Would like some advice on a vampire build tailored to the skill's recent rebalancing.

Hey everyone!
I've been trying to cook up a new build, tailored to empower a vampire character based on the changes to the skill tree since the last patch+expansion.
My main problem is that I currently have my eyes on eight different skill trees, and obviously I need to drop one of them. I would also like some general feedback, if you believe I would be better served by taking some other skill trees instead, or what order you think I would benefit the most from taking the skills in.

Vampirism
Goes without saying. The build is based around this, and strives to maximize the health regen attribute in order to increase both damage and life drain. In addition, the batty form could also be useful in retrieving artefacts on islands, and batty summons will always be helpful in taking the heat away from me.

Swords
I choose swords as my main weapon, due to that fact that I find counter attacks the most efficient defensive stat, since in addition to negating all damage on a successful counter it will also make an automatic attack. Offense and defense, all in one, plus the fact that it synergizes well with Vampirism since I will drain life off of each attack I make. My plan is to dual-wield, which will double the stat boosts from this skill, and easily making it the combat skill that provides the most counter chance, outclassing even Unarmed. Additionally, the three tiles long activated ability will help me in disposing of corruption enemies if bolts won't cut it.

Dual Wielding
Due to taking advantage of the double stat bonuses from the Swords skill tree, as well as providing extra counter chance of its own.

Shield Bearer
Even though I dual wield, I will still get the benefits from this skill tree - in particular a proc and a buff that each increases my health regen by 4, and thus enhancing both my damage output and my regenerative abilities. As a bonus, Defensive Bash will help keep corruption monsters at bay, while I use bolts or my swords skill to take care of it.

Master of Arms
This skill tree is mainly for the proc and the activated skill that each increase my health regen, 10 and 4 respectively, which again, will help both my damage output and regen capabilities.

Burglary
Traps are a vampires worst enemy, since you can't heal back the damage they do to you. As such, the trap affinity and trap sight radius will significantly increase my chances of survival. In addition, there a large host of really useful utility spells in there - Lucky Pick for more exp and loot, Lockup to keep nasty corruption enemies at bay, Ninja Vanish and Move in Mysterious Ways as "get out of jail free" cards.

Archaeology
Again, one of the main reasons for this is to ensure my survival against traps - I'm not sure that Burglary will be enough, especially if I don't want to juggle a pair of Tinkerer Goggles each time I come upon a trap. In addition, It Belongs In a Museum should be able to get me a ton of experience from unwanted artefacts, and higher levels should increase my chances of survival. This Translation is All Wrong! and Ancient Kronian Ritual will help me with manipulating the RNG, both in regards to getting useful items in general, but also in particular because I'm set on obtaining an item that will give me at least 1 Alchemy level, so that I can craft Healing Potions, which are in my opinion a very quick, safe and reliable way of healing, which heals for a lot compared to (almost?) all other healing options when used by a primarily non-magic user.

Fleshsmithing
This is probably the one I'm the most unsure of, but it still has a ton of goodies. The primary one is Meatshield, which will up my health regen by another 4 - and I should be able to afford keeping it on at all times, due to the fact that I'm not using any other magic schools. Besides that, another healing option is always a good thing, especially for a vampire, even though it will be somewhat weak due to my low Magic Power. Additionally, some Zomby distractions and access to the Fleshbore skill never hurt nobody.

Which skill do you think I should axe?
And do you have any other suggestions or advice on build order, skills to swap, etc.?

Cheers, skål, and thanks!

EDIT: Some formatting.

 

I testing out a vampire build right now (I'm on floor 2!).

Dual Wield
Vampirism
Communism
Master of Arms
Alchemy
Big Game Hunter/Archaeology
Demonologist

When I get all the going I could have a possible 22 which is pretty amazing. Communism gives a small healing, not enough to be useful during battle but great for traps. Plus all the stats, resist, and 2 are pretty nice. Alchemy gives healing potions, encrusting, resist, and 1. Master of Arms for the obvious 14. Demonlogist's celestial circle is just amazing for vampire. Archaeology for the xp and however BGH make killing animals that more satisfying(which is why I picked it).

 

I suggest ditching Archaeology or Burglary. You don't need to disarm all the traps, just avoid them, and for that you only need one skill or the other. If you WANT to disarm them, take tinkering instead. It's vastly superior to both skills combined for trap disarming and gives you some amazing crafting options to boot. Anyway you choose to go about it though you don't need two skills for traps.

If you want more health regen, Communism from CotW has Socialized Health Care for just one skill point. Passively adds 1 5 and can be tapped for 20 health over 20 turns. Communism has some other really cool skills and it's a warrior skill, so well worth considering.

