Mikoto wrote: »

It is playable, go stage 1 vampire and you can still do quests with stage 4. It's simple just avoid towns with patrolling guards because those are the only people that's going around knocking people or player enforcers.

If you want to pull the MMO card then SWG had the same mechanic with Jedi. Use a force ability in public and you become KoS by players, hunters, and NPCs so you had to be smart to blend in and not wave it around aka running around with stage 4 in broad daylight.

MADshadowman wrote: »

PlagueMonk wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

All my toons are vampires. I enjoy being a vampire, not only for the skills and passives, but also for RP reasons (even though i don't really RP).

Vampires were pretty strong in the beginning, maybe a little too strong, since then they have taken a good beating with the nerf hammer and now they feel like a collection of misadvantages with abilities that can't make up for that.

We take 50% more fire damage.
We have a 75% reduced health regen.
We're always in vampire form, so fighters guild abilities work on us at all times.

Of course there have to be some disadvantages, but what do we get for being so vulnerable?

Bat swarm
A good AOE that does damage and heals and sticks with you. But it got nerfed, first 25% less damage, then 30% less healing. Now it's not a real danger anymore. I can't remember the last time i died through bat swarm or really killed someone with it.

Drain Essence
Only useful in PVE, but not really worth replacing another skill with it. In PVP it rarely works. If the target is blocking or using immovable, the skill won't work. If you can really place it on a player, he just breaks out of it. After you used it once, even if it got cancelled immediately, you can't use it again on this target.

Mist Form
This used to be a good getaway move, before it was nerfed. Now you won't regen magicka while you're in mistform, which means you can't use it that much anymore and after several casts, you will be out of magicka and be very vulnerable.

We also have the feeding self-synergy, but it's so hard to place it in PVP and it does no damage, it only heals us and puts an unbreakable stun on the target. In 1.6 this will no longer be the case, since this patch makes the feeding synergy stun breakable. Obviously there were enough DKs that complained about other people having a counter to their invincibility. Thanks for that.

Then there are 6 passives, 2 of them are not worth taking: Savage feeding and blood ritual.

That's it, that's the vampire. There is not much that makes you feel like a vampire. Only 3 active skills? More looks like a party gimmick.

When i was testing stuff on the PTS i took a look at the WW skill line and was a little shocked, cause there were so many active skills and even though i haven't tested them, the option to fill an entire skillbar with these abilities is just amazing.

Why can't vampires have as many active abilities? This would allow us to really play a vampire and not just a hobby clown with some little tricks.

Here is a visual comparison of these 2 skill lines

That looks a little unfair to me, since we have to find someone that can bite us, or find npc vamps that bite us, then complete the vamp quest and live with our weaknesses and disadvantages AT ALL TIMES. We cannot toggle this on and off, we have to commit to this and stick with it.

This is not about making vamps OP, this is just about giving us more options to really play as a vampire, to make it feel like we're actual vampires.

Please no stupid vamp hate comments, please keep this discussion objective and constructive.

I'd also like to involve our spokeswoman @MornaBaine‌ in this discussion.

This is like beating a dead horse but I will play one more time.....
The reason WHY WWs line looks better is because they have to transform to get all those abilities. Vamps get them on the fly. That's the trade off, deal with it. Plus if you had a full slate of Vamp abilities you would be running around in stage 4 with that 60% cast reduction, being able to endlessly spam your abilities (you know, kind of like Vamps do now only MORE)

I continue to laugh at Vamps claiming they are somehow "weak" now because they have been nerfed repeatedly. There is good REASON for that. As a player I should be able to choose NOT to be a Vamp or WW and be JUST as powerful as you are. Otherwise it is unfair to those who dislike those choices.

And while bats is not as FToM as it was a few months ago, it is still very prevalent on the PvP battlefield. I am still seeing it pop up on my death tally so it's more than a simple "good" ultimate. This might change a bit more with 1.6 however with the way ULT is generated. Can't tell atm.

You have a lot of great passives that you seem to be sweeping under the rug as "insignificant".

If you really want "more" then a couple things have to happen:

1) You and WWs need to be more vulnerable to the Fighters skill line.

2) The moment you become a WW or Vamp you lose access to all Fighters Guild skill lines and passives (just like you lose access to your transform lines if you cure yourself)

3) Fighters Guild needs to have comparable passives to the Vamp and WW. So I will feel just as powerful as a Vamp or WW investing in the Fighters skill line.

4) Make the Justice system take notice of and react adversely to stage 3-4 Vamps or transformed WWs.

You agree to those 4 things and you Vamps and WWs can knock yourselves out.

