Why was the vampire skill line changed without reducing some of the negatives as well ?

Memnock · May 2014

I am just curious as to why have the feeding stages , changed so drastically , but with those nerfs ( which did not address the ultimate spam in the slightest as many here already said ) , they did not fix the vampire stage issue , at all , or at least reduce some of the penalties that came with being a vampire.

Besides the bugged vampire stages , that have been plaguing the skill line since beta, the HP regen penalty should be reduced to about 40% tops in stage 4 , i mean , yeah ok , if i have a staff i can heal myself , but it gets frustrating to see everyone else , be at full HP after the waiting time that comes after death , and i am still at 50% by the time that death period expires.

Another change that should come with the higher costs that we receive right now , is related to the drain skill . If we have such a high cost even at stage 4 , allow us to use it multiple times during the fight and allow us to use the damage and healing portion of the skill on stunned opponents as well.

This can be implemented , by putting a debuff on the target that we feed , that lasts about 30-40 seconds ( calculation left to the devs for balance ) , that does not allow a vampire to spam feed. I thought that this way would be a very nice way to improve the skill without the addition of CDs , since the game has no such thing on abilities ( at least the ones that i am aware of ).

The last change that i propose is to take the damn sets that can be stacked to reduce the cost of ultimate skills , that way , the Bat Swarm thing will be gone , since no matter what perks you have from class skill lines, you will not be able to drop it so low , as to be able to spam it like crazy , while at the same time not touching class skill lines. I think that this is the middle ground that will satisfy everyone , no classes touched , the skill line gets its use of actives back , with some proper strengths to them

This is a change a propose , since apparently , the developers did not notice that their changes , only affected the actives , giving them high costs , but the ultimate is still there , doing just fine and spamable.

Gisgo · May 2014

They are still "monitoring" the issue, give them a couple of weeks to collect new data.
It is wiser to balance/nerf/buff step by step.

Memnock · May 2014

OK , i agree with you on that one , but , that still leaves the issue of vampire stages being bugged , and passives not working properly. Bugs that were reported since beta , and are still not fixed , even now.

I would say , that first you must fix the damn bugs and then , start making modifications to skill lines. At least , in my opinion that is the normal priority of handling a situation.

eaglestormub17_ESO · May 2014

I actually disagree with changing the fire resist/health regen. In all honesty, getting destroyed by fire spells and seeing my health effectively decrease faster has forced me to change the way I play, making me feel more like a vampire immersively.

What does need to change is the ability to drain mobs that can't be stunned - is there no way to apply the drain without stunning them? I find that hard to believe. A mob in such a case could even try to run out of the necessary proximity or use a knock-back to break the drain. Just let us at least initiate it on an unstunnable mob.

The damage mitigation under 50% health is also severely broken. Testing with damage meters shows such slight and inconsistent decreases in damage received that it's more likely random fluctuations.

From a purely RP perspective, I loved being able to fly around in Elusive Mist in the PvE world. I just about never used it in combat save for bosses' persistent AoEs like in Vaults of Madness or in Fungal Grotto. As for PvP, I was personally rooted in Mist Form multiple times, so it's not even *that* consistent an escape. I'm still having a hard time understanding why that skill had to be nerfed so hard.

And Bat Swarm? Yeah, it saves my butt in PvE when I pull too large a group or have already used a drain on an elite mob, but it's not the end-all, be-all. The exploiters in Cyrodiil are shallow idiots...

In the end, I think Vampire should have some huge weaknesses, and we do. I think that should be cost for huge benefits, however. If they would just fix what's broken about our passives, the weaknesses wouldn't seem so egregiously out of proportion.

And give us back the ability to fly, even if you reduce the damage reduction of the skill

ForTheRealm · May 2014

I became a Vampire not so long ago, and now I feel penalized just to becoming one.
I understand there was a reason to deal with Bat Swarm as it was somehow exploited by adding several game mechanics reducing Ultimate costs (Vampire abilities, Armor sets bonus).
But Mist Form was the only way to give me a small chance to escape from Zergs or to try to catch a Sorcerer in PVP (Boundless Storm + Bolt Escape). It was also one of the only way to speed up travelling in locations where a horse is not very useful.
If there is a problem of damage reduction and increased speed, please leave an option for players in the morphs - if somebody prefer resistance -give a resistant morph, if somebody like me prefers to move faster - give a faster travel morph.
And I totally agree with Memnock, please fix the passive line bugs first, as nowadays a Vampire always gets fire damage, and health regen penalty and often none of the passive benefits.

