Revert vamp drain.

Baphomet

Okay, we’ve tried it and the judgement is clear.

The new version of vamp drain is absolutely garbage.

An ability that worked 100% well was made 100% useless.

It was the only reliable stun many magicka builds had, and now it’s gone, while at the same time ALL stamina builds have access to an unblockable and undodgeable CC + whatever they have access to from their class and weapon kit.

What’s the reasoning behind this? Why can’t magicka builds have something effective that works?

@ZOS_BrianWheeler please make it a priority to revert this preposterous change to vamp drain.

@ZoS_GinaBruno would you please be so kind and forward this request? I know that a lot of players would like to see it changed back

FirmamentOfStars

The difference between vamp drain and the stamina fear circle is, that vamp drain does quite some damage and was left out during the huge nerfs to dots. It was obvious that something will happen to it: losing damage ir a different stun mechanism was the obvious way to go. Also the skill was pretty much a non-brainer: decent damage for pressing one button plus a stun...
Not saying tgat the change necessarely wad good, but it was obvious and fits the philosophy ZOS is following atm. They rather nerf stuff than buff up other things to an usable state.

Iskiab

SavageChain wrote: »

The difference between vamp drain and the stamina fear circle is, that vamp drain does quite some damage and was left out during the huge nerfs to dots. It was obvious that something will happen to it: losing damage ir a different stun mechanism was the obvious way to go. Also the skill was pretty much a non-brainer: decent damage for pressing one button plus a stun...
Not saying tgat the change necessarely wad good, but it was obvious and fits the philosophy ZOS is following atm. They rather nerf stuff than buff up other things to an usable state.

The damage on Invig drain was always low, I don’t know why people keep saying it did a lot of damage. The no brainer stun now is dizzy swing.

I think with the vamp rework they gutted the ability since they‘re likely changing it anyways.

Baphomet

Vamp drain is a channeled ability and not a DoT.

Therefore it shouldn’t undergo the aforementioned DoT nerf.

It doesn’t do more damage than when you weave light attacks and spammables.

And on top of that, it is interuptible.

However, it was still key to several magicka builds that are now forced to equip a fire staff in order to get a semi decent and somewhat reliable stun.

FirmamentOfStars

What i meant with no-brainer here is, that you only need to press one button in three seconds to get off decent damage. Its a lazy skill in that sense. Naturally a spammable with weaving does more damage, and thats actually good like that. As said, its lazy and therefore a no-brainer.
Its damage isnt that bad for cost and how easy it is to use. I saw quite some numbers from vamp drain, so i stay with my statement, that the skill does decent damage plus stuns for its low cost and lazy gameplay.
I wouldnt care if they revert the stun mechanism back to immediately stun together with a nerf to its damage. Dealing damage should be something requiring skill and pushing one button in 3 seconds does not require skill (thinking back at the times, when people complained about jesus beams non-execute damage).

Mojomonkeyman

A cost increase and/or dmg downwards adjustment wouldve been appropriate, but in its current iteration they have just taken away the only counter to dodge rolling that some magicka classes had access to.

Guess who cried the loudest on these forums for a change...

Karmen

no, drain is fine like that

FirmamentOfStars

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

A cost increase and/or dmg downwards adjustment wouldve been appropriate, but in its current iteration they have just taken away the only counter to dodge rolling that some magicka classes had access to.

Guess who cried the loudest on these forums for a change...

I show you the people, who cried the loudest:

Karmen wrote: »

no, drain is fine like that

Daffen

The skill was unblockable and undodgeable stun with damage attached to it which did decent amount of damage. Those combination is something that zos wants to prevent. If you want a decent stun you can use flame clench as substitute, if you use lightning staff then you dont have many choices as a magwarden and i reccomend changing to flame staff.

Karmen

magicka builds have so many ways to stun.

now it is just a stun with a 3sec delay which heals you during 3 sec.

MartiniDaniels

Vamp drain was overloaded and glitchy. It was only "balanced" by fact that classes which used it were not good in current meta. What ZOS did to it is an abomination, but saying that it was ok in U24. NO it was not ok. Damage, instant ranged stun and one of the most desirable buffs - minor expedition - for laughable 2k cost.. not overloaded, really?

wheem_ESO

Karmen wrote: »

magicka builds have so many ways to stun.

now it is just a stun with a 3sec delay which heals you during 3 sec.

If you're not trolling, please name the reliable, offense-oriented stuns available to my Magicka Necromancer.

There's really only one, and that's Flame Clench. The issues with that are:
1) It's easy to knock the target out of my own Colossus Ultimate, thus counter-playing myself.
2) I've seen my Blastbones "fall apart" mid-leap and do 0 damage if the Flame Clench lands when he leaps.
3) It has the opportunity cost of no longer receiving +8% damage on my primary burst damage ability (from Lightning Staff).

