How to Suck: A Guide to Training Life Drain

Draining abilities are nothing new in games. Soul Steal, Giga Drain, vampirism–there’s always been a strange appeal to taking the essence of your foes and using it against them, simultaneously bolstering yourself while crippling any who would dare to oppose you. For that reason, the benefits of Life Drain as a replenishing tool need no introduction. If you’re reading this, you’ve most likely decided you plan to rank the skill, and so this is a guide interested in pointing out the pros and cons of the skill while getting you to rank 1 as quickly as possible.

Life Drain in this game has many applications that make it both a powerful and flexible skill, kept in check only by the limitations that balance it out. The process is divided into three steps: prepping the skill, draining the target, and knocking the target back.

First up is loading. Life Drain shares Wind Blast’s trait of being able to load the skill even as you’re knocked back or down, making it a particularly useful defensive ability. The loading time is 3 seconds initially, reduced to 2.8 seconds after rank 9 and again reduced to 2.5 seconds at rank 5. The skill cannot be prepared if your health is full or has reached your current wound level.

Second up is draining the target. Life Drain has a pretty large targeting range, capable of firing from farther away than most offensive alchemy (except for perhaps Mana Crystallization). At rank 1 the range is 1500; all ranks before that are 1200. Both ranges are increased with the use of a Tower Cylinder. Life Drain will drain the target for a set amount during a set period of time. Each skill rank increases the amount drained and certain ranks decrease the time required to achieve the full effect. At rank F, the skill drains 51 HP over 3 seconds; at rank 1, this becomes 450 HP drained over a span of 1.5 seconds. Between those ranks, the drain duration reaches 2 seconds at rank 9.

The amount drained is the amount you heal, not the amount stolen from the target (which is a little more than twice what you get back). This drain cannot be resisted, except in one case–targets who have over 100% protection cannot be drained. The drain bypasses the effects of Mana Shield. There is also no other way besides ranking the skill to improve the amount drained.** The drain will end abruptly if one of the following happens:

-You are hit, causing the skill to end.
-Your health reaches its highest point, automatically triggering the knockback.
-Your target has no more positive health, automatically triggering the knockback.*

While the drain is active, the affected target’s movement speed will be drastically slowed; if they are running, they will be walking, and if they are walking, they will be, erm… crawling?

*Note: It is possible to set the party kill priority to ‘Anyone Can Finish’. Draining an already dead target, while it will trigger the knockback, still drains for a fraction of a second which still heals you some. Latency might also give you more health than you were supposed to get; this is true when the target is still breathing as well.

**Second Note: As of the introduction of reforge kits, there are some reforges available that can either increase the amount of health drained (what you gain) or the amount of health stolen (what they lose).

Third up is the knockback. At the end of the drain, the target is then knocked away from you as additional damage is dealt to them. In most cases (excepting enemies like Banshee, Demi Lich and Arc Lich), this damage ignores the defense, protection and passive resistances of the target, always dealing full damage. The only exceptions to this rule are the three listed bosses and players using Mana Shield. While the drain takes directly from the target’s health, a target using Mana Shield will reduce the damage of the knockback. The damage of the knockback is non-elemental and set, but can be increased by the following:

-Ranking Life Drain
-Ranking Alchemy Mastery (up to 45% damage increase)
-Ranking Clay, Wind, Water, and/or Fire Alchemy (up to 2.5% damage increase per skill)
-Using a Life Drain Enhancement bonus from the Cressida Set (10 points required, 15% damage increase)
-Using a Tower Cylinder (120% damage increase)
-Reforging (the one that increases Life Drain’s actual damage)***

As per the formula stated on the wiki:

***Third Note: Not sure where the reforge kits get factored into the formula.

At rank F with no other bonuses to damage, the knockback will inflict 90 damage. Rank 1 will inflict 900 knockback damage.

Between the full rank 1 drain and the knockback before bonuses, you can deal around 1900 damage (that does not get reduced in almost any way****), as the drain will take about 1000 HP from its target. With max bonuses, excluding the tower cylinder and the reforge, the knockback damage can reach up to 1600-ish damage; with tower cylinder (but not the reforge), it can break 3.5k.

****Fourth Note: With the introduction of Commerce, Life Drain has another way its damage can be reduced. While in Commerce Mode, all damage you do is halved. This not only affects the knockback, but the hp you steal as well. And oddly enough (or not depending on how you look at it), this also halves the amount of hp you heal.

Pros:
-You heal yourself for up to 450 health while simultaneously doing 1.9k+ unmitigated damage to a target.
-Can be loaded even while being knocked back.
-Knockback damage ignores passive resistances, including level 3 of heavy stander, natural shield, and mana deflector.
-Slows the target to a walk while draining.
-Immediately knocks the target back at the end of the drain.
-The drain itself can bypass mostly all defenses, including those that the knockback damage cannot.
-As long as a cylinder is in your active weapon slot, Life Drain can be loaded during Windmill’s spinning animation.

