Sacred 2 - PS3 - Review

[Ohio Joe]

First, let me say that this game is also available on PC and Xbox 360 with only minor differences.

This is a Diablo clone, make no mistake. I had been looking forward to this game, it looked to have an interesting set of characters, not your generic cookie cutter types. Then the game was delayed, delayed again, then dumped out with little fanfare, it did not look good (the official site did not even make mention of the release). I decided to rent the game and give it a shot but was not expecting very much since the reviews (mostly for PC) said the game was full of bugs.

I have to admit, I was really very pleasantly surprised, this game is a lot of fun to play (assuming you like action RPGs). Enough so that I went and bought a copy after my rental.

The game play is much what one would expect, get quest, kill monsters, return to quest giver get reward, level up, assign stats/skills, rinse, repeat. If you don't dig this type of game, there is nothing new here that will bring you into it. There is plenty of loot to be found and a very handy one touch button to pick everything up. The button can also be modified to only pick up loot about a certain grade. Everything, magics (and better) only, specials (and better) only, etc.

Bugs - I've only noticed one bug so far and thats with the quest arrows. In the mini map, there are supposed to always be two arrows, one gold and one silver. The gold points to-wards the next main quest and the silver to-wards the next side quest. The silver one often disappears and you have to reset it by going into the quest log and selecting a side quest manually. Not a big deal.

Quests - There are boat loads of quests, over 600. It can be a little overwhelming because you get a lot of them going at them same time but since they are not timed, you can relax and just do them as you feel like it.

Mapping - The maps are the biggest disappointment so far for me. You nave the mini map that shows your general location and the world map that shows the whole world. You can zoom in and out on the world map but it gives no more detail up close. In a way this a pain in the ass because the world in huge... really huge, dwarfs Diablo totally. You seem to spend a lot of time figuring out how to find the path to your quest but... thats also kind of ok because unlike Diablo, you are not really going to rush to the end of hell difficulty and spend you time doing Diablo runs, wandering around the huge world works well too for getting experience points.

Leveling up is a little different. Your stats get an auto boost with each level (max level 200) plus you get point(s) you can distribute. You also get skill points (1 to start with per level, more as you get to higher levels, I think it tops out at 5 per level) to distribute. You can have a max of ten skills... now, these are not spells. I'll get to those in a bit. There are a bunch of skills and this is really the key to making different character types within a given character. You do not have access to all ten skills from the start, just one. As you level up, you get to pick new skills (my highest character is level 15 and has 5 skills). Skills can be things like weapon mastery, defense bonus, black smithing, reduce spell cool times, spell bonus's, all kinds of crap. Picking through and figuring out how to make your ultimate character looks like heaven for a stat junkie like me.

Spells - Every character has a total of 15 spells, broken into three groups of five each. You level up your spells by finding runes, nothing to do with your character level (well... mostly). Runes are plentiful to find and it appears that all spells can be found even from the very beginning of the game. What spell level you want to make a spell, really depends on how you plan to use it. The higher the level, the longer the cool down time (how long before you can use it again). Items and skills can reduce cool down times, so it is a balancing act.

Graphic/control - The game is beautiful, just no other way to say it. It does suffer from a little bit of "sudden pop up" but it does not really distract from the game. Controls take a little getting used to, on the PS3 it uses every button with some doing double duty if a trigger is pressed. It takes a little getting used to but not issue for fans of this type of game, all the buttons you want and need are there.

Overall - I'm seeing myself playing this game a lot, for a fan of the genre it has a lot to offer. Casual fans and those not into the genre should probably stay away or rent first.

[Evoman]

1. I heard you can play it co-op with someone in the same room. Is that true?

I'm thinking of buying it, because I like having games my girlfriend and I can play together. The only games she won't play are first person shooters.

[Ohio Joe]

2. Yes, you can

and this is one of those games that goes really well as co-op!

[Ohio Joe]

4. Some more for you...

After a few days of some good solid playing, a little more info for you.

The game is a blast, I'm really loving it, I definitely recommend it. I have found a few more bugs you may want to know about.

Quests - Quests are kept track of by a map, a menu option and the mini map. A minor nit, they are not always in sync.

Skills - The blacksmith skill is bugged and does not work, never select it unless they patch it.

Also, a note on playing multi-player using a single system. You can play each other but when playing online, it will not support both of you at the same time.

[Ohio Joe]

6. And yet more :D

Quests - OK, these guys are just a bit different then Diablo. You get them in the same way, click on an NPC and pretty much solve them the same way (go do whatever they ask and return) but... There are soooooo many freakin quests, I can't believe it. Most of them are a gold/exp reward, occasionally an item (none yet for skill points of attribute points). I did just do one though that was pretty cool. You run across this guy that says he is in a band and needs help getting their instruments back. When you complete it, you get a cool cinematic of the band doing a song and then you get their weapons. They are actually pretty powerfull too :D

Also, some quests can be failed, and you do not get another chance at them. These are ones where you are escorting someone somewhere, if they die, you get a fail for the quest and you can't try again till the next difficulty level.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. We got this game for our XBox 360 a week ago and my wife and I are hooked.

We've both had a good deal of experience with the first Sacred on the PC, but neither of us is much for playing online with this type of game (we do, however, play a lot of EverQuest 2).

