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"The Sampire Bible" - Everything you need to know by Sativah

Indika

Sorceror
Under Construction as of 11/24/14

This secion is currently under construction as of 11/24/14 as an index and table of contents. This message will be removed when it is complete. The Purpose of this section is so people can skip to the sections most useful to them. Please consider this a work in progress. It is also my goal to remove some of the "Bulk" from the guide as well as make a useful table of contents.

I. Introduction
II. Creating your Sampire
III. Training Skills
IV. Gearing your Sampire
V. Weapon Skills
VI. Macro's/Hotkey's Section
VII. Spells

VIII. Tip's/Tricks
IX. Spell "Order of Priority" List
X. Bushido/Parry and Block Mechanic

XI. How an enemy takes a hit, and when does DCI/Counterattack work?




I. Introduction

Hello everyone. As of 11/24/2014 this is still considered a work in progress but please feel free to check back in as I develop the in-depth guide to everything you need to know about building, playing, hotkeying, and suiting a sampire.

The concept of this guide was started as I continued to answer the same questions, post the same totals, and debunk the same rumors... I never mind helping a player and answering questions is easy enough, but I began to think if this many people are trying to make a sampire and I am their alleged reference, I thought perhaps I was at last accredited enough of a sampire to follow the legendary Feersum Endjinn's footsteps in making a guide to my favorite class in the game.

Before I really delve into this guide, I want to talk about Feersum's guide for a moment. This was the guide I followed years ago when I first created my sampire, Sativah. It was the best reference at the time that I could find for answering questions about making a sampire. I highly recommend this guide if you actually do what he says you will have no problem soloing a champ spawn on a sampire. It is a great guide and for good reason is one of the most referenced posts on the internet about a sampire.
http://www.uogamers.com/community/index.php?threads/479944/
Here is a link to Feersum's thread and it pretty much goes hand in hand with my thread but my goal is to consolidate more information and actually make it more like a guide for players wanting to build a sampire from the ground up, versus soloing champ spawns.


This thread will break down into several sections and will be maintained regularly and I will also try and remain active in this thread to answer any questions or to be of any further assistance in your travels of being a sampire :) I wish you all the best of luck and I hope this thread explains everything you need to know about being undeniably the strongest solo class in the game.


Suggested sk8nomad:
Well, something I had missed that probably IS super important to this sampire guide is a section explaining why exactly sampires are so cool. Well they can solo just about anything in the game. I think the only thing in the game right now that I cannot solo is Lord Oaks champ spawn, Bedlam champ Spawn, Lady Melisande and maybe a paragon cu? There's not much I cannot do. I can solo any other champ spawn and tank up to 4 dark fathers at one time with my radiant spamming whirlwind. The class is really strong. Necro Tamers can do a lot of these things too but the sampire is capable of 1000+ damage per second at the champ spawn and is mounted and does not have to stop running around. An average hit for me on a dark father with whirlwind is 120, and with crescent double strike can be 240+. Both of these weapons are swinging at 1.25 rate. Needless to say that's a lot of damage. And it's a melee class so there is no stopping to cast, or waiting for mana, or healing your pet. The sampire is definitely a Whirlwind class. If possible, you should always try to have enough mobs to whirlwind, even in Doom. But for situations where this is not possible you have weapons that can either double strike or armor ignore. Sampires also make great gold farming characters. You can one-hit dread spiders to no end, among several other mobs, and just handle particular paragons much easier than the other classes. So if your tired of typing all kill or being limited to 1v1 targetting as an archer then sampire might be the class for you!



II. Creating your Sampire

A question I receive a lot is the infamous "Elf vs Human" debate.
Feersum played an elf sampire, I play a human. Both have strong attributes and I will discuss them here and later on in the gear section.
Elfs have a few more gear choices over humans, nothing too strong besides Fey Leggings but the innate +20 mana seems pretty cool. This would give you 30 base mana versus the 10 that humans have. When it comes to building your suit this makes it a LOT easier, let me tell you. I honestly believe that Elfs make a better sampire if your only intention is to champ spawn. However if you try to go solo doom, you may find yourself locked into the 4th room because you cannot track and detect via Jack of All Trades. That is why I prefer human over elf. But being an elf isn't too bad as a sampire, either.


