So....Vampires?

farorae · April 2020

Seem kinda trash/useless in the next patch. Who would’ve thought that a vampire themed expansion would have nerfed them into the dirt. The stage passives are simply too punishing imo. Thoughts?

HjorrMundGandr · April 2020

I really love the passive changes, especially love the reverse progression through stages, which now feels/seems right.
Honestly feels more of a RP vampire change than what it could have been for this patch being vamp-centric. Missed opportunity imo.

Vevvev · April 2020

Unless you specifically build to be a vampire its going to seriously harm you to be one. Its primarily a magicka skill line now on the PTS which feels really weird considering what vampires are in lore. If anything a stamina morph for the melee spammable would have been nice at least, but we don't get that. I'm primarily a mage so it doesn't effect me, but it does make sense for a claw strike attack to have a stamina morph.

In my opinion ((And everyone has their own)) I think the cost increases to regular skills is a bit uncalled for. The insane cost reduction in vampire skills alone makes them more appealing to use compared to the non-vampiric abilities. As some people pointed out vampire only gets one damage dealing ability, a painful to use buff, and an ult that improves your resources by 10k. There are no DOTs or AOE damage dealing abilities in there. Your going to have to supplement this problem with class/weapon skills and with the current PTS build those abilities are costing 5%/10%/15%/20% more depending on your stage.

Its not the best implementation but luckily its on the PTS so it can be tweaked before it hits Live.

farorae · April 2020

Vevvev wrote: »

Unless you specifically build to be a vampire its going to seriously harm you to be one. Its primarily a magicka skill line now on the PTS which feels really weird considering what vampires are in lore. If anything a stamina morph for the melee spammable would have been nice at least, but we don't get that. I'm primarily a mage so it doesn't effect me, but it does make sense for a claw strike attack to have a stamina morph.

In my opinion ((And everyone has their own)) I think the cost increases to regular skills is a bit uncalled for. The insane cost reduction in vampire skills alone makes them more appealing to use compared to the non-vampiric abilities. As some people pointed out vampire only gets one damage dealing ability, a painful to use buff, and an ult that improves your resources by 10k. There are no DOTs or AOE damage dealing abilities in there. Your going to have to supplement this problem with class/weapon skills and with the current PTS build those abilities are costing 5%/10%/15%/20% more depending on your stage.

Its not the best implementation but luckily its on the PTS so it can be tweaked before it hits Live.

Honestly my biggest issue is with the regular ability cost increase. Even without that vampire still wouldn’t be very good (imo), but I’d at least be willing to work with it if that was removed.

WoppaBoem · April 2020

Its *** currently and will stay like this. We go from 10% more recovery to increases skill costs because WHY?

farorae · April 2020

WoppaBoem wrote: »

Its *** currently and will stay like this. We go from 10% more recovery to increases skill costs because WHY?

Because ZOS doesn’t know how to balance risk/reward and either over-punish or under-punish.

Paradisius · April 2020

I like the changes, I believe the only added the ability cost because theyre trying to think of detriments that cannot be as easily ignored (They said themselves they wanted to address the issue of most of the playerbase being a vampire because it was a straight buff to the player without noticeable detriments) If the ability cost increase was removed, the health regen reduction and the fire damage just would not be enough to make people choose, they would still be a stage 4 vampire in most cases due to the new stage 4 passives and what not. Ability cost increase is something players have to directly build around to mitigate, is it the perfect balancing act? no, thematically it does not make sense. However it is effective at doing its job: making sure vampire is not an obligatory buff but something you can choose to build around if you so want to

VocalThought · April 2020

Paradisius wrote: »

I like the changes, I believe the only added the ability cost because theyre trying to think of detriments that cannot be as easily ignored (They said themselves they wanted to address the issue of most of the playerbase being a vampire because it was a straight buff to the player without noticeable detriments) If the ability cost increase was removed, the health regen reduction and the fire damage just would not be enough to make people choose, they would still be a stage 4 vampire in most cases due to the new stage 4 passives and what not. Ability cost increase is something players have to directly build around to mitigate, is it the perfect balancing act? no, thematically it does not make sense. However it is effective at doing its job: making sure vampire is not an obligatory buff but something you can choose to build around if you so want to

Well said. I think this gives more reason to not be a Vampire, just like in lore. Being a Vampire makes you loose your self. Most people choose death, which is why people question why someone would choose to get bitten in the first place.

