Was it really necessary to nerf Dark Stalker? Update it is a bug

LegacyDM

Update

I was wrong to accuse Zos. It was confirmed to be a bug. Big thanks to Zos for addressing this in the next update. My apologies. Thanks for looking into this so quickly.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

We went from 40% to %30 movement speed and to now a crawl. Really was this necessary?! The only reason I played vamp was because the sneak speed felt right and character movement was responsive. Why is ZOS so intent on destroying stealth? Now my character feels even more slow, sluggish, and like i am slogging through mud. Tool tip now says reduce movement penalty speed by %50 while in crouch. Before it was removes movement penalty while sneaking. This blows.

Sigh.

Leandor

Check your vamp stage. Dark Stalker is only active at stage 4 now.

LegacyDM

Leandor wrote: »

Check your vamp stage. Dark Stalker is only active at stage 4 now.

yeah I am in 4 unless its a character screen error.

Lylith

another 'fix' to something that was never broken.

the last two (excuse me, four) dlc's have had an overabundance of this.

LegacyDM

If this was intentional. Your only hurting yourself ZOS. Why would I bother paying for a vamp upgrade in the crown store if I am being nerfed. Lol.

devilsTear

Was this in the patch notes? Why would they do that?

kadar

devilsTear wrote: »

Was this in the patch notes? Why would they do that?

I didn't see it.

That was the best lure to being a vampire, imo. This was a thoughtless change, ZOS. You yourselves have long been advocates of the fact that stealth already has an abundance of counter measures in place to combat it. A massive percent of abilities in game break or cancel any attempt at stealth play, either being AOE, cone, or specific anti-stealth abilities. Not to mention the fact that Cloak is constantly in a state of not working right (how many "fixes" had cloak had now?). Oh and detect pots.

This is information that I've gather from the devs own comments....
So, in light of the above...If one of you would like to comment: why take away even more stealth functionality?

DemonDruaga

Played vampire for two years, only because of the sneak speed. If thats nerfed it makes vamp just more useless again

ListerJMC

Was it really necessary? No. Did they do it anyway? Yes.

LegacyDM

Deleted

psychotic13

Really? Why would they do this, I'd love an explanation of why this was necessary.

Guess I won't be going back to vamp with this update then.

Haydenmango

psychotic13 wrote: »

Really? Why would they do this, I'd love an explanation of why this was necessary.

Guess I won't be going back to vamp with this update then.

I'd like an explanation as well. Dark Stalker was my favorite thing about being a vampire and nerfing it without any reason is totally dumb.

I thought this patch was supposed to improve Vampires...

Instead Dark Stalker movement speed got nerfed and Batswarm is bugged so it doesn't benefit from vampires skill cost reduction. On the bright side mistform is slightly less useless but I still won't use it. If ZOS doesn't fix the bugged ultimate cost reduction soon I am just going to drop vampire.

Hridh

Is it working as intended ? Nerf or bug to Dark Stalker?

LegacyDM

Hridh wrote: »

Is it working as intended ? Nerf or bug to Dark Stalker?

well as seeing they nerfed the supersonic speed we had back pre 1.3ish to what we recently had pre DB dlc I can't imagine this was a bug. They could have easily nerfed it to what it is currently when they nerfed supersonic speed. No thus was intentional and for no good reason. DS wasn't being abused. No one was crying OP. It didn't hurt anyone's gameplay in pvp. There is just no damn good reason for this nerf. Zos just wants everyone to feel like they are playing a game in slow mo.

MrTarkanian48

Are we saying that the ignore movement speed while in stealth has been nerfed?

Im on console an cannot test it.

I am not sure how it could be nerfed unless they made walk speed slower.

Yes, Major Expedition from 40% to 30% was unneccessary.

Hurika

Dark Stalker used to remove sneak speed penalty. It now only removes 50% of the sneak speed penalty leaving you between full on slow sneak and normal speed.

My guess is it had to do with concealed weapon which gives +25% movement speed while stealthed. I believe with CW + DS you actually moved fairly quickly (almost as fast as Major Exp all while stealthed) in stealth and toss in Double Take and you'd really move quite fast.

With some changes to "try" (you decide) to make vamp more attractive I'd guess they were worried about a bunch of magicka NB vamps running around in stealth at a faster than sprint speed (no stealth penalty, 25% speed bonus from CW, 30% speed bonus from DT).

If so a better fix would have been to make CW remove 25% sneak penalty. So it won't bump you over 100% speed if you had DS also.

If they keep this change I'd really like to see the vamp passive or a clone of it moved to Thieves Guild, DB, NB Passives, or Werewolves (or any combo of). As a stamina NB it's the sole reason I run vamp.

The only alternative now is to run 5pc armor that negates the speed penalty at the expense of other bonuses.

Again that's all just my guess/speculation.

martinhpb16_ESO

Not a welcome change, and I'm noticing a definite negative on my vamp.

