Vampiric Aura (in General)

This is just a thought... but I remember back in CB1 when vampiric aura was also in ranged rounds as well as in melee rounds, and I was wondering if it would be a good idea to get it back. For one, gaurdian angel is in ranged rounds so why not have a counter to that. Another reason is because not many people use vampiric aura anyways. With dispell magic, you'd have to pump an unusual amount of experience into VA just to make sure that you do get the bonus. I believe that if VA was put back into being in ranged rounds, maybe we could stimulate some life back into using it. Just a thought, I'd like to see what others think.

the reason VA in CB1 was taken out of ranged was because of the massive damage elbs were doing. In CB2 however, the ranged combat has changed completly, so it might be fine here.

Give it up. VA was killed by dispell.
Unless you plan to overtrain it, you can't depend on VA like you can depend on the other defensive spells. VA and protection don't usually get a lot of levels pumped into them.


But the GA being in melee only should be considered. :)
GA hurting people in ranged combat always bewildered me.
When ya think of guardian angel protecting a minion, don't you think of a really tall guy with wings wielding a big, dusty bible, threatening to thwack the first fool who comes along?
I'm sure we all do.

Because of fireball and MM, GA needs to hit in ranged rounds.

When I think GA, I think this angel watching over things from way up high, then when I get hit (or one of my minions, whatever) he swoops down AT them, and connects.

I agree with Evil that VA does need some kind of boost, and making it work in ranged rounds too seems a good idea.

As someone who heavily relies on VA, I'm going to go against the trend and say I think VA is already a very powerful skill. The ability to tip the damage differential that much in your favour for relatively few points is a big deal. I think the bigger problem is that melee damage dealers get obliterated by GA and ToE's due to frequent, small hits, and that it's just not as much damage in general.

I'd love to see more differentiation in the number of targets spells hit and how much damage they strike for to make a 4-melee team with Haste and Giant Strength remotely viable, which it isn't right now, really.

Well Myself, Ranger and a few others seem to be doing fine with 4-Minion Haste teams :-)

PR > Score by a considerable margin doesn't strike me as "just fine", especially compared to other strategies near that score or others, but I hadn't run into a team like that. Neat. I hope you do well.

I did just change strats a few days ago give me a break it was 60k under now less than 20k not too bad in my opinion =P

Oh, I wasn't intending to sound inflammatory or offensive, and I'm sorry if it came across that way. I really do hope the strat succeeds. Those who live in glass houses made of unarmed combat should never throw stones. :D

With dispell magic in the picture, I have a hard time putting anything into this spell, but with both a Jig and a BL tank in my group I can't help myself. I don't think VA needs a boost because I know that it would make my tank invincible in melee ;p

That said, I suggest that changes be made to VA and perhaps protection to let them never be fully dispelled. That would allow people to use them without hesitation even against the huge DM. I love VA but, but I can never justify pumping it up as long as so many groups simply dispell it. My group thrives when I have an undispelled VA so I digress: Not everyone has DM, so it's probably fine the way it is.

This issue obviously influenced my choice of weapon: It's the one with undispellable VA ;D

You will see that as your PR gets up there, more and more character will be AMF rather then DM.

At the lower levels the benefits of dispelling AS or GA is more than the benefit of lowering the DD spell damage, but just wait till you meet a 100k+ MM or CoC. Then you will need AMF to both decrease the damage to you and do damage to their mages.

Take a look at the top 20 or so. There is only 1 DM in the whole group. The problem about DM is that a low level decay will rip right through you.

Thats the primary reason I dont switch to DM from my AMF.

and being in the top 20... how many use VA?.... I'm not checking, but I am gonna guess one. The reason being that as it is now, its not beneficial at all really. Why kill VA? Bring it back to life!

That's a good point Ranger, though I might remind you that < 1% of all minions currently train decay.

Evil, A good AMF and (undispelled) VA stacked on a Jig is a powerful defensive tool. My current strat also benefits because I'm adding VA to my Morgul Hammers inate VA. Which means against any mage group who doesn't dispell, I gain nearly as much life as they can inflict.

Sure, it sucks when your VA gets dispelled, but not nearly as many groups do this as you'd think. I was actually surprised at how low the numbers were when i looked just now at the popularity stats.