[Class Rep] Vampire Feedback Thread

Starlock · August 2018

I had to think a bit more about this one, because for the most part, my concerns about vampirism really don't have much to do with combat or character mechanics. For me, the problems relate more to how vampirism in ESO is just very different than it has been in other Elder Scrolls games. My pain points relate more to story/lore:

You can only contract vampirism from other players or special bloodfiends. I understand why this was done for an MMO type game, but it makes no sense in terms of story and lore. Players should be able to be infected with vampirism from any and all bloodfiends in the game, which would be consistent with how NPCs in the game itself talk about vampirism. Each time you take health damage from a bloodfiend, you'd have a very small (say, 1%) chance to contract vampirism. You'd become a vampire after four days or if you do the quest. The skill line would only unlock if you do the quest.
Being a vampire lacks in-game consequences that are similar to previous Elder Scrolls games. Given players lack the ability to advance time, I understand not having disadvantages tied to the day/night cycle, but can't help wondering if it could be incorporated in some way. A lower hanging fruit would be to do something with NPC reactions at stage 4 vampirism. I would flag all stage 4 vampires as fugitives in the justice system so they are attacked on sight by guards and cannot interact with merchant NPCs outside of outlaw refuges.

There are, of course, improvements that could be made to the game mechanics of vampirism. Three more active skills to have a fully-realized skill line would be the best place to start, perhaps. Illusion spells would be fitting given the lore-based bonus vampires have had to illusion in previous games. That said, I'd personally rather have illusion spells get an entirely new weapon line rather than be tied to vampirism.

Amoeboren · August 2018

1. Appearance; ruins ESO experience by mutilating avatar. Should have option to hide (like helmet/etc)
2. Appearance; " "

dodgehopper_ESO · August 2018

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

Vampirism is way too strong with not enough drawbacks. This makes it mandatory for endgame PvE. 10% regen is equivalent to 43 CP points in the regen line or the entire racial regen passive of Altmer, Dunmer, and Breton. That's huge. The extra fire damage is easily mitigated with CP passives and the vampire's own damage reduction passive. Health regen is the worst stat in the game as all heals come in bursts in this game.

This would all be fine if vampirism didn't ruin your character's appearance. But this is an MMO. Character customization is half the fun of playing the game. I didn't spend hours in character creation and making an outfit to ruin it with vampirism.

So, please give us a way to hide the visual effects of vampirism or make it an actual choice with meaningful drawbacks. Because right now, if you want a fully min-maxed character you NEED vampirism. It's not a choice.

By the way, @MLGProPlayer, this is precisely why I think the Defile to health regeneration changes were extremely stupid. Health regeneration was not a problem. The only scenario where health regeneration might have been a 'problem' was in non-Cp Pvp, ie: Kyne. Everywhere else Health Regeneration has been a joke. Even the Health stat itself is extremely flawed on a lot of levels. I've pointed this out for a long time so I'll not reiterate it here but I'm pretty sure you and others know where I'm going with this. You don't get the same ROI for points in Health as you do for Magic or Stamina. In my view, one of the benefits of boosting health should be a general boost to all regenerations. It is simplistic I know, but they've slimmed down traditional Elder Scrolls attributes into 3. They may as well use health to boil down Willpower and Endurance together.

dodgehopper_ESO · August 2018

Aliyavana wrote: »

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

Hey, do you all hate the looks of all of the vamp stages, or just the 4th and most advanced stage? @casparian pointed out in the vampire feedback discord that the earlier stages might be more attractive to people, but that the last stage may be too grotesque.

I dont like how pale vampirism makes my redguard. I wouldn't mind a beautiful vampire skin that removes the skin color but keeps the red eyes. If they want us to look like vampires im fine, just don't make me look like a skooma addict. Something like serena from skyrim is what I would like to look like

This is one of my biggest complaints about Vampirism in ESO. An Altmer rather than looking like a faded banana turns into a cold white-blue color... My Argonian Croc-man with his awesome green scales turns chalk white when I think he should be a faded green-white. Altmer tattoos (gold) suddenly turn almost invisible violet color. Khajiit vampire beards don't change with the rest of their fur (the partial change to hair coloring just looks weird, and why should their fur lose color anyway?). I could go on but needless to say I don't like the changes. I think the eyes are cool. I have no problem with the Stage 4 Eye Rash but I understand the complaints. I'd rather see their lips pursed into a feral snarl and have some fangs showing (give Khajiits and Argonians saber teeth).

