Life Drain?

[SPiRiTX]

When I look at most poeple's builds on this site I realise that not many of you use life drain... WHY? My life drain is maxed out with the upgrade maxed out also. :confused:

Is there somthing really bad about life drain that nobody uses it or is there a better skill I should be putting my points on? :confused:

And what about the Spirit Ward aswell. Is it worth putting points on or not? :confused:

[Poinas]

Life drain is not effective enough for all builds. There are better ways of converting dmg to health. But if it works well for you, keep on using it. You don't have to do what other people do. Or you may try to spend the points elswhere and buy them back if you want to.

Spirit ward isn't worth it, IMO. It works only against undead, and most of the enemies are..well, not undead.

[Krazikarl]

Unless you have a build that is focused pretty much on that one skill, Life Drain is pretty worthless by the time you get to high levels. It might be good early in the game, but everything works then, so whatever.

[SPiRiTX]

Yeh it does work early in the game. But now I'm in epic and it kinda sux :P

[mamba]

Amazing, I stopped using it in late normal Greece and specced out of it in early Egypt. It sucks for everything but the first 10 or so levels (unless you focus your gear on it as well).

[SPiRiTX]

Ok Lol so you think I should use the 28 stat points else where? If so where?

[therani]

The people who managed to make Life Drain work in the later difficulties were maxing Necrosis and the Lich King (for his soul blight attack) and Unearthly Power (for the vitality damage boost) and taking a second mastery that would also improve lifedrain, especially Dream for its Lucid Dream tree (increase vitality damage) and Trance of Wrath (further decreasing enemy vitality resistance) and focusing on gear with enough -%recharge to keep Unearthly Power on all the time and cast Life Drain constantly and at least +4 to all skills.

Like it was mentioned earlier, you Can use Life Drain after level 10, but only if you're planning to continue designing your whole build around maximizing vitality damage.

When I play a caster Spirit character who isn't majoring in Life Draining, I do often like to start out with Life Drain/Cascade in the beginning, and then spec out of it and into Ternion/Arcane Lore when I get to Delphi, which lets me avoid the suckiness of the early stages of Ternion and get right to the good part.

[SPiRiTX]

So to summarize that your basically saying: If I keep life drain get vitility damage upgrades but what if I stop using life drain? I don't use staffs so what other spell is good?

Ok thanks :D

[therani]

So to summarize that your basically saying: If I keep life drain get vitility damage upgrades but what if I stop using life drain? I don't use staffs so what other spell is good?

Ok thanks :D

Well, if you're a melee type, I highly recommend the whole Deathchill Aura tree. Especially if you're using a life leech weapon. The Lich is a great pet, and Visions of Death is handy if you get surrounded. Even if you can't get the recharge to make use of him all the time, the Outsider is still nice in boss fights. Dark Covenant and Unearthly Power are good if you can stand the constant health loss. What's your other mastery?

[SPiRiTX]

Nature :(

[Flying Fox]

Don't frown, plague is good, together with your necrosis and liche you decrease enemy resistance like mad which is one of the fastest way to kill in this game.

Anyway I can stand the -HP from dark covenant...I have -100% on my Oracle but I took out all the points from dark covenant because I just can't friggin stand casting a buff every 30 secs...

[therani]

Don't forget that Heart of the Oak should more than balance out the fact that you won't have as much Health from your masteries as the more traditional fighter types, and Strength of the Pack is pretty nice too, if you like the wolves.

Nature isn't exactly useless for melee people. With two caster masteries, you should have enough energy coming out your ears to Plague everything that looks at you funny. Then when they get in range of your Deathchill/Ravages/Necrosis aura, they should be moving at less than half-speed, very vulnerable to anything you do to them, barely scratching you, and dying. If you hit them with Visions of Death when they get close, they'll probably be fumbling, too.

On the downside, you'll be at something of a disadvantage in the Str department since you won't be getting it from your masteries, and you'll have a couple hundred points of Int you're not really using for anything. Hopefully the awesome buffs and debuffs and pets will make that up to you. Have fun with it!