Werewolf vs. Vampire - Serious problems on PTS!

WhyMustItBe

I have spent the last days testing out the new Vampire and Werewolf changes on the PTS and have reached some rather shocking conclusions. There is a very serious problem with Vampirism specifically that, if allowed to go live, will completely destroy the enjoyment of countless players and cause nothing but strife and lost revenue for Zenimax. Allow me to explain.

Let us begin with a simple comparison of benefits and penalties for each class.

Werewolf benefits and penalties:

WEREWOLF BENEFITS

Werewolf ultimate slotted (not transformed):

• 15% stamina recovery.

Werewolf Berserker (transformed):

• Light attacks apply 14k bleed over 4 sec.
• Heavy attacks do 50% splash damage in AOE.
• Max stamina increased by 30%.
• Major Brutality (20% weapon damage) from slotting heal (always).
• Major Savagery (10% crit chance) from slotting fear (always).

Brutal Pounce (gap closer):

• 9.6k BASE damage to target and surrounding enemies (AOE)
• Activate again within 5sec to cast Brutal Carnage:
  • Brutal Carnage causes enemies to bleed for 7k BASE physical damage over 10 seconds, dealing up to 450% more damage based on missing health.
  • Increase weapon damage by 85 for each enemy hit, up to a max of 6 (510 weapon damage).

Hircine's Rage (heal):

• Heal for 7k health (scales off max health).
• If at full health restore 3k stamina & gain Major Berserk (25% damage increase) for 6 seconds (also take 20% more damage).
• Major Brutality (20% weapon damage) at all times for slotting ability.

Deafening Roar (fear):

• Fear up to 6 nearby enemies for 4 seconds.
• Sets up to 6 enemies Off Balance for 7 seconds.
• Applies Major Fracture to feared enemies for 7 seconds (minus 5280 physical resist).
• Applies Minor Main to feared enemies for 7 seconds (minus 15% damage done).
• Gain Major Savagery (10% crit chance) at all times for slotting ability.

Howl of Despair (nuke, group utility):

• Deals 16k BASE physical damage.
• Enemies facing you take 10% more damage.
• Allows allies UNLIMITED use of Feeding Frenzy synergy, granting Empower for 5 seconds (increase light attack damage by 40%).

Claws of Life (AOE, heal):

• 12k BASE disease damage to enemies in AOE plus 12k BASE disease damage over 10 seconds.
• You are healed for 100% of the damage over time.
• Enemies hit by the initial effect are inflicted with the Diseased status effect (15% reduced healing received).

WEREWOLF PENALTIES

• You take 25% more poison damage WHILE TRANSFORMED. There are NO NEGATIVES when not transformed!

Vampirism benefits and penalties:

VAMPIRISM BENEFITS

• Vampire-only ability cost reduction (10%/20%/30%/40% at ranks 1/2/3/4).
• Rank 1: Ignore movement penalty of sneak and enter sneak 50% faster (no real combat benefit, RP passive?).
• Rank 2: When leaving sneak, invisibility, or mist form, gain 300 weapon & spell damage for 6 seconds (marginal usefulness).
• Rank 3: Reduce damage taken by up to 30% based on missing health (no vampire tank active abilities, marginal usefulness).
• Rank 4: Reduce sprint cost by 50% and gain invisibility after sprinting for 3 seconds (no real combat benefit, RP passive?).

VAMPIRISM PENALTIES

• Health Recovery reduced (10%/40%/70%/100% at ranks 1/2/3/4).
• Flame damage taken increased (5%/10%/15%/20% at ranks 1/2/3/4).
• Increase ALL non-vampire ability cost including ultimates (5%/10%/15%/20% at ranks 1/2/3/4).

As you can (hopefully) see, Werewolf gets FAR more benefits for FAR fewer penalties.

At Vampirism Rank 1, just for having Vampirism, you gain NO damage increase or sustain benefits and suffer -10% health recovery, +5% flame damage, and +5% cost of all normal abilities. Literally all downsides and no benefits (in terms of combat.) Compare to Werewolf who get 15% stamina recovery just for SLOTTING their ultimate without even transforming, with NO DOWNSIDES. Literally all benefits.

