Vampire with harm, help please

[Lauf]

Hi Everyone,

For a long time I've been meaning to run a vampire build, mainly because I love neg leveling things (call me crazy).
The issue I've had with the idea is that I found PM healing to be a bit lackluster; I prefer having a big spot heal, and the negative energy burst just felt gimped.

Since PMs can't really depend on teammates/hirelings for healing, the only solution I could see was to run an 11-12 level divine for harm, and 6 wiz for vampire. The problem with that idea is that while the self heals may finally be there, this split was so gimped for melee to be even halfway decent... however that was before the Vistani tree, and the Eldritch Knight revamp that moved tenser's toggle to the 4th tier.

So the enhancements' split looks like:
Vistani 41 points
Vampire 11 points
Eldritch Knight 22 points (for the tenser's toggle)

Total: 74 / 80.

So it's doable. barely... but doable.

Can you please help me put this build together?

[Saekee]

It seems like you have figured out its weaknesses and AP--have you looked into the cleric tree for the SLA? You could do lees cleric levels but would need to spend AP there--the tier 4 of divine disciple. You could do more wiz levels and with 11 or so you can self-cast tensers.
You would probably be better off leaning into EK than VkF...There are builds out there where folks have tried to balance PMs and EKs but it seems just better not being a PM until they rehaul the tree. Then you can go pure wiz.

For neg leveling builds, Vampire is not a good choice. It is only one level on a vorpal. There are better options although they do not shine until later (and are 'flavor'), at least when neg leveling on first hits really drop mob hp.

[Lauf]

Thank you for replying!

It seems like you have figured out its weaknesses and AP

The broad strokes are covered, but as always, the devil's in the details...

• full plate or evasion?
• what to splash (monk/rogue/pally/fighter)?
• fvs or cleric for the divine? (which also affects level split, 12/6/2 vs 11/6/3)
• feats?
• dex / str / int?
• race?
• leveling order?

have you looked into the cleric tree for the SLA? You could do lees cleric levels but would need to spend AP there--the tier 4 of divine disciple.

I have. The problem I see is that the APs that will go into the Divine Disciple will come at the expense of melee.
I'm hoping harm can be a big enough source of healing, so that I can rely on spells for healing and spend the APs on melee damage.

You could do more wiz levels and with 11 or so you can self-cast tensers.

True, but then I end up trading harm, which was the big heal I was after, for necrotic blast, and trade the EK tree for DD.

You would probably be better off leaning into EK than VkF...

Very interesting, how so?

For neg leveling builds, Vampire is not a good choice. It is only one level on a vorpal. There are better options.

Also very interesting, could you elaborate on the better options? are you referring to the henshin monk?

[unbongwah]

So I did some testing with a sun elf cleric 12 / wizard 3 build. You can self-cast (single-target) Inflict spells, the NEB SLA, plus Harm while in zombie form for self-unheals, which didn't used to be the case, IIRC. However, casting Mass Inflict spells only targets enemies, even while in undead form and standing within the casting radius.

If you go cleric-based, you really want to grab the NEB SLA from Divine Disciple; at only 7 SPs fully meta'ed vs Harm's 35 SPs un-meta'ed, it's a much more SP-efficient means of unhealing. Plus let's face it: you're never gonna be top-tier DPS with this thing, so you might as well lean into the core concept.

Unfortunately Lama just closed so I can't test these concepts, but a few ideas which present themselves:

• cleric 13 / wiz 7: variation on the Zombie Cleric which goes melee-spec instead of caster. Upside is getting lvl 4 wiz spells (Death Aura) as well as lvl 7 cleric spells. If Vistani-based: 41 VKF (capstone) / 23 DiDi (NEB SLA) / 11 PM (vamp form) / 4 WP (Div Might) with 1 AP left over. If EK-based: 36 EK (tier-5s) / 23 DiDi / 11 PM / 4 WP leaving 8 APs (or 12 Harper if you go INT-based).
• cleric 14 / wiz 6: trades Death Aura for your lvl 14 domain power, such as Holy Sword if War domain.
• FvS 12+ / wiz 6+: okay this is getting even deeper into Flavor Country, but I was thinking Sovereign Host Warsoul vampire (longswords w/Knight's Training). Tier-5 WS + Tier-4 EK, basically. I dunno, I'm just making this up as I go.

