Sacred 2:Highest Combat Art Level Without Penalty

Highest Combat Art Level Without Penalty (HCALWP for short) refers to the maximum level a player can have in a specific Combat Art without incurring any penalties. Note: The game refers to this as "Highest Spell Level Without Penalty", but it is really discussing Combat Arts.

How to determine current HCALWP

There are 2 ways you can determine your current Highest Combat Art Level without Penalty for any given combat art.

• The Focus skill for the CA's aspect will show the current Highest Combat Art Level in its tooltip.
• Look at the tooltip for the CA itself--if the current or next level is a decimal (i.e. Level 10.4), then you have equaled or exceeded the Highest Combat Art Level (and are taking penalties).

Calculation of HCALWP

The exact formula for calculating the Highest Level w/o Penalty is not currently known. The two things that affect the end result are the character's level, and the level in the focus skill for the aspect of the CA in question.

According to this post, the progression of HCALWP from character level only (0 points in the focus skill) is as follows:

• Character Level 75: Highest Level of 21
• Character Level 150: Highest Level of 40
• Character Level 200: Highest Level of 52

The current rule of thumb on the Focus skill is: 5 points in the focus skill yields one additional Combat Art Level without penalty. Therefore, a level 150 character with 20 points in a focus skill would have a HCALWP of approximately 44 for that aspect.

Penalties from Exceeding Highest Spell Level

If you have exceeded the HCALWP for a given Combat Art, additional increases to that CA will start giving you partial levels. You can tell when this is happening by looking at the displayed level of a combat art. If it shows as a decimal, then you are taking partial level penalties. If you are being penalized, these are the downsides:

• You only gain partial benefit from each additional level of the CA
• You still take full regeneration penalties from each additional level of the CA
  • Note: The exception to this rule is the High Elf combat art Grand Invigoration, since it has no regeneration penalties.
• The partial benefit from each additional level becomes less and less the more you exceed the HCALWP.

For example, let's say your HCALWP is 10 for a certain CA, and you have memorized 14 runes for that CA. Because you are penalized for 4 of those levels, your actual displayed level of the combat art will probably be around level 12. The CA's damage and effects will be that of a level 12 skill. However, the regeneration time will be that of a level 14 art. So, the benefit-to-regen-penalty ratio is becoming worse with each rune you memorize over the HCALWP.