Ric's Ranged Shadow Warrior for Enhanced Edition Mod

[SLD 524]

4 hours ago, ric7202 said:

Well, when the Sera pelted with magic staves

ah, so the change you were talking about had nothing to do with pelting strikes. Just the addon melee staves with infinite range again...

[ric7202 197]

19 minutes ago, SLD said:

ah, so the change you were talking about had nothing to do with pelting strikes. Just the addon melee staves with infinite range again...

Of course it had something to do with pelting strikes. That's the skill I'm talking about. I didn't say it was the skill itself that changed, just how it worked with magic staves before the latest CM-patch. And the range was definitely not infinite for the sera. It was not infinite for the dryad either, just very long. All I'm saying is that I miss that particular combo for the sera because it was not totally unbalanced, like it was for the dryad, and it was a good use of magic staves, which otherwise didn't offer much for a melee sera. 

Now that the SW and Frenzied seems to work so fine, I don't miss the olden days just as much though  

[SLD 524]

12 hours ago, ric7202 said:

And the range was definitely not infinite for the sera. It was not infinite for the dryad either, just very long.

I always thought it just hit the entire active zone. But we can agree on the range being "just very long"

[ric7202 197]

So I just got a new computer and had to install Sacred 2 from scratch (via Steam) and thought I'd make a short video of how the Dual Wield Magic Staff Seraphim performs. Here she is lvl 5 in Bronze with Tactics, Dual Wield and Magic Staves skills taken. This is what I have been talking about @SLD

No CM-patch, no mods. 

And here she is doing the same thing, same gear, but with CM-patch 0.160

Huge difference in how the staves work. 

Edited November 22, 2024 by ric7202

[BorgonVile 35]

And now I'm tempted to play a staff dual but on a Sorceress in DFallen.

 

Then again, I want to play a lighsaber Sorceress too... so many builds, so little time.

[gogoblender 3,429]

47 minutes ago, BorgonVile said:

And now I'm tempted to play a staff dual but on a Sorceress in DFallen.

 

Then again, I want to play a lighsaber Sorceress too... so many builds, so little time.

 

10 hours ago, ric7202 said:

So I just got a new computer and had to install Sacred 2 from scratch (via Steam) and thought I'd make a short video of how the Dual Wield Magic Staff Seraphim performs. Here she is lvl 5 in Bronze with Tactics, Dual Wield and Magic Staves skills taken. This is what I have been talking about @SLD

No CM-patch, no mods. 

And here she is doing the same thing, same gear, but with CM-patch 0.160

Huge difference in how the staves work. 

So many lovely variations on a theme .  Gooood morning y'all
I'm curious as to whether there's any benefit in spread sheeting 

class, ca, version then with a video..... could, would lets say a video of how it manifests then with a formulaic break down on what a player put together to get his vision to look that way work?

a sort of Ancarian Tome o' Wondahs

gogo

[ric7202 197]

4 hours ago, gogoblender said:

 

So many lovely variations on a theme .  Gooood morning y'all
I'm curious as to whether there's any benefit in spread sheeting 

class, ca, version then with a video..... could, would lets say a video of how it manifests then with a formulaic break down on what a player put together to get his vision to look that way work?

a sort of Ancarian Tome o' Wondahs

gogo

Ohh what an lovely idea, and also very ambitious. Perfect for someone with a lot of time and energy to put it together. It also has the potential to get very very big, with all the possible combinations of game versions, patches, mods, builds and so on. A worthy project indeed. 

[ric7202 197]

5 hours ago, BorgonVile said:

And now I'm tempted to play a staff dual but on a Sorceress in DFallen.

 

Then again, I want to play a lighsaber Sorceress too... so many builds, so little time.

Yes, I do that too, but I always feel that the animation for the dual wield sera is slow and unefficient and annoying. I´d do it again without the CM-patch, but then I'd miss out on all the good stuff the patch brings. 

Ahhh yes... the DFallen. I did try that once and it was fun. After I have finished taking this build to Niobium I might give that another try. Would be interesting to see if the SW and Frenzied is working good there too, or if they have changed his CAs  to something else. 

[SLD 524]

16 hours ago, ric7202 said:

Here she is lvl 5 in Bronze with Tactics, Dual Wield and Magic Staves skills taken. This is what I have been talking about @SLD

No CM-patch, no mods. 

16 hours ago, ric7202 said:

And here she is doing the same thing, same gear, but with CM-patch 0.160

I'm not sure what you wanted to show there. It doesn't settle the maximum range debate at all...

16 hours ago, ric7202 said:

Huge difference in how the staves work. 

Yes. They made the projectile thing standard, to fix the exploit. We already know this.
 

6 hours ago, BorgonVile said:

And now I'm tempted to play a staff dual but on a Sorceress in DFallen.

