is vampiric any good from a combat perspective?

[Nexus]

or would it be better to just get better defensive passives?

[lordmilier]

Defensive passives are bad in general the game is hyper focused on raw dmg as most dmg can be avoided by calling back your Pal´s and summoning them again. The only time defensive passive would be any good is vs raid bosses since you have so many Pal´s in your base you can not control but even then dmg is just king as it shortens the fight even more.

As for vampiric it is more or less a rarer better version of nocturnal making it great for non dark Pal´s that you want working on your base.

[SHOVEL.EXE]

vampiric to me sound like a niche but powerful passive depending on what pall you use with it.
felbat is a great example since it has vampiric base kit do to it partner ability.
but it is a huge dill with a lot of drawback's depending on what you sacrifice for vampiric.

[Hydremajor117]

Originally posted by lordmilier:

Defensive passives are bad in general the game is hyper focused on raw dmg as most dmg can be avoided by calling back your Pal´s and summoning them again. The only time defensive passive would be any good is vs raid bosses since you have so many Pal´s in your base you can not control but even then dmg is just king as it shortens the fight even more.

As for vampiric it is more or less a rarer better version of nocturnal making it great for non dark Pal´s that you want working on your base.

The main problem being that tower bosses are literally sacks of health to kill within a time limit, because of that there is ZERO strategy, just grab whatever hits hardest and find a way to make it work

Same applies to guns

The tamer combat in this game is so friggin bad

[Takaragomy]

I feel like it is pretty good for raids in place of another defensive perk to keep your pals alive so you don't need to replace them. Haven't been able to really test it much, but against Xenolord, I didn't have any of my lifesteal Bastigor go down. Keep in mind they also have perfect IVs, Legend, Demon God, and Serenity. Not sure if it will hold up against Ultra raids, but so far it seems to be better for survivability than Diamond Body.

[Killial]

No.

The hardest battles you will encounter are time-limited (all raid bosses and tower bosses). So you want to have as much damage as possible, not defense. Because while you are just tanking damage, the timer will run out.
And you can handle field bosses without it, using only your guns.
If there was no timer, then this could be discussed.

This strange design decision basically makes any defensive builds relatively useless.

[Extremely Rare Sigma Gurdy Champ]

I imagine a pair of Knocklem with Vampiric would be impossible for Tower Bosses to kill. I have one with only Musclehead and even Tower Rematches have a hard time killing it while its partner skill is active.

[Killial]

Well... OR - if you're in VERY late gear, and have super cool epic gear, and super cool 100/100/100 4 pals - then you can afford to just have a tank build just for fun, if you know you can kill any boss in the game in 10 minutes anyway.

[zsedc_qa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-KAvP1A0I
this convinced me to work on getting vampiric

[JackieTheDemon]

Originally posted by lordmilier:

Defensive passives are bad in general the game is hyper focused on raw dmg as most dmg can be avoided by calling back your Pal´s and summoning them again. The only time defensive passive would be any good is vs raid bosses since you have so many Pal´s in your base you can not control but even then dmg is just king as it shortens the fight even more.

As for vampiric it is more or less a rarer better version of nocturnal making it great for non dark Pal´s that you want working on your base.

After attempting to fight ULTRA XENOLORD, and watching all my maxed 4 star (Legend/Demon God/Musclehead/Serenity) Jetragons and Frostallions get 2-shot by it. I realize that damage doesn't matter if they can't survive.

[Killial]

Originally posted by zsedc_qa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-KAvP1A0I
this convinced me to work on getting vampiric

Something tells me that if this guy actually helped his pals and used the guns, having an extra 4 maxed gobfins with vanguards with him, he would have won either way, regardless of whether he had a vampic on each pal or not, at the level of development at which he is.