Vamp drain immune to dot nerfs?

milllaurie

I remember hopping to pts server just before the dot buff patch. I was duelling this templar and his degeneration appeared 7x ticks for 11,000 damage total in my stamsorc's recap.
We laughed about it, like "it's gonna be op af" and it was.
People were using dots like crazy for a few weeks because literally, only one person rotating Soul trap, Degen and vamp bane would be a pain in the other end.
Then it was all nerfed as this was "unintended" and "overtuned" etc.
Almost all dots were hit hard, Venomous claw being an exception and I support that. Some dots gained additional functionality like Fether infection inflicting minor vulnerability, poison injection direct damage part gaining execute damage. This is all nice.
Except one skill remained well overtuned by any so called "ZOS's standards" - it is vampire drain.
I want to point out, it's tooltip does not say x damage over y seconds as all the other dots, it says z damage every second. So on paper it is not as big of a number and looks really ok. This might be the reason it dodged the nerfhammer. Or not.
Not only it's tooltip is actually twice as big as other dots, it also has an overtuned side functionality - a heal or an ultigen plus a stun. The only downside to the skill is it is channeled but it is only 3 seconds long. So basically if 10k damage on a player over 3 sec it's already 3k dps and you most likely have some other sources of damage like dots or delayed burst (potl, deep fissure, meteor, etc - you name it.)
And of course, smart players noticed that. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against using skills that are in the game - this is absolutely not the player's fault they are over/undertuned.
I mean most of the players using that skill were good at pvp in the first place. It takes a couple of looks to notice this small number in the tooltip is actually twice as big as all other dots.
But then you have a great player using a really powerful skill and you know where this leads.
And then people realised you can use this when zaan procs and you can one-shot people

Here I have a little recap of mine which shows how strong it is. The first three lines of damage were done by the same player I left the pvp rank so you can see that.



Let's keep in mind this is on a no-stealth brawlblade which had the following mitigation buffs at the time the damage was taken: minor protection from dark cloak, 5% mitigation from potentates backbar s&b, 5x relentless focus stacks - 10%. So it adds up to 23% mitigation on top of 25k resists.

What are your thoughts on this skill?
I would love a constructive discussion but many trolls are lurking around.

Derra

Honestly, from a magica perspective (sorc, warden, DK and NB):

I´ve never been in a fight where i´ve thought that it was specifically vamp drain that killed me. It´s a good skill but comes with a massive drawback of being vamp stage 4.

When i see people complain about drain it´s mostly stam players and ironically mostly those playing relatively tanky builds that allow for HP/fight resets within 2 dodges or laps around a rock due to currently insanely high healing (and drain specifically counters this quite well).

It does seem to suffer from wonky break animations for some people (again personally not had that issue so far). This should definetly be fixed.

My take is: If virtually all other cc`s wouldn´t have been nerfed to crap for magica you would see drain very rarely.

So what is probably an unpopular opinion amongst the predominantly stam solo/smallscale crowd:
I don´t think the skill is OP in the current heal/hot vs dmg meta apart from potential bugs regarding it´s cc (if healing was to be adjusted drain would definetly be on my list of skills that should be too).

milllaurie

Derra wrote: »

It does seem to suffer from wonky break animations for some people (again personally not had that issue so far). This should definetly be fixed.

Thanks, I forgot to mention this. Not only it is somehow harder to break free it seems not to grant cc immunity after doing so about 40-50% of the time. If the person is spamming it you tend to get perma-stuck in a cc.
Anyway, my point is not about this skill being OP by itself, it's by dodging the nerfhammer mostly. If all dots have been standardised why was Vamp drain left out?
Just do a simple A/B comparison with any other skill - it sure packs a little too much power into one button.

By the way you were the one who got my attention to this skill in the first place

Derra

milllaurie wrote: »

Derra wrote: »

It does seem to suffer from wonky break animations for some people (again personally not had that issue so far). This should definetly be fixed.

