After being back for a month now and having most of my chars up to par, going to work on setting up my last one as a sampire and give that a whirl.
My question thou, which melee skill is the best? I currently have on stones:
100.0 Swords
109.5 Fencing
103.9 Macing
From reading Lynk's post, I took notice he only has 60 parry. Is this all that is needed? I thought I would want parry maxed. He also has necro at 99. I have 105 necro on a stone, do I need to drop it to 99 or is the 105 ok to keep?
I'm guessing armor isn't an issue whether med or non-med since leeching doesn't require a specific type.
How important is race? I'm guessing elf is the way to go with mana boost they get, but with the JoAT humans get, which is better?
Sorry for all the questions, after 5 years away it's like learning a new game all over again. Definitely feel like a newb
You will find varying opinions on a lot of this and what I've come to understand that playing a sampire is a very personal experience. There are many ways to play one and you need to work out which fits best for you.
In terms of weapon skill, I prefer fencing. My wife uses a macer, and others do swords.
Fencing- In my humble opinion, fencing has the best sampire weapon available in the Leafblade. It's one handed, has Feint and Armor Ignore as specials and does pretty good damage. There are other fencing AI weapons (Kryss, Spear), but neither really match the Leafblade (unless you PvP, then the Kryss is nice). For whirlwind, you are limited to 1 weapon- the kama. It does the job and looks cool while doing it.
Macing- I believe has the best whirlwind weapon in the Black staff. I give the edge to it over the Radiant Scimitar (even though the scimitar is one handed) because you can enhance the Black staff after imbuing too add 10% SSI- which swings at max with just 150 stamina. The Black staff also has damage over the scimitar (13-16 to 12-14). For Armor Ignore, you'll want to use the War Axe. The only other macing weapon with Armor Ignore is the Hammer Pick and you have to invest too much into SSI to make it worth while (180 stamina and 55 SSI).
Swords- probably the most popular. Swords already has a sampire weapon made for it in the Soul Seeker. For AI you have Bladed Staff, Hatchet, Long Sword, Broadsword and Katana. Most popular here seems to be the Long/Broad swords. I messed around with the Katana and Bladed Staff- didn't care for them. Haven't done anything with the hatchet. For Whirlwind oddly enough swords had an artifact made for it also- Blazing Death. While not the perfect sampire weapon, it does clear spawn well. Your choices here are Large Battle Axe, Halberd, Paladin Sword (aka The Redeemer- not really usable imo) and Double Axe. I've seen people use the Double Axe, with the other ability of Double Strike, especially against mobs in which you don't have a slayer. And it has nice damage- 15-17 damage and whirlwind is abusive. But, it seems that most people run the radiant scimitar. It's fast, you don't need much SSI and it's one handed, so you run a shield and/or use potions.
99 necromancy is the minimum you need to cast Vampiric Embrace. The template is tight enough that each point is important. I carry scrolls, arcane boots, rings (to raise necro to 120) to help cast it.
As for parry- with the changes to chivalry, you need high skill in chivalry to obtain the same benefits that we got from having 60-65 skill. So, most have dropped parry to 60 and upped Chivalry in response. Keeping the 60 points, so that when added with Bushido and a weapon skill, you get the 300 skill points needed for the 10 mana discount for specials.
As for race, I prefer Elf. The mana is just too good to pass up. The only reason I can see going human is because of JOAT and using it with spellweaving, mysticism and magery.