Update 9/18/13 Male vs Female:
Not a huge difference in this but I was asked about it and realized I didn't cover it in the guide. Female armor is no different than male armor unless you like the look but most armor is crafted for males and females to wear. Violet Courage seems better to me than Heart of the Lion so that is why I picked female for my sampire. Also Being a female at Semidar is a lot more tolerable than being a male, here is the tooltip from UOGuide on Semidar:

Semidar has the area effect of a normal succubus. However, this area effect does much more damage to male characters than female characters. It is not uncommon to be killed immediately by the area effect. Male characters are advised to either polymorph into a female, or take on the necromatic Wraith Form. Doing so will eliminate a certain amount of damage dealt to male
characters.


***She also does double damage reflect to male characters who attack her with direct damage, again unless they are polymorphed into a female.***

Hopefully this answers any questions pertaining to the differences to Male vs Female as far as picking your gender for your sampire because other than what I mentioned there is virtually no difference between genders for this class.


Starting off: Starting skills I hope SHOULDN'T matter to anyone making a sampire. Sampire is a strong class but it is definitely NOT a good starter class as it is an expensive class to even start. However, if you are a new player and are also a sadist and want to make a sampire as your starting class, I would probably start with 50 Weapon skill and 50 Bushido, as these will be the most difficult to train. I would also advise to train bushido first things first, as it becomes the hardest skill to train as your total number of skill points increase... But really, I don't suggest a sampire as a first class as you may potentially spend more time dead than alive or worse, have to rely on spam lightning strike every hit(You really should not be doing this). I wanted a sampire for a long time but waited until I hit doom on my archer(Indika) to get some gear and extra cash(about 50kk to be exact...) before I even made the character. If you want to be a successful sampire you should really consider what I just said if you are a new player. Time = Money and sampires cost a lot of money, so if you spend more time dead than alive you are being counterproductive towards making a successful sampire. Make a tamer or archer or bard or even better a blacksmith before you make a sampire so you can truly be successful without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. Stats don't matter too much as you should macro them as soon as your skills are trained, 10 mana is enough to cast sacred journey. I would not make a sampire will any less than 10kk.

III. Training skills

Ok the following is a definitive how-to train all the skills you will need to have on your sampire. These are the easiest methods for me to train the following skills but if you have a prefered method feel free. This portion of the guide is just to assist those who have no idea how to train these particular skills.

Weapon Skill/Tactics: These skills will train together. I usually hit a cu sidhe with a fast weapon of the desired weapon skill. However, a Greater Dragon or even a guildmate would work as a punching bag to raise these skills.


Parry: There is a sheep farm south of the Abbey in Yew, also South/West of the Yew Moongate before you get into the city. You can get all of the sheep to attack you then tab out, and this will raise parry to 120. Other monsters will work too but sheeps hit for 0 sometimes which is great because you wont have to worry about dying when you have 9 of them on you.

Resisting Spells: Have a mage buddy or alt cast weaken on you. This will raise you all the way to 100 and is easily macroed.

Necromancy: Get yourself a 100% LRC suit and macro these spells. You should be able to buy up to 40 necromancy from New Haven or make a new char with 50 and soulstone it over.
Chivalry: This locks at 60 so it's easy to macro. Buy it up to 30 or start a character with 50 and soulstone it over.
The momentum strike part throws people off. My best advise is to make two red characters. Kill yourself 5 times if you have to. Make them necromancers or atleast cast horrific beast. Then make them attack the character your wanting to train bushido on and have that character toggling Momentum Strike in razor or assist uo. Your macro should look something like this:
  • Wait for mana > 30
  • Activate Momentum Strike
  • Wait for mana < 29
This macro will successfully make your character wait for Momentum strike to hit and then wait for your mana to come back up before toggling again. This is the best way I've found to make a macro for training bushido with momentum strike. If you do not have access to two red characters to train on then my next best advise is the Tokuno Champ spawn and just run around spamming momentum strike. It will take a few hours and you wont be able to macro it like the above method but you really need 120 bushido on your sampire to be successful :D


IV. Gearing your Sampire


Ok this section as equally as important as the others, this is where most players seem to really get their idea of what a sampire is "supposed to be" messed up. I think the best way for me to do this section is to just tell you exactly what your suit should be in terms of mods and artifacts. There is a certain set of mods a sampire needs in order to be successful. Would a mage try to go play without 2/6? I don't think so. Would a mage go 2/4 and sacrifice the 0/2 to add luck or a little bit more sdi or mr? No, he wouldn't. So these are the ABSOLUTE MINIMUMS that a sampire should focus on having on their suit. This is not the caps or what you SHOULD go for, this is just the lowest amount of mods that would keep a sampire alive.


