Best level drain epic melee build?

[Saekee]

Life stealing was changed to 25% chance for each negative level to proc on a crit. So 1-3 neg levels on item looks like this:

1/4 (25%) one neg level
1/16 (25%x25%) two neg levels
1/64 (25%x25%x25%) three neg levels

Add this together:
16/64
4/64
1/64
21/64 = 32.8125%

This is why wiki shows ~33% based on testing to see a neg level proc. It doesn't show how many procced though. Disclaimer: I am on pain pills so my math may be way off.

Veeeery interesting

I am currently on my monk life. I was asked the question "what are you using to neg level everything" in a pug. The answer was RNG of feeding. There are better weapons I am sure, but 2 things to consider:

1. You need whirlwind attack. It is better than described for sure. It is not attack everyone around you once, it is attack everyone around you 4 times. Seems to give those results on handwraps only. Yes it takes 5 feats, take them or be gimp, all there is to it. I passed on that whirlwind attack many, many times on other toons. I was wrong. It rocks.

2. Chance of 1d3 neg levels on hit < always neg levels on a 20.

My tactics are healing mark, stunning blow (next target) stunning fist, healing mark, whirlwind attack, great cleave, quivering palm on the one that neg leveled, rinse repeat.

What is RNG? I understand the feeding part--why not use Grave Wrappings?
Yes, Whirlwind attack actually works well with wraps!
Your approach is similar to my vamp monk suggestion. Glad to see a variant working well--I imagine it is the QP that lands so well due to the lower saves from the neg level.

[Firewall]

2. Chance of 1d3 neg levels on hit < always neg levels on a 20.

This is only true if your crit range is 19-20 or worse. With a 33% chance to land d3 negative levels you are already better off with a crit range of 18-20 because you have the same basic chance but do more negative levels on average. If you have higher attack speed and even higher crit range you will be far better than one negative level on a roll of 20 and of course you can have that vorpal level drain in addition to Life Stealing if you slot the ruby. And this does not prevent you from also taking Cleave or Whirlwind with a staff.

[Connman]

Veeeery interesting


What is RNG? I understand the feeding part--why not use Grave Wrappings?
Yes, Whirlwind attack actually works well with wraps!
Your approach is similar to my vamp monk suggestion. Glad to see a variant working well--I imagine it is the QP that lands so well due to the lower saves from the neg level.

RNG Random Number Generated : Just some stuff I grabbed off the list as this is get it done and move on for me.

This is only true if your crit range is 19-20 or worse. With a 33% chance to land d3 negative levels you are already better off with a crit range of 18-20 because you have the same basic chance but do more negative levels on average. If you have higher attack speed and even higher crit range you will be far better than one negative level on a roll of 20 and of course you can have that vorpal level drain in addition to Life Stealing if you slot the ruby. And this does not prevent you from also taking Cleave or Whirlwind with a staff.

Listen to this guy he clearly know more than me, I was just speaking for what I was experiencing right now.

[Mercureal]

I am currently on my monk life. I was asked the question "what are you using to neg level everything" in a pug. The answer was RNG of feeding. There are better weapons I am sure, but 2 things to consider:

1. You need whirlwind attack. It is better than described for sure. It is not attack everyone around you once, it is attack everyone around you 4 times. Seems to give those results on handwraps only. Yes it takes 5 feats, take them or be gimp, all there is to it. I passed on that whirlwind attack many, many times on other toons. I was wrong. It rocks.

4 attacks on each target? That's awesome, for any special on-hit effects and just for general melee. If that happens with each use, Whirlwind Attack just became much more attractive.

[Saekee]

Vampire (with at least 5 rogue) TWF with knife specialization and Sacrificial Daggers in Divine Crusader

• 13-20 crit range means critting 8x for every 20 attacks;
• Of those, 8x.33 will proc 1-3 levels so 2.64 procs/20 hits; averaging 2 neg leves per proc = 5.28;
• add vampire and you have 6.28 levels per 20 attacks, or nearly 1/3 of every attack removes a level.
• Offhand adds another .8 attacks (5.024 neg levels) for 11.304 total negative levels in 20 mainhand attacks, basically over half.
• (note that another option that would be identical is a Cormyrian rapier or kukri).

