Alright, I'm done with my temper tantrum over the Vampire Changes lol. Played some other MMOs, and felt the urge to come back to this one. The other MMos available to me on Xbox just aren't quite as good, OVERALL. Downloading the game again.
I'm curious as to how anyone who did not cure their Vampires and are still actively playing them are making do with the wholly unpopular changes.
Also, were there any other tweaks to Vampires as a whole since the BfB changes?
It's better to play the game yourself and make up your own mind.
Folks play the game for many different reasons and are going to have a different experience with it. For my part, I've definitely had a *better* experience with my vampire character after the rework, but it really does depend on what/how you play and how creative you are.
So are Vampires not at all viable and shunned in groups, as I feared they would be?
Or was my fear overstated?
Vamps have some neat skills but the current iteration is a mess
its a toss up for me between aspect of terror and mesmerize. terror morphs effects 6 people around you and mesmerize affects those around you that are facing you and could be significantly more than six at times.
then we have mist form vs blur from the nb skill set. Mist form seems superior and works like a toggle and will drain all your magicka if you dont toggle it back off.
So if you were a night blade tank being a vamp has some utility but the negatives seem to be fairly potent
not the least confusing is that your progenitor was ravaged by molag bal and then takes his last name? uh no woman ever would do that. most confusing of all is that she seems immune to fire according to er backstory but all her offspring are more susceptible to it than a non vamp. Who came up with this mess?
If you are playing as a tank you will need some fire mitigation either in jewls so there goes block cost reduction or in race, play a dark elf but then lose stamina bonuses of other races better suited for tanking.
for other than tanking there seems to be no bennies in being a vamp except for gathering mats and skyshards because you can run while invisible... in which case make a build that has bonuses and cost reduction for sprinting and sneaking. Outdoors this is great for new toons with no mounts that can run. indoors this is hard to control and going down steps can break you invisibilty as can any significant bump... with the right gear you can run from the base camp to the uttermost border in cry-o-pickle (nearly) without having to stop to recharge stamina. great for questing in pvp zones.
I really like the fact that vampirism was a curse that happened to your existing character, rather than being a separate class. I think it's within the realm of possibility to come up with a single skill line that provides an immersive vampiric experience, rather than three. However, such a thing should probably start with adherence to basic lore friendly concepts of vampirism.
At a bare minimum, a vampire is defined by needing blood for sustenance, right? The fact that they missed the fundamental principle of vampirism with this rework is really worrying.
I learned the only way to make my vampire viable again in PVP was to exploit its only strength.... the insane freaking amount of spell damage it gives me!
So I made a magDK spell damage build, put major sorcery on it, and then went off into Cyrodiil. I'm weak to Fire and Fighter's Guild abilities but the amount of carnage I've unleashed has been very noticeable over the past week or so. Sadly despite all this I STILL Can't find a use for Vampiric Drain. It just doesn't work in ESO's combat system to have a channeled heal that heals a small percentage of missing health that also requires a target.
Whenever I go into PVE group content though I drop down to stage 1 and equip all my normal abilities. Thankfully the 3% sustain debuff isn't too hard for a Breton like myself but if I cured myself I'd be doing better. I also never use Blood for Blood since alienating myself from outside healing even while doing solo PVP is the stupidest thing one can do.
I learned the only way to make my vampire viable again in PVP was to exploit its only strength.... the insane freaking amount of spell damage it gives me!
So I made a magDK spell damage build, put major sorcery on it, and then went off into Cyrodiil. I'm weak to Fire and Fighter's Guild abilities but the amount of carnage I've unleashed has been very noticeable over the past week or so. Sadly despite all this I STILL Can't find a use for Vampiric Drain. It just doesn't work in ESO's combat system to have a channeled heal that heals a small percentage of missing health that also requires a target.
Whenever I go into PVE group content though I drop down to stage 1 and equip all my normal abilities. Thankfully the 3% sustain debuff isn't too hard for a Breton like myself but if I cured myself I'd be doing better. I also never use Blood for Blood since alienating myself from outside healing even while doing solo PVP is the stupidest thing one can do.
I've done similarly, except with PvE and using Necromancer. I can dish it out in PvP too, but the abilities tend to alienate me from Vampirism all together since it really doesn't feel like a vampire. The drain is definitely a major pain point. If Drain Vigor was instead the Pre-PTS version (Brain Drain) that returned magicka, that'd have a slight use.
