the Horbelist vs the Sampire -- Necromancy at the Extremes

Rock

Most folks know about the sampire build.  While it has Necromancy at its core, it defies expectations. Chivalry, usually associated with positive karma, is used to assist sampire damage. Necromancy is typically used without Spirit Speak. There are no skills to contribute to mana or stamina recovery, making the build heavily dependent on the right armor and jewelry. It seem to be a very non-traditional build, seeming to "break the rules", but its effectiveness is hard to argue with.

I used the term "Horrific Beaster" in another post this morning. That started a thought chain that led to this post, and flashier terminology to match "sampire" -- the Horbelist. It is a much more natural build; in official terminology, "focused" or "pure". I.e. only one spell book, no music, no parry, no Focus skill (except for mystics), and no taming.  It is hard to imagine a Necromancy build further from a sampire's.  What is the benefit of having a focused build?  For all spell casters, the spell damage increase (SDI) cap is raised from 20% to 25%.  That's it.  Necromancy gains a much larger benefit, though.  It's Horrific Beast (HB) form gains the ability to cast spells.  A lot of folks don't know this, and even the in-game description of HB says this form does not allow spell casting except for other necromantic transformation spells..  Actually, a focused HB has no problem casting anything in his book.  Heck, a human necromancer has 20 Magery via JOAT (jack of all trades), allowing HB to Teleport and use other Magery spells in circles 1 to 3.

So what's the big deal? HB offers +20 HP regeneration (HPR).  That adds to a human's native 2 HPR.  Either way, the normal HPR cap of 18 exceeded.  Normally HB is limited to his fighting skills and Spirit Speak if he chooses to go into battle.  In addition to the HPR, HB offers 25% DI Damage Increase) -- even Wrestling is effective; his base damage is 5-15, much greater than normal wrestle damage of 1-6.) Even unfocused, it's pretty cool, and available at low skill level, castable at 40.1.  (Compare with a sampire's vampire form, requiring 99 Necromancy.)

But when he can cast too?!?  Just adding Curse Weapon gives partial healing every time he hits a foe. He can use all his curses.  If he took up the Poisoning skill (not one that unfocuses), not only his melee weapon can poison a foe, but the Poison Strike spell can begin actually poisoning foes (at 60 Poisoning skill) instead of just doing one-time poison damage.  He has both Animate Dead and Vengeful Spirit available to lend him a hand. If he wishes to change familiars during battle, he not not go to another form first. ... Not bad for a guy who can easily out-heal the damage from many types of foes while he just stand there, along with any recurring damage from being poisoned or a bleed attack.

A basic template would exclude the de-focusing skills mentioned above.  It would include Necromancy, Spirit Speak, <weapon> Tactics, and likely Meditate.  If you wanted, like a sampire, to forgo Meditate and depend on your Dark Wisp familiar and items with the MR property, you of course could.  But since you aren't trying to squeeze 5 pounds of mud into a 1-pound sock, you likely have room.  Worthwhile bells and whistles include Poisoning, Hiding, Stealth (but not Ninjitsu), a 2nd weapon skill (such as Archery if you are normally melee) and Anatomy.  The last adds to your damage and thus your life leaching potential.  Nothing stops you from taking Healing as well; you just won't need it except possibly as a method to cure poison or to heal, cure, and rez others.

And if you actually felt it necessary, when you get to GM skill, nothing prevents you from changing to your vampire form (Vampiric Embrace) for its additional life leaching, mana and stamina regeneration, and poison resistance.  Downsides include 25% extra damage from fire, inability to use cure potions, receiving damage from any spell you cast that involves the garlic reagent, and receiving 25% more damage from undead slayer weapons. The downsides of Horrific Beast form are inability to ride a mount and slower walking and running speeds.  (But if you have to move quickly, nothing prevents you from changing to your normal form.)

I'm not saying you will be able to solo dungeons in the manner of skillful sampires, but you will be a very powerful necromancer.  None of my necro's have the skill to test his dungeon soloing skill, so I'm not saying they won't be able to, either.

A number of you could probably become powerful Horbelist's right now simply by trading out Focus for another skill. (You can get rid of Focus quickly by setting it to decrease and then going to New Haven to buying various weapon skills.)  Even if you are replacing Focus with Meditate, your MR at 50 will be that of Focus at 100. The cost is in the loss of Focus' stamina regen, not skill points. Note that humans retain 20 Focus skill via JOAT.

Let's make Horbelist a thing!

Slayvite

Well unless something has drastically changed.....you cannot cast spells in Horrific Beast form on the live shards, only on Test.
It was nerfed years ago when the build first appeared and the PvP'ers cried about it....so we all had to suffer PvP AND PvM.

Now IF you are able to cast again in HB form.......expect it to be re-nerfed quickly.

Slayvite

Yep, just checked on live shard,  Dropped 120 Necro onto my craft mule, you cannot cast in HB form still.