On the matter of bloodsucking, I wish they'd have a melee range grapple/bite maneuver. It would look much cooler than blood funneling through their like a straw.

dodgehopper_ESO · August 2018

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

Top Two Pain points:
Vampire Lord Form: as this has been circulating in a few threads long-term, I am gonna be straight to the point, true in the lore of ESO vampire players have a weak strain of sorts, but like most forms of supernatural pestilence, they can mutate over time or even evolve through ritualistic means, mayhaps Vampire lord form could be acquired through a quest upon reaching max vampire rank where they must pay a 2nd visit to their blood matron to evolve their vampiric prowess further(and test the newfound power on even more worm cultists), seriously though, we are talking about the very first vampire in existence, you think she would have had enough power through her subjects to realise the vampiric potential of attaining vampire lord form.

but really, case & point, there needs to be a vampire lord form to be able to match werewolves on equal supernatural footing, I don't know for sure how it could be implemented, but either way, Putting in a vampire lord form as the ultimate(and potentially turning bat swarm & its morphs into a reworked active ability.) could bring in something new. only through the feedback of the community & ZOS's own meetings & discussions along with any notes of the class representatives, can it be perfected properly over time to be a permanent addition to ESO that people can choose to have not just for group, trials and solo content, but for a whole lot more.

Fire weakness Deterrent: the vampires weakness to fire should be looked into, primarily because since stage 2 gives a 15% fire weakness straight off the bat(pun not intended) it is kind of near hard to mitigate through the champion tree(Elemental Defender), really though, it should be like this as a solution: stage 1: no fire weakness(default), Stage 2: 7.5% weakness to fire, Stage 3: 15% fire weakness (adding on 7.5 to 7.5), and then stage 4: 25% weakness to fire(stage 4 default, adding 10 to the 15%.) this could allow a full mitigation at stage 3 with 100 points in elemental defender, allowing most PvE'ers to do dungeons, trials and the maelstrom arena where some parts do almost purely fire damage and end up being too punishing for unprepared vampire players.

Other pain points:

Active Abilities: in supernatural comparison to werewolves, vampires have 2-3 active abilities less than werewolves, let alone class skill lines. As mentioned in the top two pain points, Vampire lord form could turn bat swarm(and morphs) from an ultimate ability, into a reworked active ability, thus ZOS employers would only have to fit in two active abilities instead of three(mind you it may be equally challenging to turn bat swarm from an ultimate to an active ability, but still.)

Health Recovery Determent & Unnatural resistance: Because the "Defile" Debuff is powerful on its own(alongside the Befoul Champion skill) it can be pretty bad in PVP in unintended ways for high stage vampires, but that is why as a plausible solution, Unnatural Resistance(which reduces the severity of the health recovery deterrent through stages 2 through 4) should also reduce the effectiveness of Defile Debuffs by a set percentage through stages 2 through 4.(say about 10% at stage 2, 20% at stage 3 and 30% at stage 4.) thus making it harder for non-vampires & werewolves to reduce a vampires health recovery. at least until the Defile Debuff can mathematically be adjusted to more friendlier terms PVP wise.

Undeath: not as painful a pain point as the others, but really, instead of working below 30%/50% health at rank, it should be 40%/60%, because figuratively, at rank 1/2 (currently) a vampire cannot gain the full effect of Undeath, how exactly are they going to numerically get the full 33% damage reduction while below 30% health? (mostly mathematically challenged here) but at 2/2, one can get the full 33% damage reduction below 50% health when sitting at or less than 17% health. if the 30/50% was changed to 40/60%, one can get the full damage reduction at 1/2 while at or less than 7% health while 2/2 can provide the full damage reduction when sitting on or less than 27% health. (I honestly do not know how the threshold works & the values here are just a rough estimate, but this is something to definitely look into.)

I have no problem with this Monster-form pain point that people have but I do have a problem with the lack of recognition that there should be some Guild you can join that is mutually exclusive and offering EQUAL benefits for not becoming a monster. This is not Vampires-Online although the way they run the game maybe it should be (at least it would be honest). I'd really like an excuse to at least sometimes NOT be a monster in the game. I personally have no problem with Vampires having 'summon gargoyle' or turning into hideous monsters like Skyrim had (or any other cool powers). All I'm asking is that they not be Meta for just about everything.

dodgehopper_ESO · August 2018

bloodthirstyvampire wrote: »

If the vampire dlc is verandis I won't even bother, tho if its lamae bal .That would be a dream, I haaaaaate that pathetic excuse for a vampireIn rivinspire, just happily bending over for molag bal, and actually calling him master, pathetic just absolutely pathetic

I think they are both cowardly vampires afraid to revel in their nosferatu-style. I find Lama Bal to be really whiny. She's powerful sure but she needs to calm down. Its been a few millenia.

