Help making sampire a competitive PVP build with suit and weapons alone

[Roland of Atlantic]

Well, the guild has started dabbling in a pvp night to train those of us who are clueless about PVP on how to use tactics to defend ourseves in fel spawns should we get raided. My build is all PVM, being a sampire, and I need a little help without changing my skill set to at least make me capable of defending myself, and possibly make me capable of taking out the unprepared.

My skills are as follows:
Swords, Bush, Parry 120
tactics, Necro 100
Chiv 66
Resist 79

My unmodded stats are
105 Str
125 Dex
25 Int

Im an elf.

I dont want to mess with stoning off skills, but rather simply carry a set of armor, jewels and weapons that I can arm with a macro at a second's notice. I was thinking about maybe a bokuto and a hatchet to cover the basic specials, and maybe something for bleed.

Since I have no healing besides bushido, Im going to rely pretty heavily on pots, so I probably want enhance potion on my jewels, plus Im assuming the customary DI, DCI and HCI. Past that, I can't even think about what to put on the armor. What artifacts should I start off with? Im assuming I'm going to want lots of DCI and HCI...

Any and all suggestions are appreciated!

 

[Lynk]

You'll definitely want EP on jewels. Also will need mana regen, since you won't be leeching very much. Bokuto and hatchet would be a good start to weapons, I'd suggest a war fork too for bleed/disarm. Since those weapons are pretty fast, you can probably sacrifice some stam increase on your pvp suit for the MR.

Don't expect to do very well PvPing on a sampire.

 

[Lynk]

Oh, and a PvP tip for when you're outnumbered or really fighting anyone in a spawn setting.

Honor yourself, and run into big areas of heavily spawned areas. Keep running like you're scared to get as much spawn on your enemy. Once you think theres enough to stam block them and do enough damage to help you, just turn around and either disarm/ai with hatchet or spam a couple nerve strikes. Typically people won't raid spawns until they are at the higher spawn levels so I find it helps when I get raided when I'm on my sampires.

 

[[JD]]

hmm that will be tough, the problem with sampires in pvp is they dont leech much. its one thing when you're ai'ing a monster for 200 and get tons of health, sta, and mana back... but in pvp you can expect to do 35 or less usually, which means your ability to leech is limited. you can of course run up to spawn and start whirlwinding to stay alive.

i like lynk's ideas..

is 120 parry necessary on this build? ive never used evade before but it might be prudent to consider just enough parry (60) to evade nukes from mages. also i dont know the effectiveness of 79 resist, i think maybe you are better off putting the points you saved there plus parry into healing. in pvp you need to be able to heal while on the move. that will give you 3 forms of healing while moving; pots, bandies, and confidence. if theres any left over you could consider Anat or even SS. its nice to be able to strangle stealthers/mages, corpse skin and then run poison/fire weaps, blood oath archers, or finish runners with pain spike.

as for armor mods make sure you have lots of hp also. people are killed by burst dmg in pvp and if you have a bigger well to draw from when the dump starts, that helps spell survivability and more time for you to be able to confidence/bandaid/pot.

i also like to carry invis pots. the prob with sampires is their vamp form precludes you being able to ninja and get away. invis pots are slow but its a CHANCE to invis. run around a corner and pop one or something. if you can pull it off you can hit your ethy/charger macro and remount.

being human gives you joat access to hiding, spellweaving, and other things. even the joat sw can be a lifesaver with gift of renewal and attunement plus a focus.

have all your consumables set to hotkeys.

 

[Picus at the office]

If your with a group call a target and only go after that one guy till he is dead. This is the only way that you stand a chance pvping on sampires in a champ setting. Disarm and go for broke. But one person in your guild has to call a target either by name or simple discription(dude in the red hat or on the swampie...).

I'd consider making a UBWS warfork over the hatchet so as to never disarm yourself to use a pot and it has disarm and bleed. Use evasion and confidence. Carry a Wirlwind weapon with hit area of some sort other then energy(cold is a good one as its typically a lower used resist and might be over looked on peoples suits) and if cornered with spawn bust this out to both get out and you just might kill a person. I've disarmed many folks to then WW them to death inside of spawn all the time leeching life, stam and mana to keep going...

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

Although you may want to use some UBWS weapons like War Forks, don't forget you can only Evade with weapons you have at least 50 skill in.

As far as PvP mods on your suit you want something like all 70's, 100 di, 40 lmc, 10 mr, 45 hci, 45 dci, 25 hp increase, 50 e.p. This is pretty easy to get with Fey Legs/Spirit Of The Totem.

If you're not 120 Resist perhaps use skill items to increase that if you have room.

