OK, I'm convinced. Vamp is overpowered in PvP.

Glurin

Let me make something clear before I begin. I am not a PvPer. I enjoy PvE first and foremost and only occasionally enter PvP if there's more to it than WoW style battlegrounds or arenas. That said, I can usually hold my own in PvP. Not enough to be number one on the charts or anything, but well enough to make myself a real pain in the ass for some opponents.

Now normally, I'm very skeptical when someone complains about this skill or that being OP. Reason being it's impact is usually exaggerated, especially when it comes from PvPers (no offense), and often only needs minor adjustments if any. Often these OP abilities have direct counters to them or have downsides leaving the user vulnerable. Things which people don't realize or don't want to know about so they can cry until the skill or class or whatever gets nerfed into oblivion. So when I saw these complaints on the forums and in chat about vampires facerolling entire armies in PvP, I naturally figured these people were full of crap.

I saw it for myself today.

One vampire. One, single, lone vampire. Fighting right around thirty or forty of us. I spammed silver bolts at him and when I was out of stamina, hit him with every fire ability I had and when that was done, my fire destruction staff. All of which are supposed to be direct counters to vamps. Who knows how many of the others were doing the same. At one point I stopped worrying about direct counters and started trying everything I had loaded at the time.

His health did not move.

He had no healers, but his health never budged. He had no support, yet was killing anyone who got close. He only died when he ran out of resources to power his skills. This is beyond overpowered. This is flat out broken. Something has got to change significantly and do so sooner rather than later. So today, on this subject, the whiners have gained the support of a strong skeptic.

Any that still say "learn to play against vamps", you are wrong. I'm sorry, but that's the cold truth. I know, because I was one of you. I was wrong. You are wrong. Those you consider whiners are not exaggerating this time. The situation really is that bad.

sagitter

lets' s spam this untill they understand that 1 big problem for the pvp balance,right now we are forced to play vamps. I saw what u saw so many times in pvp that i m bored and stopped it. I usually duo with my friend that is a vamp and he s really op, he asked me to do the ritual to make me vamp but simply i do not want cause i'm forced to play it.

Mange

The OP is correct, as soon as someone tells you it's a learn to play issue they make it clear that they've forgotten the other side of the story. What if the Vampire knows how to play? The guys that get complained about the most are usually high rank PVP vampires that KNOW if you hit them with silver bolts all they need to do is CC break it, then you and your group have to prepare for non stop bat torment for at least 8 seconds. The fire bonus damage is cool, but it doesn't out damage the healing they'll get from a few people while in bat form because outside of DK and mages guild ultimate there's no big burst fire damage attack and EVEN if fire stunned player vampires like it does PVE ones they'd still be able to CC break and heal non stop.

The only solution for Vampires in their current state lay in the hands of Zenimax, not learning how to play.

moXrox

Glurin wrote: »

Let me make something clear before I begin. I am not a PvPer. I enjoy PvE first and foremost and only occasionally enter PvP if there's more to it than WoW style battlegrounds or arenas. That said, I can usually hold my own in PvP. Not enough to be number one on the charts or anything, but well enough to make myself a real pain in the ass for some opponents.

Now normally, I'm very skeptical when someone complains about this skill or that being OP. Reason being it's impact is usually exaggerated, especially when it comes from PvPers (no offense), and often only needs minor adjustments if any. Often these OP abilities have direct counters to them or have downsides leaving the user vulnerable. Things which people don't realize or don't want to know about so they can cry until the skill or class or whatever gets nerfed into oblivion. So when I saw these complaints on the forums and in chat about vampires facerolling entire armies in PvP, I naturally figured these people were full of crap.

I saw it for myself today.

One vampire. One, single, lone vampire. Fighting right around thirty or forty of us. I spammed silver bolts at him and when I was out of stamina, hit him with every fire ability I had and when that was done, my fire destruction staff. All of which are supposed to be direct counters to vamps. Who knows how many of the others were doing the same. At one point I stopped worrying about direct counters and started trying everything I had loaded at the time.

His health did not move.