Mods:
40%+ Hit Chance Increase - Do not have any less than 40%. If you cannot achieve 40% HCI, then do not make a sampire, plain as day.
20%-30% Defense Chance Increase - Do not have less than 20%, this counters the -20% DCI that Divine Fury gives you. However, do not have more than 30% because this will interfere with counterattack(you will effectively counterattack less the more DCI you have). 20% really is enough.
155+ Stamina - And really you should have 165+ stamina but this is the lowest I would reccomend on the suit.
20% Lower Mana Cost - This is more than enough and any more LMC is a waste of mods(Could be mana increase or hit point increase)
Resists - 65/70/60/50/70 - These again are the minimals and you should definitely be trying for all 70's on your suit.

These are the absolute necessary mods with resists which will be discussed later on in this section. This is easily achievable with 4 mod pieces... Now once you acquire your 4 mod suit, you may wonder what 5th mods are best to fit... There are a couple choices to make and I think all of them are just as good as the other. Damage Increase Vs Skill Points Vs Mana Increase its all really the same thing. Its really a choice of the player but I will discuss some good chocies for your 5th mod of your suit.

Damage Increase 80% - If you are unable to get at least 80% Damage Increase. Do not pick Damage Increase. It seems really pointless unless you can get 80% Damage Increase. I used to stress 100% DI but I have been playing with less for awhile and its not really necessary to run 100%.


Skill Points - While my main is the 80% DI build I have another sampire that has +49 skill points and I believe this is the better choice for champ spawns. The only thing I wish I had more of is chivalry because fizzling sucks. If you stack as much skill points as I did adding some tactics doesn't hurt either :p

Mana Increase - This is better than most people think at a glance because mana increase for a dexxer is the same thing as intelligence bonus pretty much. If you run Mana Increase then you can effectively drop your base intelligence and add more base strength for higher hit points and base damage.

Hit Point Increase - This can go hand in hand with any of the others above, any sampire needs hit points because blood oath can sometimes hit for over 100+, this is a very solid pick on the 5th mod of your gear.

Wasted Mods, this section is under development as thread discusses:

Mana Regeneration - You will be leaching back enough mana with your weapon, or atleast you should. This mod doesn't benefit this class enough to care to run it on suit.

Stamina Regeneration - This class doesn't have much stamina problems, only at champ spawn typically. I recommend using divine fury or stamina potions instead of worrying about dedicating a mod. Vamp form comes with passive stamina regeneration.

Hit Point Regeneration - Each one of your hits will be leeching back 20% of the damage done in life. So 100 damage = 20 life. So when your doing 900+ damage a hit with whirlwind or 200+ damage a hit with AI/Double Strike, if the suit is build right you should be leeching back enough life.




When building your suit it's important to look at the whole suit together, not as individual pieces. Make sure you get the minimal mods I discussed before. Stat bonus, especially dex is amazing on jewels and is highly desirable.

The Resists - Well all 70's is the goal. But above I posted 65/70/60/50/70 as the minimal resists. I would at least obtain these resists before beginning to quest as a sampire. This is not ideal and you will have to make sure to be careful of deadly and lethal poison.

Weapons and mods discussion as well as actual weapon skill section:


V. Weapon Skills

This section will provide information on the best sampire weapons to use in all of the melee weapon skills (swords, macing, fencing). It will also discuss which weapon skill is the "best" for a sampire. And what weapons to look out for or to burn your precious hammers on to make the best possible sampire.

Swords: While this is the most picked sampire weapon class, in my experience its not necessarily the best. I consider swords the happy medium between the other two weapon skills, and the weapons are a bit easier to craft for swords making it easier to gear up. I have slayers + hml for every weapon skill, double strike and whirlwind weapons, and I find that swords is just the easier route but not necessarily the best. This is probably the best weapon skill for a beginning sampire.

