Sacred Battle Mage Guide
Version 1.
By Matt P
Email elementalizard@aol.com
Please email me for permission to post this FAQ on other websites and
definitely email me if you have insight into effective use of the battle mage,
especially with regards to spells.
Sacred is copyright Ascaron entertainment. It's a decent price dungeon hack
similar to Diablo 2.
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Introduction:
Of all the characters in Sacred, the battle mage is the closest to a pure
magic user. He has no combat arts and his entire ability set consists of
spells. Nonetheless, the battle mage is a potent warrior, and is one of the
easiest starting characters for a person new to Sacred. Whether raining down
fire, meteorites, or ice on his enemies, the battle mage consistently comes
out ahead of his foes. That said, the battle mage has an astounding set of
spells and skill choices, and not all of them are created equal. This guide
will detail the spells, skill choices, ability point distribution and
equipment that are most ideal for a magical powerhouse.
Fundamentally, there are two ways to play a battle mage in Sacred- a magic-
focused battle mage or a magic-supplemented battle mage. One could also play
as a weapon-focused battle mage, but that is not recommended. A battle mage's
strength lies in the versatility of his spells. This guide will mainly cover
the basics for a magic-focused battle mage as that is the character with which
I am most familiar. When possible I will add notes detailing the magic-
supplemented battle mage.
The magic-supplemented battle mage must balance themselves more than the
magic-focused battle mage, making for a significantly more difficult character
to manage.
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Ability point distribution.
The battle mage has the same set of skills as all other characters.
However, the battle mage gains a decent number of mental regeneration points
per level up, consistent with his starting value of mental regeneration. Note
that all characters gain 10% of their starting point value in a skill per
level up. This amount is rounded to the nearest point, so a character will
double their starting values per 10 level ups (at level 10, the character will
have about double the starting points, at level 20, they will have triple, 30-
quadruple, and so on). A list of modifiers from abilities follows. The exact
values resulting from each ability point will be detailed later.
Ability name (starting value): Modifiers from skill, recommendation.
Strength (16): Increases your health by a few HP, your attack rating, your
defense rating, and your physical damage. May be useful if you are playing as
a magic-supplemented battle mage. Magic-focused battle mages should
concentrate their points elsewhere.
Endurance (15): Increases resistances and perhaps some damage. Really not
worth it for the battle mage. Put your points elsewhere.
Dexterity (20): Increases your attack rating, your defense rating, and some
damage. May be useful if you are playing as a magic-supplemented battle mage.
Magic-focused battle mages should concentrate their points elsewhere.
Physical Regeneration (14): Increases your health by a few HP, increases the
rate at which you regain health, decreases combo recovery time, increases some
resistances. Again, not too worthwhile for a battle mage. The biggest bonus,
the decrease to combat art recovery time, is not useful to a battle mage since
they don't have any combat arts. Note that adding a few points by items will
make your spell Reiki better, but save your ability points for other
abilities.
Mental Regeneration (30): Increases spell damage and decreases spell
recovery time. The main ability for battle mages. Magic-focused battle mages
should dump all of their points here, magic-supplemented battle mages should
place about half here, if not more. This ability allows you to keep your main
killing power, your spells, in check and powerful. Also, every point you have
in this skill is significantly multiplied in strength due to magic lore and
meditation skills.
Charisma (10): Decreases item prices and increases poison damage. Gold is
plentiful, you'll probably end up with several million before completing
bronze, especially if you pick up a lot of items. The battle mage also
doesn't focus on poison, so that bonus is pretty useless. Put your points
elsewhere.
Recommendation summary: Nearly all ability points should go into mental
regeneration, unless you have a very specific character build in mind.
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Skills.
The battle mage has two skills initially available to him. These two are
the staples of the battle mage and should be the focus of your standard magic
user. Note that all skills max out at 255, so max out your skills at about
200 or so, as items can boost you to 255 without too much hassle. Many skills
increase other abilities by a fixed percentage. If a skill is described as
having "sizeable" return rate, then adding points to the skill is almost
always beneficial. Skills with a "slow" return rate still increase after
reaching a specific point, but do so at a very slow rate. Examples will
follow.
Meditation: Increases the magic spell regeneration rate of your battle mage.
