hansdafrog's Dark Vamp Guide

Update: I am currently rewriting this guide to make it more comprehensive and also to correct some errors.

What is a vampire?

The vampire is a versatile class in Forsaken World with medium attack range. The equipments of a vampire offer mediocre numbers in most stats (attack, health, mana, defense) which gives the impression that it is a general class, and indeed that is true to some extend, since a vampire has the potential to heal, damage, and crowd control. The vampire class is divided into three sub-types by talent tree: blood, dark, and inferno. The blood vampire is a strong supporting sub-class with outstanding healing capability, especially at high levels, and it is also able to do decent damage. The dark vampire is a strong offensive sub-class with devastating spike damages and enhanced crowd control, it is heavily reliant on the vampire form (see below). The inferno vampire is also a strong offensive sub-class that focuses on relatively more stable damages which does not require the vampire form (but damage does increase significantly with Inferno Bat), and it has some crowd control. Both blood and dark sub-classes use dark skills as their main offensive. In contrast, inferno uses fire skills to do damage.



Why play the dark vampire?

In comparison to blood and infero, dark vampire is most suited for PvP (1v1). If PvP is not an interest, then I would not suggest playing dark vampire, since it is not one of the best classes for PvE other than for damage dealing (mage is better at that though). Dark is PvP oriented because it has a diverse selection of skills that gives it the most advantage against another player, in comparison to blood and inferno.



What are the pros of dark vampire?

● Like all vampires, dark can heal, although the heal is much weaker than blood.
● Dark enjoys a much longer Dark Bond with shorter cooldown, which binds an enemy to prevent movement and the ability to attack, while granting the enemy immunity to all damages. Dark Bond is very useful for temporarily disabling an enemy which allows the vampire to self heal and collect wrath orbs. In case of group PvP, disabling an enemy gives your team the opportunity to kill other enemies.
● Dark has the unique skill of Seed of Darkness which silences (prevents use of skills) an enemy for 3 seconds when 4 strikes are delivered after casting the Seed, obviously this is a very useful skill in PvP. In addition, Seed of Darkness slows the enemy which is great if you decide to kite your opponent or simply run away to heal.
● One of dark's main offensive skills: Dark Ripple can decrease the target's accuracy (upgradable by dark talent), making it harder for the enemy to hit high evasion characters (perhaps yourself or your teammates).
● Charmed Strike, which is another of dark's main offensive skills, has extremely high damage when it is used repeatedly, since each use makes the next stronger while increasing the skill's cooldown (damage increases for up to 5 repeated uses). It enjoys lower cooldown from dark talent and also 100% chance to stun for 1 second on the first Charmed Strike and 50% chance to stun for 1 second on the second Charmed Strike, making it an ideal skill casting interruptor or simply a way to get free damage.
● Dark is able to debuff attack and movement speed with Wrath Kill since Wrath Kill does exactly that when the target is affected by dark curse from Dark Ripple. Talent may further enhance the debuff. Again, the speed debuff (slow) is useful for kiting or running away to heal.
● Only dark has the skill Mana Explosion which is a self-centered AoE that does not require a target to cast. Mana Explosion is the ONLY AoE for vampires that does not require a target other than Feast, thus it gives dark the exclusive advantage of being able to detect assassin's stealth. Although assassin's Shadow Protection (has a much longer cooldown) is not detectable with Mana Explosion, it may be broken with Feast.
● Dark enjoys Blood Rite with 40 seconds less cooldown, and when Blood Rite is casted it dispells existing stuns and silences. Read on for more information on Blood Rite.



What are the cons of dark vampire?

