Rewolfing the vampire: Why do they both still suck(But vampires suck more)?

Kurague

Howdy, I'm back in this game and I'm still wondering why are vampires and Werewolves still being balanced solely around PvP(And even then they also suck in PvP)?

Now, I get it, PvP is an important part of the game, I play it myself, but I play PvE with friends mostly, and I honestly still feel like I'm cuffing both my hands to my feet when I play a Vampire or a Werewolf, though at least you can "be a Werewolf" without being hindered overall in your normal experience so I can build for WW PvP and ignore it the rest of the time, but the same can't be said for being a vampire. If I want to be a PvP viable Vamp I either take the stage one or the Stage 4, there is no in-between.

What makes vampires sucky in normal play is in order of annoyance;
1: No regeneration
2: No heals from your party
3: You need to have Mesmer slotted just to talk to NPCs

Now 3 at least is a more minor annoyance even if the skill is "meh". However, the other 2 are big red flags in the Vampires(That again, the werewolves do not have and can completely ignore if they don't use the form)

I'll start with how to fix the vampire and then I'll go into Werewolf;
-The easiest way would be to remove the life regen limitation on PvE content but keep it on PvP. This is the biggest gripe I would say most people have with vampires in PvE content, besides not healing yourself. "Fall from 2 feet too far? I guess it's time to dismout to heal, hope you enjoy being a vampire, loser." Did an enemy graze you? You will not get that health back until you do it yourself. Is that not ABSOLUTELY fun? Seriously...Who thought that was fun?

-On healing from allies, instead of completely eliminating healing from friends, the best way to deal with this would be to reduce ally healing to 25%(Reduction of 75% effectiveness from allied healing), enough to give you a boost to help you stay healthy enough to deal the extra damages for half/Lower HP, without upping your health fully without your own input.

-Make mesmer a good skill that one would actually want to have slotted by making it less buggy...LoL.

|| - Alternatively, one of the vampire ultimates, the transformation into Perfect scion, could grant a passive that as long as it's slotted, re-enables regeneration(Or augments it if it's stage 1). Something like giving 50% regeneration, meaning if you have -100% from Vampire stage 4, you'd have 50% regen from this ult slotted, and if you have Stage 1 you'd get 140% total, playing into the TES vampire lore of them being great at regenerating, while keeping you locked to the "weaker stage". This could be Perfect Scion of course, it would make sense because of the passive of ascending to stage 5 when you're transformed.

Now onto werewolves, they honestly just need a few simple fixes;
-Weapon passives. No more explanation needed, you know it, I know it. I don't care that they use their claws, they get Armour passives and they're technically fighting naked.

-Fix the WW heavies and make them worth damage-wise, not just to recover stamina.

-Make devouring a corpse give a lingering effect, a halt on the transformation for 4 seconds and a regeneration effect of 2% per second for the same amount. It's quite minor: The healing and transformation stop basically equals to 1 more second of eating, but without having to commit to the deed. This is not to make it stronger, but to make it more "flowy".

CameraBeardThePirate

Im not sure why you cite not being able to receive heals as one of the downsides. You can get heals from your party as a vampire, just don't use the toggle drain or the health cost spammable. The mag morph of the spammable is still excellent and doesn't hinder your incoming heals. Sated Fury is intended to really only be a ganking/bombing tool, so no reason to be using that in a group setting.

Afterip

Kurague wrote: »

Howdy, I'm back in this game and I'm still wondering why are vampires and Werewolves still being balanced solely around PvP(And even then they also suck in PvP)?

You are wrong, Vampires have really powerful ability for PvP and right now most of strong pvp players use BfB or Arterial Burst to deal incredible damage. Vampire claws- one of the best spammable right now.

Kurague

Afterip wrote: »

Kurague wrote: »

Howdy, I'm back in this game and I'm still wondering why are vampires and Werewolves still being balanced solely around PvP(And even then they also suck in PvP)?

You are wrong, Vampires have really powerful ability for PvP and right now most of strong pvp players use BfB or Arterial Burst to deal incredible damage. Vampire claws- one of the best spammable right now.