Cons:
-Somewhat long prep time. Some fast enemies will reach you before you finish loading the skill, and some might reach you before the drain finishes.
-Not a powerful skill for burst damage or raw numbers.
-Getting hit ends the drain and thus interrupts the knockback.
-Can only target one enemy at a time.
-Cannot be used at full health or whatever your wounds limit you to (the exception being if your wounds land you in perma-deadly).
-Cannot replenish wounds.
-A large AP investment.
-The skill cannot be used on any target whose protection exceeds 100%. If they are dropped below 100% protection then it becomes useable.
-Enemies who can resist the knockback damage will reduce it to 1s. Players will reduce it based on their Mana Shield coefficient when the shield is active.
-Consumes a lot of stamina. 45 stam cost at rank 1 per complete load of the skill.

In Generation 9, there is a mainstream-only Shadow Mission known as Scouting Mission. To acquire Life Drain, you need only be present in the mission at the time of its completion. You do not need to be at that point in the mainstream, so it does not need to be your mission; anyone involved will get the skill if they do not already have it.

Therein, you will encounter a more powerful Glas Ghaibhleann (generation 1 boss). Instead of summoning gargoyles, he will summon Crag Cows with high damage output and wound rate. The same issues as G1 are present; Glas has a high HP recovery rate, and should be whittled down with wounds, making archers valuable. The exception is that Crag Cows do not drop firewood or seal scrolls to provide invulnerability and wound rate. If you are not an archer but wish to help deal with the boss, you should bring Wind Crystals and a cylinder. Using Wind Blast on any Crag Cow three times in a row will confuse it for a time, and make it hostile to Glas. Their high wound rate will then be an asset.

When Glas is defeated, the boss-level Shadow Alchemist named Tiamat will challenge you. Wail on him and do not let him cast Bewilder, a skill that will flip your screen upside down. Once he is dead, except for a cutscene, you have successfully cleared the mission.

You will receive Life Drain at Novice rank.

There was no need for this section in the past, but recent changes to the game make it necessary.. Before Generation 15 Season 4, using Windmill to reduce one’s health was the ideal method for training Life Drain. The idea was to get your health as far into deadly as possible (every use of Windmill would subtract from your current health 10% of your max health), and then to drain until your health reached positives again. Rinse and repeat. After G15S4, the HP loss from Windmill has been removed. People are still trying to figure out what training method works best for them. Here are some possible alternatives:

-Get mauled in EvG near the enemies you want to train on.
-Let your HP drain slowly in the sulfur pits.
-Use the poison Cerberus Statues in various Rath Castle Shadow Missions.
-Get contaminated by the Mirage Missile effect.
-Use the Sword of Elsinore.

All of these methods are designed to lower your health so that you reach Deadly status, which is important for training Life Drain efficiently at higher ranks due to “Use Life Drain while in Deadly” being one of the common training requirements at higher ranks.

This training section focuses on resource management (optimizing crystal use) and assumes that you will be using the Alchemist Destiny to cut the process in half; if you are not, know you will likely have to do about twice the work for the same result (slightly more in some cases), so double the numbers accordingly.

There are some other things you can do to minimize training requirements. The first is using gear that modifies your CP, or Combat Power. All requirements that involve same-level, strong, awful, or boss enemies are based on the ratio between your current CP value and that of whatever enemy you are fighting.

The second, more important thing you can do–and this you will probably be doing often until and after your Life Drain is a decent rank–is to tenderize your opponent. Know exactly how much health your opponent has and how much HP your full drain can take. If your target’s HP is higher than the drain amount, try to weaken it with other skills until that value is equal to or lower than the drain amount. That way, your target is already in Deadly before the knockback, which will instantly kill it.

Unless you are setting yourself to the “Anyone can finish” party rule (only using the drain when they can be finished) or your target is in deadly (which can be caused by the drain) before the knockback, sometimes the knockback will put the target into Deadly, wasting your crystal if you were looking for a kill. A wasted crystal means at least one more crystal you have to use, and if you don’t have a large supply, wasted attempts at training will make the process annoying. With that in mind, always have more crystals on hand than you need; even when aiming for efficiency, nothing is always guaranteed (something could interrupt your drain, after all).

You will want to save your crystals for training purposes only; if you absolutely must use a crystal to save your hide, do so with training in mind. There are several ways to obtain crystals:

-End chests of Shadow Missions and the Giant Leprechaun chests in The Other Alchemists.

-Occasional Doppleganger drop, as well as a drop from some Shadow Mission and Theatre Mission enemies.

-Crystal-making. One mystic pearl (acquired by fishing) and one each of wind, water, fire, and clay crystal. Success rate increases with ranks in Alchemy Mastery, Transmutation, and Life Drain itself. Scholar (+2%) or Academic (+3% if Royal Alchemist) clothing, Division (+2%) Shoes, and Maker (+2%) gloves ensure an additive 9-10% increase in crystal-making success. Saturdays and rainy weather boost your success further. You could always ask a much further along alchemist to do the crystal-making for you as well.