PS
Before anyone mentions the class-Totem, please notice that I said "offense-oriented" above. The delayed, telegraphed pulses and static nature of the Totem will oftentimes make it fairly useless as a stun, especially against anyone trying to run away.

Somers23

This is a joke, honestly don't think it will effect my build. But it's gross, I feel like I was zerged nerfed

dazee

they should keep it like it is now with the stun on the end, but increase the damage significantly, since the damage is garbage.

Kadoin

So now that you can't use it to glitch combo your opponents its junk? Wow, what a coincidence...

When your entire ability to play hinges on one skill, one set, or one tactic, it might be time to consider that one set, skill, or tactic may be OP and really find alternatives. If not, then you should know a nerf is coming eventually because it more than likely is OP.

You should also know the dev team comes to their own conclusions about skills, despite players always complaining that forum whining gets something nerfed. If it got nerfed its because it actually was OP in an obvious way or actually bugged.

Juhasow

Baphomet wrote: »

Vamp drain is a channeled ability and not a DoT.

Therefore it shouldn’t undergo the aforementioned DoT nerf.

It doesn’t do more damage than when you weave light attacks and spammables.

And on top of that, it is interuptible.

However, it was still key to several magicka builds that are now forced to equip a fire staff in order to get a semi decent and somewhat reliable stun.

Up to the recent jabs changes every channeled damaging ability was a DoT. Drain still is a DoT. It deals X damage every Y seconds for Z seconds. Sounds perfectly like a description of a DoT. And properly used in combo it allowed to actually do more damage then with spammable ability. All of that when it was cheaper , had undodgable (and super cluncky to see or break) stun plus even gave minor expedition. During Dragonhold it was busted ability. I agree though that ZoS took completly wrong approach. They should leave it as reliable stun and resolve the issue with clunckines of the stun and with damage. Instead they've made it useless. Classic ZoS approach. They can target the issue but they can't resolve it properly. Not in the 1st attempt atleast.

Baphomet

The funny thing about vamp drain was that it had been pretty much the same as it had always been.

However, due to a systematic eradication of other (superior) CC options for magicka builds, many build types were pigeon-holed into using vamp drain, because it was the only good remaining option.

And then, when people actually started using it in lack of better options, it was all of a sudden too powerful. Funny stuff, right?

So, eventually it was gutted too due to to complaining, and now numerous magicka builds don't have viable offensive CC options.

Crystal frags, aurora javelin, stone fist, elemental reach, subterranean assault, blazing spear, fossilize etc. - all gone or nerfed.

However, at the same time, all stamina builds are given access to an extremely powerful generic CC that is more clunky to break than any other CCs in the game. And, at the same time, most stamina builds (because they all use two-handed) have indrect access to off-balance stuns. The biggest loss they suffered were the range reduction on some of their CCs.

The argument that some builds were using just this one skill as a 1-button-spam ability is absolutely moot, because that goes for all stamina builds nowadays with how effective dizzying swing is. And this has been the case for a long, long time. There you can talk about an overloaded ability that should be subject to nerfing.

Sure, it could be because stamina lacks good alternatives, but guess what, so does magicka.

At least all stamina builds have access to some good options. Not all magicka builds do - and that is a balance issue whether one likes it or not.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

BohnT2

Baphomet wrote: »

The funny thing about vamp drain was that it had been pretty much the same as it had always been.

However, due to a systematic eradication of other (superior) CC options for magicka builds, many build types were pigeon-holed into using vamp drain, because it was the only good remaining option.

And then, when people actually started using it in lack of better options, it was all of a sudden too powerful. Funny stuff, right?

So, eventually it was gutted too due to to complaining, and now numerous magicka builds don't have viable offensive CC options.

Crystal frags, aurora javelin, stone fist, elemental reach, subterranean assault, blazing spear, fossilize etc. - all gone or nerfed.

However, at the same time, all stamina builds are given access to an extremely powerful generic CC that is more clunky to break than any other CCs in the game. And, at the same time, most stamina builds (because they all use two-handed) have indrect access to off-balance stuns. The biggest loss they suffered were the range reduction on some of their CCs.

The argument that some builds were using just this one skill as a 1-button-spam ability is absolutely moot, because that goes for all stamina builds nowadays with how effective dizzying swing is. And this has been the case for a long, long time. There you can talk about an overloaded ability that should be subject to nerfing.

Sure, it could be because stamina lacks good alternatives, but guess what, so does magicka.