It's like the promise of a gift that once unrwapped turns out to be just a polished turd.

MrTarkanian48

Hurika wrote: »

Dark Stalker used to remove sneak speed penalty. It now only removes 50% of the sneak speed penalty leaving you between full on slow sneak and normal speed.

My guess is it had to do with concealed weapon which gives +25% movement speed while stealthed. I believe with CW + DS you actually moved fairly quickly (almost as fast as Major Exp all while stealthed) in stealth and toss in Double Take and you'd really move quite fast.

With some changes to "try" (you decide) to make vamp more attractive I'd guess they were worried about a bunch of magicka NB vamps running around in stealth at a faster than sprint speed (no stealth penalty, 25% speed bonus from CW, 30% speed bonus from DT).

If so a better fix would have been to make CW remove 25% sneak penalty. So it won't bump you over 100% speed if you had DS also.

If they keep this change I'd really like to see the vamp passive or a clone of it moved to Thieves Guild, DB, NB Passives, or Werewolves (or any combo of). As a stamina NB it's the sole reason I run vamp.

The only alternative now is to run 5pc armor that negates the speed penalty at the expense of other bonuses.

Again that's all just my guess/speculation.

Was this in the patch notes? I don't see any changes regarding the 100% ignore sneak speed penalty to 50%.

If this is the case it is bs. Anyone test if it would it stack with Shadow Dancer and equal a movement speed increase?

Even though it is faster on a NB, what about all other Magicka races?

Hurika

I don't recall seeing it anywhere in the patch notes.

Ajax_22

Hurika wrote: »

Dark Stalker used to remove sneak speed penalty. It now only removes 50% of the sneak speed penalty leaving you between full on slow sneak and normal speed.

My guess is it had to do with concealed weapon which gives +25% movement speed while stealthed. I believe with CW + DS you actually moved fairly quickly (almost as fast as Major Exp all while stealthed) in stealth and toss in Double Take and you'd really move quite fast.

With some changes to "try" (you decide) to make vamp more attractive I'd guess they were worried about a bunch of magicka NB vamps running around in stealth at a faster than sprint speed (no stealth penalty, 25% speed bonus from CW, 30% speed bonus from DT).

If so a better fix would have been to make CW remove 25% sneak penalty. So it won't bump you over 100% speed if you had DS also.

If they keep this change I'd really like to see the vamp passive or a clone of it moved to Thieves Guild, DB, NB Passives, or Werewolves (or any combo of). As a stamina NB it's the sole reason I run vamp.

The only alternative now is to run 5pc armor that negates the speed penalty at the expense of other bonuses.

Again that's all just my guess/speculation.

Dark Stalker actually isn't very useful on a Magic NB. Cloak doesn't give you a move speed penalty when you use it, and Magic NBs use cloak more often then they sneak. A Magic NB can use Rapids, and Concealed Weapon + Cloak to scan an entire factions sewer area in about five minutes all while never being seen or going below half magic.

imenace

reported this day1 pts, bug went live and now zos will probably say they will look into it and after 2 weeks they will conclude that they cant fix it and say its intended #zenimax

phreatophile

This update was the last straw for me with my Vampire characters this is just confirmation.

After serial nerfing, dark stalker was the only reason left to be a vampire.

Hridh

Well, I lurked a lot on the PTS forums, never saw the issue raised, and can't test the game before Saturday, but come on, guys, be vocal about it, it's a main reason to be a vampire for a lot of folks!

GreenSoup2HoT

i might even drop vampirism and grab some Night Silence. I've had it! with these ****************** ninja nerfs!

notimetocare

Have you tried to reset vamp stages?

imenace

@Hridh i did post it a couple of times and everyone was calling me an idiot and saying 'urmeged idiot you need to be stage 4 read patch notes'

DocFrost72

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom Can we get confirmation that 50% reduction, not full reduction on dark stalker at stage 4 was intentional or is it bugged? Thank you!

ZOS_JessicaFolsom

DocFrost72 wrote: »

Can we get confirmation that 50% reduction, not full reduction on dark stalker at stage 4 was intentional or is it bugged? Thank you!

Yep, sending something off to the Dev team now to check.

acw37162

They do seem feather intent on slowing players down and snaring the heck out of them.

It's one of the more annoying and quite frankly disappointing aspects of the last few patches.

Silver_Strider

acw37162 wrote: »

They do seem feather intent on slowing players down and snaring the heck out of them.

It's one of the more annoying and quite frankly disappointing aspects of the last few patches.

Give it time.
Before long, a maxed out horse with Rapids on will run as fast as a new horse now

DocFrost72

For all we know guys, it was a bug. I kind of lean towards that, as it wasn't listed in the patch notes and is a stage 4 req (meaning we have to deal with ALL downsides to get this passive. Like, dark stalker is more dangerous than undeath?).