Remove ability cost modifiers for the Vampire

ShadowHvo

A simple little suggestion to really fix the vampire.

Just remove both the increased, and reduced cost of abilities from the vampirism Stages.

Surely there isn't a need for the increased, nor reduced cost at all. Vampires in TES have never been less proficient at stabbing an individual with a dagger, nor casting a spell with the higher stages.

Either that, or make the reduced cost of regular abilities be affected by the amount of Vampire Abilities slotted, rather than the level of the stage.

You have two weeks to make the vampire right, ZoS. Don't squander it by this pitiful version that nobody is truly happy with. At least make Vampires viable for all types of content, rather than this negligible display.

The only thing that ruin the vampire completely, is the increased cost to regular abilities, why can you not see that?

XomRhoK

ShadowHvo wrote: »

The only thing that ruin the vampire completely, is the increased cost to regular abilities, why can you not see that?

Firstly, people who asked to remove increased cost of regular abilities, often forget that vampire also get very powerfull passives with each stage, so it must be some real drawback, maybe not increasing cost but more then just additional fire damage and reduced health recovery. As i remember, you suggested some time ago to replace increasing cost by reduced healing taken, it can be an option.

Secondly, you said that "increased cost to regular abilities is the only thing that ruin the vampire completely", the only thing for you maybe? For me it's another thing, they destroyed visuals and diversity of old vampire skills. Vampiric Drain lose stun, more then half damage and looks absolutly not vampiric, Blood Mist lose half of the damage and half of speed rate of that damage, so less triggers to procs, visually it also not the best, to bright and looks like puddle on the floor, Devouring Swarm now locked for me behind awfully looking Blood Scion. New skills also not best, Blood Frenzy is dull and doesn't bring any vampiric feel to the gameplay, Mesmorize fine, but could be more interesting with some follow up mechanics, like bite, for example, Eviscerate fine, for me, but can get better sound effect, Blood Scion just awfull, tall, bulky, glowing demon with horns, with almost zero associations with vampires.
Before i used all three vampire skills in my gameplay, after this so called revamp i will end up with maybe two. I can adapt to new role(tank, ganker, mage), can adapt to increased cost of skills, can farm new gear, but i can't change animation, sound and mechanics of skills... Thats what ruin vampire for me.

navystylz_ESO

Them changing normal ability cost increase made them ruin vampire even more to anyone who actually play deep vampirism. Refunded my prepurchase and 6 month ESO. They have 2 weeks to fix vampire and I might repurchase. Something that actually makes people want to be stage 4 and not trash.

ShadowHvo

@XomRhoK

I agree that there are several issues with this rework, and frankly I wish we never would have a rework to begin with. However, I don't personally believe that the visual identity to Drain and Mistform (No matter how.. strange, as they may be) is comparable to the severe weakness of increased ability cost, across the board.

What I find the most dreadful about it, is that it really only punishes those of us who don't actively use the vampire abilities, but use vampirism in the tried and true traditional form, as a state of being.

I've no personal interest in any of the vampire abilities, with exception of Eviscerate, and yet since I play a stamina character, the ability will by the very definition, be utterly useless.

This whole shick of vampire as a subclass or class, even, is a horrendous step in the wrong direction - since that is not what vampires are in the Elder Scrolls. The most obvious, and arguably largest offender to that, is the increased cost to regular abilities.

ZoS has received feedback about this for three weeks now, yet all they did was lessen the ability cost modifiers, thus I suggested to eliminate them all completely - positive and negative both, as they're the ones that ruins build diversity.

If this 12% increased cost to abilities goes live, I can practically wave goodbye to any and all endgame content, and I'm not fond of that thought.

OmniDo

ShadowHvo wrote: »

@XomRhoK If this 12% increased cost to abilities goes live, I can practically wave goodbye to any and all endgame content, and I'm not fond of that thought.

Join the rest of us, bud.
[Snip]

[Edited for bashing]

[Edited by Author for clarification]
I said alot more here, but apparently candor and frankness, even when presented factually and without vulgarity, are not permitted on public forums by Z0$. First rule of mob-control: Perception Management. 🙄

XomRhoK

ShadowHvo wrote: »

@XomRhoK

I agree that there are several issues with this rework, and frankly I wish we never would have a rework to begin with. However, I don't personally believe that the visual identity to Drain and Mistform (No matter how.. strange, as they may be) is comparable to the severe weakness of increased ability cost, across the board.

