reflect spells. It I played/levelled it further, it would probably eventually reach somewhere in the 55%+ territory. It is incomparably superior to Power as enemy spells are the most dangerous thing in the game.

One note about the build though - it is ABSOLUTE glass without the shield on. Don't save in densely populated enemy areas or you might find yourself dead shortly after the load. Also, any enemies that can cancel buffs (White Griffin, Sinister Prince or Furies in Northland) are probably the most dangerous thing you can encounter.

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

• You dropped spell resistance for concentration. I wouldn't do that. Lategame incoming damage is so incedibly high that the spell resistance and detrimental effect reduction are super worth it. Don't try to replace those stats with your gear. You need your gear for other stats such as % damage increase and regen time decrease. Taking concentration for untouchable force is really not worth it. It's not a good buff in bossfights. Stun duration is too short on bosses. I think it's the high boss spell resistance which is causing that. The Calm mod is good on high attack speed bosses such as bloodclaw, but not good enough to justify a whole skill slot. Projectile block is completely useless as I can't think of any existing ranged boss. The damage is just tickling as if it weren't existent.

Spell Resistance is extremely powerful, yes but It is mostly useful for negating enemy DoTs and reducing duration of negative effects. And that is also the thing which shields excel against. Especially TG's, as he has a natural 60/40 split of damage to shields/health. SR actually doesn't do that much against powerful hitting spells, other than preventing crits. Bosses will still win the Spell Intensity check as they have thousands of Spell Intensity. Shroud should be able to hold against everything. In the example video, you can see my health and shields still do drop. But Warding Energy Lore and Toughness are the last 2 skills I don't have Mastered. Now, any future points for the next 30 levels are going to be boosting survivability. And you can gear for Detrimental Effect Reduction. Dedicating 1-2 sockets to it is well worth it (I have 41.8% from gear). Optimally a jewelry piece with All Skills + DME reduction combo.

Concentration provides an unbeatable regen time reduction.

And the build needs all the regen it can get. Keeping regen times low for Amplifying Discharge/Furious Emblazer is pretty important and Untouchable force is just a nice bonus. I don't have it levelled much, but it helps. Some of the most dangerous enemies are rapidly hitting melee powerhouses. Scorpions, Demons, even some bosses like Dragons hit very fast in Niobium. Calm makes that a lot more manageable. The occasional stun is a prime opportunity to also apply Furious Emblazer to them while they're bathing in Fiery Ember. I only have UF at level 16 and it still slows down enemies nicely and provides an 18.2% chance to stun every 5 seconds and also gives 33% chance to block projectiles. Any damage relieved off the shields means that shield can deal with the more problematic stuff. If pumped, the stun would become semi-reliable and the block chance could easily reach ~60%. And the stun duration is always 5 seconds. Doesn't matter if a normal enemy or a boss.

Concentration is definitely more worth it for this build than Tactics Lore.

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

• Primal Mutation isn't useless. It's your main source waden boss killing spell.

I use Jolting Touch for that. Spamming it repeatedly on bosses with the mods mentioned above melts them very fast. You should be able to kill them before they chew through your shield. If not, you can retreat as they are rooted in place, recharge shield and go back in. Also another reason why Untouchable Force is an incredible utility buff.

 

Also, as a side note, the TG has some of the best set bonuses in the game. He gets +All Skills as the first 3-piece bonus on all 3 of his mainline sets. And this is probably the build that benefits the most from any skills bonuses. I have 2 partial sets, which gives me +20 All Skills for free, allowing me to sit at +91 All Skills at level 137. EDIT: Make that +95 I played for a couple of minutes before going back to my High Elf and randomly got a +7 All Skills ring by running in Grunwald Forest for 3 minutes He really wants me to come back to him I guess  

Here is what the build looks like:

HP - 13172

Shield - 30363

Gear:

Head - Demiurge

Shoulders - Demiurge

Arms - Combat Modules

Battery - Combat Modules

Chest - Gleaming Chestplate

Waist - Combat Modules

Legs - Demiurge

Boots - Demiurge

Jewelry - All Skills

Socketables - a mix of Whets, Enhances and All Skills.