Obviously then we must ask, what are these new vampire active abilities and how are they so good as to warrant such imbalanced downsides? However on closer inspection, the vampire abilities you gain are mostly RP and utility fluff and give very little actual combat benefit:

• Blood Mist (channeled) does weak AOE damage (1.6k per second) and heals you.
• Hypnosis is an AOE stun of enemies facing your direction.
• Exhilarating Drain is a channel (interruptible) that does weak 2.5k single target damage per second for 3 seconds, heals you, and grants 4 ultimate per second.
• Sated Fury is a toggle that increases spell power & weapon damage by 660 but drains health per second (1152 per second at rank 4).
• Arterial Burst is the only actual damage ability. It is single target, does 10k magic damage (up to 50% more based on missing health) and always crits if YOU are under 50% health.

The ultimate Perfect Scion grants you 10k MAX health, magic, and stamina on activation, but DOES NOT RESTORE THIS VALUE. This only increases your max possible values, meaning if you are out of resources when you cast it you are STILL out of resources after transforming. You then heal for 15% of the damage you do while transformed and can see enemies through walls (again mostly RP, no real combat benefit).

You also temporarily gain all the benefits of Rank 4 with none of the drawbacks (meaning your normal abilities don't cost 20% more while transformed), for 20 seconds. This however is marginally useful as you will typically be resources starved by the time you are able to transform just maintaining your AOEs for 20% increased cost since Vampirism has NO SIGNIFICANT AOE ABILITIES as Werewold does.

Further, the weak AOE vampires do have (Blood Mist) DOES NOT LET YOU CAST OTHER ABILITIES while using it, meaning it works like a channel. Compare this to all other AOEs in the game where you put them down then continue the rest of your rotation, and it is a MASSIVE DPS LOSS to use it, combined with the fact the AOE itself is extremely weak by AOE standards (roughly half the damage of Endless Hail).

The benefits of the vampire skills available are simply not significant to combat and still require all meaningful AOE and damage abilities to come from weapons and class skills thus costing 20% more resources for very little gain. In simulations on the PTS I am routinely doing MORE DPS with a standard build with NO vampire abilities at Rank 1 Vampirism than at Rank 4 using the vampire spammable, toggle, and ultimate, and running out of resources far less often (though you do get 5% increased cost even with NO benefits at all).

Again, compare this to Werewolf:

• 15% stamina recovery just for having their ultimate on their bar without even transforming.
• Powerful toolkit with Nuke, AOE, multiple heals, CC, AND group utility.
• Light attacks apply 14k bleed over 4 sec.
• Heavy attacks do 50% splash damage in AOE.
• Max stamina increased by 30%.
• Major Brutality (20% weapon damage) from slotting heal (always).
• Major Savagery (10% crit chance) from slotting fear (always).
• Major Berserk (25% damage buff) for healing while at full health.
• Access to fear.
• Access to unlimited group Empower synergy (Alkosh, etc.).
• Major Fracture.
• Minor Maim.
• MASSIVE damage further buffed by ability use.

This disparity is so egregious as to be truly mind boggling. The benefits of Vampirism not only do not balance the downsides, but the class has become UNPLAYABLE for the following:

• Tanks: There are NO vampire-based tanking abilities to benefit from the reduced vampire ability cost.
• Healers: There are NO vampire-based healing abilities (for others) to benefit from the reduced ability cost.

Furthermore, damage dealers are punished with 20% increased cost to all their abilities which are the bulk of their damage, minus ONE spammable vampire skill and some RP utility stuff.

This simply CANNOT go to live in its current form as it will seriously harm engagement with the game for people who love vampires, completely demoralizing and destroying a loved playstyle. It does NOT have to be this way! The vampire overhaul COULD be a fun new dynamic that INCREASES people's enjoyment and excitement for the game! ZOS, all you have to do is the following:

REMOVE THE COST INCREASE FROM NORMAL ABILITIES! The 100% health recovery and 20% fire damage is more than enough to counterbalance the very marginal benefits of being a vampire.

Consider all the MANY incredible benefits Werewolf gains, and for all that, their ONLY downside is 25% poison weakness WHILE TRANSFORMED. Now look at the minuscule vampire benefits, and the fact they get almost the same penalty (20% fire weakness), but with 100% health recovery AND 20% ability cost added ON TOP of that?!?

How is the class with LESS BENEFITS getting HUGELY MORE PENALTIES?

