Sacred 2:Mr. I Unlock Platinum Smithing Fast

Mr. I Unlock Platinum Smithing Fast

By Claudius

Goal

Unlock Platinum by running through the campaigns without any support from other people. If you have friends in the game they could possibly just give you a ride to niob even, but I really hate to be a beggar. The key feature of this build is Shadow Veil Modded into a buff. You can change anything in this build but you must keep SV a buff so that you can fight through gold easily without taking any damage.

Newbs corner note: To clarify by getting a character to platinum now you can use the shared chest to transfer level 2 gear to your plat char. Put plat smith arts into the gear and it will help you level very fast at first because of 1 shots and fast boss kills.

note: in unlocking blacksmith I mean the town blacksmith which is better until high blacksmith level of the skill.

Questions: Softcore or Hardcore?

If you are a purist I'd say HC. But I did SC because if this build accidentally debuffs you will unveil and usually in gold the mobs are much higher level than you and this build choose low defense so you might die. The whole beauty of SV is you don't need any defensive gear or spells. I took Death Warrior and Grim Resilience and also constitution so that if I unveil I will have a lot of hitpoints and just run away. Also armor since Shadow Warrior armor lowers regens a lot anyway.

Questions: Why not unlock Niob?

Because that is taking more time and you don't need niob arts to level fast plat are good. By the time a character gets to high levels you want a bargainer to fill slots with good jewelry rather than whets. You can unlock niob with this build if you want but you will need to update your chance to hit jewels and also shop a % life leach weapon or else find one. Or the alternative is just long boss fights. But yes you can unlock niob. You would need to level up to 75 to unlock niob (masteries) and farm some gear.

Attributes

You should be going ranged and you should take pure stamina. Since you have low gear the recharges of spells will be the most important. Optionally you can take vitality until you hit the level where shadow veil is permanent.

Skills

2 Astral Lord Lore - Keep Max

3 Armor Lore - put 5 in when you have enough to unlock armor mods

5 Astral Lord Focus - Keep Max

8 Concentration - 1

12 Combat Discipline - Put extra points here

18 Ranged. Pole or Sword option too - 5 when you have enough to unlock weapon mods - You want these because strength based % life leach weapons. Since this build is specially designed for people who switch to Ice and Blood you might not have any gear and sword will let you get boneslicer quest sword. The advantage of ranged is because left clicks with a star will not unveil you = reduce all deaths except due to summons/allies = priceless and I say must have! But you can take sword or pole too but I don't recommend.

25 Death Warrior Focus - 14 pts

35 Blacksmith - 5 pts this will make the character more valuable for your next chars and you might even make him a master smith if you like this playstyle and level high. The value is that you can put rings in bronze sockets and amulets in silver sockets for your later characters.

50 Enhanced Perception - 1 you might as well find some gear while you unlock platinum

65 Constitution - 1; extra points here

Note: about 30ish you can have 100% Shadow Veil Note: you probably will not reach 65 if just to unlock plat Note: if I keep playing him to high level I will master every skill and then put the rest of the points into Astrals 100 each CD 100 and Constitution

Combat Arts

Example Arts - bronze mod order modded (description), silver mod order modded (description), gold mod order modded (description) How it is used and reason for mod

Death Warrior-

Grim Resilience- Fortify (hitpoints) 1, Discipline (lower recharge) 2, Either (evasion or physical mitigation) 3 Eat runes to penalty level. The strategy is to have hitpoints to run away if unveiled. Both gold mods are good imho.

Rousing Command - Persistence 4 (duration), Impulse (attack speed), Leader (affect allies) Eat runes like crazy but watch regeneration. The goal of this is to help to hit boss. I choose leader because I don't want my recharges to be dependent on a spell I cannot keep up all times. Leader will work good with rallied soul and allies. You won't even mod that far probably just to unlock plat.

Astral Lord-

Spectral Hand - Clout 7 (damage), Intent 8 (crit), Double Hit 9 (chance to double hit) Main attack to spam between casting fortifications. Chill is better in long run but just to unlock plat you will only eat 1 rune and Intent is then better. Double hit is better for boss while devestation is better for mobs. Bosses are a weak spot but if you found a % life leach weapon then maybe. Eat 1 rune unless recharge gets slower than animation. Factoring in regeneration per hit also.

Shadow Veil - Creep 4 (more stealth), Fade 5 (unlock 100% chance to cast spell), Sinister Pact 6 (make a buff) You may use combat arts while veiled but left clicks unveil you. And then you die probably if you are in a high difficulty for your level. Eat exactly 25 runes. Note: even before 100% efficiency this is useful as a buff when you see a group of champions, because champions hit harder and crit more often so its worth it to turn invisible. Note: to wake the nameless guardians you need to turn visible and that is the time of danger for this build. Just run away and rebuff when they wake up.

Skeletal Fortification - Focus 1 (reduce cooldown), Arcane Power 2 (magic damage), Scatter Shot 3 (2 projectiles) The main spell to handle groups. Focus is needed so you can run to another area and recast. Also greater damage with 2 x towers than 1 x tower firing 1.5 faster. Magic is better than ice for secondary effect. Scatter shot is outstanding. Eat runes so the total regeneration is less than 10 seconds which means you can keep 2 towers up. Note: this is your main form of damage against non-bosses/champions. If you see somebody summon a fortification. Unless its a lone rat and then use spectral hand. But there is a cooldown so in between you will switch over to spectral hand.