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

In the end, I would take the lost fusion build from above and just replace the lost fusion lore and focus with the source warden lore and focus.

Please don't take this as critique on your person. I'd rather like this to initiate an interesting discussion, like we had about inquisitor builds some time ago. I'd say chances are high that I'll learn something new from you.

No problem. I like discussing stuff like this 

Edited July 20, 2023 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 438]

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

And Lost Fusion does have synergy with Source Warden through the resistance reduction of Fiery Ember and Icy Evanescence.

True. So Lost Fusion is the damage source and Source Warden is the support.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

It is missing, but I find that picking a skill just to boost one CAs mod is mostly not worth it.

It's not just for Recharge, it's a core essential as it's also increasing the "Block Warding Energy" Bonus which really is what you're after. This bonus is so very good as it is applied after all the other damage calculations. It has very good synergy with % damage reduction. It's not just a cherry on top, it's a key essential.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Assume a level 100 Shroud and Tactics bonus of say... 400%. You will be looking at 15% all channel mitigation vs about 515 shield regen per second.

Those are realistic numbers. And I think they're worth it compared with the actual damage you take and considereing that it keeps your "Block Warding Energy" value up and running. But I get that Reduction is also really good, esp. when combined with "Block Warding Energy". I think you convinced me here.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Power is unfortunately nothing stellar. It's nice, but 10+0.1*CA Level % is nothing to write home about. I still picked it at Bronze because I have no use for Derogate as this is not a melee build (for the most part) but picking it at Gold? Over Spell Reflect? It's no contest. A single reflected spell in late Niob is already more powerful that another Power mod. Power would give at most a couple more thousand of shield strength. Reflecting a single Life Leech Lightning or Dragon fireball is worth thousands upon thousands of damage every time it procs. At CA level 80, I have 49.5% chance to reflect spells. It I played/levelled it further, it would probably eventually reach somewhere in the 55%+ territory. It is incomparably superior to Power as enemy spells are the most dangerous thing in the game.

Don't compare shield strength with the damage of enemy spells. You need to compare shield strength with the actual damage you take.

Generally I don't like dmg calculations a lot since the numbers vary and spread so much across the game with your level, enemy level, regions etc. I'm more into finding the best average usage. But I think here it's necessary to bring my point across:

Let's say a boss spell does 10000 dmg. You have 50% reduction, 2000 armor, pass the spell resistance check and the block warding energy saves you 500 dmg. The final dmg you take would be 2400 with the damage calculation formula. Then let's say the fight lasts long enough for 5 casts. Then reflection on average saves you (5/2)*2400=6000 dmg during the whole fight. Power can keep up with that. The important thing to note here is that there's an anti-synergy: The more you reduce incoming damage, the less effective is reflection, but the more effective is shield strength.

And reflection does not help you against the most dangerous spells like dragon's breath. Also I noticed that reflection seems to occur much less often in boss fights on my inquisitor. Reflection really is not that good of a defensive bonus. It's more of an offensive bonus. I think it's only really worth it on the Inquisitor, as he gets so much of it with a single buff.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

One note about the build though - it is ABSOLUTE glass without the shield on.

Yes. That's why I'd go for shield strength.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Bosses will still win the Spell Intensity check as they have thousands of Spell Intensity.

That's a hard no. You will invest into willpower anyway for your shield. With Spell intensity you will win the check every time, based on my experience.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Dedicating 1-2 sockets to it is well worth it (I have 41.8% from gear). Optimally a jewelry piece with All Skills + DME reduction combo.

Not really. You need shield absorption, block warding energy, willpower, intelligence, stamina, &dmg increase, %dmg decrease and +all skills. Those are the essentials. I'd suggest focusing on those.

9 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

I use Jolting Touch for that.