SWF, or rather PSWF, boosts the vampire since it increases the vorpal hit rate. Even then, say with the Envenomed blade Enervation (slotted with Ruby Endless) and its vorpal of 1-4 enervation,

• 2.5 from envenomed, 2 from vampire and 2 from ruby or 6.5 neg levels every 20 attacks (This assumes Perfect SWF which comes later in epic levels).
• Since it attacks at 1.3 the speed of TWF, that is 1.3x6.5 or 8.45

1. PSWF with envenomed blades in vampire form, 20 attacks period: 8.45
2. Vampire TWF knife specialist in same period: 11.3
Neither counts doublestrike which will favor PSWF. Simply increase the above number per doublestrike%.
If a SWF has 20% doublestrike than the number becomes 10.14
OTOH for every % of doublestrike, the 11.3 will not increase directly. Instead, the 6.28 improves. So if a TWF has 20% doublestrike, the result would be 6.28x1.2=7.536 + 5.024=12.56

Let's further boost #2 above with 6 levels of Ranger tempest for offhand extra and PTWF which adds 5% Doublestrike and 10% offhand Doublestrike.
(E.g. So it could be a 6 ranger 5 rogue 9 wizard build)
Mainhand gets another 5% additional doublestrike, offhand goes from .8 to .88. Assuming 20% original doublestrike, than the number becomes:
7.85 mainhand + (6.28x.9 offhand = 5.65x10% doublestrike = 6.217, for a combined total of 14.067 or simply 14 neg levels for every 20 attack sequences.

Hence so far the best build is at least 6 levels of ranger tempest, 5 rogue for knife specialization, shroud of vampire (so minimum 6 levels, better to have at least 8) wielding a pair of sacrificial daggers slotted with Rubies of Endless Night in Epic Destiny Divine Crusader and with PTWF. Assuming at least 20% doublestrike, this will result in 14 negative levels for every 20 mainhand attacks.
The good news is that this is all easy to put together. Not sure how good an idea it would be for a vampire shroud to miss tier 5.

I may have messed up in there a bit, please correct if so.

Someone feel like calculating a bard swash PTWF wielding the sacrificial daggers in DC and in Vamp form? Then the vamp form can keep the tier 5 enhancement. I suspect that this will be quite good also. Same crit profile as knife specialist; less attacks but improved vamp bonus and improved ruby eye. This one might outdo the Ranger/roge/wiz one.

[Systern]

Hence so far the best build is at least 6 levels of ranger tempest, 5 rogue for knife specialization, shroud of vampire (so minimum 6 levels, better to have at least 8) wielding a pair of sacrificial daggers slotted with Rubies of Endless Night in Epic Destiny Divine Crusader and with PTWF. Assuming at least 20% doublestrike, this will result in 14 negative levels for every 20 mainhand attacks.
The good news is that this is all easy to put together. Not sure how good an idea it would be for a vampire shroud to miss tier 5.

I may have messed up in there a bit, please correct if so.

Sacrificial Daggers don't have slots.

[Saekee]

Sacrificial Daggers don't have slots.

AAAargh thx Systern for the correction. will recalc tomorrow.

[Xyfiel]

Interesting. But where did you get this kind of info from?

Mournlands forums from dev when he changed it. Note the math I did myself hence why I mentioned it may be wrong.

I also think that means you get 27/64 levels drained per crit, or ~42%. I know I don't use life stealing anymore.

[Saekee]

Mournlands forums from dev when he changed it. Note the math I did myself hence why I mentioned it may be wrong.

I also think that means you get 27/64 levels drained per crit, or ~42%. I know I don't use life stealing anymore.

Thx. I need to recalculate anyway since I confused the red slot on Epic Envenomed blade with the sacrificial dagger, which lacks one.
I think the best might be 12 ranger tempest/8 fighter tier 5 kensei, dual wielding cormyrian life stealing rapiers in Divine Crusader.

BTW anyone have defensive enervation guard suggestions to add to the fun? Will look into this later as well.

[Saekee]

nvm just saw that dragontouched armors offer enervation guard. Anything else?

[Firewall]

Life stealing was changed to 25% chance for each negative level to proc on a crit.

This implies three separate chances to proc a negative level which would sum up to 75% chance to drain a level on crit. You math below implies that the chances are dependant on each other (much like in 10k stars) so the second negative level would only occur if the first has already procced etc.

So 1-3 neg levels on item looks like this:

1/4 (25%) one neg level
1/16 (25%x25%) two neg levels
1/64 (25%x25%x25%) three neg levels

Add this together:
16/64
4/64
1/64
21/64 = 32.8125%

This is why wiki shows ~33% based on testing to see a neg level proc. It doesn't show how many procced though. Disclaimer: I am on pain pills so my math may be way off.

If this was true and the chances depended on each other people in game would see a 25% chance to drain (any number of) lifes. This is because we cannot easily determine how many levels we drained and the second and third chance for level drain would be included in the 25% base chance because the second and third drain never occurred outside the 25% chance of the first (e.g. 25% of the chances that drained one level on a crit would also drain a second level) so you cannot sum them up.