He had no healers, but his health never budged. He had no support, yet was killing anyone who got close. He only died when he ran out of resources to power his skills. This is beyond overpowered. This is flat out broken. Something has got to change significantly and do so sooner rather than later. So today, on this subject, the whiners have gained the support of a strong skeptic.

Any that still say "learn to play against vamps", you are wrong. I'm sorry, but that's the cold truth. I know, because I was one of you. I was wrong. You are wrong. Those you consider whiners are not exaggerating this time. The situation really is that bad.

This single Vampire killed around 80 players in 5 minutes and is fighting against a whole raid with 100+ players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucmjldufa6U

Dudis

At least they are nerfing vamp Cost Reduction quite a lot in the patch, meaning they won't be able to spam batswarm. This will also hit Mist Form pretty badly.

The ability itself, while good, isn't really OP imo. The ability to keep it up permanently is though.
Also, the more players he hits, the more he gets to drain, so spread out... -,-

Soban

There's another 15% ult reduction set coming next patch, but the absolute biggest change is not allowing multiple casts from one player stack. I think I'm happy with the change. Now DKs will have to relearn how not to zone out their own healers while pushing into 20 players and some semblance of a frontline and backline will reemerge.

Armitas

I'm in the same boat as you OP. Between the Dunning-Kruger effect and the general impact of years of crying wolf in any MMO with PvP I have also become very skeptical of over-powered claims. Even here we have two threads in the same section, one saying the Templar is OP, and the other saying it is underpowered. I think the only thing not on the OP list right now is the night blade. So who can blame your skepticism?

Do players in general try everything and ask for advice? Not at all, rather they think their own expertise sufficient enough and so they ask for a nerf, certain in their own confidence and anecdotal evidence.

When people flood the forums with "crying wolf" stories it makes it extremely difficult for both the players and the developers to identify the real issues. So if we want to create a platform where we can effectively communicate imbalances to the developers it needs to start with people asking "how do I counter X" rather than "Nerf X".

(Regarding what is or is not OP I am not making any implications beyond the thread topic)

Zershar_Vemod

So OP, was this vamp a DK, Sorc, or Emperor?

Because I'd really like to know how these rare cases are occurring; I have never seen the ability to create circumstances like this on my NB main - I'm willing to bet this player was at least an Emperor.

ChairGraveyard

Did you guys not get the news? Vamp is nerfed into the ground (though it doesn't fix Bat Swarm abuse - just nerfs Drain and Mist Form for no reason).

In the 1.1 patch, vampire cost reduction will change to be like this:

* Stage 1 = 0%
* Stage 2 = 7%
* Stage 3 = 14%
* Stage 4 = 21%

And while this is not actually going to fix Bat Swarm (nor other ult. spam), it does make Drain and Mist Form entirely useless.

Oh yeah, and Mist Form is also getting a speed nerf for the speed morph version of it - down to 30% from 45%.

So now it's just a far less useful Boundless Storm/Bolt Escape.

Meanwhile, let me repeat Bat Swarm abuse is not fixed, because this change does not fix ultimate cost reductions.

So if you hate vampires because of Bat Swarm abusers, this change does nothing for you.

(Queue idiots replying that I abuse Bat Swarm and am complaining about it being nerfed, despite that being the polar opposite of the point of this comment...but that's what you can expect out of these forums - people who can't even read.)

Morticielle

I have to agree with Glurin on this: Vamp Ultimate (Clouding Swarm) in its existing form is OVERPOWERED!

I'm an experienced PvP player and i only saw once in the last ten years a situation in another game, which was similar to this one: In DAoC when the warlocks were implemented with the expansion called Catacombs. They were able to kill an single enemy with one (dot) or two (chambers) actions and had an powerfull aoe spell as well.

But 'Clouding swarm' is even more overpowered: The user can not be seen and targeted for the duration of this cast because he is totally invisible. And targeting the animation with aoe spells has proven quite difficult because the vampire can move quickly while in stealth due to his passive ability named 'Dark Stalker'. Last but not least is there the problem that is caused by the ridiculous reduce in ultimate cost so the vampire can spam this ultimate infinitely.

