Melee Sampire Guide - Updated 8/16/16
Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2013 1:52 pmA quite popular PvE build in UO is the Sampire, or Samurai Vampire. It can effectively solo most content, champions, paragons, dungeon bosses and more. This build uses the mechanics of Bushido Honor and Perfection, two handed weapon parry bonuses, Life/Mana and Stam Leech skills and equipment to create a near immortal tank/dps hybrid. Here is a breakdown and advanced guide that should get you started down the dark path of vampirism and Japanese inspired honor.
Skills
Bushido
Parry
Healing
Anatomy
Tactics
WeaponSkill
Necromancy
Spirit Speak
Chivalry
In WP, it's best just to build all your skills, but the above are specific to this build.
Core Abilities
Vampiric Embrace - Gives you a % based lifesteal and makes you immune to lesser poisons
Evasion - increased your parry chance and allows you to parry magical attacked (ie: dragons breath)
Enemy of One - deals increased dmg to a single type of monster but you take more from other types.
Divine fury - increase attack speed and hit chance. lowers your defense chance, but FILLS STAMINA
Consecrate Weapon - makes your weapon deal damage of whatever element is most effective against your enemy
Lightning Strike - increases chance to hit and can deal critical hits.
Whirlwind - Leeches Mana and is a Melee AoE - Can be found on Warhammers, Double Axes, Radiant Scimitars and a few others.
Protection
Playstyle:
2 hander - Bushido (over 65 I think) gives you an increased chance to parry when using a two handed weapon, but makes a shield nearly useless by lowering your parry chance with a shield equipped. Go with a fast two handed weapon. Preferred stats are stam/mana leech, hit lower attack, hit lower defense, hit area effect, damage increase.
A few key artifact weapons are the TItan's Hammer (Doom Stealable, 100% Energy Area), Axe of the Heavens (Doom Gauntlet, Hit lightning)
Keep up protection otherwise you will get interrupted all the time. You will want as much stam and mana leech as possible. Stamina itself is also important as every 30 pts in stamina increases attack speed. Your attacks fill your HP and Mana, so anything that keeps you attacking also keeps you alive. Use Enemy of One when necessary but not in a group of diverse enemies or champs. Divine Fury if you take hits to your stamina. Lightning strike against single targets, whirlwind or momentum strike against multiple foes.
Whirlwind - Whirlwind receives a bonus from bushido when using a two handed weapon. It is great for killing multiple enemies at once and progressing champ spawns.
Honor and Perfection - Taken from UOGuide
Perfection is an ability that grants a damage bonus dependent on the amount of consecutive hits you deal to a certain target. It is not activated directly; in order to use it you must have at least 50 Bushido skill points and then Honor a target creature. Perfection may not be used against other players.
Once this is done, every successful blow will increase your perfection while a miss will lower it. As your level increases, each strike will deal more and more damage (to a maximum of a 100% bonus at the highest level), so the use of equipment with a Hit Chance Increase bonus is desirable. The Bushido ability Lightning Strike is also useful for sustaining a combo.
If you defeat your target while at the highest level of perfection, you will regain some Hit Points, Stamina and Mana.
Your effective Luck level is also boosted by ten percent of your squared perfection score. At its maximum, this score is 100, so therefore the best luck bonus is (100^2)/10 = 1000.
Once the target creature is slain, you lose all perfection and must start over when you honor the next. Originally, perfection could also be used against players, however a later publish removed the ability to Honor them.
Stats you are shooting for
40% Hit Chance Increase and Defense Chance Increase
100% Damage Increase (more damage is more healing)
as much increased attack speed as possible
150 STR
150 DEX
Some FC/FCR
100 LRC (obtainable if you use Armor of Fortune from Doom)
Without giving away too much of the playstyle, this should be a good start for people wanting to have success with melee characters.
