Sacred Underworld Guide "The general"

[Mini-G 0]

This build writeup has been finished for the better part of a week and a half now. its late posting is because I have been trying to cling onto the various shards that were parts of my life, and I have had little time when im not playing sacred (kinda addicted again, lol). anyway. this is just a little bit of a teaser to the build I posted up on the SIF a while ago, when I was still researching for it. for those interested in the actual build... its in the post below.

 

what I am about to show you may disturb you, and I advise people with a heart condition to look away, close the browser, and restart your computer, all without looking at your screen, or infact, looking in the general direction of your desk. do it now!

 

 

This image is from a CCTV feed watching over the bustling city center of Khorad Nur, and it displays one of the worst facets of todays idealistic population. The Riot.

the Riot is one of the weapons that the masses posess against a governmental administration that has caused them grievances, they can influence political decisions, they almost always get the plight of the masses noticed, and they are also one of the most grizzly displays of herd behaviour in humans, also known as mob mentality.

 

Mob mentality is a phenomenon that sees large numbers of individuals acting in the same way, and at the same time, and can be used to explain how peaceful protests can develop so quickly into riots, such as the one at Khorad Nur. To understand this behaviour, we must ignore the fact that riots consist of many individuals, and think of it as a single Entity. For example, decisions are made quickly, and uniformly in a riot, meaning that as one part of a riot acts in one way, the rest of the riot follows suit. if a riot is percieved as being consisting of separate individuals, such uniform decision making isnt possible, and thus it must be assumed that the riot is a single entity.

 

however, a riot will not just spring up from nowhere, there is usually some form of leadership involved in the creation of a riot, and usually directing it. this theory has been proven, by the observation of one such individual. ladies and gentlemen, I give you, the Mob-Leader.

 

 

 

 

not much is known about this individual, she is an expert at disguising her identity, never showing her face in public. all that is known however is that she has incited riots across the world of ancaria, and is currently at the top of Ancaria's most wanted list. if anybody has any information regarding this individual, I urge you to pass it on to the royal guards at once. take care however, as she is regarded as being extreemly dangerous.

this mob leader is skilled in the art of persuasion, tactics, and leadership. being able to encourage others to act on her behalf, and convert large numbers of individuals to aid in her cause. her methods of inciting large riots begin with converting few individuals, and setting them forth to convert more themselves, thus we see an exponential increase in numbers, as each new recruit then recruits more themselves.

Below is an image caught by CCTV of the leader discussing her plans with her newest recruits.

 

once the riot has commensed, she takes a role akin to a general during war. she dictates targets for the mob, and then they act out her wishes, which usually involves eliminating individuals opposed to their cause. one observer to this had this to say.

"it was like watching a tide of death sweep the city, eliminating all in its path. the longer it went on, the larger it got, it was unstoppable".

 

research has shown, that the only method of stopping a riot in full swing, is by using large-scale dispersion weaponry, such as Dragon Fire, flame circles, and ice shards. other methods of stopping a riot involve preventing a riot from gaining full momentum by elimination the original recuits, forcing the leader to begin recruiting again. or better yet, annihilating the leader are the most effective ways of preventing the riot from forming.

 

one thing is for certain though. should her actions continue, the possibility of a full fledged uprising is becoming more of a reality every day. I therefor urge you to be vigilant, if you see any suspicious activities in your neigborhood, report it as soon as possible.

 

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The General

A vamp build by Mini

 

If the video wont load, or you think its a bit small, click here

 

 

Ok, so I'd like to start off by telling you all that this is one of the greatest builds in the game. But I would be lying, and mummy said I'm not allowed to lie. I will however say that this build is a really, really, really powerful one, that will have your character killing mobs twice your level, with minimal risk, really early on (if you know what your doing), and no need to swallow swarms of runes.

 

Right, with that out of the way. Onto the build.

 

The Theory

 

We all know that having more than one source of damage on a target is good, right? and we all know that there are limited ways of applying those extra sources of damage, more party members, larger spells, summons, and zombies. and I thought to myself, these methods don't quite have the... oumph. you can only have one wolf, so that's out of the question. bats are limited to 9, and are severely limited in the later levels. and its often hard to maintain a conventional zombie army, as your constantly switching between vamp and knight, and loosing all of your work in the process. this event can also happen at the wrong times, such as in the middle of a large fight. should this happen, you can practically write off the toon unless your handy with your spacebar.