The return rate for this skill is sizeable, and will make your spells go from
recharge rates on the orders of 5-10 seconds to about 1/3 of this. Try to add
about 1 point per level up to this skill.
Magic Lore: This skill increases the damage output of your spells. The
return rate for this skill is also sizeable, with a percentage bonus
approximately equal to the meditation bonus. If your fireball normally does
2000 damage, then having ~100 points will increase the damage output to about
7000, if not more. That's pretty dang good. Also try to add about a point
per level to this skill.
At level 3, eight more skills become available:
Fire Magic: Increases the regeneration and casting rate of fire spells.
This means that you can launch more spells as the between-spell duration
(cool-down period) is decreased. A slow return skill that maxes out at about
50 points (~100% increase). Choose one or two of these element specific
skills and keep it at that. Fireball fiends will want this skill.
Air Magic: Increases the regeneration and casting rate of fire spells. This
means that you can launch more spells as the between-spell duration (cool-down
period) is decreased. A slow return skill that maxes out at about 50 points
(~100% increase). Choose one or two of these element specific skills and keep
it at that. Lightning fiends will enjoy this skill.
Water Magic: Increases the regeneration and casting rate of fire spells.
This means that you can launch more spells as the between-spell duration
(cool-down period) is decreased. A slow return skill that maxes out at about
50 points (~100% increase). Choose one or two of these element specific
skills and keep it at that. Ice mages will want this skill.
Earth Magic: Increases the regeneration and casting rate of fire spells.
This means that you can launch more spells as the between-spell duration
(cool-down period) is decreased. A slow return skill that maxes out at about
50 points (~100% increase). Choose one or two of these element specific
skills and keep it at that. Meteor bombers will appreciate the faster cast
rate.
Weapon Lore: Increases the damage done from weapons. The return rate for
this skill is sizeable, on par with magic lore. Still, unless you really want
to use your weapon a lot, don't put too many points in this skill. That said,
it's a better skill than the next two weapon-specific skills. Plus, some
enemies will be invulnerable to magic, especially later in the game. You will
want to do physical damage to them.
Sword Lore: Increases the attack rating and attack speed of swords. Skip
it, what do you do if you find that nice staff with a big bonus to your magic
skills? Finally, there are some interesting unique items that don't count as
swords but really add to your skills.
Long-Handled Weapons: Increases the attack rating and attack speed of
staves and spears. Skip it, what do you do if you find that nice sword with a
huge bonus to mediation and item finding chance?
Riding: Allows you to ride stronger horses. If you don't take this skill,
then horses won't be useful to you after bronze. Light nags die way too
easily. However, you can survive perfectly well without a horse, and putting
the points you would have spent on this skill into something more useful. If
you boost your speed by a few points, you'll move as fast as a horse anyway.
I say skip it.
Level 6:
Agility: Provides an increase to your attack and defense rating. Provides
an especially sizeable bonus to your defense rating. Not too bad, although
parrying is similar. Magic focused battle mages may find parrying somewhat
better. Of course, both can help.
Level 12:
Trading: Increases stock and decreases item prices of merchants. Without
this skill merchants will pretty much never carry rare items. Battle mages
also get a potent item set that increases this skill by 10 (and more), and
this set is pretty common. However, this skill must be at about your level in
order for the merchants to consistently provide a nice inventory. Taking this
skill will help you never have to worry about money.
Level 20:
Constitution: An excellent skill that enables you to survive for longer by
increasing your HP and your HP regeneration rate. Definitely worth it. Don't
focus on it, but do take it.
Level 30:
Disarming: Provides a chance of disarming an enemy while attacking them.
Disarmed enemies drop their weapons and are much weaker. However, the weapons
they drop are usually low level white items. Also, the battle mage has a
spell that has a chance of disarming opponents anyway, whirlwind. Skip it.
Level 50:
Parrying: Increases defense rating, especially with a shield. Choose at
least one of agility or parrying. Your choice.
Summary: The battle mage gets to choose six skills out of a total of 13. Some
are clearly better than the rest (constitution). Others leave something to be
desired (riding, disarming). Choose carefully.
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Spells:
General advice: You will want to focus mainly on two-three classes of
spells. Generally, if you're playing a magic-focused battle mage, select one
main single damage spell, one group damage spell, and a few fun spells.
