Love song for a Vampire

[Nihilith 0]

First, I promise I won't sing, as my talents are far from Annie Lennox' !

 

As I was bored yesterday with a Hell Sphere Daemon, I get my level 5 trader to Bravemart and started to look for a vampire build. For the lil story, Schot helped me out with shopping and titi came at night to give me some tips about TIV combo and the Wolf Trick. Big thanks to you.

As I'm not an old hardcore player and not that rich in items or runes, this toon must match the following ideas.

 

- Only trading items as I haven't got any set or uniques for a vamp ATM

- Must survive mobs, bosses and ranged. Well must survive to make short

- Must be able to hunt for runes

 

So I made a choice of skills and attributes.

 

level 12

 

Skills :

Vampirism : max

Consitution : Max

Weapon lore : 1

Agility : 1

Armor : 1

 

strange choice huh ?

I said : "SURVIVE"

 

Attributes :

Strength : max (more dmg and more hp)

 

CA :

TIV = 1 with a level 4 combo TIV trick

Attack = 1

HH = 1 (got it from beginning)

 

With the nice gear Schot and my trader got, I reach 19% of Life leech, about 300 RSM and a nice +2 all combat arts.

My weapon choice is a blue item so far, with +xx% str to physical dmg with 3 socket. My shield is a 3 socket also

Every spare socket is filled with defense smith runes. But I'm sure that this can be achieved without the help of a trader, just taking more time, and pots. If no trader available :

 

- Repeat quests in bellevue to get through the first 3 level and get the starting runes

- Try to collect some gold from crates etc.

- Turn your first four runes into an attack one. but keep the others LL runes to socket them. do not socket attack or TIV runes so far, watch the regen and the sun dmg !

- if lucky with runes and gold, turn some into LL runes except attack. But I would keep them for a later use. the TIV combo

- when rich enough, look for a 4 socket armor, 3 socket sword, 3 socket shield and 1 socket gear pieces. 1 LL rune in each piece of gear, the rest is for def smith art. If enough defense, trade some def smith arts for alldmg +xx% smith art. you should achieve 21% LL and a nice def boost

 

The first goal as to achieve 100 dmg/hit during day time and 10% ll. Believe me, at level 3, 100 dmg was history already. Why 100dmg ? From my experience, Life leech, when you don't have a good percentage (less than 12%), doesn't trigger if the dmg is below 100 ! in fact, it triggers but you don't get life !

The reason is simple.

 

take 3% out of 50 dmg = 1.5 = 1 hp and that way below what you lose in a fight

take 12% out of 100 dmg = 12 hp, with attack CA, a good def, you start to gain life while fighting. but you must concentrate on the life meter to see it bump lol.

take 19% out of 150 dmg = 28.5 hp... quite fine.

 

And this is day time. Wait for the night, TIV and here comes the big deal.

With a good mob I reached 250 damage/hit with 19% ll = 47.5 hp for a total life of 400HP approx., more than a tenth Of course I'm not always at full life, as I got beaten hard

 

That's for the 2 first points

 

For the third, runes I just have to say :

 

It's raining runes, allelujah, it's raining runes...

 

Here it is so far.

 

Next episode : Orc cave !

to be continued...

[gogoblender 3,068]

heh, you got a way with writing, Nihilith. Your storied approach to guides keeps the reader interested and sneaks info into our heads all at the same time. The vamp section here was starving for guides. Glad you bit and produced this little gem.

 

I've never done a vamp before, so I'm afraid my critique won't be as good as some others here. But I do appreciate the time you've put into writing this up for us.

 

Awaiting the next installation on this love song.

 

 

 

 

gogo

[Nihilith 0]

Chapter 2 : Orc Cave

 

"Well. No need to say that I'm like scared about getting to OC with my poor fighting experience.

Two of my old friends fell to the horde of ancarian monsters. I'm not in a trusty state of mind, but I must give it a try, this is the test my master gave me. I have to cross the desert, under the hottest sun I ever saw ! I hate sun.

After a good undead exorcism serie, I finally made my way to OC. a last check to my inventory, full of red and blue pots.