Now that we are able to play this game together, we've started experimenting with it, going straight for the Silver difficulty level, and researching fun builds for character types we like. I have a Temple Guardian whose specialty is a massively-boosted T-Energy Shroud along with Bargaining, Blacksmithing and Enhanced Perception (soon the world shall be his own personal Wal-Mart! MWA-HA-HA-HA!!), and my wife is working on a Seraphim who's decent with ranged attacks but will eventually be able to use area-of-effect (AOE) attacks to turn half the screen into a glass parking lot at will. ;P

My doggie is named SeeSpotImpale and my wife's Seraphim is called DieEveryone. She's been using that name for cleric-type characters in MMOs for years now just to get a laugh out of people's reactions to seeing a toon that's supposed to HELP people with a name like that. :D

I really love how they've managed to take all the best customization features of character building and add yet another layer to it all. So far I would say this is one of the best $60 investments for spending time together gaming on the sofa ever made. And because the original Sacred was expanded so hugely, I'm very eagerly looking forward to DLC or expansion packs for this game.

[Ohio Joe]

5. Does Blacksmithing work on the 360?

I know it works for PC but is bugged for PS3 and does not work. I hope they fix it, it looks like it could be a cool one to have.

[Ohio Joe]

7. My Seraphim build

I now have a Seraphim up to level 46 (level 200 max) and thought I would share the build I'm doing since it is really kicking some ass :D

Skills:

I currently have 8 skills and I got them in this order:
1 - Revered Technology Lore - Increases damage done by the combat art (spell) Revered Technology
2 - Concentration - Reduces cool down time for all spells. Also lets you use more then one buff (aura) at a time. At level 75 you can use three!
3 - Revered Technology Focus - Reduces cool down time for Revered Technology spells, also allows for higher level spells (can read more runes) with getting a penalty (penalty if you go over is that each runes gives you a fraction of a level up instead of a whole level, the further over, the smaller the fraction).
4 - Armor Lore - Increases your armor by a percentage.
5 - Divine Devotion - When you create a character, you pick a god. Each god has a different extremely powerful spell you can use. The cool down time is huge (it starts at over 10 minutes). This skill reduces the cool down time for your mega spell.
6 - Ranged Weapons - Increases damage and accuracy when using ranged weapons.
7 - Enhanced Perception - Kind of like magic find skill.
8 - Constitution - Increases hit points and regeneration rate.

All skills have another bonus when they get to level 75 that makes them even better. If I were to do this differently, the biggest change would be that I would have chosen Constitution first (I recommend that for pretty much any build) and gotten it to level 75 ASAP. At 75 it allows you to regen health while in battle, otherwise you only regen when not in combat. Potions are readily available and plentiful but it would be nice to not have to drink soooo many (heh, I got a trophy for drinking over 1000 already).

Spells - I'm pretty much going with the five skill under Revered Technology, but use a few from the other trees:

Revered Technology:
1 - Archangels Wrath - Fires two bolts that when combined with my buffs do monster damage. My boss killer spell.
2 - Flaring Nova - When enhanced (see below on enhancing spells), it is a pretty standard Nova spell that pops twice in a row. Does decent damage but you want to be careful how many runes you use to level it up as the cool down time gets big, with 1 & 3 above and at spell level 4 it has a cool down time of 3.1 seconds right now. Allows for decent spamming but I really want to get it down lower.
3 - Divine Protection - Pump this baby. This does not have a long duration and takes a while for the cool down but it gives you an awesome boost to armor. I use it when facing bosses, keeps you alive.
4 - Warding Energy (buff) - A magic shield that absorbs incoming damage. Not using it yet, it will be my third buff when I can do that.
5 - BeeEffGee (buff) - This is my weapon. A magic weapon that appears when you turn the buff on. Ranged, does decent damage and looks damn cool!

Celestial Magic:
1 - Hallowed Restoration - Healing spell. Great for those times you are escorting people since they do not seem to regen health on their own.
2 - Cleansing Brilliance (buff) - Small but steady damage to all enemies. Decent damage to undead and T-energy creatures.
Don't use the other skills here

Exalted Warrior:
1 - Pelting Strike - You weapons shoots twice instead of once. ehhh, so so skill, I had an extra button open and this seems to work best.
Don't use other skills here

Enhancing Spells - Each combat art (Each character has three with five spells in each) has two skills you can choose. One that increase damage and one that reduces cool down time. As you put points into the skills, every so often you get a point to enhance your spells in that combat art. There are three levels of enhancement and two choices for each level, once you pick one at a given level, the other cannot be chosen.

Items - Sheesh... Use what you pick up, there is plenty of loot to be had. I sell off excess loot/put in community chest for other characters each time I level up and it mostly works fine. I also use this time to switch over to any better loot I might have found. Pressing the start button has a menu that allows you to change what you auto pick up (the L1 button auto picks up all loot around you). At the start, pick up everything, by around level 12 or 15, you can change it to only pick up higher level stuff, rares, uniques, etc. Remember to visit the blacksmith and put stuff in your sockets. For this character I am exclusively putting in things that reduce cool down time but there are tons of things to put in sockets with tons of different bonuses.

Dying - Don't die. There does not seem to be a penalty if you die but there is a bonus when you don't. On the main character panel, there is a thing called Survival Bonus, with a percentage but nothing that tells you what the hell it is. It took me a while to find it on the web but what it is, for each second you are in combat, it slowly increases (more time the higher it gets) and the percentage you see is a damage boost as well as a magic find boost, very cool. Don't die :D

Difficulty level - There are five difficulty levels to choose from when starting a game. At first you can only choose Bronze and Silver, go right for silver, it is not that much harder and it is worth getting more exp points. You have to finish it and be at least level 50 to go to th next level (gold, then platinum, then Niob). I started off doing every side quest and found myself at about level 40 with 200 side quests done, about 15% of the main quest, about 30% of the character specific quest and done with the "mount" quest (see below). I realized if I continued I would be well past 50 by the time I finished. I stopped doing side quests and now at level 46 I am 58% done with the main quest and 60% done with the character quest, much better. I'll do all of the side quests in later difficulty levels.