Jolting touch is better. Generally the lost fusion aspect is better at dealing damage. If you're going for source warden as main damage source however, which is entirely possible, then Primal Mutation is your bosskiller. I see now that this was not the intention of the build.

 

 

The whole spell resistance vs concentration thing is really something hard to figure out. I'd vote for spell resistance, but it's close.
If you want concentration instead of Tactics Lore, I say tactics lore. The Block Warding Energy increase is just too good.
Generally for lategame builds I'd say prefer defense over offense.

[idbeholdME 394]

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

True. So Lost Fusion is the damage source and Source Warden is the support.

It's both. Source Warden is there for crowds of normal enemies and Lost Fusion to add more damage to Elites and Bosses. You could go around Jolting Touching everything to death one by one, but it would be vastly inferior to using your AoEs. You could also just run around madly and wait for your AoEs to melt bosses and Elites, but it would be similarly inferior.

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

It's not just for Recharge, it's a core essential as it's also increasing the "Block Warding Energy" Bonus which really is what you're after. This bonus is so very good as it is applied after all the other damage calculations. It has very good synergy with % damage reduction. It's not just a cherry on top, it's a key essential.

I find the shield combined with mitigation from Toughness, Reduction and Demiurge legs quite enough. Again, all Tactics would do is increase survivability, which the build already has enough of and it needs all the damage it can get. If I had a slot for it, I would definitely squeeze in Tactics, but I do no and it was the first on the chopping block.

The flat reduction helps the most against small hits. The problem here is that the base value scales very slowly. 1.5+0.5*CA Level. At CA level 100, you get 51.5 flat absorption. Even if you multiply that by 5, you still land on just over 250 flat absorption. The big hits will still easily go through, especially the most dangerous stuff like homing Dragon fireballs or enemies that throw Fire Traps. Cutting 250 instead of 50 from a 10K damage nuke won't really help much. It will definitely be good near the beginning of the game, but in late Niob? It won't do as much as you'd think.

I have a different TG, focused on Devout Guardian and yes, he has reached a stage where normal enemies hit him for double digits, Elites and bosses for triple. Basically immortal. But there is a point where you have enough defense. You can do with "very durable" instead of "immortal". One of the most effective defensive measures in this game is how you pilot your character. It's nice seeing yourself get hit for 50 damage. But you have to ask yourself, "Can I really not afford to get hit for 300 damage against my 30K Shield and 15K life?

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

Those are realistic numbers. And I think they're worth it compared with the actual damage you take and considereing that it keeps your "Block Warding Energy" value up and running. But I get that Reduction is also really good, esp. when combined with "Block Warding Energy". I think you convinced me here.

If your shield drops regularly so that you'd need the Recharge mod for it to stay active, you are seriously lacking in defense. And Mitigation is the best defensive stat in the game. Forgoing such an amount of it for what will be a measly in-combat shield regen in late Niob is simply not worth it. But if you plan on not pushing past Silver or Gold with your Guardian, it is very viable.

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

Don't compare shield strength with the damage of enemy spells. You need to compare shield strength with the actual damage you take.

Generally I don't like dmg calculations a lot since the numbers vary and spread so much across the game with your level, enemy level, regions etc. I'm more into finding the best average usage. But I think here it's necessary to bring my point across:

Let's say a boss spell does 10000 dmg. You have 50% reduction, 2000 armor, pass the spell resistance check and the block warding energy saves you 500 dmg. The final dmg you take would be 2400 with the damage calculation formula. Then let's say the fight lasts long enough for 5 casts. Then reflection on average saves you (5/2)*2400=6000 dmg during the whole fight. Power can keep up with that. The important thing to note here is that there's an anti-synergy: The more you reduce incoming damage, the less effective is reflection, but the more effective is shield strength.

And reflection does not help you against the most dangerous spells like dragon's breath. Also I noticed that reflection seems to occur much less often in boss fights on my inquisitor. Reflection really is not that good of a defensive bonus. It's more of an offensive bonus. I think it's only really worth it on the Inquisitor, as he gets so much of it with a single buff.