Thanks, I forgot to mention this. Not only it is somehow harder to break free it seems not to grant cc immunity after doing so about 40-50% of the time. If the person is spamming it you tend to get perma-stuck in a cc.
Anyway, my point is not about this skill being OP by itself, it's by dodging the nerfhammer mostly. If all dots have been standardised why was Vamp drain left out?
Just do a simple A/B comparison with any other skill - it sure packs a little too much power into one button.

By the way you were the one who got my attention to this skill in the first place

I think it fits into the same category as jabs (which also has not been adjusted) in that regard - if you don´t have access to evasion that skill also has an insane power budged.

It´s a channel that needs to maintain almost melee distance to the target - not offering the fire and forget functionality of true dots.

Royaji

Vamp drain is a channel and not a DoT. Same as Jabs or Flurry which also were not adjusted. Buggy CC is another topic though. But it does not change the fact that channels do not fall under DoTs category and ruleset.

milllaurie

Derra wrote: »

It´s a channel that needs to maintain almost melee distance to the target - not offering the fire and forget functionality of true dots.

So this is exactly why it is so unforgiving against stamina players. I personally have almost no options when hit by one.
Block+LOS, Break free + hopefully stun (javelin, magnum shot?), since you keep that almost melee distance - it is too great for me to pressure you back I must go full defensive.
Fossilize stuns me and I can break free + roll/FM,shuffle while not taking heaps of damage and healing you.

I agree with you on the jabs though, it becoming direct damage allowed me to spec 0 pts to thaumaturge and free them up (to crit damage for example as potl crits now). It also benefist from the onslaught now.

InaMoonlight

milllaurie wrote: »

I remember hopping to pts server just before the dot buff patch. I was duelling this templar and his degeneration appeared 7x ticks for 11,000 damage total in my stamsorc's recap.
We laughed about it, like "it's gonna be op af" and it was.
People were using dots like crazy for a few weeks because literally, only one person rotating Soul trap, Degen and vamp bane would be a pain in the other end.
Then it was all nerfed as this was "unintended" and "overtuned" etc.
Almost all dots were hit hard, Venomous claw being an exception and I support that. Some dots gained additional functionality like Fether infection inflicting minor vulnerability, poison injection direct damage part gaining execute damage. This is all nice.
Except one skill remained well overtuned by any so called "ZOS's standards" - it is vampire drain.
I want to point out, it's tooltip does not say x damage over y seconds as all the other dots, it says z damage every second. So on paper it is not as big of a number and looks really ok. This might be the reason it dodged the nerfhammer. Or not.
Not only it's tooltip is actually twice as big as other dots, it also has an overtuned side functionality - a heal or an ultigen plus a stun. The only downside to the skill is it is channeled but it is only 3 seconds long. So basically if 10k damage on a player over 3 sec it's already 3k dps and you most likely have some other sources of damage like dots or delayed burst (potl, deep fissure, meteor, etc - you name it.)
And of course, smart players noticed that. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against using skills that are in the game - this is absolutely not the player's fault they are over/undertuned.
I mean most of the players using that skill were good at pvp in the first place. It takes a couple of looks to notice this small number in the tooltip is actually twice as big as all other dots.
But then you have a great player using a really powerful skill and you know where this leads.
And then people realised you can use this when zaan procs and you can one-shot people

Here I have a little recap of mine which shows how strong it is. The first three lines of damage were done by the same player I left the pvp rank so you can see that.



Let's keep in mind this is on a no-stealth brawlblade which had the following mitigation buffs at the time the damage was taken: minor protection from dark cloak, 5% mitigation from potentates backbar s&b, 5x relentless focus stacks - 10%. So it adds up to 23% mitigation on top of 25k resists.

What are your thoughts on this skill?
I would love a constructive discussion but many trolls are lurking around.

Doesn't need to be nerfed IMO. Remember its a channeled skill, and you're entirely vulnerable to everyone else while doing it due to duration. Please dont advocate for vamps to get nerfed further, its takes serious skill to play as it, it kinda needs a severe buffing-overhaul, I STAY and play vamp cause of regen and sneakspeed as is... (since beta)

WillhelmBlack

Is the unbreakable CC not only when you self cancel the channel? We've had similar bugs to this.

InaMoonlight

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Is the unbreakable CC not only when you self cancel the channel? We've had similar bugs to this.