Mount Quest - I almost skipped this. You get access to mounts (horses) early, before you get the mount quest, and I had tried using them but hated them. You can't use your skills when mounted and your buffs turn off when mounted, so when you get off to fight you have to turn them on first, annoying as hell. The mounts have their own skills but they suck. I did the mount quest just to get it off my quest list and WOW! Very cool! Each character has a unique mount (mine is a saber tooth tiger) that allows you to use your own skills and does not turn off buffs, freakin sweet! Do this quest as soon as you can, you will be glad.

Playing the Seraphim - Simple. Round up mobs of bad guys, drink a potion "of the mentor" (+50% expierence point... not sure how long it lasts though not very long) and nova the baddies to death. If I'm going somewhere specific, I don't use the potion or round them up, just kill whatever gets in the way. Bosses so far go down quick to the Archangle spell.

The Seraphim is really a hybrid character that can do both magic and melee but I'm pretty much going just magic with this one. I'm also building a very cool Shadow Warrior (all melee) and will put up my build for it another time. I'm really looking forward to getting into the other character as well, there are some cool ones.

[Evoman]

8. I just rented it and started a character....

Shadow warrior. I'm at about level 13 I think.

Skills

1)Death Warrior Focus
2)Other combat skill focus (can't remember name).
3)Sword focus.
4)Combat discipline
5)Armor lore.

Basically, I come in, kick some ass, and barely get hurt. Also, I have these two skeleton warriors that follow me around, and kick ass.

Basically, like I said above, I wanted to play with my gf co-op. The only problem is that we have different gaming styles which aren't complementary. I wanted to start kicking ass right away, and I don't do much exploration besides the side quests. My gf has to go everywhere and read everything.

In the graveyard, she wanted to go to every single tomb, and she checks every last corner for things like chests. She hates playing with me cause I hurry her too much.

So, I've been playing pretty much solo :( At least we still have Lego Indiana Jones ;)

[Ohio Joe]

9. Whats your ID?

I'm on there as progjmr, feel free to send an invite for a game through the PS3 network. oh... and your GF did have a good idea reading the tombstones, one of the trophies is awarded after reading 100 tombstones :D I'll be on later tonight, I don't have the voice thingy to talk but I'm good with running around and spreading electronic death.

[Evoman]

10. Okay, this is kind of embarrassing....

but I've never played it online. I haven't even signed up for PSN yet. I've only used the net on the ps3 about 5 times...

I have no excuses, other than I really like to play alone. And that the world of internet gaming scares me, cuz I get sick of getting tooled by 13 year old wonder-kids who always call me a newb.

But I promise, as soon as I grow a pair of testicles and join the online community, we will play a game.

[Ohio Joe]

11. heh, no problem

Just so you know though. The way online works for this game is pretty good. When you create the game, you choose if it is to be public (appears on a list and anyone can join) or private (no one can join unless you invite them) and also if they are to be co-op or PvP. In co-op, players can not be targeted so no one can kill you. It is kind of cool to get online anyway, they have rankings for all characters (one list) as well as a break down listing by character type. There are not many people playing so its easy to get a character list pretty high in the rankings :D I played COD: Modern Warfare for months and barely got into the top 1,000,000. It took almost no time to get into the top 1000 with this. heh, if you don't think much about player number comparisons, its sweet!

[Ohio Joe]

12. Finished the first difficulty level - Spoiler

OK, what a lame, lame ending. Yeah, yeah, being a diablo clone, the cinematics are not what you play it for... the story is not really the biggest deal but... come on... they really just got to the end and said "Well boys, its Miller time!" and went home. They really open the game with a pretty cool cinematic and I only saw one other all the way through (the rock show) so I figured when I got to the end it would be really cool... uhhh no. The final battle is in some type of futuristic underground spaceship or something... not sure they really explained it very well... but it is very cool. You need to kill these three big ass Alien looking guys that they got so lazy about, they actually call them "The Nameless Guardians"... yeah, ok whatever. The battle is pretty cool though, it is in this big round room and as you try to kill them, they have these shields that regenerate so you have to try and take them out one at a time. Just a touch of strategy in all the mindless killing. So I kill all three and..

Oh, let me explain just a bit. The whole story is there is this blue fluid in the land (I forget what they call it) from some ancient race that used it to power everything and also do some magic. Now the old race is long gone and the fluid is turning everyone into various monsters (hence the mindless killing).

So I kill all three and... It directs me to a switch, which naturally I pull and.. into end game cinematic... ahhh, this should be good... Starts off with a close up of the switch, narrator say you have turned off the fluid... underground lair your are in starts shaking... and stops. Cut to scene outside where they tell you the fluid is turned off and drains away, couple of scenes of fluid draining and... cut to narrator in his study saying everyone lives happily ever after... or do they... cut to credits... WTF? The whole thing is 20-25 seconds. Lame.

I wrapped it up at level 53 with 9 skills and plenty of loot :D Shitty end cinematic aside, I started it right back up again on the next difficulty level. I only explored a little over 30% of the map... Damn, still lots to go look at.