Nox_Aeterna · May 2014

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

ChampionSheWolf · May 2014

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

Hahahaha, oh you were serious about vampire not offering any buffs BUAHAHAHAHAHAA....

The regen penalty is hardly a noteworthy facet.

Manofmisery · May 2014

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

Did he just compare vamp and ww and said vamps are worse? That just blew my mind right there.

eaglestormub17_ESO · May 2014

Manofmisery wrote: »

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

Did he just compare vamp and ww and said vamps are worse? That just blew my mind right there.

From what I've heard, the Werewolf passive weakness to poison doesn't take effect until you're transformed. Even if that's not true, there are many, many, many more sources of fire than there are of poison in the game.

Fighter's Guild skills don't affect werewolves unless and until the passive is taken later in the tree, yet they affect vampires out-of-the-box.

Werewolf health regen is never negatively impacted.

So, sure, at least we *have* active skills we can use as vampires, and werewolves effectively don't. But we're dying a lot faster and a lot more often, and werewolves aren't.

I understand your point, but at least try to understand Nox_Aeterna's.

eaglestormub17_ESO · May 2014

cbrown15_ESO wrote: »

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

Hahahaha, oh you were serious about vampire not offering any buffs BUAHAHAHAHAHAA....

The regen penalty is hardly a noteworthy facet.

The majority of the time, unless you're continually re-logging after every death and many phase transitions, the only working buff is the Stamina and Magicka regen.

Damage mitigation under 50% doesn't work, increased stealth speed doesn't work, and skill cost reductions don't work.

The health regen penalty is a very noteworthy facet for PvE players under lvl 48-ish, especially those without set crafting and enchanting or enchanter friends. It's easily manageable once you're VR, but it requires sacrificing other buffs or active skills to mitigate.

Manofmisery · May 2014

eaglestormub17_ESO wrote: »

Manofmisery wrote: »

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

Did he just compare vamp and ww and said vamps are worse? That just blew my mind right there.

From what I've heard, the Werewolf passive weakness to poison doesn't take effect until you're transformed. Even if that's not true, there are many, many, many more sources of fire than there are of poison in the game.

Fighter's Guild skills don't affect werewolves unless and until the passive is taken later in the tree, yet they affect vampires out-of-the-box.

Werewolf health regen is never negatively impacted.

So, sure, at least we *have* active skills we can use as vampires, and werewolves effectively don't. But we're dying a lot faster and a lot more often, and werewolves aren't.

I understand your point, but at least try to understand Nox_Aeterna's.

Ok at this point i'm questioning wether you are serious but i'll bite phun intended. 1 poison dmg is increased in human form. 2 Our skill is an ultimate that cost 925(reduced). 3None of the passives except for the ult gain for ww form, work in human form. 4 Our ww form and the passives that come with it only work for 60 secs. 6 We have no dodge in ww form. 7 We have no cc breaker in ww form. 8 One of the two skills(9yes we can only use 2 skills in ww form) breaks 30% of the time, it bugs and you are stuck in an animation and can't do anything for about the whole duration of the ww form. 10 Human passives don't work with ww form.11. We have 0 health regen in ww apart from the normal healthregen you have as a character.12 We also have 0 dmg reduction in ww form. WW as it is now is purely cosmetical there is no gain to be had in any way, you get the poison negative and that's it you don't get any utility or even a dmg increase you are better off staying in human. So please tell me how vamp is so much worse then ww.

Memnock · May 2014

Guys this is not a competition between vampires and wolves and who's more broken at this time.

I can agree with the fact that the wolfs are getting the shaft with their ability to transform only when they get their ultimate to max and that sucks ass for them . Also a simple sollution to this problem is changing the way the ultimate works. What i mean by this is that they can simply make it work exactly like the Overload ultimate from the Sorcerer Storm Calling tree , for those who don't know how this works , please take a look at it in here http://esohead.com/calculator/skills#mMzz9s85bzc7zzgeXm8zf7zzNbo8zu7zzHfYE6zHfZd8zG7zzHQ3F8zI7zzJIoX6zJIkL8zN7zzJZcY8zA7zzKpUN8zL7zzK4EX

Back on topic , i don't mind the fire damage , always being kept at 50% , at all stages , but having the cost reduction of all vampire active skills gimped by such a large amount , i feel that at least our health regen penalty should be modified as well .

This is besides the fixes that the passives and actives need as well. I mean this was already stated , but , Undeath works when it feels like it , Dark Stalker , works when it wants to , the stage 4 starvation , even now after the patch is still broken and doesn't give you the reduction it should give unless you relog or change instances.

