PTS Update 26 - Feedback Thread for Vampire & Werewolf

ScardyFox · April 2020

Chrlynsch wrote: »

TheBinarySurfer wrote: »

There's something else in my comment above I forgot to say; WW is in no-mans land still, even with these changes from a PvP perspective. You aren't enough of a threat to people and you can't self-heal, so every fight is basically someone either ignoring you and finishing off someone else, or pressuring you until you (<10s) run out of self-sustain and die horribly.

Here's another idea; consider a stacking self-resist buff the longer the WW is in melee combat if you don't want to buff the heal. So for example, you gain say 1k resist per 2 seconds you are hitting something, with stacks dropping if you aren't able to hit something for a short time (2-5 seconds?), capping out at an additional 5-10k resist? That way, if you just let the WW hammer on you, it'll be a nightmare to deal with when you go for it, and would remove the need to chose claws of life to have even a vain hope of self-sustaining vs. damage. @ZOS_ginabruno .

What if werewolf heavy attacks restored both magicka and stamina? *Gasssp*

DONT GET CRAZY!

peacenote · April 2020

Rick11387 wrote: »

bellatrixed wrote: »

Am I correct in thinking with the changes that vampires as healers is no longer viable? My endgame main is a vamp healer and now it seems like she'll take massive penalties to normal abilities like heals just for being one.

And in my playing I haven't found anything that looks like increased group utility for stuff like healing. Have I overlooked something?

As a vampire healer (on two characters) that's the perception i have as well, and it terrifies me. On my original character, right after launch long before everything scaled, I went from the starter zone to Reaper's March as fast as the game would physically let me and worked my butt off to become infected by a bloodfiend way higher level than me and complete the vampire quest much higher level than me.
I'd hate to think I worked so to be the vampire I am today only for it to rot into something that directly prevents me from playing anymore.

I am also in this boat and agree. I wish the vampire changes had benefits to healers. I wanted to be a vampire from day one, before there were builds or streamers or guides for this game. I loved the idea of the undead cursed immortal choosing the path of healing as some type of redemption.

Cireous · April 2020

As a stage 4 vampire, I want mesmerize to work on every NPC that gives me trouble. I want to run around town and talk to all the people; every person. I want to wave my hand, glow each head purple, and seduce every one into conversation. Please don't make me drink Purifying Bloody Mara every time I want to see what someone in town has to say.

Giving us an ability that forces these scaredy cats to talk to us is amazing. Please let us use it. In theory, it seems to me you only want us to use it on Merchants and, perhaps, Bankers, even though it's hit or miss on those. I want to use it on everyone!

Glurin · April 2020

Cireous wrote: »

As a stage 4 vampire, I want mesmerize to work on every NPC that gives me trouble. I want to run around town and talk to all the people; every person. I want to wave my hand, glow each head purple, and seduce every one into conversation. Please don't make me drink Purifying Bloody Mara every time I want to see what someone in town has to say.

Giving us an ability that forces these scaredy cats to talk to us is amazing. Please let us use it. In theory, it seems to me you only want us to use it on Merchants and, perhaps, Bankers, even though it's hit or miss on those. I want to use it on everyone!

I seem to have better luck with the hypnotize morph, but that's probably because it's comparable to using a grenade instead of a shotgun. Even so, it's still kinda twitchy.

robpr · April 2020

Werewolf tanking

I tried to make a Pack Leader WW tank and I think it's too clunky to use. There is no taunt - you need to use Tormentor set that don't even allow to aoe taunt (Brutal Pounce does damage do surrounding enemies, but doesn't make Tormentor taunt them, only the enemy you Pounced on). Also using Tormentor blocks you from using "on taunt" sets like new Tremorscale.
Because Pounce is a gap-closer, it makes to drop the block during a jump, and jump has long animation.
Roar is fine, but I get the feeling that Minor Maim is not applying.
Hircine's Fortitude increases stamina regen that doesn't help much in tanking (because you block stamina recovery when blocking). I get it that it's designed for combat
Howl gives Empower synergy but it's too expensive
Claws heal is fine.

Overall WW tank is possible, but there is little benefit from it. The damage increase is rather minimal for it to be worth even trying in anything than normal dungeons. No way to restore magicka, bad self heal, limited set usage, no block cost/damage reduction, taunt tied to set and gap closer.

Suggestions:
-Move debuffs again to Direwolves. They do absolutely nothing other than mere 500 damage per second. Let's say if you use Roar, next direwolves attack will apply minor maim and major fracture.
-Add taunt to either Roar or Howl. Adding taunt to one of morphs of Roar would make unique trait of aoe taunting.
-Pack Leader morph itself should also add 10% block cost reduction
-Increase base heavy attack speed, please...

darthgummibear_ESO · April 2020

Malprave wrote: »

I didn't think it was possible but you've made the vampire skill line even more useless. I was only using this for stam recovery like everybody else. Twenty percent regular skill cost? Nobody is going to do this, for any content. You have a few lukewarm skills here that don't make the penalties worthwhile.

The feeding animation is lousy. Why don't I just jump on them from behind and bite into their neck? Why am I suddenly standing in front of the victim like I'm going to shake their hand or something? And then the camera zooms in way too close. Call up the animator that did the blade of woe animation and see if theiy're available to rework this.

I hate to come off sounding like such an a@#hole, but this vampire stuff is a huge miss as it stands. The zone however, is amazing! Please don't shoot yourselves in the foot by letting these vampire changes go live like this.

The teleport to the front is only one out of 4-5 animations, one of which is the biting from the back. The animations are awesome.

I agree on the increased cost though, that's just insane.

TheKingofSass · April 2020

If this goes live, I will cure my vampirism. The health recovery being non existence at stage 4 and the ability costs for non-vamp skills? Ridiculous.

I could live with the no health regen at stage 4 but the cost increase for skills? Sorry but that has to go, this is not up for debate. I was really excited for this chapter, but you guys are seriously shooting yourself in the foot with these uhh.. "improvements".

The penalty are too harsh for these very mediocre vampire skills.

Tethalion · April 2020

I feel like in an attempt to carve out a niche for vampire and to give it a unique placement, ZoS has pitted the game against itself. In other words, this change forces the community to choose between Vampire or the rest of the game.

This "choice" is not like the other game-play decisions such as skill morphs or even werewolf because the cost is not simply opportunity cost, but a direct detriment; I might even go as far as to say punishment.

I, personally, don't believe it's ever a good idea to make your customers have to choose between enjoying one element of your product against another, or, in this case, one element against all others. Given that becoming vampire is not as easily accessible as other play-style choices, this change will effectively create the prevalent reality of "I wish I can play vampire, but I really just can't justify it."

ElliottXO · April 2020

I am totally fine with the new vampires and think it's actually quite brilliant (people crying here are way too early, the changes were barely tested in a big scale as of now; and most people complaining here probably didn't even test anything).

With that being said, and to avoid the big backlash of all our dear fake passive perk vampires: perhaps ZOS should implement an 'untainted' vampire stage 0.

Stage 0 has no benefits and no downsides and you can't use any vampire skills (similar to WW), and with feeding you advance through stage 1 to 4 with the same characteristics as on the PTS.