WoppaBoem · April 2020

VocalThought wrote: »

Paradisius wrote: »

I like the changes, I believe the only added the ability cost because theyre trying to think of detriments that cannot be as easily ignored (They said themselves they wanted to address the issue of most of the playerbase being a vampire because it was a straight buff to the player without noticeable detriments) If the ability cost increase was removed, the health regen reduction and the fire damage just would not be enough to make people choose, they would still be a stage 4 vampire in most cases due to the new stage 4 passives and what not. Ability cost increase is something players have to directly build around to mitigate, is it the perfect balancing act? no, thematically it does not make sense. However it is effective at doing its job: making sure vampire is not an obligatory buff but something you can choose to build around if you so want to

Well said. I think this gives more reason to not be a Vampire, just like in lore. Being a Vampire makes you loose your self. Most people choose death, which is why people question why someone would choose to get bitten in the first place.

I agree with you both no reason to be a vamp in the vampire expansion, yes I get it makes completly sense, eeuuhhh why exactly?

Really guys the only valiable option is to be vamp with only vampire skills that not even fill up 2 bars so being only single bar and eeuuuhh why exactly?

farorae · April 2020

WoppaBoem wrote: »

VocalThought wrote: »

Paradisius wrote: »

I like the changes, I believe the only added the ability cost because theyre trying to think of detriments that cannot be as easily ignored (They said themselves they wanted to address the issue of most of the playerbase being a vampire because it was a straight buff to the player without noticeable detriments) If the ability cost increase was removed, the health regen reduction and the fire damage just would not be enough to make people choose, they would still be a stage 4 vampire in most cases due to the new stage 4 passives and what not. Ability cost increase is something players have to directly build around to mitigate, is it the perfect balancing act? no, thematically it does not make sense. However it is effective at doing its job: making sure vampire is not an obligatory buff but something you can choose to build around if you so want to

Well said. I think this gives more reason to not be a Vampire, just like in lore. Being a Vampire makes you loose your self. Most people choose death, which is why people question why someone would choose to get bitten in the first place.

I agree with you both no reason to be a vamp in the vampire expansion, yes I get it makes completly sense, eeuuhhh why exactly?

Really guys the only valiable option is to be vamp with only vampire skills that not even fill up 2 bars so being only single bar and eeuuuhh why exactly?

Not to mention that only like 2 of the new skills we receive (minus the ultimate) are even worth using. If they really wanted to force us to use only vampire skills then they needed to double or triple the amount of skills the gave us. Otherwise, the ability cost increase is strictly a nerf. So by choosing vampire you are straight up nerfing your character at this point.

Kadoin · April 2020

WoppaBoem wrote: »

Its *** currently and will stay like this. We go from 10% more recovery to increases skill costs because WHY?

Looks like they want to target sustain to slow combat down...look at how even archmage and grundwulf were both nerfed.

Paradisius · April 2020

WoppaBoem wrote: »

I agree with you both no reason to be a vamp in the vampire expansion, yes I get it makes completly sense, eeuuhhh why exactly?

Really guys the only valiable option is to be vamp with only vampire skills that not even fill up 2 bars so being only single bar and eeuuuhh why exactly?

I understand the backlash to this, but for answer as to "why" its because the devs do notice the fact that the vampire skill line was not really something you took if you wanted to be a vampire, you see it all the time with videos saying "Id recommend vampire, the undeath and supernatural recovery stump out most of the debuffs". The devs did not want this, nor do they want it repeated in the rework. Thus this debuff was added, to make it akin to werewolf where its not meant to be taken just for competitve play, but if you wanted something different. The only differences lie in the detriments, as werewolves must transform to gain all their skills and passives, as well as lose out on their normal abilities and weapon passives. However, i must say that if you build into more recovery or cost reduction, the ability cost increase is definitely workable, Ive tried a few builds where sustain was no longer an issue for me and had enough dps to do content (admittedly, probably not competitvely)

Shardaxx · April 2020

My main is a vamp stam nb, and my main issue is that if I want fast sneaking, then all my abilities will cost more. It sounds non-viable, but I really need fast sneaking and its one of the main reasons I'm a vamp in the first place. Is there any other way for a stam character to sneak faster? I don't think there is, so I'd be stuck with keeping vamp but the increased ability costs is going to be crippling.