So either the formula you propose is way off (8% difference from what people report in DDOWiki) or the testing in DDOWiki was way off and the chance to drain (any number of) levels on a crit should be 25%.

[Saekee]

Mournlands forums from dev when he changed it. Note the math I did myself hence why I mentioned it may be wrong.

I also think that means you get 27/64 levels drained per crit, or ~42%. I know I don't use life stealing anymore.

This implies three separate chances to proc a negative level which would sum up to 75% chance to drain a level on crit. You math below implies that the chances are dependant on each other (much like in 10k stars) so the second negative level would only occur if the first has already procced etc.



If this was true and the chances depended on each other people in game would see a 25% chance to drain (any number of) lifes. This is because we cannot easily determine how many levels we drained and the second and third chance for level drain would be included in the 25% base chance because the second and third drain never occurred outside the 25% chance of the first (e.g. 25% of the chances that drained one level on a crit would also drain a second level) so you cannot sum them up.

So either the formula you propose is way off (8% difference from what people report in DDOWiki) or the testing in DDOWiki was way off and the chance to drain (any number of) levels on a crit should be 25%.

Interesting points. I think I will continue with the assumption that it is 33%. It seems sensible--it was a change from negging levels on every crit.

[Saekee]

So far there are really three possible approaches: TWF, SWF and wraps. The vampire form really only becomes worthwhile with PSWF since the shroud of the vampire's life stealing gets doubled with PSWF.

1) TWF
Since the sacrificial daggers lack an augment slot, they are no more appealing than any other life stealing weapon. Hence, for TWF, the better weapons would have a superior threat range: rapiers and kukris. The next step would be to expand the critical threat range of those weapons as much as possible, and also to get them to hit as often as possible. The double expanded crit range of the rapier or kukri should be 11-20, or a crit on 50% of attacks. Each critical hit has a 33% chance of draining 1-3 levels; I will assume that is an average of 2 levels (this may be a mistake). Hence, each critical hit will drain .666 levels. 10 critical hits out of 20 attacks signify 6.66 levels drained for every 20 attacks.
This simple goal suggests: 12 ranger/8 fighter TWF Tier 5 Kensei in DC with two Cormyrian life-stealing weapons (kukris or rapiers) or
Paladin using Holy Sword and 6 ranger (for extra offhand) or better:
Paladain (at least)15 (and even 1 monk for Deft strikes, even if uncentered)/+whatever.

12 ranger/8 fighter with PTWF and assuming 10% doublestrike from gear and past lives, plus 5% and 10% offhand Doublestrike from PTWF
for 20 attacks, we get 1.15 extra on mainhand and 1.1 offhand;
[(1.15x6.66)=7.659] + [(1.1x6.66)=7.326] totals 14.985 (say, 15) neg levels/20 attacks.

Paladin (assuming pure) will be very similar assuming 10% doublestrike from gear and past lives:
Zeal will increase the mainhand another 10%, so 1.25 while offhand is reduced to .8 (or .88 with PTWF).
[(1.25x6.66)=8.325] + [(.88x6.66)=5.86] totals 14.11 (say, 14) neg levels/20 attacks.
If monk is added, even one level, even if uncentered, for deft strikes (7 AP), this increases to:
[(1.25x6.66)=8.325] + [(.99x6.66)=6.6] totals 14.84 (nearly 15) neg levels/20 attacks.

2) SWF (perfect SWF)
Obviously swashbuckler; best weapon is one that procs heavily on vorpal. This indicates the Epic envenomed blade with Ruby of endless night.
The epic envenomed blade has Enervation on vorpal (If I understand correctly; it claims 5% chance so this might be incorrect).
Enervation is 1-4 levels averaging 2.5 (this average may also be incorrect). The other option is a Luck Blade with three rubies; assuming they stack, that would be 3 neg levels. Since I am not sure if they stack, AND given the rarety of both the Luck Blade as well as that many Rubies (barring duping), as well as the problem of wielding a level 8 blade in epic content, I will ignore this possibility.
secondly, vampire form adds a neg level on vorpal.
2.5 from envenomed, 2 from vampire and 2 from ruby or 6.5 neg levels every 20 attacks (This assumes Perfect SWF which comes later in epic levels).
Since it attacks at 1.3 the speed of TWF, that is 1.3x6.5 or 8.45
The swash tree offers a couple of points in doublestrike as well as Dashing scoundrel for 10% DS; we can add 4% DS from EK tree (since we presume at least 8 levels of wizard). This results in 16%DS plus the presumed 10% from random gear/PL sources for 26% DS. Hence 8.45x1.26=10.647
However, the Swash tree has bursts of 30% DS. Assuming the use of one of those bursts, we have 8.45x1.56=12.87
The Swash/vampire combination is similar to the TWF, assuming bursts of Doublestrike; otherwise, it falls behind significantly.

