Instead of killing Mist Form for PvE, why not make it into the disengage you want?

Matthew_Galvanus

One of the simplest ways of doing this would be to make it behave in the way that you (ZoS) want it to. Namely, you want it to be a disengage and not a tool used to cheese mechanics in a trial (even though the mechanics are the actual problem, but that's not pertinent to this discussion), which is fair. it's your game and if you don't want people cheesing content, i can learn to live with it. However this kneejerk reaction where you just outright remove the ability from PvE is extremely rash and will only push people to just give up on vampirism altogether.

This skill line already suffers from being so disjointed, it really doesn't need you to kill one of the only decent skills it had and leave it in a much worse spot than it was to begin with. If you want it to be a disengage as you so claim, then change the skill to fit that and not simply remove it from PvE. Doing so shows that your reasoning for changing it is just a facade used as justification for gutting a skill that lets players skip mechanics in a trial and you couldn't be bothered to fix the trial's mechanics.

So, with that in mind why not rework the ability into an actual disengage? The ability itself is very niche and by making it into an escape ability you would remove the 'cheese' aspect it brings now without making it completely unusable. For instance, why not make it into a variant of Streak?

Mist Form: Transform into a cloud of mist, surging forward in the direction you are currently moving, any enemies you pass through take (X) magic damage and you take 20% less damage for 5 seconds.

Skill morphs:
Lingering Mists: Transform into a cloud of mist, surging forward in the direction you are currently moving, any enemies you pass through take (X) magic damage and you take 20% less damage for 10 seconds.

Bat Swarm: Transform into a cloud of bats and surge forward in the direction you are currently moving dealing (X) magic damage to any enemy you pass through and you gain health equal to the damage dealt.

This way the ability retains its use in all content, has an ability that provides a decent damage mitigation and escape, and can no longer be used to cheese mechanics where you have to soak a lot of unavoidable damage.

Dragonlord573

Seriously, without the damage mitigation Mist Form can not act like a disengage ability in PvE. They'd have to rework the skill.

Anyways, your suggestion is almost exactly what I think it should become: a vampiric version of streak. However I would change the following:

Skill morphs:
Lingering Mists: Transform into a cloud of mist, surging forward in the direction you are currently moving, any enemies you pass through take (X) magic damage and you take 20% less damage for 10 seconds.

I'd make it similar to Ball of Lightning. After porting with the skill gain Snare Protection, Immobilization Immunity, Major Expedition, and invisibility for 2 seconds. This would make Lingering Mist a true disengagement ability and allow for some breathing room along with making it that aggro is lost.

Bat Swarm: Transform into a cloud of bats and surge forward in the direction you are currently moving dealing (X) magic damage to any enemy you pass through and you gain health equal to the damage dealt.

Honestly I like this very much, would make a damage based morph and a defense based morph so players have options. However my only change would be to swap the magic damage for bleed damage. Or maybe deal magic damage and apply a bleed DoT. *shrugs*

joseayalac

This is actually a cool idea!

Matthew_Galvanus

Dragonlord573 wrote: »

Seriously, without the damage mitigation Mist Form can not act like a disengage ability in PvE. They'd have to rework the skill.

Anyways, your suggestion is almost exactly what I think it should become: a vampiric version of streak. However I would change the following:

Skill morphs:
Lingering Mists: Transform into a cloud of mist, surging forward in the direction you are currently moving, any enemies you pass through take (X) magic damage and you take 20% less damage for 10 seconds.

I'd make it similar to Ball of Lightning. After porting with the skill gain Snare Protection, Immobilization Immunity, Major Expedition, and invisibility for 2 seconds. This would make Lingering Mist a true disengagement ability and allow for some breathing room along with making it that aggro is lost.

Bat Swarm: Transform into a cloud of bats and surge forward in the direction you are currently moving dealing (X) magic damage to any enemy you pass through and you gain health equal to the damage dealt.

Honestly I like this very much, would make a damage based morph and a defense based morph so players have options. However my only change would be to swap the magic damage for bleed damage. Or maybe deal magic damage and apply a bleed DoT. *shrugs*

i like your ideas too. i just don't want them to kill one of the only decent skills that vampires have. this whole spiel about making it easy to cheese hard content isn't without merit, but where was this when it was reworked last year? it couldn't be more obvious that they are changing it because of rockgrove

BlueRaven

Personally while I don’t ever use that ability, I am getting sick of all these “this only works for pvp” abilities.

propertyOfUndefined

I support this idea!

Vevvev

I suggested something like this a while ago but as a morph of Mistform to replace Blood Mist. I foresaw a nerf, but not to Mistform as a whole. I'd still like to keep Mistform as is right now and make one morph a sort of dash, but seeing how ZOS is taking things this might be the better idea if they don't go with Mistform scaling with your stage.

Matthew_Galvanus

BlueRaven wrote: »

Personally while I don’t ever use that ability, I am getting sick of all these “this only works for pvp” abilities.

they might as well say "We designed vampire to be a PvP skill line." because that is what it feels like

Matthew_Galvanus

Vevvev wrote: »

I suggested something like this a while ago but as a morph of Mistform to replace Blood Mist. I foresaw a nerf, but not to Mistform as a whole. I'd still like to keep Mistform as is right now and make one morph a sort of dash, but seeing how ZOS is taking things this might be the better idea if they don't go with Mistform scaling with your stage.

they likely won't because it'd still be "letting people cheese content." which is a load of bollocks. we know it, they know it, everyone knows it. they just can't say "we are gutting it because we can't be bothered to fix rockgrove to stop it from being so punishing people have to use cheese strats to survive and clear it."