Feel like I'm between a rock and hard place on this. What a rubbish update, a vamp update that ruins being a vamp, for me at least.

Paradisius · April 2020

Shardaxx wrote: »

My main is a vamp stam nb, and my main issue is that if I want fast sneaking, then all my abilities will cost more. It sounds non-viable, but I really need fast sneaking and its one of the main reasons I'm a vamp in the first place. Is there any other way for a stam character to sneak faster? I don't think there is, so I'd be stuck with keeping vamp but the increased ability costs is going to be crippling.

Feel like I'm between a rock and hard place on this. What a rubbish update, a vamp update that ruins being a vamp, for me at least.

Actually, the passive that ignores movement speed of sneak is at stage 1, so youd only be looking at a 5% cost, which is entirely manageable, ontop of that you get access to things like mist form and mesmerize should you need those tools

XellJarmar · April 2020

On the 21M target dummy, actually I got my dps increased. Yeah, the sustain is a needle in by vein, however, the damage bonus from the blood frenzy and the scion ult is just amazing. Even with my partially gold / partially divines 2x Selene, 5x Red mountain, 5x deadly setting, the dps increased more than 10k with almost the same rotation as on live. I think if you grab perfect scion as your ultimate, with proper synergies provided, vampire DD will be still viable in most of the vet dungeons.

WoppaBoem · April 2020

Paradisius wrote: »

WoppaBoem wrote: »

I agree with you both no reason to be a vamp in the vampire expansion, yes I get it makes completly sense, eeuuhhh why exactly?

Really guys the only valiable option is to be vamp with only vampire skills that not even fill up 2 bars so being only single bar and eeuuuhh why exactly?

I understand the backlash to this, but for answer as to "why" its because the devs do notice the fact that the vampire skill line was not really something you took if you wanted to be a vampire, you see it all the time with videos saying "Id recommend vampire, the undeath and supernatural recovery stump out most of the debuffs". The devs did not want this, nor do they want it repeated in the rework. Thus this debuff was added, to make it akin to werewolf where its not meant to be taken just for competitve play, but if you wanted something different. The only differences lie in the detriments, as werewolves must transform to gain all their skills and passives, as well as lose out on their normal abilities and weapon passives. However, i must say that if you build into more recovery or cost reduction, the ability cost increase is definitely workable, Ive tried a few builds where sustain was no longer an issue for me and had enough dps to do content (admittedly, probably not competitvely)

You describe as the devs are some kind of gods fine, I do not agree, I think there was no that much wrong with live, could I get some tweak possibly yes but this is just completly wreaking so many build again in the vampire expansion. I also stop now here and just enjoy the game as atm I am good. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

Yorkie_2018 · April 2020

As someone that only recently purchased the Crown Store item for Vampirism. Have they said anything about providing refunds for people that have done this? Clearly Vampirism was taken by a lot of people under the auspices of providing greater regen which the skill line now not only removes but now actually increases skill costs.

Kiralyn2000 · April 2020

Yorkie_2018 wrote: »

As someone that only recently purchased the Crown Store item for Vampirism. Have they said anything about providing refunds for people that have done this? Clearly Vampirism was taken by a lot of people under the auspices of providing greater regen which the skill line now not only removes but now actually increases skill costs.