Fencing: Well, they called me crazy, but I did it. I achieved a fencing sampire and in my experiences with just how you can build your suit and stats, it may actually be the better choice. The only problem with this skill is having to have a multitude of different types of weapons as the Kama is the whirlwind weapon and it only has that special, as well as low base damage. This forces you to run slayer + hml on every kama to have enough damage to leech enough life back. HOWEVER, if you can achieve the right weapons you can actually effectively drop your stamina to about 120, thus giving you the option of more strength, or in my case, mana. I also ran 100% Damage increase on this build and I feel like its essential. Having 90 mana on a sampire swinging at 1.25 is great, it is a special every hit almost guaranteed. Double Bladed staff seems like the best choice for double strike weapon. However I made Spear's because I already owned so many double strike spamming weapons I wanted to give armor ignore a shot. I really like this build and I actually have a permanent fencing sampire in the works right now...

Macing: My pride and joy right here. Macing sampires might be the coolest thing since sliced bread. With such high base damage on Hammer Picks and War Axes you can actually use these as your 1v1 weapon even without SSI, as long as they have slayer. But SSI makes these really insane. Black Staff may actually be the best whirlwind weapon in the game. With high base damage and decent speed, you don't really need SSI on any black staff. 15% ssi puts u at cap swing at 150 stam with a black staff. I have spent a lot of time, money, and effort collecting my black staffs. Quarter Staffs are also simply sick sampire weapon. No need for SSI, it is two handed for the block bonus, and spams double strike like nobody's business with a decent weapon damage. Again I have spent a lot of time and money acquiring my staffs and they really are nice.


Sword vs Fencing: Swords is a good balance of speed and damage. Fencing is more-so speed than damage, but if you compensate fencing with high damage build it is nice.
Sword vs Macing: Swords is a good balance of speed and damage. Macing is damage for sure but with the staffs can also acquire speed if your really dedicated to finding the right staffs until we get the runic saws.
Macing vs Fencing: I would only suggest comparing these once you already have a few axes or swords... The weapons for these are kind of hard and unless you burn a lot of hammers yourself you might have a hard time finding the necessary weapons. But Mace is definitely damage and fencing is speed. Both are equally good and I think better than swords if you do the build right. But they are harder to suit for than swords which is why I suggest swords to most people

VI. Macro's/Hotkey's Section:

My best, and most recent advice, is to play with AssistUO over Razor. This program is far more superior for sampire and you actually can effectively make LESS hotkeys with AssistUO than razor and make much better macros and make use of the Enforce Special which makes counter attack simply broken. However I know a lot of people still play in Razor so I will make a AUO and Razor subsection for this part of my guide...

AUO: Look, I've played with Razor for almost 10 years now. I played with Razor on OSI and on RunUO servers. AUO is simply better than Razor and it has updates. I highly recommend switching to this if you haven't already. The loop to use in AUO is Enforce Special then pick the proper special for the correct fight and keep this running the whole time. It will force your character to do the proper special every time and is highly advised. This hotkey made my life so much easier I simply love it. My preferred method of targeting is:

getenemy 'criminal' 'enemy' 'grey' 'closest'
attack 'enemy'

feel free to copy and paste that directly into AUO :p I like it because at the champ spawn it helps me pick out the runner's a bit easier because I'll let everything attack me and go criminal versus targeting it myself. This is just what works best for me. You could probably run a more advanced targeting system with AUO but I like this simplified method because I don't want an extravagant, elaborate macro because I want to be able to run my Enforce Special as often as possible. That's really it except for you're equip hotkeys. I am more than willing to explain furthermore how my profile is set up(it is still developing...) but I urge you to tailor your profile to yourself but keep in mind Enforce Special which the line in AUO for that is:

setability 'primary' 'on'
setability 'secondary' 'on'

check the loop box and have fun :)

Razor: I grew out of Razor myself and moved to AUO but I figured I'd still explain some basic hotkeys for this. Again I would recommend using normal hotkeys for this and running a loop for your specials. The only thing with this is you have to make individual buttons for each special versus "primary" and "secondary" so you will effectively have to make some macros that look like this in order to abuse counter attack. And please do not include any pauses or anything that I do not list here but for the specials make:

SetAbility WhirlwindAttack
SetAbility Double Strike
SetAbility Armor Ignore

check the loop box and there it is. This will constantly toggle it on BUT NOT OFF. Well, the secret's out now. Pretty easy huh? The attack macro looks something like this:

Exec: Target Closest Non-Friendly
Exec: Attack Last Target

do not check the loop box or include anything else. In order to make this macro you will have to go into the Hot Key's section and under Targets section you must individually hotkey each separate portion of the macro then record yourself pressing the individual buttons, then press stop and hotkey this then take off the other hotkeys. That's really all there is to it too besides your Arm/Disarm/Dress macros.