WereDiggle Curse gives 4 at 3rd level but would probably require a full skill rebuild to fully utilize the tree.

With your warrior-centric build, Smithing would make an excellent choice, and I can't recommend it enough. Most, if not all of my warrior characters run with it. It has become even more useful since the addition of crusts. You can make your swords drink blood.

Encrust one in each hand for triple vampire action!

Hope this helps.

Edit: Ninja'ed! Well played Shwqa.

 

Don't forget Tourist! It gives health regen on level one, lets you see tons of traps on level two, and lets even Vampires eat stuff. Also, camera!

 

And if you're taking smithing, keep your eyes out for emeralds - the sooner you can start wearing a pair of Emerald Encrusted Gold rings, the better. AND tourist is particularly helpful because vampires can eat non-food items with Sample the Local Cuisine!
I've been having a lot of success with a gish Vampire build running Necronomiconomics, personally, but that's not for everyone. I'd suggest cutting either MoA or Shieldbearer - they're kind of redundant with each other.

 

I just built a Vampire using the following skills:

Dual Wield
Because hitting twice is awesome.

Master of Arms
For pretty much the reasons given in the OP. Which goes double when I discovered that Walk It Off stacks, up to two times.

For Reals. Get that going and you can tank through pretty much anything you can drain blood from. I fought two kleptoblobbies from Chests of Evil on DL 2 and had no trouble wearing them down once I had Walk It Off going. It's crazy. You can eat a corpse for 25+ HP!

Blacksmithing
This is just for the Emerald Encrusted Rings. So you could theoretically use Clockwork Knight in this spot, if you wanted. You'd get the rocket punch, jump, charge of the brigade, ect. But you'd have to work a lot harder for your rings. Mileage may vary.

Piracy
Again for the rings, Plunder can drop Emeralds after all, but the Caddishness is nice too.

Fungal Arts
Even with no points invested, gives you Fairywodgers and Hoglanterns. The rest you can eat with your Tourist skill, until you get the ability to transmute them.

Tourist
Get health regen, see traps, eat stuff, pose for photos, ect.

Vampirism
Because isn't that the point?

Your obvious first move is to get Drinker of the Dead, and I highly recommend the first level of Tourist as well. Then max out Master of Arms ASAP, for the procs and the block, which will be saving your butt quite a bit. Put a point into Blacksmithing whenever you have the resources for a EEGR, then rush Fungal Arts and Tourist. After that, I'd go Dual Wield and Vampirism, but whatever you want to do is really kosher. Just be sure to grab that Diggle God of Fertility buff ASAP. Keep chanting "soon I will become invincible" to ensure the RNG doesn't screw you over. (It works, really!)

 

I call this "The Raphael"
Swords
Dual Wield
Archaeology
Dodging
Blacksmithing
Necronomiconomics
Vampirism

Starting out is super hard, but once you get knightly leap, you're good to go. Work on maxing out your counter/dodge.

This particular build is really fun with my swashbucklers mod because of the counter buffs you get from the fencing sword recipes.

 

would daggers work with vampirism? it has a skill that gives an extra attack 30% of the time

 

I hadn't thought of using multi-attack skills in conjunction with Vampirism, but it sounds like a valid idea. Worth a try, anyways.

 

Of course...
And it also gives stealth, and a stance that upps counterattack, which is great for vamps.
Clockwork Knight with 2 ravagers would be king of this, though, I think.
That plus Rogue Scientist, Daggers (for the first stance), Ravagers and dualwielding, plus Geology for the -crit on bosses, should reach an insane level of counter- and extraattacks, easily approaching 5 attacks/round.
Let's see, the build would be:
Daggers
Vampirism
CK
RS
Tinkering
Dualwield
Geology
Hm, fits like nothing...
You can even get 10 tinkering
Or you substitute Geology for Perception, allowing you to disarm even the hardest of traps and craft your machines and potions from RS better.
Another thought: This even allows you to craft 2 Health Potios/Aqua Vitae+Rust, and Potions of Purity.
I think I'm gonna try this build.
Edit: You could even sacrifice vampirism for Peception, and that would maybe even make this build better...
I don't know.

 

i made a vampire today and im running this build:

-Vampirism
-Daggers
-Dual Wielding
-Shield Bearer
-Master of Arms
-Piracy
-Geology

playing on going rogue dificulty,no mods installed,havent bought wizardlands yet -.-

Plutonic Fist will carry you for the first 2 floors.
max daggers for the stances and raw stats -----> max MoA+Shields ------> do whatever you want.

the theme here is that im a tanky vampire with l33t ,pure W+M1 action here.

obvious weaknesses are the lack of and ,i have to walk using the mouse to prevent killing myself on traps and the lack of regen pots may screw me on the last floors.

so far i made it to floor 4 without any drama

 

OK... got one of the strangest builds I have seen (of course, I am new... downloaded yesterday...)