Magic-supplemented battle mages will tend to prefer defensive spells. Most
all battle mages will want an active ghost meadow for the majority of
fighting.
Fire
Fireball: Fires a ball of flame at enemies. Most of the time only strikes
one enemy, but if you aim the fireball just right, you can hit multiple
enemies, especially if they are stacked on top of each other. Easily tamed to
produce high damage with a fast regeneration time. You start with a point in
this spell. Increasing the level increases the damage done by about 100
damage per level, plus or minus bonuses from mental regeneration and magic
lore. This spell also has excellent range, so even if you miss hitting an
enemy, you will often hit an enemy 2-3 screens away.
Flameskin: surrounds you with fire, damaging enemies who get close enough to
melee you. Also burns enemies' arrows. Doesn't do much damage, and it's
probably better just to smack your enemies down with spells than cast this
one. Mostly useful for magic-supplemented battle mages.
Purgatory: Summons up a damaging, slow-moving wall of fire that follows your
enemies. Way too slow for most battles to be useful. Can be nice when
fighting dragons or undead, but that's too much specialization for my tastes.
Fire Spiral: Casts an expanding ring of fire that expands and sets anything
that gets near to you on fire. Damages enemies frequently (every few tenths
of a second) and painfully. Somewhat graphics intensive, the spell lasts for
a decent amount of time, probably long enough to kill whatever is attacking
you. Essentially cast this spell, then smash the enemies that get close with
a single attack spell. Longer regeneration time. You can't cast this spell
very well in cramped quarters (like caves).
Earth
Stoneskin: Increases your defense and resistances significantly. Not the
best, but not bad either. Very useful for magic-supplemented battle mages.
Petrification: Freezes your enemy in place. Not to useful as other spells
will kill your enemies instead of just annoying them. Skip it.
Circle of Fear: Keeps enemies away from you by making a ring of runes that
enemies don't want to cross. This spell does NOT benefit much from more spell
points. One rune is more than enough.
Meteor Storm: Very potent spell that drops rocks on your enemies. Kind of
hard to aim, but if you figure it out, it will take a lot enemies down with
ease. High levels bring more meteors.
Air
Whirlwind: Whirlwinds surround you as you fight, perhaps disarming melee
enemies. This spell essentially makes the disarming skill obsolete.
Nonetheless, not that useful
Gust of Wind: One of the very few poison spells available to the battle
mage. Not too bad, though not very strong. There are better options
available for damage spells. However this spell is useful as a second spell
for immune enemies.
Phase Shift: a simple, slightly useful teleportation spell. This spell
mainly gets you past minor barriers like gates or small water bodies. It can
get you to places that are otherwise hard to get to, so try to get at least
one rank in this spell. However, it takes a long time to cast, and doesn't
work 60% of the time due to decisions the programmers made about where you can
and can't go, so it's not useful most of the time.
Chain Lightning: As a single enemy spell, this one stinks. However, get 3-4
enemies in close proximity to each other, and watch them fall like flies.
Using this on solo enemies is a waste of time, as the lightning needs
something to bounce off of, like another enemy. Otherwise, it's a onetime hit
rather than an eight-time hit. Fairly easy to tame, and pretty painful.
Water
Ice Shards: This is one of the most beloved mage spells out there. It
launches a bunch of ice shards each of which do decent damage to an enemy.
It's a very useful main attack, but it does the most damage from point blank.
It's fairly easy to tame. Many find this to be the most powerful spell in the
game, especially when coupled to a high critical hit chance rate.
Frost Ring: Freezes and slows enemies in a ring around you. Useful when you
panic.
Water Form: Makes you invisible, allowing you to flee. If you attack an
enemy, the enemies will try to attack you, but can only do so once before they
forget where you are again. Not bad for stealthy types, though not that
useful.
Cataract of Agility: I've not tried it, but it provides a nice bonus to
dexterity/agility. May be very nice for magic-supplemented battle mages.
Spirit
Spiritual Healing: Heals a set amount of HP per casting. It's a pretty
simple spell, but is very annoying to cast during battle. Using more runes
significantly increases recharge time.
Shield Wall: Haven't tried it much, but sounds like it might be interesting
for magic-supplemented battle mages.