● Dark vampires have to sacrifice 3.5% HP each time Dark Ripple is used. Since Dark Ripple is the main attack skill with an amazing 1 second cooldown, the HP loss is somewhat problematic. However, at level 65, this disadvantage is compensated by the talent Dark Vampire State which allows the vampire to heal, instead, for double the amount of HP normally drained while in vampire form, so for Dark Ripple, 7% HP is healed while in vampire form.
● Comparing to the blood tree, the dark tree is significantly less effective for healing. The heals are good for self-healing and emergency only, they will not be sufficient for the dark vampire to act as the main healer in almost any situation.
● As mentioned before, the dark tree is not PvE oriented, it is much less useful in instances comparing to the blood tree.
● In larger scale group PvP, dark vampires are less effective because most crowd control skills are focused on single opponent (in my opinion, frost mage is the best for large scale PvP because of the spammable AoE freeze Fury of Ice).
● It may be difficult to fight classes with temporary immunity against stuns, silences, and bond (e.g. humans and water bards) because vampires heavily rely on them, or mana drain (e.g. lightning mages and water bards) because vampires have a weak mana pool and it does not passively regenerate.
● Comparing to classes like assassins and protectors, the dark vampire has less stuns/silences. But this disadvantage is compensated by the ability to heal and a medium attack range.



How do I build my dark vampire?

In Forsaken World, characters are made unique by talent investment, equipment choice, and gem choice. The best way to build a dark vampire includes choosing equipments and gems such that they appropriately support your talent investment. There are two ways to build the dark vampire that I think are viable.

One approach emphasizes on evasion for survivability. In Forsaken World, someone with extremely high evasion requires someones with extremely high accuracy to hit. When you evade an attack, you also evade the attack's effects such as stuns. As mentioned earlier, dark vampires can debuff the opponent's accuracy, if you have high evasion this debuff may significantly increase your chance to dodge attacks. Dark vampire can also increase evasion slightly with the passive talent Endless Darkness. The last talent, Imp Form, is specifically designed for dark vampires with high evasions. The talent gives a skill that increases evasion by 100 while decreasing evasion of nearby targets by 60 for 20 seconds, although the skill restricts offensive capability by disabling all skills except Charmed Strike, and the base attack of Charmed Strike is reduced to 10% while cooldown is fixed at 3 seconds, it is still a very powerful tool for survival, escape, or to distract the enemies. Without high evasion, this talent is quite useless because 100 evasion on top of a low base evasion is easy to be overcome by someone with decent accuracy. With high base evasion, however, the vampire will become almost invincible to attacks during the skill's duration.

The other approach emphasizes on health for survivability. As a dark vampire, health increases the attack of Dark Ripple and enhances the healing effect with Dark Vampire State. More health also makes Blood Rite stronger because part of Blood Rite's effect is to increase maximum HP by 60%. High health makes the vampire more durable by being able to take more hits, but unlike evasion, health will not help you evade controlling effects such as stuns from enemy attack skills. A high health pool is great for fighting against a single enemy but against multiple enemies, your health will drop quickly. Nevertheless, high health allows the vampire to take more hits and heal for more with Dark Vampire State, so this approach still makes the vampire a tough target.

Read below for more information on the builds.


The Evasion Path

The vampire appears to be a class of mediocre stats in everything, whether it be HP, attack, defense or MP. But lurking below the obviousness hides one of the vampire's most devastating advantage: evasion. As a class, the vampire in general has one of the highest base evasion in the game. As a dark vampire, Dark Ripple decreases accuracy (by 60 at maximum level with talent) of the opponent to further enhance the vampire's own ability to evade. Endless Darkness (a level 65 talent) also provides a small but appreciable amount of extra evasion (8 point) to the dark vampire. Unfortunately, evasion is a stat that cannot show its strength without significant stacking. If a dark vampire wishes to pursue evasion, the correct talent tree must be supplemented with maximal evasion from gears.

Gears
Gears with Precise Agile (accuracy and evasion) prefix are highly recommended. The reason I do not recommend Mighty Agile (attack and evasion) over Precise Agile is because others, too, may stack evasion. Against foes like yourself, high attack is worthless if you cannot land hits. On top of the evasion from the Agile prefix, the dark vampire must also have evasion as identified stat to truly maximize evasion. Evasion is rare to come by as an identification, thus many Scrolls of Sapphire are required, which makes this path very expensive to follow. Ideally, one would want two evasion identifications on each gear. However, that is nearly impossible to accomplish so I would suggest one evasion identification on each gear. Remember: do not use set items if you follow this path since they would not give as much evasion.