Vegan Vampire.

No... Seriously.

Build goes something like this (although, again, I am new, so be nice when you pull it apart ).

Vampire
Killer Vegan
Tinkering
Unarmed
Archery

Those are your base.

Nice additions to this include Fungal Arts, Archaeologist, Clockwork Knight, etc.

Probably best is Clockwork Knight and Fungal Arts, although it is hard to give up the extra xp from Archaeologist. I also tried using Big Game Hunter for the stats (specifically enemy dodge), but the little gain wasn't worth all the worthless offal (unless you are feeding the Lukefish God massively). Tried Burglary as well, but it just seemed like a wasted slot with tinker and FA for the invis.

As strange as it seems to mix these two, it seems to have a decent synchronicity.

The Vegan gives vampire some great stats, including good health (24), regen [for damage] (5), nimbleness (9), burliness (9), and even directly adds righteous damage (5).

The vampire uses unarmed, which means you can choose between twin shields for defense (if you need it) or tomes for offense.

Unarmed adds block (12) and counter (13) in pretty decent amounts, and even adds in enemy dodge (18).

Unarmed also adds damage to ranged, which is what Vegan will be using.

Tinkering allows you to create some wicked xbows and bolts, and allows you to handle traps.

Pretty much, anything that comes after you, you beat in the head, and anything that doesn't, you shoot.

This is pretty effective, and means that you are getting less aggro (since animals don't come after you), and don't often run out of ammo (since the only thing you are shooting is animals, and archery helps you keep your bolts).

You can even use 'Drinker of the Dead' on the animals that you have shot without triggering Fallen Vegan (although, that seems exploit-ish to me).

As for all the supposed 'food' that appears from the veggies and such? It all becomes Lukefish (sp?).

This syncs nicely with Archaeologist, if you took that... but thinking I will personally stick to FA and CK.

Fungal Arts means freebie Vegan-friendly heals and invisibility are on every dead critter around you... not to mention being able to stack Greedy Blungecap up to 3 times...

Clockwork Knight also syncs up really well, since its attacks are not apparently counted as 'melee', and gains power from Tinker... it even has a full set of armor built through Tinker.

Anyway, that's my 2cp worth on the issue... Sorry for Necroing the thread, but, as I said, I am new to the game, but have been looking, and haven't seen a similar build anywhere.

Me

 

Really, because I've been trumpeting about my pet combo all over the boards lately:

Vegan
Vampirism
Magical Law.

Because seriously, the first skill point you get, you get Polymorphic Injunction, which means never having to fight another animal again! And then after you've maxxed out Vegan and nailed the 5 and you're drinking corpses during those odd times that you didn't finish a fight at full health, you can press onward and get Rune of Objection, which is when you want to go out and start beating the hell out of poor animals because it gives you pleasantly awesome debuffs to drop on things with the Rune. It's a match made in heaven. For added fun, mix in some Tourism if you feel like it, because eating meat anyway is fun!

 

Vampire
Swords
Duel Wield
Communism
Tinkering/Bulglary/Archeologist/TrapSkill
Demonology
Alchemy/Piracy/Berserk Rage/Vegan/Tourist/Filler Skill

Walk up to Monster Zoo
Apply Celestial Circle
/laugh
Win

 

Im ran a BGH/ Magical Law/ Vampirism/Tourist/Master of Arms/Shield Bearer/Beserker Rage yesterday, trying to abuse the hell out of the grisly trophy bonus XP. Having some trouble keeping him in mana, but otherwise its going well... If I die I guess I'll swap Beserker with something manaful.

 

Just tried a couple of vampire builds to make use of the new skill's synergies.
This one seems to be the most successfull by far:

Vampirism
Master of Arms
Shield Bearer
Communism
Dual Wield
Smithing
Tinkering

The build's concept revolves around making and dual wielding clockwork ravagers to make use of the clockwork treshing's multiple hits. It also gets plenty of health regen and good trap affinity which is vital for any vampire. Communism can be replaced by Alchemy for the potion-healing but the guerilla attack helps a lot, so i guess it's better this way.

 

As a huge fan of fleshsmithing, I say go with that. Even at 0 spell power knit tissue heals you for 36 health over 6 turns. One extra skill point will make all the booze you find much better than the food you can't eat.

I'd probably go with the following if you want a high counter attack build, the bonus here is that you also max block with high level armor. Once you get wall of blades in daggers and knit tissue things should go fairly smoothly.

daggers
dual wield
master of arms
shield bearer
fleshweaving
vampirism
communism

Of course if you just replaced vampirism with something else it'd be easier =p