Ok guys I have difficulty opening doors.
Got stuck inside a telephonebox last week and when I try to open the front door to go out in the evening I reroll to the bathroom.

So got a little tired of my friends helping my sam caster out with little or no input from him (although I have tried various ways to compensate for this).

Here is the latest experiment. Don't laugh too much now I built this last night with junk lying about and just added any old ee dagger to the mix:

weapon:
Mystical ultimanium dagger
Level Req: 55
Damage: 209 to 367

+114% Enhanced Effect
+757 Max Life
+2 Mana Regen

armour:
Legendary ultimanium chain mail
Level Req: 55
Defense: 49 to 122
+21% Enhanced Effect
+16 Strength
+59 Intelligence
+1 Critical Strike
+1 to 3 Life per Attack
+1 to 9 Mana per Kill
+6% Armor Pierce

Mystical tintitanium chain mail
Level Req: 50
Defense: 37 to 94

+33 Dexterity
+1 Life Regen
+15% Mana Syphon

I use the first one but the above works spendidly yet is harder to balance with the gear i had on mules. manasyphon on hybrid is awesome. it is the only char class (guardian with added dex would be nice not got the gear) who takes advantage ie the damage inflicted < the mana you regain for heals.

this charm is just something i found knocking about. as you can see nothing sexi but fulfills the idea if not the criteria, more or less a shrinable but even this works well.

main charm:
Arcane heal XIV
Level Req: 55
Heals: 115 to 306
Mana Cost: 135

+19 Strength
+15 Dexterity
+27 Intelligence --sammy only needs 50 int to amp it up. does not work on mage too low.
+7% Experience Gained
+1 to 6 Mana per Kill
+3% Physical Damage Reduction

acc charm:
Angelic wild heal XIV --wild and crazy. even with my diminished healing power zap zap and full health. chains gone from 3-4 up to a current 10-14 lvl 68
Level Req: 55
Heals: 121 to 1212
Mana Cost: 135

+216% Enhanced Effect
+12 Life Regen
+1 to 2 Life per Kill
+1% Magical Damage Reductio

here are his current stats:
str 80
dex 65 (when i add that dex armour as i say the result is wonderful. i think possibly in cats i would wear that)
int 179
vita 50

I got this idea playing cats with my guildmates. Danomak has an armour with int as one of it's components and I just ask him to stand up front and the rest to duck back. saves me massively on healing.

This char is meant to be for catacombs not solo. I think that a pure melee char could be made far more effectively, idk how they perform never ever experimented.
4.2k health and 4.1k mana.
possibliity of syphon which actualy confers more health than the damage caused
dex required (palladin has far better base) but i need that at 120 at least.
ee needs to be at least 200. 100 is far too low without the stats which would otherwise be added to str and dex. need more str and dex.

self sustaining damage weilding almost impossible to crit charecter who can stand at the front and absorb readily leaving the healers not much to do but check their e-mails.

obviously he is not built. it is an idea
i was wondering on thoughts from people especialy those who specialise in melee or within the catacombs themselves.

dear reader, thank you for taking the time to read my wall of text.
I hope if nothing else you found my odd erratic build amusing.
I do an awful lot of this kinda thing, quietly testing out different styles. I like the theory on this fella but a 200 ee blade is a waste of my money if i would be better served sticking to a traditional build.

love to hear any thoughts, ideas, flame or just stopping by to say hello.

~Tim

This post was edited by wigwam on Aug 28 2008 04:27am

The First
The Last
The Only
The Best
The Most Randomest

The CataSammy!

I like it dude and works great in cata

Thanks Matty

Shame we could not find a team capable of understanding let alone a proper test run

Still just wait till Toomie finds I take no damage, self heal for 1k and hit for 1k

Going to be fun. Big need atm is damage and dex. 200 ee weapon will make an awful lot of difference alone, I will be able to walk through the waves with everyone back row even with my shoddy gear. I hope.

Fun

Interesting build.

I always wanted to try out standing up front alone, with ee + dex + mana syphon, and be the healer.

I think that would be a great idea.

Wondering how your build works.

Perhaps try and find an intelligence + mana syphon charm to put in main slot?

I would love one. I just pieced this together swiftly at 3 am last night on a whim.

There are a few syphon swords and such I have seen about too, being a market of 1 person hopefully that will be possible.
My main distraction is the dexterity. It is the only area where I lose out in the damage stakes. A mass dex mana sypon charm allowing me to possibly wear the int armour securely would also catch my eye.

I would not be a team healer as such more a self sustaining member. So a good mage can group heal early in the wave while I hit to reduce the overall damage we receive and then in the latter stages rather than waste the healer's mana I can pick the team's health up to full for the next wave.

A work in progress, just got to mq another first door fail on the way.