There are many nuances to this yes. Power would indeed be better against ground effects that can't be reflected like Dragon Breath, Fire Traps, DoTs - things that are not actual direct attacks. However, this is also exactly the thing that Shields by their definition are the best against. The split of damage between Health and Shield ensures you can manage that damage quite well in a fight, compared to other characters that can melt in a mob of Spitting Spiders for example. Not to mention that you should be able to reach sufficient shield power with one Power mod.

But then there are also things like Life Leech spells, where Reflection will be simply superior. Reflection/Block is the only way to mitigate Life Leech damage (by stopping the thing that would have inflicted it).

As for actual reflection, your statement is wrong. Reflection/Block is always first in the layers of defense. The game first checks for whether you Blocked/Reflected the attack. If have not not, only then it proceeds to the actual damage calculations. So you always reflect back the full damage of the enemy spell. No anti-synergy there, even though using Reflection to actually deal damage is a futile endeavour as the damage is way too low for late Niob.

Spell Reflection is one of the most powerful defense mechanics in the game. My Shadow Warrior can run through the Blood Forest and the Eyes will actually heal him more often than not because they hit themselves with the Life Leech, which then proceeds to heal him. It might seem less powerful against bosses, but that's simply because they don't cast that many direct damage spells and have many attacks which can't be reflected (anything Area of Effect). I assure you the chance is still the same. It can easily Reflect the Dragon Fireballs, Kral's projectiles, Facetelleon's zap etc. In the end, Reflection helps the most against the most dangerous things - instant damage spells. Fen Fire lightning, Dragon fireballs, life leech spells. Any ground based unreflectable attack can be easily avoided altogether - by simply moving out of the way. You can't do that for the other spells.

The build I posted also has the "holy trifecta". A chance to Block/Reflect all the vectors of attacks (Spells, melee, ranged). With Combat Alert going, a very large chunk of attacks actually don't reach me at all.

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

Yes. That's why I'd go for shield strength.

Not really relevant if we're talking about a scenario where the shield is not on. 

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

That's a hard no. You will invest into willpower anyway for your shield. With Spell intensity you will win the check every time, based on my experience.

Well, if you pump Willpower and the skill hard enough, you might reach a stage where you can win it against bosses. But this build needs all the Intelligence it can get, especially without Ancient Magic. I already have 200 runes eaten for Fiery Ember/Icy Evanscence, so Intelligence and levels are the only vectors left to increase the damage (other than gear of course).

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

Not really. You need shield absorption, block warding energy, willpower, intelligence, stamina, &dmg increase, %dmg decrease and +all skills. Those are the essentials. I'd suggest focusing on those.

Shield absorption is highly questionable. You might end up with the strain on the shield being too big. Health is a resource, why not use it. The optimal split would be so that both the Shield and Health reach 0 at exactly the same moment. One question here though. I have a +13.5% Energy Shield Absorption bonus. Does that make it 68.1% or is it additive and it becomes 73.5%?

Otherwise, the stats look good, but again, using 1-2 of your ~20 sockets for DME is well worth it, IF you don't have the Spell Resistance skill. With the skill, it is pointless.

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

Jolting touch is better. Generally the lost fusion aspect is better at dealing damage. If you're going for source warden as main damage source however, which is entirely possible, then Primal Mutation is your bosskiller. I see now that this was not the intention of the build.

Yes, the build uses both the Aspects to its full extent (except Propelled Levitaion). Even Archimedes Beam can have a situational use for locking down enemies with buffs in place (as mentioned previously). I also find Primal Mutation somewhat clumsy. But I will eventually mod it (if I ever play to like level 175 on the character) and try for the rare mutations 

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

The whole spell resistance vs concentration thing is really something hard to figure out. I'd vote for spell resistance, but it's close.
If you want concentration instead of Tactics Lore, I say tactics lore. The Block Warding Energy increase is just too good.
Generally for lategame builds I'd say prefer defense over offense.

