[Class Rep] Vampire Feedback Thread

Perashim

My new 2 pain points:

1. Perfect Scion is a joke, why would anybody choose it over Swarming Scion?
2. The increased ability cost is a major turn off for many vampires, myself included, which makes the Vampire skill line a class of its own, rather than a pseudo racial skill line.

Also, is it just me, or do the Molag Bal Vampire Lords just look way better than Blood Scions?

XomRhoK

1) Vampiric Drain. After latest revamp Vampiric Drain lost half of the damage and don't looks like flow of blood anymore. I know that you(ZOS) don't like to change the visuals of things that are already in the game, because someone can liked it, so my suggestion is to merge both current morphs of Vampiric Drain into one(Drain Vigor seems useless anyway) and other morph make oriented on damage with old Invigorated Drain visuals and sound, maybe with a slightly wider blood flow than before or with visuals similar to new vampire NPC drain skill, something that looks and sounds like a flow of blood.

2) Blood Scion. He tall, bulky, glows and looks like horned Xivkyn, not a vampire, he has human-like stance and moves and he uses weapon. But, again, i know that you don't like to change the visuals of things that are already in the game, so my suggestion is to merge both current morphs of Blood Scion into one(Perfect Scion seems useless anyway) and other morph make look similar to Bloodknight NPC, maybe without helm and with less armor. Bloodknight NPC has not so bulky armor, has no horns, don't glows, has a more predatory stance, uses his claws to attack. Due to claw attacks make this morph restricted to use weapon skills while transformed, this will add uniqueness to the morphs. Also scale down both Blood Scion and Bloodknight at leaast at 10%, because now they looks too huge.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_RichLambert

Mr_Wolfe

I'm curious why so many people seem to think the Perfect Scion morph is useless? Assuming it still works like it did on the PTS, it lets you go from Stage 1 to 'Stage 5' for 20 seconds, then drops you back to Stage 1 when it ends. That means you can minimize the drawbacks by staying at Stage 1, and activate Perfect Scion to effectively gain:

• +10% Health Recovery (From negating the Stage 1 penalty)
• -5% Flame Damage Taken (From negating the Stage 1 penalty)
• -3% Regular Ability Costs (From negating the Stage 1 penalty)
• -24% Vampire Ability Costs (From the Stage 4 bonus)
• 50% Sprint cost reduction and invisibility after 3 seconds (From the 'Unnatural Movement' passive)
• +300 Weapon damage after leaving Sneak, Invisibility, or Mist Form (From the 'Strike from the Shadows' passive)
• Up to 30% Damage Reduction based on your missing health (From the 'Undeath' passive)

On top of the full heal, +10k to all three resources, healing for 15% of all damage you deal, and the ability to see enemies through walls that both morphs get. That's absurdly good, and definitely better than a piddling 2k-per-second DoT--especially when you consider that the cost reduction combined with the heal from damage dealt makes it the perfect time to toggle on Simmering Frenzy and burst as hard as you can.

Yamenstein

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Please future vampire changes give us a stamina morph of eviscerate

Go play with all the other stamina skills. Shoo

Rataroto

My two biggest problems are the first and second ability. Why isn't the vampire spamable ranged? Or at least have a ranged morph? And the second ability punishes the player way too much. Unless vampires are suposed to be mountains of health themselves it's nearly useless

Josira

xryanvb16_ESO wrote: »

Plz give eviscerate a ranged morph, also the ultimate is not great especially perfect scion maybe give it a way to sustain like werewolf... maybe you could give a synergy to drain enemies that are about to die to keep ultimate going.

a gapcloser instead of Blood Frenzy would be better
or
even better
a gapcloser combined with something that replaces your light and heavy attacks with claw attacks
they want to go for the 'ravenous beast' theme for vampires I think

Deathlord92

Yamenstein wrote: »

Deathlord92 wrote: »

Please future vampire changes give us a stamina morph of eviscerate

Go play with all the other stamina skills. Shoo

I have played a vampire on my stamblade for years in eso then they suddenly change everything many are upset about it not just stamina players. I’m not asking for vampire to be stamina only that’s selfish I’m just asking for middle ground so everyone happy I don’t see what’s wrong with this request.

