Introducing the Sampire Academy (Discord Channel)

zima

Hola all! On stratics, I am WonDumBaldGuy. A while back I posted a sampire thread that seems to have grown into a beast of a post. After fielding a ton of questions and seeing even more go unanswered, I have made a dedicated Discord channel for sampires. I have been contacting players I know that play it well and have good working knowledge of the game mechanics to help me, who also represent many different approaches to playing the template. Those are the "Sensei's". Everyone and anyone interested in learning how to better play a sampire, or wanting to help others learn, is welcome. 
https://discord.gg/Uaz2UFAQQv

Pawain

I dont do discord but I have just finished this Guy.



I have 3.1 points to go.  Ill have 110 Bush and 100 Parry.

What exactly can I use the Necro and SS for?  

He has a nice dexxer suit with 100% LRC so I can cast.

Which Familiar should I use?

Thanks

zima

Spirit speak, curse weapon. Can use wraith form early spawn and whither. Wisp is always good for mana regen. You can do the neco mastery and get zombie dragons, which are very handy in early spawn. If you have protection cast, or get some distance from the mob, you can enhance damage with corspe skin for double strike weapons. Fencing is nice for the leafblade feint + AI, but is limited in damage and weapon choices. Your only WW choice is the whip. So both give you the option of potion chugging. I would be in either vamp or wraith form most of the time. 

Pawain

Ya I found out it is easy to make a suit for fencing.  Spear is slowest weapon but just needs 180 stamina and no SSI.  Also the Kama does WW.  I have a double bladed staff for DS also along with the Leafblade.  So far I have been practicing on Balrons.  The weapons do not do as much damage as my macer and swords because they have Chiv.  I keep losing my familiars and cant cast another.  I run around too much.

I wanted to try something different and dust off my Necro that I made when ML came out.

Thanks

Seth

zima said:

Spirit speak, curse weapon. Can use wraith form early spawn and whither. Wisp is always good for mana regen. You can do the neco mastery and get zombie dragons, which are very handy in early spawn. If you have protection cast, or get some distance from the mob, you can enhance damage with corspe skin for double strike weapons. Fencing is nice for the leafblade feint + AI, but is limited in damage and weapon choices. Your only WW choice is the whip. So both give you the option of potion chugging. I would be in either vamp or wraith form most of the time. 

Necro and SS, using curse weapon for life leech and wraith form for mana leech was called a "Whammy" I think. Although it does not move around as fast as a sampire since Wraith goes on foot, it is a good template. I remember someone used this template to murder Travesty. 

Pawain

I have seen players use wrath form to cast area spells in other magics while they melee. 

I think the form I use would depend on what I am fighting. I needed the poison resit from embrace on the Balrons.   I was not using the curse weapon even tho I have it in a macro.  I think that will help a lot.  I dont care what I am called.  Just want to be a Killy.

zima

Yah, I prefer effective over any name myself. Curse weapon use will most likely vary with form, since that affects y our mana pool. With wraith form, you can keep curse weapon active all the time. With vamp form, you only need it for large heals when your native leech isnt covering it. Either will let you heal through poison, which is a blessing. In wraith form, if you are using a 1 handed weapon, you could also use potions to augment cure, heal and stam regen. You might even consider using wraith form as a "free" mana drain effect to get boss type mobs to stop casting. Then change into vampire form to finish them off. 

Seth

Just to kick off some serious sampire skill discussion................., ideally it should have the following skills:

Weapon 120
Tactics 120 (Max. effect from Mastery)
Necro 100
Chivalry 120
Bushido 120
Parrying 120
Resisting Spells 120
Anatomy 120

The total is 940, which is impossible to achieve. So this is when everyone starts to vary somewhat. In my case, my sampire's regular template have 700 points for the following

- Weapon 120 (self-explanatory and also reduced Special Move mana cost)
- Tactics 120 (Max. effect for Mastery)
- Necro 100 (Min. required for vapiric embrace)
- Chivalry 120 (EOO, CW, DF... also remove curse, cure poison, etc, and help in resurrection)
- Bushido 120 (honor, counter attack CW, confidence, evasion, WW damage when surrounded by enemies)
- Parrying 120 (works well with bushido CW esp. when surrounded)

The balance 20 + 52 points from imbued jewel gives me 72 for either:

- Resisting Spells (RS) 72, Or
- Anatomy 72

Can we modify to achieve higher skills for RS or Anatomy? Maybe:

Variation 1: (case closed)

- Reduce Parrying to 60, so weapon + bushido + parrying is 300 skill points just to get max mana reduction for special move. This was one of the recommended options for players who do not use Bushido Counterattack which requires high parrying. I still feel that Parrying should be 120 for sampire as it complements Bushido very well.

Variation 2: (case closed)

- Reduce Chivalry to 80 - 90? I have seen such options in older forum posts, but I still prefer 120 Chivalry to remove curse more effectively, as well as poison, etc.

Variation 3: (pending)
- Is Bushido 100 enough for 100% damage increase from perfection? It seems that luck and perfection max out at 100 bushido. At >100 bushido, it will benefit WW damage bonus:

Damage Bonus = (Bushido/60* number of opponents)²

If we are dealing with low end mobs and a very strong boss, why not use 100 bushido, and pass 20 points to anatomy instead to achieve greater damage against the boss.

https://uo.com/wiki/ultima-online-wiki/skills/bushido/

I have modified my sampire so many times and the only question I have left is Variation 3... does Bushido really need to be 120. I have not seen anyone with less than 120 since day one.

I am no sensei in sampire and I am still learning how to make it better every time.

Bilbo

Nice write up @Seth

zima

Confidence is boosted by 120 Bushido to 40 heal over 4 seconds, plus HPR regen x 4. I recover 72 hp in 4 seconds with 16 HPR on the suit. THAT and Parry 35 (1 hand) for counter attack is my main reason. 
Then I throw a GH pot on top of that. On my dragoon, I throw a bandie on top of that in an EC macro (confidence, bandage self, use GH pot). I have another with the same but with cure pots. Works well with mortal + poison, as it will give a bandie heal even while mortaled.
If you do 60 parry, IMO, then unless you are going high DCI, you are even more vulnerable with less reward. At 0 DCI and 120 parry/Bushido, I can count on the parry and counterattack to leech more. Totally agree with you here Seth!
Great write up! Id love to see it on the academy (hint hint).

We are also going over the options opened to use by the 10 HCI earrings. With legs of bane and warrior mastery we can now get 45 HCI on the suit. What will THAT do for your jewels?

Pawain

I was turned off by the Ninja on the earrings but a lot of my dexxer toons are elf and wear Transparent heart. But 10 HCI for free is a great thing!

Seth

Bilbo said:

Nice write up @ Seth

@Bilbo thanks!

@zima ;

For 60-parry sampire, I would suggest at least 20 DCI as recommended by the Stratics veterans. I have the same thinking as you, i.e. I thought 0 DCI could mean more CounterAttack(CA) but it was worse. I tested 0 DCI, 120 parrying/bushido vs Rend and failed miserably. With 20 DCI, I can tank Rend very well.

I used Rend and Putrefier to test my sampire build, solo them without any help.

I agree with @Pawain that the HCI earrings could be much better if it does not have any +skills. In any case, I do not intend to factor that earring into my build unless it is POF-able. 

A sampire is a tank and there is so much wear and tear. So the equipment should ideally have no durability limits, or be pofable, or obtainable via persistent content in the game.