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

At the very least there should be no ability cost penalty at Rank 1 Vampirism, 5% at Rank 2, 10% at Rank 3, and 15% at Rank 4, but even this much is TOTALLY UNFAIR based on actual benefits. As I said, I am regularly doing MORE DPS and staying in the fight longer due to sustain running a non-vampire ability build at Rank 1 on the PTS than I am using the vampire spammable, toggle, and ultimate at rank 4. I can post videos on request.

ZOS PLEASE reconsider this normal ability cost increase, at the very least at Rank 1, before Greymarch becomes another Morrowind sustain nerf disaster!

Blessed be.

WhyMustItBe

WIP...

My suggestion thus far is as follows:

Make transforming into your Scion ultimate change the behavior of other vampire active abilities. Different Scion morphs could even change abilities in different ways, such that there could be a "tank" version and a "DPS" version.

Here is a video posted later in the thread by Noxavian that showcases some possible visual effects for these changes (abilities of concern start at 2:02).

For example (current skills for reference):

• Vampiric Drain becomes Blood Swarm which looks sort of like the vampire lord bat swarm teleport in Skyrim, or the dash ability in the above video, causing you to dash to your target as a bloody bat swarm doing damage and healing from any enemy you pass through on the way, and temporarily burst in an AOE damage explosion on arrival, all while applying the standard morph effects. A debuff/cooldown could be added to keep the ultimate or magicka generation potential from becoming imbalanced. The tank version could stun and/or debuff.
• Blood Mist becomes Sanguine Squall which now allows casting other VAMPIRE abilities without breaking the toggle and has a cool new ground swarm visual similar to the video that moves with your character, and does double normal damage. Tank version could possible slow and/or debuff.
• Eviscerate and morphs work much the same but use a no-weapon animation similar to werewold to make Scion look more like the terrible beast it is (somehow a huge vampiric monster swatting at you with a baseball bat staff seems comical to me). Can be designed so that light attacks weave into the left-right animation seamlessly or that both alternate on the same animation cycle so using either Eviscerate or a light attack will keep up the animation sequence. Heavy attacks can do some really cool animation as well.
• Mesmerize behaves mechanically much the same, only it affects enemies NOT facing you as well. Tank version can also silence ranged attacks after the stun ends.

In addition, normal ability cost penalty at Rank 1 should be 0% scaling up from there, with slightly higher fire vulnerability, capping at 25% at rank 4.

Vevvev

WIP as WhyMustItBe has stated. ZOS has been getting a lot of Feedback like this and I wonder when the next PTS patch will be. Wanna see what they do with all the data they've collected so far.

Chicharron

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

will completely destroy the enjoyment of countless players and cause nothing but strife and lost revenue for Zenimax.

I think you are exaggerating.

WhyMustItBe

Chicharron wrote: »

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

will completely destroy the enjoyment of countless players and cause nothing but strife and lost revenue for Zenimax.

I think you are exaggerating.

I think you are underestimating people's attachment to their characters and the psychological impact of having the perception of something you love taken away on a whim for very little reason.

Read the entire post. The disparity of benefits vs. penalties is impossible to deny and very easy to fix.

Noxavian

Chicharron wrote: »

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

will completely destroy the enjoyment of countless players and cause nothing but strife and lost revenue for Zenimax.

I think you are exaggerating.

Nope, he isn't. I have no doubt that it will destroy the enjoyment of countless players and will in the end be a loss of revenue for Zenimax.

A major selling point for ESO it that it is the only mmo in existence where you can be a werewolf or vampire. That has its own group of people and marketing stand-point.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

What do you mean RP passive? you do realize the ability you called the RP passive is Dark Stalker, you stealth quicker and can move at normal speed while sneaking, it is one of the most powerful abilities they have or did you forget people do play stealth characters, Vampires are meant for stealth characters.

Secondly maybe you think it is so weak because you do not know how to play a Vampire, Mist is not a combat ability, it is an evasive ability, the goal of the Vampire is a quick kill, strike hard and fast, their melee attack is one of the most powerful abilities i have ever seen, my mageblade could take out an enemy with over 100k health in about 3 seconds with it.

Noxavian

Could you agree @WhyMustItBe that if they remove the ability cost increase or nerf it that Perfect Scion should get another morph effect entirely? I find it very silly that the morphs for this ultimate are a simple weakness decrease and a copy of the old ultimate.

