Sacred 2:Glacial Thorns

The origins of this spell are unknown, yet it has existed in spell books for as long as anyone can remember. The High Elf Adept commands thorn-like splinters of ice and hurls them towards her enemy. A mere wave of her hand will either bundle the splinters into one burst or turn the burst of icicles into a nova blasting out in a circle with her at the center. This is a Spell Damage Based Combat Art. Aspect - Mystic Stormite Innate Abilities (Lvl 1) Number of Thorns: 50 Total Damage: 18-18 (9-9 Physical, 9-9 Ice) 50% Physical and 50% Ice Damage. Percent of Ice damage increases per Combat Art level Maximum Spread of Thorns: 182 degrees. Increases per Combat Art level. Regeneration Time: 5.0 seconds Right clicking far from High Elf results in a concentration of Thorns Modifications See also: Sacred 2:Combat Art Modifications Bronze Fusillade - Increases the number of frozen thorns. (16.2% increase in base number, 8.6% increase in bonus number gained from CA levels) Frost - Increases damage inflicted by each frozen thorn. (70% increase in Ice damage) Silver Devastation - Increases the chance for critical hits. (9.8% + 0.2% per CA level increased chance) Pierce - Chance that thorns will continue to spear forward after hitting a target. (33.4% + 0.2% per CA level chance) Gold Fusillade - Increases the number of frozen thorns. (16.2% increase in base number, 8.6% increase in bonus number gained from CA levels) Pierce - Chance that thorns will continue to spear forward after hitting a target. (33.4% + 0.2% per CA level chance to pierce)

Glacial Thorns without Modifications

Skills and Attributes

The following skills will affect this combat art:

• Mystic Stormite Lore - improves combat art damage, critical chance and casting speed, allows for modification points.

• Mystic Stormite Focus - reduces regeneration time and allows for higher level combat art without penalty, allows for modification points.

• Concentration - directly improves regeneration time

• Ancient Magic - directly improves combat art damage and lowers opponents' resistance to its damage

• Combat Discipline - will increase the damage of this combat art and lower its regeneration time if it is placed in a combo.

• Damage Lore - will improve the chance, duration, and strength of the secondary damage effects triggered by Glacial Thorns: Open Wounds and Freeze.

The following attributes will affect this combat art:

• Intelligence will increase its damage and spell intensity

• Stamina will lower regeneration time

Usage Strategies

• The spread pattern of the thorns is controlled with mouse targetting.

• Clicking close to your character will cause a wide fan of Glacial Thorns, and with higher CA levels the area of the fan can cover almost 360 degrees.

• Clicking far from your character (i.e. in a corner of the screen) will cause the Glacial Thorns to concentrate together. This is useful when confronting a large and powerful monster, as it will be hit by most of the thorns at once. It may require some adjustment of the camera to be able to click/target a spot beyond a large monster to get this effect.

• On console versions only: the spread of Glacial Thorns seems to be determined by your distance from the enemy that is targeted. If you are far from the enemy, the spread will be narrower and if you are close to the enemy, the spread will be wider. To ensure the most thorns hit large targets (bosses) on console versions, the easiest way seems to be to get as close to them as possible and in this case, nearly all the thorns will hit even if the spread is wide because the bosses are large targets.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Not stopped by water (unlike Blazing Tempest) - nice in The Swamp and other wet areas.
• Very good as a boss killer.
• Versatile. Can be used to either cover a large area with damage or focus the damage into a very narrow angle based on casting distance.

Cons

• Thorns do not pierce enemies unless the player chooses the Pierce mods which only gives a chance to pierce (not 100%).
• Thorns can be stopped if the target is far up hill, unlike Blazing Tempest which seems to have no problems going up hills.
• Difficult to target properly and use to its full potential. Especially against enemies that move a lot and try to keep their distance, like archers or spellcasters. Requires practice.

Notes

Mod 1b - Frost is highly recommended: large direct damage reduces the armor effectiveness: more armor value enemy has, the greater increase in damage Mod 1b - Frost gives, because increasing base CA damage we reduce a percent of damage that absorbed by opponent's Armor

The maximum number of shards, which can cause damage to one target for one castes, is calculated by the formula:

Total Numer of shards/6

Some creatures have a chance to block combat arts, they block a percent from the 'Total Numer of shards/6', not from their total number(!). In other words, for one minimal in-game time (1 frame) no more than 'Total Numer of shards/6' hits can inflict damage on the target, and from these hits a chance to block/reflect is calculated !

See Also

• High Elf
• High Elf Combat Arts
• Skills
• High Elf Guides

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