The vampire cost increase is good because....

Glurin · April 2020

RedFireDisco wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

RedReign wrote: »

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

(to normal skills on stage 4) it forces people to either dedicate themselves to being a vampire or not - same as with werewolves... no just slapping on some passive benefits without truly being living as a vampire and also dedicating a character / rping to it and that is GOOD

less non lore friendly shallow min maxing and more dedication to a theme that comes with benefits and drawbacks

Forcing players to dedicate themselves to only being a vampire is objectively bad. Its a support set with only 1 direct damage attack.

Forcing players to play a specific role in a Role-Playing Game is bad you say...

Role-playing according to who?

The genre. MMORPG. Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Game.

Since you seem to be unaware, "Role Playing" is not limited to what those guys down in Riften do. It's actually a pretty broad category that encompasses even the most basic level of immersion where you're not trying to calculate numbers and just playing the game. Virtually everyone who isn't constantly obsessing over min/maxing and DPS and PvP is role playing by definition. And yes, I'm aware that "immersion" is some kind of mystical, esoteric word these days that a lot of people seem incapable of wrapping their head around, but it is a real thing.

For the record, the poster you were replying to was wrong to suggest that arbitrarily restricting people to specific roles is inherent to the genre. RPGs can do that of course, but whether such restrictions are present is irrelevant. The defining characteristic is taking on the role of a character within the game setting.

kaisernick · April 2020

I do wonder how impactful higher stages of vampire would be if the changes to light and heavy attacks had come with it.

StShoot · April 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Oh, Jerry... where to even begin...

This debate is indeed silly. Vampires in the whole franchise used to have one characteristic and now it's reversed. No matter how you see it - people will be annoyed and rightly so. How do you think people would react when one day stamina dragonknights woke up to see their class had now the skills of a magicka nightblade? Yes, they could adapt, but this isn't the point. They did not sign up for that, THAT is the point. And it can't be denied.

Your super secret uber build is... yeah, I don't give a crab. If you think a magicka melee spammable and a CC that doesn't work on running people make you OP, well, godspeed. Don't get me wrong, I see the benefits, but you're vastly overestimating them.

But your true colors shine through near the end. You criticize people for choosing vampires for their benefits, the passives. They CHOSE vampires for their unique traits.
Yet, you go ahead and claim they NOW had to choose. No. No, they already did.
It's your remark about the new active abilities that reveals it. You explicitly said vampires SHOULD be defined by active abilities. No. Not in this franchise, buddy. Vampires have always been about the passives. If you like the upcoming changes, that is YOUR opinion. And you are as subjective on the matter as you accuse the current vamp players to be.

But our subjectivity is objectively right. Because this is how vamps have always worked. ZOS are changing the rules and changing what vampires are. That is NOT "how it should be". As I compared to Mehrunes Dagon - ZOS cannot just go ahead and replace Altmer magicka racials with weapon/stamina ones and change them from the best spellcasters to the best warriors because they feel this to be "how it should be". There are rules to make a created world believable and work. Every good writer knows that. So no, ZOS shouldn't tamper with this and this is not "how it should be".

So there aren't a substantial number of vampires because of their traits, passive regen, etc, but they chose them for traits? Here's a subtle hint, this is directly contradictory, and it also contradicts everything I'm seeing complained about in all of these threads. The common theme is "I got it for the passives, because the actives were crap, and now I'm going to have to play as an actual vampire, or have my costs increased". So what people really did was take vamp to be the best (insert class that doesn't require vampire to play here) they could be? Something doesn't add up there, and I suspect that that's what ZoS is thinking too, maybe?

That's basically the truth of it.

These changes are good for players who actually want to use Vampire abilities.

For people who just used it for a passive or two and didn't care for the actual skill line there isn't much here to like. But players who utilized Vampiric abilities into their rotations and fighting style are going to love Greymoor. And the new stage system allows players to choose what combination of Vampire + (insert class) they want to be. Which is something I was worried Greymoor wouldn't allow for. But after testing the changes on the PTS myself, I learned that it does. In fact it actually strengthens combination Vampire builds, because the penalties at lower stages are very manageable and you are no longer punished for using Vampire skills.

So i actual used mistform in no cp pvp and liked it and for its power i paid with hard hiting dawnbreakers (on myself), hard hiting siege weapons and hard hitting mag dks. But i will still cure it if these changes go live why ?! because no skill in the game is worth a freaking cost increase on a class that allready has issues to sustain in a no cp environment. And since you are not able to build a whole build around vampire skills (5 skills+u but you need 10+2u). And after testing those abilitys i can say for me they are not worth the "debuffs" anymore.
One or two are interesting (mistform, toggle) but the rest is just crap (did you ever thought about how mach serverload that CC will add ?)