Spectral_Force

I know this is an old thread and all, but hopefully it's still being looked at.
I've recently posted a thread in the general forum about separating the vampire stages into two separate systems to be able to better balance vampire strengths and weaknesses. One system - Hunger - will require some macro-management and will grant passives in exchange for "physical" drawbacks - reduced Health regen and increased weakness to fire. The other system - Rage - has much briefer Stage timers and will require some micro-management every combat; using Vampire abilities in quick succession will advance your Rage, which in turn will decrease the cost of your Vampire abilities and increase the cost of reguar abilities.
This split will open up many new gameplay options, such as using no vampire abilities at Stage 4, using exclusively vampire abilities at Stage 1 and everything in between, and players will be rewarded with relevant strengths (and punished with appropriate weaknesses) for doing so. Also, it should be a reasonable system to implement since it is fundamentally based on the mechanics of old Vampire stages, where using vampire abilities would affect stage timers.
I received zero feedback on that thread and I'm starting to question my sanity.

Aelorin

After playing a vampire Nightblade on PTS and live.

I probably miss an extra damaging skill. A gap closer has been suggested, and that would be nice. The other skills that damage (drain and blood mist) are more for healing then for damaging. So DPS wise they are not an option.

Khaleer

Morphs of key skills that cost health should scale with health. Especially since you are forced into melee.
Then put as a secondary on the Blood for Blood morph that heavy attacks reg some health (could be interesting with the new light/heavy attack system that you tried.
That would also fix some of the "look & feel" issues. A staff just look silly in that situation. A Spellblade (onehanded) or ritual dagger would be best, but a Sword/Dagger combination would look at least ok...

Deathlord92

Khaleer wrote: »

Morphs of key skills that cost health should scale with health. Especially since you are forced into melee.
Then put as a secondary on the Blood for Blood morph that heavy attacks reg some health (could be interesting with the new light/heavy attack system that you tried.
That would also fix some of the "look & feel" issues. A staff just look silly in that situation. A Spellblade (onehanded) or ritual dagger would be best, but a Sword/Dagger combination would look at least ok...

I would love a skill line dedicated for melee magic builds magblade imo could be such a cool arcane melee assassin.

XomRhoK

Some players including me are unhappy with changed visuals for old vampire skills and lack of classic vampire themed visuals, such as bats and real looking, not cartoonish blood, for new skills. If you have no intention to change visuals to existing vampire skill line, then at least make several item sets with appropriate old school vampire visuals to provide an option for players who don't like the visual style of new vampire skills. You have two thematic vampire DLCs ahead, so it will fit well.
Ideas for new item sets:
1) 5pc set bonus: When you use Roll Dodge you are turning into swarm of bats and damage all enemies in the way for X damage after that you gain Major Expedition for 4 seconds.
This bonus can be more damage oriented without Major Expedition. Can be with Physical damage, because of Stamina use for Roll Dodge or with Magical damage and use Magicka for Roll Dodge or a mixture. Can be with Major Expedition or larger distance of Roll Dodge to compensate lack of gap closer in vampire kit.
Visuals can be similar to those vampires have in opening Greymoor cutscene at 1:18.
2) Monster set: After some trigger summon Gargoyle which fight on your side for 15 seconds. Similar to Maw of the Infernal monster set.
Visuals:

3) Mythic item: Gauntlets with sharp claws on the fingers parts. This gauntlets allows you to fight without weapon with unarmed attacks. When you use this gauntlets you unarmed combat stance and animation of unarmed Light and Heavy attacks become similar to those Bloodfiend NPCs have and you forced to use this animations. Weapon become invisible, it continue to add its damage, trait, set bonus, enchantment and poison or enchantment and poison can be replaced by unique proc. Also while you wearing this gloves you can't use weapon skills.
This gauntlets will greatly fit khajiits, argonians, vampires and werewolves.
Gauntlets may be similar to Xivkyn heavy gauntlets and Heavy attack can looks like series of 4 attacks similar to Bloodfiend NPC skill.
Visuals:

But most important, please, don't use bright, glowing, cartoonish visuals for new vampiric sets, use more "realistic" visuals in old vampire skills style.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_Gilliam @ZOS_RichLambert

wabajaa

1. Skills:
Vampiric Drain: become useless in both PVP and PVE environment.
Mist Form: it takes too long to active it

2. Different to WW, vampire has 4 stages. That is good as you can bring more diversity.
Stage 1 - 3 is quite good, you can name it "normal vampire".
Stage 4 you can build a real "vampire lord" or "ancient vampire":
- less ultimate to transform into vampire lord or something like spam some skills to increase the duration
- while you transform into a vampire lord, very high regular ability cost or only allow to use vampire spell
- no stage decrease over time, can only be decreased by drinking potion