Ok, let's enter !

First encounter is a level 18 orc fighter. Thanks to the occlusion of the cave, it's always midnight in there. Just one ripping claw and the orc is down. May have been lucky ! Second encounter, same result. I'm full of energy at the moment, my fist are glowing bright red.

The real challenge is right in front of me, The champion with 2 archers, runaway archers. They keep shooting me, no way to make them switch to melee. They're driving me deeper and deeper in the cave. Some other baddies over there, a trap. If I go on, I will have a hard time, if I go back, I will be shot in the back ! Time to go banzai ! The orc champion is getting closer, the archers are going deeper, I hold my breath and it's time to get some guts ! Watch out, here comes old Taunt Lilith ! With the blink of an eye, I'm in the middle of the melee. Attack, Attack, keep attacking was I thinking. After some seconds, the mob is down. Just 2 pots for a dozen of monsters. Green item on the floor, Recundis sword. Critical on it, nice, as soon as I can socket some life leech in it. I wandered through the cave, slaying and slicing orcs into pieces. My experience gauge is going crazy, I hit level 18 in just a few minutes. I stop for a second, checking my number of pots and I notice I've picked up a Recundis shield in the middle of the battle. Nice shield for a beginner. I went back to a smith at level 20 to have my recundis set forged and I also upgraded my gear with silver smith arts, and back to the cave, in bronze ! With critical in addition with my growing experience, I made from 20 to 30 in about an hour or two, that was so funny and exciting, I didn't watch the clock. I finished my OC trip by a good overspawnage of the cave. 5 champions in a squared meter. 1 cubic meter of blood and bones. 10 seconds of fun, but crappy drops !. It's time to get some rest."

 

Ok so after this little narration, I'll get into technical details :

 

My skill choice at level 20 went to parrying, as I will use a shield all the time

Level 30 seemed to be a nice time to get trading. My goal is to max it when reaching Gold. This is the difficulty level where a good equipment is recommended, most of all in hardcore. And at level 60, you have enough gold to do intensive shopping. This build being a "Noob-friendly" char, Trading will help to improve the CA by finding good items as we don't want to eat runes.

From level 26 I started sparing some point to invest in trading. This build going well in silver, I stopped pumping Vampirism and Constitution for some levels. Moreover, bonus from items tend to balance the lack of investment.

 

So far at level 31 (base skills, without any bonus)

 

Skills

Vampirism = 26

Consitution = 26

Weapon lore = 5

Agility = 5

Armor = 5

Parry = 3

Trading = 18

 

I try to keep a good balance between Agility, Armor and Parry to enhance survivability. The order I pump them up is Agility (need to hit and not to be hit), Armor (better resists if mobbed, and a better movement speed between two mobs), and then Parry.

 

29 more levels to go to 60, and 42 points needed for trading.

From now on, I got 4 points per levels to invest in skills

 

2 points per level in trading gives trading maxed at level 44. so till level 44, I will spend my points according to a single rule

Trading + 2

Vampirism + 1

Agility / Armor / Parry +1 in this order.

 

From 45 to 60 and until I change my mind

Trading + 1

Vampirism + 2

Constitution / Agility / Armor / Parry + 1 in this order.

 

Weapon lore is left to item bonuses, for the moment.

 

CA :

I haven't read any more runes.

My TIV is still level 1 (activated via a TIV Combo)

My Attack is still level 1 (5 with bonuses, need to be improved)

And as a result of this, it's still raining runes. I'm looking for an Umbrella with +xx to "Summon a Slave Dwarf Mule" if any

 

My CA Projects :

If I encounter hard times in late silver, I will invest 1 rune in Wolf Call, and make a WC Combo. A nice puppy sandbag

I will also probably invest 1 rune in Combat jump, for mobility.

This will be a total of 3 read runes (1 Attack, 1 Wolf Call and 1 Combat Jump, TIV being earned at creation)

 

I haven't choosen the skill I will pick up at 50 yet. Probably a specific lore. To be worked around.

 

Next Chapter : The Gold Rush

to be continued...

[Nihilith 0]

Sorry for double posting :

 

Up for update !