So Zos just reverted the situation, the players that previously played vamp for the abilitys or their passives(and there was a ton of them till the drain got nerfed) will cure it because of the PASSIVES, does that realy sound right to you ?

But ok lets go through with your logic:
So lets say a magden desides to become a vampire because he wants an unblockable CC. He literal only uses that one skill, he stays on stage 1 to minimize the debuffs. Is he realy more interested in that skillline just because he decided to use an active ability instead of a passiv one ?
Vampire was never designed to be a standalone form like the WW, it doesnt work like that. Instead you build the vampire into your Setup.

Sadly, as many players pointed out in this thread, vampires arnt for ppl who played them because of their usefullness, they are for players who want to play them in RP, for their cool looking skills, for the feeling and for their ability to make tatoos look pale.
But let me ask you this: What would change for you if Zos would take away the cost increase on basic abilitys ? would you feel less vampirc because of this ? Would it bother you that other players have fun with some skills and are not "embracing the vampire experience"?

Uryel · April 2020

The changes to vampire are good, because it won't be the default "go to" option for everyone and their mother. You'll be a vampire if you find vampire itself useful, not for some sustain bonus.

RavemasterCrow · April 2020

The DPS numbers on the dummy won't give you a conclusion. And whatever small PVP sessions you did on PTS (if any) will also not give you the conclusion.

You need to relax and see what happens when the changes go live, and when the vast majority will participate in experimenting with the new changes.

Unfortunately, the 'wait and see' approach won't work in this circumstance. They've got almost a month before these changes are supposed to go live - and the PTS is there SPECIFICALLY for testing and giving feedback to changes BEFORE they happen.

If you want to do anything, don't tell people on the PTS to "wait and see" because we "don't have enough data" - instead, start encouraging other people to get on the PTS and test their Stage 4 Vampirism builds and put together Vet Dungeon, Trials, or try and get PvP going.

The more people we have, giving more detailed feedback on PTS means the less likely they have a botched launch and screaming forums.

LeHarrt91 · April 2020

Does "regular Ability Cost Increase' affect Dodge, Block, Sprint etc?

Jeremy · April 2020

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Opalblade wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Vampirism has always been a bit like putting an accent on your character, except that accent is things like bad sunburn, aversion to fire, a liquid diet, etc. It has never, ever been about strictly adhering to a single, extremely narrow set of abilities. Even werewolves get more freedom than that, despite being all about the transformation into a beast. Vampires have always been a very versatile playstyle, able to be mages or warriors or thieves or whatever else. And no, not because they could just feed and be an almost-not-a-vampire. It's because the vampirism integrated into whatever you were already doing. It didn't ever overwrite it with some predefined, alien loadout and force you to do things that way.

As I've told you countless times before, the option to play as a "versatile" vampire that still utilizes elements of mages, warriors, thieves or what ever else are still available to you by playing at the lower stages. If you let these bizarre notions of not being a complete vampire (or what ever it is) keep you from doing that because you for some reason feel you must play as a stage 4 vampire then I can't help you.

Sometimes you have to bend with the wind or break.

Yup, called it. "You can be versatile as a vampire by just not being a vampire."

Again: and for what must be the 100th time now: you are still a Vampire at stage 1. It doesn't make no sense to me why you think a Vampire playing in stage 1 isn't a Vampire. It is!

Considering that blood drinking has always been one of the main things that vampires are known for, and that you can't do so without going past stage 1, I don't think that's the case. I want my vampires to act like vampires, but I can't because most of my characters are tanks. Mind you, I WANT to use the new abilities, but the fact that the cost increase includes stuff like blocking and ultimate means I won't be able to feed without screwing myself over. Forcing tank and healer vamps to starve themselves in order to be effective is just silly.

Of course you can.

Stage 1 Vampires can drain the life out of their opponents all day long.

Under the new system, using drain no longer advances your rank. It's a great change for tanks who like to use drain (of which I am one of). You won't have to worry about those nasty fire damage increases that used to come along with frequent use of drain as well. Taking 5% more fire damage is a lot better than taking 25% more fire damage, which is what drain tanks were forced to deal with before Greymoor.

You're so transparent, Jer. Everyone sees through your façade but you insist on keeping it up. For someone who claims to be ready for friendly discussions and be calm and mannered, you sure try to hammer your argument in.

