Sacred 2:Furian's Ultimate Warrior
by furian67
Contents
Furian's Ultimate Warrior
Lt. John Finn was a United States Navy Chief Petty Officer who received the United States military's highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions and service in World War II. When I read his Medal of Honor citation, I started coming up with an idea for the Ultimate Shadow Warrior. The attributes, skills, and modifications for the combat arts I would use just started clicking in my head and I thought that this could really work. Little did I know how well. I first started playing this build on Single Player but I did it in Hard Core mode. I needed that element of danger. I ran the CM Patch and had a balance file modded for more experience gained and for loot drops. No other mods were made. I ran this build up past 150 so far and on niobium since around level 80. I can't recall any time that I had a heart jumping experience. I was constantly selling all my potions off because I just wasn't needing to use them. I am now running this same build on closed net hard core with the same result I had in modded Single Player.
This is a wonderful build to supply other characters with cash and equipment.
I will list the skills in order that I chose them. And will advise when they should be Mastered.
Skills
Level 2 Tactics Lore Get to level and keep it there until 75, we will then work on other skills to mastery before coming back to this and adding more points.
Level 3 Sword Weapons Get to level and maintain it. This is our attack and casting speed. We are looking to get 150% as soon as possible. And at mastery we will get a double hit chance.
Level 5 Armor Lore We will need to get this up to level. It will be our third mastery. The regeneration penalty from the heavy armor will be maintained by keeping this at level until 75.
Level 8 Death Warrior Focus This is our main Aspect. We will put 5 points into it for now to unlock Concentration.
Level 12 Concentration Only one point here.
Level 18 Malevolent Champion Focus This is our secondary Aspect. Used for Reflective Emanation, and Belligerent Vault mainly. And Frenzied Rampage for the Guardians and big mobs for a switch up in tactics.
Level 25 Combat Reflexes This will be our 4th Mastery.
Level 35 Spell Resistance In Ice & Blood this skill is a life saver! Especially once it is mastered the Life Leechers and Casters will have a hard time hurting us. Mastery #5, we want this Mastered before we start jumping on heads in Niobium.
Level 50 Combat Discipline Now we'll start to up the damage. Prior to this survivability is more important than damage per second.
Level 65 Damage Lore This skill is really under rated. Works great and when we hit mastery it is unbelievable.
Attributes
Attributes will be put into Vitality until level 50. Then we split it 50/50 Vitality and Strength. Or you can also go with Vitality and Willpower.
Combat Arts
Grim Resilience - Gives us a hit point bonus and willpower.
Rejuvenation - Increases the hit point regeneration rate. (2hp/s + 2hp/s per CA level) Since we are not taking constitution we will get our hit point regeneration here.
Discipline - Reduces the regeneration penalty caused by Grim Resilience. (25% + 0.5% per CA level decrease) Initially we will leave GR at one rune eaten. But after we master this aspect we will slowly start to eat runes and this will help keep our regeneration times down.
Reflex - Increases the chance to evade attacks. (20% + 0.2% per CA level increase) I'm a big fan of not getting hit. If you can't touch me I don't have a need for huge amounts of armor. Beside other builds have up near 30k in armor and they are considered squishy.
Demonic Blow - We'll smack some stars into the enemy's with this!
Vehemence - Allows Demonic Blow to inflict area damage on nearby opponents. (1/2 damage) I didn't take Wounding because I'm not trying to let anyone live long enough to take advantage of the wounding.
Frailty - Temporarily reduces the opponent's armor class. (50% + 0.1% per CA level decrease) Although it is said this only reduces the enemies physical damage I'm good with that. Starting in the Wastelands the enemies we are worried about have little physical armor anyway. By reducing what they do have and using a weapon that is mainly physical damage we can almost one shot demons in the area. For the Guardians it is the same. I use a LL% two handed sword with no additional element socketed to gain the most physical damage weapon I can.
Life Leech - Leeches Life. (3 + 1.5 per CA level) This helps give us that sweet life juice needed to keep the fight going. And works great with vehemence when there is a crowd tightly packed together. The more runes eaten into this CA the farther your spread for vehemence and life leach
Fend - Further increases defense value. (15 + 10 per CA level increase)
Adrenaline - The Shadow Warrior sustains less damage during the charge. (20% damping)
Routine - Decreases the regeneration time of Ruinous Onslaught. (50% decrease) I want this CA in a slot by itself. When I see it recharged I'm hitting it again.
Persistence - Prolongs the duration of Rousing Command. (+50% from base value)
Impulse - Increases attack speed. (10% + 0.1% per CA level increase) This benefits us in the lower levels prior to getting Sword Weapons up to 150% attack speed.