Did the sorceress get dual wield in v16? Otherwise that "build" ends there.

[ric7202 197]

1 hour ago, SLD said:

I'm not sure what you wanted to show there. It doesn't settle the maximum range debate at all...

Yes. They made the projectile thing standard, to fix the exploit. We already know this.
 

Did the sorceress get dual wield in v16? Otherwise that "build" ends there.

I just got the impression that you didn't understand what I meant by the instant hit dual wield sera, my apologies if that was wrong. As for the actual maximum distance for those shots, I have no idea. If you say it's the "active area" then I'll take your word for it. I just wonder how big that is? Is it affected by anything one can boost, like visibility range? 

It was a very long time ago since I played DFallen, I don't remember much of their skills or CAs. 

[SLD 524]

15 minutes ago, ric7202 said:

As for the actual maximum distance for those shots

I wouldn't consider them shots, more like melee attacks with a gigantic range. That is at least how they behave.
 

16 minutes ago, ric7202 said:

f you say it's the "active area" then I'll take your word for it. I just wonder how big that is? Is it affected by anything one can boost, like visibility range? 

I don't think that it can be affected in any way. It is the area around a player where the game tracks stuff like enemies and damage and such. I'm pretty sure it's hardcoded.

[ric7202 197]

35 minutes ago, SLD said:

I wouldn't consider them shots, more like melee attacks with a gigantic range. That is at least how they behave.
 

I don't think that it can be affected in any way. It is the area around a player where the game tracks stuff like enemies and damage and such. I'm pretty sure it's hardcoded.

Hmm, then is the dryad blowpipe also melee with long range? 

[ric7202 197]

Welcome to another part of "The Ancaria Philosophical Forum" where we discuss a wide range of Sacred 2 topics. Today... what is a blowpipe and how do you make it shoot through terrain, trees, rocks, houses and other obstacles? 

[BorgonVile 35]

18 hours ago, SLD said:

Did the sorceress get dual wield in v16? Otherwise that "build" ends there.

And and not short enough it was.

 

18 hours ago, ric7202 said:

Ahhh yes... the DFallen. I did try that once and it was fun. After I have finished taking this build to Niobium I might give that another try. Would be interesting to see if the SW and Frenzied is working good there too, or if they have changed his CAs  to something else. 

I think frenzied equivalent is on Paladin (Seraphim) and masquerades as Zeal.

[ric7202 197]

Just a short update: Squishy has just reached Gold and is making good progress. The next project is to update the armor a bit, some pieces are no longer up to spec. and the sera runes I have socketed will also be replaced with new ones for better phys resist. 

Edit: Wow... just switching from silver runes to gold runes got me up to 80% phys resist. Nice :-)

Edited November 25, 2024 by ric7202

[ric7202 197]

Progress is slow, mainly because of life getting in the way of gaming. Squishy is still living on the edge somewhat, although not as bad as before. 

Here Squishy meets GarColossus in Gold difficulty, with Enhanced Edition mod + addons Superspawn, Challenge Mode and Alternative Spells. Recorded in a multiplayer game. Armor is Doom Guard full set. Weapon is lvl 81 Thunder Staff unique energised ranged weapon.

His phys dmg reduction is just about 40% so he can still get very hurt. Melee mobs are rarely getting close enough to get in a hit so it's mostly ranged ones that can be a real threat. I've been trying out the Doom Guard set armor because it too has the %LL bonus (even without the shield and sword that completes the set) and it has a few more sockets than the Denderans I have. Filling the sockets with Sera runes has it's advantages of course, but it also means that the killing speed is a bit lower as I don't get a lot of other goodies from socketed rings and amus, like +skills, +CAs, Opponent Health For Deathblow and so on. Still, Frenzied is really shining here and raging hordes of enemies rushing towards him are swiftly taken care of. 

I'm thinking about getting EP instead of Warrior Focus as the last skill. Even though it's nice to get more life points from a higher Grim Resilience, I find that good drops are too rare now. But then again, that may be tough on survival chance in higher difficulties. Combat Reflexes has the evade chance, but only for weapon dmg, so that won't help with spellcasters I think, but would be nice for weapon dmg that isn't physical. A question is... if an enemy is doing half phys half fire dmg, will phys dmg mitigation help with only the phys dmg part and let the fire dmg through? And if so, will the evade help with both kinds? (not taking into account other things like block, reflect, armor and so on). 

Edited December 1, 2024 by ric7202

[Sethi22 279]

22 hours ago, ric7202 said:

His phys dmg reduction is just about 40% so he can still get very hurt.

I'm thinking about getting EP instead of Warrior Focus as the last skill.