Once again. People chose vampirism for the passives. They have done so since Morrowind. THERE IS NO VAMPIRE CLASS IN THE TES GAMES. Whatever your head canon is about how vampires should behave - it doesn't matter. There is a very clear precedence for how vamps work in Elder Scrolls.

And yes, the higher your stage used to be, the more vampiric you used to be. Advancing stage underlined the unique traits of a vampire. That is the big paradox in your thesis. You are telling us to behave more like vampires, but YOU are the one who is actually trying to weasel away from the vampires' unique traits.

And the quoted post proves it. The fire weakness has always been a thorn in your side, you said that yourself. So you don't want to BE a vampire, you are just looking for a couple re-skinned skills. But you don't actually wanna build around them, nonono. You just want the skills with no influence on your character's stats and traits. If the vampire skills were in the Psijic skill line, you would immediately take them and not care a single bit about being a vampire. It is exactly what you're accusing us of with the "vamp only for recovery" stuff. Just the other way round.

Anyways, this was my last attempt at explaining it to you. Take it or leave it, whatever. It's time to shift attention towards the PTS again.

I said I try to be nice. I don't know who are you (I"m guessing one of those posters from yesterday?) but in your case I really shouldn't even bother trying considering this rude and and annoying attack you just aimed at me. So you are the last person on this forum who should be lecturing others about being "nice".

It's easy to attack people on a forum where people aren't allowed to attack back. It doesn't make you look tough. And you don't speak for "everyone". You may think you do (of that I don't doubt). But you really don't. There are a lot of people who like these Vampire changes.

Anyway: there is no "facade" here, and I'm not trying to "weasel" out of anything. If I wanted to cure my "fire weakness" I would simply go cure my Vampirism. There is no need for me to try and "weasel" anywhere.

What I told that poster was he could still drain people's blood (using the drain spell) as a stage 1 Vampire. Why on earth that post upset you so much I haven't a clue. And at this point, I really don't care either.

If you want to pick Vampire for stage 2, 3, and 4 passives - you can. Be my guest. Nothing is stopping you. But you are going to suffer the penalty of being a fully corrupted Vampire if you do - which means you are going to be punished heavily for using your regular skills instead of your Vampiric ones. So I don't recommend it for people who still want to make frequent use of the regular abilities.

Now do I like that I can now use my Vampire Skills and keep my stage at 1 instead of 4 so I don't have to take a lot of extra fire damage? Of course I do. Who wouldn't? How that turns me into a transparent weasel trying to build some facade I haven't a clue.

Jeremy · April 2020

StShoot wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Lord-Otto wrote: »

Oh, Jerry... where to even begin...

This debate is indeed silly. Vampires in the whole franchise used to have one characteristic and now it's reversed. No matter how you see it - people will be annoyed and rightly so. How do you think people would react when one day stamina dragonknights woke up to see their class had now the skills of a magicka nightblade? Yes, they could adapt, but this isn't the point. They did not sign up for that, THAT is the point. And it can't be denied.

Your super secret uber build is... yeah, I don't give a crab. If you think a magicka melee spammable and a CC that doesn't work on running people make you OP, well, godspeed. Don't get me wrong, I see the benefits, but you're vastly overestimating them.

But your true colors shine through near the end. You criticize people for choosing vampires for their benefits, the passives. They CHOSE vampires for their unique traits.
Yet, you go ahead and claim they NOW had to choose. No. No, they already did.
It's your remark about the new active abilities that reveals it. You explicitly said vampires SHOULD be defined by active abilities. No. Not in this franchise, buddy. Vampires have always been about the passives. If you like the upcoming changes, that is YOUR opinion. And you are as subjective on the matter as you accuse the current vamp players to be.

But our subjectivity is objectively right. Because this is how vamps have always worked. ZOS are changing the rules and changing what vampires are. That is NOT "how it should be". As I compared to Mehrunes Dagon - ZOS cannot just go ahead and replace Altmer magicka racials with weapon/stamina ones and change them from the best spellcasters to the best warriors because they feel this to be "how it should be". There are rules to make a created world believable and work. Every good writer knows that. So no, ZOS shouldn't tamper with this and this is not "how it should be".

So there aren't a substantial number of vampires because of their traits, passive regen, etc, but they chose them for traits? Here's a subtle hint, this is directly contradictory, and it also contradicts everything I'm seeing complained about in all of these threads. The common theme is "I got it for the passives, because the actives were crap, and now I'm going to have to play as an actual vampire, or have my costs increased". So what people really did was take vamp to be the best (insert class that doesn't require vampire to play here) they could be? Something doesn't add up there, and I suspect that that's what ZoS is thinking too, maybe?