You can use a Lesser Hiryu and Orc Brute talisman.

Specials depend who you're fighting but the melee ones that are generally the most useful are, Disarm, Bleed, Mortal, AI, Nerve Strike, Riding Swipe (If you're mounted it does Parra, if you're on foot it Dismounts).

You're likely to get Purged out of Vamp Form (so don't necessarily need 95 Fire on an alt suit), so carry Orange Petals or Cure pots, pots are better as you can Cure yourself instantly so your group can cross heal you.

Try to get 50 hit spell (Lightning or Fireball) and HLD on your weapons.

 

[[JD]]

if you really want to keep your resisting spells, aegis of grace has +10 resisting spells, 20 DCI, and ok resists so its kind of pvp friendly. though you would lose out on m&s or spirit of totem. paired with jewels with +15 resisting spells each you could reach 120 with some minor tweaking. and because its DCI is so high you might recover an imbue slot on a jewel from it making room for that resisting spells. i kind of view it more as a mage helm, though it could be made to work for you.

 

[Roland of Atlantic]

Oohh, this is a huge help... Lots of options here.

I really want to keep the skills and stats the same because my duty in the spawns is exactly what sampires excel at doing. The suit and weapons is what can be carried and auto equipped to deal with situations. And naturally, PVP tactics, which is a major flaw in my game, as I have none. LOL

Do I want to take into account any major debuffs that are common in the PVP world when I do the imbued resists part of the suit? I'm pretty sure the majority of my problems will be as a result of magic users, so I dont think I will try to over-clock DCI past the 45 cap.

Something that concerns me... If Im in a spawn and I get attacked, I will be in vamp mode, so if I switch to a PVP suit with 70 fire resist, I will be screwed if im still running vamp. Is there a way I can quickly and reliably purge myself out of vamp, or just recasting VE? And while Im wondering about that, a lot of necros are probably going to want to throw corpse skin on me at the start of a mana dump. Do I want to compensate for that in my suit resists with 85 fire and poison? Maybe I could run with 60 cold in anticipation. LOL

What is an orc brute talisman? I have a lesser hiryu I can ride. Im assuming I could dismount and sic it on the source of my problems? Of course this wont help at a spawn but in our little guild thing...

Evade is a beautiful thing, and a great advantage I have against burst damage from mages. Am I understanding that a UBWS war fork will not let me use evade when it's equipped? Is the advantage of pot use worth losing that?

Between bleed and mortal strike, which is best? Mortal strike seems pretty decent, and I can get that in a one handed format via the bone harvester *snicker* Then I can also see the advantage of the bleed for interrupting mages... On that same note I was told that the slight delay of hit fireball would be better at interrupting mages than the relatively quick lightning. Is that accurate?

On the weapons, Im assuming DI, HLD and hit fireball are givens. What about the other 2 mods? HLA I can see helping for dexers, but definitely not for mages.

Will dispel evil work vs a summoned colossus?

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

A Grammar Of Orcish talisman is one of the Brit Library community collections. It has +5 Resisting Spells and +7 Anatomy, but the main purpose of it is that it summons an Orc Brute which attempts to hit when you hit, I think they hit for around 30.

If you have a UBWS War Fork you would need at least 50 Fencing to still use Evasion with that weapon equipped.

There are Swords weapons for all of the specials.

Bleed interrupts spells, though can be timed through, and also blocks bandages, the bandage will heal the bleed instead of healing the player. Mortal blocks certain types of healing for 10s. Remove Curse removes Mortal but not Bleed, Bleed can be removed with Damage Removal talisman and bandages. Neither are better they just serve different purposes.

Hit Fireball will interrupt between swings.

 

[Lefty]

Lynk covered most, but on your suit, you might also want to make it corpse skin proof, going 95 real on your fire and poison resists. MR , LMC, Mana Increase, and maybe HP increase on your pieces.

 

[Roland of Atlantic]

The only things I need to answer yet are:

If Im in a spawn and I get attacked, I will be in vamp mode, so if I switch to a PVP suit with 70 fire resist, I will be screwed if im still running vamp. Is there a way I can quickly and reliably purge myself out of vamp, or just recasting VE?

Even if I managed to get 85 fire and poison on the suit, I would still be 10 under in fire, and if someone tossed corpse skin on me, I don't even want to think about that... I need to figure out an easier way to debuff than recasting vampiric embrace if that's possible.

On the weapons, Im assuming DI, HLD and hit fireball are givens. What about the other 2 mods? HLA I can see helping for dexers, but definitely not for mages.

Do I want 3 general all purpose PVP weapons, or do I want to make specific sets geared towards mage types and dexxers?

Will dispel evil work vs a summoned colossus?