Gems
Weapon: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Goldspark
Head: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Goldspark
Shoulders: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Shattershard
Hands: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Shattershard
Chest: Mistshroud, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional
Waist: Mistshroud, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional
Legs: Mistshroud, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional
Feet: Mistshroud, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional

The optional slot may be filled with Solarflare, Twilight or Azurecloud depending on personal preference. Solarflare adds defense, which cancels the enemy's attack at a ratio of about 1:1 unless there is high resistance. But since defense is a lot harder to get than attack, and hence less effective, Solarflare is only optional. Twilight adds critical evasion (cancels opponent's critical rate). But most people do not have high critical rate anyway, so this gem may be redundant. Azurecloud adds maximum MP. Extra MP would act as insurance against MP drain and the unlikely event that the vampire runs out of MP from skill spamming. But are gem slots worth it? It is up to you.

At the current trend of the game (at least on my server), accuracy is not a heavily sought stat. As long as your opponent is not an accuracy nut with full Eagle-eye gems and full Precise gears with accuracy identification on every gear, you will evade at a highly favorable degree. Your opponent, on the other hand, will be crushed by you with ease.



*Correction: Points in Soul Power and Shadow Rage are swapped.*

]The Blood(HP) Path

As the name of the class suggests, the vampire class is greatly associated with HP. From a simple glance at the skills, one can easily notice that many of the vampire's skills consume the vampire's own HP to cast. While most of these skills do not offer a bonus in return for the HP lost, Dark Ripple is one exception. As a dark vampire, Dark Ripple receives bonus damage equivalent to the HP drained from the vampire, which is 3.5% with Force of Shadow. However, the bonus damage is not quite as significant as one would prefer. The real prize of HP is not the damage that it brings, but the ability to survive. Indifferent among all classes, HP is a highly prioritized stat. One can take more hits with more HP. When a dark vampire engages in 1 versus 1 combat, high HP is indeed fearsome when it is combined with the dark vampire's excellent ability to control the opponent which minimizes the opponent's opportunity to attack.

However in group combat, high HP will not help as much as evasion because multiple opponents can kill the vampire with relative ease, especially with their own controlling effects, no matter how much HP the vampire has. Evasion, on the other hand, allows the vampire to dodge deadly attacks such as stuns and silences, thus giving the vampire an opportunity to escape. It is also easier to build evasion to avoid 50% of incoming attacks than to double your own HP.

Another disadvantage of the HP path is that the dark vampire's healing skills will hardly be sufficient to heal the vampire's large HP pool, which makes healing less efficient. However, with Dark Vampire State, the dark vampire with high HP will be able to heal more than an evasion vampire because the healing is dependent on maximum HP.

Gears
Gears with Precise Stout (accuracy and HP) prefix is highly recommended. The Mighty Stout (attack and HP) prefix is also recommended given that enough accuracy is established by other means (i.e. identification and gems). For identification, I suggest accuracy because against foes with high evasion, you will need every accuracy you can get to have a chance at defeating them (trust me, it is frustrating to miss 4/5 hits). Luckily, accuracy is much more common than evasion as an identification stat, so less Scrolls of Sapphire will be required. It is important to mention that evasion and HP cannot both be pursued. If you choose the HP path, do not go for any evasion. If your opponent's accuracy greatly exceeds your evasion, you will not dodge the attacks.

Gems
Weapon: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Goldspark
Head: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Goldspark
Shoulders: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Shattershard
Hands: Eagle-eye, Ragefire, Bloodstone, Shattershard
Chest: Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional, Optional
Waist: Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional, Optional
Legs: Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional, Optional
Feet: Ragefire, Bloodstone, Optional, Optional

With Mistshroud excluded from the list, there are two optional slots for chest, waist, legs and feet parts. The slots may be filled with Solarflare, Twilight or Azurecloud depending on personal preference. Refer to analyses of each of these gems in the Evasion Path section.

Some talents chosen for the evasion path are specific for evasion. For the HP path, those talents may be removed and replaced by other talents to boost the vampire's capability in other aspects.