I'll give the Swarming Scion kind of a pass because eh, people like that. But perfect scion? It literally isn't creative at all.

Basically without these huge weaknesses I see little reason to even take the morph.

It should summon death hounds or a huge gargoyle or give the vampire lord access to blood magic heavy/light attacks since the skill line has NO long range damage abilities. (a 2.5k dmg siphon does literally 0 damage to normal mobs when I could auto light attack for more. It is kinda insane)

Chicharron

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Chicharron wrote: »

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

will completely destroy the enjoyment of countless players and cause nothing but strife and lost revenue for Zenimax.

I think you are exaggerating.

I think you are underestimating people's attachment to their characters and the psychological impact of having the perception of something you love taken away on a whim for very little reason.

Read the entire post. The disparity of benefits vs. penalties is impossible to deny and very easy to fix.

I read the whole post.

And I still think this part and only this part: "will completely destroy the enjoyment of countless players and cause nothing but strife and lost revenue for Zenimax." it's an exaggeration.

I don't know how long you have been here but I still remember the first great Nerf that the Templars Healers suffered.

The drama was terrible, people threatening to cancel subscriptions, others saying goodbye, etc.

Years later we are still here And the game has more players than before (before COVID) and I with my Templar Healer as my main character for 5 years and counting.

I did not say that you are not right, I think you exaggerate.

doomette

One of my guilds convinced me to make a new vamp character in anticipation for the new chapter and was planning on just doing horse points and the guild dailies to slowly level those up in the meantime. Now I’m not sure if I want to continue or hold off on that and see. 😐


Edited to add:

But hoo boy am I excited about the WW stuff.

Vevvev

Noxavian wrote: »

snip

I agree with you completely. If anything I believe the Perfect Scion deserves the treatment that Clouding Swarm got. It needs some added power like a spammable or like the Psijic order healing skill where it changes your attacks completely. Just something to give it more power, and the ability for it to take no flame damage and have less ability costs is.... underwhelming to say the least.

WhyMustItBe

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

What do you mean RP passive? you do realize the ability you called the RP passive is Dark Stalker, you stealth quicker and can move at normal speed while sneaking, it is one of the most powerful abilities they have or did you forget people do play stealth characters, Vampires are meant for stealth characters.

Secondly maybe you think it is so weak because you do not know how to play a Vampire, Mist is not a combat ability, it is an evasive ability, the goal of the Vampire is a quick kill, strike hard and fast, their melee attack is one of the most powerful abilities i have ever seen, my mageblade could take out an enemy with over 100k health in about 3 seconds with it.

Dark Stalker letting you move at walk speed while sneaking will not allow you to be competitive in vet dungeons or trials, and apart from Nightblades adds very little benefit even for the specific playstyle of "get in get out" you refer to. This discussion is about the disparity of COMBAT power vs. drawbacks which is clearly off the map.

There is no reason to take this personally. Assuming Mist is meant as a pure evasive ability as you say, this only further proves my point: Vampires have far fewer benefits in combat for far greater penalties, and ONLY ONE actual damaging ability which is SINGLE TARGET and not even as strong at max potential as the Werewold nuke. Now consider all the other benefits Werewolves gain.

The fact people like playing vampires is the whole reason I spent all this time formulating a suggestion for how to avoid totally wrecking it.

Noxavian wrote: »

Could you agree @WhyMustItBe that if they remove the ability cost increase or nerf it that Perfect Scion should get another morph effect entirely? I find it very silly that the morphs for this ultimate are a simple weakness decrease and a copy of the old ultimate.

Absolutely. What I personally feel they should have done is have at least one morph of the ultimate change the active abilities to do different things. For example, have Mist do double damage and work as a toggle (so you can continue your normal rotation like other AOEs), or have drain work like the DK ability that pulls you to the enemy with a cool bat swarm effect and splash damage on impact, all while healing you.

There are so many cool things they COULD do with these abilities that I agree the current working set feels incomplete, particularly compared to the powerhouse that Werewolf has become.

Don't get me wrong, I love my wolfie characters and TOTALLY look forward to playing Werewolf in Greymarch. Without some serious modifications to the normal ability cost and general balance however, vampires not so much, which is incredibly sad since I have loved and played them since launch.

