Patches, Vampires, Codex and Prestige

[Psycho Savager]

Yo, I have a few unrelated questions.

1. Does Patches give bonuses if you level up after reaching Level 10?

2. Does the Prestige effect actually do anything or is it just.... prestige?

3. I've got my head around most of the classes in the game in terms of the strengths and weaknesses but to me the Vampire seems really hard to use. What's the trick to getting the most out of him?

Also, can Vampires use The Pactmaker? I've played about 10 dungeons in a row with the Vampire and Pactmaker didn't appear.

4. Is there a complete list of Codex entries online? My weapons and bosses sections are missing some entries (a lot in the case of the latter).

[Darvin]

[Sidestepper]

[The Avatar]

Also, for the vampire, RBS+Platemail is very powerful. Also, Lifesteal only counts if you can deal the damage to support it, so if you will be getting lots I would prep the dwarven gauntlets.

You may have to start a new profile to get all boss entries, unless you have the bankers, but have you gone through everything recently? They have added many entries for Class Challenge bosses, so every challenge will net you 1+ entry, then there are the triple-quest entries and of course multiple form entries for bosses like namtar.

[Lujo]

One more trick with vampire is the first strike bussiness. If you first strike a monster down, you get lifesteal without being hit back. Keep in mind, however, that you can only lifesteal for the amount od damage you do, so if a monster has only a little bit of health you will only heal up a small bit. Otherwise, getindare is silly on a vampire.

Another thing, the cattle routine lets you heal up in the middle of a fight. You hit one guy, drink a bloodpool or two so you're able to hit your cattle, and hit all your cattle untill you've overhealed from lifesteal, repeat. After whatever you've been hitting croaks, explore to heal your cattle up and regen your mana. Meatmen make the best cattle so keep them alive as long as possible. Snakes and dragonkin are also fine, and most undead are bloodless so they're actually good leveling fodder.

Especially if you master the cattle draining technique and run into bloodtopowa, since you can get god fireball action going even without gods. Will cost you exploration, but if you're not in an endurance run map and are facing the goo it's necessary. Goo is nasty if you don't have acess to Glowing Guardian.