*Correction: Points in Soul Power and Shadow Rage are swapped.*



[COLOR="MediumTurquoise"]Talent Analysis[/SIZE]

Demon of Darkness
Increases the chance that Dark Ripple, Seed of Darkness, Dark Contract, Wrath Kill, Mana Explosion, and Shadow Scar will activate Vampire form by 2/4/6/8/10%.
This talent is absolutely necessary because the vampire is at its best in Vampire form.

Force of Shadow
Dark Ripple and Shadow Scar cost an additional of 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% of your max Health and add that amount to their damages. Increases the Crit Chance of Dark Ripple by 1/2/3/4/5%.
While this talent may appear to be suicidal, it is indeed very suicidal. But at level 65, Dark Vampire State will turn this into a healing talent (Refer to Dark Vampire State). The 5% Crit Chance is too good to miss too. Max this!

Spell Surge
Reduces the cooldown of Charmed Strike by 0.3/0.6 seconds.
I have personally never invested in this talent, nor do I feel like I have to. I just don't think 2 points for such a minuscule decrease in cooldown is worth it.
Edit: I invested one point into this talent out of curiosity and it appears that it reduces more than 0.3/0.6 seconds of cooldown as Charmed Strike gets more stacks, so 2 points in this talent may be worth it after all.

Advanced Dark Ripple
Reduces the cooldown of Dark Ripple by 0.5/1/1.5/2.0 seconds.
Max this! This talent will decrease Dark Ripple's cooldown to a mere second!

Expansion of Darkness
Increases the duration of Dark Curse by 5/10/15/20 seconds, and it reduces the target's accuracy by an additional 6/12/18/24.
NOTE: THIS TALENT WILL NOT REDUCE ACCURACY BY AN ADDITIONAL 24%! IT IS A TYPO!
I give this talent secondary priority because 4 points for 24 additional accuracy debuff for Dark Ripple is just not very efficient. If you are not following the evasion path, do not invest in this talent at all.

Dark Strike
The first hit of Charmed Strike has a 50/100% chance to stun the target for 1 second. The second hit of Charmed Strike has a 25/50% chance to stun the target for 1 second. An additional 10/20/30/40% damage will be dealt to targets affected by Dark Curse.
Max this! While 1 second stun may sound stupid, it is not! It interrupts skill casting and gives you a free shot at the opponent! The damage boost, on the other hand, only applies to Charmed Strike's base bonus damage (i.e. it does not go up with your attack and it does not go up with more stacks of Charmed Strike) and the damage pops up separately.

Seed of Darkness
Costs 1% of your max health. After 5 seconds, the target is slowed by 50.0% for 8/10/12 seconds. Dark Curse can trigger this effect early. Has a 10% chance to activate Vampire form.
This skill has a cooldown of 30 seconds, which can be reduced to 20 seconds with Sprout. The chance to activate Vampire form is increased to 20% with Demon of Darkness. One point is absolutely necessary because this skill will have a 3 second silence effect with Force of Darkness, not to mention the slow effect for kiting/running away to heal. However, DO NOT ADD MORE THAN ONE POINT!

Advanced Feast
Increases the duration of Feast by 1/2/3 second(s).
Many people invest in this talent, don't. It's a waste of points. Feast works best against melee and 8 seconds is long enough. Plus, Feast has a cooldown of 5 minutes. Save the points for something more important.

Force of Darkness
Seed of Darkness slows its target by an additional 10/20/30%. Targets affected by Seed of Darkness become silenced for 1/2/3 second(s) after being struck 4 times.
Max this! Seed of Darkness will become immensely useful. Silence means no use of skills.

Darkness Invasion
Dark Ripple reduces the target's Dark Resistance by an additional 15/30/45/60/75 for 15 seconds. Increases Dark Ripple's chance of inflicting Dark Curse on the target by 4/8/12/16/20% when cast out of Vampire form.
I would give this talent secondary priority. The resistance debuff is quite high, but there are more important talents out there.

Stimulation
Increases the duration of Invigoration by 1/2/3/4 second(s).
Useless talent, dark tree should not have emphasis on healing. The heals are horrible anyway, it will still be horrible with this talent.