I am also not a fan of the new neon betty beam vampire drain visual effects. I like the old RPG drain effect. I don't feel like stealthy vampires should look like they are a constant German Sparkle Party.

Chrlynsch

I'm sorry but you need to spend time actually playing as a werewolf in pvp.

And then try in a trial.

Don't try and compare apples to oranges.

daemonor

But wait, i will use the trap card "pulling arguments out of my arsehole" and debunk your whole post by saying "vampires are good, don't expect to be a vampire with 100% benefits and 0 penalties, you have to build around it, - my magicka dps off tank is level 4 vampire and does quests just great!".

I have to disagree with a couple of points tho, the dark stalker is pretty useful for nightblades exclusively and enables zooming in cloack (pvp benefit and not rp only). The spammable blood for blood gave some good results while testing mag dk dps on a 21 mil trial dummy, one guy posted a screen of making it work in a trial environment even better, so that's that.
Current and reworked mistform is a very useful tool for pvp aswell, but most of the players swear by the psijic race against time ability for magicka mobility.

To sum it up I think vampire is still miles behind a werewolf build, I agree with most of the skills being fluf, rp-oriented and with no real synergy in between them. And mos def a 5+1 slot vampire build would be miles behind a 5+1 werewolf build. So far you are just going to play your regular character and slot the vampire CC if your class lacks or has an inferior one and perhaps the mist form for mobility. I would love to be proven wrong tho, don't want vampires overperforming a traditional build, but at least being somewhere around VIABLE would be very nice.

Matchimus

.

D0PAMINE

@WhyMustItBe Nice write up. I agree.

RogueShark

I don't think comparing them is entirely fair.

Vampire is a permanent state of being (unless you cure, ofc). Werewolf is on a timer; once your timer is gone, you get zero benefits from being a werewolf. Vampire benefits are always active depending on your stage. They skill lines do not remotely function the same (outside of the vague similarity of scion ultimate).

Edit: missed part of your post since they were labeled spoiler, edited to adjust my post.

Vevvev

RogueShark wrote: »

I don't think comparing them is entirely fair.

Vampire is a permanent state of being (unless you cure, ofc). Werewolf is on a timer; once your timer is gone, you get zero benefits from being a werewolf. Vampire benefits are always active depending on your stage. They skill lines do not remotely function the same (outside of the vague similarity of scion ultimate).

Edit: missed part of your post since they were labeled spoiler, edited to adjust my post.

Timer can be extended and a good werewolf player can keep it up indefinitely during a fight and never have to eat a single heart.

RogueShark

Doesn't mean it can't fall off. Whether in PvE due to dialog in dungeons or teammates afking, or in PvP during travel time and/or kiting.
If you build explicitly for werewolf, you aren't the best you can be in your human form. So that's another sort of trade off. The two skill lines do not function the same and comparing them is like apples or oranges, just because they're both 'monster' skill lines.

Goregrinder

Vevvev wrote: »

RogueShark wrote: »

I don't think comparing them is entirely fair.

Vampire is a permanent state of being (unless you cure, ofc). Werewolf is on a timer; once your timer is gone, you get zero benefits from being a werewolf. Vampire benefits are always active depending on your stage. They skill lines do not remotely function the same (outside of the vague similarity of scion ultimate).

Edit: missed part of your post since they were labeled spoiler, edited to adjust my post.

Timer can be extended and a good werewolf player can keep it up indefinitely during a fight and never have to eat a single heart.

But a bad vampire will always have their benefits up.

idk

This is what you get when you listen to the squeaky wheel of player clamoring for more vamp skills because the WW has it.

My guess is the "class representatives" have not played many roles in many of the changes we are seeing. That is why we are seeing changes that do not make sense. I do hope that someday Zos will get a combat team that has a decent vision for combat in an MMORPG. I have not been thrilled with the mess this team has been making.

Paradisius

Having read your post, I am inclined to agree that the detriments are large, especially so if you choose to not use any vampiric abilities. That being said, I disagree with the statement that the health recovery and fire damage detriment is enough. At least in its current state on the PTS, the flame damage is actually decreased (20% on PTS, at stage 4, 25% on Live) If we are to remove the ability cost, I propose either increasing the received flame damage or adding a different type of detriment that wont directly shoot the sustain of a character.