Well Ric, I'm learning this mitigation business now with a SW too, although in CMPatch, (so everything is much easier) but getting the mitigation thing going is exactly the same I think, so here is how I stand. At level 92 my phys mitigation is already 100% and it has been like this for 10 levels at least. So 80ish, you can easily get completely immune from any type of physical damage. Of course you can reach this much earlier, but around 80 I reached it with only 5 sockets with sera runes, could be less now I think, I was too lazy to empty them. Could be done with 3 now I think. (They are niobium runes, so 5.5% mitigation per socket, if you have a guy in Nio, you can give the runes to the smaller dude after level 50 if I remember SLD's lessons correctly.) So I reached it without sacrificing too much of everything else.

What makes it easy is Grim Resilience with the safeguard gold mod, 31% coming from it. That's one reason to pump GM high (I have 200 runes read in it already, why not? With DW focus kept (almost) at level, it doesn't hurt your reg time that much, it gives tons of HP too apart from the mitigation of course.) My toughness is level 100 at the moment with bonuses (again could be much more if I wasn't so lazy to socket everything properly on every few levels) that means about 16% of mitigation from every type of damage source. So that's 47% physical from these too, the rest comes from items, now that I look at it, it's well over 60%, so I could take out a few runes and put something else in... 

The most important part being the Kanka chest plate, that has mitigation from every type of damage, but is tied to armor lore mastery, so if you pump armor lore, the mitigation numbers go up on it. Of course it's hard to switch to this mitigation thing in the middle of a playthrough, especially in a difficult mod, I pumped armor lore to mastery from the beginning knowing this, so when I reached level 75, I could use my beautiful Kanka chest with armor lore kept at level. (Having a high armor lore helps with regens too of course, and yes, I had the Kanka chest armor already, level 75, luckily.) But during my playthrough, I saw yellow chest pieces with roughly 10% mitigation from all sources on them, so until you get the Kanka, there are regular ones that are good and can be shopped for too (at least in the original game). And if you find the Kanka chest, the item level doesn't matter for the mitigation part, it's only connected to armor lore, so a lower level one (above level 70) is just as good for the sake of the mitigation as a high one.

Apart from physical, the dude also has 35%ish mitigation against everything else, and 70%ish against fire (very useful against dragons) so he just lives. There's absolutely nothing in the original game in platinum, that could ever threaten him, (maybe lifeleech, but I don't even remember the last time I used a healing potion, and I've roamed the parts with the leeching eyes too, just to see how he fares...) Of course everything is much harder in your case, I think staying in the original game to learn all this was a good idea. Now I feel more ready to try out these mods once I finish this one.

(Edit: Wow this Abishai thing got my health down quite a bit! I even drank a healing potion not once, but at least three times!!!  I forgot about the debuffing part, it has been a while since I fought him... But my man lives still, and the Abishai is dead meat now. And this was the only time I used a healing potion in platinum so far, and all the dragons and other bosses and minibosses are down apart from the guardians...)

I don't use any evade, armor lore and toughness are the things I pump, he takes everything on the chin and laughs at it. Although SLD was really angry about it, I still chose constitution too, and put 75 points in it, so these are my 3 defensive skills. He would say that constitution is a waste, but I'm happy with it, it stays at 75, while toughness and armor lore are pumped further to increase mitigation (preferably kept at level, but I've fallen behind with those two to get other things to mastery first...)

Sadly our mentor has disappeared lately, I'm sure he could explain the evade part much better than me, but I think evading means no damage from that attack, yes. And if the enemy does more than one type of damage, mitigation for every damage type is calculated separately, so having 100% physical and 0% fire would mean the fire part comes through in full, while the physical is mitigated.

If I wrote something horribly wrong, maybe someone with more knowledge will correct it, and if there's something really preposterous in it, or something that's not true in EE, it might even make our mentor appear again, scolding me for it...

 

Edited December 2, 2024 by Sethi22

[ric7202 197]

Thx for the good info on Grim Resilience, I didn't realise it could go that high. Maybe I'll keep Warrior Focus then and pump it as much as I can. I DO have a Kankas chestplate, but it doesn't mention any mitigation. There are 2 other sets that has it on the chestplate: Executioners aids and Cold Grave. A shame that no set has both that and %LL (that I know of). 

So, if the evade check wins (on my side) no dmg is taken, regardless of what kind of damage, but if it fails then it checks for other resistances, blocks, mitigations, reflects and so on (prolly not in that order)?

 

[Sethi22 279]

13 hours ago, ric7202 said:

 I DO have a Kankas chestplate, but it doesn't mention any mitigation.

 

EDIT: I got corrected in PM, so I deleted the false explanation I gave here originally, so it wouldn't confuse anybody. The real reason you don't have the mitigation on that chest piece is because it's too low level. It can only appear on pieces from level 70+. 