[Systematic Chaos]

13. My wife and I have just started Gold.

I have to agree with you about the ending. :wtf: was up with that?? :eyes:

But as for the game itself, overall I have very few complaints. I'm playing a Temple Guardian whose specialty is Enhanced Perception and Bargaining. I refer to him as my "Walking Wal-Mart" because of all the cool things he finds in boxes and from merchants. My wife is playing a Seraphim with strong Dual Wielding capability. So, she's our main offensive character and I just go around adding a bit of backup damage and finding cool stuff. So far it works out pretty well.

We're doing the good campaign for the second time, and this time around we're trying to explore heavily and complete as many side quests as we can. We pretty much just zipped through Silver, finishing that at barely over level 30. For Platinum, we'll do the evil campaign and side quests, and I'm not sure about Niobium yet, but that's a long way off. :P

[Ohio Joe]

14. High Elf Build - Pyro

OK, I'm working on a new build, it's early, level 22 right now but it is working like a charm so I thought I would share.

The Pyro

A tough character to start, you will want at least one of each rune in the chest from the get go, more of Grand Invigortation. Use as many for this spell only as you can get your hands on, all other spells you have to watch. As the name implies, this character almost only uses pyro spells and so far, it's killer. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with fire immunes (is anything ever immune in this game? I don't even know)

Spells so far:

Arrant Pyromancer:

Ancestral Fireball - I use this for clean up and lone monsters but you don't want lone monsters

Blazing Tempest - Ahhh, the work horse, you will use this all the time. Mod it for damage and burn.

Incendiary Shower - Drops meteors, eventualy I think this will be my boss killer... not there yet though.

Incandescent Skin - Buff #1 - Gives fire damage, lowers enemy fire resist and after being modded will reduce pryo recharge times.

Mystic Stormite:

I'm not using anything here yet but will if I run into fire immunes later.

Delphic Arcania:

Shadow Step - Teleport and stun anyone around you.

Grand Invigoration - Increases hit point regen and all spell regens. No down side to this spell so use those runes!

Skills so far:

1 - Arrant Pyromancer Lore - Pyro damage increase
2 - Concentration - All skill recharge times reduced
3 - Arrant Pyromancer Focus - AP recharge times reduced
4 - Barganining - Wow, this skill rocks much more then I thought. Makes getting items much easier.
5 - Enhanced perception - Works wonders with barganining
6 - Constitution - Hit points and hit point regen. your weak so you need this

I know I'll also need armor, ancient magic and Delphic Arcana focus... not sure what else yet.

Items - Gold sockets... anything with gold sockets, the more the better, anything else is a bonus but you want lots of gold sockets.

Strategy - run around and get lots of monsters following you, hit them with a Tempest and immediatly teleport 3/4 of a screen away. When you teleport, you will stun all the monsters around you, as soon as you re-appear (teleport is not instantanious like in diable, it takes a few seconds), hit them with another Tempest and run around while they burn to death. Pick up loot and repeat.

The key to this being an awesome build is the gold sockets :D Use your buying power to get rings/amulets of +to expierence points and get a blacksmith to put them in. Wow... I'm only at +35% expierence but it makes a massive difference in how fast you level up and I know by level 75 I should be able to get it up to at least 100%, plus use of potions that can add another 50%. I guess adding +to exp. could work for any character but Tempest is by far the best area of effect spell in the game, huge area and amazing killing power.

Be carefull though, your character is weak and can be killed if trapped very quickly. Getting to level 7 or 8 took a looong time and a lot of deaths but once I started getting my equipment in order, it has so far taken me no time to level up.

Right now I'm trying to finish Silver so I can get to gold difficulty. Then I plan on doing a bunch of "Free World" games and going to the desert right away. It is perfect for this build, wide open, lots of mobs, easy to level up. Get to around level 75, then do the quests to get to the next dificulty level.

Enjoy!

[Ohio Joe]

15. More on this character

OK, the whole teleport strategy is much harder then I thought it would be. It seems that the spell can be interupted... or maybe it just fails sometimes... I don't know but I've refined my strategy a little and teleport sooner then I was before. Still works great, just be careful and get the teleport time down, maybe three monsters around you and go.

+to exp. Oh baby, I love this. I'm up to 108.3% +to exp and it rocks. I'm at level 56 and am about to complete silver difficulty and I've done almost no grinding for exp. Make no mistake, going this way can make your character weak but once I got the armor lore skill it helped a LOT, though I'm still up around 30 deaths. Charms are real key, you can only use six at a time but I carry around 30 or so and swap them out depending on the enemies i'm facing. I finally figured out that the color of the bar on them tells you what element they protect against. Also, every five levels or so, I shop to replace them as the protection on what you buy goes up with skill level (as well as bargaining level).

Equiping a sword and shield at the same time - HA! I also finally figured out how to do this, it was pissing me off that I could not seem to do this simple thing. I don't know about PC or Xbox but on PS3, in order to do this, you have to assign both the shield and weapon to the same hot key, the manual makes no mention of this that I could find. It helped this character because now I have a weapon with +to exp stuff in it but now I feel better about trying a melee character.

Finding those important rings and amulets - I usualy do my shopping at the start of a play period. First thing, I will go to each town I have a portal at and hit up the merchant and the runemaster for rings and amulets. The runemaster has a LOT of rings and amulets. I also found that rings are nice because they can go into both silver and gold sockets. Amulets tend to be slightly better but can only go into gold sockets.

