A Question Of Sport - well, Vampirism actually

[gaspode1]

I hadn't noticed this stanza tucked away in the skill tree. It seems, to me, almost too good to be true. As I read the description, you get back more than the cost of the stanza - as long as the cast is successful ie the HP's aren't just taken from the target but are added to the casters pool.

Am I reading this correctly, and are there any wrinkles I should be aware of before I buy. For instance, I had a suggestion that it only works on mobs of a lower level than the caster. Not a stopper but, if true, worth knowing anyway.

Another thought I have is; what happens if you are casting against, say, madakams which have a Reflect Damage defense. Obviously, you will stand the cost of the stanza in casting the spell. However, if reflected, does that mean the HP's are taken from your good self and then given back to your good self (or does the Madakam get them)?

Once again, thanks in advance as I'm sure someone will know whats what here

[rubens]

i think vamp will effect most mobs even if tehr ehigher lvl i sued vamp onc eback in late fb testing i remember.. seemed to work good..
Not sure aobut madakams tho..

[soulbear]

Vampirism is very effective if you're a level 150 healer, with a high leve vampirism, you can add it to a low level elemental spell, and still hit mobs around the level of the vampirism, same with Concentration It works really good for me, or maybe it's just my imagination

[p46985]

Vampirism is very effective if you're a level 150 healer, with a high leve vampirism, you can add it to a low level elemental spell, and still hit mobs around the level of the vampirism, same with Concentration It works really good for me, or maybe it's just my imagination

I thought concentration was only meant to be for link spells, so that their interruption is reduced?

[troll16]

I thought concentration was only meant to be for link spells, so that their interruption is reduced?

I found adding concentration to elemental spells improved the hit rate, unless I just got luckier.

[helbreat]

surely using a high lvl concentration/vampirism with a very low lvl elemental and it NOT lowering the exp is an exploit? since its making the people hit more accuratly on mobs way above there lvl

[m4sster]

Well, i'm a lvl 100+ healer and have bought every vampirism so far, but it's not very usefull....

It does NOT increase your damage, you do the same amount of damage, you just get hitpoints back.....however vampirism costs u as much hitpoints in counter as you can get back (and that's given u get the max amount of hp back).

So what is it good for? Well if u have high lvl counter stanza's of credit range and credit casting time, u can make a spell which gives u back more life than it takes. You can only cast this on low lvl mobs really, because it takes too long to cast.
The other use is to crysalize a spell and enchant an item, that way it always casts and it's credited from your enchanted item instead of you.
You could also use vampirism to credit your sap, that way u could swap sap for hp....

Marster

[tetra]

Im going to agree with everything m4sster said... I'm a 130ish healer and have all the vampirism bricks so far, simply because i have something like 600 magic skill points free and unused...

*Vampirism does not lower your resist rate, neither does concentration... both of these are myths that began when concentration was first put in and everyone was trying to figure out what this equally useless and amazingly expensive brick did.
*Vampirism is at best, marginally useful when you are a level 100+ healer but level 50 elemental and trying to level elemental... it's the only time you can actually afford to use it.
*I can heal somewhere in the area of 4000 hp in a single cast... I can heal somewhere around 1200 sap in a single cast... I would be seriously ticked at any mage stupid enough to think that X sap for X tiny drop of HP was a good trade off and kept making we waste sap to cover it. Despite the fact that a GM once told me that it probably wasn't intended for soloing and might be useful for group combat... it's not.... honest
*Mages get hit so amazingly hard that the tiny amount of HP you get from vamp is worthless if you can afford it. The only time you can afford it, is when you are using a very low vamp brick, using massive time credits, or using elemental when you have another magic tree dozens of levels higher.
*Vamp has been worthless since late beta when it was hit so hard with the nerf stick that it made the poor thing cry.

[flynnkd]

Just to squash the concentration myth, conc lowers interrupt chances, so when a mob is bashing you your chances of casting are improved. It has NO effect on hit chances. You will notice the messages say - successfully cast - mob resistsed, conc effects the first check.

Vampirism has very limited uses, so I am agreeing with the last 2 posters (107 healer myself). I have been told by some other players that it will work ok with bomb/rico offensive spells, the more targets the better it works because it sucks HPs from each successful target.... HOWEVER I have not bothered to test this as I am mostly grouped as a healer and shouldnt need the extra hassle. Plus at higher levels having multiple targets is not a good idea. I suspect it might be good for offensive mages.

And just to squash myths about vampirism before they start, the stanza USED to be GREAT back in beta. If you see an old post saying how great it was, well all that was changed in the live game.

[hugedan]

much like how blind used to be, but maybe blind was tooo good, (blind was nerfed TBH)