Overall though, Im not against changing or removing the current detriment. However I would personally enjoy something that made people consider whether or not changing their stage is worth it still.

Deathlord92

I hope they either remove the 20% cost increase or nerf it i main a stamblade and I love playing as a vampire as I have in previous elder scrolls games I’m always a vampire cutthroat.

WhyMustItBe

RogueShark wrote: »

I don't think comparing them is entirely fair.

Vampire is a permanent state of being (unless you cure, ofc). Werewolf is on a timer; once your timer is gone, you get zero benefits from being a werewolf. Vampire benefits are always active depending on your stage. They skill lines do not remotely function the same (outside of the vague similarity of scion ultimate).

Respectfully, I disagree. I think it is appropriate to compare them, and Werewolf DOES function as a "state of being" similar to vampire. For one thing, Werewolf gets 15% stamina recovery all the time, even when NOT transformed, just for having their ultimate on their ability bar. This directly improves combat performance of your regular rotation even when not transformed, with no increased ability cost, whereas vampire "always on" passives mostly do things like make you sneak faster or cost less stamina to sprint.

Secondly, as others have said, you can pretty much stay transformed as a werewolf forever (on trash packs you can quickly devour). The strengths you have when transformed are based on active and passive abilities you gain for being a Werewolf. The vampire actives don't require you to transform to use them true, but they are still unique due to your character being "infected." So in that way they are the same: They are both "infected" sub-classes.

Also the "always on" nature is a double-edge sword. The vampire also have their NEGATIVES active all the time. Werewolves not only get 15% stamina recovery all the time whether transformed or not, but only have to deal with any negatives when transformed, and even then the ONLY negative they get for much greater strengths is 25% increased poison damage.

Compare that to the vampire's 20% fire damage and you would think bumping that up to 25% fire damage would make them about equal, especially since the vampire benefits are quite a bit weaker than Werewolf. Yet vampire gets 100% health recovery debuff AND 20% increased cost of ALL abilities including ultimates that aren't the 1 damaging vampire spammable ON TOP of their equivalent damage weakness. My question is, why?

I feel comparing how one disease/subclass has far less benefits and yet far greater penalties than another disease/subclass IS absolutely fair and relevant.

EDIT: Note to ZOS: Please do not take this thread as a call to nerf Werewolf. Werewolf is not the problem here, the balance of normal ability cost penalties on vampire is. A strategy that knocks down things that are well designed, fun, and powerful to achieve "balance" only ensures that EVERYTHING in the game becomes weak and not very fun. Nobody wants that!

It is a far better strategy to use the window of time on PTS to solicit feedback to better understand why a particular concept for a design change is under-performing or not allowing for a diversity of playstyles to enjoy or benefit, and make corrective changes to ensure these designs are brought up to the standard of what is already fun and working. That is the best way to do balance.

By lifting up rather than breaking down.

RogueShark

15% stam recovery is not all the time, as it's only on one bar. You lose your weapon damage from dawnbreaker if it's front-barred, which is arguable better than the stam recovery. Get next to no use of it on your back bar. I'd even say you lose out on combat performance, because you either don't get dawnbreaker on your front bar, or you lose out on another high-damage ulti to drop.

As 'easy' as it is to keep werewolf up, you are not guaranteed in every situation to always be able to do so. Vampire passives/abilities are always a guarantee without having to waste or dump your ulti.

20% increase to all abilities can be adjusted by altering stages: you get more penalty depending on the passives you want. You can still use all of your vampire skills, including the massive weapon damage toggle.

Now, I agree that the increase cost on abilities is pretty steep and having no increase cost at stage 1 would be fair, IMO. But you also get a lot cheaper vampire abilities the higher stage you are, so you still have options to build for in that regard.

WhyMustItBe

RogueShark wrote: »

15% stam recovery is not all the time, as it's only on one bar. You lose your weapon damage from dawnbreaker if it's front-barred, which is arguable better than the stam recovery. Get next to no use of it on your back bar. I'd even say you lose out on combat performance, because you either don't get dawnbreaker on your front bar, or you lose out on another high-damage ulti to drop.

Actually it is much better to front bar WW as you will typically have more than 1000 more weapon damage on that bar (dual wield vs. bow in most builds) which directly translate into WW when you transform, since it inherits your stats as they are at the time you transform.