Advanced Guide-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Gear:
Head: Ancient Samurai Helm with Stam Spellcraft
Body: Troll Vest with Stam Spellcraft
Arms: Tainted Arms with Stam Spellcraft
Legs: Tainted Legs with Stam Spellcraft
Hands: Star Hunter Gauntlets (atk speed gloves - BiS)
Feet: Storms Windriders
Sash: Follower of the old Lord (for fire resist)
Trinket: Blood Moon with lmc/dex spellcrafts
Ring: Essence of Spirit with str and dex spellcrafts
Bracelet: Essence of Evil
Robe: High Priests Robe
Gorget: Voice of the fallen king with Stam Spellcraft OR a good runic mage armor neck with Stam SC
Earrings: Ch'vayre's Shades - Damage bonus spellcraft
Belt: Kung Fu Sash
Quiver: Infinite Quiver
Cloak: Invisibility Cloak
Weapon: 2 handed double axe with spell channeling, HLA, Stam Leech for Single Target. Titan's Hammer with Spell Channeling for Champs/aoe
The reason for all of the stamina is to reach 180 stam. At that point, with the attack speed on your gear, you will hit the atk speed cap. This allows you to attack with any weapon at he fastest attack speed allowed. More atk = more life steal = crazy effective healthpool.
Main Macros
Auto attack next target with whirlwind:
Set Ability Whirlwind Attack
Exec: Target Next Non Friendly
Exec: Attack Last Target
Exec: Clear Target Queue
Cast Spell Evasion
To set up the above macro, set a hotkey in UO for primary/secondary attack (whichever WW is). Setup hotkeys in Razor for The rest (target non friendly/atk last trgt/clear queue/evasion). Record the macro in razor in the above order. Set a hotkey for the macro. You will automatically target and attack the next closest enemy with whirlwind and refresh evasion.
Double Axe also has double strike. It's good to setup the same macro above for double strike (it sometimes triple strikes).
If you are using a pet, a helpful Macro is to say "All Follow Me" then click your stack of leashes and click the pet. THen in Razor right click on the step where you clicked leashes and set to "target by type". Set a hotkey to that macro and it is an instant way to pull your pet out of danger and into your backpack.
Easy UO:
You will want to use an auto bandaid EasyUO script that applies bandages anytime you take damage. This furthers your survivability. You will also want one that keeps curse weapon refreshed as this will put your life leech from vampiric embrace through the roof. Keep hitting and you will leech full life every strike.
Skills
Bushido
Parry
Healing
Anatomy
Tactics
WeaponSkill
Necromancy
Spirit Speak
Chivalry
In WP, it's best just to build all your skills, but the above are specific to this build.
Core Abilities
Vampiric Embrace - Gives you a % based lifesteal and makes you immune to lesser poisons
Evasion - increased your parry chance and allows you to parry magical attacked (ie: dragons breath)
Enemy of One - deals increased dmg to a single type of monster but you take more from other types.
Divine fury - increase attack speed and hit chance. lowers your defense chance, but FILLS STAMINA
Consecrate Weapon - makes your weapon deal damage of whatever element is most effective against your enemy
Lightning Strike - increases chance to hit and can deal critical hits.
Whirlwind - Leeches Mana and is a Melee AoE - Can be found on Warhammers, Double Axes, Radiant Scimitars and a few others.
Protection
Playstyle:
2 hander - Bushido (over 65 I think) gives you an increased chance to parry when using a two handed weapon, but makes a shield nearly useless by lowering your parry chance with a shield equipped. Go with a fast two handed weapon. Preferred stats are stam/mana leech, hit lower attack, hit lower defense, hit area effect, damage increase.
A few key artifact weapons are the TItan's Hammer (Doom Stealable, 100% Energy Area), Axe of the Heavens (Doom Gauntlet, Hit lightning)
Keep up protection otherwise you will get interrupted all the time. You will want as much stam and mana leech as possible. Stamina itself is also important as every 30 pts in stamina increases attack speed. Your attacks fill your HP and Mana, so anything that keeps you attacking also keeps you alive. Use Enemy of One when necessary but not in a group of diverse enemies or champs. Divine Fury if you take hits to your stamina. Lightning strike against single targets, whirlwind or momentum strike against multiple foes.
