The Vampire hype is... misplaced.

TheInfernalRage

When the Greymoor expansion was announced, it was supposed to be the one that can make vampires great again. Don't get me wrong. NPC vampires are flashy now. In fact, they are so flashy they can make you, the player who actually spent the money, feel insecure because your skill line as a vampire. It appears that the new skill line is almost similar in terms of function as the current one. The only difference is that the new one has more uselessness to it. Here are some points from the PTS so far:

1. ZOS has given us a new powerful spammable that can make all spammable feel weak. This is probably the only reason why you need to be a vampire. Get ready folks because it might be the case that all of us will be using the same spammable. This has the potential to break class identity. And what does it look like? A reskinned Burning Embers. And guess what? It's a magic damage spammable ONLY.

2. For some reason, the most badass vampires, those high level ones who kept on feeding, are the most susceptible to death. With Frenzy (perhaps the second most useful skill for PVE) got nerfed, it was rendered useless. No one's going to make use of this skill unless if you have a fetish for becoming the weakest character in your party. As of the current PTS, unless you're doing RP, there's absolutely no reason to go higher than stage 1 vampire.

3. Vampires don't have any other type of damage other than magic damage. Even the skill that looks like you're just slapping your enemy is magic damage. Contrary to the new video released, vampires (the players at least) can't go to endgame with swords and other melee weapons at hand. Whoever made that video is kind of misrepresenting the vampire skill line.

4. Where is the lore that states that being vampires made your active skills more expensive? Seriously. And in relation to this, the current Vampire Lord set is more useful in Greymoor. But guess what? ZOS changed the set so that it can make you feel like a total loser.

In terms of the Vampire skill line, this is bordering into much ado about nothing.

Glurin

1. So because there's a new spammable available, all classes will now be exactly the same and nobody anywhere will ever use anything different? Yeah, kinda doubt that. Particularly given that so many people are claiming they are going to cure themselves as soon as the update hits. There's also all the other non-class skill spammables out there that, according to you, have completely stripped away class identity because everybody is using the exact same one.

2. Frenzy got nerfed because they don't want you to have 100% uptime on it for a free 600 weapon and spell damage. Now you can argue that they may have nerfed it too much, but this in no way qualifies as resulting in no reason for anyone to go past stage one.

3. Pick up a sword. There, you now have physical damage. Use a fire staff. You now do fire damage. Use a bow. Now you have poison. Use a class ability. You now have frost, lightning, fire, physical, etc. You don't have to stick exclusively to vampire abilities. That's kind of the reason people were complaining about the 20% non-vamp skill cost penalty and why it got brought down to 12%. It's also why we don't want them to be magicka werewolves.

4. There isn't any. It's purely a mechanic for the MMO environment. They wanted the downsides of being a vampire to have a little more impact to them and this is what they came up with.

TheInfernalRage wrote: »

this is bordering into much ado about nothing.

On that, I whole heartedly agree.

Kiralyn2000

Hype? Apparently you've missed the past few weeks of constant hate posts about the new vampire system.

4. Where is the lore that states that being vampires made your active skills more expensive?

It's a game. Game balance issues trump "lore".

Foefaller

Can't comment about 1, as I haven't tried the upcoming vamp changes on PTS.

Sad to hear about 2 if true, though mainly because it's a continiation of "no reason to ever bother with feeding."

On 3, I'm guessing that ZoS wanted to make Vampire a counterpoint to Werewolf, which has little to nothing to offer for anyone running a mag build.

As for 4, I think it's one part of a process (and one I'm kinda glad they are doing) to make becoming a vampire being a choice with significant gameplay implications. Right now, almost every tank and healer build, and more than a few dps builds, recommend or require vampirism... but only for Undeath and Supernatural Recovery (and unnatural resistance, obviously), and they almost never even mention the active abilities. IMO a state of affairs that has as much to do with the lack of significant drawbacks as it is the small number of active skills Vampirism currently has.

