Werewolf vs. Vampire - Serious problems on PTS!

katorga

Vevvev wrote: »

katorga wrote: »

If werewolves were everywhere in pvp, everyone and their brother would slot dawnbreaker. Next patch you'll see more vampires and werewolves, so probably an increase in the use of dawnbreaker.

Magic builds can't use dawnbreaker.

Ulti scales with highest stat. With so many sets offering both penetration stats, you can make it hit hard. Running DB on a mag sorc for the stun used to be a Thing.

Either way, I think ww has more negatives than even the new Vampire, even 20% increased cost, as bad as that is, is better than no access at all to external abilities and passives.

ATreeGnome

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

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.

You're overlooking the fact that the werewolf skill line HAS to be completely usable as a standalone toolkit in just 5 abilities + passives while vampire does not. Vampires don't lose an entire ability bar, they don't lose every single class passive that is tied to slotting or using a class ability (every single class specific minor group buff for example), vampires don't lose the ability to modify their skill bars to work better for specific fights. Vampires get a lot more flexibility than werewolves, so I really don't think it is remotely fair to try to do a direct comparison of the two based just on their active and passive abilities.

That said, I DO think that there should be a way to maintain vamperism on a character without having the advantages or disadvantages, much like a werewolf. Maybe a blessing of some sort from an NPC that makes you stage 0 vampire until you feed again but you lose access to everything else - no actives, no passives just the ability to feed to get to stage 1. The non-vampire ability skill costs could probably be tune back a bit too.

skypantherb14_ESO

ATreeGnome wrote: »

You're overlooking the fact that the werewolf skill line HAS to be completely usable as a standalone toolkit in just 5 abilities + passives while vampire does not. Vampires don't lose an entire ability bar, they don't lose every single class passive that is tied to slotting or using a class ability (every single class specific minor group buff for example), vampires don't lose the ability to modify their skill bars to work better for specific fights. Vampires get a lot more flexibility than werewolves, so I really don't think it is remotely fair to try to do a direct comparison of the two based just on their active and passive abilities.

That said, I DO think that there should be a way to maintain vamperism on a character without having the advantages or disadvantages, much like a werewolf. Maybe a blessing of some sort from an NPC that makes you stage 0 vampire until you feed again but you lose access to everything else - no actives, no passives just the ability to feed to get to stage 1. The non-vampire ability skill costs could probably be tune back a bit too.

I wouldn't mind playing Vampire as a "class"... however it does not feel "complete" with the current spells. The way Vampires worked in Single Player Elder Scroll Games is that they add spells/abilities on top of what you already have. This change in ESO will make them only a DPS sub-class... there is no reason a Healer or Tank would go with the current version on PTR (6.0.0) But it could drive Healers and Tanks to go to DPS instead, if they really want to play as Vampires...

Essentially ESO just made a Shadow Priest (from WoW) themed DPS dealer... including Surrender to Madness... I mean "Blood Frenzy"... (https://www.wowdb.com/spells/193223-surrender-to-madness)

Anbokr

This 1:1 comparison is kind of faulty because it's overly general. Vampire is dishing out way more damage on the PTS than werewolf, and werewolf comes with some fairly major cons -- only one bar, all in on the limited transformation (vamp is not all in on blood scion), loss of passives, lack of healing (the current heal is way too expensive for the value), etc...

Raudgrani

Already rebuilt my werewolf, so please let it go through. Eventually they will castrate werewolves again.

Stravokov

Noxavian wrote: »

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.

yup exactly. i want to play a Vampire with ALL vampire abilities, but the actives/passives just don't make sense at all. i was really looking forward to returning to the game and dropping some money on Graymoor + crowns. looks like ill have to hold off until they can eventually make Vampire playable/viable.

Ezorus

[snip]
Werewolf only has benefits if you use it there's a difference (and a good one at that) if you only want the small stam regen increase then you have to give up an ENTIRE ultimate slot. That is big loss if you don't plan to turn into a werewolf. The change to vampire is a big nerf. But it's to stop people (including myself) who just have it for the passive bonuses. Stop trying to ruin werewolves too, they've needed some love for years

[edited for baiting]

Universe

The current Vampire skill line on PTS is weak & unrewarding with far too many drawbacks.

BTW it is Greymoor, not Greymarch
I love the Shivering Isles expansion in Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but we are talking about ESO here.

Wuuffyy

Raudgrani wrote: »

Already rebuilt my werewolf, so please let it go through. Eventually they will castrate werewolves again.

