PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Vampire & Werewolf

Nagastani

Ok so I posted this on here already and will post my thoughts once more, here, for completeness.

I have not had a chance to go hands-on with PTS yet, although I have read over all of the upcoming proposed and decided Vamp changes, as well as numerous posts and forums on the subject. However, I do have some time to briefly share my thoughts with everyone and hope this helps.

For years I have played almost exclusively as a Vamp, resulting in 95% of all my created characters being Vamp. I tried WW once or twice back in the day and it was miserable, was prone to problems, clunky and had numerous other game breaking issues. I believe it took them maybe 3 or 4 years at the most to finally make WW play normally and become a reliable, viable option in PvP ... ... ... ...

Although the Vamp Skill Line has been revised and fixed on occasion, those changes were all for the better and proved themselves reasonable for the most part. So for right now, the Vamp skill line is reliable, it is subtle, it is simple, it is helpful and it has no major flaws or systemic issues whatsoever, not within itself nor it's affect on class or build design. It's like your best friend kinda, simple and kind and does not produce interference with your ambitions and is fit for any role including Tanking.

When I reviewed the Vamp changes I put your current proposed changes against this gold standard. No, it's not all bad. However, if I had to choose between this new vision of Vamp and the old, I would rather keep what I have. Because the cost increase to skills is going to kill all of the synergy between the Vamp skill line and most builds out there right now. They are DEAD. Esp for Stam Vamps. The cost increase is really a build penalty. So in other words, all Vamps, esp Stam Vamps now have to play Tall with large Stam builds. Nevermind Stam Eff builds because that hot mess is convoluted and always has been since they reworked Stam Eff abilities.

What does this really mean? All of my Stamina based Vamp builds will lose a 5pc set in favor of being forced to use another 5pc to handle the increased cost of abilities. Now while this is a work around, this is no longer "play your way". Vamp players are now in the same boat as WW players forced to tailor our builds to the Vamp Power rather than being able to tailor the Vamp Power to our builds. But we get a free fear ability that only NBs should have and some cool special effects.

My proposal is this, implement some of the Vamp changes now, see how it pans out and then move on to Scion Lord or whatever else you want to do. But at bare minimum I do feel the ability cost increase needs to be dropped. I also think you should keep the bats healing ability in one form or another. It works fine the way it is today, even after it was nerfed a year or two ago. Thanks for your time.

Nagastani

Not to mention the fact that Vamp is a staple of the game and is the foundation for thousands of players. So in making these changes you guys are opening a door here. What once worked well for everyone is now a burden shared by a large majority.

Take care.

RaddlemanNumber7

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
I used a template.

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
It's not readily accessible. I did not do that questline on PTS. I would not be able to do it on any of my existing vamp characters on live anyway.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
No, especially not the way that only some NPC's recognise you're stage 4. This simply draws attention to how clunky the game mechanics are. Traders give you a lot of attitude and won't speak to you, but quest-givers standing right next to them do not have their behaviour changed at all. Totally counter intuitive. Totally not immersive.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
I feel it pushes me into a very small niche beyond the pale of civilisation. It feels more like a bloodfiend skill line than a vampire one. How is the inherent evil of this new stage 4 vampire supposed to be reconciled with all the caring good-guy quests in the game, including all the main questlines?

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
If you mean does it feel like a 10mm bolt in a 3/8" socket, then yes. It has no synergies with other skill lines. Playing at Stage 4 to use vampire skills leaves me with one useable skill bar because everything else is too resource hungry. The new "modern" style of toggles are far too high maintenance, and don't work at all well in combination with channelled skills. Playing at any stage other than stage 4 seems far too much of a detriment to be worthwhile.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
It does not fit at all. I currently use only the passives of the vampire skill line, on stealthy characters for the speed in stealth passive, and on magicka DPS characters for the resource regen and damage reduction passives. All are stage 4 because that is maintenance free.

For the magicka dps characters the new vampire skill line is worse than useless. For the stealth characters the cost of being Stage 1 in the new skill line far outweighs the benefit of the speed in stealth passive it gives.

As it stands all my existing vampire characters are going to be getting the cure. The storied RP vampire I have been playing for the last 4 or 5 years is going to get benched until I can think of another characterisation and backstory for a NB.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
No. You just now made up all lore that explains this peculiar form of vampirism.

How does feeding feel overall?
The feeding animations were the only thing I enjoyed.

static_recharge

The increased cost to non vampire abilities is too much, as others have said. I just wanted to weigh in on that. There's already way more pitfalls to being a vampire, we don't need that one.

Anbokr

BohnT2 wrote: »

Every single sentence and statement in this post is wrong, absolutely mind bogglingly wrong.

WW has gained huge amounts of damage this patch along with a completely new way of dealing the damage, WW is far from just spamming light attacks like the last few patches.

You might want to improve on your gameplay if those changes don't affect how you play WW
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JWE5QjCblm8&t=684s

This video is a bit disingenuous because it assumes perfect circumstances with high major berserk uptime. This is not realistic in the vast majority of PvE and PvP scenarios. You will be at full health in rare instances in most kinds of content. It's a cool little addition to howl, but any dummy parse that assumes perfect uptime with this super unreliable mechanic is going to be a bit phony.

drkfrontiers

The vampire changes... oh my... Well done!

I don't plan on any of my characters remaining vampire with this.

The drawbacks to being one outweighs any benefit. The abilities inflict minimal damage which can be outmatched by any number of non-vampire skill rotation with better uptime. So whats the point other than RP? Why would I want to play self-sacrifice every few seconds, compounded by literally no healing - and do this in the face of vet dungeons and trials where staying alive is already a hell of a climb even with a fantastic healer. No group healing - sorry for you. Makes vampire feel like its clinging to trying to stay alive, more than being a undead devourer of the living...

I don't see how this can be beneficial in PvE endgame trials etc or even in PvP.

Any benefits for PvP require you to be in a stage of vampire which neuter your non-vampire skills near to the point of .. dare I say.. oblivion.

This class excels as sucking for sure. Sucks the life out of sustain and god forbid if you are a ranged magk DPS. Points at his broken kite..