The build I posted is quite demanding with regen times. Amplifying Discharge has to be kept at spammable levels. Concentration also lowers the buff penalty, which is otherwise unaffected by generic -% Regen Time bonuses and requires the very rare, orange text -X% Regen Penalty from buffs.

I also prefer Defense, but not overkill. I used to go 4 Defensive skills with every single one of my characters, but eventually reduced it to 3 and I even have ranged chars with only 2. It opened up so much variety with how you can play other than always just spamming one button from one aspect from level 1 to 200.

One last important note, the build is to be played WITHOUT Expert Touch.

Edited July 21, 2023 by idbeholdME

[chattius 2,527]

In times of global warning I try to get rid of batteries. Remove them from your TG!!!

If you have no battery the TG can't shoot and tries melee attacks. So you get close for deadly spears and the touch attack used for recharging.

 

You know, with 5 kids you can't have enough of paranoia. Solar cell, crank, power input, and .... curse .... batteries possible.

[Lindor 438]

4 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

The flat reduction helps the most against small hits. The problem here is that the base value scales very slowly. 1.5+0.5*CA Level. At CA level 100, you get 51.5 flat absorption. Even if you multiply that by 5, you still land on just over 250 flat absorption. The big hits will still easily go through, especially the most dangerous stuff like homing Dragon fireballs or enemies that throw Fire Traps. Cutting 250 instead of 50 from a 10K damage nuke won't really help much. It will definitely be good near the beginning of the game, but in late Niob? It won't do as much as you'd think.

you can get flat absorption on gear and it's something I grind for. Also there's a hidden bonus multiplyer of 1.1. 250 absorption will actually absorb 272 dmg. Yes it will help much against a 10k dmg nuke. It cuts the damage you take from those hits by around 1/3 if you do it correctly.

4 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

As for actual reflection, your statement is wrong. Reflection/Block is always first in the layers of defense. The game first checks for whether you Blocked/Reflected the attack. If have not not, only then it proceeds to the actual damage calculations. So you always reflect back the full damage of the enemy spell. No anti-synergy there, even though using Reflection to actually deal damage is a futile endeavour as the damage is way too low for late Niob.

No, you didn't understand my statement. Yes there's no anti-synergy for Reflection as an offensive bonus. But there is an anti-synergy for reflection as a defensive bonus. The order of calculation doesn't matter for the amount of damage you avoid taking via reflection. It only matters for the amount of reflected damage the enemy is taking.

We're comparing Shield strength to reflection. I'm sying that shield strength is the better defensive bonus. Reflection is more of an offensive bonus.

The more damage reduction, armor, block etc. you have, the less effective reflection becomes as a defensive bonus, but the more effective shield strength becomes as a defensive bonus.

4 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Not really relevant if we're talking about a scenario where the shield is not on. 

The relevancy is that we're trying to avoid this scenario by taking shield strength.

4 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

One last important note, the build is to be played WITHOUT Expert Touch.

Oh. That explains a lot. I'd say that Expert Touch is even worth it on triple aspect builds because of combos.

 

4 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Shield absorption is highly questionable. You might end up with the strain on the shield being too big. Health is a resource, why not use it. The optimal split would be so that both the Shield and Health reach 0 at exactly the same moment.

Because:

• The optimal scenario won't happen. Shield absorption is dependent on the amount of shield you have ingame. Considering that your shield / health ratio is not fixed but varies widely ingame, sometimes your shield will reach 0 sooner and sometimes your health. It's not just dependent on your build. It's dependent on ingame situation.
• If you don't take constitution, the line of the more-or-less optimal shield absorption value becomes super super thin. The entropy around that line becomes massive. By that I mean just a single point of dmg absorption missing can make the difference between "both hitting 0 simultaneously" and "your health hitting 0 while your shield is half up". That's because your health pool is very low compared to your shield pool and the incoming damage.
• Without constitution your shield regenerates faster than your health, even without the recharge mod, meaning you want the damage to go on the shield, not on the health.

