Huh, never saw that one before. Now to be on the look out for it. I currently have two Vampires stacked on one guy, but it just seems like he really relies on the Nimbuses the other two clerics have to toss on him to be effective.
Oh neat, I didn't know that item. Still, though, it seems to me that Vampire's Blade is way better than Draining Dagger. I mean, I've lost games to Loner, but 90% of times I'd rather draw Loner than Mind Worm on a vampire. Am I off base? And Lifesuck Spear seems waaaay better than either, honestly, pretty sure the reach and steps more than make up for the 1 damage difference between Invigorating Touch and Enervating Touch. Maybe I undervalue Mind Worm?
I haven't tried out a vampire priest build in PvP yet and I only have enough rare items to really deck out one for the campaign ... but I'm pretty sure that one priest is literally the only reason I'm able to complete some of the low-level quests now. Frenzied draining attacks are the only decent healing cards available without tokens and a priest packing Invigorating Touchs can tank much stronger hits than a warrior with a paltry Hardy Mail or two. Something else to think about.
Not sure, haven't used it myself, Draining Dagger sits in my Radmiar's stock for this week and I was considering it due to being cheap token-wise, although I already got a Vampire's Blade and just today during my morning cereal I got my second Lifesuck Spear Mind Worm sounds super good from my perspective. That means one less armour/block/attack/move/heal or other goodies which is transferred to the next round (3 cards in total). I often use things like Winds Of War just to keep my opponent at a distance for a turn if I smell they got a lucky draw while I did not (or in 2x priest boosting a warrior scenario). Also, it could work as well to check for blocks or change orientation on a char I'm certain that has a parry / block. But yea, at the end of the day Draining Dagger would cost me 500 while nothing really advocates its use over Vampire's Blade and/or Lifesuck Spear. I would give it a try if I found it though.
You need to look at things in perspective. all 3 weapons are good and each one has its set of pros and cons. Vampire's Blade for no tokens you get 4 draining attacks. Also the 2 drawback cards though. Draining Dagger 3 draining attacks, 1 step card, 2 mind worms, 2 minor tokens. This is on the middle of the spectrum if you ask me. The Mind Worms add a little debuff touch to the build, which is handy. Lifesuck Spear higher tokens cost. You do get a couple meaty attacks and 2 step attacks, but that means less draining attacks. I would like to stress the importance of the step attacks on this build. That step 1 might very well be the difference between your vamp being roasted/stabbed to death from a distance and him getting on top of an enemy to suck all the life out of him. Ultimately, I would pick a combination of any of those 3 items for the added variety. Which ones tough, I'll leave that up to you, as that's more about fine-tuning the build to your liking.
While I agree with the idea I don't think that the 1x step(1) attack does much of a difference in terms of mobility (or 2, if you use two Draining Daggers). Sure, it can be a godsent at the right time, but in a game like this I always value consistency. By that I mean packing as many group mobility cards as you can to support the sluggish tank or a close-up vampire in this case. At least that's why my SP all-dwarf set up evolved into 1x dwarf and 2x human in MP (just for the sake of Sprint, Team!, Dash, Team!, Run, Team!, Walk, Team! on human martial skills). My warrior remained as a dwarf only thanks to Rhood's Boots. On top of this my wizard is specced for 6-7 Winds Of War per deck (not to mention that Force Bolt can be very handy to get you where you want to be at times). In this or similar set up I would probably got for Vampire's Blade for more draining attacks + traits (which lets you draw draining cards quicker, potentially) and leave the majority of mobility in the hands of other team mates. Lifesuck Spear is at the other end of the spectrum. They are indeed more expensive to carry but two of these give you 4 step attacks, which starts to be significant in a deck of 37 cards (10.8%!). They also carry some decent melee attacks, which allow you to remain a threat while you put your drain attacks on hold and wait for your talented healer / mass frenzy combo to come up. Draining Dagger indeed sits exactly in between of these two and doesn't excel at anything in particular. Thus, in my (heavily biased) opinion I wouldn't use it over the other two (especially that it would cost me 500 ).
Yes, that's exactly what I intended. You do your choices and chose your own flavor of a vampire. In your case, you're purposefully making a decision to answer the mobility problem with team moves, which is fine really. But other people might prefer to go for with teams with few or no humans. The important point is, you do have enough options to make vampire viable in a lot of different ways, which goes to show how great BM's items design is. Also, you might want to keep in mind double Lifesucker means 2 major + 2 minor tokens. Which is fine, if you're okay with this and/or you have some decent no-tokens gear for other slots. Just something else to think about. Oh, if you're lucky enough to happen to have one, I guess Bleneth's Skull would fit this build quite nicely, especially if you're not planning on bringing a second priest for buffs.