Just looking at the questions you asked regarding vampires, its clear to me you really designed this for RP.

Vevvev

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
I feel it pushes me into a very small niche beyond the pale of civilisation. It feels more like a bloodfiend skill line than a vampire one.

Pretty much this in a nutshell. It feels like I'm some ravenous beast out for blood instead of a vampire which is a cut above the rest. Vampires in the The Elder Scrolls universe are Immortal undead capable of intelligent thought and speech, not some hungry and depraved bloodfiend munching on a bloody carcass.

Nagastani

Vevvev wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
I feel it pushes me into a very small niche beyond the pale of civilisation. It feels more like a bloodfiend skill line than a vampire one.

Pretty much this in a nutshell. It feels like I'm some ravenous beast out for blood instead of a vampire which is a cut above the rest. Vampires in the The Elder Scrolls universe are Immortal undead capable of intelligent thought and speech, not some hungry and depraved bloodfiend munching on a bloody carcass.

This. Subtle, silent and classy as hell. Virtually the complete and totally diametric opposite of a WW with each having their own separate domain on the chess board.

Vevvev

Also I did some more testing after my post and for people who deliberately build for vampire they build it to take advantage of Bloody Frenzy, that ability I said is "only useful for 2 kinds of people. People who gank and people who want to die." is broken on ranged builds.

Feast your eyes on a 11k crystal frag proc...

Also Blood Scion is incredibly broken. Only way I'm managing to beat people who use it is to start hiding behind trees, stunning the Scion, and keeping my healing up until it goes away all while keeping myself from getting killed by an ability doing 10k+ damage AFTER resistance calculations. Vampire is over performing in some areas while under-performing in the rest.

Darkness734

Werewolf being a one bar set up is still at a huge disadvantage but the possible damage output is impressive and justified. With that being said I loved the new changes to werewolves and my play style did change into a rotation as opposed to a light attack spam but I feel that their place in group pve hasn't been solidified as of yet.

I believe they should have more group utility on both sides of the morph not just the pack leader. While the pack leader grants damage mitigation, weapon damage, two pets annnd ultimate reduction, I think The savage werewolf should grant at least one minor buff to the group. To keep the intended build / morph diversity effect I think both morphs should splash light attack (at 25%) and heavy attack, especially since the two handed weapon skill line already does this and ww is supposedly an ultimate.

To further the point of group utility hircines fortitude should lay down a ground aoe heal this will promote group utility and tank role which should be possible with the tormentor set (if I'm remembering correctly).

Also as general feedback hircines rage debuff needs be lowered to 10%. As it is now this morph won't be used in pvp at all and ww's are already the main target of everyone who sees one. Mix that with a weakness to poison and you're dead.

Lastly and most importantly the werewolf weakness to poison SHOULD ALWAYS be present regardless of if the ultimate is equipped or activated (this goes for the stamina recovery also). Vampires always have a weakness to fire, so werewolves should always have a weakness to poison. It's fair and it places emphasis on the decision of being a werewolf. There should be drawbacks and that's life, deal with it or get cured.

Edit. Okay the poison damage is overboard but I feel like there needs be a deterant to make being a werewolf seem a little more unique. I shouldn't just be able to open zone chat and ask for a bite.

Qbiken

Lastly and most importantly the werewolf weakness to poison SHOULD ALWAYS be present regardless of if the ultimate is equipped or activated (this goes for the stamina recovery also). Vampires always have a weakness to fire, so werewolves should always have a weakness to poison. It's fair and it places emphasis on the decision of being a werewolf. There should be drawbacks and that's life, deal with it or get cured

Vampire benefits from their passives all the time, hence why they get their drawbacks at all times.

As a werewolf you don't get the pros unless you're transformed and therefore you shouldn't get bonus poison damage in human form. It makes perfect sense to work as it does now wtf?

[Edit to remove bait]

Vevvev

Qbiken wrote: »

Lastly and most importantly the werewolf weakness to poison SHOULD ALWAYS be present regardless of if the ultimate is equipped or activated (this goes for the stamina recovery also). Vampires always have a weakness to fire, so werewolves should always have a weakness to poison. It's fair and it places emphasis on the decision of being a werewolf. There should be drawbacks and that's life, deal with it or get cured

Vampire benefits from their passives all the time, hence why they get their drawbacks at all times.

As a werewolf you don't get the pros unless you're transformed and therefore you shouldn't get bonus poison damage in human form. It makes perfect sense to work as it does now wtf?

Yeah his idea is a bit too harsh. I can understand that poison damage being there if you have the ultimate slotted but at like... 5% to counter the 15% stamina regen, but having the full 25% poison damage would be ridiculous and ruin any possibility of anyone ever picking it.

Chrlynsch

Vevvev wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Lastly and most importantly the werewolf weakness to poison SHOULD ALWAYS be present regardless of if the ultimate is equipped or activated (this goes for the stamina recovery also). Vampires always have a weakness to fire, so werewolves should always have a weakness to poison. It's fair and it places emphasis on the decision of being a werewolf. There should be drawbacks and that's life, deal with it or get cured

Vampire benefits from their passives all the time, hence why they get their drawbacks at all times.

As a werewolf you don't get the pros unless you're transformed and therefore you shouldn't get bonus poison damage in human form. It makes perfect sense to work as it does now wtf?

Yeah his idea is a bit too harsh. I can understand that poison damage being there if you have the ultimate slotted but at like... 5% to counter the 15% stamina regen, but having the full 25% poison damage would be ridiculous and ruin any possibility of anyone ever picking it.

Does having mages guild skills cause you to take 5% increased Physical damage, or how about 5% cold damage if you are a dk?

You get 15% stamina recovery because you sacrifice an ultimate slot in order to be able to transform into the werewolf subclass.

The poison damage is there for balance against the fully transformed werewolf that has all of its passives.

Vevvev

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Does having mages guild skills cause you to take 5% increased Physical damage, or how about 5% cold damage if you are a dk?

You get 15% stamina recovery because you sacrifice an ultimate slot in order to be able to transform into the werewolf subclass.