3) Monk handwraps
Monks get special options here due to the nature of wraps (and Grave Wrappings' Soul Eater), whirlwind strike (see above posts) and the Henshin's Tier 5 LCEWS
The wraps will only proc 1.9 (assuming Deft Strikes) on vorpal, for an average of 2 neg levels x 1.9=3.8; even with shroud of vampire this only comes to 5.7 However, Tier 5 Henshin will neg level all mobs AoE for a neg level upon death every 15 seconds and Whirlwind Attack causes multiple attacks on opponents in a 360 degree arc. One could also assume Cormyrian life stealing wraps in DC, giving a broader neg level range of 17-20 but still quite poor as compared to TWF above.
Note: As Mercureal mentions in the post below, monks get a 10% faster wraps attack speed, so one can increase the above numbers by 10%.

The above figures make several assumptions as noted and may be incorrect; please post any errors! Thanks.

[Mercureal]

Another thing to consider for Monk is the faster attack animation that results in more actual attack rolls per minute than a weapon-bearing TWF.

If I recall correctly (this is going back quite a ways) from Vanshilar's exhaustive testing, the unarmed rate was about 10% more attack animations per minute. This still probably isn't enough to make up for the disparity in critical ranges, but I just felt like you could use a bit more complexity to factor in.

[Saekee]

Another thing to consider for Monk is the faster attack animation that results in more actual attack rolls per minute than a weapon-bearing TWF.

If I recall correctly (this is going back quite a ways) from Vanshilar's exhaustive testing, the unarmed rate was about 10% more attack animations per minute. This still probably isn't enough to make up for the disparity in critical ranges, but I just felt like you could use a bit more complexity to factor in.

thx for the reminder Mercureal--I added a note mentioning it. I think the real strength of the monk is with the Henshin Tier combined with Whirlwind attack--hitting lots of mobs when you need to, otherwise using stunning fist against a single mob (and QP). The monk then makes for a rather balanced option in terms of single- and group-target.

The ranger/fighter TWF option could use manyshot with a life stealing bow for CC neg levels whereas the Paladin option would be rather limited to melee, albeit powerful as such.

[Saekee]

I am currently on my monk life. I was asked the question "what are you using to neg level everything" in a pug. The answer was RNG of feeding. There are better weapons I am sure, but 2 things to consider:

1. You need whirlwind attack. It is better than described for sure. It is not attack everyone around you once, it is attack everyone around you 4 times. Seems to give those results on handwraps only. Yes it takes 5 feats, take them or be gimp, all there is to it. I passed on that whirlwind attack many, many times on other toons. I was wrong. It rocks.

2. Chance of 1d3 neg levels on hit < always neg levels on a 20.

My tactics are healing mark, stunning blow (next target) stunning fist, healing mark, whirlwind attack, great cleave, quivering palm on the one that neg leveled, rinse repeat.

I have added your notes in the post above about Whirlwind attack; this makes a rather interesting option for the wraps.

[Connman]

On enervation guard : I have always liked this. I made some greensteel goggles of ash and had to take them off to be sure where the procs were coming from from the feeding.

On vampire builds, if someone mentioned it already, or didn't bother because it hasn't aged well, i don't know. But I am going to mention it anyway.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Phiarlan_Mirror_Cloak

[Saekee]

On enervation guard : I have always liked this. I made some greensteel goggles of ash and had to take them off to be sure where the procs were coming from from the feeding.

On vampire builds, if someone mentioned it already, or didn't bother because it hasn't aged well, i don't know. But I am going to mention it anyway.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Phiarlan_Mirror_Cloak

Yep mirror cloak is really good for vamps.

The GS enervation guard looks like it is actually relevant for epic play and could go well with these builds. Is that a dual shard or single shard?

[Mercureal]

Yep mirror cloak is really good for vamps.

The GS enervation guard looks like it is actually relevant for epic play and could go well with these builds. Is that a dual shard or single shard?

Dual Shard, unfortunately

[Xionanx]

Isn't this: (http://ddowiki.com/page/Obscenity)

A random loot effect now? So if someone manages to get that on a Returning Shuriken... wouldn't a shuriken throwing build like critzilla just be stupid.