-Synthesis. One Life Drain crystal, one Holy Water of Lymilark, and one Arat Crystal* will on a successful synthesis give you ten Life Drain crystals. The success rate for this is pretty low, though, unlike most replications with other crystals. Having a decent rank of synthesis and a high rank of Alchemy Mastery and Transmutation will make up for this. Melting (+3%) Delicate (+1%) headgear, Scholar (+2%) or Academic (+3% if Royal Alchemist) clothing, and Melting (+3%) shoes will also provide an additive 9-10% success chance for synthesis. Again, Saturdays and rainy weather also improve your odds. As with crystal-making, you can ask a high-ranking Synthesis user to replicate the crystals for you. I don’t recommend wasting arat crystals on Life Drain, though; I find crystal replication more useful for Shock crystals, which are rarer to acquire and easier to replicate.

*Note: As of Generation 15, Arat Crystals can be bought at Commerce Trading Posts for 4,000 ducats individually, or 40,000 ducats for a stack of 10. Synthesis replication becomes a lot more viable now that Commerce has greatly increased the abundance of Arat Crystals in-game.

-Buy them from players. Life Drain crystals are a lot cheaper than they used to be, even with inflation factored in. Still, I like providing my own materials, but it’s up to you to decide what’s easier for you.

That being said, we’re going to go rank by rank to determine the best route for getting to rank 1. Provided for each rank will be the AP cost and the minimum number of crystals required. Now, let’s dive in:

Method: Just use the skill once. Seriously.

Method: You will need to use the skill 9 times minimum. During this time, make sure that you defeat at least 3 enemies.

Method: This one will require a little more management than the previous rank. You will need to use the skill on and defeat a minimum of 9 same-level enemies with the skill. Nine. Same-level. Enemies. Don’t forget.

Method: This will be the largest amount of crystals you will use for a single rank until you get to rank 2. Use the skill 17 times only on strong enemies. Make sure at least 3 of them are defeated by the skill.

Method: This is where you need to start paying attention. You no longer gain training for recovering HP, and for awhile you will only get training by knocking back or defeating enemies of a certain level. Start out using the skill on 5 awful enemies; you only need to defeat one of them. The last 3 uses will be on strong enemies. Make sure you knockback and defeat all three.

Method: This rank introduces a requirement you need to start paying attention to no matter what level of monster you’re draining; always wait until you’re in Deadly before using the skill. With enough of a health pool to lose, you can even use the skill maybe two or three times before you’re back at full health; this of course becomes harder as Life Drain gets higher in rank. While making sure you’re in deadly, drain 5 awful enemies. Make sure you defeat at least two. Simple enough.

Method: While making sure you’re in Deadly, drain and defeat 5 awful enemies.

Method: While making sure you’re in Deadly, drain and defeat 8 awful enemies.

Method: This is the first rank where boss level enemies become a requirement. While making sure you’re in Deadly, drain and defeat 6 of them.

Method: While you are in Deadly, drain and defeat 5 boss-level enemies. Then, while still making sure you’re in Deadly, drain and defeat 3 awful-level enemies.

Method: While you are in Deadly, drain and defeat 9 boss-level enemies.

Method: While you are in Deadly, drain and defeat 12 boss-level enemies.

Method: Rank 4 is determined to shake up the beautiful relationship we had going. For no reason at all, it has a very low number of “Defeat boss enemy” requirements (15 to be exact, or 8 bare minimum uses of Life Drain), leaving you to finish out the rest of the rank with awfuls (relying on just boss knockbacks would be inefficient once you lose the boss defeats). While you are in Deadly, drain and defeat 8 bosses, then while still in Deadly, drain and defeat 6 awful-level enemies.

Method: Returning to normalcy, we get our boss kill requirements back in spades. While in Deadly, drain and defeat 13 bosses.

Method: Wow, Life Drain training has really been kind to us thus far, huh? Up until now, the highest crystal count for a single rank was rank D. When you are done here, you will only have spent 152 crystals to reach rank 1, so let’s get to it. While you are in Deadly, drain and kill 28 bosses.

Method: You’re free to do what you want here. Or not. Whatever.

If you are interested in mastering this skill, do it in strides. Save half your crystals for that week for actual use (which may or may not fulfill training), and use the others for actual training. When I was still working on mastery for Life Drain, I preferred to keep about 4 or 5 stacks for just-in-case use, and dumped the rest of the crystals into training. Assuming you are lucky enough to meet the bare minimum for mastery, you will need to drain 60 bosses, defeating at least 23 of them. You will also need to drain and defeat 1000 awful enemies. Sometime during these requirements, you should make sure you are in Deadly for at least 500 of them.

I thought about mentioning the skill’s synergy with Windmill, except that in a couple of in-game seasons as of the time I made this guide, Windmill will no longer have invincibility frames or 10% health loss per use (the real bread and butter of WindDrain tactics). For that reason, I kept it out and chose solely to focus on the skill itself. Life Drain is a powerful skill, useful for saving your butt when you’re blindsided or hurting enemies you might not normally be equipped to fight with your damage output or the type of damage you do. I don’t know what the future holds for this skill, but I do know it will be harder to train in the future. So, if you’re still interested in the skill and want to get it now, here ya go. A quick and dirty guide for efficient training. And who knows? Maybe in time you’ll suck like the best of them!