What I find the most dreadful about it, is that it really only punishes those of us who don't actively use the vampire abilities, but use vampirism in the tried and true traditional form, as a state of being.

I've no personal interest in any of the vampire abilities, with exception of Eviscerate, and yet since I play a stamina character, the ability will by the very definition, be utterly useless.

This whole shick of vampire as a subclass or class, even, is a horrendous step in the wrong direction - since that is not what vampires are in the Elder Scrolls. The most obvious, and arguably largest offender to that, is the increased cost to regular abilities.

ZoS has received feedback about this for three weeks now, yet all they did was lessen the ability cost modifiers, thus I suggested to eliminate them all completely - positive and negative both, as they're the ones that ruins build diversity.

If this 12% increased cost to abilities goes live, I can practically wave goodbye to any and all endgame content, and I'm not fond of that thought.

Since you are talking about 12% I can assume you want to play as stage 4 with all passives possible. I do not know how much you are attached to your character, skills and role, but you can make some adjustments to your build to compensate 12% cost increase. At stage 2 you get "Strike from shadow" passive, so you can weave Mist Form every 6 seconds and get 300 wp/sp damage, it's equivalent to Hundings Rage set 5pc bonus, so you can change one of your sets to lower ability cost, for Battlefield Acrobat (-6%), for example, or change glyphs to reduce cost. At stage 3 you get undeath passive, at 75% HP you will have 7,5% damage mitigation, almost as Minor Protection, as Vampire Cloak set 5pc bonus, at 50% HP 15% mitigation, so you will recieve less damage, and can change another part of your gear to reduce cost even more. At stage 1 and 4 you will get sneak and inviz passives, which in PvP also equivalent to 5pc set item each, in PvE end game content they not so usefull.
Maybe this adjustments will not match your build or playstyle, as playing without proper looking vampire abilities will not match my playstyle, but at least you have in game tools to adjust your build, while i can't change animation, sound and mechanics of abilities.

DT-ARR

At the end of the day what i find most irritating is how with a simple misguided patch update, the effort taken to develop a playstyle and a character identity can literally be undone in the time it takes to download. This is an MMO, so obviously i understand balance changes being made - but this is not that. This is not even a re-work. This is a gutting.

Literal hours and hours of in game work negated - from time spent farming sets, improving them via expensive crafting materials, to tweaking skill rotations - all undone with a patch tweak to satisfy what? Were vampires OP and outperforming? Hell no. Has anyone ever even complained about vampires being OP? I havn't seen it.

Side question - are the individuals who purchased vampirism via the crown store going to be reimbursed should they choose to cure? Given that what they purchased is no longer what they have that only seems fair....or is this just a fraudulent bait and switch.

/Bleh

Nser

Vampire now is balanced well, but the increasing cost of vampire abilitys was not needed at all 40% was totally fine @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Deathlord92

All I want is that cost increase removed it will ruin vampire for me and I been playing a vampire for 5 years in eso and I always play a vampire in oblivion and skyrim please fix vampire zos

Taleof2Cities

ShadowHvo wrote: »

If this 12% increased cost to abilities goes live, I can practically wave goodbye to any and all endgame content, and I'm not fond of that thought.

Though I think your last paragraph is a bit of a stretch, @ShadowHvo, I agree with the spirit of your post.

I will be getting cured after Greymoor drops as well.

Dracane

XomRhoK wrote: »

ShadowHvo wrote: »

The only thing that ruin the vampire completely, is the increased cost to regular abilities, why can you not see that?

Firstly, people who asked to remove increased cost of regular abilities, often forget that vampire also get very powerfull passives with each stage, so it must be some real drawback, maybe not increasing cost but more then just additional fire damage and reduced health recovery. As i remember, you suggested some time ago to replace increasing cost by reduced healing taken, it can be an option.

Secondly, you said that "increased cost to regular abilities is the only thing that ruin the vampire completely", the only thing for you maybe? For me it's another thing, they destroyed visuals and diversity of old vampire skills. Vampiric Drain lose stun, more then half damage and looks absolutly not vampiric, Blood Mist lose half of the damage and half of speed rate of that damage, so less triggers to procs, visually it also not the best, to bright and looks like puddle on the floor, Devouring Swarm now locked for me behind awfully looking Blood Scion. New skills also not best, Blood Frenzy is dull and doesn't bring any vampiric feel to the gameplay, Mesmorize fine, but could be more interesting with some follow up mechanics, like bite, for example, Eviscerate fine, for me, but can get better sound effect, Blood Scion just awfull, tall, bulky, glowing demon with horns, with almost zero associations with vampires.
Before i used all three vampire skills in my gameplay, after this so called revamp i will end up with maybe two. I can adapt to new role(tank, ganker, mage), can adapt to increased cost of skills, can farm new gear, but i can't change animation, sound and mechanics of skills... Thats what ruin vampire for me.