That's basically the truth of it.

These changes are good for players who actually want to use Vampire abilities.

For people who just used it for a passive or two and didn't care for the actual skill line there isn't much here to like. But players who utilized Vampiric abilities into their rotations and fighting style are going to love Greymoor. And the new stage system allows players to choose what combination of Vampire + (insert class) they want to be. Which is something I was worried Greymoor wouldn't allow for. But after testing the changes on the PTS myself, I learned that it does. In fact it actually strengthens combination Vampire builds, because the penalties at lower stages are very manageable and you are no longer punished for using Vampire skills.

So i actual used mistform in no cp pvp and liked it and for its power i paid with hard hiting dawnbreakers (on myself), hard hiting siege weapons and hard hitting mag dks. But i will still cure it if these changes go live why ?! because no skill in the game is worth a freaking cost increase on a class that allready has issues to sustain in a no cp environment. And since you are not able to build a whole build around vampire skills (5 skills+u but you need 10+2u). And after testing those abilitys i can say for me they are not worth the "debuffs" anymore.

I would agree with you if you had to proceed to stage 4 to use Mist Form.

But you don't.

You can use Mist Form all you want as stage 1 where the penalties are very mild.

So if you want to use Mist Form In PvP StShoot - yet don't want to deal with the freaking cost increase (and I don't blame you, their very hard on builds that still use a lot of regular abilities) you still can. Under the new system - using Vampire skills don't advance your stage any longer.

As to whether or not people can put together a whole build around just using Vampire Skills - time will tell. I think the jury is still out on that one.

Glurin · April 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

What I told that poster was he could still drain people's blood (using the drain spell) as a stage 1 Vampire. Why on earth that post upset you so much I haven't a clue. And at this point, I really don't care either.

That's exactly your problem. You really don't have a clue, Jeremy Antoinette.

Jeremy · April 2020

Opalblade wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Opalblade wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Vampirism has always been a bit like putting an accent on your character, except that accent is things like bad sunburn, aversion to fire, a liquid diet, etc. It has never, ever been about strictly adhering to a single, extremely narrow set of abilities. Even werewolves get more freedom than that, despite being all about the transformation into a beast. Vampires have always been a very versatile playstyle, able to be mages or warriors or thieves or whatever else. And no, not because they could just feed and be an almost-not-a-vampire. It's because the vampirism integrated into whatever you were already doing. It didn't ever overwrite it with some predefined, alien loadout and force you to do things that way.

As I've told you countless times before, the option to play as a "versatile" vampire that still utilizes elements of mages, warriors, thieves or what ever else are still available to you by playing at the lower stages. If you let these bizarre notions of not being a complete vampire (or what ever it is) keep you from doing that because you for some reason feel you must play as a stage 4 vampire then I can't help you.

Sometimes you have to bend with the wind or break.

Yup, called it. "You can be versatile as a vampire by just not being a vampire."

Again: and for what must be the 100th time now: you are still a Vampire at stage 1. It doesn't make no sense to me why you think a Vampire playing in stage 1 isn't a Vampire. It is!

Considering that blood drinking has always been one of the main things that vampires are known for, and that you can't do so without going past stage 1, I don't think that's the case. I want my vampires to act like vampires, but I can't because most of my characters are tanks. Mind you, I WANT to use the new abilities, but the fact that the cost increase includes stuff like blocking and ultimate means I won't be able to feed without screwing myself over. Forcing tank and healer vamps to starve themselves in order to be effective is just silly.

Of course you can.

Stage 1 Vampires can drain the life out of their opponents all day long.

Under the new system, using drain no longer advances your rank. It's a great change for tanks who like to use drain (of which I am one of). You won't have to worry about those nasty fire damage increases that used to come along with frequent use of drain as well. Taking 5% more fire damage is a lot better than taking 25% more fire damage, which is what drain tanks were forced to deal with before Greymoor.

I wasn't talking about drain. I know that it exists and I even use it pretty frequently on one of my tanks. The entire reason I was looking forward to this update was because I thought I'd finally get to play my vampires like actual vampires. Maybe you're happy with sitting at one stage without ever feeding like on live, but I find it boring.

On live, if you frequently use drain you have to feed regularly to stay at stage 1. On the PTS, you don't. So I was letting you know you could still drain the life of your enemies without having to worry about advancing past stage 1.

If you are only talking about feeding specifically, I'll admit it looks cool, but it really doesn't have much application in terms of actual game play. It's mostly just a way to advance your stage. So even a stage 4 Vampire would have very little reason to go around feeding on people outside of role playing purposes. But I think I understand your concern now.