Whirlwind - Whirlwind receives a bonus from bushido when using a two handed weapon. It is great for killing multiple enemies at once and progressing champ spawns.
Honor and Perfection - Taken from UOGuide
Perfection is an ability that grants a damage bonus dependent on the amount of consecutive hits you deal to a certain target. It is not activated directly; in order to use it you must have at least 50 Bushido skill points and then Honor a target creature. Perfection may not be used against other players.
Once this is done, every successful blow will increase your perfection while a miss will lower it. As your level increases, each strike will deal more and more damage (to a maximum of a 100% bonus at the highest level), so the use of equipment with a Hit Chance Increase bonus is desirable. The Bushido ability Lightning Strike is also useful for sustaining a combo.
If you defeat your target while at the highest level of perfection, you will regain some Hit Points, Stamina and Mana.
Your effective Luck level is also boosted by ten percent of your squared perfection score. At its maximum, this score is 100, so therefore the best luck bonus is (100^2)/10 = 1000.
Once the target creature is slain, you lose all perfection and must start over when you honor the next. Originally, perfection could also be used against players, however a later publish removed the ability to Honor them.
Stats you are shooting for
40% Hit Chance Increase and Defense Chance Increase
100% Damage Increase (more damage is more healing)
as much increased attack speed as possible
150 STR
150 DEX
Some FC/FCR
100 LRC (obtainable if you use Armor of Fortune from Doom)
Without giving away too much of the playstyle, this should be a good start for people wanting to have success with melee characters.
Advanced Guide-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My Gear:
Head: Ancient Samurai Helm with Stam Spellcraft
Body: Troll Vest with Stam Spellcraft
Arms: Tainted Arms with Stam Spellcraft
Legs: Tainted Legs with Stam Spellcraft
Hands: Star Hunter Gauntlets (atk speed gloves - BiS)
Feet: Storms Windriders
Sash: Follower of the old Lord (for fire resist)
Trinket: Blood Moon with lmc/dex spellcrafts
Ring: Essence of Spirit with str and dex spellcrafts
Bracelet: Essence of Evil
Robe: High Priests Robe
Gorget: Voice of the fallen king with Stam Spellcraft OR a good runic mage armor neck with Stam SC
Earrings: Ch'vayre's Shades - Damage bonus spellcraft
Belt: Kung Fu Sash
Quiver: Infinite Quiver
Cloak: Invisibility Cloak
Weapon: 2 handed double axe with spell channeling, HLA, Stam Leech for Single Target. Titan's Hammer with Spell Channeling for Champs/aoe
The reason for all of the stamina is to reach 180 stam. At that point, with the attack speed on your gear, you will hit the atk speed cap. This allows you to attack with any weapon at he fastest attack speed allowed. More atk = more life steal = crazy effective healthpool.
Main Macros
Auto attack next target with whirlwind:
Set Ability Whirlwind Attack
Exec: Target Next Non Friendly
Exec: Attack Last Target
Exec: Clear Target Queue
Cast Spell Evasion
To set up the above macro, set a hotkey in UO for primary/secondary attack (whichever WW is). Setup hotkeys in Razor for The rest (target non friendly/atk last trgt/clear queue/evasion). Record the macro in razor in the above order. Set a hotkey for the macro. You will automatically target and attack the next closest enemy with whirlwind and refresh evasion.
Double Axe also has double strike. It's good to setup the same macro above for double strike (it sometimes triple strikes).
If you are using a pet, a helpful Macro is to say "All Follow Me" then click your stack of leashes and click the pet. THen in Razor right click on the step where you clicked leashes and set to "target by type". Set a hotkey to that macro and it is an instant way to pull your pet out of danger and into your backpack.
Easy UO:
You will want to use an auto bandaid EasyUO script that applies bandages anytime you take damage. This furthers your survivability. You will also want one that keeps curse weapon refreshed as this will put your life leech from vampiric embrace through the roof. Keep hitting and you will leech full life every strike.
). The invisibility cloak is very nice for sure, but if you're missing in regens I would suggest the dark rose cloak that is not so hard to obtain either.