Baconlad · August 2018

I happen to like the way vamps look...

I'm remain a vamp for the regen and looks, and unearth. As a stamplar the regen is good. The fire damage sucks...but I'll make do...since I look cool

dodgehopper_ESO · August 2018

Baconlad wrote: »

I happen to like the way vamps look...

I'm remain a vamp for the regen and looks, and unearth. As a stamplar the regen is good. The fire damage sucks...but I'll make do...since I look cool

HERETIC! BURN! :P

Taloros · August 2018

1.) Appearance.
The vampire skin makes the normal customization almost irrelvant - you look like a burned zombie no matter what. Either change the appearance OR look at the second point:

2.) Feeding/Stages
Vampire powers grow by feeding less. This is completely backwards. It would make much more sense if feeding increases powers, not lessens them. Just switch the stages around - done.

werzui · August 2018

1. Vampires need to be more in line with Werewolves in terms of available Skills, just giving them one more Skill and making the the other Vampskills more usefull would make Vamps better
2. The Appearance needs to be looked at, they should look more like Vampires and not like pale Zombies

bloodthirstyvampire · August 2018

werzui wrote: »

1. Vampires need to be more in line with Werewolves in terms of available Skills, just giving them one more Skill and making the the other Vampskills more usefull would make Vamps better
2. The Appearance needs to be looked at, they should look more like Vampires and not like pale Zombies

The appearance is fine.

ADarklore · August 2018

bloodthirstyvampire wrote: »

werzui wrote: »

1. Vampires need to be more in line with Werewolves in terms of available Skills, just giving them one more Skill and making the the other Vampskills more usefull would make Vamps better
2. The Appearance needs to be looked at, they should look more like Vampires and not like pale Zombies

The appearance is fine.

The appearance needs to be an OPTION. I think being able to choose which stage you wish your character to permanently appear should be the option- I'm fine with the how the 1-4 levels work, but not fine with how horrible each level increase makes your character look.

daemonor · August 2018

I am always running stage 4 vampire on my bald only pants wearing bare feet orc stamsorc cause it looks like the master vampire from the tv series "strain", so i love it! what i do NOT love is sometimes i have to go down to stage 1 vamp or stage 3 and at that point he truly looks horrible.

My complain would be can the stage appearance be NOT tied to the actual stage? Would be a purely cosmetic change and easy to implement.

Of course I'd love it to be like a fully playable werewolf skill line, but not a huge fan of turnin into a vampire lord, rather leave it as it is and give it functionality outside passives.

Oumalakasha · August 2018

I have been trying to incorporate Accelerating Drain into a PvP build centered around high speed. Overall the skill does seem like it could be a little better. Even something like a range increase would help. I do like that the CC is instant and undodgeable (I think), but the skill as a whole seems like it could use a bit of love. Any other ideas for this morph?

OtarTheMad · August 2018

My points are:

1: It feels like a buff skill line, most people are vampire for the passives and not anything else. It needs more active abilities so that players are vamps for the abilities and the fun, not because a passive is "meta".

2: The appearance thing I am divided about really. Vamps aren't supposed to be pretty like Twilight but in Skyrim some were ugly as sin and some were normal looking but with bright red eyes. I also wouldn't mind being able to get infected with different versions of vampirism and one gives you the ability to morph into a Vampire Lord and you'd look different as a vamp with that strain.

Grimhallow · August 2018

1. The skills are not very interesting or powerful (though mistform is a must have for magicka classes that don't have streak).
2. The passives are OP for PvE and not even remotely worth it for PvP. Increased damage from fire and dawnbreakers is brutal when facing skilled players, and there is basically no reason to be a vamp in PvP unless you either need mistform, or are running a 60k health pool.

