Devs - The proposed Blood For Blood change will make Vampires LITERALLY UNUSABLE IN GROUP CONTENT.

JMadFour

Hi.

I love being a Vampire. Vampire NB is now my main. I think the Greymoor Vampire is much, much better and more fun than the pre-Greymoor Vampire.

I just wanted to lead with that, so that when you read below, you understand where I am coming from.

Blood for Blood (morph):
Decreased the execute multiplier on this morph to 60%, down from 100%.
This ability now ranks up in 5% execute scaling damage per rank, rather than scaling in 1.1% damage per rank.
After casting this ability, you cannot be healed by allies for 5 seconds.

This last change to Blood For Blood must not make it to live. I feel like the Devs have not truly, fully considered the ramifications of this change.

Blood for Blood is a spammable. It will be used CONSTANTLY. All the time. Several times per fight. This will ensure that we have near 100% uptime on this debuff. We will ALWAYS have this debuff on us. Which means we will spend the vast majority of our time in any dungeon/trial/cyrodiil/Battlegrounds UNHEALABLE.

This alone, by itself, with no other changes to Vampire, will make Vampires COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY UNUSABLE IN ANY GROUP CONTENT. We will NOT be welcome. We WILL be kicked from groups constantly, We WILL be a liability to groups. We will be a DPS loss for every group we are ever in, because we will have to spend SO MUCH TIME self-healing because OUR GROUP HEALERS WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO HEAL US. We WILL NOT be able to argue against this, and no amount of "git gud" will allow us to work around this.

And again, I *love* being a Vampire now, I am having a lot of fun with it on Live, and it is much better now than it was prior to Greymoor. But these PTS changes will make Vampires unusable and unwelcome in Group content. if they go forward, I, a Vampire Main who loves being a Vampire and greatly enjoys playing my Vampire post Greymoor, will cure my Vampire.

Please don't do this. Find some other way to make BfB not mandatory for DPS. Make it cost Magicka. Decrease the damage. Increase the Health cost. something. But not this.

zvavi

Hey, it will still be usable in pug dungeons where healer doesn't give resources (for sorc & NB).

Then again people for some reason think that pug dungeons are "I solo with 3 other bots that I ignore" so maybe it isn't group content.

JMadFour

zvavi wrote: »

Hey, it will still be usable in pug dungeons where healer doesn't give resources (for sorc & NB).

Then again people for some reason think that pug dungeons are "I solo with 3 other bots that I ignore" so maybe it isn't group content.

It'd be usable in solo overworld content and that's basically it.

I am a Vampire, I would not take a character that can't be healed in a dungeon.

Apox

ironically the blood for blood change wont effect parsemonkeys at all.

and the skill is getting nerfed because of parsemonkeys lol

WrathOfInnos

The Greymoor version vampire with Blood for Blood made non-vampire literally unusable in group content. Try playing a magDK with whip, or a magplar with any other spammable, given the current state of sustain. This was equally problematic.

I do agree that this version pretty much kills vamp. The balance was much better before Greymoor. It was a choice to get slightly more sustain at the cost of taking more fire damage and having reduced health regen.

Lord-Otto

The devs do understand. They want to make BfB unusable for meta builds and force niche vampire builds into using their self-healing, namely Vampiric Drain. It's two birds with one stone in their book. Of course for us, the actual players, it's five murdered skills out of six.

JinMori

Oooh, yea, that is a very significant nerf, they just need to nerf the damage, bfb does about the same damage as other spammables, but no sustain problems at all, or something like that.

thadjarvis

For a group PvE player (trials/dungeons) this chapter gave us:

Antiquities of which only Thrassian is useful which will become useless in trials
Vampire option to increase sustain which will become unless in groups
New trial sets of which only one was really useful which no longer will be

I haven't bought Greymoore yet. Is there a point after these changes....?

Dusk_Coven

JMadFour wrote: »

Please don't do this. Find some other way to make BfB not mandatory for DPS. Make it cost Magicka. Decrease the damage. Increase the Health cost. something. But not this.

If they did that, then people won't want to use it and you're back to the same problem -- they will complain about vampires being "unusuable". Only this time it's because it's not worthwhile and they'll use something else to keep their numbers up. They won't even try to make it work because their numbers will go down.

Not being healable means you can still at least choose which fights you can use it and which you can't.

Atherakhia

Did the vampire even have a single other redeeming quality other than the spammable? I'm not sure I've seen anyone use anything else but perhaps the ult in PvP occasionally.

bpgoodman90_ESO

I am a magicka tank, and this morph is my only real spammable attack that prevents me from draining stamina and magicka, it is a god send that has helped me kill in solo play, and feel more active during boss, if this healing debuff gets through my friends and i can't support one another, which with the new monster set i really feel like i need this move. I am fine with the damage being hit, i can see why it is potent and needs to be balanced, but the debuff? Please no..

VoidCommander

Literally just need to drop the “increases damage as health goes down” entirely. Do that and the ability becomes balenced and takes its rightful place as a sustain solution at a cost of spammable dps. If people *** about THAT nerf, then make it have a range of 15 meters as its morph specialty. Additionally the other morph should also cost health, while maintaining the current ability at melee range.

peacenote

This almost makes me laugh, since I loved being a vampire as a healer and when the re-work made that no longer viable very few non-healers stepped up to support us.