Have you just quoted me "being wrong" to me questioning why are Vampires balanced solely around PvP? About them sucking in PvP, maybe I'm wrong about that one point, but still, why are they balanced around PvP? Cause that's the main point that sucks.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Im not sure why you cite not being able to receive heals as one of the downsides. You can get heals from your party as a vampire, just don't use the toggle drain or the health cost spammable. The mag morph of the spammable is still excellent and doesn't hinder your incoming heals. Sated Fury is intended to really only be a ganking/bombing tool, so no reason to be using that in a group setting.

The Mag Morph is decent(Not excellent), but it has the downside of the vampire passives still hindering you. Now yes, it is true that the level 1 passives are soft on you, but you still get negatives in exchange for barely a usable set of skills. The obvious good morph for this skill is the one that deals damage to you, the problem is it also stops others from healing you, which I understand is a tool to both balance it AND to make sure you "control" your life yourself(Because you deal more damage with lower life), but I feel like 0 healing from party falls a bit too hard.

There is also no reason why the vampire should have 0 health regen at max vampirism, it literally just serves no purpose.

I feel like the gameplay of a vampire should be more than "Oh, I just use this one skill from the vampire and then I'm fully just a normal class.", it's skills should -AT LEAST- be enough of an option to be on par with normal classes, considering it HINDERS you.

El_Borracho

Afterip wrote: »

Kurague wrote: »

Howdy, I'm back in this game and I'm still wondering why are vampires and Werewolves still being balanced solely around PvP(And even then they also suck in PvP)?

You are wrong, Vampires have really powerful ability for PvP and right now most of strong pvp players use BfB or Arterial Burst to deal incredible damage. Vampire claws- one of the best spammable right now.

This is true, however, its a very risky style of gameplay as you intentionally run with missing health to up your burst damage. For me, its one of the few examples of risk-reward balance that is often lacking in PVP

CameraBeardThePirate

Kurague wrote: »

Afterip wrote: »

Kurague wrote: »

Howdy, I'm back in this game and I'm still wondering why are vampires and Werewolves still being balanced solely around PvP(And even then they also suck in PvP)?

You are wrong, Vampires have really powerful ability for PvP and right now most of strong pvp players use BfB or Arterial Burst to deal incredible damage. Vampire claws- one of the best spammable right now.

Have you just quoted me "being wrong" to me questioning why are Vampires balanced solely around PvP? About them sucking in PvP, maybe I'm wrong about that one point, but still, why are they balanced around PvP? Cause that's the main point that sucks.

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Im not sure why you cite not being able to receive heals as one of the downsides. You can get heals from your party as a vampire, just don't use the toggle drain or the health cost spammable. The mag morph of the spammable is still excellent and doesn't hinder your incoming heals. Sated Fury is intended to really only be a ganking/bombing tool, so no reason to be using that in a group setting.

The Mag Morph is decent(Not excellent), but it has the downside of the vampire passives still hindering you. Now yes, it is true that the level 1 passives are soft on you, but you still get negatives in exchange for barely a usable set of skills. The obvious good morph for this skill is the one that deals damage to you, the problem is it also stops others from healing you, which I understand is a tool to both balance it AND to make sure you "control" your life yourself(Because you deal more damage with lower life), but I feel like 0 healing from party falls a bit too hard.

There is also no reason why the vampire should have 0 health regen at max vampirism, it literally just serves no purpose.

I feel like the gameplay of a vampire should be more than "Oh, I just use this one skill from the vampire and then I'm fully just a normal class.", it's skills should -AT LEAST- be enough of an option to be on par with normal classes, considering it HINDERS you.

The mag morph is excellent though? It has less damage scaling, but you don't really want to be at low health to take advantage of the extra scaling in any situation outside of ganking with the toggle ability. The mag morph is an excellent spammable with a high base tooltip and guaranteed hemorrhaging.

Kurague

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

The mag morph is excellent though? It has less damage scaling, but you don't really want to be at low health to take advantage of the extra scaling in any situation outside of ganking with the toggle ability. The mag morph is an excellent spammable with a high base tooltip and guaranteed hemorrhaging.

You must be playing a different vampire than I am, and yet even if that was true, which again I digress, i think it's just "fine", since there are classes that have a similar spammable and now multiclassing is getting rid of the "But my class doesn't have it" so these is no excuse to have a bad spammable on any class to require the vampire Spammable, but there's also the fact that Werewolf is a whole playstyle, and vampire shouldn't be less.