The poison damage is there for balance against the fully transformed werewolf that has all of its passives.

I said I'd understand if such a change was made, not that I'd want such a change to be made.... Sorry.

XomRhoK

Vevvev wrote: »

Also I did some more testing after my post and for people who deliberately build for vampire they build it to take advantage of Bloody Frenzy, that ability I said is "only useful for 2 kinds of people. People who gank and people who want to die." is broken on ranged builds.

Feast your eyes on a 11k crystal frag proc...

Also Blood Scion is incredibly broken. Only way I'm managing to beat people who use it is to start hiding behind trees, stunning the Scion, and keeping my healing up until it goes away all while keeping myself from getting killed by an ability doing 10k+ damage AFTER resistance calculations. Vampire is over performing in some areas while under-performing in the rest.

I wrote about this a week ago, and i don't even play much PvP or high end PvE, it was clear from by reading the description and fast run through main quest. Even if Blood Frenzy will played as conceived, it will be more tedious than fun, you will need to watch more at your HP bar not on battle field, and constantly turn it on and off, i tried it while i did main quest, don't found nothing fun. But almost no one will use it as intended. New and casual players will find it to tendios and dangeroues to bother and will don't use it. Gankers will just abuse it to one shot players. More expirienced players will just do simple math and will find the way to overcome HP loss and will leave Blood Frezny toggled on whole fight, one of Blood Frenzy's morphs give 1200 wp/sp damage, equal to three 5 pc set bonuses, and players will easily change one of thier sets to some healing set to overcome HP loss and get "free" 800 wp/sp damage. On top of that, in this game, when you give to player wp/sp damage you not only increase his damage, but also increase his healing capabilities, and more on top of that, all that benefits from critical damage. So part of HP loss will just simply overhealed by increased in power heals. It will make overland content even more easy, instead of give as Veteran mode for overland, they increase power creep.
Same story with Strike From The Shadows passive, in current form it will benefit gankers and Mist Form weaving, doubtfully fun gameplay.
Same story with Thrassian Stranglers mythic item, 40% more damage taken partly overcomed by 3000 wp/sp damage increased healing power, and for additional 3000 wp/sp damage player will easily give other damaging sets and change them to survivability ones.
The only interesting thing in all this new power buffs is a theory crafting of new build, after that it's just increased raw power, without any new interesting gameplay and interactions.

It's so obvious for me that i don't understand how it get to PTS at all, it should have been changed after some thought process iterations. Unless it's their plan, and they pleased by it.

Darkness734

Maybe I did go overboard with the poison weakness being there all the time but the other points are valid

Wuuffyy

BohnT2 wrote: »

AmericanSpy wrote: »

Is your play pattern as a werewolf different with these changes?

No. As many have commented before, most of the skill changes made ultimately result in DPS drops. What this correlates to is the previous DPS meta remaining unaffected. LA macro using Bloodmoon, Relequen, and a Stam monster helmet remain the most effective form of WW DPS (for PVE consideration). WW DPS continues to come from set passives rather than a play patten. While new sets have been introduced and all possible combinations are far from being tested, it is unlikely that the current meta will change based off of the changes.

Do you find playing a werewolf as enjoyable as what’s currently live?

TBH, I don't find the live version of werewolf "enjoyable." I main 2 characters (1 PVE, 1 PVP) that are based solely around werewolf, this is because I enjoy a challenge and the lore of the characters. However, playing a werewolf is hardly enjoyable. I set up a macro for my left mouse click and enter combat using minimal rotations. By attempting to add in addtional rotations based on the skill changes on PTS, I find I enjoy the play style even less. The pounce/carnage combo does not have a good animation. It feels like playing with sever input lag more than anything else. The "Heal while at 100%" will not realistically impact the abilities use as in most combat situations players are most commonly in the 70-99% health range. This means you will rarely proc the stam or berserk portions of the skill. Missing even 1 HP means that you just spent way to much magicka for nothing. As mentioned previously, this skill, if kept, should be equated to an "over heal" scenario as it will be more consistently proc'd.

Ultimately, I do not believe the changes made equate to an in your face, risk vs. reward, fast paced play style the developers have promised. High tier players will not likely adjust builds to incorporate these changes or alter their play styles.

Things that need to change for the updates to have the desired impact:

Skill animations: Heavy attack and the carnage animations particularly are, well, extremely terrible. The HA animation has probably been the worst animation in ESO. Carnage while new, is making a case for taking the crown. While the "combo" is a great addition to the WW's skill set (and should be incorporated on all of the skills) the poor animations, clunky use, and the lack luster "execute" all make it so this change falls flat on its face. Seriously, this is why people LA spam, everything else feels terrible.

Balanced cost on heal: It has been tested over and over, Hircine's Rage is TO COSTLY. EVEN with the additions made. Were talking a 500 magicka change here people. That's all it needs.

TLDR; The changes made will NOT improve/impact current WW play style.

Every single sentence and statement in this post is wrong, absolutely mind bogglingly wrong.

WW has gained huge amounts of damage this patch along with a completely new way of dealing the damage, WW is far from just spamming light attacks like the last few patches.

You might want to improve on your gameplay if those changes don't affect how you play WW
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JWE5QjCblm8&t=684s

Everything you said is wrong sir. This video, as previously mentioned, shows a 100% uptime major berserk, which will NEVER happen, ever.

MopeyHat

Now that I've gone and tested werewolf...

DPS:
Love the new additions with major berserk, savagery and brutality. Werewolf DPS is really back in the game and I was easily able to get back to 60k+ on the Iron Atronach with some stuff I threw together on a template and even light attack builds.

Wolf_Watching wrote: »

Everything you said is wrong sir. This video, as previously mentioned, shows a 100% uptime major berserk, which will NEVER happen, ever.

No, 100% will likely never happen...that's a bit of a given on an Iron Atro parse. One piece you might be missing is that werewolves can now run health/mag/stam tri-pots, giving them even better healing and magicka recovery. Even in tough situations I'm sure it's quite possible to have 50%+ uptime, which imo is more than enough to do well even in veteran trials.