So it is ironic if vampire is now no longer viable for DPS either. Part of me wants to see this go live in the hopes that the community will learn to be more respectful and supportive of other's play styles.

However since I dislike that Psijic spammable and I want the game to succeed generally speaking, I will say that it seems crazy that ZOS would ruin the only part of the vampire line that is viable in meta.

Just like it makes no sense that a very popular mythic item is being nerfed to uselessness so soon after the release of Antiquities.

I know PTS will see more rounds but even considering this, those proposed changes are utter nonsense imo.

FrancisCrawford

Perhaps the idea is that you are spending a skillbar slot on it as a sustain aid. Cast it 4 times in 6 seconds, for example, with the other 2 being whatever is up in your rotation. You are unhealable for a total of 10 seconds. You saved 4x your spammable's cost in magicka. Some time later, do it all over again.

If vampire had zero drawbacks, I can see that being worth a skillbar slot, maybe. It doesn't seem nearly as good as, say, Siphoning Attacks or the Netch, but those are standout skills for otherwise dubious specs.

But with vampire's drawbacks too, the new BfB doesn't seem worth it at all.

DT-ARR

I guarantee you that ZOS does not intend for it to go live in such a form. Mark my words, they will adjust it in .2 or .3 to read something like, after using BfB player will receive 50% less healing from players after 5 seconds. And then they will claim that they compromise / listen to the player community.

Just like buying or listing a house. You always mark it up by a good bit from your desired sell price because you know that youre going to be “low balled”. Then you “negotiate” and meet in the middle at the price you always wanted to sell at.

ZOS knows that by unrolling the changes this way that they can head off some of the complaints. If they started with 50% less healing theyd still face the same amount of outrage. Now at least, assuming they operate like described above, they will have placated a good % of people who will think “well at least it wasnt what it was before”.

deLioncourt

DT-ARR wrote: »

I guarantee you that ZOS does not intend for it to go live in such a form. Mark my words, they will adjust it in .2 or .3 to read something like, after using BfB player will receive 50% less healing from players after 5 seconds. And then they will claim that they compromise / listen to the player community.

Just like buying or listing a house. You always mark it up by a good bit from your desired sell price because you know that youre going to be “low balled”. Then you “negotiate” and meet in the middle at the price you always wanted to sell at.

ZOS knows that by unrolling the changes this way that they can head off some of the complaints. If they started with 50% less healing theyd still face the same amount of outrage. Now at least, assuming they operate like described above, they will have placated a good % of people who will think “well at least it wasnt what it was before”.

I wouldn't even care about 50% less healing. I would actually prefer that because b4b scales off of your missing health. This would increase dps because you'd spent slightly less time at max health.

This would actually end up being a buff for B4B.

Kittytravel

Feel like the correct course of action for this was just a 30% damage nerf on BfB with a 40% healing reduction for x seconds after using it. The damage nerf is to ensure it's used by classes to fill in sustain issues that previously existed and the healing reduction is so you can build up other comboing onto other vamp skills. Perhaps granting vampire it's own identity centered around that healing reduction debuff such as having DPS increases on their abilities while debuffed by it. Can even change more of their skills to cost health to double down on the risks they will take for their playstyle but encouraging full vampire builds in the process.

Either way the issue is that B4B over performed for 80% of magicka classes and now rather than toning its damage down it'll just get eliminated.

Fur_like_snow

I said three weeks ago that BfB would get nerfed because it became BiS for raid parsing along with the soon to be worthless thrassians. When the hammer finally came down it’s never a gentle nerf. We’ve asked for improvements to the skill line but Zeni seems to think it somehow “checks all the boxes”. If by all the boxes they mean RP and overland than sure those boxes got checked.

thadjarvis

What is the current issue with BFB anyway? People that use it, like it a lot. Those that don’t don’t...

A BFB build having higher DPS than a ranged mag build shouldn’t be an issue just like melee stam parses higher than bow builds.

There are situations to roll with BFB, range or even both. What’s wrong with that variety?

Jodynn

Should change to combat/game design focus, devs don't choose, they just do.

That being said, yeah bfb is now pretty trashy on most classes, it's still usable on a few builds in a few places but it's.. lol.

WrathOfInnos

JinMori wrote: »

Oooh, yea, that is a very significant nerf, they just need to nerf the damage, bfb does about the same damage as other spammables, but no sustain problems at all, or something like that.

This. Blood for Blood being a free spammable is a great sustain tool, and would be balanced if it did similar damage to other spammables, and had the downsides of melee range and increased cost on other skills from vampirism. It was only a problem because each cast of BFB did more damage instantly than most delayed-burst or DoT skills over their full duration, in addition to the endless sustain in any content with a healer.

Maybe overhealing in all content should just restore Magicka and Stamina Jk that would obviously be broken.

StamPlar_1976

I hope this goes through. I really want this nerf to happen.