Edit: OOps my bad....i had Bush on the mule. You it seems you can once again cast in HB form if you only have Necro/ss magik schools.


I fore-see a new nerf...i mean Fix added to Pub 100.

Garth_Grey

Yeah this will get fixed immediately, while the Grizzled Mare is still limited to 3 slots.

Rock

@Slayvite and @Garth_Grey, casting by Horrific Beast is not a new thing or a bug.  As far as I know the capability is as old as Necromancy itself.  Broadsword definitely knows about it.  I think it was @Mariah that let me know about this in another thread.  I think the reason it is generally unknown is that focused necro builds are rare.  No one had a reason for their necromancer to avoid Magery, or Bushido, or Focus.

Even if they didn't know about it, why would it be nerfed?  My guess (atm) is that a horbelist will not be as effective a soloer as a sampire.  I doubt he could be more effective -- what's more effective than soloing Doom?  How would one measure it?

Currently I am working three horbelists, one with poisoning and one with Fencing, Archery, and Poisoning.  The third is working a 6x build with Throwing, Tactics, Necromancy, Spirit Speak, Meditate, and Resist Spells.

My first necro (Ochre Muerte on Baja) dates back to the 2000s, before I stopped playing for 8 years.  He is a poisoner as well, but also is unfocused by the Parry skill.  At the time I didn't know about the whole "focused build" thing.  Even if I did, Parry is pretty sweet, and its presence is not a bad thing. Please don't think that I'm saying that any necro build that is not horbelist or sampire is crap.  Far from it.  Nothing is wrong, for example, with a necro mage, a necro bard, or a necro mystic.  Each of those defocusing elements brings useful and fun capability to the table.

Mervyn

This is probably working as intended.

However the ingame book description needs to be updated if so.

Rock

Mervyn said:

This is probably working as intended.

However the ingame book description needs to be updated if so.

@Mervyn, I agree.  That description is probably the main reason people think Horrific Beasts cannot cast.  I've thought about that, and rewriting gets complex.  Maybe just leave out any absolutely unnecessary detail:

Adds high hit point regeneration and increases weapon damage.  Slows movement speed and removes ability to Fly or use a mount. Horrific Beasts may cast spells, but only if the characters skills include less than 30 points in Magery, Chivalry, Mysticism, Spell Weaving, Bushido, Ninjitsu, Parry, Musicianship, or Animal Taming.  Elves and Humans are limited to 29.9 Focus; Gargoyles 24.9.

I'm not sure if the last part is a bug or not.  It was something I reported in an earlier thread.

Mariah

The correct, current, description is listed on the Necromancy and Spiritspeak page. The ability to cast in Horrific beast form was added in publish 90

Rock

Thank you, @Mariah.  I compared revisions on the Necromancy page.  This capability has been properly documented there since April 2015.  But who reads the manual? 

The_Higgs_1

This isn't used for many reasons.  Vamp form not only gives you life drain it also makes you poison proof except for high level poisons.  Wraith form gives you mana drain plus you invulnerable to bleed attacks.  Vamp form also allows to be mounted while using the sampire template.  HB form is slow and on foot which leaves you for dead if you got raided at a spawn.  The HP regen doesn't do anything for ya in those situations.  If HP regen is something you like why wouldn't you use dog form from ninja since its 35 at 120.  Ya you cant cast in that form but if your a dexxer its better then HB form.

Rock

@The_Higgs_1, Ninjitsu's dog form is great.  I even posted about it recently. Its HPR scales from 15 at 40 skill to 35 at 100, so you don't even need to be a legendary ninja for it to be that high.  It doesn't get any higher above 100 Ninjitsu though.  Maybe by design, the HPR of both dog form and Horrific Beast become available at 40. However HB's starts and remains at a value of 20 regardless of how high your Necromancy gets. Dog form would match this at about 55 Ninjitsu skill.

(Just to show how crazy I am, I'm also working on a necro ninja build. )

That all said, dog form has limitations that even unfocused Horrific Beast does not.  You have 3 spells available -- Animal Form to change back to your normal form, Mirror Image, and Shadow Jump.  Most other skills and all spells are unavailable, not even Spirit Speak.  Compared with a focused HB's spell casting and your horbelist can leach life with Curse Weapon, swap familiars, Animate Dead, and call forth a Vengeful Spirit.  So dog form is essentially a "one trick pony", although a very good trick. Focused HB is a cornucopia of capability.

BTW, I am aware of your points and even mentioned them almost point by point in the OP.  Vampiric Embrace (VE) doesn't become available until 99 skill, HB is available at 40.  Once VE finally becomes reasonably castable (one time in 40 sorta stretches one's patience), nothing prevents a horbelist from using it.  He won't be a sampire, but everything you say is available to him.  Plus he'll potentially have Poisoning,  Resist Spells, Hiding and possibly Stealth, use of both ranged and melee weapons, or the gain of additional damage from Anatomy.