The other side of this coin, however, is that these buffs are also pretty potent tools in PvP. In some situations werewolf could definitely be getting in the overpowered range.

Tank:
I tried out Tormentor and was very pleased to see it work consistently with Pounce. It was a little weird to get used to the different bar setup, of course, but at the very least had no big issues surviving with my guild for our little fun normal run of the new trial. My only big issue is that I had to double cast Pounce to taunt another target. I wish the non-execute morph either did not have the additional proc, or when targeting another mob, would cast Pounce again instead of the proc.

Otherwise very pleased to at least have a form of werewolf tanking that works for a lot of content and really love the group buffs.

IsmeldaHuine

My opinion on the Ultimate is that it we should be able to extend its duration by consuming ultimate points we generate (a bit like the ww form can extend it's duration with feeding) so that when we stay in fight and generate ultimate we keep the form, otherwise the 20s are too short to make use of the see through walls which become just a gimmick.

So it should be a base cost of 300 ultimate and each 10 ultimate points after that extending the duration by 1s (so 20s at 500 ultimate to start) and when we fight and generate ultimate we get more time. Nothing overpowered imho.

Hellmasker

My two cents on Vampire:

The cost increase should be gone, at the very least on stage 1... either that, or add an actual stage 0 - no passives, no drawbacks. And if you would use a vamp skill on stage 0, you could advance it to 1. Since the skills itself offer next to nothing for a stam based character, that would atleast spare me the cure xD

I grew attached to the visuals of vampirism, looked fairly alright on my stamblade Khajiit.

Also, for stage 4 - I think 75% health recovery reduction would be more than enough... if you really are hellbent on making it 100%, then for the love of god - make it in-combat only. I would really hate it to fall down a random pit and have to heal myself...

Aelorin

Vampire
- If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
Could not test, no character transfer so far.

- Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
I just bought the skill line from the shop.

- Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
I am ok with it. The fact that NPC's will not talk to you in stage 4 is a nice RP immersion, and not too much of a hassle to get around.

- Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?

No, I will have less vampires then now on live.

- Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?

Yes and no. I love the fact that the skill line has been updated, with more spells to use. However, there are so many drawbacks on vampirism, that you will really need to build around it too succeed. Increased cost for base skills, no health recovery, higher fire damage, need to be in melee for damage, There does not seem to be enough DPS skills (actually, only one real DPS skill, and even that comes with a severe drawback of being in melee range to use for magicka characters). For PvE I think it will best fit in a RP, or overland build. Will not be used in higher vet content.

-Some skills seem to be lacking in a cool animation (the melee skill).

- Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
I have different characters for all different roles. As it stands now:
- Will remove vampirism from healer, too many drawbacks
- Will remove vampirism from tank, too many drawbacks
- Will remove vampirism from main trail DPS, too many drawbacks
- Will keep vampirism on PvP character to see how it will work on live
- Will activate vampirism on magblade character, because skills seem to blend in best with this class.

- Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
I love the idea of being a powerfull vampire. However, the skin color does not make sense anymore! Why would I become a really pale and weak looking creature, when I am most powerfull?

Suggestion: Increasing your vampire skill line to level 10, unlocks the different looks, one can take any of those looks when being a vampire as one chooses; For me a powerfull vampire would look like stage two: with red glowing eyes.

-How does feeding feel overall?
I love the new feeding. Although it was a bit searching at the beginning, because you have to be a bit further away now.

Spectral_Force

Vampire
If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?

Yes, as intended. Though it's quite puzzling why the XP from Drain Essence was moved to Eviscerate rather than Vampiric Drain.

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?

It... does its job. As many have already pointed out, the insta-killing abilities feel a bit strange. It's not a faithful representation of what the abilities actually do (which is sort of the point of a tutorial in the first place) - the stun doesn't kill mobs, and vamp drain doesn't do nearly enough damage to kill something in one cast. First-time players can be a little confused as to why monsters don't just drop dead on first cast of Hypnosis. Fringe case, but integral to the new player experience. Also, I'm puzzled why the tutorial section doesn't have you feed on anyone. You seem to have gotten it backwards - the active abilities don't require much of an explanation as the tooltips tell you everything you need to know; on the other hand, feeding as a mechanic is not explained anywhere in the game, so a new player won't know to sneak behind a trash mob and press X unless they 1) ask about it in chat, 2) look it up online, or 3) happen to do it on accident and see the tooltip pop up. Again, fringe case, but I feel that it has to be ironed out. Extra ulti regen in the blood scion section is nice for getting the tutorial over with, but again, it's not a realistic representation of how long it will normally take you to build the ulti under regular circumstances.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

Is it intuitive? Yes, for the most part (I'll talk about Blood Frenzy later): use vampire abilities in public - that's a paddlin'. Fun? Well, duelling in towns becomes difficult (though that's something Necromancers have to deal with as well), and sometimes you can get in trouble in battles where there's other NPCs nearby. I also found that the NPCs that can act as witnesses are quite inconsistent - for example, "soldier"-type NPCs (Pact troops, in my case) are generally cool with you casting vampire abilities, while the named NPCs who are mixed in with the rabble will sometimes bust you. In my case, I believe Scout Mamyne down at Obsidian Gorge was not impressed to see me turn into a fine red mist. Situations like these are what I'd define as not fun.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?

Yes and no - there are a few half-measures that go both ways. People refusing to have anything to do with you at Stage 4 is a nice touch, but these same people won't call the guards on you when they see you (even if they actually call for guards in their voice line); though actually getting a bounty for attemting to simply interact with someone would probably make the experience incredibly frustrating. At the same time, attemting to talk to "generic" NPCs that have no quests or dialogue will have them call out a generic "Huh?" or "Greetings" line with the pop-up still saying that "This NPC refuses to interact with monstrous vampires". At the end of the day, it's probably about as "reinforced" in the game world as the game would allow without getting too inconvenient or frustrating.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?