Kemenril

1. My main issue is that resource management went from the primary reason to go vamp, to a major liability. This has left my head spinning: healers/dps who previously loved vamps are now forced to avoid this condition like the plague. I main a Vamplar Healer and it has taken him from S-tier to the basement in terms of endgame viability. I understand that you wanted to overhaul the skill line but this is ridiculous. You've more or less destroyed a whole slew of legacy builds. Now I have to go for a very, very specific set of gear simply to counterbalance the penalties. That means less build diversity, and less fun.

2. Most of the skillpoint-selected passives are actually really great. Even if you took left magicka regen off the table, and removed the "non-vamp" skill cost penalty, I'd say this would be a pretty amazing overhaul. But the penalties are absurd: there is almost no reason besides RP to go Stage 4. Again: if your design leads to no build diversity, then your design is not great.

xryanvb16_ESO

Mist form is kind of slow to activate when you're weaving it into your rotation for the damage bonus. It often doesn't go off if you're not very deliberate about it, unlike other abilities. Also the cast time on the Ultimate really slows things down it would be nice if you could cancel the transformation animation.

SOLDIER_1stClass

Can we get an option to not turn into a Scion for an ultimate.

I dont care if I have to pay. The Scion is aesthetically horrendous

Lotus781

As long as you leave the look of stage 1 alone it's all fine by me, tho a gap closing skill would make a nice addition,seems funny i can jump to someone when i feed but not when i fight.

ncancelliere_ESO

Some of the mechanics don't make sense to me. Like I get that as you feed you become more powerful, but I would think a well fed vampire looks less monstrous and is able to blend in better than one that is hungry and ravenous? Presumable with the increased power comes more ability to influence minds and make illusion etc.

I personally would like to see the cosmetic effects reversed and stage 4 looking more humanoid and stage one the least. I also think stage 4 would be able to pass in town (not be denied services) while stage 1 was denied services (this would give people an incentive to feed too). Plus who is afraid of a well-fed vampire? It's the hungry ones that you have to worry about.

This also goes in with the lore better since in the starter quest the vampire looks dreadful until after he eats. I dunno -- it just doesn't make sense to me how it is setup right now.

Asmoxian

I've experimented with vampire and it feels very lackluster when it comes to damage. Compared to my other characters with similar gear, the damage is roughly 1/3 of what I expected. Playing it in dungeons also freaks the healer out when they can't heal you. Maybe the healer could have some sort of warning that a vampire can't be healed when certain skills are used.

Xargas13

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

The purpose of this thread is to give you a place to post your current top two pain points with Vampires. Our new Class Representatives will be keeping a close eye on this thread, and will utilize it to gather additional feedback for the notes they’re currently compiling for their first meeting with the Dev Team next week. Please be sure and keep your post clear and succinct, and focus more on what is currently frustrating you rather than potential solutions. Thanks!

Stage 4 offers almost no bonuses, I mean it is nice to turn invisible and then get a damage bonus, or to have a little bit higher defense. But cons outweigh the pros sometimes, I understand it has to have weaknesses, and I came to terms with fire damage and increased cost. But what I have not came to terms with is health regeneration, vampires supposed to be hard to kill, so health regeneration should go up instead of down. Another point in survival is werewolf vs vampire forms, werewolf seem to have more advantages in my opinion. So to make this long story short, buff vampire stages, especially, stage 4. But not to the point where everyone in PvP will be a vampire. Thank you.

Xargas13

Forgot to mention, there is no spammable ranged vampire ability, which is bummer, vampire drain just doesn't cut it, since low damage, and with healing reductions in PvP, it is totally useless.

Baphomet

The brutal fact is that the new vampire is just a blanket nerf to all magicka builds which previously had to become vampires in order to not fall too behind their stamina counterparts.

Vampire is now absolutely rubbish. You cannot incorporate it into any magicka build without gimping yourself.

Only stage 1 vampire for the mistform and/or the ultimate is still useful - all the other stuff either doesn't work or is too weak.

And now we lost the 10% stam/magicka regen and have a cost increase to our abilities just to get mistform on our immobile characters while stam builds zip across the battlefield so fast the game can't keep track of their hitboxes.