The only thing I can think of is maybe get a lot of those drinks that reduce your stage and use those after you go on feeding sprees if you don't want to go past stage 1 and still feed all the time. It's the only solution I can think of at the moment.

Jeremy · April 2020

Glurin wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

What I told that poster was he could still drain people's blood (using the drain spell) as a stage 1 Vampire. Why on earth that post upset you so much I haven't a clue. And at this point, I really don't care either.

That's exactly your problem. You really don't have a clue, Jeremy Antoinette.

Am I suppose to care what you think my problem is?

Jeremy · April 2020

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

what i dont understand is why people constantly complain before they actually have tested anything - yes you might have to adapt and create a build around it to play a stage 4 vampire BUT THATS THE POINT - commit or dont and there are already PLENTY of videos and guides from content creators that show
- very interesting and viable builds
- that the cost increase is absolutely manageable

so how about testing things first before complaining?

That's one (of many) reasons I like these changes. They allow for some new build ideas that focus heavily on using just Vampiric abilities and reward players for doing so.

I may have to check out some of those videos. I was curious to see what people would come up with.

Jeremy · April 2020

Uryel wrote: »

The changes to vampire are good, because it won't be the default "go to" option for everyone and their mother. You'll be a vampire if you find vampire itself useful, not for some sustain bonus.

Agreed.

It's no longer going to be used by many as just a passive with a skin attached to it. Its' now an active skill line players are either going to use or not become Vampires at all. And that's how it should be

RavemasterCrow · April 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

The changes to vampire are good, because it won't be the default "go to" option for everyone and their mother. You'll be a vampire if you find vampire itself useful, not for some sustain bonus.

Agreed.

It's no longer going to be used by many as just a passive with a skin attached to it. Its' now an active skill line players are either going to use or not become Vampires at all. And that's how it should be

Yeah, screw Vampires having a history in TES of being Stronger, Faster, more skilled in magic AND battle than basically anyone other than maybe werewolves.

Screw the history of them getting ridiculous +20 to Strength, Willpower, and Speed stats. Screw +20 to Blade, Heavy Armor, Unarmored, Hand to Hand, Athletics, Acrobatics, Sneak, Destruction, Mysticism, and Illusion.

Screw the 2 Morrowind Clans that focused on Stealth and Assassination or straight up BATTLE.

Screw the Oblivion Vampirism that still gave bonuses to melee builds and weren't just focused on being magicka characters with a restrictive skill line.

Screw the Normal Vampires from Skyrim that got all sorts of passive bonuses to all playstyles and was only forced into a narrow "Vampire Only" skill tree when in a TOGGLE VAMPIRE LORD FORM.

Screw the Pre-Greymoor ESO Vampires that had bonuses to all skill build types (obviously, or you and others wouldn't keep complaining how you 'HAD' to be a vampire for the extra 10% Stam&Mag recovery).

Hell, previous games before Skyrim even gave Vampires RESISTANCE of up to 50% against non-silvered weapons, and a 20%-50% increase in resistance to Frost. Which would literally make them unstoppable in ESO unless people used the Fighter's Guild tree.

What we're looking at getting in Greymoor is Vampire Lord, without the toggle. Where Vampires will objectively become a niche build that may or may not wind up being competitive or useful in content outside of overland or normal dungeons.

1) Drain can't be used while blocking - meaning even tanks will struggle to find it useful with all the new Vampiric Drawbacks, a 3 second channel that you literally can't mitigate with. And will require kiting so you don't take more damage than you heal.

2) Mist form can't be reliably block canceled and will require people to jump their hotbars often to use it for effective mitigation, which people are already doing - but unless you're going to front AND back bar your other Vampire Abilities, you'll lose stuff like Frenzy to swap to drop the form.

3) Eviscerate and Blood Frenzy both walk a razor's edge between being marginally useful and a straight up detriment. Especially because it's wonky scaling. Casts with Magicka but scales with Max HP, or costs health to use while you're already actively draining your HP and stopping anyone else from being able to heal you. Not counting it's literally a worse reskin of Venomous Claw without the DoT.

4) Mesmerize looks amazing and has cool flavor, probably the best new ability we've seen added, but will basically be useless outside solo content or unless you're a tank that can actually HAVE everything looking at you.