I can definitly see with this character getting some better equipment (more gold/silver sockets) getting the +to exp up to 200% or more easily. I'll probably have to have a second suit to wear for some bosses so I don't get slaughtered (in platinum and niob difficulty) but for running around and killing mobs, the +to exp suit should be fine as well as getting me leveled up real quick. It is a blast running around for 40-60 seconds getting a crap load of monsters to follow you and then laying them all out with tempest... seeing all those green exp points go up the screen and your bar jump up is pretty sweet :D

Doing a lot of shopping with this character is giving me some real good ideas for a melee character. I'm thinking the shadow warrior will be next. I've givin his tree a brief look and hope in the next week or so to have a plan formulated and give it a try. I'm thinking massive life and armor, much slower and steadier but wicked hard to kill. Not sure how he will handle mobs yet... still looking at it.

[Ohio Joe]

16. This is working very nice now

I am preparing to move so I have not had a lot of play time but... I'm really screaming :D I'm up to level 83 and when I look at the rankings, I don't think hardly anyone else is doing this. I have around 20k kills and most of the other people within a level or two have way more, 30k+. There are a few people that are around 25k and only one person with less kills (only a couple hundred less) so it looks like a lot of people have not thought of this yet.

I have my +to exp at 154.6% right now and am finding a lot more potions of the mentor (another +50% to exp) so I use them a lot, putting me over 200%. I'm at the last long canyon before the final battle at the end of gold difficulty and I'm getting 11k to 23k a kill and needing around 3m to level up. It makes it go wicked fast. When I started gold, I did a bunch of exp runs in the desert... for maybe five levels but I think it was a waste of time. Enemies seem to level up with you, so I was getting 3-5k but once I got there by doing all of the quests, I was getting 7-9k... ehhh, hard to say.

Unique Items - There has been one quest aside from the main quest that I've done each difficulty level so far and that is the "Concert Quest", where you have to get the bands instruments and I noticed something. Unique items scale with your level (the reward is the bands items which are uniques). When I got the reward in gold, the items were much better then when I got them in silver, not just defense but the mods were better and even had some new mods, so be sure to compare if you pick up a unique you already have, the new one might be better.

I have today free so I plan on going and finishing gold right now, then starting platinum. My plan is to try and do everything this time. Quests reward exp as well as items and/or gold and the +to exp works on that as well. Plus, there is still a TON of the map I've not explored. I really want to see if there are any more hidden cut scenes and also try and find if there are any more really good rewards like for the concert quest.

Oh... and I have started a melee character, a shadow warrior. He is tough, wicked hard to kill but... he also has to do without +to exp because he needs other nods so leveling is slooooow, heh :D I can see this guy being a wicked tank with a group but some bosses take forever for him to kill alone... I gotta find a way to increase his damage... and get more poison so they stop regenerating so fast... ehhh, I'm working on it.

[Ohio Joe]

17. ACK! Software update!

Fuck me slowly with a chainsaw, 69 meg update for Sacred 2 this morning. Dammit... they better tell me what has changed... and it better not freakin destroy my character!

[Ohio Joe]

18. Well....

The only thing I noticed was a "Find Me" option, using the square button on the leader boards. I like this a lot because their leader boards do not update very well. You can sometimes disappear completely for hours at a time while it updates. Everything else seems to be as it was :D There was, of course, nothing like patch notes included with the download... man I hate that. I did find this:

http://www.ps3news.com/PS3-Online/sacred-2-fallen-angel-ps3-patch-1-40-is-now-available/

Which includes the find me thing but... I downloaded patch 1.02, not 1.40 and this notice is more then a month old. I played last night and no patch, so I'm sure it was online just this morning so... Who knows. The good news is, they did not screw my character... at least not this one... I did not check my Seraphim yet.

oh crap... I wonder if they fixed Blacksmithing? That skill has a lot of potential... I'll have to make a character and check that later.

You know, I really don't mind patches, they are actually often a good thing but it drives me batshit crazy when they don't tell you what they did... I'm anal and need to know all the details :D

[Ohio Joe]

22. It appears this character can no longer be made

I was not sure at first but I'm pretty certain this character can not be made once the game is patched. You can no longer get any rings with +exp per kill... you could still try it but you will never get a real high +exp per kill as before. Right now, I'm at 192% per kill (and can get another 50% with mentor potions) but if you were to take away the rings, at best I'd be around 90-110%... still not bad but also not the same.

I might be wrong though and it might just be harder. I'm sure you can no longer get the rings from merchants, just the amulets but it may be possible to find them as dropped loot and I just have not seen any yet. If that is the case, then the character could still be done but you would want to gather up around 30-40 rings and twink them over before starting the character so they get full benefit right from the start, just drop them in the chest whenever any of your other characters finds one. You will also want to re-think using bargaining with this character as using it to get the rings was it's best feature... I would suggest shield lore instead.

I am making a second outfit to wear though, same principal, only using +magic find. I figure combined with the magic find I'm getting from perception I should be able to get it wicked high and use it later when I get to the highest difficulty to hopefully find some of the real high end loot :D

HA, I'm rocking though, level 102 as of right now and hope to be 104 by the time I call it a night in an hour or so. The over all top guy is level 195! WTF... I'm unemployed and bored, how the hell does this guy find the time to play so much... sheesh :D

[ZombieHorde]

19. Great review. Thanks for posting. nt

[Ohio Joe]

20. General tips good for all characters

I have two more character builds I'll be adding to this soon, the Inquisitor and the Shadow Warrior... They just need to get further along so that I see what I'm going for works and I have been obsessing over my pyro character :D Level 92 now, in the top 100 for elves and a little more then 300 overall in the rankings... dammit, I want top ten at least for elves, heh.

OK, general tips.

Skills - There are four skills that seem every character should have, they are:

1 - Armor Lore - Gives you a bonus to your armor rating, lowers your regeneration penalty from armor and allows you to wear higher level armor. Defense good. Not a skill you need to pump wicked high but you want it... put a point in when you can.