With the Ring of the Pale Order, that might be a good alternative for Blood for Blood, but I'm no longer testing on PTS releases anymore, given the fact that feedback for the most part fell on deaf ears--especially since a lot of us had similar, if not the same, ideas.
How are you using the Frenzy ability (or are you using Fury)? I'm still struggling to make that work efficiently where I'm not one dead goose.
I learned the only way to make my vampire viable again in PVP was to exploit its only strength.... the insane freaking amount of spell damage it gives me!
So I made a magDK spell damage build, put major sorcery on it, and then went off into Cyrodiil. I'm weak to Fire and Fighter's Guild abilities but the amount of carnage I've unleashed has been very noticeable over the past week or so. Sadly despite all this I STILL Can't find a use for Vampiric Drain. It just doesn't work in ESO's combat system to have a channeled heal that heals a small percentage of missing health that also requires a target.
Whenever I go into PVE group content though I drop down to stage 1 and equip all my normal abilities. Thankfully the 3% sustain debuff isn't too hard for a Breton like myself but if I cured myself I'd be doing better. I also never use Blood for Blood since alienating myself from outside healing even while doing solo PVP is the stupidest thing one can do.
I've done similarly, except with PvE and using Necromancer. I can dish it out in PvP too, but the abilities tend to alienate me from Vampirism all together since it really doesn't feel like a vampire. The drain is definitely a major pain point. If Drain Vigor was instead the Pre-PTS version (Brain Drain) that returned magicka, that'd have a slight use.
With the Ring of the Pale Order, that might be a good alternative for Blood for Blood, but I'm no longer testing on PTS releases anymore, given the fact that feedback for the most part fell on deaf ears--especially since a lot of us had similar, if not the same, ideas.
How are you using the Frenzy ability (or are you using Fury)? I'm still struggling to make that work efficiently where I'm not one dead goose.
I'm using Sated Fury although i've noticed the ability has some issues. The first being a bug where it only applies 630 spell and weapon damage instead of 660, and when you're stunned, sprinting, or otherwise incapacitated when you toggle Sated Fury off you do NOT receive the heal!
Despite these issues I still use it, although Simmering Frenzy is probably better since I don't see 60% of the 34% health being returned. One combo I love using is procing Burning spell Weave, Clever Alchemist, Strike From the Shadows, applying Major Sorcery, turning on Sated fury, Fossilizing my target, and then dropping a 25k+ damage Ferocious Leap on their head.... Its.... its something else.
I also find myself using Swarming Scion as an "Oh (Insert bad word here)" ability to full health myself. Its great in the Imperial City sewers to punish that pesky player that tried to gank you. Only reason I got stage 4 is so I can use Swarming Scion sooner, otherwise I honestly prefer stage 3.
Vampire is no longer a 2-stage stat-pad and many people have had trouble adjusting to that new reality as that is all vampire has been for a very long time. For me, I love the changes. The Unnatural Movement passive alone makes the changes worth to me. Vampire as a standalone "class" is much more realized than it was in the past, though there are still shortcomings that need to be addressed.
It is obvious that the intent of the devs with the redesign was to shift Vampire away from a mandatory pick to maximize magicka/stamina regen to an option that players choose because they want to play as a Vampire, the same way how players typically choose to become Werewolves because they want to play as a Werewolf and not because of the strong passives.
Vampire as a whole sits somewhere in the middle; Vampire is neither the best at what it does nor the worst. It's not BiS for anything. And that's alright. Being BiS would just hasten the journey to being nerfed. What vampire does offer is a unique playing experience that allows for some novel builds and good rp potential. And that's probably the best we could hope for.
Vampire is no longer a 2-stage stat-pad and many people have had trouble adjusting to that new reality as that is all vampire has been for a very long time. For me, I love the changes. The Unnatural Movement passive alone makes the changes worth to me. Vampire as a standalone "class" is much more realized than it was in the past, though there are still shortcomings that need to be addressed.
It is obvious that the intent of the devs with the redesign was to shift Vampire away from a mandatory pick to maximize magicka/stamina regen to an option that players choose because they want to play as a Vampire, the same way how players typically choose to become Werewolves because they want to play as a Werewolf and not because of the strong passives.
Vampire as a whole sits somewhere in the middle; Vampire is neither the best at what it does nor the worst. It's not BiS for anything. And that's alright. Being BiS would just hasten the journey to being nerfed. What vampire does offer is a unique playing experience that allows for some novel builds and good rp potential. And that's probably the best we could hope for.