RogueShark wrote: »

Now, I agree that the increase cost on abilities is pretty steep and having no increase cost at stage 1 would be fair, IMO. But you also get a lot cheaper vampire abilities the higher stage you are, so you still have options to build for in that regard.

Yep, we are definitely in agreement here. There clearly should be no ability cost penalty for being the lowest stage of vampirism. I almost wonder if they have just assigned these values one position to the left what they actually meant them to be.

Even still, 15% at rank 4 is pretty steep, considering all you are really gaining access to between rank 1 and 4 in terms of passives is reduced sprint cost, a minor survivability boost in Undeath, and a short 300 damage boost after leaving invisibility/sneak/mist.

RogueShark

Actually it is much better to front bar WW as you will typically have more than 1000 more weapon damage on that bar (dual wield vs. bow in most builds) which directly translate into WW when you transform, since it inherits your stats as they are at the time you transform.

I was thinking from a 'human form viability' standpoint, which probably isn't the best way to consider because if you're building for WW you aren't going to be the greatest outside of WW form anyway.


And yes, it's steep, but you're also getting a large reduction on your vampire skills, which aren't something to totally sneeze at.

WhyMustItBe

RogueShark wrote: »

And yes, it's steep, but you're also getting a large reduction on your vampire skills, which aren't something to totally sneeze at.

To be perfectly honest, it IS pretty sneeze worthy. If you re-check the breakdown, there is only 1 serious damage ability which itself is weaker than the werewolf's single damage nuke and at Rank 4 cost reduction still only around half the normal cost of your standard class spammable like Cliff Racers. The AOE is channeled so you can't cast other things while using it, and mainly designed as a heal as it is half the strength of Endless Hail. The damage increase toggle is nice if you can avoid killing yourself, and the ultimate is fun, but lacks functionality.

I definitely like the idea of actives and they ARE fun to play with. My concern however is the ability to have a character that I can play around with vampire stuff solo and then rank down to run difficult content with, preferably as a tank or healer not just a damage dealer that uses 1 or 2 vampire abilities.

In the past I could do that without being penalized, which is my major concern here: getting ZOS to rethink the ability cost penalty at rank 1 and the impact that has on healers and tanks who get ZERO benefit from being vampire in group content at ANY rank, yet want to stay vampire for the fun/RP element when not in groups.

This design largely eliminates that which I feel is the bulk of people who play vampire.

Some ability changes when morphed like the bats teleport and toggled mist ideas would be really awesome too. But that's just brainstormy daydreamy stuff and not as super critical as the main concern.

Vevvev

RogueShark wrote: »

As 'easy' as it is to keep werewolf up, you are not guaranteed in every situation to always be able to do so. Vampire passives/abilities are always a guarantee without having to waste or dump your ulti.

As long as you're in combat you are pretty much capable of always being in werewolf form. Feral Pounce and devouring corpses just make it so that timer never goes down, and if you're in a group of werewolves.... well you probably won't even be worrying about that timer.

RogueShark wrote: »

15% stam recovery is not all the time, as it's only on one bar. You lose your weapon damage from dawnbreaker if it's front-barred, which is arguable better than the stam recovery. Get next to no use of it on your back bar. I'd even say you lose out on combat performance, because you either don't get dawnbreaker on your front bar, or you lose out on another high-damage ulti to drop.

You speak as if everyone and their brother slots Dawnbreaker. Sure everyone has it but there are cheaper ultimates out there like Take Flight, crescent sweep, and Incapacitating Strike that can function better than Dawnbreaker when utilized correctly. A simple 3% increase to weapon damage is useful but for some they want the stamina recovery over more damage instead. Speaking of Dawnbreaker the Flawless Dawnbreaker morph gives 300 extra weapon damage for 20 seconds when cast, and it sticks even after you bar swap. You can back bar that ultimate for a boost in weapon damage while getting the 15% stamina regeneration buff with the Werewolf ult on your primary bar.

dem0n1k

Werewolves are just better.

Chrlynsch

You are missing a couple cons to werewolf.

-Can't heal allies
-Can't stealth
-Melee only
-Loss of the majority of class passives/guild
-Loss of all weapon passives
-Expensive abilities (most 25% more expensive than a human's comparable abilities)
-No snare/root removal