Yes, it's quite reasonable, though I take issue with some of the visuals for the abilities. The animation for Eviscerate, as has been pointed out by many before me, is utterly disappointing. As someone has put it, it looks and sounds like you're slapping things with a wet noodle. It's supposed to be a feral and visceral slash, not a lazy slap. Given that it's a spammable, you will see (and hear) it go off very often, so you want it to feel impactful. Both morphs of Vampiric Drain are also a bit too colourful and "acidic" - you're draining your enemies' blood, not jarate. It's also disappointing to see the Scion form not account for beast races, given that Bone Goliath does. Everything else I find is serviceable.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?

I primarily play Healer, and no, it doesn't fit - I had to respec the character into its own vampire-centric build. The stun could be useful as a class-independent CC, and Mist would probably still be useful as it has been before. Now, however, the game really wants you to be a sort of "active" vamp DPS build with some self-heal sprinkled in. Of course, the increase to non-Vampire abilities is really quite harsh, given that the Vampire skill line lacks abilities that heal others, taunts, gap closers, DOTs and AoEs (Blood Mist does very little damage and locks you out of doing anything else, so it barely qualifies), as well as buffs (other than Major Expedition). As such, you will inevitably need to slot other abilities to fill those roles. However, I believe that increased costs is a rather neat idea on paper (if somewhat overdone), and encourages a more "active" approach to being a vampire. I for one am looking forward to mass curing of toons - 75% of faces I see are either white or covered up with a skin. While the current numbers are too high, +4%/+6%/+8%/+10% to normal abilities sounds more reasonable. And yes, I feel that Stage 1 should still get a penalty to discourage those passive Stage Oners, as -10% health recovery and +5% flame damage probably won't be enough of a deterrent by themselves.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

It's passable. Vampires don't take sun damage, though it's probably been done for the sake of convenience. People don't like you openly being a vampire, and want nothing to do with Stage 4 vamps, which is neat. Vampire Lord sorry, Blood Scion form is blatant fan service, though you managed to weasel out of the lore implications for that. The extra non-vampire ability costs aren't exactly lore-friendly since Vampires never had that penalty in any (main) ES games (haven't played the spin-offs), but it's a "gamey" balancing tool I can live with. The increased number of vampire spells is a neat touch and differentiates vampires more from the mortals compared to other games in the ES series where you mostly just get the Drain/Absorb Health spell and some attribute increases. Overall, I wouldn't say the lore is lacking, though you've got the same excuse Bethesda has been falling back on for years, that being a different strain of vampire to every other game in the franchise.

How does feeding feel overall?

Probably one of the highlights of the overhaul. First up, it's about time feeding was fatal. The new feeding animations are juicy, though I'm not sure why the blood decal on player armor is missing - I hope it's just temporary. I also can't help but feel that feeding should give some health back - perhaps somewhere in the vicinity of 20% of max health? Especially since you no longer regen health at Stage 4. The stages I find can also be quite inconvenient at times. Since most merchants won't talk to you at Stage 4, you'll either have to keep Mesmerize on one of your bars or slot it temporarily every time you need to trade, the former having an impact on your build and the latter being just a pain in general. Waiting for Stage 4 to wear off is excruciating and is off the table - four hours is simply way too long. You last option is to chug a Mara, but those sometimes aren't on hand. As such, I've been thinking about stages taking less time to wear off the higher you go - keep four hours to go from Stage 2 to Stage 1, two hours for Stage 3 to 2, and one hour to go to Stage 3 from Stage 4. This will further incentivise feeding if you want to stay at Stage 4 while also making it possible to "wait it out" so you can interact with merchants again.

Do you have any other general feedback?
Hoo boy, here we go.
Part 1.

Most of these notes are meant to be quick and easy fixes since they don't involve any major changes or introduction of new abilities/animations/mechanics, but are either shuffling some of the effects around or changing the values, which can't be a very difficult thing to implement.
First up, -100% health regen at Stage 4 is incredibly annoying, especially since the skill line comes with no out-of-combat heals (every healing skill needs you to be doing damage to an enemy), feeding doesn't restore health (see above), and your other healing abilities are heavily penalised at this stage, so you're unlikely to have them slotted. Dropping it to -90% or even -95% will still make health recovery effectively non-existent in combat while allowing players to sit around and wait for their health to come back, even if it's at a snail's pace. Would also keep my OCD in check since I can't stand being at 97% health.
Blood Frenzy is a strange ability, visually - the effect is barely noticeable in combat. I'm not asking for it to be turned into fireworks, but it needs to be more noticeable - perhaps make it a brighter shade of red and give it some glow? Alternatively, make it legal to use in front of guards if it's so subtle. I also had an idea to move the non-vampire skill penalty (either partially or fully) to the Blood Frenzy effect so you only get that penalty while Frenzy is active. The same could be done with cost decreases for vamp abilities as well. This would solve the problem of penalising players for taking (quite necessary) non-vamp skills to fulfill their roles while also making it a more thematic ability - entering a feral vampiric frenzy would incentivise you to use your vampire abilities for the duration.
Vampire Drain feels really quite weak compared to Live. I understand that its focus shifted to being a more self-heal-oriented ability, but it could probably use a damage buff. In fact, I wouldn't mind losing 3% heal per tick for a 10-15% increase in damage done. Haven't done any crunch on this, just stating my feelings after using Drain for a bit.
It would be nice if Dark Stalker or Unnatural Movement reduced your fall damage taken. Oblivion and Morrowind both did that thorugh a boost to your Acrobatics, and Daggerfall could've done something similar as well (though my vampire experience in Daggerfall was fleeting and was a long time ago so I could be wrong). I don't know if it's even something that's possible, but I figured it would be a nifty passive to have for general travel and questing without really breaking anything in combat. This is more of a wishlist item though.

Part 2.