I just came out of a fight (EU - Auriels Bow), where an VR3 vampire (not Pryda who is VR10) killed lots of people even though people tried to hit him with aoe, with crowd control and several DKs had their spiked armor up, which seemed not to work. We couldn't kill this vampire for 10 minutes and nobody who is mentally sane can tell me that this was our fault.

This Ultimate is overpowered because you cannot hit the user with single target actions while he is in stealth and due to only 2 times 5 slots on the action bars only a few people have aoe spells on it. And the reduction of ultimate cost is a clear EPIC FAIL by the developers. This issue has to be adressed immediately! There are already people leaving the game because of this. No joke.

It is sad that Zenimax build such a great PvP zone and then frustrates players and drives them away by recklessly implementing such an overpowered and not thought through ability.

Zershar_Vemod wrote: »

So OP, was this vamp a DK, Sorc, or Emperor?

Because I'd really like to know how these rare cases are occurring; I have never seen the ability to create circumstances like this on my NB main - I'm willing to bet this player was at least an Emperor.

In my case i can't tell because he used only Clouding Swarm, i saw no other animation. And it was not Pryda the acting Emperor. It was a VR3 which name i don't remember.

@ChairGraveyard:

If it's right what you're saying then vampire will get nerfed in a wrong way and this will change the problems with bat swarm in no way. I agree with your assesment.

Mddnick

The counter for vamps is to NOT play as a zerg. It only takes a few idiots in your group standing next to the swarm to screw over everyone.

Find some players you like who are good, and run with them. The vamp dks and sorcs are still scary, but you can snare them and have your ranged kill them. Vamps are the counter to mindless zerging.

Now Vamp emps are another thing. Those you'll just want to avoid.

lao

ChairGraveyard wrote: »

Did you guys not get the news? Vamp is nerfed into the ground (though it doesn't fix Bat Swarm abuse - just nerfs Drain and Mist Form for no reason).

In the 1.1 patch, vampire cost reduction will change to be like this:

* Stage 1 = 0%
* Stage 2 = 7%
* Stage 3 = 14%
* Stage 4 = 21%

And while this is not actually going to fix Bat Swarm (nor other ult. spam), it does make Drain and Mist Form entirely useless.

Oh yeah, and Mist Form is also getting a speed nerf for the speed morph version of it - down to 30% from 45%.

So now it's just a far less useful Boundless Storm/Bolt Escape.

Meanwhile, let me repeat Bat Swarm abuse is not fixed, because this change does not fix ultimate cost reductions.

So if you hate vampires because of Bat Swarm abusers, this change does nothing for you.

(Queue idiots replying that I abuse Bat Swarm and am complaining about it being nerfed, despite that being the polar opposite of the point of this comment...but that's what you can expect out of these forums - people who can't even read.)

correct me if im wrong but isnt it,

stage 1 = 7%
stage 2= 14%
stage 3 = 21%
stage 4 = 28%

this does obviously also effect the ultimate. the lowest possible cost for bat swarm will therefor be 38 and thats for sorcs only (28% from vamp reduction + 20% from dragon set, 3% from seducer set, 15% from the new craglorn set and 15% from the sorcs passive) while 38 is still pretty low it will be much harder to keep it up constantly.

for any other class 66% is the max reduction u can get, leaving the cost at 68.

keep in mind that this requires the vamp to wear 3 different 3-part sets of armor
which in most cases arent exactly BiS. can u even get dragon armor in anything but heavy? im not sure.

i strongly doubt we will see many ppl stacking cost reduction after the patch as the benefit u get from it doesnt outweight the disadvantages that come with said armor sets anymore.

also other ultimates were never an issue as their cost doesnt get reduced by vampirism. neither does it effect any other non vampire ability.

Pryda

Stage 4 = 21%
Stage 1 doesn't count

lao

Pryda wrote: »

Stage 4 = 21%
Stage 1 doesn't count

so stage 1 is essentially useless now?

