Best Vampirism Perks and Abilities

When night falls, Coen will be compelled to shed his mortality and live (if live is the correct word here) as a vrakhiri under the light of the moon. While this gives Coen access to his dark gifts, it also heals the wound-runes carved into his flesh, preventing him from using witchcraft. Unless you’re willing to spend the night weaker than you were during the day (contrary to Coen’s opinions suggesting otherwise), you’re going to need to invest in the Vamprisim perk tree… or avoid conflict as much as possible, but there are numerous questlines you can’t complete without extended combat as a vrakhiri. To that end, this page will point out what, in our opinions, the best perks, abilities and ultimates are in the Vampirism tree in The Blood of Dawnwalker!

Page Breakdown¶

Best Vampirism Perks¶

Becoming a more powerful vrakhiri - or becoming a vrakhiri in the first place - isn’t about merit, hard work, skill or accomplishment, it’s about consumption and corruption. To reflect this, the Vamprisim tree works a bit different than Witchcraft and Swordmastery. Instead of having to find [Skill Manuals] to unlock new perks and abilities, there are generally only three requirements for any skill on the Vamprisim tree: reaching certain corruption levels, purchasing pre-requisite skills and/or consume [Vrakhiri blood].

Check out the linked page on Vrakhiri blood to find out where to find the blood you need to consume to learn new Vampirism abilities, but corruption is simply a matter of… well, doing vrakhiri things. Namely using Voracious Bite to feast on others - be they humans, animals, friend or foe. The more you feast, the higher your corruption will get, and aside from gating skills in the Vampirism tree, this doesn’t seem to have any other effects in-game. Piercing Shriek, for example, must be unlocked by consuming vrakhiri blood, after which its second rank requires corruption Lv7, rank three is unlocked at corruption Lv11 and finally rank four can be purchased at corruption Lv13.

You can, if you wish, just run around the hills and forests at night and eat constantly respawning deer, rabbits and goats to get your corruption high enough, so this is more of a time-waster… or more fairly, a mechanic you should organically abuse to keep your health topped off and your corruption growing over the course of the game.

Two other things worth noting is that the Voracious Bite ability is ALWAYS available, even if you don’t have it assigned to a hot key - view it as a freebie, as you can still have four other active abilities assigned in the Vamprisim tree at any time, and the ultimate skills in the Vampirism tree do NOT require you to spend a certain number of skill points throughout the tree to unlock - they only have a corruption level requirement, so as long as you nibble on enough wildlife, you can unlock one of these ultimates at a pretty low price, at least compared to their counterparts in the Witchcraft and Swordmastery trees.

There are more things to keep in mind about the Vamprism skill tree, however. During the day you have access to witchcraft, but when your rune-wounds heal at night, those spells become unavailable. Likewise, your dark gifts cannot be used during the day, so Vampirism and Witchcraft are exclusive to the night and day, respectively. Swordmastery, however, is universal, which makes investing in it extra appealing, since you get to keep your perks and abilities from that tree at all times. Like with Witchcraft, this makes investing in the Vampirism tree a secondary concern compared to Swordmastery, and ideally supplemental. This doesn’t make the Vampirism tree bad - a Swordmastery only build is pretty underwhelming both during the day and at night - but it does mean you can invest far less into the Vampirism tree and still reap massive benefits, so long as you’ve got a solid foundation of Swordmastery to build upon.

That brings us to claws. At night you can do away with your swords and rend enemies to death with your natural vrakhiri weapons, and they can initially be appealing compared to swords, as they get stronger naturally as you level, and will frankly out-compete most swords you find fresh out of Laslea Glen. This superiority doesn’t last forever, however, and since swords can be used no matter the time of day, it really doesn’t make much sense to invest in both claws and swords when skill points spent on swords will simply benefit you more.

All in all, Vampirism doesn’t need a lot of investment - get your four Active Ability slots and abilities you want to use and you’re probably good. Let Swordmastery carry most of your offense and serve as the engine of your Activation Charge and cooldown recovery and you’re golden.

