Undeath Suggestion (safe and effective)

Caecus0

Nay, I'll explain why

No and I'll explain why:

1) Simply swapping these two traits is going to be a major buff to some classes while doing nothing for others.

2) People who REALLY want Undeath are just going to go Stage 4 and get it anyway. It will continue to be a problem even with the suggested change, and then you will see a bunch of people running around with Unnatural Movement as well.

I personally think Vampires are just oddly designed and balanced. While it is true that Vampires in Elder Scrolls can shrug off wounds that would hurt a mortal, it's mostly represented by the fact that they can just recover from it with little to no effort. Especially by feeding. Their flesh is no harder to wound than a mortal even if they don't really react to it. They *feel it*, they just don't care. Obviously this is hard to represent in a video game, and just making it so the Vampire takes less damage made the most sense at the time.

I personally like the idea of removing the Health recovery reduction and make it so their Recovery is increased based on their missing health. Conversely, they could redesign it so that Vampires gain a Lifesteal aspect (akin to Ring of the Pale Order) that increases based on their missing health. That way that same health regeneration is less passive and more active so people aren't just standing there getting it for free.

EDIT: Grammar

EDIT 2: More Grammar (I needed some sleep)

taugrim

I'm seeing a ton of complex solutions, some of which may have unintended, unhelpful side effects.

Why not just address the main issue, which is that the passive is providing too much mitigation?

E.g. here are simple, direct suggestions:
1. Reduces your damage taken by up to 30% 15% based on your missing Health. or
2. Reduces your damage taken by up to 30% based on your missing Health under 50% Health

K.I.S.S.

Solariken

Yay, I like it

taugrim wrote: »

I'm seeing a ton of complex solutions, some of which may have unintended, unhelpful side effects.

Why not just address the main issue, which is that the passive is providing too much mitigation?

E.g. here are simple, direct suggestions:
1. Reduces your damage taken by up to 30% 15% based on your missing Health. or
2. Reduces your damage taken by up to 30% based on your missing Health under 50% Health

K.I.S.S.

I mean yeah, KISS method would be fine, that's the lowest hanging fruit of all yet ZOS doesn't seem interested.

TankHealz2015

Didn't there use to be a weapon glyph that was specifically "vs undead"?

Or was the renamed to Oblivion damage?

taugrim

TankHealz2015 wrote: »

Didn't there use to be a weapon glyph that was specifically "vs undead"?

Or was the renamed to Oblivion damage?

Players having to enchant specifically to counters other players relying on a mega-imbalanced passive (Undeath) is dumb.

Fix. The. Imbalanced. Thing.

Aiden_Ayzaria

I still think that straight up nerfing it is not the move. Undeath was designed around the vampire toolkit screaming "Use your HP and get low to get high damage", it's there to balance that risk. Now the problem is people use it as a tool to turtle forever when low and not in combination with the vampire toolkit (which is very frankly understandable).
Reworking the passive entirely would be the move in my opinion. I suggested some offensive bonus earlier but if we want to keep on the defensive nature of the passive, why not giving some ramping up life steal then? Similar to what pale order does and not working with proc damage. It fits the vampire theme, keeps the defensive nature of undeath but you have to attack to get any benefit from it, it won't help you turtling for free.

EDIT: just noticed someone suggested the same idea earlier.

Vaqual

Nay, I'll explain why

I think giving out UM at stage 3 is too strong and it would actually be quite annoying to have the UM SFX at stage 3 and 4.

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

Make it into the named protection buffs:
- Minor above 70% health (5% mitigation)
- Major above 30% health (10% mitigation)
- Both when below 30% (15% mitigation)

This effectively halves the maximum mitigation it gives while also preventing it from stacking with other sources of the protection buff.

can tweak the numbers around to easily balance it as well:
Still too strong, make the "both" part trigger below 20%.
Too weak, make the "both" part trigger at 35% or 40%.

Most classes already have 1 of the named protection buffs too, so it is even more of a nerf to undeath if they already get one (or both) of the protection buffs and will encourage some real choices in building instead of just be vamp stage 3, now pick your class from DK, NB or Masters DW + Vate frost.

I think this is a bit too much of a middlefinger towards some protection sources, it is especially cynical when you think about the vampire's cloak set.

How about something like this:
Remove vampires fire weakness
Remove Health recovery penalty

Change Undeath to something like this:
Gain 10 % (adjustable) increased Health Recovery for every 10 % of your missing Health. This ability is inactive while you are afflicted by the burning status effect.

+is potentially a strong defensive option when building for it, but not universally useful
+has easy and widely available counterplay
+battlespirit compatible
+removes lopsided advantage of DKs in PvP a bit
+gets rid of hated PvE penalties
+allows for Vampire builds with HP recovery, also for people who like higher stages just for the optics

Solariken

Yay, I like it

Aiden_Ayzaria wrote: »

I still think that straight up nerfing it is not the move. Undeath was designed around the vampire toolkit screaming "Use your HP and get low to get high damage", it's there to balance that risk. Now the problem is people use it as a tool to turtle forever when low and not in combination with the vampire toolkit (which is very frankly understandable).
Reworking the passive entirely would be the move in my opinion. I suggested some offensive bonus earlier but if we want to keep on the defensive nature of the passive, why not giving some ramping up life steal then? Similar to what pale order does and not working with proc damage. It fits the vampire theme, keeps the defensive nature of undeath but you have to attack to get any benefit from it, it won't help you turtling for free.