If you're not a vamp, then this is not a discussion for you. We are vamps and we want more options for playing as vamps. This is important to us and we don't want more "power" we just want different abilities to add more variety to the vampire gameplay.

oren74 wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

oren74 wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

Bat swarm
A good AOE that does damage and heals and sticks with you. But it got nerfed, first 25% less damage, then 30% less healing. Now it's not a real danger anymore. I can't remember the last time i died through bat swarm or really killed someone with it.
quote]

Ahhh, no. Batswarm is still a top 5 ultimate in the game for vamp NBs. Sap and bats, with tri-pots still makes me an virtually unkillable DPS machine for a time bats are running...with sap recharging ultimate at times enough to pop bats again if nobody throws a negate down.

1.6 that changes a bit with ultimate generation change, but we'll see.

We're not discussing classes + vamps here, this is only about vamps. And it is in no way stronger than other ultimates and the only negative effect on targets is that they take damage, nothing else happens. no stun, no root, no snare, no disorient, no fear, just damage and the damage can easily be outhealed or outshielded, or you can just run or dodge roll out of it. There is nothing really impressive about it. You need at least 4-5 people around you to get so much healing, that you're hard to kill, but with 4-5 people that are attacking you, you can still die pretty easily

you're struggling here.

vamps benefit sneaky assassin style playersthe most.

I love the fast sneak, the get into sneak fast at night, the batswarm, and the stage 4 health regen deal is not an issue for me because I use the Shadow Walker set.

I will say for me, the vamp skills are useless...but I see people using them in PvP and PvE, so someone is finding value in putting 1 or 2 in their 10 skill options.

MornaBaine wrote: »

Siluen wrote: »

(Now that I have written this all down, I apologize in advance for the wall of text.)

As a vampire player, the strengths and weaknesses seem like a very mixed bag. A lot of players probably have batswarm spam engraved into their memories, and this is pretty understandable. Even as a vampire going into Cyrodiil myself, I often get annoyed at people that find way to keep that thing up with maybe a second or two downtime.

I do feel that the insane abuse of batswarm spam is more of a combination of factors instead of just the batswarm. I most certainly do not get to swarm as often and in PvP, it is not even to be found on my bar. One problem will be fixed come 1.6: a nightblade's piercing mark will now reveal a vampire in a clouding swarm, which is a damn good change. Because one of the most nasty things about clouding swarm was the fact the person inside was spamming a whole bunch of abilities one cannot even see and not being able to do a whole lot about it. Alongside this there is the problem of builds with such insane ultimate regeneration, that a powerful AoE ultimate that costs as little as batswarm does in stage 4 becomes way too everlasting.

When it comes to the weaknesses. In PvP, vampires take 9% extra damage from every player that has 3 skillpoints to spare for the fighter's guild skillline, and I am actually cool with this. The skillline should not just be benefits. Silver shards is also quite potent and do not even get me started on the nasty people that ambush you with Camouflaged Hunter. I hate you guys. But still, it requires somewhat of a dedicated choice in a very anti-Undead and Daedra skillline, which seems fitting.

I also dabble in PvE however, and this is where the vampire weakness really shows: 50% extra fire damage. (To be 40% in 1.6 for now) The amount of dungeons that have fire-themed bosses in them is overwhelming and even though our little group of 3 vampires and 1 normal healer can take on every veteran dungeon thusfar, City of Ash turned from a hard dungeon into an impossible task, Firemaw only had one fire attack, so he was doable. Ash Titan was... Good grief... So difficult, especially since he seemed to be bugged out in his add spawns (spawning them at 65% and 60%...). We managed to take him down because he got stuck. Not sure if we could have done it otherwise with the bugged add-spawn and the huuuuuge amount of fire. But at Valkyn Skoira we eventually gave up after a *** of wipes. An already rather difficult fight made approximately 50% more difficult. Owch.

Testing out the lowered resistance in vet Wayrest on the PTS, I got absolutely oneshotted by a trashmob with a fire attack twice. (It dealt 27k damage at one point, I was wearing 5M/2H and heaving about 19k health, also, I'm a Dunmer) so yeah, the weakness may have been lowered, but is still incredibly nasty in PvE now that the healthpools are relatively a lot lower, my 19k health not being the lowest hitpointpool in our party at all.

Tl/dr: Vampires take 9% added damage from all players that have 3 skillpoints to spare, which is alright, but do remind yourselves of this as this basically includes.... well... everyone. There are also a bunch of pretty good anti-vampire skills up for grabs. But the fire weakness is absolute murder in PvE, as fire seems to be the most popular theme for dungeon-bosses by far. Vampirism is part of my character, in so far I would rather not be able to complete certain content than remove it. But it sure is a love-hate relationship at times.

