Highly experimental build: Elder Vampire

About the original concept, I could perhaps pull it off thanks to Rejuvenation Totem, since it provides fixed regen instead of percentage based.

This might be terrible for high HP builds but for this Vampire it is just perfect. Also it kind of fits the theme (to survive you need a phillactery, right?) so lay down the Rejuv totem and start dishing out the pain. 101 HP/sec should be more than enough to sustain aggressive casting, although I might want to tone down the cast speed bonuses.

I just bought myself this beauty:



I coughed up 2 GCP for it, but it appears to be quite high in stats (higher than the known max? Must be an effect of the open beta buffs). Anyway, this is a great start.

Now I only need to know whether to go for the melee or ranged variant. Melee offers another interesting point: I wouldn´t need to level up double strike so it could stick at its vanilla 4 mana.

Anyway, I think I´ll go with the original idea plus Rejuvenation Totem to handle the issue about not being able to drain life on spell hit, then I´ll see whether or not I can get Ghost Reaver to sustain RF damage. I will also get a couple Panicked HP flasks of the Surgeon, these may keep me alive in a pinch. If you look at the bright side, now my Covenant will have another support gem slot!

EDIT: And also, how didn´t I think of it? Okay, I can't use LGOH on Freezing Pulse, but I can use it with Whirling Blades! That's genius! I can throw two or three pulses and then get my life to full with WB.

Wish me luck!

really clever thought-provoking theorycrafting. I envisage huge problems from chaos damage, like 1-shot city.

Blood Magic can be difficult to use on a character that is ES-based for defence. You have to have a way of recovering life rapidly to pay for skills as well as making up for Chaos damage, but you don't want to jeapordise your ES. Life Gain on Hit will do it, but only if you use Attacks that hit many monsters. Life Leech runs into rate problems unless you get Vaal Pact, and in any case you'd probably rather use Ghost Reaver.

Redbeak should work with spells, but it's only 100% increased damage. You can get a bonus in the 80s with a rare wand (not dependent on low life), plus the wand will be able to get a bunch of other useful mods.

Still, I like the idea of Righteous Fire on a low life ES-based build. How about using Springleaf and Zealot's Oath for constant ES regen?

"

Incompetent wrote:

Blood Magic can be difficult to use on a character that is ES-based for defence. You have to have a way of recovering life rapidly to pay for skills as well as making up for Chaos damage, but you don't want to jeapordise your ES. Life Gain on Hit will do it, but only if you use Attacks that hit many monsters. Life Leech runs into rate problems unless you get Vaal Pact, and in any case you'd probably rather use Ghost Reaver.

Redbeak should work with spells, but it's only 100% increased damage. You can get a bonus in the 80s with a rare wand (not dependent on low life), plus the wand will be able to get a bunch of other useful mods.

Still, I like the idea of Righteous Fire on a low life ES-based build. How about using Springleaf and Zealot's Oath for constant ES regen?

Springleaf, ZO and the Templar 1% node. Aruku Tiki if he fancies it.

The problem with all these sources of regen is that they´re percent based. Since I aim for very low HP, percentual regeneration isn´t that helpful.

The only source I know of that gives a fixed rate regen is Rejuvenation Totem, so here are the three sources of life gain I envision:

1- Rejuv totem (also as a safeguard against chaos damage, with high chaos resists it should be possible to sustain)
2- Panicked flasks of the surgeon, for quick bursts between casts.
3- Level 1 Whirling Blades with LGOH and Faster Attacks, to regain some quick life against multiple mobs.
4- Ranged Attack Totem with LGOH and something that hits very often

"

Falcord wrote:

The problem with all these sources of regen is that they´re percent based. Since I aim for very low HP, percentual regeneration isn´t that helpful.

The only source I know of that gives a fixed rate regen is Rejuvenation Totem, so here are the three sources of life gain I envision:

1- Rejuv totem (also as a safeguard against chaos damage, with high chaos resists it should be possible to sustain)
2- Panicked flasks of the surgeon, for quick bursts between casts.
3- Level 1 Whirling Blades with LGOH and Faster Attacks, to regain some quick life against multiple mobs.
4- Ranged Attack Totem with LGOH and something that hits very often

And they would work gloriously on your Energy Shields. Some 7~8% of your 4k ES per second is nothing to sneeze at.

Since Ghost Reaver only works with Life Leech and not Life Gain on Hit, you will thus be able to sustain your life cost with LGoH while maintaining the ES regen you need from both Life Leech gems and Zealot's Oath.

I think what needs to be done here is to sustain the cost exclusively via casts. Have a Seething and/or Bubbling Flask + Amethyst Flask handy for when you encounter Chaos damage or when you and as a backup for when you need to top your health up.

Ideally Seething Flask of Dousing (to turn off RF in a pinch) and Bubbling Flask of (Desired Suffix). Possibly even a Surgeon's Flask given the crit you'd achieve.

Addendum: Surgeon's Flask of Refilling with G/LMP FP should net you 3 charges per crit. 3 casts = 1 use. Offsets almost any loss you might have had.

see I have thought many time long and hard about how to make pain attunement work nicely in closed beta and its really tough!

Chaos damage tended to be the main stopper!

Now theoretically pain attunement although a very niche kind of keystone is now finally much more realistic albeit still a very expensive and frustating build to go with.

You can get 75% chaos resists and i feel that would be the only real way to make this work.

Even then, you might find you still have to be very careful around chaos mobs.

The second issue as many have pointed out is life on hit. This doesnt work with spells so the way around this is to balance your life regen against your mana (life mana) usage.

So you're going to either have to get a lot of pieces of gear with life per second on them. Or you're gonna have to take some life regen passives...

Realistically you'll probably want to do both.

Its the kind of build thats cool to try as a second character.

Anyone new to the game, should really stear clear for multiple reasons - difficulty, expense, difficulty obtsaing enough chaos resists etc

"

Falcord wrote:

The problem with all these sources of regen is that they´re percent based. Since I aim for very low HP, percentual regeneration isn´t that helpful.

The only source I know of that gives a fixed rate regen is Rejuvenation Totem, so here are the three sources of life gain I envision:

1- Rejuv totem (also as a safeguard against chaos damage, with high chaos resists it should be possible to sustain)
2- Panicked flasks of the surgeon, for quick bursts between casts.
3- Level 1 Whirling Blades with LGOH and Faster Attacks, to regain some quick life against multiple mobs.
4- Ranged Attack Totem with LGOH and something that hits very often

the totem will heal, not you.

"

DexDeus wrote:

The central part of this build is The Covenant which grants Blood Magic.