Arunei

Yeah when I saw that it made me glad my Vamps are strictly RP characters and not used for actual content. That's two skills now out of the Vamp skill line that renders your character incapable of being healed (granted the other is a toggle rather than slapping a static debuff timer on you that you can't get rid of until it naturally expires) if you make use of it. Sure, plenty of people probably have at least one self heal, but the goal of changing Vampire was to make it more appealing to play, and they clearly intended for people to make build using most, if not all, of the skills, given the "all non-Vamp skills cost x% more resources to use" bit.

But how can people make use of a build where two of the skills mean they can't be healed by others in their group? Why did they think it was a good idea for there to be a debuff like this at all on the Vampire spammable, let alone for five seconds? Like someone else said and like I told a few friends of mine when I saw the PTS notes, you're essentially going to be incapable of being healed by someone else 100% of the time if you rely on this skill more than once or twice in a battle.

It certainly isn't conducive to making Vamp more appealing as a playstyle.

DT-ARR

End of the day the vamp re-work just doesnt make sense. BfB was the only thing going for it. If they make this change and dont adjust the passive drawbacks and buff the other skills...than whats the point.

By not addressing the other skills they are making a statement that everything else is fine with the entire line. And thats just not the case.

OmniDo

I don't use any of the active vampire skills at all, post-greymoor.
The only novelty I enjoy is Unnatural Movement and Dark Stalker.
The rest of the Vampire line is crap.

That said, I've been able to adjust my gear and enchants to compensate for the arbitrary and non-canonical ability cost increases, though I did take a small hit in end-game performance. And since I have purchased the $40US Vampire furnishings, I don't have to craft or carry the nonsensical bloody-mara drinks anymore.

Zeni just fubar'd Vampire.
Let's not waste time doing anything but calling it for what it is: Crap.

Jodynn

After this change I liked vamp before greymoor better, at least then I had the 10% recovery.

DT-ARR

Im just tired of being jerked around. As a casual player, it take me a good bit of time to adapt to every nonsensical nerf/buff zos makes. Its frustrating to the extreme to finally feel like ive developed a playstyle that doesnt get me instant booted from group content only to have that ripped out from under me by the next patch.

I mean...its been what...a month since greymore went live? It takes me that long just to farm a set or save up enough gold to buy off a guild trader.

F it.

Skykaiser_Ọlọrun

peacenote wrote: »

This almost makes me laugh, since I loved being a vampire as a healer and when the re-work made that no longer viable very few non-healers stepped up to support us.

So it is ironic if vampire is now no longer viable for DPS either. Part of me wants to see this go live in the hopes that the community will learn to be more respectful and supportive of other's play styles.

Yeah. Funny how quickly all that, "It's supposed to be a curse/just go to stage 1 or cure it bro lololol" talk went out the window now that DPS vamps are faced with the prospect of being reduced to an Overland novelty too.

Well...you guys better hope the devs take your complaints more seriously than they took ours.

ManM

I imagine the devs are looking at the complaining about viability in group content and thinking vampire is working as intended. Vampires are shunned and detested in the lore of ESO. They are just trying to replicate that isolating experience for the player.
NPCs won't talk to you. You get a bounty if you out yourself with skills in public. And now, you are a detriment to group play, so other players won't want you either. It's immersion!

The vampire skill line looks like it is being actively tuned for solo play only. Anything that is viable for group play is going to get nerfed or otherwise disrupted. Let's just hope they don't realize mist is still situationally useful for tanks. They might make it drain the life of teammates or something.

Arunei

DT-ARR wrote: »

Im just tired of being jerked around. As a casual player, it take me a good bit of time to adapt to every nonsensical nerf/buff zos makes. Its frustrating to the extreme to finally feel like ive developed a playstyle that doesnt get me instant booted from group content only to have that ripped out from under me by the next patch.

I mean...its been what...a month since greymore went live? It takes me that long just to farm a set or save up enough gold to buy off a guild trader.

F it.

I feel you on this front. I don't follow metas, partly because a) I'm not a good enough player to get some of the BIS gear from trials or harder dungeons, and b) I get more enjoyment out of finding a build that really works on my own, it's more rewarding. But when every major patch brings with it sledgehammer nerfs to problems that were caused because of massive sweeping buffs, it usually results in a build that might have taken weeks to put together and get working being ruined to some degree. ZOS never seems to learn their lesson about not making giant changes, instead of tweaking numbers and testing things from there they just take a wrecking ball to things, practically every time.

I've gotten pretty tired of it myself, to the point where after the massive AoE nerf of u24 I think it was (might have been u23, I have a horrible memory), I largely stopped playing and mostly just RP now. I get that it's an MMO and things will change so they don't become stale and stagnant, but that doesn't mean things have to be so hugely nerfed-buffed-nerfed-buffed every. Single. Major. Update. You can make changes without doing it the way ZOS tends to do it.

Vevvev

ManM wrote: »

The vampire skill line looks like it is being actively tuned for solo play only. Anything that is viable for group play is going to get nerfed or otherwise disrupted. Let's just hope they don't realize mist is still situationally useful for tanks. They might make it drain the life of teammates or something.

Don't give them ideas...