Ghost Meadow: Increases your mental regeneration significantly. A staple of
all battle mages, this spell will let you fireballs fly for much longer, and
your enemies will fear your ice shard flinging ways. Very useful.
Reiki: Increases your physical regeneration by a significant percent. This
spell doesn't heal as fast as spiritual healing, but requires less
micromanagement. Long recharge time.
Tough decisions with spells:
Ice Shards or Fireball?
Ice shards is an excellent damaging spell which can hit multiple enemies.
However, it is limited in range. Fireball is essentially a single enemy
spell, but has enormous length. You can't go wrong with either one.
Spiritual Healing or Reiki?
Spiritual healing heals a set amount of HP per cast, but you must switch to
the spell in order to cast it. Reiki improves your natural healing rate by
100+%, and is more of a "cast and forget" spell. However, your healing per
unit time is likely less with Reiki than with spiritual healing. I tend to
prefer Reiki when in an enemy-rich area, and supplementing it with a spiritual
healing when I get out of battle.
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Equipment for battle mages
Items are classified into five categories- Unique (dark gold), set (green),
rare (light gold), magic (blue), and common (white). This also tends to be
the order from best to worst, and are grouped in order of decreasing rarity.
After the first 10-20 levels for a character, you should have all magic items,
if not all rare items. At level 30-40, you want all rare and better items
(maybe except for rings and amulets). You'll probably find your first unique
item at this time as well. I've seen many cases where a rare item is better
than a set item, and a few where they are better than unique items.
What are you looking for in a good item? It depends on your level and
preferred fighting style. Magic-supplemented battle mages will want bonuses
to the attack skills and one or two spells. I am least familiar with this
variety of battle mage, so I will not discuss them further. Fundamentally, a
magic-focused battle mage will want to increase defense, spell damage, and
spell regeneration. A good item will have a socket or four, and usually a
bonus to spell regeneration. Other excellent modifiers include increases in
critical hit % (very rare), life leech (rare), chance to find special items
(very rare), all resistance bonuses (rare), all skill and all magic spell
bonuses (rare).
To summarize- it should have sockets and good bonuses.
The magic-focused battle mage will want two main bonuses on his equipment-
bonuses to magic damage, and bonuses to spell regeneration times.
The bonuses to magic damage include the following modifiers:
Fire + %
Magic + %
Physical +%
Poison + %
Magic Lore
Magic spell level
Mental regeneration
The best early items that supplement magic damage will provide points in
magic lore. These provide the best return for your investment since magic
lore provides significant bonuses at low levels. After you have some 50+
points in magic lore, the return starts to drop off. At this point, you will
need to increase your damage by finding items with bonuses to a specific
element of damage. If you are playing a fire mage, then go for fire, if you
are playing an ice mage/lightning mage, go for magic. Look at your favorite
damaging spell and add +% to the main damage that the spell causes for the
maximum effect.
Mental regeneration provides a fairly small bonus, but also provides a small
bonus to the regeneration time. Once you get about 100 points in magic lore,
items that provide bonuses to mental regeneration may be slightly superior to
items that provide an equivalent bonus to magic lore.
One of the easiest ways to raise spell damage is to increase the level of
the spell. However, this has the added penalty of increasing the regeneration
time of the spell. Fortunately, the work-around is to use items that provide
bonuses to the spell you like (or to socket its spell rune) as the time
penalty decreases by half.
Bonuses to spell regeneration include the following:
Mental regeneration
Spell Regeneration
Meditation
Elemental magic skill (Fire, water, earth, air)
Early on, your best bet is to raise meditation and elemental magic skill.
Both provide substantial early bonuses compared to spell regeneration.
However, later when the return per point (~50 for elemental magic, ~100 for
meditation) becomes lower, bonuses to spell regeneration are better. The math
is explained below:
Spell regeneration: The time it takes for a spell to regenerate is equal
time = (base time) * (bonus)
The base time is roughly equal to:
base time = (initial spell time + next spell time * (runes eaten + 0.5 runes
equipped))
where the initial time and next spell time are constants dependent on the
spell. Some spells have very slow growth rates (like fireball, phase shift,
and ice shards), others have very large growth rates (like water form), which
means that large growth rate spells will take substantially longer to
regenerate than slow growth rate spells. Runes eaten are runes you right
click on to add permanently instead of socketing or having a bonus from an
item.