At least all stamina builds have access to some good options. Not all magicka builds do - and that is a balance issue whether one likes it or not.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

This is simply not true.
Vamp drain was heavily buffed going from Elsweyr into Scalebreaker.
First of all with the things mentioned in the patch notes, which included instant damage, being undodgeable, more damage, and a higher tick frequency for accelerating drain.

On top of that it received the same bug fix jabs got with scalebreaker that got rid of CP reducing the damage more than intended.

Saying the skill was always the same is simply wrong, we're talking about levels of dizzying becoming instant, stunning, getting a damage increase and give some additional bonus.

On the same note both stamina and magicka have lost almost any viable offensive CC.
Only magdk has a viable offensive CC left in Fossilize and it only works because it has a meele burst skill and leap has a shorter traveltime than most other skills. If DKs skills were to be changed to have a 300ms minimum traveltime and leap had a 500ms delay not a single class had a skill that guaranteed follow-up hits.

Casttimes are also the only reason why dizzying has been used so extensively since scalebreaker, because back then it made it possible to hit people with 2h ult which led to people saying it's overperforming.
But that comes down to not a single other skill letting you force a hit afterwards.
Due to casttimes it's not possible anymore to stun someone with reverb barswap cancel into your 2h ult or ult on your 2h bar and with DBoS being unreliable with casttimes that leaves only 2h ult to be used by warden, templar, sorc and due to its bonus effect it's also used over colossus and Leap for Necro and DK.

This leaves the multitude of stamina players with dizzying swing as the only useable skill to be used as a stun and now the off-balance CC because both of them happen later in your gcd and not when it starts.

This is why people who keep saying "stamina has much better CC options" are simply wrong.

Instant offensive stuns are needed and healthy for the game and they have to be fine tuned for each class.
With casttimes existing the CC has to be delayed to the end of the GCD in order to reduce the reaction time the enemy has and force hits more frequently.

Iskiab

What made vamp drain good was the Ult gen, it was a channel so instant, and it was super cheap.

All the complaints about it doing a lot of damage are a joke, the damage was low and came from using it in a burst combo. The stun was a little glitchy to break free from, but almost all stuns are.

They went with the gutting it option with a vampire rework coming up, hopefully they’ll play with it again.

Lord-Otto

Juhasow wrote: »

Baphomet wrote: »

Vamp drain is a channeled ability and not a DoT.

Therefore it shouldn’t undergo the aforementioned DoT nerf.

It doesn’t do more damage than when you weave light attacks and spammables.

And on top of that, it is interuptible.

However, it was still key to several magicka builds that are now forced to equip a fire staff in order to get a semi decent and somewhat reliable stun.

Up to the recent jabs changes every channeled damaging ability was a DoT. Drain still is a DoT. It deals X damage every Y seconds for Z seconds. Sounds perfectly like a description of a DoT. And properly used in combo it allowed to actually do more damage then with spammable ability. All of that when it was cheaper , had undodgable (and super cluncky to see or break) stun plus even gave minor expedition. During Dragonhold it was busted ability. I agree though that ZoS took completly wrong approach. They should leave it as reliable stun and resolve the issue with clunckines of the stun and with damage. Instead they've made it useless. Classic ZoS approach. They can target the issue but they can't resolve it properly. Not in the 1st attempt atleast.

The DoTs in question were "set and forget". You know that. Soul Trap, Entropy, Destructive Touch and so forth. You could easily stack them for ridiculous PASSIVE damage while spamming spammables or stuns or even channels. When you activate Vamp Drain for the full duration, it is just that. Can't apply more damage, as it requires all your actions for channeling.
But you know that. Come on, man, you're better than that!

dazee

Fire staff actually does not stun at all- it knocks. which is sort of like a stun.

BohnT2

dazee wrote: »

Fire staff actually does not stun at all- it knocks. which is sort of like a stun.

That's wrong, it knocks back and stuns afterwards.

Rahar

Nerfing drain was never about the damage or even about the stun. It was about the break free, which, thanks to an animation delay on the ability, couldn't be broken in a consistently timed or reliable manner.

Of course, in typical ZOS fashion, instead of fixing the actual issue (the delayed animation and break free), corners were cut by moving the stun and the ability unfortunately suffered massive collateral damage.

MaxJrFTW

Instant cc without an animation, and when used as a spammable also does 2k+ a sec. No, it was busted and needed a nerf. If anything they need to bring back the shock clench stun.

Commandment

Does this even matter? THEY ARE REWORKING VAMPIRE IN MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rahar

Commandment wrote: »

Does this even matter? THEY ARE REWORKING VAMPIRE IN MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, because they have explicitly states that drain and mist are here to stay. How they interpret that, however, is really up in the air...