 

 

so, sticking with the zombies for the moment, I thought to myself (I do a lot of this) "I'm sure I remember a way to keep a zombie forever". and after a little experimentation I discovered that I was right (that happens a lot as well). there is a technique, well I say technique, slight exploitation (to the tiniest degree) would be a better descriptor of the method. anyway, where was I? oh yes, theres a technique where if you cast Awaken dead on a corpse at the right moment, the corpse will be animated at the same time you turn back into a knight. this means that as long as you stay in knight form (A.K.A don't use turn to vamp again) the zombie will not ever disappear (unless its killed).

 

"what use is a single zombie?, I cant raise more in knight form!" I hear the less informed amongst you shout. well, what most people know, is that when a zombie minion kills an enemy, there is a chance that the fresh kill will be automatically "converted" into a zombie. meaning as long as you stand back and let your zombie get the kill, your zombie horde will have the opportunity to grow in size. and if you know anything about maths, then you should expect this growth to be exponential (the more zombies you have, the faster/more you kill/convert). and once a suitable sized army has been created, you are quite a formidable force, wherever you decide to take it.

 

right then, lets put this theory to practice.

 

 

The Skills

 

Note: I've never been one to tell people how to play the game, and there are many different possible variations to this build, a lot of the build is up to the player using it (including the skills).

 

There are four essential skills to this build, all focused on making you very, very hard to hit. the skills can be selected whenever you wish, as none of them directly affect the effectiveness of the build, but you probably do best selecting the essentials first. I will however outline recommended skill point distribution between them, and outline some of the possible additional skills. (if you really wanted to push it, attempt the build without selecting skills at all)

 

The essentials

 

Constitution: about 1/2 of your level, but high enough to ensure you can take a fair beating just incase the enemies manage to get in close.

 

Agility: keep this skill at 1/2 of your level, in order to keep that defense rating up, making you more resilient

 

Parry: this skill needs to be 1/2 your level so that you really cant get hit by most enemies

 

Armour (that is NOT a typo): spare points go here, unless you are still getting hit a lot with high amounts of parry and agility. if htat is the case, you need to be putting a few more points in here, just to keep the damages down

 

The Choices

 

as said earlier, a lot of this build depends on which direction you want to take it in, do you want a horse? do you want to use the army as backup, or augmentation to damage you yourself do?, rather than a killing machine in its own right. this is where you decide.

 

Riding: If you want to use horses to give yourself a HP and defense boost. or maybe you just fancy imagining yourself as the general in some sort of medieval battlefield. either way, you will want to select this skill, as it allows you to get some of the best horses in the game. (more on this later)

 

Weapon Lore: if you want to use the army as backup to you, then you will want this skill. im sure you know why

 

specific weapon's lore (sword lore etc...): to improve your attack rate against enemies using your chosen weapon.

 

Vampirism: don't want to burn up, while trying to get that first zombie? then this will probably end up in your list of choices.

 

Ranged Combat: Fancy yourself sitting at the back watching them do all the work? than this is probably best for you (it fills a skill slot at least).

 

the possibilities are.... well not quite endless, but theres a lot of them.

 

The Attributes

 

Because this build relies so heavily on not getting shot/hit/killed it makes sense that the attributes help with this. theres four main attributes that you can put hte points to in order to help the build stay alive. strength (health), endurance (resistances), Dexterity (defense rating), physical regeneration (health regen).

 

in the build I created, I pumped all points into dexterity, increasing my defense rating, and making my character insanely hard to hit in the field. about 1 in 15 hits was getting through to my toon by level 30, which is good.

 

if you find that your defense is fine for the moment, but your lacking on health, or you are taking too much damage when they do manage to damage you, then strength or endurance will make it better for your character.

 

The Combat Arts

 

there is only one CA that is necessary here, there are several extra Combat Arts that could come in handy every now and then though.

 

Awaken dead: necessary for the build, I usually kept mind about 4-8 levels above my character level, but thats only because I was pushing the build to take me into dangerous places really early on. so as long as its roughly at your level, you should be fine. no need to worry about the regen time either, because it only needs to be used once. one thing I will warn you about though, is that if you put too many levels into this CA, there is a point where it will only get you 1 experience for what your zombies kill. this is a restriction imposed by the difficulty level of the server (at least, thats what it looks like). if this happens, just go up to the next difficulty level.