Naturally your bonus is going to be less than one, and the smaller it is, the
better.
Your bonus is equal to:
bonus = (1/(1+mental regen/100)) * (1/(1+meditation bonus/100+spell
regeneration/100)) * (1/(1+spell skill bonus/100))
This info was taken from the Sacred message boards.
Unique items-
Unique items are pretty rare, and trying to find a specific one probably
won't work. Take them as you find them. However, there are a few unique
items that can be found every time you play through sacred- these items I have
termed "common unique items." Some, like axes and clubs, aren't all that
useful. Others are useful, and a description of two follows:
Enlightened Iron is found between the towns of Silver Creek and Porto
Vallum. You'll find a grave about halfway between the two locations, and when
you try to open the grave, a lich will pop out. Kill it and it will drop the
enlightened iron, a sword. Enlightened iron has a chance to find special
items (set + uniques) and when you just start playing, this is usually the
only way of getting an item with this ability. It also has a bonus to spell
regeneration and two slots.
Designer Shades are found to the SE of Khorad Nur, east of the river. It's
a fairly hard place to spot, but there's a path to the south which leads to a
boat. Take it and talk to the vacationing orc for a quest. Do the quest (run
across the towels- you'll fight a number of high level orcs, two of which
dropped set items for me) and he'll give you some shades. The shades are good
because of their charisma bonus, but have a light radius penalty, so I'd just
recommend wearing them when you are trading with a merchant. These shades are
unique for each character.
Useful set items:
Item name (slots available- CuSn is bronze, Ag- silver, Au- gold): description
Set bonuses:
Dagowit's set: This is probably the first set you will find in the game.
It's not bad as far as the individual pieces are concerned, but the total set
bonus is lousy. Individually the pieces are common and potent since most have
a lot of silver slots. Nice if you don't care about completing the set.
Bonds (3 Ag): Body armor with bonuses to Endurance, Charisma, and
Meditation, and attack/defense. Good early armor with nice slots.
Bracers (2 Ag): Bracers with bonuses to Attack, spell regeneration, charisma
and attack/defense. Not bad early on.
Ghost (2 Ag): A helmet with bonuses to Mental Regeneration, spell
regeneration, magic lore, and magic spells. Really good early on.
Grip (2 Ag): A belt with spell regeneration, speed, meditation and magic
spell bonuses. Good early on.
Haste (2 Ag): Greaves with Speed, Mental Regeneration, Magic Lore and
attack/defense bonuses. Not bad.
Wraith (3 Ag): A two-handed staff with bonuses to attack speed, spell
regeneration, and long-handled weapons. Also has a bonus to attack/defense
and critical hit. Good if you like staves. I don't.
Set Bonus: Magic Lore +3, Meditation +3, Physical Resistance +15%, Damage
reduces gold instead of health + 30
Mammon's treasures set: Get at least two pieces of this set and have them
easily available (like the sword, ring, shield, and amulet). Two pieces give
+10 to trading, an excellent bonus which is very useful. The full set has
some good bonuses, but several of the items aren't really up to par, like the
sword and shield.
Final Cut (2 CuSn): A sword with bonuses to magic damage, spell
regeneration, stoneskin, and a chance to open wounds. There are better
weapons, although having this with the shield is a good way to complete the 2
item set bonus.
Magnificent Armor (3 CuSn): Armor with bonuses to mental regeneration,
circle of fear, trading, and all skills. Very nice armor, especially for the
trading and skill bonuses. If you find it, keep it for when you go shopping
(or wear it as your main armor!)
Opulent Turban (2 CuSn): A helmet with mental regeneration, petrification
and magic lore bonuses, with a final bonus to all resistances.
Safeguard: An amulet with stoneskin, weapon lore, and wounds increasing
damage done bonuses. Good to have as a socketed item, if only for the two
item set bonus.
Usury: A ring with some very nice bonuses to mental regeneration, weapon
lore, and critical hit chance. Excellent, and I always have one equipped.
Waxing Moon (2 CuSn): A shield with bonuses to magic weapons, spell
regeneration, and critical hit chance. Not bad, but there are others that are
much better.