Not to mention the icing on the cake , the ultimate issue is still in effect , with all the sets that can be stacked , so ultimate spam is still there. So if the changes were aimed at that , then it failed in that department.

ChairGraveyard · May 2014

Gisgo wrote: »

They are still "monitoring" the issue, give them a couple of weeks to collect new data.
It is wiser to balance/nerf/buff step by step.

Considering the current nerf didn't actually fix the real problem with Bat Swarm abuse (not talking about the stacking - that's a good fix), and screwed up the rest of the abilities harshly, it's hardly fair to say this was an even handed change.

Ultimate cost reduction wasn't fixed.

The nerf mostly makes Drain/Mist Form worse.

They broke Elusive Mist (it no longer gives a speed boost, 0% instead of 30% as it should be after the nerf).

Literally every skill except for the one to bite players an Bat Swarm itself are bugged in some fashion. On top of the nerfs.

eaglestormub17_ESO · May 2014

Manofmisery wrote: »

eaglestormub17_ESO wrote: »

Manofmisery wrote: »

Nox_Aeterna wrote: »

Well , being either a vampire or a WW right now , is for the hardcore , it is a set of debuffs , with no buffs :P.

If anything , being a vampire is much worse heh , since pretty much everything in the freaking game uses fire and you also need to deal with the health regen issue.

Did he just compare vamp and ww and said vamps are worse? That just blew my mind right there.

From what I've heard, the Werewolf passive weakness to poison doesn't take effect until you're transformed. Even if that's not true, there are many, many, many more sources of fire than there are of poison in the game.

Fighter's Guild skills don't affect werewolves unless and until the passive is taken later in the tree, yet they affect vampires out-of-the-box.

Werewolf health regen is never negatively impacted.

So, sure, at least we *have* active skills we can use as vampires, and werewolves effectively don't. But we're dying a lot faster and a lot more often, and werewolves aren't.

I understand your point, but at least try to understand Nox_Aeterna's.

Ok at this point i'm questioning wether you are serious but i'll bite phun intended. 1 poison dmg is increased in human form. 2 Our skill is an ultimate that cost 925(reduced). 3None of the passives except for the ult gain for ww form, work in human form. 4 Our ww form and the passives that come with it only work for 60 secs. 6 We have no dodge in ww form. 7 We have no cc breaker in ww form. 8 One of the two skills(9yes we can only use 2 skills in ww form) breaks 30% of the time, it bugs and you are stuck in an animation and can't do anything for about the whole duration of the ww form. 10 Human passives don't work with ww form.11. We have 0 health regen in ww apart from the normal healthregen you have as a character.12 We also have 0 dmg reduction in ww form. WW as it is now is purely cosmetical there is no gain to be had in any way, you get the poison negative and that's it you don't get any utility or even a dmg increase you are better off staying in human. So please tell me how vamp is so much worse then ww.

I completely understand that Werewolf is broken and utterly useless. I'd be happy if they fixed Werewolf even before they fixed Vampire. It would help even out the player base, too.

But to answer your first and last questions, I'll quote my last paragraphs for emphasis.

So, sure, at least we *have* active skills we can use as vampires, and werewolves effectively don't. But we're dying a lot faster and a lot more often, and werewolves aren't.

I understand your point, but at least try to understand Nox_Aeterna's.

Why we're weak, if you doubt it:

You can't interrupt a fire bolt skill from an enemy's auto-attack, and even with purple Fire Resist glyphs and soft-capped Magic Resist, one of those can hit me for half health.

You mentioned that your health regen isn't buffed. Without extensive set gear/jewelry, my health regen drops from 48 to 12 (hp stands still), meaning if my potion can't save me, I'm usually dead before it comes off CD.

Is Vampire "so much worse" than Werewolf? Depends on what you value. You can't do anything with your skill line, and we can. We die a LOT more as Vampires, and you don't. What's worse, constant death or being unable to use skills?

You may answer that one way, and Nox answered it a different way. All I was saying is here's his valid viewpoint, and don't laugh at him for it.

ljb2k5_ESO · May 2014

Memnock wrote: »

I am just curious as to why have the feeding stages , changed so drastically , but with those nerfs ( which did not address the ultimate spam in the slightest as many here already said ) , they did not fix the vampire stage issue , at all , or at least reduce some of the penalties that came with being a vampire.