Blood Scion. Oh Blood Scion. The concept is quite great (even if it is a reskin of Bone Goliath), but it feels very clunky. While in this form you move very slowly, or at least, you look like you move very slowly. I've tried throwing Major Expedition on while it was active and movement felt much better - perhaps adding a Major (or even Minor) Expedition to the Scion form is something to consider, especially given that Vampire skill line doesn't have any gap closers and you're penalised for using non-vamp abilities. The transformation to and from Scion form takes too long - 2 seconds to and 1 second from, in my estimation. That breaks the flow of combat in a very noticeable way, and I'd love to see those animations sped up to something more manageable - perhaps 1s and 0.5s, respectively? Would need more testing, however.
The Scion form also feels like it should last longer (especially given that for the first two seconds you're locked out of doing anything due to the transformation animation), and there are several ways to go about doing it:
1) Give the ability a flat increase in duration, perhaps to 24-28 seconds? However, this is just a straight buff to the ability and I'm not sure if that's called for. It is the quickest way to address this though.
2) Allow Ultimate gain in Scion form. This should increase the effective Scion uptime while keeping the timers the same. In fact, you could probably afford to reduce the duration of the ability in that case.
3) Make Scion a toggleable ability - 15 Ultimate per second, affected by the cost reduction passive. This would preserve the overall effective cost of the ability (300 Ultimate for 20 seconds) while affording you more flexibility in how you use it - you can toggle it for only a few seconds, or keep it going for all 500 Ultimate. Not sure how feasible this is in the current system (given abilities and sets that trigger on Ulti cast) and you would need to rebalance the heal to full health on toggle, but hey, I'm just brainstorming here.
4) Offshoot of 3). Make Scion form scale in duration based on total Ultimate consumed at the same rate - 20 seconds + ((Consumed Ultimate - Ultimate Cost) / 15)seconds (The rate - 15 ultimate per second - could also scale with vampire stage). So at Stage 1, activating Scion at 500 Ultimate would yield 33 seconds of Scion form. At Stage 4, this would yield 41 seconds. Stage 4 with ulti per second rate scaling with vampire stage (would be 9/s), this would give 55 whole seconds of Scion form. This is a more balanced approach than 1) (though the numbers might need to be experimented with), but it's more complex and I'm not sure how feasible this would be to implement (though since Balorgh can already track the amount of Ultimate consumed, this shouldn't be impossible).
5) Perhaps the most interesting approach. If the cost penalty for being a vampire is reduced, Perfect Scion will become a much less desireable morph. This can be used to our advantage by diversifying the morphs. Bat Scion can have its duration be reduced to ~12-15 seconds and get a buff to bat damage (to preserve - or even increase - the current PTS damage over time for this morph); conversely, Perfect Scion can have its duration be increased to 24-28 seconds. This will make the Bat Scion more similar to Devouring Swarm, making it a more bursty AoE ability which can be used more often, thus giving you more frequent full heals (lower Scion uptime means you can start building ulti quicker, hence less time between ulti casts), while Perfect Scion will become a more sustainable form that buffs your damage by increasing max resource pools.

I think that's all my notes. Most of these are spontaneous "showerthoughts" I got while testing, so they might not be as developed (or balanced) as they could've been, but they're intended to be stepping stones for brainstorming.

Hope this was useful.

Cameron991

I’m very thankful you guys updated vampire, but I think it needs more added to its tool kit. I was looking forward to making a full vampire only build, but the new abilities we got just don’t allow that and then on top of that we got 20% extra cost on non vamp abilities how are we supposed to build a vampire class if we only have one dps ability and the rest of the non vamp abilities are way too expensive. So I would definitely suggest adding more to our vampire kit by adding those npc abilities that are already so much cooler then the ones we got. I think all of the vampires want the same abilities you have the NPCs. So I think you should implement those abilities in however you can whether it be replacing some of the new abilities or by adding it into the scion form(this would be awesome) or maybe add the abilities in the ones you already have, for example like how merciless resolve is we can have like the drain ability have access to a bat swarm gap closer after if drains an enemy just as the bow you get after 5 light attack with merciless resolve. That would be able to keep some abilities while also bringing in the npc vampire abilities everyone wants. Either way I think the npc vampire abilities should be implemented into our kit to make us feel more like a vampire then what we have in this pts. Please listen to your vampire community zos this is what we want. Great job on Greymoor and all the content you brought in, it all looks beautiful I would just say this vampire change is the only thing Me and many others would like to see changed
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_LeamonTuttle @ZOS_RichLambert

This is the video I am talking about, it was talked about previously in this thread and many others

XomRhoK

Hi, devs from ZOS, i waited something related to vampires for 3.5 years, any set, skin, skill and at last we will have Chapter about vampires and revamp of vampire skills. At first i were very excited, i hoped for motivation to feed, bite animation for feeding, new interesting, thematic vampire skills. I got motivation to feed and bite animation, but after i saw the direction you have chosen for skills and their visuals i don't wait this skills anymore, all that bothers me now is that you not ruined vampire skills which i use now, on Live servers. And it seems you will ruin all three of them for me..
I don't really care about exact numbers of the skills, i care for visuals, interesting mechanics, interactions and feeling of satisfaction of using skill. All i ask is, please, keep at least one morph in each skill that close by mechanics and visuals to current vampire skills on Live servers.
1) Bat Swarm ultimate.
I will not use current version of Blood Scion ult no matter how ovrpowered it will be, because it looks completely out of place for me, huge Xivkyn, not vampire at all. So, please, move bat swarm visuals to another regular vampire skill. Bat Swarm is so vampiric in visuals, feeling and so satisfying, don't tie it with Blood Scion, because not all vampire players want to use transformation skill for role play reasons, and not all who don't mind transformation will use this interpretation of Blood Scion. Bat swarm visuals can be given to Blood Mist(Swarming Mist) or to some gap closer or dash.
2) Blood Mist.
Firstly, you decreased damage of Blood Mist compared to Baleful Mist by 50%, it were weak AoE already, but i used it in overland content when fought with several monsters and it were very good to trigger some proc sets, because it attacked each 0.5 second on several targets. Now damage is non existent even for overland and it attack each 1 sec, and became worse at triggering procs. Please, increase damage and lower heal, maybe even lower mitigation to exchange for damage.
Secondly, about visuals. Why you made this big red circle under mist? Wanted to make visuals more readable in combat?
But those for whom it really matters anyway turn on color cues in menu, and those who prefer more smooth visuals can't just turn off your new animation of the skill. Please, change visuals to something smoother and more similar to Baleful Mist on Live servers. I am not the artist, colors could be a little brighter but here the direction i am talking about:

3) Vampiric Drain.
Again, you decreased damage by 50% and increased healing which often was already redundant. I used Invigorating Drain for damage too, it gave good vampiric feeling, that you draw life from enemies. Now it became pure resource recovery skill. Please, return back damage to skill, and reduce healing.
Visuals lose all vampiric feel, colors not fit, beam glows, player glows, enemy glows, sometimes i feel more like Ghostbuster than vampire. Again, seems you wanted make skill more visible in combat, but experienced players can see beam to their target without highlight and casual players often bother more about satisfaction from visuals, not about readability in combat. If you really want to highlight target of the skill make it option in menu, don't tie it to the visuals of the skill, because those who don't like it can't turn it off. Current version of Invigorating Drain looks and sounds like blood flow, please, keep this feeling, if you want to make it more visible just make wider current visuals of the skill. And if you want to highlight what resource this skill recover, highlight it by small colored details, not by recoloring entire visuals of skill:


Hope something will be done, or, because of my visual preferences and way of usage of the current skills, i will be left without any vampire skills to use, after 3.5 years of waiting...

laufey

Vampire
Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

I like the idea in general, and I actually kind of enjoy having to mesmerize people. But there's a few things I don't like about how it's implemented - that the base skill of mesmerize doesn't seem to work, that you can't use it on ALL NPCs (including certain merchants, like Innkeepers - but also the random people in the streets), and I'm personally not a fan of the fact random NPCs can pick my vampire out in a crowd while she's wearing both a skin and a full-face helmet. How on earth do these people even know she's a vampire, let alone at stage 4? They have no idea what she even looks like!

Right now it feels a little half-baked, and I really think the system would benefit from some kind of 'disguise' option. Both for immersion purposes, and because I expect a lot of people are going to find it very, very annoying.

I'm fine with the active and obviously vampiric skills being illegal, but why is frenzy included in this? By itself, it's basically just a person getting real mad.

Do you have any other general feedback?

I fully agree with other posters here that the cost increase to non-vampire skills needs to be re-evaluated. Currently it feels very restrictive in terms of playstyle, and stage 1 might as well not even exist. I'd also prefer there was still some health recovery at stage 4 (be it the 75% reduction of live, or 80%, or 90% - just some % of recovery), because I don't enjoy having to pop dragonblood every time I trip on a rock. No recovery at all makes traversing the map unnecessarily aggravating, especially in places with lots of verticality where you tend to slide down a lot of things.

lucoiso

**Vampire's Mist Form Skill**

How the npcs can identify me while mist form is active? Im just a little red cloud flying in tamriel, the bounty when they see me in most form is strange xD

My idea: make mist form a criminal act, but only when the npcs see u activating or desactivating this skill!

And ... Reduces 12% of the visibility raid for humanoid npcs, because if im a little mist, how they can see me so easily?


And a problem (i think): when i use mist form while im sneaking, the "sneak" continues active with that eye simbol in the screen. It is normal? XD

Elusiin

Vampiric Drain is a weak point in the vampire skill line for PvP players; however, if the ability were made to be a toggle like mend wounds, this could be mediated. Light attacks could regenerate some health and stamina/ultimate, while heavy attacks were the same channel as the ability is now. This would be viable in PvP, fix vampire sustain problems, and it would retain the abilities functionality for tanks in PvE.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/524652/make-vampiric-drain-an-offensive-version-of-mend-wounds#latest

lucoiso

Cameron991 wrote: »

I’m very thankful you guys updated vampire, but I think it needs more added to its tool kit. I was looking forward to making a full vampire only build, but the new abilities we got just don’t allow that and then on top of that we got 20% extra cost on non vamp abilities how are we supposed to build a vampire class if we only have one dps ability and the rest of the non vamp abilities are way too expensive. So I would definitely suggest adding more to our vampire kit by adding those npc abilities that are already so much cooler then the ones we got. I think all of the vampires want the same abilities you have the NPCs. So I think you should implement those abilities in however you can whether it be replacing some of the new abilities or by adding it into the scion form(this would be awesome) or maybe add the abilities in the ones you already have, for example like how merciless resolve is we can have like the drain ability have access to a bat swarm gap closer after if drains an enemy just as the bow you get after 5 light attack with merciless resolve. That would be able to keep some abilities while also bringing in the npc vampire abilities everyone wants. Either way I think the npc vampire abilities should be implemented into our kit to make us feel more like a vampire then what we have in this pts. Please listen to your vampire community zos this is what we want. Great job on Greymoor and all the content you brought in, it all looks beautiful I would just say this vampire change is the only thing Me and many others would like to see changed
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_LeamonTuttle @ZOS_RichLambert

This is the video I am talking about, it was talked about previously in this thread and many others

Totally agreed with you and omg, NPC's skills looks so more cool than our vampire's skill line. I'm sad now

Nagastani

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
- Used a Template and did not notice any issues with my existing characters.

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
- N/A I rarely do quests or tutorials anymore