We have some mystics in the guild, and I know they are just itching to throw one of those on me. I guess if they did I wouldnt have to worry about purging my vamp mode, because thats the first thing the collosus does. LOL

 

[Lord GOD(GOD)]

"Is there a way I can quickly and reliably purge myself out of vamp, or just recasting VE?"

Ward Removal talisman used to work, I don't think they do anymore though, but worth a check. Otherwise no.

If you want Corpse Proof in Vamp Form you need 100-110 fire, depending on if you want it to drop you to 60 (which you'll get Cursed to anyway, Curse lowers caps, not equipped) or 70. I wouldn't worry too much about overcapping the poison.

What you need on the weapons will probably be DI, SSI, hit spell, HLD, after that you could save yourself the need to change your HCI/DCI setup on the suit by putting it on the weapon, you could even enhance (the Bokutos at least) for extra mods after Imbuing.

I would make the Bokuto Hit Lightning, the Hatchet Hit Fireball. I probably wouldn't bother with a Bone Harvester or Bleed weapon but if you choose to I'd do those Lightning and Fireball respectively also.

I wouldn't worry too much about the Colossus, just keep moving, you'll probably kill it before it does anything if you use all thats at your disposal.

In my experience guild PvP is a lot of fun and you don't really need to worry about being perfectly equipped to start as the aim is usually more to open your eyes to looking at what others around you are doing. Like not running off screen when someones healing you and using what you can to help them in return when they need it for instance you can Cure and Remove Curse at range with Chivalry. Or even Disarming the dexxers that are hitting your casters (the casters that are xhealing you when you need it).

 

[jaashua]

Do I want 3 general all purpose PVP weapons, or do I want to make specific sets geared towards mage types and dexxers?

As a non-hardcore PvPer who still loves to PvP, I've had the most success and fun with an all-purpose setup.

What will primarily determine the outcome of a battle is tactics. Knowing what to do in response to tactics, how to vary your tactics depending on their tactics, etc. That starts with knowing yourself.....your strengths and weaknesses.....capabilities and limitations. When you're in the midst of it and unexpected things are happening and you're reacting, it needs to be instinctive...and the last thing you need getting in your way is wondering which weapon and set of jewels you have.

 

[Obsidian]

As a non-hardcore PvPer who still loves to PvP, I've had the most success and fun with an all-purpose setup.

What will primarily determine the outcome of a battle is tactics. Knowing what to do in response to tactics, how to vary your tactics depending on their tactics, etc. That starts with knowing yourself.....your strengths and weaknesses.....capabilities and limitations. When you're in the midst of it and unexpected things are happening and you're reacting, it needs to be instinctive...and the last thing you need getting in your way is wondering which weapon and set of jewels you have.

Your statement just made Sun Tzu smile in his grave.

-OBSIDIAN-

 

[Lynk]

I don't think you really have to worry about being corpse proof... most people are not necros, they are mystics now.

 

[Roland of Atlantic]

I wanted to ask something else. Last night I was talking to a guy about his elf sampire archer who he also PVPs with. He has anatomy and healing built into his skills, scrapping resist, chiv and parry. He built his suit around the mace and shield, heart of the lion and gladiator collar, with 4 working mods and 1 resist mod on each of the 3 imbued pieces (arms, legs and gloves). His fire resist was awful in vamp form (48) but he said he didnt miss it at all, and as long as he kept up with the apples, he was ok.

I was thinking about dusting my archer off and going similar to this build to run in fel spawns when we go. I think archery has got to be easier to control in PVP because there is less concentration put into proper positioning (dont have to be right on top of them) so a little more concentration can go into watching their spells and countering with the proper consumables.

The pros of this build in PVP compared to mine are obviously the distance factor, the healing and confidence for healing, higher damage with the anatomy, max HCI and DCI. It seems maybe a little less effective than a melee build in an insane spawn, particularly a magic tossing one, but lots more survivable in PVP.

Some cons I can think of is the obvious big hole in fire resist, and cold resist was a little off too (62). I dont know how he could handle deadly level poison with someone mana dumping him in vamp form, with no chiv to cure it and the inability to use pots. I suppose he'd have to wait for bandages to cure it while off-screening and using confidence in between ticks.

Is this an accurate picture I'm getting or are there other holes I'm missing?

 

[jaashua]

Anybody you listen to is going to have a viable sounding template. And, frankly, any template is viable if played and geared properly.

Bro, you're putting WAY too much thought into this. Pretty much every group PvP fight is going to involve you being outnumbered or outnumbering the other guys. Pick the playstyle that is the most fun for you and then make adjustments for the sake of PvP. Then just go rock out.