Nopes, others can break it, it fairly only works when noone else is around or you are soloing, as you're sucking 'em up, you're free game wich is why I don't slot it lol... but regen + sneakspeed

Tip: don't suck on them if grouped... we are fair game and you'll often die before done unless they're simply in a shock-state of you using it, that can be fun too though, but OP?... NAH!

Edit for the uuusual typo's, see my sittingdevice I'm ill.

WuffyCerulei

CC’s always had issues. But I think it was hit with the nerf bat because of the skill is. It’s a channeled skill, so no weaving or anything. You’re defenseless when you’re using it. If you’re interrupted, you’re off balance and more open to stun. And you can’t just apply the dot and run off. It’s a trade off. Higher damage, stun, and a slight heal for essentially being a sitting duck and be interrupted.

NBrookus

I don't have an issue with the damage from this skill since it's channeled so you can't weave with it. Of course most people use it for the CC and cancel it.

The CC break being especially unreliable is the only problem with the skill. The 12m range is a little dicey as well, but if you fix the CC break I guarantee you people will stop using it again.

xBacskay

I agree that vamp drain is strong and needs a nerf. Problem is some classes (necro and warden) lack a viable class stun and that is their only option.

Also, your death recap allowing someone to stand in your face for 10 ticks are of vamp drain makes you look like a total bot!

Lord-Otto

Why, exactly, does it need a nerf? Because it's strong? Is this what ESO has become? Anything that remotely resembles a good move must be immediately dragged down to sticks'n'stones level? I can see why I'm falling asleep whenever I start combat in this game these days...

Juhasow

I think damage on that skill is slightly too high. When You look at the tooltip of that ability vs the tooltip of any other spammable ability , 2 ticks of vamp drain deals ~30-40% more dmg then spammable ability and to get 2 ticks it takes 0,7 sec so under the global cooldown of spammable ability. With proper animation cancelling it allows to create very bursty combos within the time window of regular abilities while also giving a stun which is excatly what ZoS wanted to get rid of when removing stuns from things like crystal frag , dizzying swing wtc. It also gives minor expedition to the user for 20 seconds which is also handy when combined with mist or RaT. It's basically 4 things in 1 cheap undodgable ability : damage , heal , stun and speed buff.

idk

Royaji wrote: »

Vamp drain is a channel and not a DoT. Same as Jabs or Flurry which also were not adjusted. Buggy CC is another topic though. But it does not change the fact that channels do not fall under DoTs category and ruleset.

Good point. DoTs comes down to a damage per GCD whereas the vamp drain requires much longer than a GCD for the player to use. So the comparison being made in the OP is not appropriate and certainly does not take this into consideration.

ChunkyCat

Seeing a lot more vamp drains these days on the B of Gs.

Pretty effective tool for your magical vamp kits.

Real talk.

Pauls

Rarest kind of nerf thread, vampire skills.

milllaurie

xBacskay wrote: »

I agree that vamp drain is strong and needs a nerf. Problem is some classes (necro and warden) lack a viable class stun and that is their only option.

Also, your death recap allowing someone to stand in your face for 10 ticks are of vamp drain makes you look like a total bot!

Haha, I figured. My thought process in this particular fight:
*** skills are not working, oh, it's a vamp stun. Cannot break it, okay broke it, gotta do this sharp left turn around the tower to lose los, then turn around, *** what is wrong with cc immunity, stunned by vamp drain again.

Lord-Otto

Yeah, fixing CC problems is a good point. But I'd like to point out that it took four years for ZOS to finally acknowledge Fear's buggy CC and fix it. Just saying. =/

WillhelmBlack

At least hakeijo prices are going up!

Neoauspex

This skill is in that thin little golden margin where it can be very effective or very detrimental to the caster situationally, some people slot it but there are lots of other good options for that slot, and occasionally it shows up on your death recap. All skills should be like that.

Canned_Apples

all ccs bug. it's not just drain.
only class i ever see spam it are necros, but that's because they have nothing to offer aside from their ult.

evoniee

the reason you want to use this is either you have a lot thaurmaturge (dot build) or need stun through roll dodge