Juhasow

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Juhasow wrote: »

Baphomet wrote: »

Vamp drain is a channeled ability and not a DoT.

Therefore it shouldn’t undergo the aforementioned DoT nerf.

It doesn’t do more damage than when you weave light attacks and spammables.

And on top of that, it is interuptible.

However, it was still key to several magicka builds that are now forced to equip a fire staff in order to get a semi decent and somewhat reliable stun.

Up to the recent jabs changes every channeled damaging ability was a DoT. Drain still is a DoT. It deals X damage every Y seconds for Z seconds. Sounds perfectly like a description of a DoT. And properly used in combo it allowed to actually do more damage then with spammable ability. All of that when it was cheaper , had undodgable (and super cluncky to see or break) stun plus even gave minor expedition. During Dragonhold it was busted ability. I agree though that ZoS took completly wrong approach. They should leave it as reliable stun and resolve the issue with clunckines of the stun and with damage. Instead they've made it useless. Classic ZoS approach. They can target the issue but they can't resolve it properly. Not in the 1st attempt atleast.

The DoTs in question were "set and forget". You know that. Soul Trap, Entropy, Destructive Touch and so forth. You could easily stack them for ridiculous PASSIVE damage while spamming spammables or stuns or even channels. When you activate Vamp Drain for the full duration, it is just that. Can't apply more damage, as it requires all your actions for channeling.
But you know that. Come on, man, you're better than that!

Still vamp drain is a DoT. Pretty strong one also. And You can get 1st 2 ticks of it within 1 ability global cooldown and 1st 2 ticks are doing ~35% more damage then average spammable ability and after that You're free to block cancel it and continue rotation with regular fashion without any time waste. Considering there was also really strong and easy in use stun attached to it You could threat that vamp drain damage as passively applied because other stuns that magicka players have acces to are not doing so much damage within that short period of time. It was basically undodgable stun and high damage ability within 1 skill global cooldown that also have low cost and grants minor expedition. Even considering the fact it's a channeled ability still it's lot of things for 1 skill.

Baphomet

The stun needs to be up front again, and then they can tweak the rest of the mechanics.

For starters they could reduce the damage a bit and at the same time fix the bug that prevents it from working with the exploiter passive.

wheem_ESO

Juhasow wrote: »

Still vamp drain is a DoT.

That is, at the very least, an incomplete description of the ability. It's sort of like referring to Radiant Destruction, Curse, and Mage's Fury as "DOTs." Technically, all 3 of those abilities do indeed do damage over time (assuming the target's HP drops low enough, in the case of Mage's Fury), but they're certainly not DOTs in the same way that Soul Trap, Cripple, Venemous Claw, etc...are.

Juhasow wrote: »

Pretty strong one also. And You can get 1st 2 ticks of it within 1 ability global cooldown and 1st 2 ticks are doing ~35% more damage then average spammable ability and after that You're free to block cancel it and continue rotation with regular fashion without any time waste.

If Vamp Drain were actually as good as you're trying to make it out to be, we should see it being used by most Magicka builds both before and after the stun portion was gutted. If it's usefulness really lay in the ability to use it as a "super" spammable, moving the stun to the end of the cast wouldn't really make a difference. Instead, the reality is that it was quite seldom used by anyone other than Magicka Warden and Magicka Necromancer before the nerf, and now isn't really used by any decent players at all so far as I've seen.

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

Instant cc without an animation, and when used as a spammable also does 2k+ a sec. No, it was busted and needed a nerf. If anything they need to bring back the shock clench stun.

If the caster has access to a dumb PvE weapon, Shock Clench can do significantly more spammable damage than Vamp Drain, while being AoE, not subject to interrupts, and not requiring the drawbacks of Vampirism.

Rahar

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

Instant cc without an animation, and when used as a spammable also does 2k+ a sec. No, it was busted and needed a nerf. If anything they need to bring back the shock clench stun.

Instant CC was part of the buggy nature of the ability. Hitting light attack does more than 2k/sec. A crappy spammable weaved with light attacks like magnb's swallow soul probably does something way more than that. Are those busted too?

BohnT2

Rahar wrote: »

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

Instant cc without an animation, and when used as a spammable also does 2k+ a sec. No, it was busted and needed a nerf. If anything they need to bring back the shock clench stun.

Instant CC was part of the buggy nature of the ability. Hitting light attack does more than 2k/sec. A crappy spammable weaved with light attacks like magnb's swallow soul probably does something way more than that. Are those busted too?

You're missing some key elements here.
Drain costs 1.7k mag over 3 seconds with every other spammable being more expensive which means over the same 3 seconds you'll have a much higher cost.

Both your light attacks and your other spammable can be dodged and blocked which means less damage unless you face a target dummy.