5) Blood Scion is literally Bone Colossus but reskinned for Vampire use, sure it heals you to full upon casting and one of the morphs gets you to ignore the detriments of being a Stage 4 Vampire, but why wouldn't you just slot this as your ultimate, play your build normally with a lower dps rate due to the increased costs and then cast this for 20 seconds of being able to act like you're still a fully functioning character that wasn't gimped by the new skill line coming out?

The Invisibility while sprinting passive is fun, but basically a glorified upgrade to the Shadow Rider passive from Dark Brotherhood - instead of mounting and gaining 50% detection radius reduction from enemies instead you're standard sprinting and invisible to them. Neat if you've got to get through town with a bounty or navigate through an area with a lot of enemies overland. Or niche if you're trying to gank in PVP.

Increased spell and weapon damage would be great if that meant you wouldn't have to keep mist on your bar as a DPS to activate it since NB is the only class with an invis. And you wouldn't have to stop using your normal consumable to pick up an Invis potion to make use of it.

And I haven't done extensive testing on Undeath - so I can't tell you what state it's in for better or worse. But I imagine a flat 30% based on missing HP would probably be worse than a flat 33% while under 50% HP.

What they're doing is taking a historically UNIVERSAL bonus for all builds and play styles in pretty much literally EVERY TES game that it's made a debut in. And turning it into a Niche solo skill tree that really should have been 3 whole skill trees if they wanted to encourage people to play full Vampirism.

Give a Tank Tree, DPS Tree, and Healing Tree like NB, Warden, Necro (etc). Fill it with interesting and cool abilities, including the NPC ones that were shown like the bat knockdown dash, the combat stun drain, the AoE blood boil pool. And others.

THEN you can have a complete toolset and a right to try and tout the "True Vampirism" line you're constantly trying to get other people to buy.

Right now, it's messy, disjointed abilities, passives that only benefit someone like a MagBlade. And is worse overall than what we have on Live.

I've literally NEVER cared about people choosing Vampirism for the passive benefits.

Because guess what, that would be a LEGITIMATE REASON TO CHOOSE VAMPIRISM IRL.

Mortal: "oh I hate being slow, weak, and prone to dying of old age"

Vampire: "Have you heard of Vampirism?!"

M: "No, what's that?"

V: "Only the cure to all your ails, just one bite and you'll have a bunch of strengths, run farther, jump higher, hit harder, use more potent magic, gain immortality and all for the low low couple of very specific weaknesses"

M: "SIGN ME UP!".

Sideeffectsmayinclude: Intolerancetosunlightgarlicsilveredweaponsfire

Make the punishment for being one more severe sure, they've always had weaknesses like Ambient Sunlight (Pretty impossible in an MMO with such a slow span of Night and Day, given their admission by changing Night Stalker to no longer require night time), 50% Fire Damage taken, Restoration magic used to damage them in some games.

But this just seems like them taking the pendulum and swinging it wildly in the other direction.

Jeremy · April 2020

RavemasterCrow wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Uryel wrote: »

The changes to vampire are good, because it won't be the default "go to" option for everyone and their mother. You'll be a vampire if you find vampire itself useful, not for some sustain bonus.

Agreed.

It's no longer going to be used by many as just a passive with a skin attached to it. Its' now an active skill line players are either going to use or not become Vampires at all. And that's how it should be

Yeah, screw Vampires having a history in TES of being Stronger, Faster, more skilled in magic AND battle than basically anyone other than maybe werewolves.

Screw the history of them getting ridiculous +20 to Strength, Willpower, and Speed stats. Screw +20 to Blade, Heavy Armor, Unarmored, Hand to Hand, Athletics, Acrobatics, Sneak, Destruction, Mysticism, and Illusion.

Screw the 2 Morrowind Clans that focused on Stealth and Assassination or straight up BATTLE.

Screw the Oblivion Vampirism that still gave bonuses to melee builds and weren't just focused on being magicka characters with a restrictive skill line.

Screw the Normal Vampires from Skyrim that got all sorts of passive bonuses to all playstyles and was only forced into a narrow "Vampire Only" skill tree when in a TOGGLE VAMPIRE LORD FORM.

Screw the Pre-Greymoor ESO Vampires that had bonuses to all skill build types (obviously, or you and others wouldn't keep complaining how you 'HAD' to be a vampire for the extra 10% Stam&Mag recovery).

Hell, previous games before Skyrim even gave Vampires RESISTANCE of up to 50% against non-silvered weapons, and a 20%-50% increase in resistance to Frost. Which would literally make them unstoppable in ESO unless people used the Fighter's Guild tree.

What we're looking at getting in Greymoor is Vampire Lord, without the toggle. Where Vampires will objectively become a niche build that may or may not wind up being competitive or useful in content outside of overland or normal dungeons.