Even if ZoS can't point to a line in the lore to justify it (which is a really silly argument against what is ultimately a balance change) it means that there is a stronger incentive to slot and use vampire abilities than there is currently, and a cost beyond fire resist and health recovery to getting infected just for the passives. And I think that as a whole that's a good thing.

x48rph

Eh. So many people complained that vampire was something people felt compelled to take for the passives. Whelp, ZOS certainly solved that for them as I picture there will be quite the line of people at the local Priest of Arkay once this launches. Whether that's good or bad , idk. What I do know though is they didn't really do anything to entice people to take it for any other reason either out side of some really, really niche builds. You can't even take it for the cool factor cause the scions look dumb. The only good thing was the invisible when sprinting so at least now resource farmers will have an easier time farming nodes.

Vevvev

The melee spammable is a problem when most magic damage builds rely on light armor to boost their numbers and light armor has the worst physical resistance in the game. If you actually look at a melee magicka class like the Dragonknight for example you'll notice they have a lot of powerful "heal as you go" abilities. The more aggressive you get the more healing you receive with abilities like Flame Lash and Burning embers.

As for your second point I have to say yes and no. Yes, you're right that a lot of playstyles are going to find themselves staying stage 1. Most notably healers and maybe tanks. The ability cost increase is quite painful on sustain, and while you can build around it, it doesn't feel very fun to be honest. I've tested it and the ability costs just feels terrible, but why do I say no? In PVP the undeath passive is amazing. If you can burst your foe down before you run out of resources you'll find a lot of use out of that passive. Damage reduction scaled to your health lost and capping out at 30% is amazing, especially when you realize at 50% health you have about 15% damage reduction. ((I think.)) Sadly I have found 0 reasons to go stage 4 as its more trouble than its worth tbh.

Your third point is valid I'll agree. This means if you want to boost those numbers up specifically you can run War Maiden which adds 400 spell damage to all magic damage abilities. War Maiden is almost identical to the Vampire Lord set that we have on the Live servers minus the reduced costs to vampire abilities.

And your fourth point is the nail in the coffin ((pun intended)) for all stamina vampires. While they do get weapon damage from the Stage 2 passive and Blood Frenzy that ability cost increase just absolutely guts their sustain. Why make a pure magic skill line, add an ability cost increase, and then tease the poor stamina builds with passives and skills that add weapon damage and max stamina? That's just cruel to be honest...

out51d3r

Vevvev wrote: »

While they do get weapon damage from the Stage 2 passive and Blood Frenzy that ability cost increase just absolutely guts their sustain.

Stage 2 is a 5% ability cost penalty. New Moon Acolyte is also a 5% ability cost penalty, and LOTS of players run that. They don't seem to think their sustain is "gutted".

tomofhyrule

I'll definitely give you the NPC vampires are looking was cooler than the playable ones. But we've seen that before - how many other NPC classes look way cooler than what we get? We don't get things like the windjammer storms at all.

Would have really liked to play some of those NPC animations though...

About the skill line, I can't really say much since I haven't played it on PTS, but it definitely looks like they're trying to balance vampirism as a choice rather than a requirement for endgame. I think that's the essence behind everything they've done. The reason for all of the negativity right now is that people who depend on vampirism for their builds are now seeing those builds upended, and in typical fashion, nobody likes change.

There are very few builds out there that don't recommend (or require) vampirism specifically for the passives (Supernatural recovery and Undeath). And both of those need higher vampirism levels, so there was no reason for anyone to feed to lower the level - everyone walks around as a stage 4 vampire. Currently is doesn't seem like vampirism is a choice of playstyle, and it definitely doesn't feel like the horrible power-with-a-curse the lore makes it out to be. I'm sure there'll be loads of people curing their vampires after this patch, and it makes sense.

Here's the lore question here: Everyone can easily point out that the lore conflicts with the idea of feeding increasing the vampirism level, but nobody has any issue with large cities being filled with stage 4 vampires during the day (in-game lore also states that sun damage is a thing and that vampires tend to isolate themselves). I suppose it makes some sense in another way, as in: if you feed more you're giving yourself over more to the dark side, but that's not how vampirism has been in other TES games.