AshTal

I have seen the above happen a lot but yes I am sure it is a dozen or so Vamps on each campaign doing it while most have not worked out how to stack bat swarm 30 times and kill any player coming close.
However these dozen players are usually in the top 20 PvP on every campaign and ruin the fun for other people.
I think some builds will be more/less powerful and some will suit a play style more but right now no one can beat one of these Vamps, no 10 players can beat them and they put a lot of people off PvP.

Glurin

Zershar_Vemod wrote: »

So OP, was this vamp a DK, Sorc, or Emperor?

Because I'd really like to know how these rare cases are occurring; I have never seen the ability to create circumstances like this on my NB main - I'm willing to bet this player was at least an Emperor.

Definitely not the Emperor. My alliance had emperor at the time.

As for DK or sorc, I don't recall. Doesn't matter anyway. He shouldn't be able to shrug off that much of a beating no matter what class he picked.

Zershar_Vemod

Glurin wrote: »

Zershar_Vemod wrote: »

So OP, was this vamp a DK, Sorc, or Emperor?

Because I'd really like to know how these rare cases are occurring; I have never seen the ability to create circumstances like this on my NB main - I'm willing to bet this player was at least an Emperor.

Definitely not the Emperor. My alliance had emperor at the time.

As for DK or sorc, I don't recall. Doesn't matter anyway. He shouldn't be able to shrug off that much of a beating no matter what class he picked.

Actually that does matter due to those classes getting ult reductions. Of course Emperors (which wasn't the case this time) would become demi-gods almost always, but DK and Sorcs get get their ult costs to extremely low amounts; which has been a very large contribution to vamps getting nerfed. When you look at this videos it is almost always a DK for instance.

indigoblades

21% cost reduction and keeping tons of debuffs ... ESO is not for me.

Thats a HUGE change to a skill line i was unaware of till today .... i got at least 10 points invested in vamp skill line and looks like ESO is going to do more than weaken it instead they will make it fragile ..... if this the direction ESO is heading .... a MAJOR rebalance (based off incorrect facts and a high forum count of whining post) every month............well a 15 dollar a MMO is not for me, just dont feel like playing a game of musical chairs ... ill wait for Elder Scrolls 6, with no sub fee and i play a normal powerful vampire not a weak creature ...... if u feel the same tell ESO.

O and for you non Vamps saying this 'rebalance' is great .... beware ur class/char nerf is next (based on whiners in forums).

Crowtac

Just fiished my guilds pvp night in Cyrodiil
We had two vampires wipe our entire guild right off the face of the map.
Yes that's fun......
This keep up much longer I'm looking elsewhere.

Hessen

This is bad timing because we're approaching resub time and the current state of AvA is putting off hundreds of players.

Whether you personally agree or not whether it's OP, or what changes should be made to make it more viable. Something needs to be done and soon, or you're going to put off a lot of PvPers and curious PvEers who won't be coming back.

ErilAq

First, I do think this vamp nerf was done poorly, even though a nerf is needed. Second, Vamp is not a class, it's a flavor. no matter how cool it is, no matter how much you want to be a vamp/WW, it's not meant to overshadow the classes. Think of it like the mage guild, fighters guild, etc. It has some nice perks, cool effects, but it's not supposed to make this big of a difference in the classes. So while the nerf may have hit a little too hard, it's not your class being nerfed, it's your classes "flavor"

Snit

cwbriggs6ub17_ESO wrote: »

O and for you non Vamps saying this 'rebalance' is great .... beware ur class/char nerf is next (based on whiners in forums).

Hi.

You're not actually a vampire. You're a human playing a multiplayer game, so perhaps don't take it so personally.

Vampire DK/ Sorcs were able to single-handedly wipe zergs. I understand if you were excited about being to do this yourself, but as a human playing a game with *other humans,* I hope you can understand that everyone else isn't here to play cannon-fodder to your apex predator.

Vampires will still be very strong, and they'll probably still be the strongest PvP option available in the game. They're not going to be raidbosses, though. The other players are paying $15/ month, too, and they deserve a chance.

I'm pretty pleased ZOS jumped on this quickly. I hope it's enough. We'll see.

