Main quest bosses are painful

[Elondrius]

Greetings!

The bosses on the main quest are mopping the floor with me. Interestingly I don't have any problem with groups of trash mobs or even side quest bosses. I can deal with 5-10 guys depending on their type easily, even more if I count weaklings like kobolds. Same with the side quest bosses, like the Ice/Flame Lord, the White Griffin, Kobold Chieftain Gahanka and so forth. I often wish to go above the currently highest possible silver difficulty, because it gets quite boring after a while. Only the main quest bosses give me a headache, but an unproportionately big one. They literally bash me into the ground in 1-2 hits, and the only "strategy" I have is to go out, outlevel them and come back, but I don't belive it should work like this. My current boss, the dragon below the Seraphim island took 90% of my health in one hit, the only thing I could do is to drink a potion, although the second hit killed me on the spot anyway. Didn't have a chance even to try and hit him once.
I have a Shadow Warrior, lvl. 45, main path is Astral Lord, but I have points in other aspects to be able to join the fray. I have the the best equipment I could find, everything is forged, artifacts are set for fire. Still dead in two hits.
Any thoughts on what am I missing?

[Roderick]

My wild guess would be a "wrong" distribution of skill points. You are able to lern 10 passive skills at all and most people try to level them equally, but that is plain wrong. You need to level skills like armor lore or constitution quite high to see any significant effect. Armor lore on level 50 is way more worth than five different defense skills at level 10.

Imagine it like that: As you level up, the enemies are leveling up, too. At the start of the game they do a good amount of damage against you as you do a good amount against them. Now, the enemies are getting higher stats in ALL aspects, while you are leving armor lore to level 10 and than go to another skill. So a level 50 enemy will have their damage at level 50, but you still have armor lore at level 10.
That is what hurts your char. You might not notice it against low level creeps, just a bit against champions, but endbosses do have a LOT more stat points, and that kills you.

Keep in mind that their is a survival bonus in the game (played time without dying). The higher it gets, the higher the levels of the enemies. It is fully possible to fight against bosses 20+ level higher than you with the right skillset leveled correctly.

[Elondrius]

That might be the case, I didn't level my Armor Lore as much as my offensive skills. The idea was that my minions do the tanking, while I bash in some skulls. Didn't work out flawlessly, it seems. My stats are the following:
Strength: 185; Stamina: 141; Vitality: 176; Dexterity: 124; Intelligence: 120; Willpower: 141
Armor Lore: 26; Tactics Lore: 41; Hafted Weapons: 45; Astral Lord Focus: 25; Astral Lord Lore: 3; Concentration: 15.
Current goal is to level up a bit and pump everything into Armor Lore (and Vitality).

[Roderick]

Originally posted by Elondrius:

That might be the case, I didn't level my Armor Lore as much as my offensive skills. The idea was that my minions do the tanking, while I bash in some skulls. Didn't work out flawlessly, it seems. My stats are the following:
Strength: 185; Stamina: 141; Vitality: 176; Dexterity: 124; Intelligence: 120; Willpower: 141
Armor Lore: 26; Tactics Lore: 41; Hafted Weapons: 45; Astral Lord Focus: 25; Astral Lord Lore: 3; Concentration: 15.
Current goal is to level up a bit and pump everything into Armor Lore (and Vitality).

Yep, looks like. Sacred 2 isn't a game where you can dodge with skills, neither player skills nor character skills. You will always get hit by something, at least aoe will hit you and might even crit. In the higher difficulties the damage ramps up. Take at least constitution and keep your defense at least as high as your offense when it comes to distributing skill points.

The skeletons are awesome at silver and somewhat usefull at gold, but (without enhanced edition mod) their resistances against elemental damage is basicly none existant. You may check them once in a while and compare to your stats (if you have taken the last mod to give em armor - otherwise they won't have any armor at all). I am afraid they neither block much at platin and niob difficulty nor will they do much.
I don't know many people who play that far, though. ^^

[Ch0Fak]

Everything Roderick said ... also different bosses have different attributes and require different weapon attributes ... Fire, ice, magic, poison as well as different combat arts. Bosses are almost always levels above you, I go for speed and damage that I can get from rings which helps. ... If something is not working, try something else....

[Ch0Fak]

Have gone thru Bronze, Silver and Gold ...last thing is Diaanjas's Retreat and... how to enter it ,then I can go Platinum. If you can find Artmarks Star (amulet) it will enhance Armor... Good Armor is your friend. Level 140 w/68,000 armor and Bosses are still dangerous. Read the book ... not sure I want to enter Diaanjas's Retreat....ha