 

Turn into Vampire: you start with this CA, don't put any more into it, because as you use the build, you should know how long it lasts by heart, and putting more runes into it messes that up. note: at night time, TiV lasts twice as long as it says it does.

 

Time control: not necessary, but really useful if not on horseback as it allows you to instantly get out of the way of any danger (such as if your fighting a dragon and find yourself in the way of its fire)

 

The Gear

 

there is no specific gear set that is particularly more useful than another with this build. however, I recommend getting armour that has a lot of sockets, and socketing things that give +XX% Defense, such as the blacksmiths arts. this really helps keep enemies off you, and increases your survivability.

 

Tactics

 

Starting the Army

 

Starting your army is probably the hardest part of the build, getting the first kill when you have no combat specific skills or Combat Arts can be challenging, depending on where you try it. to start off an army, picking an area with low level enemies is best, such as belvue or silver creek.

once you know your location, and have found an enemy you want to be the first zombie in your army, cast Turn into Vampire. now it is vitally important you know how long TiV lasts, as the timing of when you cast AD is critical. you need to be casting animate dead one second before TiV wears off, which sounds hard, but its fairly easy when you get the hang of it. the best way of ensuring this happens, is if you have a watch or an analogue clock nearby to look at. when you cast AD, look at what time you cast it (were interested in the second hand here), and then what you need to do is time the kill to be close enough to the end of TiV so that hte body doesnt disintergrate (I've found that a body will stay there for 20 seconds, but I wouldnt risk more than 10). once you made the kill, watch the clock intently until the time is almost up. then cast AD on the corpse. If all went well, you will turn back into a knight, before the casting was complete, and the corpse will be a permanant zombie.

 

I've found that the ideal place to start army is with the wolves in belvue, they are easy to kill and they do a significant amount of damage to many things.

 

Recruiting for the army

 

Once you have your first zombie, increasing your army size will be your first priority. and once again, its best to move slowly. start attacking single enemies, and avoid groups until you have several zombies under your control. when you have 5-10 zombies under your control, start attacking the larger groups, and converting large numbers of enemies. its also worth having a try at some higher level enemies. once you get the ball rolling, you will practically be an unstoppable force.

 

 

Army maintenance

 

As your army continues to kill things for you, it will continually expand. and this growth can get really out of hand. I've had army sizes of about 80 zombies, which can really affect your framerate, as well as possibly cause some lag. because of this fact, it is necessary to keep a close eye on your army, and to purposely shrink the army every now and then.

 

one method of maintenance is by attacking something that is obviously out of your league, such as a dragon, or a really high level enemy. and while your army will probably be able to kill it eventually, it will suffer a fair amount of casualties in the process, lowering its overall numbers and ensuring that it doesnt get out of control.

 

another, more drastic method of controlling the size of your army, is to delete the whole thing on purpose by turning into a vamp, and then back into knight form. while this is definitely an extreme, its undeniably one of the better ways of controlling an army size, as you can restart your army from scratch, which is a definite way of lowering its numbers.

 

 

Horses and Riding

 

in this build, it is certainly possible to make effective use of horses. Besides the Defense and health bonuses they give, they can be used to stun enemies that get too close while your army finishes them off. Or they can be used as quick getaway's or transport to distant lands. if your going to use a horse as a main aspect of your build, getting Riding and going for the horses with huge health bonuses would probably be best for the build. I wouldnt raise riding over 25 though, as by then you can already get the mystdale warhorse, which is pretty much the best in the game.

one downside to using horses with this build, is that because when you are on a horse, you cant run through your zombies like you do when dismounted. because of this, standing around idle for a few seconds is going to get you sort of stuck, and you wil need to find a route out of the swarm (its possible to get out of it without dismounting, just takes a bit of random movement)

 

Zombies

 

Useful Zombies

as you could probably expect, certain enemies make for better zombies than others, heres a short list of what I have found useful.

 

Crabs from the pirate isles are probably the most useful creatures your army could possibly have. they are fast, and have immensley high damage outputs with a fast attack speed, get half a dozen of these in your army and your ready to take on anything.