Surge - The regeneration time of all combat arts is decreased while Rousing Command is active. (5% + 0.5% per CA level decrease) Gotta love this.
Scything Sweep - I haven't used this on the build yet but will mod it for the following.
Force - Scything Sweep is executed with more power and inflicts more damage. (15% increase) If I knock them back more how can I hit them to kill'em. Lets keep it simple.
Numb - A purposeful blow with an added chance to stun opponents for a brief period. (15% chance) Always liked the option to stun someone else for a change.
Rage - Each hit will store additional energy. This energy will discharge with the first successful hit after the Scything Sweep. More damage? Please bring it on.
Tough - Adds a chance to reflect stun effects. (20% + 2% per CA level chance) If we get stunned we could get hurt.
Antimagic - Adds a chance to reflect incoming spells. (20% + 2% per CA level chance) In Ice & Blood this is a must. I'm not concerned if I'm rooted. I'll pull out an energy staff and use Frenzied rampage like a machine gun.
Riposte - Adds a chance to increase to reflected damage. (14% + 1.4% per CA level chance) Loving increasing damage here.
Frenzied Rampage Not our main attack but it is nice under certain situations
Double Attack - Chance to strike twice with one hit. (20% chance)
Double Strike - Increases the chance of double attack. (20% chance)
Vampire - Chance for the Shadow Warrior to leech from the target and add them to his own hit points. (2 + 1 per CA level) - This works exactly the same as Life Leeched +X and is modified by Tactics Lore, but not by +% Damage.
Control - Additionally increases the Shadow Warrior's attack value. (45% + 5% per CA level increase) I didn't choose Berserk because I don't really get hurt often enough for that mod. And our Grim Resilience will be healing us in battle so there's no point
Perseverance - Prolongs the duration of Killing Spree. (50% increase) This mod marries up with Rousing Command.
Sear - Adds fire damage to the discharge. (34.3% from base physical damage) Sway is not chosen because once our attack speed is up from our weapon lore it would be a waste. But I did find out in testing that this mod combined with Damage Lore really sets it off.
Belligerent Vault Can you say F.L.Z.? That's Frog Landing Zone. Love feeling Froggy, going to jump on some heads for sure.
Reach - Extends the range of Belligerent Vault. (33.3% increase) I just love frog landing zones. This is great in a combo with Demonic Blow. Allot of enemies that can cast a buff prior to being attacked are taken by surprise with this one. Also in combination with run speed you can travel across country faster than anything else. Great escape.
Unaware - Reduces the opponent's defense value. (130 + 1 per CA level decrease) Drop the defense value and armor from Demonic Blow, Priceless.
Commotion - Chance to briefly stun opponents in the designated area when the Shadow Warrior lands. (20% + 0.2% per CA level chance) If they are stunned their defenses are down and are vulnerable. At least mine are when I get stunned, lets turn the tables on them.
Ensign - Expands the area of effect. (50% increase) Enemies usually won't be friendly and stay within the Area of Effect of this so we expand it.
Healing - Heals party members within area of effect. (8hp/s + 2hp/s per CA level) Rumor has it that the experience gain is not working. Extra healing never hurts.
Fear - Reduces attack values of all opponents within area of effect. (130 + 1 per CA level decrease)
Gear
Ok, now we'll get into gear. For optimal performance what we are ultimately looking for will be 2 full sets of Armantin's Legacy. One set for battle and one set for the Grim Resilience Buff suit. And a full set of Denderan's Tactical Genius for the Reflective Emenation Buff suit. But until we can get all that we will use anything we can get our hands on. For the buff suits anything that has a socket will work. If you have a Toon that can get into a higher difficulty, do this to buy the buff runes, the runes will have a higher + CA level to them. Once you get to level 50 you can use the +6 niobium runes. Now by using a buff suit we will immensely increase our buffs but be able to keep our regeneration times to that of one rune eaten. See this thread on buff suits. When casting buffs I try to have + all skill rings and amulets worn. Try and have a weapon and a shield with + All skills also. This will further increase our buff levels and the bonuses.
On our Battle Gear, I believe that in Silver and Gold difficulty that what is socketed is not as critical as it is in Platnium and Niobium. If you can, to begin with, try and get some Regeneration per Hit (RpH) socketed. I try and socket a few niob whet and anneal smith arts also. If you have a piece of gear with multiple sockets available socket one with a smith art and keep the other open for a ring or amulet. This allows you to upgrade as you get better jewelery from drops or friends without loosing anything good. (Lets be green and recycle for younger toons).