It’s already castrated. Major berserk is trash rn. Heal is still ridiculously expensive. You can now only gap close once every 5 secs. Still no purge/snare removal. Just ridiculous this guy is comparing to underpowered classes and calling one OP. I HOPE THEY DOUBLE THE ABILITY COST of VAMP tbh.

merevie

You are a furball. You decide now is the perfect time to pounce. A zerg comes over the hill..you reach for purge... you are a dead pile of smoking fur.

You are a vampire. You decide to hide in a dark corner & light attack. Maybe throw those old dots (who knew they were nerfed) and a few hard cast crystal frags. A zerg comes over the hill. *purge* *streak*. You return when it's super safe to tbag the pile of fur.

Mhm.

Merca

I think this argument is useless, you just need to have one werewolf character, another vampire character. If you think the werewolf is better, you play this character, if you think the vampire is better, you play another character.

GeorgeYung

I like most of the new vampire changes, only thing I very much dislike is the cost increase on non-vampire skills. 20% is just too much. You still need a proper spammable and the vampire one only has 5m radious?^$?£? It just does not make any sense.
One of the morph should be ranged at least and the cost reduction should be halfed.

TornixDM

WW has to be powerful since your relinquishing an ult and a bar swap when your in it

Merca

GeorgeYung wrote: »

I like most of the new vampire changes, only thing I very much dislike is the cost increase on non-vampire skills. 20% is just too much. You still need a proper spammable and the vampire one only has 5m radious?^$?£? It just does not make any sense.
One of the morph should be ranged at least and the cost reduction should be halfed.

I think this debaff should only act on vampires during the day, because at this time they should lie in a coffin. Here 's the night, the time for monsters. For ordinary mortals to be afraid to appear behind the walls of their castles.

ketsparrowhawk

I have already cured all my vamps except one.. and that one is just so I can have a vamp to mess around with. Probably won't play with it much. I really don't like being so discouraged from using my class abilities.

Sephyr

Honestly, WW's and Vampires are both in a bad state and there's a few reasons why.

While werewolf is highly engaging as a skill line--they are also stuck with just one bar, which means that build versatility is really strongarmed into only a few different sets and some CP loadouts for full optimization.

Vampirism on the PTS is still not as engaging, less benefits than what it offers on live, and the risks far outweigh the rewards.


Both are a hindrance in any form of PvE competitive gameplay and PvP we'll still have the niche builds that we have today. If there's no changes to both, we're unfortunately going to have to swallow the bad pill here.

Merca wrote: »

GeorgeYung wrote: »

I like most of the new vampire changes, only thing I very much dislike is the cost increase on non-vampire skills. 20% is just too much. You still need a proper spammable and the vampire one only has 5m radious?^$?£? It just does not make any sense.
One of the morph should be ranged at least and the cost reduction should be halfed.

I think this debaff should only act on vampires during the day, because at this time they should lie in a coffin. Here 's the night, the time for monsters. For ordinary mortals to be afraid to appear behind the walls of their castles.

This specific strain doesn't get affected by the sunlight--per it's lore. That's not happening ever.

Merca

Sephyr wrote: »

This specific strain doesn't get affected by the sunlight--per it's lore. That's not happening ever.

Well, then that could explain anything. Then 20% to the cost of other abilities is still small. Can and increase)

Sephyr

Merca wrote: »

Sephyr wrote: »

This specific strain doesn't get affected by the sunlight--per it's lore. That's not happening ever.

Well, then that could explain anything. Then 20% to the cost of other abilities is still small. Can and increase)

I encourage reading the following;

Noxiphilic Sanguivoria
Noxiphilic Sanguivoria is a strain of vampirism that was common during the Second Era. Unlike other vampiric diseases such as Porphyric Hemophilia and Sanguinare Vampiris, vampires of the Noxiphilic Sanguivoria strain are not weakened by daylight, but are instead strengthened during the night. Vampires of this strain can undergo a complete blood transfusion ritual known as the Rite of the Scion to become Scions, a more powerful version of a vampire. The Rite of the Scion is also necessary for a Soul Shriven to become a vampire.

Found here; https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Disease#Noxiphilic_Sanguivoria

There's little to nothing to add with vulnerabilities to sunlight if they're invulnerable to any affects toward sunlight. I'd suggest making a new thread if you want that, but you're going to get the same answer as I'm stating to you. It's not about vampires and 'night life' or being weakened during the day. This is about the performance of them mechanically.

Elvenheart

Obviously, the new vampire skill line is a plot by the werewolves of Tamriel to weaken vampires.