VII. Spells

All your spells should be in HOTKEY form, do not make macros for all your little spells. Trust me. I know a lot of mages play with their spells all on macro form and then hotkey them, don't do this for this class. This class runs a lot of separate loops but still wants to cast spells so if you can manage you should hotkey the majority of your chivalry and bushido spells.

Chivalry spells important are: Enemy of One, Consecrate Weapon, Divine Fury, Dispel Evil, Remove Curse, Cleanse by Fire, and Sacred Journey. Chivalry is pretty self explanatory. EoO your target, consecrate if you must, try to keep divine fury up 24/7 if possible for maximizing Counter Attack, especially at the spawn. I don't use dispel evil much except for in gaunt but in some cases also at a champ spawn for clearing back spawn off a champion to effectively solo the champ without little guys attacking me too. Listen, in my travels of 3 years as a sampire as basically my only played character I have learned the cardinal rule of sampire that you're either gunna live or you're going to die. Close Wounds should really cast slower than u should be swinging, and when you hit u bring back life. So by casting close wounds not only can you be fizzled, but your resetting your swing rate too(which is not good). I'll admit I do have this hotkeyed but I don't ever use it on myself.


Bushido. This one really throws people off and I feel like that's because they never read the tooltips on spells they just read what the book says and thinks "This sounds good/bad!"... Counter attack. Make this your most used hotkey. Keep this up 24/7 literally and never let your character drop it(even while banksitting in Luna). This is the sampires strongest spell and is #1 on my "spell priority list" which I will develop later in this guide... This spell not only grants you another hit, but that hit can effectively be a Special Attack such as whirlwind and double strike! I hope I don't have to explain how good this is because I'm not going to. Another random hit that can just go off at anytime that doesn't effect your swing rate is beyond words for a class that survives by dealing damage. This is how my sampire DPS is so high. Regularly when in doom I can put 6-7 "100+'s" above the Dark Father's head before they all disappear. Think of how fast those numbers disappear and tell me you're out-DPSing me :) It's so constant and divine fury actually makes this spell better! The -20 DCI is really actually a buff for Sampire because the less DCI you have, the more you will effectively counterattack. This is why I told you earlier to NOT have high DCI because you are getting in the way of your counterattack. Not getting hit sometimes is OK, but isn't doing another 800+ whirlwind or 200+ double strike randomly at a drop of the hat sound better? Good. I agree. :) I also have Lightning Strike hotkeyed for when I don't have enough mana to double strike. Those crits hit about as hard as a double strike does, only less frequently even when spamming Lightning Strike. So always hit a special first.You will see where Lightning Strike falls into my "spell priority list" which I will develop later in this guide... That's really all I use from bushido. Isn't that funny this class is so dependent on 120 bushido and doesn't use much bushido?


VIII. Tip's/Tricks

1. Cast Vampiric Embrace then soulstone your necromancy skill off. As long as your skills do not change for any reason (including your eval int) you will stay in vamp form. You can utilize this by soulstoning another skill like anatomy (or lumberjacking if you already have anatomy on) if you know you wont die fighting what you're about to fight

2. Use Honor on yourself. This makes you immune to being targeting by enemy's except if it's a paragon and targets you by movement. Peerless will still target you by this.

3. Resist trick: Soulstone Inscription on.
Cast Magic Reflection for -20/+10/+10/+10/+10
Cast Reactive Armor for +20/-5/-5/-5/-5
Cast both for free 0/5/5/5/5 or one or the other based on suits needs


IX. Sativah's spell "Order of Priority":

These are the spells I cast, and what order I cast them in.


1. Counter Attack - This is my #1 priority and I will always recast this first before anything else when it goes down.
2. Consecrate Weapon - This is true if the mob calls for it, if not go to #3.
3. Divine Fury - If you built your suit right you should benefit in every situation from Divine Fury. Keeping this up will effectively make you counter attack more often. Thus generating more DPS/Hit Points.
4. Enemy of One - Self explainatory. If it is too dangerous to use Enemy of One which is sometimes the case, skip to #5.
5. Special Ability - Whirlwind, Double Strike, Armor ignore. Etc.
6. Lightning Strike - If everything above is active and you don't have enough mana to use a special ability, then toggle Lightning Strike for the chance to crit.