Note that nothing I have said about the horbelist requires power scrolls.  If they are too rare and expensive on your shard, you can still have a lot of fun with a 7x build.  I do not believe this to be true for a sampire's build.

- - - - -

As an aside, an elf of any profession can gain high levels of HPR as well.  If he wears a set of Woodland Armor made of bloodwood, each piece of armor will add 2 HPR (12 total), even before imbuing.  The downside is that it is not mage armor, and would cost 250k per piece to add that capability.  While any armor piece can be imbued with 2 HPR, I think it is cool that bloodwood armor starts with it.  A sort-of downside is that bloodwood is in the rarest class of boards, but imbuing 2 HPR involves specialty ingredients as well (10 seeds of renewal for each piece, more if there are imbuing failures).

The_Higgs_1

You should also look into the "rockarai" template.  Similar to sampire but with mystic focus to use stone form and therefore making you invulnerable to everything except for mortal strikes.

Rock

"Rockarai baby, on the tree top" ...

@The_Higgs_1, I really like Mysticism and my mystics use Stone Form often.  A hunting buddy can't understand why my mystic is in Stone Form so often.  I can't believe I haven't thought to create a necro mystic.  Thanks!

Mervyn

I think you can still dp someone in stone form

Rock

How unfocused can a focused build get?  Consider Sludge.  His goal template is:

120: Archery, Fencing, Necromancy, Tactics

100: Spirit Speak, Poisoning

 40: Meditation

He has 3 means of poisoning a foe (melee, ranged, and a %chance with Poison Strike spell (normally does one-shot poison damage)), can be up close and personally or operate from periphery, and of course can still cast from Horrific Beast form. The cost of his special moves will be reduced by 10 mana once Archery, Fencing, and Poisoning sum to 300.

CovenantX

if you build your suit with 100% damage increase (from items), the only benefit from Horrific Beast form is the +20 HPR, which isn't enough to keep you alive on its own against pretty much anything.

the damage bonus doesn't go beyond 100%  it provides less of a benefit when compared to wraith form and or vampire form..  

Rock

@CovenantX, if I gave the impression that the HPR was the only benefit of a Horbelist build, then I wasn't clear.  The inherent HPR (22 if human) plus the ability to spell cast plus even Spirit Speak all contribute to the whole.  He has Curse Weapon for some life leeching, various curses for debuffs, up to 3 animated dead, a familiar changeable on the fly, and other spells and armor and weapon enhancements all work together.  Even time is on your side.  Back away for a short respite, and the HPR can build up at its full rate.  If one only sees HPR and DI as the benefits of being a Horbelist, then yes, it is a limited concept.

CovenantX

Rock said:

@ CovenantX, if I gave the impression that the HPR was the only benefit of a Horbelist build, then I wasn't clear.  The inherent HPR (22 if human) plus the ability to spell cast plus even Spirit Speak all contribute to the whole.  He has Curse Weapon for some life leeching, various curses for debuffs, up to 3 animated dead, a familiar changeable on the fly, and other spells and armor and weapon enhancements all work together.  Even time is on your side.  Back away for a short respite, and the HPR can build up at its full rate.  If one only sees HPR and DI as the benefits of being a Horbelist, then yes, it is a limited concept.

 I didn't get that impression from your post, I'm just saying, if you have 100% damage increase on your suit + weapon the HPR is the only thing you're really getting out of HB form,

.

 Due to that, it's much more beneficial to use either Wraith or Vampire Forms or even no form at all.  

Curse weapon can also be used regardless of form without the restriction of being "Focused",

 Perhaps Horrific Beast form's damage increase should be a flat Base Damage bonus (say +5 min/max) in addition to the weapon in your hand instead of a percentage that doesn't go beyond 100%, then it may be able to compete with wraith & vampire forms.   (it would need more than that, because bushido = honor > perfection which is more effective and bushido also breaks focused spec.)

Mervyn

I think Rock may be thinking about for PvM, I had to be reminded the other day by Mariah that some players PvM without PvPing, so the majority of subtle game mechanics and content wouldn’t be applicable to them.

CovenantX

Mervyn said:

I think Rock may be thinking about for PvM, I had to be reminded the other day by Mariah that some players PvM without PvPing, so the majority of subtle game mechanics and content wouldn’t be applicable to them.

You're right he is referring to Pvm, But, in this particular instance Focus-spec matters in pvm, because it's the difference between casting necro-spells while in HB form or not having access to them at all while in HB form.  (this is a somewhat recent change I think)

I don't think there's any other instances where Focus spec matters in pvm though, simply because it's a basically a raised PvP-only SDI Cap, and there's no cap on SDI when it comes to Pvm.

Rock

@Mervyn and @CovenantX, you are both correct; I am a PvM player.  I am not strongly averse to PvP (nor do I have an aversion to adventuring in Felucca). My reaction time tends to be on the slower end, and I simply feel I would not be good at PvP. It might me my slower reaction time that attracts me to HPR capabilities.