Of course, to offset this and to avoid that ESO becomes a bunch of Twilight battles (team vampire vs. team werewolf), we need to bring back the punishing fighter's guild abilities which work even outside werewolf form/stage 0 vampires.

RavemasterCrow · April 2020

ElliottXO wrote: »

I am totally fine with the new vampires and think it's actually quite brilliant (people crying here are way too early, the changes were barely tested in a big scale as of now; and most people complaining here probably didn't even test anything).

With that being said, and to avoid the big backlash of all our dear fake passive perk vampires: perhaps ZOS should implement an 'untainted' vampire stage 0.

Stage 0 has no benefits and no downsides and you can't use any vampire skills (similar to WW), and with feeding you advance through stage 1 to 4 with the same characteristics as on the PTS.

Of course, to offset this and to avoid that ESO becomes a bunch of Twilight battles (team vampire vs. team werewolf), we need to bring back the punishing fighter's guild abilities which work even outside werewolf form/stage 0 vampires.

A day late, and a buck short with this snark my boy. Quite a few people in here have tested it on live, with different characters and builds - and there's all sorts of math in the PTS threads about the different aspects of the Vampire Changes.

Unless they do something crazy and make using all Vampire Skills viable for Trials and Veteran Content where you're not just going to get killed because your damage buff makes you only able to heal yourself, you have 0 HP recovery, your spammable is Magicka and Max HP only - and it's better morph crits ONLY while you're under 50% Hp, the Stun only works if your targets are looking AT you. And the Ultimate is a Worse Bone Colossus that will either be:

A.) 20s (a little less because the initial transformation takes 2s), where you ignore the penalties and can play the game like an actual person on Live currently can.

B.) Ravenous Colossus, but with only 1/3rd of the HP boost.

Is someone going to find some crazy specific item/rune/CP combo that makes it LOOK like it works? Probably.

Will most people wind up just staying Stage 1 and taking 1 or 2 abilities like they already did on Live so that they can still run endgame content without being laughed at by their groups? That's the more likely outcome.

Alexium · April 2020

Please add heal to the feeding. It will be very good thing for the stage 4.

Uziel317 · April 2020

I rarely post in the forums but I really feel like I need to talk about these changes. I've been playing since beta and one of the first things I did in those first few weeks was wait until the right time and get infected by a bloodfiend in Bangkorai. I've had vamp characters ever since and am very much invested in continuing to be a vampire. So here it goes.

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly? Yes everything was as it should be.

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities? Have not had the chance to try it yet.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive? Yes, I think it adds more immersion which is great. I also like the idea of Merchants not interacting with you unless you use mesmerize.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world? Yea I think it does.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game? I think it does but the way it can basically only be put into real use is if the player goes full vamp with all the skills, the way werewolf is. I feel like this is just wrong. I'm a NB main since launch and have played both stam and mag, and with these changes you basically cannot play your class and also be a vampire. YOU'RE FORCED TO PLAY AS A VAMPIRE that JUST SO HAPPENS TO HAVE A CLASS. It basically ruins it.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS? No not at all. The skills look incredible don't get me wrong but as a NB DPS, my class skills are just fine. The only useful thing I'd really get out of vampire are the new passives, but the 20% increased cost to class abilities just to use those passives is crazy and not worth it. The cost increase passive NEEDS to be changed. I'm sure coming up with with upsides and downsides isn't an easy thing but this makes it unplayable and I cannot imagine removing vampirism from my characters as I'm a huge fan and have always been one.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore? It does based on the new dialogue from Lamae (read it online since I didn't do the new tutorial)

How does feeding feel overall? I REALLY like the changes to feeding. Really makes you feel like an actual vampire, and I love the reverse progression change. BUT the appearance needs to be changed as well. If you are going to be fully fed, you should like you're fed instead of a gross dead corpse.

Werewolf

Is your play pattern as a werewolf different with these changes? Not really, if anything it's more active with the new Carnage ability.

Do you find playing a werewolf as enjoyable as what’s currently live? YES. Way better in fact. I love the changes to the werewolf. Bravo.

Do you have any other general feedback? I've pretty much said all I need to except the Perfected Scion ult morph. It doesn't really do much and currently I do not know anyone that would run that over the bat morph. Also The scion looks more like a demon than the vampire lord. Horns are a bit much and where are the wings?!

ONE MORE THING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE...give the player access to the awesome bat swarm gap closer that the NPC vamps have. The theme of this overhaul is stealth and quickness but to be honest they don't seem fast unless you are able to sprint away for the invisibility. Adding that gap closer would HANDS DOWN make a vamp playstyle hit and run. Get in Get out. Just like the trailer showed. That would not only be incredible aesthetically, but would also provide a gap closer to mag builds that normally wouldn't have access to one. WIN WIN.

Keep up the hard work ZOS!

XomRhoK · April 2020

About Blood Scion ultimate.
To please more players, ZOS can:
- move bat swarm themed ability from ultimate to regular ability in some form, so players that don't like Blood Scions appearance or overall idea of transformation of their beloved vampire character can get acces to bat themed ability.
- one morph of the Blood Scion ultimate make look like Vampire Lord NPC or Gray Host BloodKnight NPC. Their models has different stance animation and they uses claws to attack, so this morph will can not use weapon skills, this will pleased those part of players who don't like to see transformed vampire with weapon.

If ZOS don't want to give players Vampire Lord NPC model, because of lore or plot reasons, or they don't want many "little" Vampire Lords flooded Tamriel, we can stick to BloodKnight NPC type model.
I am, personally, don't want to players appearance were as armored as BloodKnight NPC, but fortunately his model seems use same skeleton animation as Vampire Lord NPC, so appearance can be pretty easily tweaked, for example:

But it can be middle ground in terms of armor and skin color, my wishes is that face must be opened and armor must be not bulky, without protruding bracers, shoulders and hips pieces.
Also pleasant fact for me, that because of different stance, skeletal animation and stronger bending of the lower part of the leg, BloodKnight NPC model looks smaller:

This leads us to important theme of the height and size of the Blood Scion model. At this moment model of Blood Scion is too huge, and the same size, in terms of body proportions, as BloodKnight NPC. As i understand ZOS can't make player's Blood Scion lower than BloodKnight NPC, because it will feel bad for players if they will face in game almost same ultimate form as theirs but bigger, also ZOS can't rescale Blood Scion and BloodKnight much, because they were already in promo trailers, screenshots and so on. But, all that were introduced were labeled as work in progress and Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPCs downscale for 5-10% will be not so noticeable, but will make size of the models much more appropriate and acceptibale for vampire transformtaion. So, my suggestion is to reduce size of the Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPC models by 10%, or at least by 5%:

More thoughts about current appearance of Blood Scion. As i already told, horns make him look more like a Xivkyn or demon, bulky shoulders and hips armor make him look even more huge and these absolutely unnecessary glow, smoke and fire coming from his body, it not visible on pictures that i made, but don't forget, that current Blood Scion model shine like christmas tree.
So glow must gone, armor must be not so bulging, horns preferably must gone too or, if it for some reason can't be done, at least be much smaller. Here example of possible changes:

Summary:
- move bats in some form to regular skill
- make one morph of Blood Scion ult more like Bloodknight NPC, with claws attack, but without weapon skills
- downscale Blood Scions and Bloodknight models by 10%, at least by 5%
- remove glow, remove horns(or make them much smaller), make armor not so bulging

lamar720 · April 2020

1. Werewolf ultimate cost should be lowered
2. The feeding mechanic still needs work adjustments and fix the timer to stop during interactions, going through doors etc etc.

