Does anyone use Life Steal?

[rasmasyean]

I can't see the purpose of this effect. It seems that unless you do like 1,000 damage or something, it's like negligible what it does when you're low on health. Even the Source spell Vampiric Aura (50%) seems to be an iffy use of a Source Point. It sounds better to pop a potion or food to get an additional effect even. And even then, it seems more important to replenish your Armor that got you there in the first place. Like if a different character is using support spells on your low health character. Since in this game, Armor seems to play a lot more role in victory than your health...which just seems like a buffer to allow you to last long enough for armor to be restored, lest you risk getting CC'ed or Debuffed once again.

[orthostatic]

I use it when it's the only weapon I can buy for a recent upgrade, but I don't prioritize around "life steal" appearing on weaponry. For my characters, though, I do prioritize necromancy points once they are capably performing every other action I require them to.

I've never had occasion to depend on Vampiric Aura.

Also FWIW, in the later aspects of the game, dealing 1000 damage is quite easy to do, so long as you are attending your stats and gear appropriately. I daresay that 1000 isn't really enough for some situations, though the tactical opportunities afforded in this game may disprove me in the eyes of others.

[Chaoslink]

Given that you can use Living armor to get magic armor back as you heal, it has niche uses.

[saifu420]

i do on my rogue / necromancer. combined with deathwish at low hp and vitality dmg bonus.. i can do insane dmg.. and heal it back on dmg. this allows me to use grenades or scrolls because i dont have to eat health potions

[Lethan]

Lets say you have 10% passive life steal, through Necro or items with it specifically and you play as a mage. Most spells are AOE and in some cases, fire multiple projectiles.

Each clip, tap, burn, tag. Passive health gains.
Using living armour as stated above? That's free armour without getting decay debuffed.

It may only be 10-100 per hit netgain and 50% of that into armour, but if you hit 10 times in a single attack, not even round, it quickly adds up as that's now a potential 1k health and 500 armour the other side now has to push through.

[BarbieGirl]

I make a bunch of scrolls for apotheosis and once I use it then source points don't matter. That way these ones that use one source point are worth it.

[TEA || IT'S CHRISTMAS]

I'd never use any specific spell for lifesteal. Necromancer points give you like 10% lifesteal per point into it, and there are some crazy builds you can do like the lone wolf death-knight build (2h weapons, polymorph, necromancer entirely for the lifesteal, crits)

[baggybaf]

we don't have the same definition of "crazy build" I think. ;-)
the necro points obtained with armor are more than enough for the game.
anyway as soon as you master the game, stealing life is often useless.

[Valrynn the Dragoness]

I wouldnt gun for the vampiric hunger/aura skills personally. Any life steal you get should just come from points you have in necromancer.

The real upside to necromancer lifesteal is that it's not affected by decaying, so if you dont have a way to remove decaying and you need to keep someones health up, it is a viable option to buy some time.

I have like 5-6 points in it and I can heal for quite a lot of HP with every spell cast.

[[N63] chrisragnar]

Works decently to help one character tank if its built around it. Probably not worth the source for the aura effect.

[ACS36]

Originally posted by baggybaf:

we don't have the same definition of "crazy build" I think. ;-)
the necro points obtained with armor are more than enough for the game.
anyway as soon as you master the game, stealing life is often useless.

That's not what mastering the game is. What you're describing is a 'play style'. Some people prefer to play the game in different ways. Many people assume that 'breaking the game', is the same as 'mastering' the game. They are not the same. Breaking the game with crazy builds is one form of playstyle. Mastering the game involves mastering all the possible playstyles of the game and switching between them as the player prefers.

[rasmasyean]

Isn't using life steal as a primary strategy kind of counter-productive to Necromancing though? It seems you can reap some big bonuses from being "near death", Or at least the vitality bar.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by rasmasyean:

Isn't using life steal as a primary strategy kind of counter-productive to Necromancing though? It seems you can reap some big bonuses from being "near death", Or at least the vitality bar.

Technically yes. But living on the edge only lasts so long as well as death wish and you don’t want to remain that low for long. As a support skill, the passive can be quite beneficial as well. When combined with living armor for instance, a relatively weak attack can provide just enough magic armor for the low magic warrior to escape being stunned by water that gets electrified. Losing a bit of damage from something like death wish would be preferable to losing the whole turn to CC.

It’s all situational.

[baggybaf]

Originally posted by ACS36:

Originally posted by baggybaf:

we don't have the same definition of "crazy build" I think. ;-)
the necro points obtained with armor are more than enough for the game.
anyway as soon as you master the game, stealing life is often useless.

That's not what mastering the game is. What you're describing is a 'play style'. Some people prefer to play the game in different ways. Many people assume that 'breaking the game', is the same as 'mastering' the game. They are not the same. Breaking the game with crazy builds is one form of playstyle. Mastering the game involves mastering all the possible playstyles of the game and switching between them as the player prefers.

You can do what you want in the game and indeed there are several ways to play but the ways to play very effectively (no or little damage taken, quickly kill the opponent etc) are quite few (group the opponents , CC etc)
Then the debate is the physical or the magic (which kills the boss for example), characters order, synergies, best initiator but it doesn't change the basics
Do not confuse "crazy build" with "fun build" like a defensive build for example. Knowing how to differentiate between the two (because you've already played both a lot) is mastering the game.
Fun build is viable in tactician but is not optimized.
Sorry but the life steal of necro is not an ability of a "crazy build" because it will always be more efficient to put your points elsewhere even if you use defensive build.
It's less annoying in lone wolf but if you need it in an emergency, it's better to have a Vampiric Hunger which costs you 1 memory point and 1 AP in part than to put the equivalent in necro (even in lone wolf )

Having one or two necro points (with or without armor) is more than enough (unless you need a special spell) especially when you see the damage at the end of the game