 

Hell Golems make for invincible powerhouses of damage, their high resistances mean that nothing ever does more than 300 damage in one hit to them, and they do huge damage themselves.

 

Sakkara demons are good to have, the do average damage, but that's made up for be the shear shock value. when people see half a dozen sakkara's walking behind you, they are usually slightly surprised.

 

Archers. an army of archers is such a cool thing its worth point it out. and they don't do too bad damage either. although it is worth noting that if you use archers as your main army, you will be slightly more susceptible to getting hit as archers don't form a wall in front of you to protect you.

 

skeletons. they do average damage, but they have a high attack rate, and they are relatively quick.

 

Spiders (the medium sized ones) do average damage, but its poison damage and not much has poison resistance. they are also fast, and have a high attack rate

 

Giant spiders. once again, just for shock value

 

Dark elves make for good front liners as well, they have high damage poison weapons, and they are fast.

 

dragons. not particularly fast or strong, and you will probably lose yourself behind them, but they are cool to have nonetheless

 

 

Zombies to Avoid

 

basically anything slow is not worth converting into a zombie on purpose. they will never manage to get a hit on half of the enemies, as the faster zombies will always get there first. if however your army is already in full swing, it doesnt really matter how many slow zombies you have, as long as you have ample faster zombies.

 

Drawbacks of the Build

 

Sadly, all this awesomness comes with a price. if you do decide to use this build, expect to spend a lot of your time unpartied, because as you can guess, its not the most party-friendly build. pretty much everybody else cant pass through your zombies, so they are always getting in the way, and they block the enemies from your friends attacks. this means that most people will not be able to get any kills when fighting alongside you.

 

another drawback is that the build makes it fairly hard to complete quests involving you eliminating groups of enemies. this is because sometimes when an enemy is converted, the game doesnt count this as being a kill, and you wont be able to complete the quest that needed him to die until the zombie dies.

 

one other drawback is that when loot drops, its fairly hard to pick it up the first time round. this is because when you hold down alt to check the name of the item, you get the names of all your zombies, which when you have a large army causes a lot of movement with the labels, making hte name of the item dart all over the place.

 

Do not go to the island with your army, its a very bad idea and I cant stress this point enough. if you have to go to the island, MAKE SURE IT'S EMPTY!, or destroy your army first

 

Final thoughts, and Further Reading

 

This build has been one of the most fun I have created in a while, and its definitely worth trying, even just for the shock value of being able to have half a dozen dragons walking around with you. its capable of doing insane damage, while keeping you relatively safe, with minimal rune usage compared to what some of the builds need. for example, my toon at the moment is level 30ish, and with a level 33 Animate dead, im able to successfully complete an VoT run, and im sure it would be possible to do it with an even lower level of AD as well.

 

All of the information held in this build has been my own original research. however honourable mention goes to GrimJack, who also noticed this method of making zombies permanant, and if you want to read a bit more about what he discussed, you can find it in these threads.

 

Post 58 and onwards in this thread (thanks masteff)

http://forum.sacredeng.ascaron-net.com/sho...9002&page=2

 

and some discussion in this thread on the dark matters forums

http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?sh...p;#entry6798704

[Erling 3]

yay good job mini!

and WHEW what a presentation!

 

realy good job with the video!

Edited March 31, 2008 by Erling

[Schot 415]

Just amazing Mini. Love it! I've been waiting and waiting excitedly for your presentation and read every little bit I could. Truly an outstanding write up. In particular I like how you've listed effective and ineffective zombie candidates. Nice touch there! Video rocks!

 

I hope you don't mind but I removed some of the ---- so that it didn't stretch the skin. In my 1024x768 resolution it was causing your guide to fall way off screen and much was not visible. I also fixed up your video. I DO look forward to trying your build and will heed your advice about not teleporting to the Haven Isle with an army.

 

Big time respect! Presentation Perfection.