 

5 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

One question here though. I have a +13.5% Energy Shield Absorption bonus. Does that make it 68.1% or is it additive and it becomes 73.5%?

If I remember correctly, then it's additive. Just that the value is multiplied by the "actual ingame shield value / max shield value" ratio. The lower your shield gets, the less it absorbs.

 

5 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

If your shield drops regularly so that you'd need the Recharge mod for it to stay active, you are seriously lacking in defense. And Mitigation is the best defensive stat in the game. Forgoing such an amount of it for what will be a measly in-combat shield regen in late Niob is simply not worth it. But if you plan on not pushing past Silver or Gold with your Guardian, it is very viable.

I totally agree now. Also the mitigation / block synergy is just too good to miss out.

[idbeholdME 394]

On 7/21/2023 at 11:17 PM, Lindor said:

you can get flat absorption on gear and it's something I grind for. Also there's a hidden bonus multiplyer of 1.1. 250 absorption will actually absorb 272 dmg. Yes it will help much against a 10k dmg nuke. It cuts the damage you take from those hits by around 1/3 if you do it correctly.

I'm not saying it's not good. I'm saying there is no room left for Tactics in my build. There are more important things for the build to take. It would definitely help, no argument there. As I said, I have a melee TG that went all in on the shield and he's basically immortal. But again, overkill is usually pointless.

On 7/21/2023 at 11:17 PM, Lindor said:

No, you didn't understand my statement. Yes there's no anti-synergy for Reflection as an offensive bonus. But there is an anti-synergy for reflection as a defensive bonus. The order of calculation doesn't matter for the amount of damage you avoid taking via reflection. It only matters for the amount of reflected damage the enemy is taking.

We're comparing Shield strength to reflection. I'm sying that shield strength is the better defensive bonus. Reflection is more of an offensive bonus.

The more damage reduction, armor, block etc. you have, the less effective reflection becomes as a defensive bonus, but the more effective shield strength becomes as a defensive bonus.

Even then, I will 100% stand by that ~55% Spell Reflection will be better 99% of the time than a ~28% stronger shield value. 30K/38K Shield is not that much of a difference. You are seriously sleeping on Reflect/Block. It is found with low values on gear, but on buffs, it's is worth it pretty much every single time over any alternative. Ranged attacks can be questioned, but melee and spells every single time. And I will again mention the Life Leech attacks, that can't be mitigated in any way other than Spell Block/Reflect.

Shield power can be easily found elsewhere. But such a massive chunk of Spell Reflect is absolutely irreplacable.

On 7/21/2023 at 11:17 PM, Lindor said:

The relevancy is that we're trying to avoid this scenario by taking shield strength.

The scenario I meant was after loading the game, before you even turn the shield on. If you happened to save in a densely populated enemy area, you might end up dead before you even manage to turn on the shield. If we are talking about regular play, it's up to how you pilot your character to ensure the shield does not drop. And Power won't help with enemies that can disable buffs but, again - Spell Reflection will. If you reflect the lightning of the Griffin/Furies, your buffs stay intact.

On 7/21/2023 at 11:17 PM, Lindor said:

Oh. That explains a lot. I'd say that Expert Touch is even worth it on triple aspect builds because of combos.

I personally can't stand the small delay Expert Touch introduces on all CAs. I still mostly use CAs out of combos or just put a single CA into a combo to benefit from the regen time reduction, even when playing multiple aspect builds. I want to be able to cast one spell and instantly the next from another aspect. I basically never put attack CAs in a combo. Mostly because I like to move a little after every single cast. Casting a CA while holding W or S and then casting again. Combos require you to stand still or you interrupt it. I mostly reserve them for long cooldown CAs to save slots on the skill bar. You also can't choose the targets of the CAs in a combo. When separate, you can direct every CA to a different target. Not to mention that movement spells that require a target, like Assailing Somersault or Belligerent Vault have to be out of combos because you can't CTRL-target the ground with them anymore if in a combo. Unless I'm playing strictly a single aspect build, I always turn Expert Touch off.

