Is Drain Vigor Actually... Useful?!?

Vevvev

This is a sincere question because while I hate how pathetic the ability is I started running some "war games" in my mind and I think there might be some uses for it. I started dodge rolling like crazy around a dummy and started casting Drain Vigor, and even for a second or two I found myself with just enough stamina to break free with. This started making me ask the question, "Despite all the flaws with Drain and the ability to interrupt it, is the split second or two you get Drain Vigor off worth the stamina you get back from it?"

For those that don't know Drain Vigor deals very low damage to the target, 22 meter range, a bit steep magicka cost to start the drain (4320 magicka at base), restores 25% of missing health a second, and 10% of your missing stamina a second. The other morph, Exhilarating Drain, gives you 5 ultimate a second over the course of the drain instead of the 10% missing stamina restore of Drain Vigor.

Am I just going crazy or is this ability actually good in PvP when using a ton of stamina? Not that I have stamina problems, but I imagine I could get a bit more risky if I had this ability on hand.

ESO_Nightingale

you can get stamina various other ways than wasting a skill slot on this awful skill.

Vevvev

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

you can get stamina various other ways than wasting a skill slot on this awful skill.

True.... So I'm crazy then. R.I.P.

Necrotech_Master

the drain channel needs one of two things to happen:

1: shorten the channel duration significantly (1-1.5 sec would be ideal, and still longer than most other channels, but still can have it tick say 3 times like it currently does)
or
2: significantly buff the skill to be worthy of a 3 second channel (or at least better balance for sure, it is definitely way too weak in its current form)
or, for another alternative
3:increase the tick rate of the channel so effects happen more than once per second (the necromancer tethers already do this, they have tick rates of around 3x per second)

robpr

Let's start with shortening the channel. Templar beam used to be useless until it got it's channel shortened by like half and now its one of the most powerful executes in the game.

Vevvev

Shortening the channel is actually a really good idea. That'd actually make it far stronger and effectively double or even triple the damage. Make it useful in PvP to since I usually get bashed before the channel even completes so the caster would get more out of it.

However that being said I just found out that you can further buff Vampiric Drain's healing through unique bonuses. It used to not do that Actually it only does this with the Drain Vigor Morph, not Exhilarating Drain. Still, this does make the morph far better of a healing ability.

Regular on the right and with the powered buff on the left.


Powered + 10% Single Target healing CP


Powered + Major Mending + 10% Single Target healing CP

Noszet

Vevvev wrote: »

Shortening the channel is actually a really good idea. That'd actually make it far stronger and effectively double or even triple the damage. Make it useful in PvP to since I usually get bashed before the channel even completes so the caster would get more out of it.

However that being said I just found out that you can further buff Vampiric Drain's healing through unique bonuses. It used to not do that, but I'm really happy it does now.

Regular on the right and with the powered buff on the left.


Powered + 10% Single Target healing CP


Powered + Major Mending + 10% Single Target healing CP

That is alot of commitment for a lackluster heal.

Vevvev

Noszet wrote: »

Vevvev wrote: »

Shortening the channel is actually a really good idea. That'd actually make it far stronger and effectively double or even triple the damage. Make it useful in PvP to since I usually get bashed before the channel even completes so the caster would get more out of it.

However that being said I just found out that you can further buff Vampiric Drain's healing through unique bonuses. It used to not do that, but I'm really happy it does now.

Regular on the right and with the powered buff on the left.


Powered + 10% Single Target healing CP


Powered + Major Mending + 10% Single Target healing CP

That is alot of commitment for a lackluster heal.

My PvP build always has Powered and I get Major Mending from heavy attacking so it's not that much of a commitment.

Captain_OP

I did play around with this skill/morph and find actually success with it. I am playing nightblade as my main and i always hated syphoning strike and the other morphs because it is such a boring ability to use. On my way seeking for another ability to fix my sustain issues without changing armor, i started to play around with Drain vigore in pvp and pve. Most of the time pve and i really liked it. Always when i droped on low stamina, i use drain vigore and use one of the stamina recovery procs or a potion and then spam until i can do the same again. Which leaded me to some interesstiong build decisions. Pvp i only play arenas and there was this skill overtuned. Everytime i had a group where they didnt one-shot me, i would survive all the time regen with drain vigore and kill them as stage 3 vampire. In my opinion this is a really underdestimated skill.

Vevvev

Captain_OP wrote: »

I did play around with this skill/morph and find actually success with it. I am playing nightblade as my main and i always hated syphoning strike and the other morphs because it is such a boring ability to use. On my way seeking for another ability to fix my sustain issues without changing armor, i started to play around with Drain vigore in pvp and pve. Most of the time pve and i really liked it. Always when i droped on low stamina, i use drain vigore and use one of the stamina recovery procs or a potion and then spam until i can do the same again. Which leaded me to some interesstiong build decisions. Pvp i only play arenas and there was this skill overtuned. Everytime i had a group where they didnt one-shot me, i would survive all the time regen with drain vigore and kill them as stage 3 vampire. In my opinion this is a really underdestimated skill.

Starting to figure this out as well. It's like Drain Vigor is meant to be the self healing ability and Exhilarating Drain the more utilitarian focused one.

A friend of mine suggested using a Decisive weapon with Exhilarating Drain on my magDK vampire and I must admit it ended up far more effective than I imagined. I labeled the ability off as worthless due to it's low damage and lackluster heal, but when I started super charging it's ultimate generating potential my tone on the whole thing started to shift. Found out Exhilarating Drain's heal is only effected by healing received buffs instead of both it and healing done buffs, which I found was not that bad on DK's since we have the Burning Heart passive. Combined it with Coagulating Blood, Shattering Rocks, and Burning Embers so I could make up for removing a heal over time with Exhilarating Drain, and now have an option to generate 8-10 ultimate a second should I need it.

tenryuta

needs a monsterous buff, temps holy death ray of execute and heal... 400% + 20% damage->heal AT 50% execute... we used to have a morph for more ticks on drain, would be nice to get that back