No they do not.
4 out of 6 vampire passives are very much unuseuable during combat unless you are a nightblade.
The only real thing vampire has is the damage reduction, reduced sprint cost and the invisibility. While strong, they do not justify the massive drawbacks.

If you would at least gain those 300 spell/weapon damage without such a condition, yea, then you would trade cost increase that is always active against damage that is always active. While it remains to reason if 300 spell damage is equal to 12% cost increase.

Dark Stalker: Useless in combat, since you can not sneak once engaged.

Feed: Obviously no combat application.

Strike from the Shadows: Only for the initial engage or for nightblades and maybe for Templars who can sustain mistform better. Even then, being tied to the use of active abilities makes it less of a real passive, as you need to slot and use active abilities for it to even work. Not everyone has the space or capability to make use of Mistform even.

Blood Ritual: Useless

Undeath and Unnatural movement are both good, with the latter being a bit more conditional I would say.

So no, Vampire is not strong and certainly do these trashy gimmick passives not warrant taking 20% more flame damage, having no health recover, having a hefty 12% cost increase (much more in reality as it is based on the base cost of skills) and weakness to Hakeijo and Fighers Guild.

No, just no.

Dracane

ShadowHvo wrote: »

@XomRhoK

I agree that there are several issues with this rework, and frankly I wish we never would have a rework to begin with. However, I don't personally believe that the visual identity to Drain and Mistform (No matter how.. strange, as they may be) is comparable to the severe weakness of increased ability cost, across the board.

What I find the most dreadful about it, is that it really only punishes those of us who don't actively use the vampire abilities, but use vampirism in the tried and true traditional form, as a state of being.

I've no personal interest in any of the vampire abilities, with exception of Eviscerate, and yet since I play a stamina character, the ability will by the very definition, be utterly useless.

This whole shick of vampire as a subclass or class, even, is a horrendous step in the wrong direction - since that is not what vampires are in the Elder Scrolls. The most obvious, and arguably largest offender to that, is the increased cost to regular abilities.

ZoS has received feedback about this for three weeks now, yet all they did was lessen the ability cost modifiers, thus I suggested to eliminate them all completely - positive and negative both, as they're the ones that ruins build diversity.

If this 12% increased cost to abilities goes live, I can practically wave goodbye to any and all endgame content, and I'm not fond of that thought.

I agree. I absolutely understand that they do not want vampires to be passive bots anymore.
But most of the abilities are very underwhelming, situational or pointless on many class setups.

So most people would still like to use them for some passives or for immersion. While I understand there should be drawbacks and yes, fire damage alone is certainly not enough, cost increase is crazy and punishes too hard.
In my mind, they should give vampires some sort of self defile. 2% defile on self for every stage for 8% on max. Would make a bit more sense for the theme (they are undead), although lore wise, also not that much.

DarcyMardin

I’ll be curing my vamps. (They were ugly anyway).

Moose_Scout

ShadowHvo wrote: »

A simple little suggestion to really fix the vampire.

Just remove both the increased, and reduced cost of abilities from the vampirism Stages.

Surely there isn't a need for the increased, nor reduced cost at all. Vampires in TES have never been less proficient at stabbing an individual with a dagger, nor casting a spell with the higher stages.

Either that, or make the reduced cost of regular abilities be affected by the amount of Vampire Abilities slotted, rather than the level of the stage.

You have two weeks to make the vampire right, ZoS. Don't squander it by this pitiful version that nobody is truly happy with. At least make Vampires viable for all types of content, rather than this negligible display.

The only thing that ruin the vampire completely, is the increased cost to regular abilities, why can you not see that?

Yeah. The fire damage is has already been reason enough to not be a vamp...I mean, most PVP players are using fire or some other ability that hurts vamps.