What they really need to do is remove the crown purchase. Because all it does is sucker in people who don't know there's millions of sources of vampire bites in-game, and they should never spend crowns on it in the first place.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · April 2020

farorae wrote: »

Seem kinda trash/useless in the next patch. Who would’ve thought that a vampire themed expansion would have nerfed them into the dirt. The stage passives are simply too punishing imo. Thoughts?

they good if u dps and overland...I mean for tanks healers is awesome cuz it pumps our dmg so high that it doesnt take us ages to kill stuff but that's all in actual raids it makes no sense to be used on tanks and healer and dds cant rly benefit cuz it will get them killed asap...if they can survive on their own with a 2k hp drain + what the game throws at you then you will not need a healer to begin with and that wont happen...so next step is pvp and it will basically make vamplars gods now...people dont know it yet but u cant kill a templar healer now unless ur super coordinated and time ur skills and ults properly...next patch it wont matter...!@#% hits the fan? pop the myst form run away pop 1 heal then drain/rage up jab till nobody is left alive>repeat. fUn and sKiLl

Ratzkifal · April 2020

I've seen people hit 123k on vampire using very simple rotations. Granted they are negating their healing received from others but if you are not standing in damage or toggle the skill off whenever you are in danger, it could potentially be really strong.

Also for PvP. Has anyone considered yet that every class can now be a Proxidet bomber just by sprinting towards the enemies?

But yes, the passive cost increases are a bit too much right now.

farorae · April 2020

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Yorkie_2018 wrote: »

As someone that only recently purchased the Crown Store item for Vampirism. Have they said anything about providing refunds for people that have done this? Clearly Vampirism was taken by a lot of people under the auspices of providing greater regen which the skill line now not only removes but now actually increases skill costs.

What they really need to do is remove the crown purchase. Because all it does is sucker in people who don't know there's millions of sources of vampire bites in-game, and they should never spend crowns on it in the first place.

Agreed. Most people will give it to you for free or dirt cheap!

WhyMustItBe · April 2020

farorae wrote: »

Seem kinda trash/useless in the next patch. Who would’ve thought that a vampire themed expansion would have nerfed them into the dirt. The stage passives are simply too punishing imo. Thoughts?

Sadly I must agree.

I am REALLY not a fan of the constant low health/near death playstyle, and when you do the math the reward you get is WAY too low for the extreme amount of risk.

The negative passives are way over the top and the positives just no longer remotely balance it. For RP purposes and people who want to play around with the active abilities it will be fun for a while (though I think they could have done a better job with the animation for the main spam-able other than *swats with staff*), but in terms of serious end-game and competitive DPS let alone PVP, I really don't see it finding much play.

Of course they can always make adjustments in future patches.

Deathlord92 · April 2020

I hope we get a stamina morph of the vampire spammable and the 20% cost increase either removed or nerfed because I love playing a vampire either way my nb are staying a vampire.

JadonSky · April 2020

farorae wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Yorkie_2018 wrote: »

As someone that only recently purchased the Crown Store item for Vampirism. Have they said anything about providing refunds for people that have done this? Clearly Vampirism was taken by a lot of people under the auspices of providing greater regen which the skill line now not only removes but now actually increases skill costs.

What they really need to do is remove the crown purchase. Because all it does is sucker in people who don't know there's millions of sources of vampire bites in-game, and they should never spend crowns on it in the first place.

Agreed. Most people will give it to you for free or dirt cheap!

Plus if I read the notes right it sounds like they are adding more spawns that you can get the virus from so it will be more easily obtained from MOPs and adding more priest that can remove it in every main city.

Thannazzar · April 2020

TBH they are fine. The new vampire skill line encourages you to actually play a vampire, rather than treating vamp as a passive set of buffs for characters that just want buffs and don't like the vamp appearance.

The only dissapointment is that there is no range closer ability that turns the character into a cloud of bats.

WhyMustItBe · April 2020

Paradisius wrote: »

I like the changes, I believe the only added the ability cost because theyre trying to think of detriments that cannot be as easily ignored

So why not just take away the 10% recovery if the concern was "it's not fair that WW has to be in form to get theirs."

Not only did they take away the regen completely (in or out of form) but they make all your necessary non-vamp AOE, CC, buff, and utility abilities cost 20% more?

No one can seriously play the game beyond solo RP with that sort of handicap.

Paradisius wrote: »

However it is effective at doing its job: making sure vampire is not an obligatory buff but something you can choose to build around if you so want to.

I respectfully disagree. It makes it so you have to drop vamp altogether to avoid your regular abilities costing more even at minimum stage, so if you want to play vamp for solo purposes but still raid, you have to constantly drop and get reinfected. That alone is a terrible lack of foresight. Werewolf has no penalty for not being in form.

