The Fellowship of Sosaria - Advanced Guide: Sampire

Advanced Guide: Sampire

In this advanced guide we will take a look at the Sampire template.

The Sampire template is one of the most powerful builds in the game. It allows us to take on many adventures such as Peerless and Champion Spawns, as well as face many Named Monsters solo.

Character Type, Skills, and Stats

Race: Elf (Elf race mainly for the +20 Mana Increase Bonus, Night Sight, and +5 Energy Resistance Cap (75 total))

Sex: Female (The reason for creating the character as female is in case you plan to fight against Semidar. Semidar deals increased damage to male characters. If you plan to do Semidar but would still like your character to be male, you can adopt Wraith Form to reduce that damage.)

Skills:

120 Swordsmanship

120 Bushido

120 Chivalry (105 real +15 Jewelry)

120 Tactics (105 real +15 Jewelry)

100 Necromancy

100 Resisting Spells

70 Parrying

720 real skill points

Stats with 225 points:

100 STR

110 DEX

15 INT

Stats with 260 points +5 Skill Mastery (Veteranity +5, Scrolls of Power 25 + Scroll of Valiant Commendation + Warrior’s Gifts (Skill Mastery)):

127 STR

123 DEX

15 INT

(Base stats without equipment bonuses)

(Stats modified with equipment)

With this Sampire template we will obtain a 25% base parry chance (Bushido + Parrying) with a two-handed weapon, plus whatever DCI (Defense Chance Increase) we have.

Although you can make Sampire templates using Fencing or Mace Fighting, personally the best results I’ve had were with Swordsmanship, due to the two weapons I will explain later.

From the Bushido spellbook we will mainly use Counter Attack and Momentum Strike. As alternative defensive options to step away in critical situations, we’ll use Evasion and Confidence, since in combat I mostly rely on Counter Attack. In my playstyle I don’t usually use Lightning Strike; I prefer to spend mana on other spells or special moves.

From Necromancy we will only use Vampiric Embrace. I recommend wearing a suit with 100% LRC (Lower Reagent Cost) and a talisman such as Bloodwood Spirit, since it gives +5 Necromancy for a temporary total of 105 skill, allowing us to transform into a vampire with fewer failures (you need at least a 105 Necromancy Power Scroll for this template to work well). Once transformed into a vampire, we switch to our main gear.

The explanation of the remaining skills can be found in the guide ‘Basic Templates for New Players’.

¿Resisting Spells or Anatomy?

There are Sampire templates that do not use Resisting Spells and replace it with Anatomy. I have tested both, and I only recommend replacing Resisting Spells with Anatomy if your goal is to stay only in Trammel and you are an experienced player.

The reason is very simple: if you go to Felucca without Resisting Spells, a single experienced mage will be able to kill you very easily by paralyzing you and placing a crossed energy field. If there is a mage and another player involved, you stand no chance.

The mage will spam paralyze and other slowing or explosive spells if they have Mysticism, while the other player will combine the remaining attacks.

Some might think that carrying a trapped box would solve the problem, but that is incorrect. A couple of well-experienced players can turn your trapped box into your own death trap—you could end up killing yourself with it, or be forced to give up, remain paralyzed, get a crossed energy wall placed on you, and die anyway.

In Trammel, if you are not an experienced player, you may even die to spells like Paralyze or Blood Oath, among others, cast by NPCs when you lack the Resisting Spells skill.

In terms of damage, using the special move Armor Ignore with a Bladed Staff, I reach around 165 damage, and with Anatomy I reach 195 damage, without other players or creatures increasing my damage type through spells or special moves.

Therefore, having 100 Anatomy in this template with the gear I use adds around 30 additional damage points.

So this is something you must personally evaluate depending on where you plan to play (Trammel or Felucca) and your experience as a player in knowing when to step back and which Bushido/Chivalry spells and special moves to use for your survival.

Experienced players who plan to go to both Trammel and Felucca may choose to use two Soulstones—one to store one of the skills (for example, Anatomy) and another empty one to swap skills when needed.

Equipment and Weapons

This is the equipament I use; take it as a reference. The key is that your equipment should basically have resistances around 70, 45 HCI (Hit Chance Increase), 45 DCI (Defense Chance Increase), at least 30 LMC (Lower Mana Cost), 100 DI (Damage Increase), and 45 SSI (Swing Speed Increase), reaching a total of 60 with +15 from Divine Fury.

All the MR (Mana Regeneration), SR (Stamina Regeneration), and HPR (Hit Point Regeneration) you can get, along with HPI (Hit Point Increase) and bonus stats (STR, DEX, INT), is extra and necessary to reach 150 hit points and 150 DEX/stamina.

Dexterity together with SSI is essential for increasing attack speed, and it will be key to surviving extreme fights against many enemies and very strong bosses.