You are exactly right. I don't think I use a single vamp ability when I go into Cyrodiil. As a Sorc there are just too many others that make more sense. And any time I am out there and die I'd say at least half the time it's to someone using abilities specifically targeted towards vamp killing. I'm actually cool with that part but it lets me know darn well that vampires are not so much more powerful than everyone else that they still need to be gimped. They don't, they really don't! LOL I'm tired of cries for "balance" when what that means is that everyone has an equal chance to kill anyone else. What's the point of even having classes then? Build should matter. Good builds will be darn near insta-death towards some other builds and insta-kill to other good but "opposite" builds. THAT is balance.

When we ask for more vamp abilities we're NOT asking to be "more powerful" than everyone else. We're asking for abilities that work just like others already in the game but animated FOR vampires. We need a vampire specific stun, root, aoe, single target damage, and an escape. We sort of have a couple of those (when they work which is definitely not always) but are lacking the others.

Werewolves are not fully what they are all the time. Though they are certainly less restricted than real world lore werewolves which are bound to the moon cycles. However, they SHOULD maintain all their passives and weaknesses while in human form. This would be in keeping with the fact that they are indeed werewolves and therefore have to live their lives a bit differently than regular folks.

As to the KOS discussion, I am completely FOR Stage 4 vampires and transformed werewolves being KOS to city guards. There NEEDS to be an incentive to feed and right now there is absolutely none. However, along with that, they would NEED to change the Stage Times. Stage 1 is FAR too short. Either equalize the stage timers or switch the times of Stage 1 and Stage 3. The latter would probably make the most sense.

MADshadowman wrote: »

ebls_BR wrote: »

MADshadowman wrote: »

Knootewoot wrote: »

I think Vampires should be UBER STRONG.

However,

Werewolves only should appear at night at a full bloodmoon, uncontrolled. Also they should be able to attack friendlies.

Vampires should die at a ray of sunlight.

Note: I am vamp myself (unwillingly, as i need to be one to kill one due to stacking speed buffs. not anymore, but i prefer my armor above the nightsomething armor so i need to be vamp)

The ESO vamps are immune to sunlight by lore, and we established that many times now.

This is so conveniently wrong. First, Eso is an Elder Scroll game, and by lore (read Vampires of the Iliac Bay, Chapter II, for instance; play Oblivion or Skyrim and you'll see) Vampires have weakness to sunlight. Anyone who plays ESO for RP reasons can't accept this.

Second, vampires have a basic mythology, a core of characteristics that precedes ESO, and must be followed (weakness to sunlight is one of them), otherwise you risk of misrepresent the essence of the vampire, ruin all RP and, honestly, being completly ridiculous. Let me give an example: Let's say I'll make a WW that looks like an WW, but have the ability to cling to walls and shoot mechanical webs (like spider man...). Serious, vampires that don't have weakness to sunlight (going against the TES lore...) sounds equally ridiculous.

Third, who established that? If even UESP says different.

It is a different strain of vampires and it is indeed covered by the lore.

From UESP:

Lamae's Bloodline
Lamae Beolfag was the first of her kind but like her successors, she created a bloodline. Vampires of this particular bloodline have Noxiphilic Sanguivoria rather than Porphyric Hemophilia or Sanguinare Vampiris, as a consequence these Vampires do not burn or weaken in sun but rather become more powerful once night falls, they have their own set of abilities as well some shared by other bloodlines such as invisibility. A particular way of acquiring this strand of vampirism is through the Rite of the Scion, in which a mortal's blood is fully replaced by that of Lamae Bal herself. This rite turns mortals into Scions, a more powerful variety of vampires. It is also the only way for a soul shriven to be infected with this strand of vampirism. The exact name of this bloodline is unknown but they were extremely common in the second era and were not limited to any particular areas as they could be encountered nearly all over Tamriel. These vampires don't worship Molog Bal but rather they hate him, this is in accordance with Lamae's will, having new recruits profane symbols of Molag Bal is part of the rite of scion ritual.

You're welcome.

MADshadowman wrote: »

Well, i didn't make the lore. We just have to adapt to it, there is no other way around. I would go so far to say our hp regen could actually be the sunlight weakness in a form, but that means it should go up at night.

And of course are there changes to the lore in a franchise that goes on for that long, that's inevitable.

i'm not against weaknesses, as long as they come with strengths and immersive and fun gameplay. But to cry for nerfs and weaknesses just to hold vampires back and restrict every part of vamp gameplay is not ok. Everyone wants to have fun, playing the way they want. We want that too.