Set Bonus: Trading +10, Petrification +4, 25% damage magic, Chance to gain
gold +10%, Chance to find special items +30%
Byleth's set: The set for fire mages. This set does extra fire damage, and
also has a chance for "burning bone" which does 10-20% of the fire damage you
did per second. This is a small set which allows for greater variety and
strength than some of the other sets. However, if you don't use fire spells,
you probably can skip it (other than the amulet).
Blaze (1 Ag, 1 CuSn): A helmet with bonuses to meditation, physical spell
damage, purgatory, and resistances. Not bad, though the bonus to purgatory
isn't that useful.
Pentacle: An amulet with bonuses to mental regeneration, physical
resistance, and chance to land critical hit. A nice mid-high level amulet
you'll probably find a few times.
Sparkle: A ring with bonuses to fire spell damage, magic lore, and wounds
from damage. Excellent ring for fire mages, and the bonus to magic lore is
nice for most all characters.
Vehemence (2 Ag, 1 CuSn): Armor with bonuses to spell regeneration, fire
magic, and magic spell bonuses. Again great for fireball mages.
Wall (2 Ag, 1 CuSn): A shield with bonuses to fire spell damage, flameskin,
earth magic, and chance to land critical damage. Again, good for fire damage.
Set bonus: Earth Magic +6, Fire Magic +6, 30% damage fire, Burning Bone,
Chance to open wounds +10%
Blackstaff's set: The set for ice mages. Unfortunately it's a very large
set, meaning you won't be able to wear much else besides these items.
However, it gives some very nice bonuses, not the least of which is a constant
ghost meadow spell. The amulet is an excellent item which you can socket.
Find a good item generation location (like the orc cave) and kill things till
you get a few of these. They're great prime socketing items.
Body (1 Au, 2 Ag): Armor with bonuses to ring of ice, mental regeneration,
water magic, and damage for drained health. Not too great, especially because
of the drained health statistic. However, so long as you don't use your
weapon, you'll be fine.
Eyes (1 Au, 1 Ag): A helmet with gust of wind, air magic, mental
regeneration, and magic spell bonuses. Good if you use air magic.
Grasp (1 Au, 1 Ag): Bracers with bonuses to attack, magic damage, lightning
strike, and chance to find items. Pretty good bracers for most any battle
mage.
Heel (1 Au): Boots with bonuses to speed, magic damage, defense and attack.
Pretty good, though you can find better rare items.
Limbs (1 Au): Greaves with bonuses to magic damage, speed, defense, and
damage to gold instead of health. Like the boots, good but there are better
rare items.
Loins (1 Au, 1 Ag): Belt with physical regeneration, magic damage, ice
shards, and life drain bonuses. Belts rarely have slots. This is nice,
especially for the magic damage.
Soul: An amulet with spell regeneration, magic lore, meditation bonuses and
a percent to all resistance bonus. Very nice, even as a socketed amulet.
Set Bonus: Water Magic +6, Air Magic +6, 40% damage magic, +3 to magic
spells, Permanent ghost meadow.
Paternus' argument set: The set for magic-supplemented mages, as this one
provides very few bonuses to spells. Some of the items can be pretty nice
especially with the strength of their sockets. That said, magic-focused
battle mages won't be too interested.
Armor (1 Au, 2 Ag): Armor with bonuses to strength, attack, weapon lore, and
critical hit chance. Good for beating things to a bloody pulp (especially in
the UK version...)
Belt (1 Au, 1 Ag): A belt with bonuses to strength, speed, constitution,
and experience. Pretty good for a belt, though you can probably find more
appropriate rare items.
Boots (1 Au, 1 Ag): Boots with speed, defense, physical regeneration, and
experience bonuses. Like before, good for hitting things and running.
Hood (1 Au, 2 Ag): A helmet with bonuses to physical regeneration,
strength, weapon lore, sword lore, and attack/defense. Good if you like to
hit things.
Shield (2 Ag): Shield with bonuses to physical regeneration, sword lore, and
attack/defense. Good if you like to hit things, again.
Sword (1 Au, 2 Ag): A pretty cool sword with bonuses to attack speed,
weapon lore, agility, and critical hit chance. Actually makes the battle mage
do some decent damage.
Set Bonus: Sword lore +4, Weapon Lore +4, +30% attack speed, +6% life leech.