At minimum stage vampire, with no abilities on your bar, you get NO REWARDS and an unavoidable 5% skill cost penalty. How is all negative no positive an acceptable risk/reward balance?

The design at present makes it so you can't just be vamp for solo purposes and rank your stage down for trials. Again even at minimal rank with no benefits, you STILL have 5% increased cost on all your abilities.

Combine this with the fact that vampire has one damage ability and no AOE this is mainly unplayable beyond solo RP.

Paradisius · April 2020

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

So just take away the 10% recovery if your concern was "it's not fair that WW has to be in form to get theirs."

Not only did they take away the regen completely (in or out of form) but they make all your necessary non-vamp AOE, CC, buff, and utility abilities cost 20% more?

No one can seriously play the game beyond solo RP with that sort of handicap.

I agree, its very different to what we have on live, but thats intentional. Say they only took away the 10% magicka and stamina recovery, kept the same detriments(except ability cost) and added these abilities: youd still run into the problem the devs said themselves they wanted to avoid, most of the player base being stage 4 vampires and running everywhere for any build, if not for undeath, then for unnatural movement or blood frenzy. I disagree however that only RP solo builds can utilize the skill line, it will not be competitve to the tip top meta dps and thats okay but there are ways to turn it into a viable build

WhyMustItBe · April 2020

I do not see this as a viable balancing strategy. Rather it is a playstyle limiting strategy.

First of all why would the devs care that people are having fun being vampires so much that they have to go out of their way to take it away from them? I think that is an illogical assumption to make about the dev's motives. Professional game designers don't go around saying "what are people enjoying, and how can I mess it up and make it not fun anymore?"

The problem is that the majority of people who play vampire do it for solo purposes, yet still want to run dungeons, trials, and PVP. The normal behavior is to rank your vampire level down to avoid the extra fire damage (losing access to other passives by doing so), then ranking back up for solo play. This is the same as WW choosing not to transform in PVP.

However what they have created here is a system that TAKES THAT OPTION AWAY. You will no longer be able to just rank down for dungeons, trials, and PVP, because even with no passives or benefits active, you STILL get a flat 5% cost increase on ALL your skills.

This is not only unfair compared to WW, but totally ruins the playstyle of the majority of people who enjoy vamp.

Now instead of just changing rank for different activities, I need to stack regen gear thus nerfing my damage for again no reward at all at lower ranks, introducing a huge hassle of inventory management and constant gear swapping let alone upgrade cost, or just drop a favored playstyle altogether because of an arbitrary change.

The solution is pretty obvious. The skill cost penalty should be 0% at stage 1, 5% at 2, etc.

There is no way a 5% skill cost penalty for no reward at rank 1 should go live as it will simply destroy the playstyle of most people who enjoy passively being a vampire for solo and RP purposes but still want to do dungeons and trials or PVP without having to constantly respec or micromanage inventory and gear just to counter a negative for which they gain nothing.

It comes down to unnecessarily limiting choice. Werewolf can choose to not slot the ultimate or shape shift and have absolutely no penalty for that. They can play as normal, and add the ult to their bar when they CHOOSE to play WW. No constant respec, no gear set swapping, no counteracting a negative for which they gain no positive.

The vampire passives as they are remove that choice disproportionately from one group of players.

It should not be difficult to see how that sort of bias is unacceptable.

XomRhoK · April 2020

I waited for some vampires update for 3.5 years, anything thematic skin, skill, set, not at last we will get vampire centric chapter. But by now my exitment gone. Before this update i used 3 vampiric skills for my casual questing, solo world bosses and solo normal dungeons, i love their visuals and how they feel and i used them all: Invigorating Drain, Baleful Mist and Devouring Swarm. After the update i am not only will not recieve any new interesting mechanicaly or good looking skills, for my taste, but i will lose those three i used before. How ZOS managed to mess up like this...
Vampirc drain:
Before it were very vampire themed skill with good blood flow visuals and sound, with good damage. Now it will lose half of the damage and will look like this(at top left curent version of Invigorating Drain skill):

All glow, all sparkles, colors have nothing to do with vampire theme.