Cameron991 · April 2020

XomRhoK wrote: »

About Blood Scion ultimate.
To please more players, ZOS can:
- move bat swarm themed ability from ultimate to regular ability in some form, so players that don't like Blood Scions appearance or overall idea of transformation of their beloved vampire character can get acces to bat themed ability.
- one morph of the Blood Scion ultimate make look like Vampire Lord NPC or Gray Host BloodKnight NPC. Their models has different stance animation and they uses claws to attack, so this morph will can not use weapon skills, this will pleased those part of players who don't like to see transformed vampire with weapon.

If ZOS don't want to give players Vampire Lord NPC model, because of lore or plot reasons, or they don't want many "little" Vampire Lords flooded Tamriel, we can stick to BloodKnight NPC type model.
I am, personally, don't want to players appearance were as armored as BloodKnight NPC, but fortunately his model seems use same skeleton animation as Vampire Lord NPC, so appearance can be pretty easily tweaked, for example:

But it can be middle ground in terms of armor and skin color, my wishes is that face must be opened and armor must be not bulky, without protruding bracers, shoulders and hips pieces.
Also pleasant fact for me, that because of different stance, skeletal animation and stronger bending of the lower part of the leg, BloodKnight NPC model looks smaller:

This leads us to important theme of the height and size of the Blood Scion model. At this moment model of Blood Scion is too huge, and the same size, in terms of body proportions, as BloodKnight NPC. As i understand ZOS can't make player's Blood Scion lower than BloodKnight NPC, because it will feel bad for players if they will face in game almost same ultimate form as theirs but bigger, also ZOS can't rescale Blood Scion and BloodKnight much, because they were already in promo trailers, screenshots and so on. But, all that were introduced were labeled as work in progress and Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPCs downscale for 5-10% will be not so noticeable, but will make size of the models much more appropriate and acceptibale for vampire transformtaion. So, my suggestion is to reduce size of the Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPC models by 10%, or at least by 5%:

More thoughts about current appearance of Blood Scion. As i already told, horns make him look more like a Xivkyn or demon, bulky shoulders and hips armor make him look even more huge and these absolutely unnecessary glow, smoke and fire coming from his body, it not visible on pictures that i made, but don't forget, that current Blood Scion model shine like christmas tree.
So glow must gone, armor must be not so bulging, horns preferably must gone too or, if it for some reason can't be done, at least be much smaller. Here example of possible changes:

Summary:
- move bats in some form to regular skill
- make one morph of Blood Scion ult more like Bloodknight NPC, with claws attack, but without weapon skills
- downscale Blood Scions and Bloodknight models by 10%, at least by 5%
- remove glow, remove horns(or make them much smaller), make armor not so bulging

I really like the idea of making the bats a normal ability. I think we should get more abilities when we go in scion form

eaglexk · April 2020

Vampire

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
I had no Vampire character on the NA server

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
Didn't tried

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
I think it's okay.

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
Currently I feel like playing vampire is not a good idea for any high-end content (veteran mode Trials, Dungeons, Arena) as Vampire skills increases other skills cost and generally are specialized for dealing damage but they makes DD vulnerable as they costs health and requires low health to make good DPS (and you can be killed one weak punch!). I tried to attack dummy but only Sorcerer with Surge can be self-sufficient during attacks rotation, other classes runs out of health. There's no good skills for Healer, the Tank can use Mist form but this will still cost at least 5% other skills cost increase so I don't think it is good choice for the Tank role.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
It feels like you're making Vampire only for role-play but not for competitive players.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
My main character is magicka DD Vampire (live) and at this point I definitely want to cure all my characters from being Vampires.
Vampire Stage 4 makes vampire's spammable skill damage similar to Crushing Shock spammable but on Stage 1 it is much less when you're full health. Even this is a melee skill.
How to I see useful Vampire skills:
Variant 1) Remove non-Vampire skills cost increase. Increase the spammable skill damage to be 15% higher that Crushing Shock on full health (as it is melee and Crushing Shock costs +5% more because of Vampire passive). Change spammable damage increase on low health according to Vampire stage e.g. Stage 1 makes spammable deal +5% damage on low health, +20% on Stage 2, +35% on Stage 3, +50% on Stage 4.
Variant 2) Remove non-Vampire skills cost increase at least for Stage 1. Vampire Spammable should heal Vampire for some damage. The channeled ability that currently heals should work like the Soul Strike except will deal less damage and heal you a bit.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
Seems okay but strange that Vampire can not feed itself from mobs. Also it's still a problem to feed when you have Blade of Woe.

How does feeding feel overall?
Vampire is useless

Baraber · April 2020

XomRhoK wrote: »

About Blood Scion ultimate.
To please more players, ZOS can:
- move bat swarm themed ability from ultimate to regular ability in some form, so players that don't like Blood Scions appearance or overall idea of transformation of their beloved vampire character can get acces to bat themed ability.
- one morph of the Blood Scion ultimate make look like Vampire Lord NPC or Gray Host BloodKnight NPC. Their models has different stance animation and they uses claws to attack, so this morph will can not use weapon skills, this will pleased those part of players who don't like to see transformed vampire with weapon.

If ZOS don't want to give players Vampire Lord NPC model, because of lore or plot reasons, or they don't want many "little" Vampire Lords flooded Tamriel, we can stick to BloodKnight NPC type model.
I am, personally, don't want to players appearance were as armored as BloodKnight NPC, but fortunately his model seems use same skeleton animation as Vampire Lord NPC, so appearance can be pretty easily tweaked, for example:

But it can be middle ground in terms of armor and skin color, my wishes is that face must be opened and armor must be not bulky, without protruding bracers, shoulders and hips pieces.
Also pleasant fact for me, that because of different stance, skeletal animation and stronger bending of the lower part of the leg, BloodKnight NPC model looks smaller:

This leads us to important theme of the height and size of the Blood Scion model. At this moment model of Blood Scion is too huge, and the same size, in terms of body proportions, as BloodKnight NPC. As i understand ZOS can't make player's Blood Scion lower than BloodKnight NPC, because it will feel bad for players if they will face in game almost same ultimate form as theirs but bigger, also ZOS can't rescale Blood Scion and BloodKnight much, because they were already in promo trailers, screenshots and so on. But, all that were introduced were labeled as work in progress and Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPCs downscale for 5-10% will be not so noticeable, but will make size of the models much more appropriate and acceptibale for vampire transformtaion. So, my suggestion is to reduce size of the Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPC models by 10%, or at least by 5%:

More thoughts about current appearance of Blood Scion. As i already told, horns make him look more like a Xivkyn or demon, bulky shoulders and hips armor make him look even more huge and these absolutely unnecessary glow, smoke and fire coming from his body, it not visible on pictures that i made, but don't forget, that current Blood Scion model shine like christmas tree.
So glow must gone, armor must be not so bulging, horns preferably must gone too or, if it for some reason can't be done, at least be much smaller. Here example of possible changes:

Summary:
- move bats in some form to regular skill
- make one morph of Blood Scion ult more like Bloodknight NPC, with claws attack, but without weapon skills
- downscale Blood Scions and Bloodknight models by 10%, at least by 5%
- remove glow, remove horns(or make them much smaller), make armor not so bulging

What is your opinion about the blood scion having some sort of wings? (or stumps).
I personally think it will only add to the look of the vampire transformations.