Vampire has a "pick and choose" system so you don't have to "just be a vampire period" like the Werewolf, but the problem is there's only 2 decent uses for Vampire, and that's obviously not good.

MasterSpatula

Vampires are supposed to suck!

Oh wait, you meant... never mind.

Djennku

I've said this before on the forums, but I play a Stage 4 vamp build designed around BfB as a spammable, and it destroys stuff in PvE content (yes even trifectas if that's your standard), so saying vamp is bad in PvE is incorrect. Maybe you just need to find a different build to bring out the vampire's buffs.

dark_hunterxmg

Blood for blood is still a high use spammable for PvP and so is stage 4 vampire. While all of the skills in the vampire line are not amazing, they are also not intended to be the only skills that are used. Vampire has the benefit of either using all or even none of the skills while being able to receive vampire bonuses (damage, stealth, mitigation)

Werewolf absolutely needs to be getting weapon passives. They also need a heal over time and a way to do real damage. Tool tip damage means nothing for a Werewolf because they can't get the weapon penetration or critical damage to back it up. I see howls regularly hit players for less than 3k while those werewolves receive 5k, 10k, 15k hits from the enemy player who took that 3k hit. When will werewolves ever have the ability to hit another player with 15k anything? Could you imagine the outrage if they started landing 10-15k howls?

Deimus

I'd like to see some changes to a few Vampire skills, but the one most in need is Blood Frenzy. It was only really used by bombers and gankers, but Grim Focus having the same weapon and spell damage benefit passively on either bar, with the double burst, a heal, and 0 downsides so why would anyone use this skill? Constantly losing hp and can't be healed by anyone other than yourself makes it feel like a 20 year old power crept MtG card comparatively. Assassination is already going to be one of the most subclassed skill line rendering it a pointless skill.

For Blood Frenzy the health draining and only self healing downsides should be removed, you already get enough negatives from being a Vampire. I think it should work similarly to the Dragon's Appetite set. It passively gains stacks in combat every second on either bar and you get a 5% damage bonus to bleeding targets or Increases the damage you deal with Hemorrhaging by 100% (causing the frenzy) and casting the skill at max stacks does a Vampire bite burst melee attack giving you the "sated" status for 5 seconds which acts as a HoT. When the HoT ends you start gaining more Frenzy stacks.

I'd like to see Mist From and morphs remove snares and immobilization and give you immunity to them for 2 seconds while becoming corporeal. Doesn't make sense for a cloud of mist to be trapped.

For Mesmerize it needs to lose the facing you condition. Maybe make it unblockable and they are immobilized/snared after if facing you while allowing those not facing you to block it. Vampires are hunters so they should have a way to stop their fleeing prey.

Cooperharley

I just want a separation of werewolf and vampire from PvP and PvE. Make 2 different versions and focus on each. I'm a PvE main and would love to have characters dedicated to each of those specifically, but it just feels like such a hindrance currently.

Huge bummer in a universe like Elder Scrolls that we can't really interact with these to the degree that you can in other games.

AtriaKhorist

Completely redesign it. Lose any idea of 'You cannot be healed by others'. That doesn't work in a group setting. You're just driving every healer mad at best.

And abandon all weird kiss-curse design ideas. They never worked, never will. Just make it a good, usable skill line with a vampire theme, and passives that build on those skills instead of just being a flat net gain in PvP. Fury is basically just begging to be a good, accessible Major Sorcery/Brutality option for example.

Spectral_Force

To me personally having to use Mesmerise to talk to NPCs at Stage 4 got old years ago. In theory the concept could be fun, but the execution is very wonky.
Needing to juggle slotting Mesmerise in and out is a constant annoyance to have to deal with. Some NPCs will talk to you even without Mesmerise, which is inconsistent. NPC reactions when they refuse to talk to you range from genuine terror, to disgust, to mild annoyance, to nothing at all. Most "flavour" NPCs walking around the world with a handful of lines each cannot even be mesmerised to see the dialogue; amusingly enough, this includes vampire NPCs.
And the mechanic doesn't meaningfully affect your gameplay in the same way that the other Vampire weaknesses do. It just makes playing a Stage 4 vampire annoying.
At this stage I'd either scrap this mechanic entirely, or make a toggle in the settings that allows players to bypass it, in case someone likes hearing the refusal of service dialogue.