AinSoph

I find the change to this skill quite odd, I've never seen a tank cheese content with mist form, and the only tank I've seen use it said its basically necessary on vRG HM and still dies to mechs with it active. Also, vamp streak is literally in the lore, how was this already not a thing.

Matthew_Galvanus

AinSoph wrote: »

I find the change to this skill quite odd, I've never seen a tank cheese content with mist form, and the only tank I've seen use it said its basically necessary on vRG HM and still dies to mechs with it active. Also, vamp streak is literally in the lore, how was this already not a thing.

because they'd rather not put in any work.

Spectral_Force

My take on the Mist Form rework:

Elusive Retreat
Dissolve into a dark mist and disengage from your enemy, dashing forward and becoming invisible for 2 seconds. Casting this ability removes all disabling and immobilization effects. Casting again within 4 seconds costs 33% more Magicka.
Cost: [X/X/X/X]Magicka. Range: 15m. The cost is reduced as this ability ranks up.

Morph 1: Dazzling Retreat
Dissolve into a dark mist and disengage from your enemy, dashing forward and becoming invisible for 2 seconds, and stunning all enemies around you for 5 seconds (if they are facing your direction, if you absolutely must). Casting this ability removes all disabling and immobilization effects. Casting again within 4 seconds costs 33% more Magicka.
Cost: [X/X/X/X]Magicka. Range: 15m. Area: 7m. The cost is reduced as this ability ranks up.

Morph 2: Baleful Retreat
Dissolve into a dark mist and disengage from your enemy, dashing forward and becoming invisible for 2 seconds, and leave behind a cloud of baleful gas which deals 530 Magic Damage every 1 second for [5/6/7/8] seconds. You heal for the damage caused. Casting this ability removes all disabling and immobilization effects. Casting again within 4 seconds costs 33% more Magicka.
Cost: X Magicka. Range: 15m. Area: 7m.

I may have pilfered some ideas from this thread or from other threads, but at this stage the Vampire community is something of a hivemind anyway when it comes to coming up with ideas. I also merged Hypnosis into one of the morphs, which in theory can free up an ability slot for an altogether new ability.

The ability itself will fulfill ZOS's vision as a disengagement tool, and should give the vampire a bit of breathing room while also triggering Strike from the Shadows. Like with Streak, the ability cost ramps up to prevent spamming.
Both morphs have AoE effects based on origin point, further emphasising its intended use as a way to disengage, though nothing is stopping you from using the ability to close the gap to initiate a fight, and granting yourself a juicy Strike from the Shadows proc. Dazzling Retreat is intended to replace the seldom-used Mesmerize and give you even more breathing room to run away (you'll probably need to remove the annoying Stage 4 refusal of service mechanic), while Baleful Retreat gives us the long-coveted Vampire AoE damage ability while retaining Blood Mist's leeching effect. None of the values are set in stone, of course, but that's the gist of it.

You probably wouldn't need any new visuals for this, either - use the Mist Form icon for Elusive Retreat, Blood Mist icon for Baleful Retreat, and Hypnosis icon for Dazzling Retreat; for VFX, use the existing Mist trails for player movement, Blood Mist visuals for Baleful AoE, and use Hypnosis visuals for Dazzling AoE.

I understand that we're just brainstorming totally-not-Streak with a red paintjob, but it just makes too much sense to have a similar versatile ability in the Vampire toolkit, given we only have 5+1 slots to work with.

ajkb78

Matthew_Galvanus wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

I suggested something like this a while ago but as a morph of Mistform to replace Blood Mist. I foresaw a nerf, but not to Mistform as a whole. I'd still like to keep Mistform as is right now and make one morph a sort of dash, but seeing how ZOS is taking things this might be the better idea if they don't go with Mistform scaling with your stage.

they likely won't because it'd still be "letting people cheese content." which is a load of bollocks. we know it, they know it, everyone knows it. they just can't say "we are gutting it because we can't be bothered to fix rockgrove to stop it from being so punishing people have to use cheese strats to survive and clear it."

They nerfed the damage in vRG at the same time, literally in this PTS patch notes.

Having said that, it really annoys me when they suggest that use of mist form in vRG on live is cheese when it's the only way people have found to survive the excessive damage. That's not cheese, that's a necessary strategy. And it's not as if people haven't tried really hard to find alternatives, as none of the tanks I know actually wanted to have to be vampires.

Matthew_Galvanus

@Spectral_Force

You are absolutely correct. i really like your ideas for a mistform rework too. i'd be happy with anything so long as they don't just gut it and then pretend like they did something other than *** off the entire collective of vampire users

Matthew_Galvanus

ajkb78 wrote: »

Matthew_Galvanus wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

I suggested something like this a while ago but as a morph of Mistform to replace Blood Mist. I foresaw a nerf, but not to Mistform as a whole. I'd still like to keep Mistform as is right now and make one morph a sort of dash, but seeing how ZOS is taking things this might be the better idea if they don't go with Mistform scaling with your stage.

they likely won't because it'd still be "letting people cheese content." which is a load of bollocks. we know it, they know it, everyone knows it. they just can't say "we are gutting it because we can't be bothered to fix rockgrove to stop it from being so punishing people have to use cheese strats to survive and clear it."

They nerfed the damage in vRG at the same time, literally in this PTS patch notes.

Having said that, it really annoys me when they suggest that use of mist form in vRG on live is cheese when it's the only way people have found to survive the excessive damage. That's not cheese, that's a necessary strategy. And it's not as if people haven't tried really hard to find alternatives, as none of the tanks I know actually wanted to have to be vampires.

do we wanna take bets on whether it's enough to make it doable?