[Spellbreaker] Question about life leech

[Blazera]

Hi, I want to make a spellbreaker and have been looking at various builds and things across the forums. I'm going to make a dual wielding spellbreaker but everyone says that spellbreakers make up for defense problems with epic life steal. I understand that the deathchill tree reduces life leech res on enemies but haven't for the life of me been able to figure out where the life leech comes from? I see that the skill life drain steals health but nobodies titan calc builds seem to incorporate that for the melee spellbreaker. Is there a skill I'm massively overlooking in the warfare/spirit masteries? or does all the attack converted to health/life leech come from the weapons you use?

Thanks

p.s. just a quick yes or no question - is it better to dual wield with spellbreaker or use a shield?

[Fozzie]

For a melée Spellbreaker, leech needs to be provided by items. There's a lot of gear that converts attack damage to health (ADCtH) and if you can't find a good unique, there's always the option of socketing a weapon with the Anubis' Wrath relic. ADCtH is by far preferable to life leech, which needs time to take effect (and as such has no effect at all on one-hit kills), does only leech quite low amounts and isn't as scalable.

Spellbreakers "traditionally" pick dual-wield, but depending on your skill choices and preferred playstyle (maybe you'd like to cast more spells or summons) you might consider to invest the considerable number of skill points elsewhere and use a shield instead. Dual-wield is an all-or-nothing skill tree, after all. But if you aim to be a full-fledged melée Spellbreaker, you should dual-wield. If you'd personally prefer a weapon/shield setup, just try a Spellbinder (Spirit/Defense) instead.

[Dudester]

spellbreaker is a bit faster than spellbinder when it comes to mobs. Spellbinder is a bit safer but both kill bosses in like 3 seconds because of spirit (necrosis, liche king and outsider). Both are a bit gear dependant. You can just use a Green mace with %dmg and some life steal. U don t need anubis. Put achilles instead. More dmg=more life steal and u kill stuff faster. Spellbreaker has the advantage of having 2 weapons which means more mods, a thing which you will miss as a spellbinder. Sapros and a good green weapon =overkill with spellbreaker.

[Blazera]

Cool cheers for the help guys. Am playing untwinked so the relic info was helpful

[Medea Fleecestealer]

With a dual wielder there's no reason you can't use both relics if you want. Simply equip the two green weapons of choice and socket one with an Anubis and one with an Achilles. It really depends on what weapons you're planning to use. If you're going dual swords when maybe use two Achilles for the extra damage bonus as swords are the lightest dealing damage. If using a couple of clubs/maces then two Anubis will give more ADCtH. And you can mix them too, having one sword/axe in one hand and a club/mace in the other. This is very useful when you play an Assassin (Warfare/Rogue) and want to use Rogue's Blade Honing skill which only applies to swords and spears. So long as you have one sword equipped the skill can be activated even though the other hand has a club.

There are many items, both weapons and gear, that can give you ADCtH as well as the Anubis' Wrath relic so keep an eye out for them as you progress through the game.

[Irma2]

For any dual wielder, I would rather apply ADCtH via items other than weapons. If you only have ADCtH on one weapon, it only applies on hits with that weapon, not with the other weapon. If you apply ADCtH to both weapons, your DPS drops. A weapon ...of Devouring won't do as much damage as one ...of Reckless Power or ...of Annihilation or ...of Alacrity. And, as others have noted, Anubis results in less damage than Achilles or Shen-Nong's.

But if you have Soul Shiver, for example, the ADCtH applies on hits with both weapons. This, in turn, allows you to focus on damage with both weapon sockets. Which increases your damage and, consequently, the amount of health that you get back with each hit. So faster killing and greater survivability.