Warning: For rallied soul and nether allegiance use them at own peril. They are one of the ways you can die by stimulating AOE (area of effect) enemies to use their combat arts against your minions you may also be killed by the AOEs. See section on AOE enemies.

Rallied Soul - Dark Realm 10 (range) , Demand 11 (more at once), Furor 12 (damage) Even with duration mod they don't last long enough to build an army from battle to battle. Instead kill a few guys with spectral hand then start raising everyone you and the fortifications kill. More raised at once is better. They don't kill much which is why the contagion mod is not good. Tough enemies make strong rallied souls so if you kill a champion why not cast this? Eat 1 rune. You only get .1 second duration for more runes but the recharge goes up steeply. With 1 rune you can raise a whole battlefield from the dead in a few fast clicks.

Nether Allegiance-

Switch to this buff from Grim Resilience when fighting the mist of miasma to stop the summons from running offscreen. If you make it a 3rd buff I don't recommend using against enemies with Area of Effect attacks. Because they will stimulate the enemy to use Area of Effect when otherwise the AI would just stand there dying. You can mod any way imho. They don't do too much damage and you are invisible so you don't need a distraction.

Gear and Support

To start out the game right you will build a level 2 trader (dragon mage, high elf, or inquisitor who selects bargaining as l2 skill; buy relics with +bargaining). I recommend to level your trader higher than level 2 but that is the minimum. It doesn't take long to level early on. As your shadow warrior finds yellow items fill the shared chest. Sell them with the level 2 trader and buy the shadow warrior jewelry which increase chances to hit. The best are - chance to evade and chance opponent cannot evade. But + attack and reduce defense are also viable. Put 1 attack ring or amulet in every piece of armor while the other holes are filled with whets (% attack and % damage). Then you pull out the jewel when you upgrade to new armor or weapon. You will hope to find updated more powerful jewels on your travels so make sure to look at rings and amulets before you sell them. You want to try to have over 100% chance to hit bosses when you have rousing command up. Use the town blacksmith whets not your own because you only have 5 pt into smithing. Make sure the level 2 bargainer is shopping in silver... If you want to level your bargainer higher it will help you even more but that is optional (recommended to level bargainer higher).

As far as finding gear you want to find things that increase physical damage, attack, - recharge, crit, deathblow, % valuables, xp, magic damage, regeneration per hit, disregard armor. Two of the best offensive mods that do not relate to chance to hit are +skills and + combat arts but they are quite rare. Defensive mods are good too in emergencies but you needn't specialize in them.

You also need to find gear with sockets. A good place is to do quests and many give a reward of a set piece. Only happens level 15 and after.

Combos

1 Spectral Hand

2 Skeletal Fortification

3 Rousing Command (+ Augment Guidon IF you do not take expert touch)

4 Rallied Soul

5 Belligerent Vault - for travel

Expert Touch is recommended

Leveling

I recommend go to bronze for the 1st 5 levels. Do some quests inside Sloeford to get gold to buy red potions. Get some armor. Go to the kobold chieftain questgiver at the center of Sloeford and then find the kobold chieftain. Next go to silver difficulty. This time go west from the kobold chieftains area to the Tyr Lysia (spelling?) portal and there is a trail that runs from the beach to the temple of Noriath. Go up and down this trail until you hit level 15. Next do as many quests as you can find until you find armor with sockets to put chance to hit jewels (see gear section) and whet runes into the sockets. Now you are ready for the Gar Colossus. Follow the main quest until the end. You should be permanently invisible before you fight the dragons under the seraphim island. Or I should say I recommend training until you hit that point. Of course then repeat campaign on gold. You can also do some boss hunting with this build because it is very safe.

Enemies with Area of Effect- Ok please PM me if you find another to add to the list. But what I know of so far is these enemies have strong Area of Effect and you should not use Nether Allegiance or Rallied Soul in these regions...

Spitting Spiders, Octaglamus, Garganthropod (good thing I am SC RIP x4 lol), Nameless Guardians

Essjays reports on console: Fen Fires, Garema "shaman/mages" also have Area of Effect's which hit a veiled SW when cast at a hireling. The "traps" that the Temple Guardians, Sandpeople and the Bluestone Pirate champs also affect them, when the hirelings step on the trap, it triggers the damage. It's not restricted to the hirelings, either. Couch co-op on console, the second player activates these "issues" as well. AFAIK, anything that "shares" experience shares the Area of Effect damage; so if you have escorts from a mission, they do not trigger these effects.

note: personally I think Essjays findings are only on console or at least I haven't noticed.

What Next?

Suggestions for what to do if you don't want to continue this character:

A) delete him as soon as you have a blackmith in plat (another character)

B) save him:

B1- mule B2- platinum item hunter B3- do the quests in platinum main quest and make a template for running characters through the campaign. There is a guide for this in the general section of dark matters guides. You need a partner in crime or 2 computers or 2 instances running. http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=14043 B4- great campaign runner (see link above). Avoids monsters and little risk to bosses.

C) save him and level him to 200! (under testing)

Originally published at DarkMattersfor review and discussion.

See Also

• Shadow Warrior Guides
• Sacred 2 Player Contributed Guides