Besides the bugged vampire stages , that have been plaguing the skill line since beta, the HP regen penalty should be reduced to about 40% tops in stage 4 , i mean , yeah ok , if i have a staff i can heal myself , but it gets frustrating to see everyone else , be at full HP after the waiting time that comes after death , and i am still at 50% by the time that death period expires.

Another change that should come with the higher costs that we receive right now , is related to the drain skill . If we have such a high cost even at stage 4 , allow us to use it multiple times during the fight and allow us to use the damage and healing portion of the skill on stunned opponents as well.

This can be implemented , by putting a debuff on the target that we feed , that lasts about 30-40 seconds ( calculation left to the devs for balance ) , that does not allow a vampire to spam feed. I thought that this way would be a very nice way to improve the skill without the addition of CDs , since the game has no such thing on abilities ( at least the ones that i am aware of ).

The last change that i propose is to take the damn sets that can be stacked to reduce the cost of ultimate skills , that way , the Bat Swarm thing will be gone , since no matter what perks you have from class skill lines, you will not be able to drop it so low , as to be able to spam it like crazy , while at the same time not touching class skill lines. I think that this is the middle ground that will satisfy everyone , no classes touched , the skill line gets its use of actives back , with some proper strengths to them

This is a change a propose , since apparently , the developers did not notice that their changes , only affected the actives , giving them high costs , but the ultimate is still there , doing just fine and spamable.

Batswarm can't be spammable without it killing a bunch of folks, and without it stacking anymore, it likely won't. In PVE it works great, don't break it any further for PVP please. The active skills shouldn't have been touched, they weren't the problem. Mist Form allowed non sorcs an ability similar to Boundless Storm, which isn't OP, and unlike a Sorc, they couldn't attack or do anything but move with it up, and its duration was much shorter. Now with Batswarm not stacking, the problem should be much less, it will be less lethal, and Vamps won't be able to stay perma high health by spamming it. It will still be good, just not op. But for the life of me, I don't get why the other actives were touched.

To the OP, I don't know why they didn't scale the downsides better with the stage system they have in place. Stage 1, Health regen +50% normal, fire damage taken +25%. Stage 2 should have been Health regen +25%, vamp powers cost 10% less, fire damage taken +50%. Stage 3 Health Regen -25% fire damage taken +75%, 20% less on vamp powers. Stage 4, -50% Health regen, 100% more fire damage, -30% vamp powers cost. My thoughts anyway.

clocksstoppe · May 2014

because thats the whole point of a nerf, you make it flat weaker than before

Memnock · May 2014

@clocksstope they certainly managed to do that

I mean , if their intention was twofold , then they succeeded , since they droped the nerf hammer on everything related to the vampire skills and passives with the nerfs and no fixes to anything that is broken within the skill line and by nerfing the skill line like this it also halted any other people from wanting to become a vampire and experiment with what the skill line has to offer.

I suppose that it was inevitable that the nerf would come and i don't mind it , but i am extremely pissed off with the way they went about it. Only nerfs , no fixes to passives and the starvation stages ( something that has been broken since beta ffs and the game is now 1 month old , no wonder some people are saying that this is paid beta ). They only took away from the skill line , but gave nothing to balance out the cost reduction loss.

No one in the game was complaining that the Drain Skill was OP , but it still got affected by the change none the less , same with Mist From , seriously , that is a god damn escape tool that does not let you do anything at all while in effect , its super short and broken as well , since people are saying that with Tab target you can affect the player through Mist From , with CC and dmg , but the skill's speed was reduced , without any fixes what so ever and the cost remained the same as well

So again , they just droped a big fat anvil on the heads of all the people who want to play as vampires , but they did not actually think the changes through , HP regen remained the same , the 2 actives have had their cost unchanged , Bat Swarm cost unchanged so the people who are still willing to get the Ultimate Reduction sets , the cost is still super low , so... yeah... i was expecting them to handle this differently , nerf the cost reduction but bring the penalties in line with the changes as well , for example if the stage 4 now provides 21% reduction , make the 2 actives cost a bit less as well , also reduce the HP regen penalty from 75% , to 40%.

This way the actives aren't garbage but the ultimate is brought back in line as well

Ruddertail · May 2014

Memnock wrote: »

To the OP, I don't know why they didn't scale the downsides better with the stage system they have in place. Stage 1, Health regen +50% normal, fire damage taken +25%. Stage 2 should have been Health regen +25%, vamp powers cost 10% less, fire damage taken +50%. Stage 3 Health Regen -25% fire damage taken +75%, 20% less on vamp powers. Stage 4, -50% Health regen, 100% more fire damage, -30% vamp powers cost. My thoughts anyway.