The idea here is most likely to encourage people who want to play a vampire to engage in vampiric activity every so often. The skill cost decrease for vamp abilities implies that they suggest you actually slot vampirism skills (not many people use Drain Essence or Mist Form in their current state) and partake in being a vampire. Yes, that's catering a bit to the RPers. Vampirism is also intended as a magic-based alternative to lycanthropy - most of the WW skills are stam based with only one mag skill and passives revolving around stam and weapon damage.

The one thing I really am not a fan of is the Blood Scion form. I'd rather that be something like a morph of the ult, but I've never been into the whole Vampire Lord thing from Dawnguard. I think a more basic vampirism could have been more appropriate, like keep Bat Swarm as the ult but then have the Blood Scion be a morph of that. But that's just my feelings.

I've only got one vampire right now, but he's more of a mule alt than anything else, I don't play him. I may dip my toes in from an RP point of view, but I tend to favor stam characters anyway, so I'll likely end up going WW for most of my play...if I want to go supernatural at all.

Vevvev

out51d3r wrote: »

Stage 2 is a 5% ability cost penalty. New Moon Acolyte is also a 5% ability cost penalty, and LOTS of players run that. They don't seem to think their sustain is "gutted".

It is noticble though and when I do no-CP PVP I'm constantly running out of magicka while running that set. Reason I don't like it all that much to be honest.

Also If you want to compare the two so badly Stage 2 only gives 300 weapon and spell damage after leaving invisibility, stealth, and mistform for 6 seconds, while NMA gives 481 spell and weapon damage at all times. Sure you get Blood Frenzy which gives 660 spell and weapon damage, but its at the cost of around 1600 health a second at stage 2 and that cost increases by 20% every single second.

To be honest NMA sounds like a better deal when it comes to more damage, and if you run both vampire and NMA you're looking at 10% ability cost increase for all non-vampire abilities and around a 5% cost decrease for vampire abilities.

out51d3r

Vevvev wrote: »

To be honest NMA sounds like a better deal when it comes to more damage, and if you run both vampire and NMA you're looking at 10% ability cost increase for all non-vampire abilities and around a 5% cost decrease for vampire abilities.

You aren't giving up a 5 piece set bonus for stage 2 vamp though. If you want to, you can combine it with something like Hundings, for a total of +600 weapon damage and +5% costs. Or you can run it with a sustain set to negate the ability penalty.

Stage 2 is a pretty powerful effect, for Nightblades at least.

Vevvev

out51d3r wrote: »

Stage 2 is a pretty powerful effect, for Nightblades at least.

Can't disagree with you there. On my magDK I struggled to make use of it until I just started every single engagement from stealth. I did eventually begin using Elusive mist to reposition and drop an ultimate but I had a hard time finding a slot for it on my bar.

out51d3r

Vevvev wrote: »

out51d3r wrote: »

Stage 2 is a pretty powerful effect, for Nightblades at least.

Can't disagree with you there. On my magDK I struggled to make use of it until I just started every single engagement from stealth. I did eventually begin using Elusive mist to reposition and drop an ultimate but I had a hard time finding a slot for it on my bar.

Oh yeah, it's not going to be useful to everybody, definitely. That's true of the new Vamp in general though. From the NB perspective, the stealth speed is desirable, and normally you have to give up a 5 piece bonus to get it. So, alot of NBs are going to want stage 1. Stage 2 is roughly equivelent to Hundings. Alot of them will be willing to take the penalties to get it too. The hit and run nature of NBs makes the sustain penalty not so bad.

Other than that, we will probably see some people do dedicated stage 4 vampire builds. 1vXers would love to have "turn invisible while sprinting", so I'm sure some of them will try to find a way to make that work. I'm curious about all of the "costs health" and "extra effects for lower health" stuff as well. Will be interesting to see what people make of that.