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
- Not really. I appreciate ESO having a justice system however when you guys have time, might want to consider modernizing it and making it more intuitive. ie... ppl going to jail, Oblivion style justice system etc. Players could even serve as prison guards or help other players escape. It just seems weird being attacked and possible killed over 50 gold.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
- Actually, I do and yet, this is a slippery slope. I like how many of the abilities work just be careful you guys don't get addicted to the same tricks. Fear is a NB ability. FG Skill Line should not have it, Templars don't deserve it. Only NBs, Necros and maybe Vamps should have access to use things like Fear. Templars and DKs ... all of these are noble classes and should never have access to something like Fear... unless they are Vamps. That I might accept. But I think it's over the top having Fear roped in with FG abilities. You really want to develop class, race identity by keeping them all from using the exact same thing. You know, it's like a Vigilant of Stendar from Skyrim fighting Vamps with Vamp tactics... it is not logical.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
- Well here's the thing. Two of the best Vamp abilities are Heal Bats and Supernatural Recovery, both appear to be missing from the skill line. Heal Bats is awesome and has been a good Ultimate, even after it was revised and nerfed. I really do not care for the Scion Ultimate, I feel it's over the top and kind of WWish. Vampires don't morph into monsters. More on this later. But I def miss Heal Bats and I think not having Supernatural Recovery hurts build diversity and makes the Vampire skill line less desirable. Also, there's the cost increase which is noticeably problematic. The thing is, people are going to try and counter build to defeat the cost increase while others will build to get around it. My concern though, is builds will focus on defeating the cost increase instead of building to create a unique character. I mean just think about it, what healer is going to want a 20% increase to the skills? lol Any DPS would like to add 20% cost increase into your rotation? Now apply that to Trials and PvP also. I can see this causing alot of problems.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
- Absolutely. As someone who has played a NB for years, there are some things in here we have wanted for a long time. Now, this does not address the fundamental issues some of us have expressed concerning NB gameplay. But still. While testing I kept getting the feeling that maybe some of those skills belonged under NB Class anyways. So we'll take it. The skill line itself does meet my seal of approval. Just the skill line now, I'm not saying that there aren't some problems. Cost increase is a problem. Missing Heal Bats and Supernatural Recovery. However, whoever designed this is moving in the right direction. But nothing worth doing is easy.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
- Honestly yes and no. Maybe. The skills are perfect for Vampires, so Yes. However, Vampires in Tamriel lore are quiet and very subtle, though there are different kinds with different powers. Some have clans and others are loners. So I can't just say 'No' it doesn't fit, because it surely could fit in somewhere. It's just I would think a NB would be using some of these skills at any rate, however a Vamp is in the same neighborhood so it makes sense they use them also and I'm glad to see them added. Getting back to Vampirism vs WW, personally I believe the Underworld Movie Series portrays these two creatures best. Vamps are more subtle, more human like and WWs are people that can morph into ferocious monsters. The Scion Lord Ult feels more like I'm a WW than a Vampire. I know using the Ult is optional but I never cared for how Skyrim portrayed this in Vampires. Just one more thing I didn't like about Skyrim but I digress.

How does feeding feel overall?
- Overall, there is some good work here and it's obvious someone over there gets it, I approve of this direction. However, please be advised the Increase to Skill Costs is noticeably bad and there are players out there who will skip Vamp entirely because of this. So right now, Vamp is a pillar in the game for everyone who does not like WW. The skill cost increase will change Vamp into something most players might be interested in at first and then will abandon as soon as they realize their resources are toxic. Builds will be produced to try and counter the problem but that's just it... we build to produce a unique character to address a challenge in the game, we don't build to fix the character itself. That is wasteful. Anyways, I do still miss Heal Bats and Supernatural Recovery as well, although I like how Undeath starts working immediately. But I think the Vamp skill line still needs alot of work and once you guys get to a place where the bugs are worked out, think about getting rid of the Skill Cost Increase and maybe adding some of the Traditional Vamp gameplay back in, that we have been using for years.

Noxavian

XomRhoK wrote: »

Hi, devs from ZOS, i waited something related to vampires for 3.5 years, any set, skin, skill and at last we will have Chapter about vampires and revamp of vampire skills. At first i were very excited, i hoped for motivation to feed, bite animation for feeding, new interesting, thematic vampire skills. I got motivation to feed and bite animation, but after i saw the direction you have chosen for skills and their visuals i don't wait this skills anymore, all that bothers me now is that you not ruined vampire skills which i use now, on Live servers. And it seems you will ruin all three of them for me..
I don't really care about exact numbers of the skills, i care for visuals, interesting mechanics, interactions and feeling of satisfaction of using skill. All i ask is, please, keep at least one morph in each skill that close by mechanics and visuals to current vampire skills on Live servers.
1) Bat Swarm ultimate.
I will not use current version of Blood Scion ult no matter how ovrpowered it will be, because it looks completely out of place for me, huge Xivkyn, not vampire at all. So, please, move bat swarm visuals to another regular vampire skill. Bat Swarm is so vampiric in visuals, feeling and so satisfying, don't tie it with Blood Scion, because not all vampire players want to use transformation skill for role play reasons, and not all who don't mind transformation will use this interpretation of Blood Scion. Bat swarm visuals can be given to Blood Mist(Swarming Mist) or to some gap closer or dash.
2) Blood Mist.
Firstly, you decreased damage of Blood Mist compared to Baleful Mist by 50%, it were weak AoE already, but i used it in overland content when fought with several monsters and it were very good to trigger some proc sets, because it attacked each 0.5 second on several targets. Now damage is non existent even for overland and it attack each 1 sec, and became worse at triggering procs. Please, increase damage and lower heal, maybe even lower mitigation to exchange for damage.
Secondly, about visuals. Why you made this big red circle under mist? Wanted to make visuals more readable in combat?
But those for whom it really matters anyway turn on color cues in menu, and those who prefer more smooth visuals can't just turn off your new animation of the skill. Please, change visuals to something smoother and more similar to Baleful Mist on Live servers. I am not the artist, colors could be a little brighter but here the direction i am talking about:

3) Vampiric Drain.
Again, you decreased damage by 50% and increased healing which often was already redundant. I used Invigorating Drain for damage too, it gave good vampiric feeling, that you draw life from enemies. Now it became pure resource recovery skill. Please, return back damage to skill, and reduce healing.
Visuals lose all vampiric feel, colors not fit, beam glows, player glows, enemy glows, sometimes i feel more like Ghostbuster than vampire. Again, seems you wanted make skill more visible in combat, but experienced players can see beam to their target without highlight and casual players often bother more about satisfaction from visuals, not about readability in combat. If you really want to highlight target of the skill make it option in menu, don't tie it to the visuals of the skill, because those who don't like it can't turn it off. Current version of Invigorating Drain looks and sounds like blood flow, please, keep this feeling, if you want to make it more visible just make wider current visuals of the skill. And if you want to highlight what resource this skill recover, highlight it by small colored details, not by recoloring entire visuals of skill:


Hope something will be done, or, because of my visual preferences and way of usage of the current skills, i will be left without any vampire skills to use, after 3.5 years of waiting...

Love the idea for Swarming Mist! This is what we want!