XomRhoK · April 2020

Baraber wrote: »

XomRhoK wrote: »

About Blood Scion ultimate.
To please more players, ZOS can:
- move bat swarm themed ability from ultimate to regular ability in some form, so players that don't like Blood Scions appearance or overall idea of transformation of their beloved vampire character can get acces to bat themed ability.
- one morph of the Blood Scion ultimate make look like Vampire Lord NPC or Gray Host BloodKnight NPC. Their models has different stance animation and they uses claws to attack, so this morph will can not use weapon skills, this will pleased those part of players who don't like to see transformed vampire with weapon.

If ZOS don't want to give players Vampire Lord NPC model, because of lore or plot reasons, or they don't want many "little" Vampire Lords flooded Tamriel, we can stick to BloodKnight NPC type model.
I am, personally, don't want to players appearance were as armored as BloodKnight NPC, but fortunately his model seems use same skeleton animation as Vampire Lord NPC, so appearance can be pretty easily tweaked, for example:

But it can be middle ground in terms of armor and skin color, my wishes is that face must be opened and armor must be not bulky, without protruding bracers, shoulders and hips pieces.
Also pleasant fact for me, that because of different stance, skeletal animation and stronger bending of the lower part of the leg, BloodKnight NPC model looks smaller:

This leads us to important theme of the height and size of the Blood Scion model. At this moment model of Blood Scion is too huge, and the same size, in terms of body proportions, as BloodKnight NPC. As i understand ZOS can't make player's Blood Scion lower than BloodKnight NPC, because it will feel bad for players if they will face in game almost same ultimate form as theirs but bigger, also ZOS can't rescale Blood Scion and BloodKnight much, because they were already in promo trailers, screenshots and so on. But, all that were introduced were labeled as work in progress and Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPCs downscale for 5-10% will be not so noticeable, but will make size of the models much more appropriate and acceptibale for vampire transformtaion. So, my suggestion is to reduce size of the Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPC models by 10%, or at least by 5%:

More thoughts about current appearance of Blood Scion. As i already told, horns make him look more like a Xivkyn or demon, bulky shoulders and hips armor make him look even more huge and these absolutely unnecessary glow, smoke and fire coming from his body, it not visible on pictures that i made, but don't forget, that current Blood Scion model shine like christmas tree.
So glow must gone, armor must be not so bulging, horns preferably must gone too or, if it for some reason can't be done, at least be much smaller. Here example of possible changes:

Summary:
- move bats in some form to regular skill
- make one morph of Blood Scion ult more like Bloodknight NPC, with claws attack, but without weapon skills
- downscale Blood Scions and Bloodknight models by 10%, at least by 5%
- remove glow, remove horns(or make them much smaller), make armor not so bulging

XomRhoK wrote: »

About Blood Scion ultimate.
To please more players, ZOS can:
- move bat swarm themed ability from ultimate to regular ability in some form, so players that don't like Blood Scions appearance or overall idea of transformation of their beloved vampire character can get acces to bat themed ability.
- one morph of the Blood Scion ultimate make look like Vampire Lord NPC or Gray Host BloodKnight NPC. Their models has different stance animation and they uses claws to attack, so this morph will can not use weapon skills, this will pleased those part of players who don't like to see transformed vampire with weapon.

If ZOS don't want to give players Vampire Lord NPC model, because of lore or plot reasons, or they don't want many "little" Vampire Lords flooded Tamriel, we can stick to BloodKnight NPC type model.
I am, personally, don't want to players appearance were as armored as BloodKnight NPC, but fortunately his model seems use same skeleton animation as Vampire Lord NPC, so appearance can be pretty easily tweaked, for example:

But it can be middle ground in terms of armor and skin color, my wishes is that face must be opened and armor must be not bulky, without protruding bracers, shoulders and hips pieces.
Also pleasant fact for me, that because of different stance, skeletal animation and stronger bending of the lower part of the leg, BloodKnight NPC model looks smaller:

This leads us to important theme of the height and size of the Blood Scion model. At this moment model of Blood Scion is too huge, and the same size, in terms of body proportions, as BloodKnight NPC. As i understand ZOS can't make player's Blood Scion lower than BloodKnight NPC, because it will feel bad for players if they will face in game almost same ultimate form as theirs but bigger, also ZOS can't rescale Blood Scion and BloodKnight much, because they were already in promo trailers, screenshots and so on. But, all that were introduced were labeled as work in progress and Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPCs downscale for 5-10% will be not so noticeable, but will make size of the models much more appropriate and acceptibale for vampire transformtaion. So, my suggestion is to reduce size of the Blood Scion and Bloodknight NPC models by 10%, or at least by 5%:

More thoughts about current appearance of Blood Scion. As i already told, horns make him look more like a Xivkyn or demon, bulky shoulders and hips armor make him look even more huge and these absolutely unnecessary glow, smoke and fire coming from his body, it not visible on pictures that i made, but don't forget, that current Blood Scion model shine like christmas tree.
So glow must gone, armor must be not so bulging, horns preferably must gone too or, if it for some reason can't be done, at least be much smaller. Here example of possible changes:

Summary:
- move bats in some form to regular skill
- make one morph of Blood Scion ult more like Bloodknight NPC, with claws attack, but without weapon skills
- downscale Blood Scions and Bloodknight models by 10%, at least by 5%
- remove glow, remove horns(or make them much smaller), make armor not so bulging

What is your opinion about the blood scion having some sort of wings? (or stumps).
I personally think it will only add to the look of the vampire transformations.

Models with stumps is already in the game, last boss in Greymoor quest have one with darker skin and royal armor and Vampire Lords from ritual sites have one with pale skin and bulky shoulders armor.

I think, that it's a very good models (except horns) and they much better than current Blood Scion model. If Vampire Lord model will be without horns and scaled to smaller size it will be almost perfect for me. But ZOS seems decided to divide Vampire Lords(as more rare species) from Blood Scions, and players seems will never recieve model with stumps. In my opinion, it is so bad decision, they advertised proper Vampire Lord in trailer, but players will recieve half-baked semi vampire semi demon which no one wanted. I am not really against something new, not exact copy of Vampire Lords from TES: Skyrim, but ZOS's concept of Blood Scions absolute miss, for me.

ck37090 · April 2020

What about adding a stage 0 for vampire? No benefits, no penalities (basically just human)... Just so people can play a vampire when they want and their class without having to cure. It would be online with WW, just in a different way.

AmericanSpy · April 2020

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.

Chrlynsch · April 2020

I know this is a long shot but here is my thought on Packleader:

Currently on PTS:

Transform into a beast, fearing nearby enemies for 3 seconds.

While transformed, your Max Stamina is increased by 30%. You take 10% less damage.