1) Drain can't be used while blocking - meaning even tanks will struggle to find it useful with all the new Vampiric Drawbacks, a 3 second channel that you literally can't mitigate with. And will require kiting so you don't take more damage than you heal.

2) Mist form can't be reliably block canceled and will require people to jump their hotbars often to use it for effective mitigation, which people are already doing - but unless you're going to front AND back bar your other Vampire Abilities, you'll lose stuff like Frenzy to swap to drop the form.

3) Eviscerate and Blood Frenzy both walk a razor's edge between being marginally useful and a straight up detriment. Especially because it's wonky scaling. Casts with Magicka but scales with Max HP, or costs health to use while you're already actively draining your HP and stopping anyone else from being able to heal you. Not counting it's literally a worse reskin of Venomous Claw without the DoT.

4) Mesmerize looks amazing and has cool flavor, probably the best new ability we've seen added, but will basically be useless outside solo content or unless you're a tank that can actually HAVE everything looking at you.

5) Blood Scion is literally Bone Colossus but reskinned for Vampire use, sure it heals you to full upon casting and one of the morphs gets you to ignore the detriments of being a Stage 4 Vampire, but why wouldn't you just slot this as your ultimate, play your build normally with a lower dps rate due to the increased costs and then cast this for 20 seconds of being able to act like you're still a fully functioning character that wasn't gimped by the new skill line coming out?

The Invisibility while sprinting passive is fun, but basically a glorified upgrade to the Shadow Rider passive from Dark Brotherhood - instead of mounting and gaining 50% detection radius reduction from enemies instead you're standard sprinting and invisible to them. Neat if you've got to get through town with a bounty or navigate through an area with a lot of enemies overland. Or niche if you're trying to gank in PVP.

Increased spell and weapon damage would be great if that meant you wouldn't have to keep mist on your bar as a DPS to activate it since NB is the only class with an invis. And you wouldn't have to stop using your normal consumable to pick up an Invis potion to make use of it.

And I haven't done extensive testing on Undeath - so I can't tell you what state it's in for better or worse. But I imagine a flat 30% based on missing HP would probably be worse than a flat 33% while under 50% HP.

What they're doing is taking a historically UNIVERSAL bonus for all builds and play styles in pretty much literally EVERY TES game that it's made a debut in. And turning it into a Niche solo skill tree that really should have been 3 whole skill trees if they wanted to encourage people to play full Vampirism.

Give a Tank Tree, DPS Tree, and Healing Tree like NB, Warden, Necro (etc). Fill it with interesting and cool abilities, including the NPC ones that were shown like the bat knockdown dash, the combat stun drain, the AoE blood boil pool. And others.

THEN you can have a complete toolset and a right to try and tout the "True Vampirism" line you're constantly trying to get other people to buy.

Right now, it's messy, disjointed abilities, passives that only benefit someone like a MagBlade. And is worse overall than what we have on Live.

I've literally NEVER cared about people choosing Vampirism for the passive benefits.

Because guess what, that would be a LEGITIMATE REASON TO CHOOSE VAMPIRISM IRL.

Mortal: "oh I hate being slow, weak, and prone to dying of old age"

Vampire: "Have you heard of Vampirism?!"

M: "No, what's that?"

V: "Only the cure to all your ails, just one bite and you'll have a bunch of strengths, run farther, jump higher, hit harder, use more potent magic, gain immortality and all for the low low couple of very specific weaknesses"

M: "SIGN ME UP!".

Sideeffectsmayinclude: Intolerancetosunlightgarlicsilveredweaponsfire

Make the punishment for being one more severe sure, they've always had weaknesses like Ambient Sunlight (Pretty impossible in an MMO with such a slow span of Night and Day, given their admission by changing Night Stalker to no longer require night time), 50% Fire Damage taken, Restoration magic used to damage them in some games.

But this just seems like them taking the pendulum and swinging it wildly in the other direction.

The pendulum has swung alright, though in the right direction. Vampires are stronger, more adaptable, and more enjoyable to play than before. It's not even a contest.

I'm not going to torture this thread anymore by repeating myself about stage 1. You know how I feel. You're obviously coming from the perspective that Vampires MUST play at stage 4, and nothing else is acceptable. So me and you are never going to agree as to the versatility of the Vampire - which is there if you choose to take advantage of it.