Going up through the lvls as sam caster:

I have been using some of my guardian skills on the sammy.

My friends inform me that to make a melee viable I should be aiming to match my str to my ee, tough with Guardian not impossible with samurai.
Apparently my worry about dex is somewhat outdated though should be balanced especialy if i use swords (don't use a sword with that would be the advice I deem)

I used ee on my weapon (not a great deal I tend to make do with what I find/can pick up cheaply, it is part of the fun of the game for me) and my guardian heal charms as main.
Then in mage style sumped from the mana to the health while using the dagger rather than the charm, this equated to several lvls 0 gen even with very poor (and unsuitable) equipment in lvls 10-25.

The Int syphon charm eekzie mentions is what all hybrid charecters whatever their type require in the catacombs, when i hit 25 I will have a much better heal charm (my guardian build kicks in to help) so 25-30 no worries. Need melee items from 30 to 55, have the charms necessary.

Will need different armour other than my full int for 30 and up, checking about with peoples melee I believe he can be made extremaly potent with the right charms for the final furlong. However to do so 70 stats+ on armour and charms are a must.

I have played cats with buddies having that kind of eq, we would of cleared all 9 waves if everyone could of stayed.
I honestly doubt though that this build would be a match for pure healing-pure melee combo.

It is though a much faster and much more effective way to lvl my sam caster with the gear I have available and extremaly cheap (i have found it so) to piece together.

Thus far I would not vouch it as a build but if there are struggling samurai casters about melee healing is curiously effective. I am hoping at the end to have full balanced stats of int, dex, str, dmg and def.

Problems: cats mobs are similar to well mobs in the latter rounds, might end up being just a big fat slab.
Advantage: fat slab can go front row with a bit of sypon take the bruises while his more agile buddies go back and murder the swine.

I think though in my team I would prefer an extra agile killer, it is not hard to heal and it is better if the waves die swiftly.
Still, the climb 1-71 will be a definite improvement upon previously (anyone who has tried sam casting now roll your eyes and mutter: wiggie anything is an improvement upon sam casting)


This post was edited by wigwam on Aug 30 2008 04:45am

just a little update

he works rly well, i will post some thoughts on the last couple of climbs later
it is very slow nevertheless.

Arcane heal XIV
Level Req: 55
Heals: 44 to 117
Mana Cost: 135

+19 Strength
+15 Dexterity
+27 Intelligence
+7% Experience Gained
+1 to 6 Mana per Kill
+3% Physical Damage Reduction

this charm has been the most curious thing

speaking purely of defences:
when my int is below 150 the effect is huge, in order to stifle damage successfully 150 as a base works ok. anything under and i begin to receive large ammounts of damage which precludes the removal of the charm. the effect is quite dramatic. more int is better do not get me wrong, i am not attempting to moot a "break point" or something upon those lines.
once i hit 150 int without it the effect is not so pronounced, from then on i can don str, dex some syphon whatever i choose and often chain more successfully. str swiftens the kills and dex helps me vs crits kind of lvling out the effect either way.
i tried lifting the int further, the benefit appearing so powerful. once however i have brought the charecter to the point where he is successfully negating magic the effect is lessened, sure damage is less but by a couple of points. i begin in fact to miss that tiny piece of dex more.

Guardians with their 10 dex get hammered by critical hits, it is their achilles heel.
often kind of upsets me to see people proudly proclaiming they shall stand in the front and then getting hammered for very high hits from the mobs the entire key to successful healing being ofc minimal casts per wave.

The 50 base of samurai suffers far fewer crits than you would think.
i prefer it in the 70's, that gives an excellant destruction of critical strikes.
int is ofc far superior than dex it reducing dmg received, you merely need it to prevent crit strikes and your armour and vit deal with the worst of the normal hits.

as you can see really what i have here is a healer guardian who is melee when nobody is about xfered to a sam build.

i have been toying with the guardian too, the melee stats are difficult to manage
again leaving a mere 150 int is ok, any less and wow.
wow
he melts like a candle lit by a blowtorch.
however if i run out of mana and there are two healers then switching across to heighten dex and add a little syphon allows him to be a great meat shield behind which the others can hide while he also absorbs a little mana to keep a close eye on the lil mage who is working so valiantly. it is key to not lessen your int too far so their dmg starts to amp up.

makes a mockery of pure heal mastery. to ignore the indemic advantage of the class is something of a travesty.

anyhow guys thats what i have discovered with my meddling thus far. i am not about to correlate and tables or any such but i figure it is interesting info

edit: a big thankyou to everyone who puts up low but usable gear, it has been extremaly useful and informative. i make sure i pop it back at 19 fg after i am done with it for the next guy. cheers


This post was edited by wigwam on Sep 9 2008 05:26am