*Key Note* I now use apples to remove curse.

X. Bushido/Parry and Block Mechanic

Bushido/Parry and Block Mechanic:
Parry and Bushido together give you another dynamic called "Block". When your character blocks, it will use your current bushido Stance. The Stances are Confidence and Counter Attack. When you block with confidence you will receive 10 hit points and 5 stamina back. When you block with counter attack your character will swing off the timer. Meaning it doesnt count towards or against your swing timer, and is independent from your characters regular swing rate.

Block %'s:
Two Handed weapon: 40% Chance
One Handed weapon, no shield: 35% Chance
One handed weapon, with shield: 5% Chance

...

XI. How an enemy takes a hit, and when does DCI/Counterattack work?

Here is another discussion about how an enemy takes a hit against you. After Skill and Hit Chance is taken into account the hit travels through a few check points before it actually follows through. Here is the order of defenses that a hit must make it's way through, in order:


1st. Innate Miss - The enemy misses you due to lack of skill, or hit chance. It does not travel through the other check points.

2nd. Your weapon skill - Having a weapon skill offers a defensive bonus of Skill vs Skill.

3rd. Parry - As we all know, parry allows you to mitigate melee attacks.

4th. Defense Chance Increase - That little bubble appears that let's you know they tried to hit you and DCI stopped it. *

5th. Block - The Bushido/Parry mechanic that I discussed previously. A hit must travel through all the check points before your character has a chance to block the attack and use your current stance **

6th. Hit - You take the hit. The hit traveled through all the checkpoints without getting stopped, and you finally take damage.


* The reason why I push for 20% DCI on a sampire is because you actually DONT want DCI to stop the hit. You actually want the hit to travel through your DCI and get stopped by the 5th check point, which is the block mechanic, which allows you to Counter Attack.

** This is the most ideal check point for a hit to get stopped on

Under Construction as of 11/24/14
Under Construction as of 11/24/14
 
Last edited:

Indika

Sorceror
Updated 12/25/13


Hi guy's this is the first installment of the weapon and armor discussion of the guide. I mentioned a few weapons earlier but didn't talk much about mods on them. Also I gave you an idea as far as armor goes because I knew as soon as I posted this guide people would try to remake their sampires so I wanted to atleast include the minimal mods for a suit, but this post will be a more in-depth conversation about armor and jewelry, as well as weapons.

I know it all sounds exciting but as I am tired and just added a little to the main base, I at least wanted to prepare you for what is to come in this guide so I will lay out the template for you to drool over while I gather everything I need in the next day or so to write this portion out, as it will be extensive so please bear with me :p



What is a Spawning and General Purpose double axe??
To me, a spawning double axe is the Swing Speed Increase, Mana Leech, Hit Area double axe.
The General Purpose double axe is the Swing speed increase, Mana leech, Stamina Leech double axe. I refer to it as this because not only can you solo Tier 4 with this axe but u can solo all ML mini-boss, Dreadhorn, Paragon, Doom, pretty much anything with this double axe. Slayers are the next step after this axe because that is just more damage. However the HML/HSL/SSI double axe can solo most activity in the game :p

"Radiants... are they really better than double axes for whirlwind?"
I lean more towards radiants for whirlwind than a double axe personally. However they both have their benefits. More block chance and counterattack chance on a double axe and higher base damage. However radiants are easier to craft with runic hammers as you really only need 2 mods off them for them to be good. Double axes are very slow without swing speed increase. Another bonus to radiants are they are one handed and you can drink potions. I really love drinking stamina potions on my sampire as it saves me mana from divine fury and potions cannot be interrupted like divine can be. Yellow potions are good too but stamina pots really change the game for a sampire. Radiants have much faster base swing and can achieve 1.25 swing easier than a double axe. I roll with radiants for whirlwind now, however I believe that a slayer double axe with swing speed and mana leech will outperform a radiant. This is, however, asking a lot on an item. I crafted most of my weapons and I picked radiants simply because they are easier to craft. Once I started to play with them I really love drinking potions at a champ spawn, and the swing rate is much faster than a double axe.

I would put the preference rate like this:
#1 Prefered: Slayer, Mana leech, Swing speed double axe
#2: Slayer, Mana leech radiant
#3: Slayer, mana leech double axe.