Summon two direwolves while transformed. You also grants yourself and nearby allies Minor Courage, increasing their Weapon and Spell Damage by 129.

While slotted, your Stamina Recovery is increased by 15%.

Call of the Pack: Reduce the cost of remaining in your Werewolf Transformation by 20% for each transformed werewolf or direwolf in your group, including yourself, up to a maximum of 80%.

Here is ZOS's vision for Packleader/Werewolf;

The Werewolf experience has received many minor updates to its toolkit, focusing on enhancing its existing gameplay based on aggressive and fast-paced playstyles, as well as introducing more aspects related to the Pack Leader fantasy where you can lead your allies in and enfeeble your foes.

This is really close to becoming perfect, though I do think it is time for the direwolves to go they get lost most of the time, or do a poor job of keeping up with mobile enemies, we need a little more control of who we or what we CC, and Here is my recommendation for Pack Leader.

Transform into a beast, fearing nearby enemies for 3 seconds.

While transformed, your Max Stamina is increased by 30%. You take 10% less damage.

You also grant yourself and nearby allies Minor Courage, increasing their Weapon and Spell Damage by 129, for each non-pack leader in your group you gain an addional 129 weapon damage and your size is increased by 10%, up to 3 times.

While slotted, your Stamina Recovery is increased by 15%.

Call of the Pack: Reduce the cost of remaining in your Werewolf Transformation by 20% for each transformed werewolf or 60% for a packleader in your group, including yourself, up to a maximum of 80%.

*Make the standard amount of stamina restored from a heavy attack the current amount with Pursuit passive* it is a hollow passive, and werewolf has no room for them...

Pursuit:

-Increase your movement speed by 30%

-Your bleed damage snares your opponent for 10%, this effect is tripped if you are a Pack Leader

The Power disparity between Berserker and Pack leader is pretty large still, and though Pack leader provides additional effects to the group and extra survival it needs just a little bit more strength, as giving up the Berserker bleed and Heavy attack splash results in a Heeeffty damage loss (-14% in bleed alone).

This will encourage packs to have at least one pack leader, and will give that Pack Leader a bolstered strength and presence while hunting with Pack.

The change to Pursuit will allow werewolves to better take out fleeing targets, by actually being able to Pursue them. (Why do you think someone should be able to turn their back on a werewolf and not have any consequences?)

And gives Carnage an addional effect.

BohnT2 · April 2020

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

YandereGirlfriend · April 2020

Given that the Vampire Lord armor from Rivenspire was modified to account for the new vampire mechanics, I wonder why the Salvation set was not? That seems like a missed opportunity. The set is basically unused (to the best of my knowledge) in its current state, so why not re-imagine it to better synergize with the new WW playstyle?

Chrlynsch · April 2020

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

Here are my thoughts on the video that I posted in another thread, as soon as he posted this video I knew comments like yours would be sure to follow. What Alcast posted is called "dummy humping" it isn't wrong, but it is misleading. As he uses an impractical set up to maximize numbers on the dummy.

1. The food he is using leaves you with 11k health... that isn't going to fly, expecially if you have a near 100% uptime on berserk/ increased damage received.

2. The stamina demand on this build and rotation is massive, that is being covered by the regen food and 100% success rate of Hircine's rage. In a trial where you taking constant damage will mess this up pretty bad as you will not only have way less sustain (resulting in lower damage), but also damage by much lower Berserk up time.

3. He got really lucky with his crits which he did state, but the minor force is going to increase the parse exponentially.

4. Keeping butal carnage stacks will be harder in some fights, and easier in others if there are adds.

Tzogvins set up will most likely still perform strongly if all the changes go live. But you will need to make sacrifices to your max stamina if you are going to keep the same stamina heavy rotation he is using.

Cireous · April 2020

Uziel317 wrote: »

I REALLY like the changes to feeding. Really makes you feel like an actual vampire, and I love the reverse progression change. BUT the appearance needs to be changed as well. If you are going to be fully fed, you should like you're fed instead of a gross dead corpse.

That actually makes complete sense; I hadn't thought about it that way before. Vampires with extreme hunger who do not feed regularly would have the more grotesque appearance. Along with feeding to become a less powerful vampire instead of a more powerful one, the appearance changes were backwards as well.

Thimmy · April 2020

Vampire

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

It seems like it transfered properly. Didn't see anything that made me feel like otherwise.

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

Didn't do it since I have been a vampire since the first week of launch.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

Not really, the skills that were subject to it felt weird. Why does a buff that doesn't have any special outward look make people automatically think you're a vampire, and elusive mist is anything but elusive when you get justice attached to it.

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

Not really, no. Having merchants automatically know you're a vampire just feels like a tacked on forced thing to give you yet another detrimental effect to being a vampire.

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

No, forcing players to just use vampire skills and forsake everything else because the costs are too high doesn't feel like a modern game design. It feels badly thought out and like a nerf to the entire skill line.

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

I'm a healer, and the increased cost of all abilities that are not vampire ones makes it so that there's no point in staying a vampire. I don't get anything from the skill line that is worth that cost. Before the changes, I got 10% magicka and stamina regen, and up to 33% damage reduction. Which made it worthwhile. Now I would get the faster sneak, having to stay at stage 1, to not make heals cost too much and that's it. It feels like you decided that the only viable way to be a vampire is to be a magicka dps focused vampire. Tanks, healers and stamina dps just have too many drawbacks in the new design to feel viable to play as a vampire.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

Not really. Never heard of a vampire that becomes less good at magic and normal attacks, the more powerful they get. It just feels wrong on all levels. Lore-wise and game-mechanics.

How does feeding feel overall?

The animations are great. But that's it. The range is weird. And blade of woe and feeding being the same button and fighting over which will happen is still a thing, this many years later... Make them have different buttons. Or make it so you can toggle one or both off in settings somewhere. Pc players can do this via an addon, but you are making console players tear their hair.

TL:DR summary.

Vampire feels gutted for healers/tanks and stamina focused classes. Either remove the increased cost of non vampire skills, or lessen it dramatically.

emilyhyoyeon · April 2020

I don't even want being a vampire to buff my character for playing as not a blood scion. I just don't want to be debuffed with the increased ability costs (including block and dodge roll). I don't even want vampire to buff tanks or healers or dds or anything. I play my character who is a vampire (for rp reasons) as a tank 99% of the time. I just don't want it to debuff me in a lore unfriendly way. please. I play her in vet HM content. give me 200% increased fire damage at every stage instead. please get rid of the ability cost thing

peacenote · April 2020

OK, I was able to fit PTS on my computer this time around, so I installed it to check out vampires. Here goes....

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

It appeared to, yes.

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

N/A; I copied my character so I didn't play the quest.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?

Mostly no but I will explain.

First, I was against adding vampires to the justice system as I find all of it frustrating. My stance on this hasn't changed by testing PTS. My character is a hero and it's just annoying that sometimes my abilities can save Tamriel but if I hit an ability by accident I'm suddenly a crook. It should only be criminal if an ability hits an innocent and causes damage.

Second, I'm assuming feeding is criminal, yes? Well, nobody in town noticed and I am not that sneaky. Therefore, even though I am against this at all, I found that when I tried to see how it would feel, the experience was inconsistent at best. I fed right in front of a guard and a bunch of guild traders without consequence.

