Great Sacrifice

Great Sacrifice
Skill Info
Vocation	Magick Archer
DP Cost	7000
Rank Req.	9
Type	Magick Bow (Dark)

Great Sacrifice is a dark based skill available in Dragon's Dogma.

Description

"An advanced form of Sacrificial Bolt that boasts greater destructive power and slows time further while aiming."

A more powerful form of Sacrificial Bolt that returns a pawn to the rift in exchange for a magickal bolt of great destructive power. Both damage and blast radius are greatly increased.

Usage

For the spell to be cast the Arisen must have at least one pawn in their party to sacrifice. After a relatively long incantation a randomly selected pawn dies and returned to the Rift - their 'life force' is transferred to the bolt which can then be fired.

Whilst the spell is fully incanted and charged, the Arisen's vision becomes monochrome and time slows, though the spell itself requires little or no stamina to cast. During the time-slowing effect, stamina depletes rapidly.

Releasing the spell fires a dark enchanted magic bolt of great power. If a foe was targeted with the spell the bolt will track them. The offensive damage is twofold:

1. A directly-struck creature receives great dark magick damage, with a huge dark critical effect, as well as substantial knockback, with human sized creatures knocked back several meters. The power of the initial shot will also knock back the caster, too.
2. The second effect is a massive damage blast of wide radius, which damages both the target, and any other creatures within range, as well as destroying any fragile objects in the near area. This blast is magickal in nature, but not focused in any of the elements.

If stamina is exhausted while the spell is being held time will return to its normal rate of passage.  The spell can still be cast, however, with no loss of power.

The sacrificed pawn is chosen randomly and immediately returned to the Rift. No rescue is possible; a Legion's Might staff, if equipped, will not resurrect the fallen pawn.

Damage

		Sacrificial Bolt	Great Sacrifice
Dark Bolt	core power	9990
	magick scaling	1x	20x
Blast	core power	19990	24990
	magick scaling	1x	5x

Both Sacrificial Bolt and Great Sacrifice create a dark element magickal arrow attack through the death of a pawn.

Only the initial strike seems to be imbued with the Dark element, the subsequent blast is Neutral Magick.

With Sacrificial Bolt the core spell power contributes the majority of the destructive power, with only around 10% of damage contributed by the Arisen equipped with the strongest magick bows.

With Great Sacrifice the Arisen's magick power contributes incredibly strongly to the spell's power, in addition to the already very powerful base magick strength. With the strongest magick bow and high core Magick the Arisen's own magick ability can contribute around 4/5ths of the dark bolt's power, and 1/3rd of the shockwave's power.

The blast radius of Sacrificial Bolt is wide, around 3m, Great Sacrifice has a massive blast radius, at least twice as big as that of its minor spell.

• The invigoration Magick Boosted (e.g. Demon's Periapt) will increase damage; physical attack boosts such as Conqueror's Periapt have no effect.
• The spell's power is independent of range.
• Sneak attacks are very possible with this skill, which generally doubles damage done.
• The damage done seems to be, in general, completely independent of the level of the pawn, and relatively independent of the magick attack strength of the caster - much of the power is focused from the ability to cast the spell in itself combined with the sacrifice of any pawn.

Dark Ressitance

Creature's with high dark resistance (or possibly high dark Critical Hit resistance) can partially or totally resist the effect of this spell.

If the spell is resisted the neutral magick shockwave will no be produced. Additionally even if the power of the spell would have been able to destroy the target many times over, they will be left with one health. (for example Hobgoblins are capable or resisting the spell)

In other cases, such as some ghosts, and stronger undead like Wights the spell may be totally resisted, resulting in no or insignificant damage.

Creature damage

Both Sacrificial Bolt and Great Sacrifice have sufficient power to destroy in one shot all minor living creatures in Gransys. A few monsters show some resistance :

• An armored Cyclops will be quite resistant until its helmet is removed, after which it is completely vulnerable to the bolt.
• A bolt can remove all the heads of a Hydra, but the headless polysnake is resistant to further bolts. Once the heads have regrown a successive bolt will re-remove them.
• Golems show fair resistance to the bolts. Three bolts can very badly damage a Golem but may not be able to destroy it outright.
• Metal Golem discs can also be damaged or destroyed by the blast shockwave.
• Lesser Dragonkin will have much of their health removed, or are killed outright.
• Directly hit Ghosts will be left with 1 hit point of health left, even if the damage is enough to destroy them many times over. Furthermore, such a bolt absorbed will cause any nearby ghosts to become incorporeal, and so avoid damage. Oddly, if the bolt is directed to miss the ghosts, the secondary explosion will destroy all such creatures nearby.

Occasionally a powerful creature will resist much of the effect of the bolt, such creatures including those with strong dark resistance, such as a Wight, Hydra and Gorechimera. 

Pawn sacrifice

Time slows

Strike !

Boooom

Dark tendrils course through the foe, inflicting massive damage

Four hydra heads, headless hydra, and dead pawn

Notes

• If no pawns are present the spell will still be incanted, but attempts to fire a bolt fail.
• The initial release of the spell bolt causes some knock back to the caster (Arisen) - be cautious using this spell in elevated places as the knockback is sufficient to cause the user to be forced off a ledge for a nasty fall.
• Hired Pawns are sent back to their own Arisen with a 3/3/3 review, no gift and no message.

• Since this attack is imbued with the Dark element, be aware of this when facing with enemies that are resistant to Dark, such as the Ur-Dragon.
  • However, since only the direct bolt (and not the subsequent explosion) seems to be purely dark damage, it is important to gain a direct hit only when trying exploit elemental weaknesses.

• It is possible to cancel the attack before the spell fully charges, but once the spell is fully charged, a pawn will be sacrificed regardless of whether the arrow is fired or not. Additionally, being staggered or knocked down in this state will interrupt the spell, preventing it from being cast.
• Stamina depletion can be mitigated by eating or drinking stamina restoratives, similar to the method used with the Sorcerer spell Exequy.
  • Alternatively, stamina depletion can be halted by imbibing Liquid Vim.  Since time is slowed, the potion will appear to have an unusually long duration of effect.
  • If stamina depletes entirely the monochrome world view will end, and normal color vision is returned; however if stamina restoratives are taken afterwards (but before the bolt is released) time will once again slow as long as the caster has stamina though the monochrome visual effect will not return.

• Has no effect against Death. 

• Usually a 'battle cinematic' plays when the pawn is sacrificed, with the viewpoint swinging round to show the death throes of the pawn.  A purple bead of life force then must travel from the pawn to the magick bow before the spell can be released. If the pawn is not within close view, such as behind a door, or round a corner this cinematic will not play, and the bolt can be fire immediately on completion of the spell induction period.

• The augment Tenacity does not save pawns from death when sacrificed.

• A glitch allows the world view to be semi-permanently switched to monochrome using this spell.  For more details see : Screenshots

See also

• Great Gamble - Ranger skill of similar power