EDIT: just noticed someone suggested the same idea earlier.

Another fantastic idea!

i11ionward

Aiden_Ayzaria wrote: »

I still think that straight up nerfing it is not the move. Undeath was designed around the vampire toolkit screaming "Use your HP and get low to get high damage", it's there to balance that risk. Now the problem is people use it as a tool to turtle forever when low and not in combination with the vampire toolkit (which is very frankly understandable).
Reworking the passive entirely would be the move in my opinion. I suggested some offensive bonus earlier but if we want to keep on the defensive nature of the passive, why not giving some ramping up life steal then? Similar to what pale order does and not working with proc damage. It fits the vampire theme, keeps the defensive nature of undeath but you have to attack to get any benefit from it, it won't help you turtling for free.

EDIT: just noticed someone suggested the same idea earlier.

I suggested something like this earlier in the thread. It's a great idea - while you're actively attacking, you get reduced damage depending on the amount of missing HP, which synergises well with other vampire skills. But if you decide to run around the tower and healing, LoS, waiting for ult, etc, you should lose all defence bonuses. I mean, it's obvious.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno please tell this to the development team, the community really wants to rework the Undeath skill

gariondavey

I was standing with several people from all 3 factions yesterday in ic watching @React on his brawler magblade in a 1v1 against an arcanist.
The arcanist had pretty serious damage but also was impossible to kill due to impervious runeward + undeath.
React got him low (sub 5 percent) a ton of times then couldn't finish him off even with killers blade (nb execute).
Pretty unreal, when a super high damage nb can't finish off someone in a 1v1 almost completely due to do undeath being overtuned as heck.

Major protection under 50 percent, minor protection over 50 percent

Or

Reduce damage by up to 15 percent when under 50 percent hp.

Please, @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno can we get this overtuned vampire passive adjusted?

warm_blanket

From the rest of the vampire kit (reduced hp regen, skills that scale with missing health) it seems pretty clear Undeath is meant to complement the vampire playstyle of trading your hp for damage, but it's currently not being used like that at all.

The problem with any kind of dmg mitigation is it contributes directly into the stalemate meta pvp is still locked in. Just nerfing its value it would only make it less problematic, the passive would still have the same problems. Far better would be to redesign it.

The simplest way to change it while solving all its issues would be to flip the effect around by granting the player increased damage done with missing hp. Maybe up to +12% at 0 hp, could go higher if the bonus was restricted to vampire skills only, which is probably a smart restriction to have on such a passive.

Changing Undeath like this would get rid of the strongest source of passive damage reduction in pvp entirely. It would be a big first step towards ending the unfun stalemates that pvp tends to devolve to. At the same time it would better support the playstyle/kit of vampires by empowering their skills while they are at reduced hp.

i11ionward

warm_blanket wrote: »

The simplest way to change it while solving all its issues would be to flip the effect around by granting the player increased damage done with missing hp. Maybe up to +12% at 0 hp, could go higher if the bonus was restricted to vampire skills only, which is probably a smart restriction to have on such a passive.

On the one hand you are right, but on the other hand what you propose is a copy of the Eviscerate skill, in my opinion two similar skills in one line (even if it is a passive and active skill) is not the most interesting game design.

Once again, Undeath Skill has excellent synergy with all vampire skills, but should only work while you are attacking, as soon as you go on defence all Undeath benefits you should immediately lose. In the other case, let it remain unchanged, but then the passive should be tied to the use of vampire abilities.

Udrath

Undeath should only work during the ultimate

birdik

Nay, I'll explain why

Undeath one of the reason of tanky meta
it must not be scaled from hp and armor to encourage damage builds

VinnyGambini

Nay, I'll explain why

Are you sure undeath is the root cause? You can check youtuber fe7on for the last 1v1 tourney on pc NA. Vampire stage 3 was banned from the tourney, yet half of the fights were stalemates.

the1andonlyskwex

Nay, I'll explain why

gariondavey wrote: »

Undeath - major protection below 50 percent and minor protection above 50 percent

I think minor vulnerability above 50% and minor protection below would be more balanced. Having protection both above and below 50% still keeps it pretty much mandatory.

i11ionward

VinnyGambini wrote: »

Are you sure undeath is the root cause? You can check youtuber fe7on for the last 1v1 tourney on pc NA. Vampire stage 3 was banned from the tourney, yet half of the fights were stalemates.

The main reason is easy resource management for competitive players, there are literally never run out of resources, and Undeath is just makes it even easier to manage. Also, do not forget that the players had special builds for duels and, as far as I know, the most cheesy sets were prohibited from use.