Other set items may exist (like sets available for use by all characters), but
I haven't found them yet.
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Useful miscellaneous hints:
Rune eating: Go ahead, you know you want to. Burn off that fire ball rune.
It won't hurt. Much. Rune eating occurs when you find or make a nice rune,
and then decide that you want to permanently learn the spell and reap its
benefits. The other option is rune socketing/augmenting, which is when you
put the rune in a socket or augment a spell with an item.
Benefits of rune eating:
Increased inventory space- extra runes do not fill up precious space.
Increased socket availability- sockets are best used to hold rings and
amulets. Rings and amulets can both be found with greater bonuses than a rune
can provide in a socket, especially later in the game.
Penalties of rune eating:
Decreased chance of finding runes- the game calculates your chance to find
another rune based largely on the number of runes you've eaten. If you eat
too many runes you won't get many through kills.
Spell regeneration penalty- the amount of time it takes for a spell to
regenerate is twice the time for a rune you've eaten vs. a rune you've
socketed.
The benefits and penalties of rune augmenting are largely the opposite of the
above.
Should you never eat a rune then? No. Eat a few runes, but don't eat too
many. Keep a balance between extra inventory space and short spell
regeneration times. Use the combo master by giving him 4 runes instead of 3,
and be selective about which runes you want to hoard. I tend to hoard my
favorite spells (fireball, ghost meadow, reiki, lightning for my fire/air
mage), and I turn most of the rest to these spells. This keeps down on the
buildup of too many runes. If you eat every rune you find, you'll be
underpowered and will probably not make it too far into silver/gold. If you
eat every rune you make for your main damage attack, you'll probably end up
with an extremely powerful but very slow spell. What good is a fireball that
does 50,000 damage but can only be fired once every 30 seconds?
Socketing hints:
Gold sockets provide a nice bonus to the items you socket, as do silver to a
lesser degree. Socket your best item in the highest metal socket available,
and put lesser items in other sockets. Try to only put one unique/set socket
item in each item. Putting more in will just mean that you'll lose them when
you want to change the item with sockets or the socketed item itself.
A nice hint- You can override character requirements for socketed items that
are specific to other characters (like vampiress amulets or similar) by
socketing them into items that are specific to your character. This was very
beneficial to me when I found an amulet of luck (huge bonus to find special
item % which could only be used by the vampiress) with my battle mage. I
placed it into a battle mage only item and the vampiress requirement
disappeared. Very useful.
Dragons:
There are 10 dragons, 9 of which will attack you. A useful and cheap way to
get potent items is to save before you fight/kill a dragon, and reload if you
don't like what it dropped. A dragon will almost always drop at least one
rare item, and frequently a set item. Dragons drop unique items more
frequently than any other type of opponent.
The nine dragons are found all around the world. You will fight about 4
during normal gameplay, but the others you will have to hunt down.
Locations:
Mascarell (3 dragons): From Mascarell go south then west to Porto Draco.
Head to the NW and take the narrow path to the end where you'll find a dragon
and his hoard. Kill him and take his stuff. After rescuing the baroness,
head north to the prince's camp, and continue north to the elven camp. If you
attempt the elves' quest, you'll find a pair(!) of dragons to the north.
Khorad-Nur (1): The orc guarding the entry to Khorad-Nur wants you to kill
D'cay, a dead dragon to the south. She is the easiest dragon to kill, I find.
Crow's Rock Castle (1): After talking to the Baron DeMordrey, head a bit
north of his room to a cave. Enter the cave, and make your way NE to a
teleporter. Enter the portal and you'll be taken to a small island with a
dragon. The close quarters make this fight harder than some other dragon
fights.
Seraphim monastery (1): after claiming the element located here, head to the
NW and you'll have to fight another dragon. When this one dies, it drops a
rune for a nearby portal allowing easier transport.
Alkazaba Noc Draco (1): You fight this dragon prior to claiming the fire
element. It also drops a rune for a nearby portal.
Zhurag Nar (1): This one is easy to miss. Thoroughly search the area where
you open the dams. One dragon is lurking here.
Drakenden (1 and 1 non-hostile): North of Drakenden is a swamp dragon. Kill
it for a rune that will take you to Mystdale castle. The other dragon is
Loromir, and he will give you several quests.
