Vesla, eh? Scandinavian perhaps? : )
1: Mana leech sure works well, perhaps too well.
As for life leech, I find it to work out nicely, especially when coupled with +LL enchants on gear. Always nice to see health go from 20% to 100% after whirlwind/thousand strikes or a jump attack critical! Coupled with regen/aura it should make any decent melee'er nearly unstoppable mid to late game.
2:
The set pieces you're talking about aren't random drops. There are four sets (five if you've got the preorder bonus) that I know of. If you find one part of a 10-piece set, all the other pieces can be found in that same area (fort).
Then there's a 4-piece set that you'll have to kill the fort bosses to get - notice that you *have* to mindread one of them to get the chest piece.
And the 3-piece preorder bonus set, that one will spawn right into your inventory when you start the game.
3: Some melee-mobs have ranged magic attacks yes; If there's alot of them I usually find a nice stone, pillar or doorway to hide behind. They'll run right into melee-range when they don't have line of sight anymore.
Healers can be a pain. How I take them out depends on the situation. If the above trick doesn't work and I can't target them due to the mobs in between, I usually jump, pause mid-air and charge-attack them. Then follow up with a jump-attack, or if it's a tough one, thousand strikes. They shouldn't be able to run away after that.
Also remember, jump attack have much longer range you'd think: Target and jump while the mob is close. If you manage to keep it targeted during the whole jump/descent you'll usually connect, even when it tries to run. They'll usually be knocked down too, depending on your rank in JA.