Why make it more of a burden?

navystylz_ESO

XomRhoK wrote: »

Since you are talking about 12% I can assume you want to play as stage 4 with all passives possible. I do not know how much you are attached to your character, skills and role, but you can make some adjustments to your build to compensate 12% cost increase. At stage 2 you get "Strike from shadow" passive, so you can weave Mist Form every 6 seconds and get 300 wp/sp damage, it's equivalent to Hundings Rage set 5pc bonus, so you can change one of your sets to lower ability cost, for Battlefield Acrobat (-6%), for example, or change glyphs to reduce cost. At stage 3 you get undeath passive, at 75% HP you will have 7,5% damage mitigation, almost as Minor Protection, as Vampire Cloak set 5pc bonus, at 50% HP 15% mitigation, so you will recieve less damage, and can change another part of your gear to reduce cost even more. At stage 1 and 4 you will get sneak and inviz passives, which in PvP also equivalent to 5pc set item each, in PvE end game content they not so usefull.
Maybe this adjustments will not match your build or playstyle, as playing without proper looking vampire abilities will not match my playstyle, but at least you have in game tools to adjust your build, while i can't change animation, sound and mechanics of abilities.

But does this make you break even or does if give you a gain that's better than not being a vampire? This is important, because if you aren't gaining a signifcant bonus for having to juggle all the flaws of being a vampire, then it's not worth it. Why take all the penalties, extra damage and managing kamikaze mode if it doesn't give you a significant boost to increase skill requirement.

Dracane wrote: »

In my mind, they should give vampires some sort of self defile. 2% defile on self for every stage for 8% on max. Would make a bit more sense for the theme (they are undead), although lore wise, also not that much.

Disagree. 100% no health regen. Then killing your ability to heal when you can only heal yourself? Frenzy killing you. Vampires were never this kamikaze kill themselves affliction. God forbid you can't even heal yourself with all the other issues this build has. You already have to build to get a good chunk of healing in to use the pure vampire stage 4 playstyle, which means you're taking away from something else you could be doing. Player vampires in ESO is a joke right now compared to the NPC, and vamps of the TES games.

JAwtunes

Vamps are for ganks.

SkyMagpie

One thing my friend pointed out is that maybe we should have all that damage increase and those penalties while in the Vampie Lord form? (I don't remember what it's called, Scion?)
Like you trade off your costs and such to gain more power and you do more damage but burn yourself out quickly too? Makes sense even from a role playing aspect.

navystylz_ESO

SkyMagpie wrote: »

One thing my friend pointed out is that maybe we should have all that damage increase and those penalties while in the Vampie Lord form? (I don't remember what it's called, Scion?)
Like you trade off your costs and such to gain more power and you do more damage but burn yourself out quickly too? Makes sense even from a role playing aspect.

So nerf vampire even more into the horrible ultimate that makes you lose 3 seconds casting it, and stuns you when it drops. That would make vampire even more of a crapfest.

Also that would be like giving vampire the WW treatment. And even more people that haven't already cured or refunded would do that when everything was moved to requiring your ult.

Tommy_The_Gun

JAwtunes wrote: »

Vamps are for ganks.

Vampire + Ganker = ... Vamker / Gankpire ? ? ?

Anyway, I think if they remove cost modifiers, every one will be a vampire. Especially in non-CP PvP. I think this is one of the reasons we see those changes. Right now people are all vamps for either passive recovery bonus or mist form in PvP. Not that It bothers me, I don't use Vamp or WW anyway, but I experienced nerf hammer myself and it is not pleasant so I don't wish it for anyone.

From the looks of it, it seems that ZOS wants people to build for vampire (just like some people are building for WW) and make dedicated vampire builds. Also, Vampire is flexible enough so you could still use it just for passives with lesser penalty (lower vamp stage).

Austinseph1

Vamp is going from attractive "git good" passive to a gimmick for niche builds means it won't be useful for any of my builds. WW is incredibly powerful and when you aren't transformed there is basically no downside. Vamp is barely attractive in it's best form and most are just better off not using it. Why try so hard to build into something that just isn't worth it.. even then if I wanted to RP it, it really only works with classes with strong consistent self heals.. probably sorc and magblade? Magplar, great a vampire wielding the power of the sun, some great RP there.. pretty useless for Warden, DK, and Necro. Necro has the ghost but it doesn't heal properly sometimes so consistent use will go out the window. A "risky" playstyle sounds attractive to some but most people will spend their time as a carpet, and vamp will be ridiculed when you see players using it, probably being excluded for it.

Dracane

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

JAwtunes wrote: »

Vamps are for ganks.

Vampire + Ganker = ... Vamker / Gankpire ? ? ?