Vevvev

out51d3r wrote: »

I'm curious about all of the "costs health" and "extra effects for lower health" stuff as well. Will be interesting to see what people make of that.

So far those effects are amazing for boosting your damage numbers on dummies. When I used Blood for Blood with an ability like Burning Embers and Cauterize I was hitting around 40-46k DPS with just it alone. When it crits and you're almost dead the damage numbers are absolutely ridiculous, but in practice its hard to use Blood Frenzy and Blood for Blood when soloing something like a World Boss. Putting yourself at dangerously low levels of health can be very difficult to pull off, and in PVP almost suicide.

That aside though I was hitting people for over 10k damage a hit with blood for blood in duels right before they killed me.I imagine in group fights where you're not the primary target the vampires are going to be absolutely terrifying when used right. To get to that point though you're like one execute away from death so... I don't know. Maybe this is why the devs decided to halt all changes till they push it live. Vampire is really up in the air right now where it has some elements that make no sense what so ever mixed with ridiculously strong combos and an ultimate where the strategy to beat it on the PTS is to run for 20 seconds.

Speaking of I still wish they added wings to the Scion Form...

out51d3r

Vevvev wrote: »

So far those effects are amazing for boosting your damage numbers on dummies. When I used Blood for Blood with an ability like Burning Embers and Cauterize I was hitting around 40-46k DPS with just it alone. When it crits and you're almost dead the damage numbers are absolutely ridiculous, but in practice its hard to use Blood Frenzy and Blood for Blood when soloing something like a World Boss. Putting yourself at dangerously low levels of health can be very difficult to pull off, and in PVP almost suicide.

I agree, I'd consider this a no go on the PVP side(though I suspect somebody will eventually make me eat my words on that). How about something like a sorc on the pve side? Use critical surge to balance out your health costs, and shields to protect that low health pool.

Math says that maxed out simmering frenzy costs a bit less that 3200 health/second(depending on vamp stage). Critical Surge heals for 3300 per second, as long as you get a crit. Arterial burst is a guaranteed crit as long as you're under 50% health. Meaning you'll come out at a bit of a positive, depending on your vamp stage. As long as the enemies aren't hitting your hp(ie shields, somebody tanking for you), you're basically balancing out. It's still a very risky playstyle, but the rewards from a maxed simmering frenzy are pretty extreme.

This is all just theory. Putting it into practice would pretty hard/maybe not possible.

Vevvev

out51d3r wrote: »

Math says that maxed out simmering frenzy costs a bit less that 3200 health/second(depending on vamp stage). Critical Surge heals for 3300 per second, as long as you get a crit. Arterial burst is a guaranteed crit as long as you're under 50% health. Meaning you'll come out at a bit of a positive, depending on your vamp stage. As long as the enemies aren't hitting your hp(ie shields, somebody tanking for you), you're basically balancing out. It's still a very risky playstyle, but the rewards from a maxed simmering frenzy are pretty extreme.

Shimmering Frenzy no longer has a cap. The health drain of Blood Frenzy unmorphed increases by 20% every single second uncapped, and shimmering frenzy will continue to increase the 660 spell and weapon by 10% every second uncapped. Eventually the health drain will equal your health pool and it'll turn off, but this is based off of how much health you have, and whether you're able to full heal efficiently. The devs changed this ability heavily in 6.0.3. to force the player to turn it off. You cannot keep it going forever.

HoyaCarnosa

The -100% health regen is something that i dont want, i mean -75% is still high, but with all the other negatives it would be enough, also that vamp has (at the moment) stam and mag regen but after rework not even a little mag regen boost? ( stam made no sense for me, i always thought that is for ww and mag for vamp).... i switched to ww, but after i read that there are new achievements for vamp and ww i switched back to vamp....so i can do the new achievements for vamp first, then i will switch to ww and stay ww (until the do some fine tuning after release, before release would be better but i dont think they will change anything before release). So welcome to the wolf pack for a vampire update.