Full kanka set gives leech% too, I still only have 3 pieces sadly. So no leech for poor me.

And I think you're right about the evade part, and if I'm wrong, well... at least I tried to hep!

 

Edited December 2, 2024 by Sethi22

[gogoblender 3,429]

38 minutes ago, Sethi22 said:

That's because you need armor lore mastery for it to start working. Once you have that 75 points in, it's ok, the mitigation numbers appear on it. Full kanka set gives leech% too, I still only have 3 pieces sadly. So no leech for poor me.

And I think you're right about the evade part, and if I'm wrong, well... at least I tried to hep!

 

Love this detailed investigation of invulnerarability.  They were a big thing when the game first got released, and Dobri did some builds with Seraphim and SW that offered lots of delightful mitigation.  Only thing is that kill speed when you're specced up so much with one thing gets you pretty slow and you can start to feel that you're losing out on getting lots of drops when you're doing raids in Niobium.

There's some great invulnerability builds here from the old days, and I do believe that if you mix and match you can get an almost total invul...but at that point you'd be balancing kill speed vs invul, so you'd probably be balancing one out against another depending on area and need... ex  Niobum Guardian raiding vs Swamps for exp raise

gogo

[ric7202 197]

30 minutes ago, Sethi22 said:

Well that's because you need armor lore mastery for it to start working. Once you have that 75 points in, it's ok. Full kanka set gives leech% too, I still only have 3 pieces sadly. So no leech for poor me.

And I think you're right about the evade part, and if I'm wrong, well... at least I tried to hep!

 

ok now I get it   Thx

[gogoblender 3,429]

There's some pretty exotic builds out there.. who dont mind a flying tankmage princess of power?

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....

I'd LOVE to see a Seraphim doing flying combat kicks and mid-air rolls!

Multi CA builds are the BEST.. exciting and demanding on the keyboard and fingers...but oooooh so awesome to play

until...u die

gogo

[Sethi22 279]

13 hours ago, gogoblender said:

  Only thing is that kill speed when you're specced up so much with one thing gets you pretty slow and you can start to feel that you're losing out on getting lots of drops when you're doing raids in Niobium.

 

(Yes I believe this is true about almost every build, just not the lightsabre build that I'm doing. As lightsabres get the damage from willpower since CM patch, and pumping Grim resilience for the phys mitigation and life also grants you lots and lots of willpower, so you get the best from both. Defense and offense. But of course this is totally unrelated to the ranged build, just a sidenote. Offtopic, as usual...)

Edited December 2, 2024 by Sethi22

[ric7202 197]

19 minutes ago, gogoblender said:

Love this detailed investigation of invulnerarability.  They were a big thing when the game first got released, and Dobri did some builds with Seraphim and SW that offered lots of delightful mitigation.  Only thing is that kill speed when you're specced up so much with one thing gets you pretty slow and you can start to feel that you're losing out on getting lots of drops when you're doing raids in Niobium.

There's some great invulnerability builds here from the old days, and I do believe that if you mix and match you can get an almost total invul...but at that point you'd be balancing kill speed vs invul, so you'd probably be balancing one out against another depending on area and need... ex  Niobum Guardian raiding vs Swamps for experience raise

gogo

In vanilla I once tried the shadowed veil SW which was kinda fun. Would have been interesting to see it work with a fully modded Frenzied, but alas... it changed in Alternate Spells. Hmm I wonder if Frenzied works the same without Alternate Spells. Must do some research. 

Edit: Hahaha YESSSS it does work without Alternate Spells. I am sooooo going to make an invisible SW doing the Frenzied thing. And the dual wield lightsabre combined with Grim Resilience looks very interesting... Ohh so much fun I'm gonna have with this. 

Edited December 1, 2024 by ric7202

[gogoblender 3,429]

2 minutes ago, Sethi22 said:

(Yes I believe this is true to almost every build, just not the lightsaber build that I'm doing. As lightsabers get the damage from willpower since CM patch, and puming Grim resilience for the phys mitigation and life also grants you lots and lots of willpower, you get the best from both. Defense and offense. But of course this is totally unrelated to the ranged build, just a sidenote. Offtopic, as usual...)

Yes! the realization that we've over done it with one main power comes often too late at the end of the build... ultimately it all come to max exp raise to get to the last levels of niobium ... 175 to 200 is VERY tuff...yer trying to gain as much exp gain as you can you start to shed things that were previously important in early levels but then become kind of sheddable in terms of max exp gain to get to 200.  I remember looking at other players's armor at super high levels and it was so ...strange compared to what I had on...whereas I was so immensely involved with kill speed, getting max exp yields at high levels really added another level of investigation and creation to being able to move forward without losing our heads in repetiition

gogo

ps you are unerringly on topic and delightfully charming... keep going with the build