2 - Concentration - Reduces regeneration times on all spells. Just as important, between level 1 and 74 it lets you use two buffs (auras) at a time and 75+ you can use three. Every character has three different buffs... I think... Most only effect your character, some will also work on any minions you might have but I don't think any work on other players so it is important to be able to maintain your own. Bring it to level 75 and forget it.

3 - Enhanced Perception - The in game description is really bad and does not explain very well what this does. First, it allows you to open more "chests" (many things can be opened), giving you more treasure. It also gives you an inherent magic find ability that is not displayed until the skill gets to level 75 but it is always there. Magic find good. Put every point you can spare into it and use relics (relics are easy to buy with +to EP) to boost it wicked high.

4 - Constitution - Adds to total hits points, increases hit point regeneration rate and... at level 75 allows you to regenerate hit points even while in battle. Even if you ignore any of the other skills here, every characters really needs this at level 75, it makes staying alive soooo much easier. A lot of characters are fine with getting this to 75 and being done... My Shadow Warrior will be maxing this to 200 :D

You will also need two other skills, the Lore and Focus (lore's reduce regen time, focus increases damage) skills for your primary Combat Art.

Which brings us to Combat Arts... or spells. Every character has three CA's with five spells in each. A good rule of thumb for a good character is to select a primary CA and a secondary CA. Use the primary as your main attacks/defense and the secondary as... secondary shit :D Your lore and focus skills for your primary you will want to max out at 200 points, allow for that. You may want to choose the lore skill for your secondary CA so that regen times are lowered and also so you can get it's level higher.

Runes - Always be careful when using runes. They increase the level of the spell they are for but that also increases regen time. It is a balancing act, be careful not to get your regen time so high the spell is useless.

Relics - You can only use six relics at a time and only three of the same type at a time. There is a type of relic for each type of damage (except physical, armor takes care of that). Carry three for each damage type and swap out what you are using depending on the area you are in and the damage the monsters there are doing. At lower levels, it is not a big issue and at higher levels you have plenty of money to keep upgrading them. Every four or five levels do some shopping and upgrade your relics. They are your primary defense against all non-physical damage and very important.

There is no pause - If you gotta stop to take a leak or do a shot or smoke a fatty or whatever, teleport to the center of a town. This is important once you reach gold difficulty as monsters can regen and kill you before you flush... you know how I found this out :D Staying in the center of a town is also important as sometimes monsters will wander in and kill you if you are near a border... yes, I found that out the hard way as well. heh.

Twinking - Twinking, for anyone that does not know, is passing along high level stuff to lower level character to set them up with good stuff early in the game. It is kind of hard to do in this game. In something like Diablo, you could do it and maybe the new character would put all stat points into strength for ten levels and then use that great armor... it is not so simple here. Loot seems to be generated at the level you are... Meaning, everything has a level requirement and a penalty if a lower level character tries to use it, so... You put that level 90 armor on a level ten character and he can barely move and will die quickly. The stash does allow for transfer between characters but for the most part I am only saving set items and really good uniques. I do also saving rings and amulets as they can be socketed into items and seem to change their level requirement to whatever the item is you socket it into (more testing is required to confirm this as it does not seem to be consistent). Bottom line... Don't worry about it, you find a crapload of cool shit and really the only stuff worth saving is what I mentioned anyway.

Item Generation - Items are generated based on your level. Not only that but the higher your level the better they get. If you find say... the awesome shield of awesomeness at level 10, and then find it again at level 30... Compare the stats. You will see that the new one is better then the old one, higher armor at the least and almost certainly more bonuses. Don't just sell an item you find because you already have one, check it first.

Till my next character guide.... thats all :D

[Ohio Joe]

21. "Something Wonderful"

So... I was running around the jungle area and I come across a cave. I go in hoping to find a random big boss monster (I've found a few of them, they are nice because they give tons of exp and drop good stuff) and instead find a single small room with a switch in the middle. Really odd because I've seen nothing like it yet, so I hit the switch and it gives me this message "You have opened Something Wonderful"... Nothing else... I was like, WTF? I scoured the area and could not find anything so of course, I jumped on the internet to see what this is.

Seems it is a hidden quest. If you have played, you have probably noticed NPC's all over the place with exclamation marks over their heads but all they say is "I can't help you yet", well, they are part of this quest. Pulling the switch is the first part, then you have to find a cave up in the swamp (hard to get to as well) and inside is a huge "dungeon" that is the Ascaron headquarters. It is empty except for one guy that gives you the quest. heh, he tells you that they are ready to start work on Sacred 3 and but everyone is on vacation so you have to find all 89 of them and tell them to return. I did not look up what you get as a quest reward but it better be freakin good because just getting the quest assigned is a bitch and now I gotta find 89 of the douchebags... ehhh, at least I'm just going around getting exp anyway :D

I did talk to one that I knew where he was off the top of my head and they now disappear when you talk, so at least I won't have to try figuring out if I talked to a given guy or not. 88 to go, heh.

[Ohio Joe]

23. Shadow Warrior build

A much better character then I anticipated. I expected he would be tough to kill (and he is, zero deaths at level 40) but he also turns out to be a skilled summoner with a nice army around him.

Skills:

1 - Constitution - Hit points and regen - I'm going to pump this baby to 200, I want all the life I can get. Plus at level 75 it will give me regen during combat

2 - Death Warrior Focus - Regen time for DW combat arts as well as higher spell levels - I really want this for higher spell levels, I'm thinking this is only going to go to around level 50 or so (regen I will cover under socketing items) then I should be able to eat runes at will to raise levels wicked high.