Then there's the "I'm especially monstrous at Stage 4" thing. I will admit, it feels a little more "immersive" to have folks refuse to talk to me as a vampire. It was fun at first. I had already read about mesmerize so I didn't have to figure it out, and it made me feel like a vampire to "trick" people into talking to me. So yea, that's cool. Except....

Why is it only at Stage 4? I mean these folks can't read my character sheet, the different stages advance but they ALL make me look like a vampire right? Is it really acceptable to feed twice but not three times? I mean, maybe it makes sense that they accept me at Stage 1, because I could be infected by accident. But people should be angry at me during all of the other stages. I'm actively embracing being a vampire.
It's inconsistent. I spent most of my time in Mournhold. Why do the woodworker and blacksmith merchants refuse to talk to me but the guild traders steps away are A-OK with it? I thought it would be funny if my personal banker refused me but he didn't have any issues either.
Though inconsistent, it's also consistent in a way that I think is boring, if that makes sense. It would feel more real if that one merchant over there is upset, but the shadier looking one is fine, and certain guild traders don't like you, but all the guards are upset with you because it is their job. Because it was only applied based on the NPC's role in the game it just feels arbitrary to me.
If I change my appearance (like a skin or a polymorph) they still won't talk to me. How do they know? :P
It was fun... for like 15 minutes. I am sure it will get old REALLY REALLY quickly. And I especially feel this way for the poor folks on console who can't change their bar layouts with a single click like we can on PC with mods. I can keybind a bar layout that has Mesmerize on it for when I go to town but since I am a healer and I have a bunch of bar layouts, I don't really want to do this. Assuming I ever want to be Stage 4, which is a whole different conversation.
Personally I think that it should be more creative with the "I'm offended you are a vampire." I like it that mesmerize can work, but I think it should be Stages 2 - 4, I think maybe it should be an attribute on some NPCs but not all (maybe randomly, maybe based on lore whether they'd be offended or not) or maybe it should only be in quests where the NPCs can exhibit hatred of vampires. Also I would like to see something, maybe through Antiquities, that vampires could obtain to just basically mesmerize all the time if you get sick of dealing with it and just want to hide. An artifact/collectible that, once in your inventory, can be toggled on and off like hide helm.

That's all I have on that.

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

Not particularly, but in full disclosure I never felt this was an issue before. I always "felt like a vampire" when I chose to become one. I am most looking forward to quests that better acknowledge our vampirism - which I am sure are in there but I did not test - and I think the vampire hunters will probably be a nice touch (although I did not experience them yet).

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

I am not sure how to answer this. I think so? The skills seem fine although the ultimate feels clunky to me.

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

It's situational at best, I'd say. I am a PvE Templar Healer (AKA "support") first and foremost. This means my priorities are keeping others alive, staying alive myself, buffing the group, and adding DPS, with the DPS being the last priority by far. I play ranged and up close but I'm ranged a LOT so I can get a good view of the group and because I run staves. There isn't anything in the skill line that seems like a game changer for actively healing or buffing the group. So the problem there is, with the "other abilities increased cost" these aren't skills I'm likely to use since none of them have "a heal." I can't increase the cost to all of my heals - my main role - to use one of these situational abilities. That's irresponsible! I'd probably use them a lot more if those penalties weren't there.

I put every ability on my bar and tried them, although I haven't morphed them all yet.

Eviscerate: There's a claw on the tooltip, but it's just me whacking someone with my staff. A little weird, and I have to be within 5m. Even if I am adding a DPS ability, given its range limitation it is inferior to a ton of other options that I have. Single target, melee range spammable. Nope.

Blood Frenzy: So this might have some uses, depending on the group I'm in and the content I'm running, for the extra spell power. It's something I would play around with using. However with the constant health drain and the fact that I can't take healing from others while using it means it feels risky in serious content. I like the sated frenzy morph.

Vampiric Drain: A channeled ability that deals damage and heals only me. Maybe depending on how it's balanced if it restores enough ultimate... maybe there's something there?

Mesmerize: OK, this is a cool ability. I can see running it as a healer to help with CC or save situations where things go wrong. I do like it.

Blood Mist: It could come in handy to get out of effects but would be situational. It wasn't standard on PvE healing bars before this, and it won't be after either.

Blood Scion: Not really what I'd run for support. I found the time delay for the transformations (to and from) irritating.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?

Not that I can tell. However I'm not a lore expert so hear me out. I have only played a little bit of Skyrim before ESO, so most of my exposure to the lore comes from ESO. And from that perspective, I'd say no, because I wanted to be a healing vampire since 2014, and I've been able to do so. Which means, for me, the lore supported this play style and identity I had in ESO and now is changing to say, oh, never mind, this isn't really for advantageous you anymore.

For vampire lore in general, vampires are supposed to feel more powerful and hard to kill, except for one or two specific weaknesses, so the cost for non-vampire abilities and the removal of Supernatural Recovery feels against this lore. I've never encountered any lore in ESO or otherwise where vampires have more trouble doing certain things. They get good at everything because they have unlimited amounts of time to learn! However the more I feed in ESO, the harder it is to be a powerful vampire. Personally I think you should have made the weakness to fire more exaggerated for vampires and done something where health recovery is slower in sunlight, instead of this ability cost nonsense. Or maybe make sprint cost MORE at lower stages because the vampire is sleepy.

I do think it makes sense to have it so that the more you feed, the MORE of a vampire you are. However from what I can see since you don't feel more powerful or have more advantages that are worthwhile at Stage 4, the idea was put in place to reverse the stages but the rewards to stay in Stage 4 aren't there. Which means you get a "sort of faithful" from me on that one.

How does feeding feel overall?

I like that you can do it so far away from the subject.

Having to feed to regularly to maintain your stage seemed like it ultimately would become a chore. In a dungeon -- "Sorry guys my stage dropped, please wait while I eat this one food to fix my stage and then another one, so you don't need to wait for me to go through load screens to fix it..." Anyway, I wasn't excited about that but since I don't anticipate having any characters that want to remain in Stage 4... I'm less worried. Stage 1 (if that) seems to be the only viable one for most of my characters. Even still, referencing back to my opinion about lore, I almost wish the feeding could have been tied only to physical appearance and a very very very small buff (like..oh, say, RESOURCE RECOVERY) and a very very very small penalty (like, say, lowered physical resistance or something) so that the min/maxers would want to feed religiously but for the rest of folks it could be a "do it if you remember" type of deal. More like the little buffs you get when you complete the world bosses in Craglorn, or something. Also the abilities now present in the skill line are not incentive enough to feed, in my opinion.

One thing you need to fix is the whole Blade of Woe problem. I almost wrote that feeding didn't work. Turns out, I kept sneaking in at the exact "sweet spot" where the Feed button doesn't trigger, and either nothing showed and then as I inched closer Blade of Woe showed, or Blade of Woe showed right away. It was not intuitive to think you had to back away from your subject to get the feed prompt, especially when nothing shows when you first sneak down.

Do you have any other general feedback?