Pryda

cwbriggs6ub17_ESO wrote: »

21% cost reduction and keeping tons of debuffs ... ESO is not for me.

Thats a HUGE change to a skill line i was unaware of till today .... i got at least 10 points invested in vamp skill line and looks like ESO is going to do more than weaken it instead they will make it fragile ..... if this the direction ESO is heading .... a MAJOR rebalance (based off incorrect facts and a high forum count of whining post) every month............well a 15 dollar a MMO is not for me, just dont feel like playing a game of musical chairs ... ill wait for Elder Scrolls 6, with no sub fee and i play a normal powerful vampire not a weak creature ...... if u feel the same tell ESO.

O and for you non Vamps saying this 'rebalance' is great .... beware ur class/char nerf is next (based on whiners in forums).

You probably didn't even know you were losing the vampirism stage on each loading screen.
This change is a buff for you.

lao

cwbriggs6ub17_ESO wrote: »

21% cost reduction and keeping tons of debuffs ... ESO is not for me.

Thats a HUGE change to a skill line i was unaware of till today .... i got at least 10 points invested in vamp skill line and looks like ESO is going to do more than weaken it instead they will make it fragile ..... if this the direction ESO is heading .... a MAJOR rebalance (based off incorrect facts and a high forum count of whining post) every month............well a 15 dollar a MMO is not for me, just dont feel like playing a game of musical chairs ... ill wait for Elder Scrolls 6, with no sub fee and i play a normal powerful vampire not a weak creature ...... if u feel the same tell ESO.

O and for you non Vamps saying this 'rebalance' is great .... beware ur class/char nerf is next (based on whiners in forums).

want a tissue?

Gisgo

Its so bad im not seeing battles anymore, im seeing vampire hunts, and often the vamp is the hunter.
The gameplay is *** up dont expect the DEVs to be SO blind the nerf is coming and expect a second one.

ZNICK

I'm leaving and buying the $150 AA alpha... only because of this. Shame really, I was really loving ESO too. I won't play a game where this is possible though.

Z

sagitter

Gisgo wrote: »

Its so bad im not seeing battles anymore, im seeing vampire hunts, and often the vamp is the hunter.
The gameplay is *** up dont expect the DEVs to be SO blind the nerf is coming and expect a second one.

What would u wanna be today? Buffy or Blade? or a blooding vamp on rage ?



All jokes aside, this is the chat every day

ZOS_TristanK

Hi, folks. We wanted to let you know that we are actively monitoring and working to balance Vampires. In our recent reddit AUA, we stated that the following tweaks are coming soon in a future patch:

• Fixed the bug where multiple Bat Swarms can be stacked on the same Vampire.
• Reduced the movement speed bonus during mist form to 30% (which makes it equivalent to the "Boundless storm" morph of Lightning form)
• Reduced the Vampire ability cost reduction to 7% per stage

We'll continue to keep an eye on Vampires in PvP, and want to thank you for your feedback!

Chryos

"The counter for vamps is to NOT play as a zerg."

This.

SlickCat

Mddnick wrote: »

The counter for vamps is to NOT play as a zerg. It only takes a few idiots in your group standing next to the swarm to screw over everyone.

That is a ridiculous assertion as no one has control over whom else shows up to a battle, you are essentially confirming that vamps are broken.

Arreyanne

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Hi, folks. We wanted to let you know that we are actively monitoring and working to balance Vampires. In our recent reddit AUA, we stated that the following tweaks are coming soon in a future patch:

• Fixed the bug where multiple Bat Swarms can be stacked on the same Vampire.
• Reduced the movement speed bonus during mist form to 30% (which makes it equivalent to the "Boundless storm" morph of Lightning form)
• Reduced the Vampire ability cost reduction to 7% per stage

We'll continue to keep an eye on Vampires in PvP, and want to thank you for your feedback!

And how do these change do anything to keep DK's with the proper gear and build from spamming Bat swarm which is the majority of the gripes. You havent addressed that at all. So you just randomly nerf something without fixing the gripe and expect us to sing kumba ya all day.

And as with all MMO's past and present if these changes prove too massive and detrimental to game play you'll never revert them