3 - Astral Lord Focus - Regen time for AL combat arts as well as higher spell levels - Again, I'll raise this to about 50 same as DW Focus.

4 - Tactics Lore - +% to damage and critical hits (criticals do double damage) - This skill has another undocumented ability I noticed (bug or design... who knows but it does it), it also raises the amount of hit points given by the Grim Resilience spell (covered under CA's) giving mega life, combined with extra damage and criticals, this guy gets pumped, maybe not 200 but at least 125, higher if I can.

5 - Armor Lore - Raises defense by a % - Defense = good for a tank :D I'll put as much as I can spare here, at least 100.

6 - Sword Weapons - +attack value (chance to hit) and attack speed - an ok skill, as I can spare points... maybe 75.

7 - Concentration - Regeneration time reduced and allow use of more then one buff - This goes at least to level 75 so I can use all three buffs (aura's for the D2 minded)... might need to go to 200 depending on how my item strategy works out when I get my third buff.

8 - Toughness - Armor per damage type and %reduction to incoming damage - Good skill for a tank but the numbers are not very big... I'm still undecided how many points but as many as I can spare will go here.

Currently I'm at level 40, so I have not yet selected my last to skills but to be honest... I'm not sure it will matter as I'm almost un-killable right now. I'm thinking maybe AL lore to increase the damage to my Skeletal fortification CA... maybe Malevolent Champion Focus to reduce those spells... maybe Shield Lore for better shields... or maybe combat reflexes to increase my chance to evade attacks and incoming criticals... I'm not sure but I can pick one more at level 45 and the last at 65 so I'll see what it looks like I need the most then.

Combat Arts (spells) - What I'm using listed:

Death Warrior

Demonic Blow - Strong attack against one target - Great against bosses. Be careful with runes till you can get your regen time down with items, try to keep under 10 seconds.
Scything Sweep - Sweeps all in front - Good for packs, when modded it adds a chance for knock-back. Also try to keep under ten seconds.
Grim Resilience - Buff - Adds to hit points and to Willpower (great incoming spell defense) - This is the first buff I use, great against spells and when combined with Constitution and Tactics Lore you have monster life. At level character level 40 I have 5300 life (when on my unique mount) and regen 119.1 a second. I expect I'll have more then my level 130 fire sorc by level 65 and by 75 when I can regen during combat I'll be just frightening, heh. I try to keep this at the max value without penalty based on DW Focus skill level.

Malevolent Champion

Augmenting Guidon - Raises a stationary flag that improves attack value and defense value - Eat the runes freely, you don't use it all the time so regen rate does not matter very much.
Reflective Emanation - Buff - Chance to reflect close combat damage and stun effects - This will be the third buff I use when I get to level 75. Even at low levels you get good chance to reflect (26% at level 6) so go wicked easy on runes till your higher level.

Astral Lord

Skeletal Fortification - A stationary tower that shoots arrows - Nice, does decent damage, I use it all the time. I keep this at the highest level without penalty as allowed by AL Lore. If I go for AL Focus this could be a major damage dealer.
Rallied Souls - Allows you to raise dead foes to fight for you for a short time - Help build your army, great when you have large packs, you can just keep raising more and stand back and let the army lead you.
Nether Allegiance - Buff - Spectral soldier fight at your side - I use this as my second buff. It starts with two soldiers but with mod points you can get up to four, great for that army thing :D

Items - Sockets still reign and it is still the more the better. My main thing to put in sockets is rings and amulets that give "regen per hit". It starts out low, 0.4 seconds per hit but I've seen my fire sorc find ones that give 1.3 to 1.7 seconds per hit. My plan is to get two or three of these in sockets and they should allow me to get 2-3 towers running all the time as well as use demonic blow and scything sweep very often. Otherwise, you still have a lot of sockets to fill and there are craploads of mods on items you can put in sockets, fill to your play-style. I'm using +to skills, +to damage, life leech, all kinds of stuff to choose from, go with what you need.

Playing:

Early levels (1-20) it was slow going since I really wanted to avoid dying. Once I got my second buff (the spectral soldiers) it was much easier and it simply gets easier every level. The only boss monster I had a problem with was this big octopus thing at the end of the orc area... damn thing has knock-back and I had a hell of a time getting in close enough to kill it, it kept knocking me back and would regen it's life by the time I hit it again, wicked pain in the ass but it never came close to killing me so it was more a stamina battle, f'ker took me almost 20 minutes to kill. Other then him though, no problems at all. Now, I like to throw up a tower as soon as someone comes into view, the spectral warriors go after them as they come in, then if it attracts a large group you can raise enemies that get killed to add to your army and you just go in to mop up :D With big groups, throw up a Augmenting Guidon, when modded it gives extra exp points, also remember to have one up when giving the death blow to bosses (as well as chugging a potion of the mentor for max +to exp).

To get the bear, and this works for any character, in the first town you come to, sloeford, at the north exit is a little girl named lianara. She asks you to go get her teddy bear in a cave not far ( a little north and east). Take the quest and go to the cave, when you kill the bears there is a baby bear that if you talk to it will follow you. Never finish the quest, don't talk to the little girl again and the bear will keep with you. At first it is useless and runs away from battle but after a while it grows... and is still useless and still runs from battle but the next time it grow (again, after a bit) it becomes a full grown bear and will fight with you. The best part about it is that it is indestructible, if it runs out of life, the life meter just rolls over and it again has full life, it never dies :D It seems to take a long time for the bear to grow up but once it does, it can be a big help. Also, when you go to a new difficulty level, it dis-appears and you have to get it again but... it is nice to have.