This has been an interesting discussion. I've been using vampire-like priests since I started playing, but I've got a new party I'm leveling and I wanted to run a question by you all. I have a Vampire's Blade which I just got recently and am thinking about using it now to enhance my priest. It's a lvl 9 Elf priest. I've got him using Glowing Hide Armor, Hand Of Melvelous, Glasod's Dark Skull, Trained Cleansing among other things. I know Talented Healer is a huge part of the build, but I don't have anything with more than one of those on it and I don't have the tokens yet on the priest. That'll be the next thing I swap in. Anyway, in Randimar's is another Vampire's Blade which I'm thinking of picking up. Would you add that item to this character? Do you think 4 Loner would kill a lvl 9 priest too often? On my higher level priest I've been going with 2 Lifesuck Spear, but I'll certainly switch one out for my current Vampire's Blade. Is it worth it to have two?
Did you found Loner to be troublesome up until this point? It's hard to say but my gut feeling is that having 4 of those in your deck on an lvl 9 elf priest while being surrounded by several enemies (as you do in the campaign) sounds a bit like a dangerous mix (although situational).
Yes, I think 4 Loner might be quite dangerous, especially considering that a) you usually get surrounded by enemies in SP b) an elf priest has very low hp, let alone a lvl 9 one. That might be a bit too much I guess, but it might be worth a try, see you how that turns out and let us know I did buy a Vampire's Blade from Randimar's this week as well, it's not that expensive after all. Oh, and you should really check npc-s shops for skill items with Talented Healer on them. Focused Healer might take some time, but with the other shops refreshing daily, chances are you'll be able to get yourself a better skill item in a matter of days.
I used to assume that the way to go for armor was just stuff like glowing hide, but when I decided to tackle the handicap quests, I became quite enamored with Jet Armor. I also learned to enjoy the effects of stacking Blind Rage. The handicap from the armor is an effect you usually bounce back from due to your very nature, multiple vampires in use allows you to buff one another with Wellsprings, and the Frenzy Aura grants the penetrating that allows you to circumvent the spiked armor problem mentioned earlier in this thread. Frequently, I found that stacking the gear and racial skills that covered me with frenzy effects and really buffed armor more than made up for the lack of the two Invigorating Touches that can easily be found on armor and skills. Frenzy yourself enough, and all your skills are that strong. Armor enough, and you're so tanky that only minimal heals will sustain you, and the rest is just gravy.
Yeah, I've been a little lazy when it comes to searching for Talented Healer. Sure, I'll give it a try and see what happens. If his armor is tanky enough maybe he'll survive. 100g is relatively easy to get and I have enough to cover it this week as I have no epics I want to buy.
As I said earlier in the thread, Loner definitely randomly loses you games sometimes. Having twice as many in your deck increases the chance of it happening significantly. I'm not sure how valuable the deck thinning is—haven't done the math—so not sure whether Vampire's Blade is worth it or not in the long run. It's fun to play with though! Not sure I can recommend equipping two... I think they get better the more Talented Healer you have, if that makes sense: the higher your chance of getting talented healer, the more risks you're willing to take to fill your hand with touch attacks. I'd definitely buy Focused Healer if it's ever available to you.
I'm running double blades on a human and yesterday I had the unfortunate luck to draw three of the Loners off of an initial 1. XD I don't like the spear myself given that I already have two of my three human skills kitted for mobility, I find I don't need the step attacks. For a deviated build item (imo) I'd prefer something with stronger hits that could be used as a finisher to a life drain combo.
It looks like Focused Healer should be in Randimar's and I HAVE been searching in there for it. But alas, no dice. I'll try two blades and see what happens. I'll probably have to load up on armor cards to survive, but hey, I'm all for testing experiments. If anything it should be fun to gamble! I'll go double priest to hedge my bets though. My secondary weapons so far has been Enervating Spear for the drains, reach and bad medicine. But I'll go FULL VAMPIRE to get that sleeps-in-a-coffin-pariah experience.
Decided to make a vampire when I got a Bynzer's Black Spear (my fourth legendary!). It's fun, but I don't see my vampire priest as particularly more powerful than my buffing/stabbing priest was. In particular, I'm not sure that I see the value in Talented Healer. It's a decent enough effect, but at the cost of a major token while I could be using a Trained Cleansing for free. Being able to dump all of my attacks in a single turn has value in PvP, but against the computer this is seldom very important.