On 7/21/2023 at 11:17 PM, Lindor said:

Because:

• The optimal scenario won't happen. Shield absorption is dependent on the amount of shield you have ingame. Considering that your shield / health ratio is not fixed but varies widely ingame, sometimes your shield will reach 0 sooner and sometimes your health. It's not just dependent on your build. It's dependent on ingame situation.
• If you don't take constitution, the line of the more-or-less optimal shield absorption value becomes super super thin. The entropy around that line becomes massive. By that I mean just a single point of dmg absorption missing can make the difference between "both hitting 0 simultaneously" and "your health hitting 0 while your shield is half up". That's because your health pool is very low compared to your shield pool and the incoming damage.
• Without constitution your shield regenerates faster than your health, even without the recharge mod, meaning you want the damage to go on the shield, not on the health.

As for the first point, I am talking about the situation after all the calculations are done and you reach the final split of 60/40. And no, Shield Absorption is not dependent in any way shape or form on your current shield left. It's either on or not. Assuming both in-combat health and shield regen are 0, the optimal health/shield value would be for example 15K Shield and 10K Health, regardless of any other factors. But of course, it is far easier to sustain health than the shield. So you can do with less HP (like foregoing Constitution) and increase your shield value more so you can go longer without having to pause for 5-10 seconds for it to recharge if you are doing constant intense fighting.

All I'm saying is that your goal should not be for the shield to eat everything all the time but split it efficiently between health and Shield. Health is a resource which can be used.

And you can somewhat manipulate the ratio with gear bonuses. If your health is dropping too fast, some extra HP is your goal. If shield is taking too much of a beating or if you can easily sustain your health in combat, remove some of your gear with extra absorption or add Willpower/Warding Energy Lore/Max Shield Energy gear.

Of course, hitting that point 100% precisely is not possible. But seeing how it performs in the field and making adjustments to get as close as possible is what should be done.

On 7/21/2023 at 11:17 PM, Lindor said:

Just that the value is multiplied by the "actual ingame shield value / max shield value" ratio. The lower your shield gets, the less it absorbs.

Again, I am 100% sure that is not the case, at least in vanilla. Doesn't matter if my TG has 30K/30K Shield or 5K/30K shield, the split remains the same. I even made you a vid where you can see that the ratio remains the same, no matter how the shield goes down. If your statement were true, the health drop towards the end should be noticeably higher than it was at the start, but it is not. If there is a difference, it's so minor as to be considered irrelevant.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bjw04jboafwu76nzv8s7i/Sacred-2-Ice-Blood-2023-07-23-20-01-05.mp4?rlkey=jyk1eqx2yae814yktuz3riyh6&dl=0

And seeing this video, I can now clearly see that I should remove that one Shield Absorption jewelry piece I have in my gear because the Shield goes down too fast and it would have dropped noticeably sooner than health. And that was just me standing there, in normal combat, I also heal a lot with this build (potions, Charged Grid, Jolting Touch), so I can afford the health damage. I currently have a 13.5% bonus to absorption, which (assuming it is indeed additive) makes it 73.5% damage to shield and 26.5% to Health. But that'd mean removing that piece will increase the damage to my health by about 50% which could be a bit too much. But there is an even better solution. Simply move the amulet that is giving me the bonus to a silver socket instead of a gold one. That would reduce the bonus to 12.4%, resulting in 72.4% damage to shield and 27.6% to health and then simply find a gear piece with Max Shield Energy or pump Warding Energy Lore or Willpower. As Toughness and Warding Energy Lore are the last 2 skills I don't have Mastered, the problem will take care of itself in time, if I do play past level 138.

This is what I mean by optimizing the gear for a Shield with efficient damage split.

Edited July 24, 2023 by idbeholdME