Nehemia's list of suggested Vampirism changes

Nehemia · April 2014

Besides the bugs, there are multiple instances of abuse on vampirism, not to mention in my mind they require slight balance adjustments, here we go:

Vampire Drain:
- Range changed to 12 meters
- As according to tool tip, you should be able to drain same target more than once, I'd say 10 seconds interval is decent
- Midnight Drain: Now returns health and magicka instead of health and stamina

Mistform:
Note* The following changes are balance adjustments, and fixes (Ex. Devouring swarm, vampire ulti & mistform abuse):
- The ability now has 0.25 second cast animation (no longer instant)
- Mistform will now dispel ALL positive effects on you (Including buffs, HoTs, vampire ulti etc)
[This is to prevent abuse of Mistform]

Batswarm:
- Radius changed to 12 meters
- Duration changed to 6 seconds
- Damage decreased by 10% to account for increased duration

Undeath:
- Passive reworked
- All hits that deal more than 30% / 15% of characters max health have their damage mitigated by 30% / 50%
- The damage is calculated after resistances [So the mitigated damage already has calculated armor / resistances]

Dark Stalker:
- Now decreases detection radius by 10%
- The detection radius decrease does not stack with any other form of detection radius decrease

Klimarov · April 2014

Vamps has to get more balance but not as much as you state. Dispelling hots and etc on mist form is no good, kills the point of mist form, since you can't even attack out of it.

Drain essence has to be reusable on enemies, but not 10 sec, the hp leech is big, the hp leech has to stay the same rather than being nerfed, but make it reusable every 30 sec.

What they also need to change is how "feed" works
First of all, if they don't want drain essence to charge the vamp stages than they need to give feed some sort of de-buff that will remain for 10 seconds on the enemy. 2nd there is a bug that allows you to feed on bosses our of stealth (morphed bat swarm, nightblade invis), bosses do become stunned for those 3 seconds you feed on them, which i believe is unintended mechanic.

Memnock · April 2014

Nehemia , i am a bit curious , did you at some point play as a vampire , or are you currently playing as a vampire ? It sounds to me like you went up against a character with vampirism and did not find a way to counter it.

I would like to quote NordJitsu here and say :
NordJitsu ✭✭✭✭✭
5:45PM
So what you're saying is....

There are lots of interesting abilities and ways to build a character, some of which are quite powerful if synergized with other abilities and used by intelligent players.

Wait? Which part was the problem?

All the changes you posted , except for the range increase for Drain , are all meant to nerf the skill line , without taking into account that there is a hole other skill line devoted to fighting undead ( fighters guild ) and the fact that vampires , no matter how well the they spec for fire reduction damage can't ever mitigate it completely.

The game is 3 weeks old , please try to be a bit more patient with the calls for nerfs to different skills and try to look at all the tools that the developers give players to make their character and tune them to whatever situation they encounter.

Nehemia · April 2014

Memnock wrote: »

Nehemia , i am a bit curious , did you at some point play as a vampire , or are you currently playing as a vampire ? It sounds to me like you went up against a character with vampirism and did not find a way to counter it.

I would like to quote NordJitsu here and say :
NordJitsu ✭✭✭✭✭
5:45PM
So what you're saying is....

There are lots of interesting abilities and ways to build a character, some of which are quite powerful if synergized with other abilities and used by intelligent players.

Wait? Which part was the problem?

All the changes you posted , except for the range increase for Drain , are all meant to nerf the skill line , without taking into account that there is a hole other skill line devoted to fighting undead ( fighters guild ) and the fact that vampires , no matter how well the they spec for fire reduction damage can't ever mitigate it completely.

The game is 3 weeks old , please try to be a bit more patient with the calls for nerfs to different skills and try to look at all the tools that the developers give players to make their character and tune them to whatever situation they encounter.

And yes, I play a vampire DK toon myself, but its a discussion of balance, I am not advocating my class here if its broken. Both Mistform & Sorc blink are too powerful of escape abilities in PvP, they guarantee your escape. Even with the suggested, the ability would be immensely powerful, and difficult to counter, but it would actually give opponents a 0.25 time window to do something about you. The buff dispel is simply because when mistform is combined with other abilities, its simply too powerful. See threads regarding skills such as devouring swarm & mistform abuse. Being capable of going 3v30 in PvP with devouring swarm & mistform, you possibly cannot call that balanced?

And what of the rest are nerfs? You do realize that Batswarm would deal more damage, Undeath would be buffed a lot, and Darkstalker would offer 10% free detection radius decrease?

Klimarov · April 2014

mist is not OP asides from bug with ult. as escape mechanic it's great and not op. if not for it than escaping from 10 players in cyrrodil would be nearly impossible, which is straight forward gay.

Nehemia · April 2014

Klimarov wrote: »

mist is not OP asides from bug with ult. as escape mechanic it's great and not op. if not for it than escaping from 10 players in cyrrodil would be nearly impossible, which is straight forward gay.

So a skill that allows guaranteed escape from 10 players in Cyrodil does not require adjustment in your mind?

Klimarov · April 2014

Ofcourse not, also its not guaranteed, these players can still chase you down and they do so all the time. There is no reason to have mist form the way you suggest because it will be pointless to use.

Klimarov · April 2014

I agree however that you should not get any benefits from ultimate or any thing else while in mist form

Memnock · April 2014

If mist form allows the use of heals from Vampiric Swarm that it is a bug , since you should not get any healing spells to affect you while that skill is active ( not sure about potions ) , but other than that , i don't see a problem with either of the 2 spells.

Reavan · April 2014

Vamp here too,
Yeah to mist form nerf.
Batswarm healing needs a cap.

Corbeau · April 2014

More range for Drain Essence? Are you trying to make NB archers even more prevalent? You mean it's not enough for you that 99% of NBs are archers, you want to give them even more power? Okay...
Mistform has only one problem now - it allows some heals to get through, while they shouldn't. It needs to be fixed and that's it.
This will make Bat Swarm insanely OP. It's very good ulti as it is, but with this change it would be godlike ability. No, thanks.
Change undeath? What for?
Dark stalker has now the same problem the Mistform has - it's bugged.

So, I think that all the proposed changes are just some kind of BS. ZOS needs to fix bugs we have and vampire abilities will be fine. At the moment this skill line is just too bugged.