Sprout
Reduces the cooldown of Seed of Darkness by 5/10 seconds.
This talent should be invested by preference. I usually use Seed of Darkness only once per fight (and that is enough). But a 20 seconds cooldown on Seed of Darkness may be useful in arena where there are multiple opponents.

Eye of Darkness
The Accuracy of your Dark skills is increased by 10/20/30.
Some people think 30 accuracy is dumb. It's not if you want to PvP. Max this!

Wrath Illusion
Increases the Crit Chance of Wrath Kill by 1/2/3/4% and reduces its cooldown by 1/2/3/4 second(s).
I give this talent secondary priority. Wrath Kill is not a major damage source. But a decreased cooldown on it may be helpful for triggering Vampire form. The attack and speed debuff on Wrath Kill are also nice.

Contract Aftermath
Dark Contract increases the target's Evasion by 20/40/60/80 for 3 seconds.
The evasion buff is incredible, but it only lasts for 3 seconds. Whether it is worth it or not is up to you, but I personally wouldn't count on it.

Advanced Dark Bonds
Increases the duration of Dark Bonds' controlling effect on players by 2/4 seconds.
Max it! Dark Bonds is your LIFE SAVER! With this talent, you may use Dark Contract twice and Invigoration once while your opponent stands there and watches (unless your opponent is human and breaks Dark Bonds with Pray). As you heal, there is also a good chance that you will trigger Vampire form, so you can immediately deal heavy damage at the target right after!

Vampire Power
Vampire form increases your Attack by an additional 3/6/9%
Max it! More attack is better.

Darkened Wrath Kill
Wrath Kill reduces the Attack of targets affected by Dark Curse by an additional 10/20% and reduces their speed by an additional 10/20%.
I give this talent secondary priority. The extra attack debuff is nice. Speed debuff is not terribly important for a dark vampire since the dark vampire uses charmed strike, which is a melee skill, as a main damage source. But for running/healing purposes, speed debuff is nice. Also, the speed debuff of Wrath Kill can be combined with Seed of Darkness to ensnare the opponent.

Mana Explosion
Affects multiple enemies within a 10 range. Costs 1% of your Health. Deals 100% of your attack plus 1047/1532. This skill has the same effect on curses as Wrath Kill. Vampire form further enhances the skill's effects. Has a 10% chance to activate Vampire form.
This is the main AoE of the dark vampire. I would say that its main purpose is for detecting assassins who are in stealth. Although assassins have two stealths and one of them is immune to this skill's detection, that stealth (Shadow Protection) does have a longer cooldown and is not used often. It is also nice for triggering Vampire form and dealing damage to multiple opponents nearby (i.e. arena and guild war). I suggest either one point or max.
Note: The second level can be obtained at level 65 and above.

Darkness Expertise
Increases your Darkness Mastery by 15/30/45.
Max it! Darkness Mastery will increase your damage significantly.

Mana Explosion Mastery
Increases the base damage of Mana Explosion by 10/20% and its range by 1/2 meter(s).
If you chose to maxe Mana Explosion, max this as well. Greater damage and more range.

Sudden Darkness
Reduces the cooldowns of Dark Bonds and Mana Explosion by 10/20%.
Max it! If not for Mana Explosion, max it for Dark Bonds!

Dark Vampire State
While in Vampire form, skills that cost Health restore double the amount of Health normally consumed instead.
Max it (well, it's only one point)! Now all your HP consuming skills will heal instead for double the amount while you are in Vampire form.

Inscribed Defense
Reduces the cooldown of Blood Rite by 20/40 seconds, and gives it a 50/100% chance to dispel any ensnare or stun effects affecting you.
Max it! Blood Rite is one of the best buffs for a vampire. It increases maximum HP by 60%, healing effect by 50%, defense by 40%, and each time you are hit you have a 20% chance of entering Vampire form! Blood Rite will enhance Dark Vampire State by A LOT! With this talent, you can use it more often, and also free yourself from stun or ensnare when you use it!

Endless Darkness
Increases your Dark Resistance by 25/50 and your evasion by 4/8.
Max it if you are going for the evasion path. Any extra evasion helps!



***all credit goes to hansdafrog***