[Drecas]

If you go cleric-based, you really want to grab the NEB SLA from Divine Disciple; at only 7 SPs fully meta'ed vs Harm's 35 SPs un-meta'ed, it's a much more SP-efficient means of unhealing.

You can't use the Divine Disciple Negative Energy Burst to self-heal.

[Pilgrim1]

Hi Everyone,

For a long time I've been meaning to run a vampire build, mainly because I love neg leveling things (call me crazy).
The issue I've had with the idea is that I found PM healing to be a bit lackluster; I prefer having a big spot heal, and the negative energy burst just felt gimped.

Since PMs can't really depend on teammates/hirelings for healing, the only solution I could see was to run an 11-12 level divine for harm, and 6 wiz for vampire. The problem with that idea is that while the self heals may finally be there, this split was so gimped for melee to be even halfway decent... however that was before the Vistani tree, and the Eldritch Knight revamp that moved tenser's toggle to the 4th tier.

So the enhancements' split looks like:
Vistani 41 points
Vampire 11 points
Eldritch Knight 22 points (for the tenser's toggle)

Total: 74 / 80.

So it's doable. barely... but doable.

Can you please help me put this build together?

2 points: First negitive energy burst is gimped from the spell pass so its performing much worse than expected. It’s doing about half the healing it was doing pre-patch, and about 1/4th the healing it should be doing post patch. I have not seen any sign’s that the dev’s are even aware of this issue, much less intrested in fixing it.

Secondly you can leverage death aura + lesser death aura to give you ~2,500 hp/tick at lvl 30. Yes thats 2500 point heal every 3 seconds. This takes some finagling but its basicly: pure wizzy + arcain destiny for caster levels, master of death for beter caster levels, master of magic for better spell damge, and casting death aura’s when you triger arcain supremicy from t5 archmage. Takes some gear swaps to fully get it to work and some spell spamming to maintain counters but its a fun alternitive for wizzy. Makes you a god in low reaper quests, ok self healing to r5, and worse at r6+.

[Saekee]

To add to the above, the better neg leveling builds (outside of casting enervation) would be either Henshin Tier 5 LCEWS. That is very strong. The other option is on weapons; you can make a staff with it in heroics (not a good approach); T3 GS double shard (not a great use of dual shards) and anyway only procs 5%. The really strongest happens later and that is with life stealing weapons which only proc on a chance on a crit. Figure 33% chance or so on crit. So you need a high crit weapon that hits often. Easiest would be a dagger build using sacrificial daggers; maybe use tier 5 Henshin and run centered with daggers. Daggers are easiest to get.

I think the absolute strongest would be a tempest dual wielding two level 24 cormyrians scimitars that have the life stealing ability (you would need to make A LOT until the lottery gives you this combo) and running it in divine crusader. You would have a crit profile of 13-20/3 (I think) and then the offhand hits and massive doublestrikes on both. A vistani assassin has 15-20/4 with daggers.

This is of course very flavor but I get a kick out of such builds. Note that the approach is sorely limited as many of the toughest enemies like Undead, constructs etc. do not suffer neg levels and bosses do not.

[Jetrule]

You can cast harm on yourself and be a vampire vistani dagger fighter with a 12-14 favored soul and 6-8 wizard. You could also get wisdom or charisma to hit and damage options if you wanted them that way. Go disciple of Vol.

Note that vistani's mist stalker defenses all gimp your negative self healing with their negative resistances so dont pick those enhancements.

[unbongwah]

You can't use the Divine Disciple Negative Energy Burst to self-heal.

Yes you can.

Morninglord cleric 12 / wizard 3 in zombie form casting DiDi NEB SLA: orange numbers are damage to enemies, green number is self-unhealing.

OTOH, as I said, MIMW SLA does not affect our undead cleric:

Notice the lack of any green number even though I'm standing within the cast radius.

[Drecas]

Then the Wiki is wrong.

[unbongwah]

It frequently is! Which is why you always need to test & verify things yourself, IMO.

[Drecas]

It frequently is! Which is why you always need to test & verify things yourself, IMO.