Overall, I like some of the concepts (the toggles have a unique feel to them) but everything altogether is a bit disjointed. Removing Supernatural Recovery AND having cost increases for other abilities AND no health recovery at Stage 4 but trying to have people be more "active" by feeding to stay at Stage 4? And abilities that can use health but the most powerful form lacks health recovery? To me it is like there were multiple ideas for how to re-do the line and they all were applied without really thinking whether they all made sense together. Eviscerate feels like an ability that was conceived when someone considered to have a vampire form like werewolf and we would be literally clawing at enemies, but kept when the transformation was limited to the Vampire Lord ultimate. Although part of me is happy that my characters are able to stay at Stage 1, which to me is the only viable level, without having to feed and with manageable penalties, should I want to be a vampire... I feel obligated to point out that the stages don't make a lot of sense. Stage 4 doesn't offer any incentives unless you really really REALLY want to be invisible.

Please keep in mind I specifically evaluated this all as a PvE healer, because the line of questions in here asked about my current build. I think there are some neat possibilities here... just not for what I tested and not with the current penalties.

Last but not least least... I think the icons don't really "fit." Too much of that same red color, they kind of look like DC Comics. Which is fine but doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the ESO style. And why is there a regular guy's face in the icons? I actually really like the original art style for the vampire line. I'd like to see those icons be augmented with some red tinges incorporated instead of what it is at this exact moment.

Iron_Blurr · April 2020

2 Suggestions:
1. Make werewolf a toggle and have it cost 300+ ult. Give unlimited duration to werewolf form so people can actually play werewolf indefinitely without worrying about the duration.
The issue with the current way werewolf works is you have to choose between having a build(sets, race etc) to optimize your werewolf dps OR ones that help your normal form.
For a dedicated werewolf player, this typically results in sub-optimal performance in your normal form so you can achieve higher potential in werewolf form. This makes players question if werewolf is even worth running at all when they do about the same dps that you could already do in your normal form with a regular build. Another issue is that groups in pve play can not rely on werewolves to constantly provide minor courage because while in raids there is always "down time" when running from fight to fight. Eventually a player may revert back to their normal form and the group will then lose the minor courage buff. This makes groups want to just run the yolnakrin set on a tank instead of relying on a werewolf to be able to provide that buff.
If werewolves had a high ultimate cost but also unlimited duration they could be better balanced and the devs could be more creative with passives since they no longer need ones that provide some kind of benefit to how long you can maintain werewolf form. Giving this ultimate a high cost would keep things balanced in pvp so people could not toggle back into a regular form instantly and after applying buffs instantly return to werewolf form. I believe these changes would make werewolves much easier to balance and would also make them much more valuable in groups. This would be a complete game changer for players and would effectively add another class to the game encouraging experimentation and creativity. This minor change would give players a fundamentally different way to play the game by adding to the replayability of pve content. This would also give pvp players more options so they can now choose the playstyle they want rather than having a duration timer choose it for them.

2. Now for vampire changes..
The only thing I would suggest is removing the 5% cost increase to non vampire abilities while at stage 1. This would allow people more flexibility as they are technically a vampire but can advance their stages for different playstyles and gameplay experiences. For example lets say someone is a part time role player but also interested in pve trial runs. They would be able to drop their stage to 1 for very difficult content and later on advance it back to stage 4 to enjoy their single player experience and play how they want to play. If the vampire stage scaling is left as it is, a lot of players will have to make a difficult choice between optimizing their group experience and the authenticity of their single player experience. No matter what the player chooses they are bound to be unhappy.

Vevvev · April 2020

Vampire

I finally decided to jump onto the PTS to test the new vampire changes. I had been theory crafting all the bad things about it on these forums for a while so I wanted to put them all to the test. I found out the vampire changes are not as "doom and gloom" as I originally thought they'd be, but there are still some serious problems with vampire on the PTS.

I mainly PVP so most of my tests were done against multiple different combatants in duels but I did do some DPS parses with a dummy.

If you played with a copied character, did your existing skill line XP progress transfer properly?
I played with both a copied and a transferred character. The copied character only had experience in blood scion, eviscerate, and mistform. Vampiric drain, mesmerize, and blood frenzy had no experience in them.

Did you enjoy the questline/tutorial? Did you find it sufficiently taught you how to use the abilities?
It felt like a tutorial but a tutorial I had to crank up the volume to understand. And I mean REALLY crank up the volume. You just can't understand Lamae with that echo in her voice when you're down in that cave. I lost a lot of dialog and ended up following the quest tracker.

Did you find the justice gameplay fun and intuitive?
Maybe? My inner RPer is satisfied stage 4 means something now but.... its almost not even worth mentioning since you can just make everything right with mesmerize. Also blood frenzy as a crime feels off because there is nothing about it that I can see that would make it a criminal act. Its animations don't scream "VAMPIRE!"

Do you feel the idea of being a vampire feels reinforced in the game world?
Yes and no. The NPC dialog options are nice but when I fight in combat the abilities just don't work for me. I'm a squishy magDK with around 15-18k health ((depending on monster set and food)) and trying to do the vampire "play style" just gets me killed. I find myself only using mistform along with the stage 2 passive for increasing my survivability and adding a bit of burst.

Does the skill line feel up to date with the current modern game?
No, it does not. Eviscerate is a worthless version of DK's flame whip. When you're in melee range you need some kind of mechanic to keep you alive and Eviscerate and its morphs do the opposite of this. Flame Lash for instance is amazing at keeping you in the fight thanks to the Power Lash ability tied to it that heals you for well over 10k hp in 2 seconds.

The high risk/low health play style does not work in PVP. It might work in PVE but every skill in this game works in PVE nowadays.

Does the skill line fit into your current build and feel useful? Do you primarily play as a Tank, Healer or DPS?
I play all 3 and here are my findings on the current state of vampires on the PTS. In PVE I saw a DPS loss over using my class abilities and healing drains resources faster. Tanks at least have vampiric drain and the stage 3 passive but the stage 3 passives leaves them exposed to horrible amounts of flame damage. Now I'll go into more specifics starting off with the stages.

Stage 1:
The most worthless stage in the game. The access to vampire abilities just doesn't cut it since the only useful ability in a duel is mistform. Also the penalties for being a stage 1 vampire make it not even worth sticking around in this stage. I still take 20% extra damage against fighter's guild abilities, and anyone running Prismatic Onslaught enchantments on an infused weapon deal over 9,000 damage!!! Do you know what's that like in a duel??? Its devastating!!!

In this picture I was at stage 3 with the undeath passive in full gear and that HURT!

Stage 2:
Now this is where things get interesting. Stage 2 is where the vampire playstyle truly shines. You can still use your non-vampire abilities without too much sustain issues and now mistform gives you 300 spell and weapon damage for 6 seconds. This buff is huge for vampires! Mistform as a toggle is very,very, VERY cheap to use and in a duel it allows you to open up with some powerful burst attacks. Your flame damage is higher though making encounters with magDK's and other flame damage users a pain in the rear but its still doable.

The issue is in long battles that non-vampire ability cost increase begins to rear its ugly head, and it only gets worse.