Anyway, I think if they remove cost modifiers, every one will be a vampire. Especially in non-CP PvP. I think this is one of the reasons we see those changes. Right now people are all vamps for either passive recovery bonus or mist form in PvP. Not that It bothers me, I don't use Vamp or WW anyway, but I experienced nerf hammer myself and it is not pleasant so I don't wish it for anyone.

From the looks of it, it seems that ZOS wants people to build for vampire (just like some people are building for WW) and make dedicated vampire builds. Also, Vampire is flexible enough so you could still use it just for passives with lesser penalty (lower vamp stage).

Gankpire sounds so much more ridiculous and insulting. I think that is what people would call it if anything.

navystylz_ESO

Austinseph1 wrote: »

Vamp is going from attractive "git good" passive to a gimmick for niche builds means it won't be useful for any of my builds. WW is incredibly powerful and when you aren't transformed there is basically no downside. Vamp is barely attractive in it's best form and most are just better off not using it. Why try so hard to build into something that just isn't worth it.. even then if I wanted to RP it, it really only works with classes with strong consistent self heals.. probably sorc and magblade? Magplar, great a vampire wielding the power of the sun, some great RP there.. pretty useless for Warden, DK, and Necro. Necro has the ghost but it doesn't heal properly sometimes so consistent use will go out the window. A "risky" playstyle sounds attractive to some but most people will spend their time as a carpet, and vamp will be ridiculed when you see players using it, probably being excluded for it.

I mean, Nightblade has plenty of self healing as well. And already has a blood magic theme to part of the class.

BalticBlues

ALL friends playing Vampires tell me this : Cure Vampirism with Greymore.
ZOS, why invest all the hard work if most of your customers cannot use it?

Especially for Healers and Trial players the cost increase changes are just bad.
This update looks like MADE ONLY for DDs and ONLY for niche builds/gameplay.
ZOS, better leave Vampires as they are instead of ruining them for most customers.

Dracane wrote: »

While I understand there should be drawbacks and yes, fire damage alone is certainly not enough, cost increase is crazy and punishes too hard. In my mind, they should give vampires some sort of self defile. 2% defile on self for every stage for 8% on max.

Indeed, such an approach could make more sense.

ne.ga.kurai_ESO

Please remove them all together. noCP Sustain in this game is a joke if you want to actually kill anything. Adding these cost increases further makes one of the least enjoyable parts of this game worse and decreases build variety. I'd take a scaling self defile, increase to flame damage any day over the current proposal.

I've basically stopped playing the game because of the patch notes. If this goes live I just don't care anymore.

WraithShadow13

I could understand it if, say, the self-healing was considerably higher or if the vampire abilities had more utility to them, but overall, i've been really underwhelmed or disappointed by this update, so i don't really get the reason for this. The power cost changes are way too high at level 4 and really don't seem to be worth it. How many people would use this as a whole bar, you know?

It shouldn't be part of the ultimate's morphs to get rid of these costs. That just further makes me not want to use this ultimate OR this skill tree. I think? That morph isn't really clear, is just says all the benefits with none of the downfalls, but the whole skill tree looks like a downfall.

Overall, it just seems like it's not worthwhile since most people don't fully kit out with these powers.

BattleAxe

Defile as a negative to being a vampire how is that gonna work when you already have no health recovery? Vampire stage 4 has pretty much all passives active almost all the time. However werewolf you get 15% stam recovery if you slot the ultimate and that’s it so it stands to reason having access to most or all of your Passives is well worth the negatives. Players who use werewolf would gladly take a skill cost increase to have passives active all the time even if that means taking more poison damage all the time as well. As it stands both being a werewolf and being a vampire is a choice not a necessity.

Glurin

BattleAxe wrote: »

Defile as a negative to being a vampire how is that gonna work when you already have no health recovery? Vampire stage 4 has pretty much all passives active almost all the time. However werewolf you get 15% stam recovery if you slot the ultimate and that’s it so it stands to reason having access to most or all of your Passives is well worth the negatives. Players who use werewolf would gladly take a skill cost increase to have passives active all the time even if that means taking more poison damage all the time as well. As it stands both being a werewolf and being a vampire is a choice not a necessity.

Werewolf passive are far more powerful though, which makes sense given that they are designed around transforming into serious powerhouses.

15% stamina regen
30% move speed
50% heavy attack stamina return
Restore 8% health by eating corpses
18% weapon damage
10000 resists

Of course you'd be glad to trade a 12% skill cost increase for all of that! Who in their right mind wouldn't? (Besides mages.) And yet it's the vampire who has no room to complain because they get a run cost decrease and a little damage reduction after they've already taken damage?