 

*Buys a gas mask* ^^

[KerLynx 0]

Wow... O__o Just... unbeliavable! I keep wanting to re-read it all the time! ^ ^ The build and the whole presentation is just amazing! ;;hugz;; And I haven't ever watched the video yet

 

 

 

And the advice not to teleport to Haven isle is great not just because of the fact that Haven is tiny , but because this isn't the first time it has happened to me that I can attack the wolf companion or the zombies of a Vampire:

 

http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj39/KerLynx/shot0017.jpg

 

And when Mini teleported to Haven with his army to go to VOT - I was target practising with my WE and all of a sudden she was surrounded by giant crabs with blood red circles

[Erling 3]

just wondering, dont AD increase the level of your summons or are they always same as they were alive?

if not this would be an exelent runefarmer O_o and if you put some thorwyns on u have a farmer

 

ps: best presentation I ever seen

[Mini-G 0]

just wondering, dont AD increase the level of your summons or are they always same as they were alive?

if not this would be an exelent runefarmer O_o and if you put some thorwyns on u have a farmer

 

ps: best presentation I ever seen

 

AD does increase your zombies affectiveness, so it would be fairly hard to do this build without. unless of course, you can boost the level of AD up with item mods. (which I have found recently, isnt too hard).

 

I would however question the viability of this build as a runefarmer. since because the army starts converting things occasionally, you just arent actually killing fast enough to be considered effective as a farmer

Edited March 31, 2008 by Mini-G

[Erling 3]

kk just saw that e'al greaves gives + to awaken dead, and just curius (yesh gotten very curius about this build:) ) if u get full Arhles T'gaw's net will the minions do the Dark damage?

[Little Faith 24]

Nice build, but why don't you try to pimp it to the Single Player crowd? Given how much inconvenience this one can cause on-line I would relegate it to a Single Player toy. Especially as the build doesn't seem to require any specific gear to be fun.

[Obsession 0]

Have to add few bad experiences when trying to test this build. Seems that the game won't give two vamp wolf companions whit this trick. Or the other one will disappear for reasons I don't know. Also getting strong enought zombie companion was bit hard to find and I got bored after my zombie died 3-4 time. Good to know wolfs are better than those robbers near the bellevue brigde.

[Mini-G 0]

kk just saw that e'al greaves gives + to awaken dead, and just curius (yesh gotten very curius about this build:) ) if u get full Arhles T'gaw's net will the minions do the Dark damage?

 

sadly no, the minions gain no combat bonuses based on any armour you wear. this includes (not limited to) crit, LL, WIDD, MF, etc...

 

anything that boosts your damage, or affects it in some way is not transferred to your zombies.

 

also, if your having trouble getting the first zombie, try increasing the level of Ad by 2 or 3. or you can try getting in a fight with a couple of enemies, and bring htem all to near death, before making a zombie. that way, the zombie wont have to try hard to get the first couple of kills

[gogoblender 3,306]

Mini G

 

This is probably one of the most fun Builds I"ve read about in years. The research, quality of writing, pics AND.... lol, that movie... do you know I had it running in my head all day at work?

 

I was even singing it out loud to the folks beside me...they thought I was crazy..but who cares You know, it's just so cool to see the AI doing this...and the part of your movie where you take in the dragon and friends into visit the twins...

 

Awesome!

 

Five stars for this dude.

 

Well done

 

 

gogo

[Putrescine 12]

That looks totally insane

[gogoblender 3,306]

Sorry for the delay on this.

 

The build has now been added to the DarkMatters Featured Sacred Guides and Builds Index

 

Again, a great job here Mini G

 

 

gogo

[tomi 0]

Hey!

 

Very nice build. I liked it a lot.

 

I've tried it today and I have some question.

 

I have a level 1 AD (my toon is level 2 lol).

For the 5th try I managed to turn the corpse to servant when I turned back to knight. (In your vid the corpse stays a long time on ground. In my case it is only about 3 secs.)

So I had a one member army. I've set off to find more goblins, and when the goblin killed an other goblin it didn't become my servant.

Then one more goblin came. When we almost killed it my army (the one goblin) disappeared. Nobody hit him. I felt the hits on my head.

 

-What level AD do I need to dont let them disappear?

 

I wish I could try this nice build.

[Mini-G 0]

Hey!

 

Very nice build. I liked it a lot.

 

I've tried it today and I have some question.

 

I have a level 1 AD (my toon is level 2 lol).

For the 5th try I managed to turn the corpse to servant when I turned back to knight. (In your vid the corpse stays a long time on ground. In my case it is only about 3 secs.)