Stage 3:
Stage 3's undeath passive makes you an unstoppable juggernaut on the field of battle if your foe did not come equipped to deal with vampires. You will rip and tear through everyone, but the moment you encounter someone with anti-vampire skills this is where going past stage 2 isn't worthwhile. Even with that damage reduction fire, fighter's guild stuff, and prismatic onslaught are going to kill you. The only hope you have at this stage is having superior gear or being lucky enough to have blood scion charged. More on that ability later.

Stage 4:
I have LOTS of issues with stage 4. The 20% increase in ability costs makes stage 4 unplayable unless you have an amazing burst setup to end the fight quickly, and the passive is laughable at best. I have never been able to utilize the stage 4 passive for anything other than lining up a good mesmerize shot, but even then it didn't help me in the actual fight. The insane amount of fire damage you'll be taking on top of the other weaknesses just doesn't make stage 4 worth it at all.

Moving on from the stages we get into the skills...

Eviscerate:
This skill is a cheap spammable that does a lot of damage, but its additional effect promotes a low health play style. This skill actually has amazing sustain and works okay in PVE where you're not trying to power level through another person's DOTs, AOEs, and spammables.

Blood for Blood (Morph):
This ability is the most worthless ability in PVP. I've lost so many matches where I could have killed the person but I didn't have enough health to cast it!!! I lost the match because I went all in and ended up with not enough health cast my own spammable. Its -almost- good enough for PVP.... almost. It just costs way too much even at stage 4 to use in a PVP situation.
Arterial Burst (Morph):
The less risky morph to take, which is amazing in PVE and good against low skilled PVPers. Although the moment you fight a high skilled player with impenetrable gear on you can just forget about this ability all together. There are better abilities like Flame Lash and long range spammables that are even safer options in a fight compared to this thing.

Blood Frenzy:
Only useful in PVE where your heals actual mean something. In PVP that 60% heal reduction makes this ability only useful for 2 kinds of people. People who gank and people who want to die. Sometimes they are one in the same....

Shimmering Frenzy (Morph):
Someone tried to use this morph on me in multiple ganking scenarios and its decent. It'll allow you to kill a squishy target in a gank, but in one test my Volatile Armor skill killed the guy who ganked me. I kid you not my volatile armor ability reflected 1,507 magic damage back at the guy and killed him.
Sated fury (Morph):
A much more useful version of blood frenzy. I still wouldn't take it with me in PVP but at least in PVE I can turn it off and get some healing back.

Vampiric Drain:
This is not a DPS skill, this is not a healing skill, this is a tanking skill. The damage is abysmal, the healing scales off lost health, and in a fight it leaves you open to getting interrupted and stunned. Having less than 30k health makes this ability not even worth taking.

Drain Vigor (Morph):
Just... who thought that restoring 5% missing stamina was a good idea? You do understand the average magDPS build has around 9,800 stamina at base? If I had literally no stamina it would give me 490 stamina but if I used it after breaking free ((roughly 50% stamina left)) I get back 245 stamina. Its so low its not even worth the interrupt risk + abysmal healing.
Exhilarating Drain (Morph):
I like how it restores ultimate so you can get Blood Scion ((or any other ultimate)) up fast, but as stated on the base ability.... its not worth it. You're risking too much to use it in a fight.

Mesmerize:
Here is where we get into some... strange server issues. Mesmerize is a good ability, if you can land it. It also does not help that when it says the target needs to "Look at you" it literally means looking right at you. Them just facing your general direction doesn't cut it and the server positioning desync means you can fire the ability but the person has already moved.

Hypnosis (Morph):
This fixes the server positioning desync issues in PVP but the fact the stun deals no damage and has no lingering effects makes this ability worthless in a 1v1. I've instead been using fossilize since it deals damage, immobilizes, works with Flame Lash, and deals a moderate amount of damage. I can see it being used to get away from attackers or open up several people to your group's attacks in Cyrodiil.
Stupefy (Morph):
Discount fossilize with a snare instead of an immobilize, and is prone to server positional desyncs in PVP. Great in PVE.... maybe?

Mist Form:
Probably my favorite ability in this whole rework. Its SO MUCH FUN! Yes, all this negativity so here's something positive. I love how you've set this ability up to be a toggle and work with one of the vampire passives. If all the vampire passives actually melded well with the other abilities like stage 2 does to mistform people could have a lot more fun with them. Sadly as it is now it feels like a better version of blood frenzy with the stage 2 passive.

Blood Mist (Morph):
Amazing PVE ability. IF you're low on health you can just pop it and be back to full quickly. In a 1v1 in PVP its not all that great (duh) but maybe against ball groups I can see this being useful.
Elusive Mist (Morph):
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE... ((Favorite morph of all time right here)) Take everything I said about the base ability and make it better.

Blood Scion:
I don't know what to say about this ability other than I feel like an edgy teenager in a chess tournament. I'm losing... bad.... and when my opponent moves his piece to checkmate me I flip over the table and begin beating the daylights out of him. That's what this ability feels like, and It feels wrong to use it in a fight. I know some people get angry about the psijic ultimate undoing everything but this is even worse than that. Also ZOS.... why doesn't this ultimate also restore stamina and magicka when you use it? You increase those two values but only Dragonknights can really call this ability a reset.

Also the art team really needs to add wings to this thing. It feels like a Xivkyn poly morph and that I'm a demon instead of a vampire. I don't care if the wings don't work, you could possibly animate them to flap when you jump or something, but as it is now it looks terrible. ALSO there is a horrible bug which makes you huge, and this bug even extends to people who are NOT vampires!!! Its immersion breaking to say the least and you can fix it on your client by bar swapping. Sadly it does not fix the other people on your screen when they do it. They'll start popping from small to large on a dime with no rhyme or reason.

Also when you move the animations look weird. You're moving at a normal walk speed as this massive lumbering behemoth and it just looks wrong.

Perfect Scion (Morph):
This ability I've tested against vampire hunter magDK's running all flame damage, flame damage sets, weapons with prismatic onslaught, and using the Dawnbreaker ultimate. This ability is terrible! You can negate all the fire but you're still classified as a vampire in the game. Dawnbreaker and prismatic onslaught are going to F you up and you can't outpace their damage with that 33% heal on all damage you do. I've had to use Burning Embers and Flame Lash to keep up with it, or if they put me on the defensive Coagulating Blood and Rapid Regeneration. Overall I hate this ability.
Bat Scion (Morph):
I still hate the Bat Scion but it has some uses thanks to the large AOE. The bats improve your ability to survive in combat and this scales up based on the # of foes you are taking on. The issue though is Flame, Flame Enchantments, Fighter's guild abilities, and Prismatic Onslaught enchantments are still going to mess you up greatly. The good news is now you get some better healing but you're using this ability as a reset button anyway, you're already going to be at full health.

Does the new direction feel faithful to the lore?
I played Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim. The ONLY reason I can even say yes to this is what the Cyrodiil Order vampires did with that pact with Clavicus Vile, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. The feeding reversal feels wrong, especially with the established lore of vampires feeding to be more human extending back to Oblivion. This retcon of the scion bloodline feels like a slap in the face to be honest. It doesn't make sense.

How does feeding feel overall?
Really nice. The animations are cool and really well done, but I just wish during that one where your character spits out the blood that they don't. Why are you spitting out your meal?!?!?

((Edited for Grammar))