Note: Dexterity and SSI increase attack speed, but if our stamina is low, we will attack slowly. To address this—without using potions—the HSL (Hit Stamina Leech) property, as well as the spells Divine Fury and Confidence, will help us recover stamina.

Note: Although elves have Night Sight, there are certain Champion Spawns where it gets very dark. What I do is remove and re-equip the Nocturne Earrings to quickly restore vision.

The talismans I use are the following:

Creatures without a slayer: Slither

Creatures with a slayer: Mainly Enchantress’ Cameo.

I recommend having HLD (Hit Lower Defense) and HLA (Hit Lower Attack), especially HLA when facing boss-type enemies such as Peerless, Champion Spawns, or Named Monsters.

The main weapons I carry are two generic ones with HLA, and two area weapons: one with fire area and another with cold area, which are used for fighting many enemies at once.

Depending on the enemy’s lowest resistance, I will use one or the other.

You will see players who use double slayer to deal more damage, and weapons with DI removed from the weapon. This is an option if your intention is to place all the DI on your armor and jewelry so that it’s not needed on the weapon.

You will also see players using weapons with 100% fire, cold, etc. damage. This is necessary if the player does not use the Chivalry spell Consecrate Weapon. In my playstyle, since I constantly use Consecrate Weapon, I do not need that type of weapon.

From my testing, whether the weapon has 100% fire damage or is a generic type, the result is the same for the reason mentioned above: I constantly use Consecrate Weapon.

The equipment shown here is merely a reference. I use that equipament because of my character’s roleplay theme and because I like some older items such as Mace and Shield Reading Glasses, Gladiator’s Collar, or Animated Legs of the Insane Tinker.

What is presented here is simply a foundation to work from, but do not limit yourself to what you see here—explore, experiment, and even improve on everything shown.

What you should remember if you plan to test weapon setups is that your character uses Bushido, and using two-handed weapons gives you the highest parry chance. I mention this because you will see players who have Bushido but still use one-handed weapons or even a shield, and this reduces your parry percentage.

Gameplay Method

I will focus on two types to keep it simple: Champion Spawn and Peerless (including 1vs1).

For Peerless-type encounters, depending on the enemy, I use either a Double Axe or a Bladed Staff. What determines which one I choose is this: if using Double Strike (with Consecrate Weapon) deals more damage than using Armor Ignore, then I use the Double Axe. This is something you must keep in mind.

In these types of fights, the rotation depends on the weapon:

Double Strike + Consecrate Weapon + Divine Fury

Armor Ignore + Divine Fury.

We need Divine Fury to increase our swing speed and, in certain situations, to boost our stamina.

In 1vs1 fights, we will use the spell Enemy of One (Chivalry) if there are no enemies nearby, or if the ones around are insignificant, such as low-level summons from the opponent.

From Bushido I use Counter Attack, and only in critical situations where for some reason I lose control of the fight I step away with Evasion and then apply Confidence.

You will see players who fight in melee using Evasion, but personally I prefer Counter Attack in melee, because that additional hit on a successful parry helps me recover health.

Before every 1vs1 fight, remember to use Honor on your opponent—this will grant you a damage bonus through the Perfection system.

For Champion Spawn–type encounters, where there are many enemies around me, during the first two levels I let as many enemies as possible come to me, and in levels 3 and 4 I try to engage a maximum of only five enemies. This allows me to apply the maximum Bushido bonus (At 120 Bushido) from Whirlwind Damage Increase, and it is also safer—especially in level 4.

In this type of combat I use only the Double Axe, mainly with the special move Whirlwind Attack. However, if I am in level 4 and I’m alone with the last enemy, I use Double Strike.

The Chivalry spells I use in this type of gameplay are mainly Consecrate Weapon.

From Bushido I use Counter Attack and Momentum Strike, the latter allowing me to hit one additional enemy—similar to Whirlwind Attack but limited to only one extra target.

I recommend that you do not use special moves consecutively. This means you should not spam special moves, or you will receive a mana cost penalty on the second use if there isn’t a minimum delay (exceeding 3 seconds). The solution is to wait a few seconds or use an alternative spell.

Example:

Whirlwind Attack followed by Momentum Strike.

In the case of Armor Ignore or Double Strike, the alternative to not waiting more than 3 seconds would be to use Lightning Strike.

This will mainly depend on your equipment setup, weapons (Hit Mana Leech), and stats to decide what works best.

Regarding mana, some players attack in Wraith Form to gain additional mana in certain situations. Personally, except when the enemy prevents HLL (Hit Life Leech), as happens with Exodus, I use Vampiric Embrace form to gain hit life drain and resistance to most poisons.

As I explained earlier, you can use this as a base to start your template, equipment, and weapons, but explore, experiment, and even improve it to suit your playstyle—and most importantly, enjoy it.