JimmyJuJu · August 2018

1) Make bats comparable to destro ultimate
2) Provide a full suite of skills like the werewolf line

AbyssDragon_2115 · August 2018

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

will be keeping a close eye on this thread

hope this is true.
First pain point is appearance.
Ugly veins, zombie eyes, faded tattoos etc. Just read a lot of other posts in different topics. Solutions:
– remove any vampirism visual effects applied to character out of combat;
– purchasable or quest reward skin of regular mer/man/beastfolk that works similar to disguises - show original skin and eyes color.
Second pain point is skill line.
Illogical stages passive effects - sated vampire should be more powerful, which is reverted for now.
Can't fill one panel with vampire skills only cause we have just two active skills, both channeling and magica only. Suggest to add skills like that (just a draft):

One is some punch - just one at a time, single target, melee radius, disease/bleed stamina ability - that can be morphed to debuff on victim OR buff yourself (I prefer minor berserk buff as alternative to Slimecraw which is forced to use my templar);
Two is some ranged ground targeted AoE - roots, apply major fracture/breach and do damage while stand on;
Three is some instant cast longranged single target - fear target for a few seconds, after that do damage and heals you for amount according to time target was feared (like a draining shot) - can be morphed to magica ability that additionally restore stamina OR to stamina ability that additionally restore magica.

JimmyJuJu · August 2018

Grimick wrote: »

1. The skills are not very interesting or powerful (though mistform is a must have for magicka classes that don't have streak).
2. The passives are OP for PvE and not even remotely worth it for PvP. Increased damage from fire and dawnbreakers is brutal when facing skilled players, and there is basically no reason to be a vamp in PvP unless you either need mistform, or are running a 60k health pool.

But that Undeath passive!

Properly buffed at 20% health, vamps are virtually un-killable while in mist form. Executioner, 'tis but a tickle. Very effective for luring less-experienced players into the loving arms of my guildmates

TheDoomsdayMonster · August 2018

@NightbladeMechanics

Are you the rep for Vampirism? If so, I have a concern that I think should be brought to the Dev teams attention...

The concern is the combat effectiveness of Accelerating/Invigorating Drain during PvP...

In the last year, these abilities have seen significant nerfs; they are now dodgable and their stuns no longer go through block...

Given the risk involved in using these abilities (12m range, vulnerability to being bashed, 3 seconds of doing nothing else other than channeling the ability) should these nerfs exist?

Sure, you can activate the ability and immediately cancel out of it (and get the benefit of the 3 second Hard Stun), but doing that:

1) completely negates the damage its supposed to do...

2) negates the healing you're supposed to get...

3) as pertains Invigorating Drain, you miss out on the entire purpose of the morph which is to generate Ultimate (I currently slot Accelerating Drain over Invigorating largely because of this; at least if you cancel out of Accelerating, you still get the Minor Expedition buff)...

Given the above, is it possible that these nerfs can be undone? Or at the very least, can these abilities be buffed somehow to make up for the combat effectiveness that they have lost?

Emma_Overload · August 2018

1) Too few abilities. Why can't we have 5 like werewolves do? Drain Essence is too weak for healing, btw.

2) Devouring Swarm is WEAK! I haven't killed with or been killed by this so-called ultimate for YEARS. Damage should be doubled.

TheDoomsdayMonster · August 2018

Oumalakasha wrote: »

I have been trying to incorporate Accelerating Drain into a PvP build centered around high speed. Overall the skill does seem like it could be a little better. Even something like a range increase would help. I do like that the CC is instant and undodgeable (I think), but the skill as a whole seems like it could use a bit of love. Any other ideas for this morph?

Unfortunately, the stun from this ability is fully dodgable...

Oumalakasha · August 2018

TheDoomsdayMonster wrote: »

Oumalakasha wrote: »

I have been trying to incorporate Accelerating Drain into a PvP build centered around high speed. Overall the skill does seem like it could be a little better. Even something like a range increase would help. I do like that the CC is instant and undodgeable (I think), but the skill as a whole seems like it could use a bit of love. Any other ideas for this morph?

Unfortunately, the stun from this ability is fully dodgable...

Oh dang is it really? I must have read an old list of undodgeable skills then. What a bummer.

TheDoomsdayMonster · August 2018

Oumalakasha wrote: »

TheDoomsdayMonster wrote: »

Oumalakasha wrote: »

I have been trying to incorporate Accelerating Drain into a PvP build centered around high speed. Overall the skill does seem like it could be a little better. Even something like a range increase would help. I do like that the CC is instant and undodgeable (I think), but the skill as a whole seems like it could use a bit of love. Any other ideas for this morph?

Unfortunately, the stun from this ability is fully dodgable...

Oh dang is it really? I must have read an old list of undodgeable skills then. What a bummer.

It used to be undodgable...

Its stun used to go through block...

It used to (once it was latched on to its target) damage enemies who were in stealth...

All of those features have been taken away from Drain Essence and both of its Morphs...

