Discuss this Build: Ninpire or Vampinja

Pinkerton

So I wanted to play a melee character that uses a shield and feels tanky.  That was the only real inspiration for this build.  I wanted to use feint and I wanted to wear a shield.  And on my main Sampire I almost never use most of the Bushido abilities.  Sure I pop evasion or confidence once in a while, but I use AI over LS all the time.  So I thought do I need Bushido?  

The build is:

120 Fencing
120 Tactics
120 Anat
120 Parry (+10 from items)
115 Chivalry
99 Necro (+24 from items)
60 Ninja

I took him out for a spin yesterday, and while the build does seem to work alright it plays very, very differently from my normal sampire.   And it is hard to get over the sampire "easy mode" for a more complicated version of what works out to be close to the same thing. 

I originally thought mirror image and focus strike would bring a lot to the party.  mirror image being basically a version of evasion and focus strike bumping up dmg and impriving my ML and LL slightly.  neither work for this build ( as I learned because I am a noob).  Unless we can convince the devs to allow focus strike to work with a shield, because why not?  Shields are worthless for melee chars nowadays anyway, should so a little something to give them some utility.   And mirror image cannot be used mounted.  I really like the damage reduction from my swampy, but I may test it out anyway.

Thoughts?

Rock

Interesting build.  I wonder, though, what the 115 points of Chivalry are mostly going to be used for?  I suspect Enemy of One (EoO), but if that is the main reason, why Chivalry so high? Your negative karma will be reducing EoO duration significantly (PvM). Personally, I would consider throwing it away altogether, substituting a lot of Spirit Speak.  In addition to offering emergency hit points, it would have the side effect of buffing both Strangle and Vengeful Spirit. I realize those spells are situational, but when the situation does arise, why not have them be stronger?

Pinkerton

Chiv is for EOO (which will mostly replace perfection)  And gives a higher damage boost based on skill level.