This really comes down to weapon availability and your intent on how many hammers to burn. I burned about 250~ copper hammers and 50~ bronze hammers on radiants and didn't get a single Slayer + HML + SSI weapon. So to me it just seems easier and as effective to use radiants than it is to use double axes.


"Ok... I see that you're using a Crescent blade, what's up with that, man?"
This question goes hand in hand with the Radiant vs Double axe discussion. I like Crescents because it has two great specials, Double Strike and Mortal Strike. Mortal is great against tough monsters that heal themselves, including Dark Fathers.

I like these because again the 2.5 weapon speed makes this weapon not require swing speed to be good. I have tried countless times to use Slayer + HML double axes without swing speed for double strike. It does not seem fast or reliable enough. I picked Crescents because it is a fast weapon with a good 1v1 special ability. I think these outperform double axes.

Preference Rate:
#1: Slayer, Mana leech, Swing speed double axe
#2: Slayer, Mana leech crecent blade
#3: I would never use a Slayer, mana leech double axe without swing speed for double strike. At this point I would rather use a general purpose double axe that was not a slayer.


"But I thought cuz it had slayer and mana leech it was good!!!!11!!11"
You know I get this one a lot and as much as I wish it were true, it's not. Look, once you have your general purpose weapon and you want to upgrade to slayers make sure your slayer weapon is better than the general purpose! It may even seem to do more damage per hit, but if you're rocking a Slayer + HML Butcher Knife just cause I might have to smack you. In my opinion double strike out performs armor ignore but make sure your weapon has at least one of these, if not whirlwind. Just because it is a slayer with mana leech doesnt mean it's good if the specials are crap.


"Are these %'s too low to use this??"
Less than 30% Mana Leech? Too low... (This isn't technically true when it's applied to slayer weapons. If the weapon is good enough 20% mana leech can carry you enough. I used to solo Neira with an Undead Slayer double axe with 20% Mana leech and 0% Damage increase...)

Less than 25% swing speed on a double axe? Too low... Double axes have really slow weapon speed. If you want to stay alive you need a weapon that can even swing fast enough to survive.




"Why yes, I have seen Feersum's weapons..."

Feersum burned a lot of hammers. Also radiants weren't implemented when he burned his hammers. Radiants and D-Axe's are so tied for best weapon. D-axes are harder to craft because if they dont have SSI, then I believe a Radiant will even out damage it. But if the axe does have SSI, the axe will out damage the radiant. Just know that SSI, HML, Slayer are 3 very hard mods to burn off a hammer. This is why I chose Radiant and Crescent for the weapon speed and great specials.

and of course, my personal favorite...

"How much _____ do I need???//1"

40%+ Hit Chance Increase

20%-30% Defense Chance Increase - This is so hard to convince people of. I don't know why but people don't seem to want to put DCI on their samp suits especially here lately. I will tell you this no matter what your hunting, if you ever get in a pinch where Divine Fury would save your life(daily for me at champ spawn) it will effectively kill you because you never want to go into the negative on DCI on any class, including sampire. But you really don't want more than 30 because block comes after DCI and you love to block, that's how counterattack becomes active.

Mana Leech on Non Slayer Weapon - 30%+

Mana Leech on Slayer Weapon - 20%+

Damage Increase on Non Slayer Weapon - 40%+, this doesn't apply to staves because damage increase is so hard to come by on staves, but the base damage compensates for not having damage increase in most cases.

Damage Increase on Slayer Weapon - 0%+, look if it has the slayer and the special abilities then really it doesnt have to have damage increase. I've played with so many 0% damage increase weapons with slayer + HML. If the weapon has the specials you can rock it.

PLEASE STAY TUNED AS I DEVELOP THIS IN DEPTH GUIDE

Updated 12/25/13
 

deathviper

Sorceror
Thanks for showing me some of the ropes (I still have a ways to go) and pressing me to gear myself up! Looks like you got a nice start to the guide.

I need to find more time to get better with my Sampire but I have the basics down thanks to you. :)

Still can't believe you talked me into burning those BRSK. :p
 

Indika

Sorceror
Thanks for showing me some of the ropes (I still have a ways to go) and pressing me to gear myself up! Looks like you got a nice start to the guide.