Baleful Mist:
At old one i am not very like green tint, but i like non-flashy tones of visuals, new one also don't look that bad, but become more flashy. I used this skill in encounters with several enemies, to damage them by thematic vampir skill, now this skill also will lose half of the damage, and will become pure heal skill.

Devouring Swarm:
I will not use Blood Scion ult, because it looks so out of place, nothing similar to a vampire at all.
This skill also will lose 40% of it's damage inflicting by bats.

New skills:
Overall i don't like purple pink colors they chose to almost all vampire skills. I like more blood themed or calm, "realictic" effects.

Eviscerate
At current state of animation and sound effects this skill looks like fairy's slap not a vampire claws hit, almost no sound and pink and purple effects. Overall may become good spammable.

Blood Franzy:
Pale visuals and absolutly not interesting skill, in my opinion. Another stat stick for minmaxers and gankers. No interesting gameplay around it, player will not use it at all, because of big HP loss or will easily mathematically calculate and compensate it's drawbacks by some healing set and will toggled it on for full duration of the fight.

Mesmerize:
Again purple pink effects, nothing interesting to play with in combat, just a mass stun. PvPer will be happy.
I like interaction between merchants and stage 4 vampire through this skill.

So in the end visually i can accept Blood Mist and Mesmerize, at some degree Eviscerate. ZOS ruined 2 out of 3 skills for me and give almost nothing in return.

Hope they will change visuals, because i can adapt my playstyle, build, sets, by i can't change visuals and feel of vampire gameplay. The most comical that all new vampire NPCs have cool, interesting skills and blood themed, moderate effects with nice sounds, even Necromancers will envy to some bone effects. As if skills for vampire NPCs and vampire skill line, both mechanically and visually, were designed by absolutely different teams.

P.S. I like new feeding animations and stimulus to feed.

WhyMustItBe · April 2020

XomRhoK wrote: »

So in the end visually i can accept Blood Mist and Mesmerize, at some degree Eviscerate. ZOS ruined 2 out of 3 skills for me and give almost nothing in return.

I could not agree more, after having played it on the PTS. The new drain visual effects are WAY over the top, more like a cartoon than an RPG elder scrolls feel. The original was FAR superior.

I also am not a fan of the blood mist. The whole idea is to become LESS visible when in mist form. The new visuals make it look like someone tossed a smoke bomb in the middle of the room! Not exactly stealthy! Again, the old version was better.

But the real depressing change is that I can no longer rank down to level 1 to do vet dungeons and trials. In the new system even at level 1, with none of the benefits active, you STILL get a flat 5% increased cost to all your skills! That is a straight nerf to your character for no gain whatsoever, just for being a vampire.

Compare this to werewolf who can choose not to slot the ultimate or not transform and suffer NO PENALTY AT ALL.

I feel this disproportionately punishes one group of players for no benefit and should not go live in this form by any means.

farorae · April 2020

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

XomRhoK wrote: »

So in the end visually i can accept Blood Mist and Mesmerize, at some degree Eviscerate. ZOS ruined 2 out of 3 skills for me and give almost nothing in return.

I could not agree more, after having played it on the PTS. The new drain visual effects are WAY over the top, more like a cartoon than an RPG elder scrolls feel. The original was FAR superior.

I also am not a fan of the blood mist. The whole idea is to become LESS visible when in mist form. The new visuals make it look like someone tossed a smoke bomb in the middle of the room! Not exactly stealthy! Again, the old version was better.

But the real depressing change is that I can no longer rank down to level 1 to do vet dungeons and trials. In the new system even at level 1, with none of the benefits active, you STILL get a flat 5% increased cost to all your skills! That is a straight nerf to your character for no gain whatsoever, just for being a vampire.

Compare this to werewolf who can choose not to slot the ultimate or not transform and suffer NO PENALTY AT ALL.

I feel this disproportionately punishes one group of players for no benefit and should not go live in this form by any means.

Yup! Stack up the werewolf negatives with the vampire negatives and you see the giant discrepancy. It’s almost comical when you compare them next to each other. Granted, werewolves don’t get to use their abilities outside of their form, so vampires should have slightly more weaknesses in that regard. The drawbacks are just simply far too much to justify running vamp at this point.