I don't have the time, energy or character slots for that

[unbongwah]

Good thing I have, well, two of those, anyway.

[Jetrule]

The broad strokes are covered, but as always, the devil's in the details...

• full plate or evasion?
• what to splash (monk/rogue/pally/fighter)?
• fvs or cleric for the divine? (which also affects level split, 12/6/2 vs 11/6/3)
• feats?
• dex / str / int?
• race?
• leveling order?

I would run fvs of vol 14 to stack as many caster levels as I could for my neg energy spells and Wiz 6 using your enhancement point splits I would put 4 more into PM to max out neg healing crit and amp then 4 into war soul for divine might. I would run a strength build main stat strength and secondary constitution tertiary charisma. You will need to spend some points in int amount varied depending on race. All level ups into strength gearing con and charisma as well as you can. Strength gear everything but insightful, it wont stack with divine might.

I would run single weapon fighting allowing for a orb off hand,using the orb and trinket from disciples of rage.

I would level 12 fvs 6 wiz last 2 fvs

Idealy I would run dragon born but dragon born vampire has all the cool looks of a cardboard box. This is a flavor build we want to be cool so drow, half orc or human. Half orc vampires look realy awesome and the character would be unique. But it is - charisma and intelligence so a tough choice.

Skills in heal concentration and 8 balance. I would get some jump and umd if enough int is there.

For armor I would go light and get the stalker raven loft set.

Feats would be
single weapon fighting line
imp crit pierce
extend spell for displacements and lesser death aura other wizzy buffs
quicken spell
completionist or dodge
precision if you have the dex power attack if not.
mobility or dodge

Epic feats
overwhelming critical
weapon focus pierce
epic damage reduction
mobility or toughness

Destiny feats

Perfect single weapon fighting
tactician
dire charge

legendary feat
scion of shadow fell for defense. scion of arborea for offence.

Destiny Legendary dreadnought destiny twisting sense weakness

[Lauf]

Thank you all for your feedback, it was just what I needed

I would run fvs of vol 14 to stack as many caster levels as I could for my neg energy spells
For armor I would go light and get the stalker raven loft set.

Curious, if running in light armor, why not go for a 12/6/2 split and work in evasion?
wouldn't it be better than 2 more fvs levels?

I would run single weapon fighting allowing for a orb off hand,using the orb and trinket from disciples of rage.

I was unaware of that set, thank you very much for pointing it out!

[Jetrule]

Thank you all for your feedback, it was just what I needed




Curious, if running in light armor, why not go for a 12/6/2 split and work in evasion?
wouldn't it be better than 2 more fvs levels?

Because reflex saves will be bad on this build. Need to shoot for 100 mrr or as high as can be at lvl cap and use elemental damage mitigation items enhancements and or twists.

[Alled78]

Hi Everyone,

For a long time I've been meaning to run a vampire build, mainly because I love neg leveling things (call me crazy).
The issue I've had with the idea is that I found PM healing to be a bit lackluster; I prefer having a big spot heal, and the negative energy burst just felt gimped.

Since PMs can't really depend on teammates/hirelings for healing, the only solution I could see was to run an 11-12 level divine for harm, and 6 wiz for vampire. The problem with that idea is that while the self heals may finally be there, this split was so gimped for melee to be even halfway decent... however that was before the Vistani tree, and the Eldritch Knight revamp that moved tenser's toggle to the 4th tier.

So the enhancements' split looks like:
Vistani 41 points
Vampire 11 points
Eldritch Knight 22 points (for the tenser's toggle)

Total: 74 / 80.

So it's doable. barely... but doable.

Can you please help me put this build together?

i tested a similar build and was not happy, because u need to aim yourself for healing and usually in emergencies situation u cant,
(like healing against undead)

20 wiz is far better actually

[Niminae]

Then the Wiki is wrong.

Meh, not necessarily (because I haven't tested it myself). The wiki says here:

Unlike the spell version the caster is not selectable as the target of this spell.

But it also says here:

Pale masters may use this spell to self heal.

Unbongwa could have been targeting the opponent and gained the benefit of the NEB self-healing due to being within the radius of effect. Which you will always be since it is a point blank AOE. This would not require self-targeting, and would not make the wiki wrong, just a bit terse for conveying all the necessary information.