Vampire/Werewolf

Theros

Why we don't see them in Trials?

Because they are useless? Don't have damage?

I tought: What if developers give them more damage to each skill line (Vampire/Werewolf) and block rotation on them. I mean, we can use only original skills of ea Vampire/Werewolf.

Will be a good ideia? or not?

Morvan

Vampires were adjusted this patch cause they were being too op using Simmering in trials, they were kinda unkillable with mist before and now they nerfed Simmering cause they could melt bosses, it was probably the highest dps build in the game and people were always saying its weak, quite the joke, its still pretty decent, just hard to build, like always.

As for Werewolves, they have some heavy limitations while transformed, never went too far building one for endgame so I can't say its weak, but it probably falls in the same scenario, it may be op in the right hands.

Tommy_The_Gun

Theros wrote: »

Why we don't see them in Trials?

Because they are useless? Don't have damage?

I tought: What if developers give them more damage to each skill line (Vampire/Werewolf) and block rotation on them. I mean, we can use only original skills of ea Vampire/Werewolf.

Will be a good ideia? or not?

Good idea on paper to buff them, but in reality it will be bad idea. Something like this already happened to Vamp/WW a couple of times. They got a buff/improvement/qol change, then people started using them as they had some good builds & use-cases and then it was followed by massive nerf making them less useful than before the buff.

But anyway - if those two were to revive a buff, then it would have to be done carefully. Can't speak for Vamp as I do not play much on vampire character, but as for the WW - the biggest flaws are:
- Extremely expensive & inefficient healing (resource cost vs result).
- No access to CC immunity skill. This alone makes WW very slow as every snare will insanely slow you down.
- No access to negative effect removal (DoT poison dmg = dead WW).
^ Those are the biggest shortcomings imho. There are other obvious things like being locked in a very limited toolkit, or not having weapon passives, or a general "clunkiness" of the skills & attacks.

WW imho simply has too many things you need to build for to compensate for its flaws, so that is why you dont see them often.

Abadd wrote: »

it may be op in the right hands.

The only situation WW may be still "OP" imho is either a pre-made BGs optimised group (but then again, every optimised group of for example wardens & necros will be way stronger), or maybe a group of WW chasing one player in IC (but then again, every group vs 1 player is OP). Context is important and yes - WW can be strong option, but once you start to compare it to other options available for different content, then it pretty much all beats WW by a large margin every time.

Kisakee

Vampire skills are not that strong nowadays plus they always have some drawbacks so it's usually not worth using them except for some special single playing builds.

Werewolfs can be really strong but their biggest drawback is ranged combat. They simple can't do it, you always need to stay very close to the enemy and for quite some time this was considered a death sentence.
Nowadays where even Magicka toons can use daggers and bidenhänder this may change but you will need a high Stamina resource pool to play them efficiently. Using the Wading Kilt, Bahsei and something like Tzogvin or Berserking Warrior with one piece monster set is quite effective. The hardest thing to do is getting other werewolves into group to extend transformation time.

Arunei

Vampire as a whole doesn't play well with group content ever since the overhaul they did for Greymoor. There are a whole slew of reasons as to why;

*Blood for Blood prevents you from being healed by others for 3 seconds after you use it, but it's essentially the Vampire spammable, which means if you rely on it for your main damage you can only be healed by your own skills and gear. Also, it does most of its damage when you're really low on Health, which makes it hard for most people to use effectively and means you have to be near death to actually get the most use out of it.

*Blood Frenzy and both morphs also prevent you from being healed by others while you have it toggled on. These skills also have a Health cost that increases the longer you have them active (tho there is a cap now after 10 stacks are gained) that can make it really hard to sustain for more than a few moments because you'll have to heal yourself as often as you do damage.

*Vampiric Drain and its morphs are weak and don't restore much Health, and also don't stun any more either.

*Elusive Mist only works in PvP now because ZOS decided to nerf it rather than adjust the single trial boss it was getting spammed against thanks to said boss being WAY overtuned. Plus this is another skill where all forms of it prevent you from being healed while it's active.

*Mesmerize and its morphs can't be blocked, but will only work on enemies that are facing you, which makes using it properly take way too much effort and repositioning.

*Certain passives only work at certain Stages. Undeath doesn't start working until Stage 3, but that stage also means -60% Health recovery, +13% Flame damage, and a +8% increase on your regular (non-vamp) skill costs. Unnatural movement doesn't work until Stage 4, and that Stage's detriments are -100% Health Recovery, +25% Flame Damage iirc, and a +13% increase on regular skill costs. Even Strike From the Shadows only works when you're at Stage 2 and up, and while the downsides are less at that Stage, it's still a pain for most people to deal with. The increase on non-vamp skill costs can really be felt by Races/Classes that have poor sustain.

All these factors make it really hard for most people to really enjoy Vampire even for just causal stuff, let alone harder content (especially group content, given three out of the five active skills prevent you from being healed). Some have come up with strong Vampire builds, but those are for solo content I believe, not group. With the way ZOS wants Vampire to work, it's too much risk for too little reward for a lot of people. It's not fun and it's not worth running.

Meanwhile WW's only REAL issues are the high Ult cost, the limited time you have in WW form, and the fact that you can only use WW skills while in WW form. They buffed WW a few years ago where it can be pretty strong now, but it still has a fairly steep learning curve that a lot of people aren't interested in messing with. Personally, it's much easier to run casually than Vampire despite its limitations, because for me at least they're not nearly as bad as Vampire's downsides.

Vevvev

The new Blood Frenzy can be used, but the lockout from healing means you need to be on your toes with it, and constantly toggling it off and on to get the healer buffs essentially destroys the reason you'd have it on anyway since it's stack based now.

Other than that... Arunei pretty much explained it perfectly. Too much anti-group play detriments in vampire's kit to really make use of it.

Only things I use in group play anymore is Vampiric Drain on my tank, and mostly for the utility and emergency heal, and Blood for Blood on my healer since they can get away with a healing from others lockout. Exhilarating Drain on a Decisive weapon gives a LOT of ultimate, but you have to be smart with it since it forces you to drop block. This makes it a pain in the rear to use right in certain chaotic fights, especially since you can't block cast it.

You can technically use Arterial Burst as a DPS in group content, but it's easily outdone by literally any other ability. It's whole schtick is dealing guaranteed critical damage and some bonus damage while below 50% health, but Trial and group healers won't let you stay below 50% health. Take that into account and it's a spammable that only deals 3.3% more damage at base than your typical spammable since it increases in damage by 1.1% per level till level 4.