I know a massive nerf when I see one.

Aweful design @ZoS - you have to give it another go.

Thank you in advance!

Baphomet

Oh yeah - two pain points.

1. Mistform - it's extremely bugged now. For some reason, ground based AoEs often seem to go through mistform and pull you out of it. Furthermore, it is very unreliable to activate. When you move while blocking and when you are taking damage, you often cannot enter mistform at all.
2. The cost increase - losing both the 10% regen to stam/magicka and adding a cost increase on top of that was a complete swing and miss, because you don't get anything powerful or even useful in return as a vampire now.

katorga

Baphomet wrote: »

Oh yeah - two pain points.

1. Mistform - it's extremely bugged now. For some reason, ground based AoEs often seem to go through mistform and pull you out of it. Furthermore, it is very unreliable to activate. When you move while blocking and when you are taking damage, you often cannot enter mistform at all.
2. The cost increase - losing both the 10% regen to stam/magicka and adding a cost increase on top of that was a complete swing and miss, because you don't get anything powerful or even useful in return as a vampire now.

Agree. It is a blanket magicka nerf. I use it at stage 1 only, for sneak speed and mistform. I'm not sure Undeath is even worth going to stage 3 for. Mistform is buggy and doesn't work half the time. The stun, both morphs, does not function well in pvp lag. The cost increases far outweight the benefits.

In pve, Thrassian Stranglers are better than the entire Vampire skill line.

In pvp, swapping to a stam build completely outperforms magicka/vampire, and you end up with better stats with no negatives, no health drain, no funky skin. Turn Evil is what the vampire stun should have been.

Baharoth77

Well I have tested Vamp non stop since it launched. Multiple sets...Tons of resources wasted....

Vamp launch Fighting overland mobs and questing is fun. Pvp is a joke. The cost penalty combined with drain being near useless, Evicerate line is ok. Sated fury line is a joke and I hate it in pve and pvp. Mist form is still ok. Ult is ok.

All of it is not worth the penalties you get. A bit issue is that Magica classes just have a hard time in melee except for DK and Magplar. They have better options for everything but mist form so why bother? Magcro would be good if it had some kind of gap closer. People can just run from you. Nightblade Is either too squishy if you build for dps or lacks too much dps if you build tanky. All this from a magica point of view mind you. Have not tested stam yet.

All in all I am pretty disappointed and hope that it gets the attention it deserves. It looks neat, It just has too many draw backs atm to make it worth it.

Deathlord92

I hope they add some juicy buffs for vampire that benefits mag and stamina make vampire really worth using. I got some ideas for my stamblade really hyped for graymoor on console so got to wait little longer.

ninjaguyman

Would be nice to have the spammable be at 7m range rather than 5m.

Baharoth77

I have 2 things that I think would make vamp ok

Instead of increasing all non vampire costs increase only non vampire damage cost. That way you don't make Vamps a clear dps winner. You however don't make healers feel like potatoes for using the vamp line with cost increase.

Rework Sated fury line into something else. The other abilities are neat. Drain just needs a numbers tweak. I don't know of anyone that likes sated fury line at all.

Stravokov

Why doesn't feeding heal me if im hurt? What was the point in nerfing vampiric drain to a useless state? What practical uses does Blood Frenzy have?

We may never learn the answers to these questions.


EDIT: Also, Vampiric drain is the ugliest animation in the game. what was wrong with the original?!

Josira

Already posted here but... second post! why not!

1: Art and Animations,they arnt fitting,Blood Scion doesnt look good to the majority of people,it looks goofy and is not unique enough to be set apart from vampire lords,but also not looking as good as a vampire lord. its an ugly midway point. Eviscerate and its morphs also suffer from the same animation bug that searing strike has suffered from for years,making the main spamable look and feel ugly to use.

2:Blood Frenzy. its not useful,and a number's tweak would either make the skill more useless or overpowered,without any middleground possible.Changing this to maybe a timed buff or another toggle where it changes your light and heavy attacks to claw attacks similar to bloodfiends may go a long way,for one if it changes the stance of the player,it may make blood scion look less goofy,without much of an art change required,and two it could mean that eviscerate doesnt have that glitch,if weapons are hidden during this toggle. one morph could give a gapcloser, when activated again while active,the other could be a health costing toggle to synergize with the other moves.