Now in Ice and Blood there are a few places that I make sure I have specific gear for. First place is the swamp. Those spiders are so bad, "How bad are they?" they can melt the flesh from your bones bad .....unless you get some Damage over Time -xx% all channel socketed. At the very least you need Damage over time: Poison -XX% socketed. I found on silver around 30% is just enough, 50% for gold, and 75% or more if you can spare the socket for Platnium and Niobium. Now what I do is try and get one piece of equipment that is a duplicate of my Battle Gear, the Armantin's Belt is perfect for it, and socket this with the Damage over Time -xx% all channel. That way when I get into the area I just pop this one item on and maybe an amulet and I am now "Swamp Worthy".
Now for my Platinum and Niob Battle gear we start getting into the thick of socketing. We can start dropping the Whet and Anneal's from our armor and start replacing with the good stuff.
- For damage we socket damage +xx-xx rings. Preferably ones with a good and useful secondary aspect to it. At no time do we sacrifice our defence just for more damage. If we can squeeze more damage in great, but you can't kill if your being killed.
- RpH rings. For this build it looks like about 2 to 4 seconds is enough. Anything higher more than likely will be a waste.
- Spell Resistance XX%
- Block chance Combat Art XX%
- Chance to evade +X%
Spell resistance, Block Combat art, and Chance to evade I try and get a minimum of 30-60% of each into my build. Of course the higher level you are and the higher level of bargainer you have the easier this will be. A level 60 bargainer can find spell resistance rings at 31.0%. The point behind this is to make the enemy work hard for a hit, meaning he needs to get past all the aspects of your defence in order to get damage on you. I don't go for the "I have 30k in armor I'm good". At some point those dice are going to roll and get past the armor and you wont have a back up defence. Now it's time to reroll, your dead. eek.gif A great guide on defence and well worth the read is from Master Chattius found here in the Kung-Fu Spider Girl Guide.
- Chance that opponents cannot evade attacks +XX%
- Opponent's chance to evade -XX%. I try to keep enough of these two opponents evades so that my chance to hit is always above 100% against bosses. Meaning for normal mobs it might be as high as 180% or more. That's fine. Working with RpH if at some time my CA misses I can get a left click in and get my CA recharged to blast away again.
- Run Speed +XX% Just because I hate moving at only 100% when off the mount. This is also a good tactic to chase down opponents or get away if the danger is too great. And I like the combat moves when we are not riding so most all my builds have a high run speed socketed in. Nice thing is at high levels it's easier to get to 150%.
- Opponent level for death blow +XX% get this to at least 50%.
Weapons
Now for weapons this build is based around the two handed sword. For boss and Guardian fights we'll us a 2h sword with LL% on it. Unless you get lucky and have one drop at your feet you'll need a bargainer to buy this for you. Nice thing is it really doesn't matter what level it is as long as you get max LL% for your dollar. Good attributes on it would be nice but for the Guardians I'm just looking at LL% and physical damage.
On my Boss/Wastelands swords I do not socket any element conversion into it. I try and use 2h swords with max physical damage. Our Demonic blow has been modified to reduce physical armor, and the Beligerant Vault to reduce the defence value. So by using a combo of Vault and Demonic Blow with a physical damage sword we can really cut deep.
The sword I really like to use for normal grinding, mob bashing is this:
Seyr's Klinge With two gold sockets and a silver we can really modify this anyway we want. And the unlocking modifier is attack speed. When you see a two hander in action left clicking at 150% attack speed it's hard to not get excited.
But in my inventory I try and have swords with equal stats of fire, magic, and ice damage. By equal stats I mean equal RpH, Death Blow, etc that I have socketed into the weapon. And I keep one throwing star with LL% on it so when I'm farming Guardians I can take the Egg out also.
On SP I had the pleasure of picking one of these up, Thunderstrike That's throw in just to make ya drool.
Play Style
My main leading attack is a combo of Vault and Demonic Blow, if the enemy is not one shotted I will switch to just Demonic Blow. Now and then I will switch up and use Frenzied Rampage when the enemy surrounds me but is not tightly packed for my explosion on Demonic Blow to get them. Also for doing Bosses/Guardians I use this tactic because of the debuffing of Vault/Demonic Blow, then lay into them with Frenzied Rampage once I believe the debuffs have set in. Double strikes on frenzy will really cut away at the health of the Guardians faster then just Demonic Blow by itself.
We have 5 slots for combat arts. The way I do mine is first slot combo is Demonic Blow . I have it in a single combo button for the 10% regen bonus. My second slot is a combo of Belligerent Vault and Demonic Blow . Third Slot is combo button for Frenzied Rampage Fourth is Ruinous Onslaught this is not in a combo but solo. I cast this constantly whenever it is available. Fifth slot is a combo of Rousing Command and Killing Spree and depending on the need sometimes I'll put Augmenting Guidon in there also.