So I had a one member army. I've set off to find more goblins, and when the goblin killed an other goblin it didn't become my servant.

Then one more goblin came. When we almost killed it my army (the one goblin) disappeared. Nobody hit him. I felt the hits on my head.

 

-What level AD do I need to dont let them disappear?

 

I wish I could try this nice build.

 

hey there, thanks fer your interest.

 

the solution to your corpses dissapearing really quickly is down to the graphics level you set your game to.

 

if you go into the options, and increase the graphics level, it should make the corpses stay around a lot longer.

 

as for it disappearing after a short while.... what version, of which game are you using. I seem to vaguely recall my zombies dissapearing before TiV ran out with my old vamps, back in the days of 1.7 and plus.

[tomi 0]

Hiya!

 

Um...ok I'll try the graphics thing. Thank you.

I use 2.29 and Gold I think. hehe. If you asked that. (Installed 2.29 only to have 2 accounts at same time. lol didn't worked though, so I can install what we need.)

 

Thanks for help.

[Mini-G 0]

Hiya!

 

Um...ok I'll try the graphics thing. Thank you.

I use 2.29 and Gold I think. hehe. If you asked that. (Installed 2.29 only to have 2 accounts at same time. lol didn't worked though, so I can install what we need.)

 

Thanks for help.

 

hmm, odd.

 

are you sure it didnt just get killed while you werent paying attention? because I use 2.29 and my zombies never dissappeared. try boosting your Awaken dead to 3, or maybe 4. and see if that helps

[tomi 0]

Ok, thank I'll try the boosting. By the way. I made a little vid of the strange disappearing.

 

In it you can see that it doesn't disappear 'till it goes to mobs. As I saw it didn't get any dmg though.

 

[nugget 0]

Hi! New to the party here, just started playing a few weeks ago.

 

Since I didn't see it posted, I just wanted to say that if you're having trouble getting your initial zombie, what you can do is zombify your bats. >.>

 

When you summon a bat when you've reached the max, your current bat dies. That bat can be zombified! XD

 

Also, you can zombify skellies before they stand up again. ^_^ So that they DON'T stand up again, but they become yours. Much nicer than undead death imo.

[Schot 415]

Ah wow. Nice tricks nugget. Zombifying bats. Who'dah thunk it.

 

 

*zombie friendifies another* Mwahaha!

[gogoblender 3,306]

Clever

 

 

 

gogo

[Lyrian 0]

Two things that I can add to this...

 

First... I've been concentrating on equipment with plus to XP and find special items, and to a lesser degree speed, not to mention defense and resistances

 

Secondly... and this is a hoot, go to the BM's start point and click on the stone by circle "runed stone of dancing dead" ... you will end up with an army of killer rabbits... how Monty Python is that

 

Edit... just realized the rabbits do disappear shortly after... what a bummer

 

PS:... love the JoCo soundtrack on the Video

Edited January 19, 2010 by Lyrian

[Lyrian 0]

Well... been playing this build (on single player, not network) and now have a serious problem... the lag is unbearable... I have, over 100 zombies and can't find a way to kill 'em off. No matter what I'm facing, they kill it faster than they die... as well as picking up more recruits along the way. I tried (several times) to wipe 'em all by turning into a vamp and back again, but they remain...

 

So guess my only solution is to restart the campaign, and not let it get so big

Edited January 23, 2010 by Lyrian

[Lyrian 0]

Well, I was able to get them killed off... and everything started working again.

I went to Zhurag Nar, and let the dragon take care of it...I made sure to only have small numbers at a time to fight, thereby not allowing the dragon to be killed by my horde.

 

Once the numbers fell below 40ish, I was able to turn into a vamp/knight and get rid of the rest.

 

So a warning to folks... you need to keep close tabs on the army size. Guess this is another bug to be added to the books

[Ysne58 236]

Well, I was able to get them killed off... and everything started working again.

I went to Zhurag Nar, and let the dragon take care of it...I made sure to only have small numbers at a time to fight, thereby not allowing the dragon to be killed by my horde.

 

Once the numbers fell below 40ish, I was able to turn into a vamp/knight and get rid of the rest.

 

So a warning to folks... you need to keep close tabs on the army size. Guess this is another bug to be added to the books

 

That is one heck of a bug.