I just want to express my love for building a cantrip vampire priest with talented healer. Recently a whirlwind sent an enemy priest and warrior along side my vampire. My opponent expressed great happiness in chat. It turned out differently as I drained the priest to death and escaped the warrior. I have been having so much fun with this build.
lol i fell to this today, I thought I had an easy kill on his priest so I over extended my character. If i ever get 2 vampire blades i might try it.
I started trying out 3 priest 1 vamp/2 draw priests. I started out with vamp dwarf but found I was too easily out maneuvered and am now running elf vamp with quick runs and it has made getting in on people easier. It's pretty funny how you can kill two enemy in one turn when your vamp has a huge hand full of life leech that hit for 9+ damage each. I have the gear I think to run two vamp priests wondering what people think about it. Vamp is pretty fun to play but I think requires too much support from others in the team, not as consistent as my double warrior, double wizard and triple warrior teams, but maybe I just need to practice.
I have experimented alot, and I do mean ALOT, both in beta and since launch with life steal, for its efficency and pure enjoyment and I completely agree about it needing proper support which is actually why I took a break from it as for right now, not sure if it's the right call since I have some amazing life steal items. I decided at the end that if I have proper support I much rather run a high damage warrior and the two other priests are a buffer and debuffer which I just can't seem to give up. maybe a combination of one of them with life steal is the way to go, but that will decrease the effectivness (making me draw life steal cards less consistently) so I'm not sure. I'll update on how it fares against top player builds if I ever try that.
Have had some sweet games with players messaging me in chat—"why does it keep skipping my turn?" A lot of people don't see the cantrip drain coming. Honestly, it feels a little dirty when I unload four attacks in a row without passing priority...
I had double Spiked Mail with an Enchanted Harness. He tried draining me down, and took more damage than he healed. It was a funny turn of events as the vampire was at low health and I ended up killing him with a weak chop. The very next battle I got slammed across the face with double vampires and a magus that happened to know how to remove armor at that particular turn. Vampires are interesting.
I'm at a 50% win rate around 1240 with my current *wind*/lava/FoP dwarfzard - support/mass frenzy human priest - vampire elf priest. Thinking of ways to improve. Considering ditching the 'zard and going double vampire (just found a second Vampire's Blade), but position control seems fairly important in the current meta... What are some good vampire party strategies? I'm definitely not optimal right now.
I haven't played vampire (yet) but as far as ones I've fought go, most popular strategy is: buff vampire -> try to kill people The interesting thing about a vampire in your party is, one vampire (usually) is enough to shut down most warrior decks. I mean, they can still take you out with a couple very powerful attacks (or an AoA one-hit-killer) esp if supported by a long range wizard. But if your vamp is on Talented Healer (which it should) it acts as a sort of very efficient psychological weapon: don't come close or I will drain you dead on the spot.
I'm considering that as well, especially that I can finally buy a focused healer, but I feel I'm still low on good draining cards. What other items do you recommend for a vamp character?
Mainly Wuuna's Vampiric Shroudif you can get your hands on it ofcourse. Hand Of Melvelous is also great and Shuddering Relic works good too as it buffs as well as having a good drain. As for weapons - Lifesuck Spear is awesome and can be found at the bazaar. I would start by searching for the words "touch" and "darkness" in your inventory to find what draining items you currently have (I'd say spear instead of darkness but u will usually have more items with the word spear somewhere in the mix which aren't relevant then items with soothing darkness for example that aren't relevant).
Vampire's Blade seems nice. A number of Divine items with assorted draining attacks are available: if you are lucky enough to get it as a drop or to snatch it from Randimar's, Wuuna's Vampiric Shroud adds to the draining potential while spending no tokens. Getting a couple or more Mass Frenzy in your deck will surely make your vampire much deadlier. Hand of Malvelous makes for a decent substitute. If you really want to go hardcore, pick an armor with Horned Plates on it. Since a vampire build sacrifices quite a bit on the defensive side (mainly because you're dedicating the majority of your divine items to draining attacks instead of heals/purges/nimbuses), chances are you might want to bring a very good shield. Also lots of mobility (maybe in the form of team moves coming from the other characters in the party). You don't want your vampire to starve because he can't reach its targets, otherwise an enemy wiz can simply snipe him over a few turns.
Here's Earmuffs for reference: Earmuffs Level 18 Elf Priest Lifesuck Spear Vampire's Blade Glowing Hide Armor Steel Shield Black Iron Boots Relic Of St. Darqar Wuuna's Vampiric Shroud Hand Of Melvelous Escapist Focused Healer Wishing I had another Wuuna's instead of Relic of St. Darqar... (My second priest runs all the mass frenzy in my party.)
The difficulty with the life drain priest is getting her in range. Hard to pin down/quick run/step moves/team moves are really important. I run a lifedrain priest with shuddering relics for mass frenzy, and then I've got double step warriors to take advantage of the mass frenzy. And then my warriors have team moves to help keep her in range. I'm thinking about switching from human to elf for more quick runs, but with a human cleric I can get team sprint to move my warriors around I really like the life drain though, it's a lot of fun. Especially pulling off 3 drains and then a finisher, while healing back to full
Interesting, I seem to have all of the items apart from Wuuna's Vampiric Shroud (for which I will be on a look out), but somehow felt that there still need to be better cards (i.e. with more kick) than what I've got. Than again 3-6 base life leach + frenzy + cantrip + healing could be considered equally as strong as a obliterating bludgeon + 8 point heal combo, just much more interesting to pull off. Thanks for a starting point, I'll definitely look into it
I feel that way too, but maybe there aren't other/better items/cards for the build...? I mean I'm using all these low level items that look like they don't do much, so I don't know. 1240 isn't a bad place to be I guess, but I want to push it further.
That's the best part of the build, if you ask me. Since your attacks are pretty basic, you won't need to spend lots of power tokens. That way you can spend those on making sure you priest has more buffs. better mobility etc. The fact you gain cantrip on basically 80% of your attacks, leaving very little leeway for reacting to your opponent, as you can keep playing draining attacks even if you get one or two parried. The main problem, as others have stated, is getting the vampire on top of its target while traits/buffs are in play. It's indeed a tricky build, but a potentially very effective one.
It's simply the way we look at it. every life steal attack potentially shifts the hp balance on the board by double its attack amount, since you're not only hurting the opponent but gaining life. As such, maybe the biggest tip I can give is to be patient - try to attack with life drain only when you are hurt (unless you have to discard) to maximize that net total potential, and even then try to calculate how much you need to get to full life, don't spend an Invigorating Touch where a Draining Touch will do the job. this is ofcourse all null and void if you can actually go for the kill... Longevity is the key, and if you "waste" your attack before getting hurt you'll likely not survive as long, especially since some of the top players already know to wait for that vampires hand to empty before going for the kill themselves, making the life gain irrelevant.