STEVIL · August 2018

1 - The feeding passive needs to have a "safe" (perhaps "seduction" feed option that does not provoke bounty or count as a civilian attack.
2 - Appearance is an issue and what i would propose is a vampiric equivalent of the outfit system, letting you alter your model basic look with a variety of colorings and other features. **The same process could be done for werewolfs too**

mechanically, its not particularly interesting but not painful.

Biro123 · August 2018

I've never ever had a Vampire character (There's my 'I know nothing' disclaimer)..

The main reason being that I really don't like the idea of taking extra fire damage in PVP. But that moves me on to the point I want to make here in that the prevalence of vampires contributes to making fire staves and abilities more desirable in PVP that lightning/ice/poison etc..

Just seems a bit odd that you have one element that gets quite a large dmg bonus to a large section of players, yet the other damage types don't really have anyone who they get bonuses against..
While it may seem balanced from a vampire-only perspective, it doesn't really feel balanced from the perspective of all the relevant strengths of the different damage types.

NightbladeMechanics · August 2018

TheDoomsdayMonster wrote: »

@NightbladeMechanics

Are you the rep for Vampirism? If so, I have a concern that I think should be brought to the Dev teams attention...

The concern is the combat effectiveness of Accelerating/Invigorating Drain during PvP...

In the last year, these abilities have seen significant nerfs; they are now dodgable and their stuns no longer go through block...

Given the risk involved in using these abilities (12m range, vulnerability to being bashed, 3 seconds of doing nothing else other than channeling the ability) should these nerfs exist?

Sure, you can activate the ability and immediately cancel out of it (and get the benefit of the 3 second Hard Stun), but doing that:

1) completely negates the damage its supposed to do...

2) negates the healing you're supposed to get...

3) as pertains Invigorating Drain, you miss out on the entire purpose of the morph which is to generate Ultimate (I currently slot Accelerating Drain over Invigorating largely because of this; at least if you cancel out of Accelerating, you still get the Minor Expedition buff)...

Given the above, is it possible that these nerfs can be undone? Or at the very least, can these abilities be buffed somehow to make up for the combat effectiveness that they have lost?

Noted. One of the main pain points for vamp so far has been lack of compelling active abilities. Lots of folks want buffs for drain and baleful mist and more active abilities to use. I do not see these being a high priority for zos in the near future, but they're on the list.

Aedaryl · August 2018

NightbladeMechanics wrote: »

TheDoomsdayMonster wrote: »

@NightbladeMechanics

Are you the rep for Vampirism? If so, I have a concern that I think should be brought to the Dev teams attention...

The concern is the combat effectiveness of Accelerating/Invigorating Drain during PvP...

In the last year, these abilities have seen significant nerfs; they are now dodgable and their stuns no longer go through block...

Given the risk involved in using these abilities (12m range, vulnerability to being bashed, 3 seconds of doing nothing else other than channeling the ability) should these nerfs exist?

Sure, you can activate the ability and immediately cancel out of it (and get the benefit of the 3 second Hard Stun), but doing that:

1) completely negates the damage its supposed to do...

2) negates the healing you're supposed to get...

3) as pertains Invigorating Drain, you miss out on the entire purpose of the morph which is to generate Ultimate (I currently slot Accelerating Drain over Invigorating largely because of this; at least if you cancel out of Accelerating, you still get the Minor Expedition buff)...

Given the above, is it possible that these nerfs can be undone? Or at the very least, can these abilities be buffed somehow to make up for the combat effectiveness that they have lost?

Noted. One of the main pain points for vamp so far has been lack of compelling active abilities. Lots of folks want buffs for drain and baleful mist and more active abilities to use. I do not see these being a high priority for zos in the near future, but they're on the list.

@NightbladeMechanics

The fire damage taken is also too much.

The multiple number of siege buff make vampire having a real hard time in cyrodil.

A class that already do a lot of damage is all about fire, making them having free major berzerk all the time.

The most used ultimate in the game DBoS is also hitting vamp very hard.

My point isn't "remove vampire weakness" but more about rebalance the + and the -.

Nerf fire damage and fighter guild damage done but also nerf undead.

The true problem with vampire in competitive play is you are either very strong when someone doesn't use flame or DBoS or you are either VERY weak when you face flame damage and DBoS.

The counter to vampire are more hard counter than soft counter.

Make vampire less powefull against people that can't counter but also make it less garbage vs those hwo can. (don't forget siege).

TBois · August 2018

Bring back clouding swarm

Aedaryl · August 2018

Undead should be nerfed to 20% instead of 33% but maximum fire and fighter guild damage should be 15%