All in all, a cool character to play. You can get up close and personal and do heavy damage or you can lay back and let your army do the work depending on your mood. Plus... on PS3, the highest level shadow warrior is only 161 so I think I can jump up and grab #1 :D

[Systematic Chaos]

24. Your dedication to this game is admirable... seriously!

My wife and I love it, but we're so big into EverQuest 2 now that there's just no time for Sacred unless I play it when she's off at work. Only thing is, when she's at work there's still scads of EQ2 stuff that needs to get done like crafting and harvesting and hoarding collectibles from all the zones....

EQ2 and Sacred do have a lot in common though. Both have zillions of quests, both have the need to upgrade gear constantly (and myriad ways of doing so including additional adornments which you can craft and add to your armor pieces), and both have tons of room to explore. The only major difference is that EQ2 is a persistent world and there's no starting over at a higher difficulty level once the game's been beaten. There's just harder and harder solo heroic, group and raid content.

I love reading your guides, and look forward to a time when Sacred 2 gets an expansion. It's worth spending more time playing, but there's only so much in a day and EQ2 is a massive time sink. :rofl:

[Ohio Joe]

25. heh, wait till Diablo 3 comes out

I expect to really get into that and hope to put out a bunch of guides for it as well :D

[Ohio Joe]

28. Update

HA! You thought I was done with this title... Well, I'm to freakin poor to buy many games so I keep going back and replaying what I have :D

OK, I made some modifications to what I was originally planning though I pretty much can still play as either a caster or melee. Some things have worked out far better then I expected. I am currently level 122 and will be 123 by the end of the night (#1 on the rankings is now 181... bastard)

Skills:
200 point skills
Constitution - currently 122
Death Warrior Focus - currently 113
Tactics Lore - currently 122

75 point skills
Concentration - currently 75
Astral Lord Focus - Currently 59

Skills that get no more points
Malevolent Champion Focus - 1 point - My tenth skill, with +to skills lets me get a much higher Augmenting Guidon for great defense and +to exp
Sword Weapons - 3 points - With my +to skills this is fine where it is.
Astral Lord Lore - 15 points - My 9th skill, again with +to skills this is fine.

That leaves
Armor Lore - 16 points
Toughness - 5 points

The plan now is my 200 point skills get one point per level up (of the 5 I have each level) with DWF getting 2 until it is at max (skill level cannot exceed character level) and the remaining point goes to ALF. At level 131 I will then be doing two in ALF until it is at 75. The rest of the way to 200 the extra two points will go one each for AL and T, I find the combination of the two gives great defense. The numbers seem low but they are not explained well and the effect is much greater then looking at the numbers would imply.

Death - Not dying has great benefits.I found somewhere an explanation of how stats (str, dex, etc) are figured. Each character starts with a base number that only changes when points are added or you wear something that gives it a plus. The amount each stat goes up when you level is a percentage multiplier (unknown how much per level). Not dying increases your survival bonus which also acts as a percentage multiplier on your stats. Soooooo that calculation looks like this:

Stats = (Base * survival bonus) * level up bonus

Boy does a big survival bonus make a difference. The survival bonus starts off quickly, getting to 20% is easy and takes little time. Once you reach around 75% you notice that it is really taking a long time and you start measuring increases in tenths of a percentage point instead of whole points. At level 122 my survival bonus is at 95.2 and it takes a long ass time to go up. I've seen the max being listed at 99.9 and 100, not sure which is correct, not that it makes much difference at that point but if your up there you sure as hell don't want to lose it.

Playing:

Still a wicked fun character. I am at the highest difficulty level and since the monsters scale to your level you can pretty much go anywhere to level up. You do get more exp in later levels but from the orc area on it is not that big of a deal so it leaves a lot of variation. My favorite run is starting at the Jungle portal, going up and killing the giant scorpion, then back to the jungle portal and going down to kill the creature at the temple. Gets two boss monsters and about 4 million exp. Needing about 10 million to level up, thats not bad.

I've been going pretty hard core on this character for about a week now, I'm almost in the top 100 and no one in the top ten has played since I've been back to this sooooo... we will see if I can get there :D

[ZombieHorde]

26. I started getting into this game, Sacred 2 is really fun.

[Systematic Chaos]

27. Ascaron in bankruptcy, future of Sacred 2 expansion for consoles in doubt.

Damn and double damn.

In addition I come to learn that the console blacksmithing skill is still FUBAR.

I hope they can get their shit together and find a way to keep the franchise alive and Sacred 2 going until there's a (polished, please??) Sacred 3. The Sacred games have been so cool and I'd hate to see it end.

Don't have a handy link, but there's lots of blather about it over on the official Sacred 2 forums for XBox 360 and also the Ascaron Sacred 2 forums.

[ZombieHorde]

29. I have tried it yet, but I read this game supports custom soundtracks.

I imagine you have to create a playlist on your PS3 and then select the playlist while game was on using the PS button.

[lazarus]

30. since this has been resurrected, I have my standard question

Combat: button mashing or turn-based? I hate turn-based.

[ZombieHorde]

31. Button mashing. You assign weapons, spells, and combos to the

Square, O, X, and triangle buttons, then assign 4 more to L2 and the four buttons, and then assign yet another 4 to R2 and the four buttons, for a total of 12 affects to mash.

You also assign 3 potions to the directional buttons (d-pad), the fourth directional button is reserved for your god power, which you pick when you create your character.

[lazarus]

32. awesome

then i'm getting this game. Thanks!