If I have to find a bandit to feed on every 30 minutes or take 100% more fire damage I'm going to stake myself with a crucifix.

OmniDo · May 2014

#1) The "Elusive" component to Mist is completely worthless now.

Since there is ZERO information within the games built-in UI to display movement rate in the world (along with substantial other broken or absent information), I can only estimate that Elusive Mist imparts about as much speed as Sprinting, without the stamina cost.
This is only a guess, as I "seem" to reach the same locations at distance when manually estimating the travel time from point A to B while sprinting, versus traveling in Mist form.
This would be about as useful as allowing us to "Sprint" while in regular mist form.
If the "Advantage" here was to reduce damage and impart a magicka cost instead of a Stamina cost, okay, but that still seems quite underwhelming.
Vampires are supposed to be FAST creatures, which they were, prior to the nerf.
If spamming it is a problem, then the solution is simple: increase the cost of use, or lower/remove the damage reduction component.

#2) Dark Stalker Passive is STILL broken after Death.

From what I read, this has been a bug since beta.
C'mon devs, this is a simple variable check in your code.
Shall I write out an expression example for you?

; Pseudo code
If Skill<x> = True, Set Flag_A = 1
If Skill(Sneak) = True && Set Flag_A =1, AddMovementSpeed<%>

This should execute ANY time there would require a check for a passive flag, which shouldnt be required more than once per Login.
That Skill Flag should persist through death, since its, you know, "passive".
Passives dont just go away magically. Sure you can stack debuffs that reduce the effectiveness of a passive in situations where warranted to facilitate challenge, but the passive itself should never expire, and we shouldnt have to relog every time we die just to reset it.

#3) The Drain Component of Life Drain should work on ALL mobs, not just mobs that can be stunned.

Im getting rather annoyed with the "This mob is too powerful for that effect" message I see.
Okay, so we cant stun a boss, or special elite mob, fine. Im perfectly okay with that.
However, that doesnt mean that they dont have "Life" which cant be drained. There is no imbalance in limiting the the ability to one use per PLAYER (not total, as is currently the case), regardless of whether its fatal or not. Obviously the mobs have more life to drain if they dont die immediately from use, so charring them into a blackened state renders the use of the ability by any other vampires impossible.
Its not blood we're draining obviously, since we can "Drain" things like Skeletons, Ghosts, and anything else which would not qualify as containing "Liquid Blood".
What also adds ammo to the argument is that a mob can be "immune" to vampire drain, but not immune to all other non-CC effects applied to them, including health drains like the Siphon skill from Resto.

#4) Feeding is pointless, as are the stages.

They only serve as RP components, and impart no relevant benefit or penalty.
A myriad of suggestions for this have already been made, and hopefully it will not require 6 months for you to add a half-dozen lines of code to accommodate them.

Jaxom · May 2014

OmniDo wrote: »

[b
#4) Feeding is pointless, as are the stages.

They only serve as RP components, and impart no relevant benefit or penalty.
A myriad of suggestions for this have already been made, and hopefully it will not require 6 months for you to add a half-dozen lines of code to accommodate them.

I'm going to pick on this one. With the recent changes, it's one of the only things worth doing as a NB. I can feed in combat (using stealth), heal myself, and stun (with passive) without having to waste a skill slot. Since I'm no longer using any of the active skills of Vampire, having the cost reduction doesn't matter. Keeping myself in stage 1 is actually helping me since I get the feed ability (on human mobs) and I don't have to worry about the health regen issue.

OmniDo · May 2014

Jaxom wrote: »

I can feed in combat (using stealth), heal myself, and stun (with passive) without having to waste a skill slot.

I was unaware that Feeding actually healed the vampire, and since you have to be in stealth behind the mob to use the ability, why would you be concerned about healing? Just sitting there stealthed will passively heal you more than fast enough, especially since youre in stage 1 and do not have the health regeneration debuff.

Keeping myself in stage 1 is actually helping me since I get the feed ability (on human mobs) and I don't have to worry about the health regen issue.

FYI, vampires get the "Feed" ability regardless of stage, and can use it on any NPC mob that is "feed-able".
As for the stun, yes I can see that as a usable perk for killing a SINGLE mob more swiftly, but would be utterly useless against two, since you are instantly brought out of stealth the moment you feed, and single-mobs are a rarity.
Most pulls come in groups of 2 to 3.