MincMincMinc

Im still baffled at how siphoning is a better "vampire" skill line than the vampire skills......seriously if I was to build a vampire themed build I probably wouldnt even run vampire. Even now you could pair siphoning and Ravenous Goliath ult(simply better vampire ult that costs less and does more) Or pair northern storm to mimic the far better old batswarm.

Pale order was zos chance to bring back a lifesteal playstyle, but they made it impossible to use with a blanket change to remove it from play.

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PvP vamp perspective

• B4B was good, but now with undeath nerf it is much harder to reliably run. Critchance and damage is so high that you cant sit at 50% hp isnt viable.... two skills will easily hit 20k+
• Frenzy is only viable for 1 shot gank builds for the above reasons
• drain is just numerically terrible even on maxhp builds
• Mez is just outclassed by streak or warden charm which are only PARTS of other skills
• Mist was far better off being the toggled version of the old 4s mistform.
• Ult.....cmon its a terrible copy of goliath in every possible way. Why did we lose old batswarm? Why cant we gen ult in it? Why is the damage bad? Why does the transformation root you and let people run away? why is the HP given less? etc.
• The Pro con Feed passive increasing regular skill cost is insane considering the vamp skills are just not viable.
• All of the other passives should be based on the vamp stages. For example undeath (5%,10%,15%,20%). Strike (150wd,300wd,450wd,600wd). Unnatural (5s,4s,3s,2s)

Stravokov

My main issue with playing as a Vampire is that it lacks the immersive experience one would expect from embodying such a creature. Unlike the Werewolf, which compels players to fully engage with its unique skillset and features an engaging mini-game centered around managing blood rage through feeding on corpses, the Vampire gameplay feels underdeveloped in comparison.

I've attempted to run a pure Vampire build, but abilities like Drain Essence, Blood Frenzy, and Mesmerize feel underwhelming and unimpactful. There’s little incentive to explore the full breadth of the Vampire skill tree, and no compelling reason to engage with all five core abilities and the Ultimate.

Ideally, embracing the full suite of vampiric powers should unlock a deeper, more rewarding layer of gameplay—a mini-game or mechanic that reinforces the fantasy of being a Vampire. After all, Vampires are defined by their need to feed on blood; this primal drive should be central to their design and the primary source of their strength.

In my view, the Vampire class is missing a truly satisfying and meaningful feeding or drain mechanic—one that serves as the core of its identity and synergizes with other abilities. Ideally, feeding should build toward something—such as accumulating blood points that can be spent to empower or trigger other vampiric skills. This would not only reinforce the thematic essence of the class but also create a more engaging and rewarding gameplay loop.

Additionally, the class is in dire need of a reliable gap-closer and a self-sustain healing option. This becomes especially apparent at Stage 4, where the complete lack of health regeneration severely limits survivability. Without these elements, the Vampire feels mechanically incomplete and far less dynamic than it should be.

YandereGirlfriend

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Im not sure why you cite not being able to receive heals as one of the downsides. You can get heals from your party as a vampire, just don't use the toggle drain or the health cost spammable. The mag morph of the spammable is still excellent and doesn't hinder your incoming heals. Sated Fury is intended to really only be a ganking/bombing tool, so no reason to be using that in a group setting.

I'm not sure that was originally its intention but that's how it's ended up. Which is pretty lame and feels bad for any vampire who isn't a ganker in PvP.

There aren't even that many total skills in vampire to begin with, so why do we have 2 precious morphs tied-up in feeding a niche of a niche playstyle.

I would really like to see one of those morphs turned into a group healing ability that converts your damage done into group healing, like a Pale Order effect for your group.

MincMincMinc

Im still baffled how NB siphoning is a better vampire skill line than the actual vampire skill line. Maybe I dont know my TESO lore on vampires, but in my mind when I hear vampire I think lifesteal. Like really, swallow soul, siphon strikes, sap essence, even soul tether id probably use over the new bats.