I need to find more time to get better with my Sampire but I have the basics down thanks to you. :)

Still can't believe you talked me into burning those BRSK. :p

thanks man I try to give the same advice I would follow...
... and I would've burned 64 BRSK too :p
 
As i am not a big fan of reading long text like this, ... for once i took the time to read it , As i know indy ... he has a good sampire , and this will be usefull to everyone to learn out of it ,

I might get the rusty sampire out of the room once ... :)

*Thumbs up*

Greetings Picka !
 

Craudiator

Sorceror
Indika, thanks for the thread :)
I have a some questions...
1 - I like mace too... about hammer pick and war axes. If you use one of the two, a hand is free, right? According to Stratics guide (120 parry, 120 bushido, 125 dex):
Chance of blocking with a shield: 5%
Chance of blocking with a 1-handed weapon: 35%
Chance of blocking with a 2-handed weapon: 40%

In this case, the use of shield is useless, right?

2 - I'm hoping that Virtue Artifacts are released soon, would love to be able to use Katrina's Cook.

Katrina's Crook
Hit Stamina Leech 40%
Hit Mana Leech 55%
Hit Life Leech 55%
Damage Increase 60%
Physical Resist 15%

Not bad :)

3 - My favorite weapon is PITCHFORK :( , but i will never use it...
 

Indika

Sorceror
Indika, thanks for the thread :)
I have a some questions...
Thank you for taking the time to read :) I will try to answer any and all questions I can.

1 - I like mace too... about hammer pick and war axes. If you use one of the two, a hand is free, right?
yes a hand is free and stamina pots are great :p skip divine fury and save mana plus its instant and cannot be interrupted so it's very reliable. Same is true to yellow potions.
In this case, the use of shield is useless, right?
Yes, and is highly discouraged as it doesn't provide much of a bonus even after compensating the loss of DCI with DCI on shield.
3 - My favorite weapon is PITCHFORK :( , but i will never use it...
Well, the pitchfork is not the ideal sampire weapon... however you could fulfill your dream in pvp perhaps with a fencer dismounter with pitchfork? :p
 
I have a question aswel , Are there anny artys build into the suit? if so what ones?

And is MR SR HPR needed in the suit?

Been messing arround with the suit , and its indeed a thuff one to make it suit ... :)
 

Indika

Sorceror
I have a question aswel , Are there anny artys build into the suit? if so what ones?

And is MR SR HPR needed in the suit?

Been messing arround with the suit , and its indeed a thuff one to make it suit ... :)


hehe this section is coming very soon... to give you an idea these are the arties I run on each sampires suit

sativah: Spirit of the Totem
skill point samp: captain johns hat, gladiators collar

other good choices would be heart of the lion, violet courage, and perhaps fey leggings, dread pirate hat...

MR, SR, HPR are all kind of waste of mod on a sampires suit. I actually updating a small section about this to explain a bit further. It is in the guide now.

look for future update as this is a section I am working on that will be on there soon :p
 
Can't wait to read more about this !

Currently i got *106 hp * 124 stamina * 40 mana 66/58/65/60/70 ( in vamp form )
( still need to get a +25 stats )

Armorwise i got Captains johns hat , and Heart of the lion , stormgrip

25 DCI . 39 HCI . 10 Lmc . 46 DI ( jewels and gloves ) and 40 DI on wep

Am not quiet there yet ! but its not easy to get that char build up BUT! thanks to you i more play the sampire!

still trying out how to play it properly , if you got time once , you should give us some private sessions LOL
 

Indika

Sorceror
Armorwise i got Captains johns hat , and Heart of the lion , stormgrip

25 DCI . 39 HCI . 10 Lmc . 46 DI ( jewels and gloves ) and 40 DI on wep
please read what I wrote about damage increase... and it looks like it is doing what I said it would and hold back ur suit... get 10% more LMC, the rest of ur stam, and 1% HCI. Get rid of that damage increase until you have 100%. putting damage increase on ur suit is a lot harder than it sounds for this class, and is the least important mod u can run... it really is for extra only and I would recommend getting the mods I mentioned before trying to add damage increase to your suit


still trying out how to play it properly , if you got time once , you should give us some private sessions LOL

I actually do have 5 sampire disciples, one of them just graduated to full grown sampire so I guess 4 now :)
just catch me in game sometime and let me know who u are and I can help ya out
 
Looked at the updates for this weekends server reset and noticed the correction to Hit Area is finally coming. Which makes it weaker on one end(most generic spawner weapons) while making it much stronger with the correct combination of mods/talismans.
 
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