Vrakhiri Might¶

The one true no-brainer in the Vamprisim tree, this unlocked more Ability Slots. You want more Ability Slots, so invest in this to equip all the abilities you need. Since you unlock many of these by drinking [Vrakhiri blood], you might as well get all four Ability Slots unlocked, as there’s no real downside to equipping them, even at rank one - especially the passives.

Endless Ferocity¶

A good perk, but perhaps not necessary. We’re fine just using Voracious Bite and Piercing Shriek, both of which have fairly manageable cooldowns of 30s, which will be further mitigated by gear and the Walking Fortress ability in the Swordmastery tree. If your cooldowns aren’t cooling down fast enough, however, get a rank of this. The second rank - which reduces cooldowns by -4% every time you land a critical hit - is of less interest as the Vampirism tree doesn’t have quite the same ability to all but guarantee critical hits as the Witchcraft tree, thanks to its Soul Stigma ability. Still, late-game gear can get you at or above 50% critical hit chance, so if you’ve got the need and the critical hit chance, investing in this skill can make Shadowstorm a much more regular option.

Endless Hunger¶

Not a necessity, but a nice-to-have. In vrakhiri form, your health bar will be split into two segments. If you fall to one health segment, Coen may not be able to control himself during conversations, and may feast on NPCs. This can end quests, and is basically a competence check on your combat skills. Nothing you can’t fix by save scumming, healing with consumables or Voracious Bite, but buying this will add another Health Segment to your life bar. This does not increase your actual maximum health (that’s in the Swordmastery tree!), it just lowers the threshold at which you’ll start eating people during conversation to 33%, 25% and finally 20% of your max health.

Best Vampirism Abilities¶

Piercing Shriek¶

It’s just hard to compete with Artery Strike as a damage-dealing skill, but fortunately neither the Witchcraft or Vampirism trees don’t have to compete - they can supplement. Piercing Shriek stuns enemies, reduces their damage output and increases the damage you deal to them, making it a great all-round debuff. You don’t even need to invest any Skill Points on it to make it an effective ability!

Scarlet Shield¶

Voracious BIte is a good way to heal, but it doesn’t work on every enemy and while you’ll have a lot of Activation Charges in most fights, why spend them if you don’t have to? Scarlet Shield heals you after every perfect block, and has a chance to work during directional blocks and omniblocks - the higher the rank, the greater the chance of healing and the more healing you get. At rank four, every block has a chance to become a perfect block, which is nice, especially if your reflexes aren’t top notch, especially since forcing perfect blocks will help many other skills, like Walking Fortress. You can also unlock this for free (albeit at rank one) if you consume vrakhiri blood, and while rank four is great, rank one is pretty good, too - especially at the cost!

Crimson Rush¶

Basically the Vampirism tree’s answer to Adrenaline Rush… except they stack. You’ll be using abilities a lot, and every time you do, this will significantly increase your damage output. The standard strategy of Charge + Artery Strike just gets a huge boost at night if you have this passive equipped.

Shred¶

Another passive - surprise! - we like them all. This gives every attack a 20% bleed chance, which isn’t strictly necessary, since Charge should proc bleed, but if you have more chances to inflict Bleed that means you’re not strictly bound to the Charge + Artery Strike combo. Any attack has a chance to proc bleed and hence set up a 100% decapitation Artery Strike, and makes it easier to benefit from effects which reduce Activation Charge costs. It’s the least potent of the Vampirism passives, and we’re not super sold on investing a lot into this, but it’s another nice-to-have.

Shapeshift¶

Mercurial Fervour, but at night. Get one rank in it, enjoy faster exploration. Further investment isn’t necessary.

Best Vampirism Ultimates¶

Sanguine Renewal¶

There’s only one real contender here, as far as we’re concerned - Sanguine Renewal instantly refreshes all cooldowns, and cooldowns are likely going to be more of a limiting factor than Activation Charges. Take a little snacky-snack, get back to spamming your abilities. Best thing about this is, you don’t need to waste tons of skill points and time in the Vampirism tree to get it. Just share a meal with a goat (or a hundred goats) and you’ll be able to start making use of this ultimate. The cost makes it one of the easiest ultimates to recommend in the game!