As to the stage 4 Vampire - no, they're not particularly versatile. They don't have an extensive healing and tanking tree (or damage tree for that matter). They cannot out-heal Templars, out-tank Dragon Knights or out-wizard sorcerers. What they can do is sneak around like a savage animal and claw things to death. You want more options as a stage 4 Vampire? Fine. I get that. But it's still a hell of a lot more options than we had before this update. There was no viable way to play as just a Vampire before this update using just Vampire skills at all. Now there actually is. And no - it's not as useless as people are making out. It's actually not bad. And Unnatural Movement is way better than Shadow Rider.

You want more options, more skill trees, more everything. Anything can be improved upon and this is no exception. But I wish we could stop acting like ZoS just ruined Vampires by taking them backwards and turning them into some kind of useless role playing gimmick. Because that is not even remotely the case.

Lintashi · April 2020

Jeremy, people tell you in details, why vampires do not have viable rotations using only their skills, yet you continue to say it is fine. And you still never answered, according to what logic, should vampire healers and tanks be weaker than mortal healers and tanks on stage 1. Also, thank you. I had really good laugh, when I imagined Lord Harkon sneaking around the castle in his human form, hissing angrily, and clawing at prisoners, because he, a vampire of more than 1000 years, absolutely corrupted monster, somehow forgot how to use spells and sword. Maybe we should rename disease to sanguivore dementia, since apparently, skilled warriors and mages forget how to properly use their skills after drinking blood?

robertthebard · April 2020

ZaroktheImmortal wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

If players refuse to adapt and keep advancing to rank 4 on builds that it is obviously not intended for, that is just... well, I"ll be polite and say silly. Especially since there is no logical reason to do this. So it's not about me eating my cake and being happy It's about recognizing the need to adapt to changes instead of stubbornly and pointlessly ruining my build for no reason.

There you have it folks. This is all about his build. The rest of us can just go pound sand. The vampire skill line should be exclusively built for his vision and if you don't like it, well you don't have to use it so what's the problem?

So I've been following this debate for the last couple of pages, and I have a serious question:

Why is it ok to ridicule one poster for protecting their build whilst attempting to protect your own?

I mean, I get it, I do; "but I took Vampire so I could be OP w/out a lot of consequences, and now that's going away, so I'm mad", but the argument, at it's base, is exactly the same for both sides of this little debate: You're both looking at your own build, and naysaying the other behind what each one of you wants for it. I mean, from my standpoint, the consequences of vampirism should have applied from the very beginning, not late, and should have gotten worse as a character progressed. We're not talking Staff vs Daggers here, after all, we're talking fundamental changes to the character itself. Of course, that may have meant that vampire wouldn't be all that popular, and thus ZoS threw all the would be vamps a bone...

Vamps op? That boost to fire damage says otherwise. That was already enough of a pain. The boost to magika and stamina was nice but pretty much every dungeon has fire. I kind of like being a vamp just cause I like vampires plus I love the pale look. I'm probably one of the few who actually likes the vamp look but then I'm a horror fan. Plus it's kind of interesting on quests where that comes up like one in summerset where someone was saying how evil all vampires are and you tell them you're a vampire.

Yeah, that fire damage was such a pain that all of these "don't nerf me bro" threads about vampire are a figment of our imaginations. Wait... 20+ years in these games, reading forums, has taught me one thing: when there's this much fuss being raised about something, you can bet someone's build calculator just got broken.

Can developers break a class with "fixes". Yep, seen it happen over the years. Rappelz tried to turn a full on DPS class, with skills that are used to dump aggro, into a tank. BioWare nerfed Shadows and Assassins so hard at one point for PvP that they couldn't play end game group content, couldn't get the numbers to beat a rage timer on the boss, and so were replaced with classes that could. DDO recently nerfed all archer builds that aren't rangers/ranger hybrids/fighter based into the ground. What all of these have in common is that we had the main discussion thread running, instead of someone mentioning it in game, in either map/guild/party chat, and poof, a new thread appears.

Legit solutions to the cost increases are lost in the "but they're going to make me actually be a vampire, instead of (insert class here) with vampiric abilities" lamentations. What are those abilities? A large percentage of them is the passives, which I guess are also being changed up? The days of "the best of both worlds" are fixing to end, it looks like, and that's what all this outrage is really about. Is it a legit concern? I guess if one is reliant on the forums for builds, it could be. Does that mean it's really bad? Not necessarily. It may mean that someone is going to have to spend some time developing new builds to post online though.

ZOS_RogerJ · April 2020

We understand that sometimes tempers rise, but it is never acceptable to resort to rude comments and insults. This goes for rude comments and insults directed at other community members, and ZeniMax Online Studios employees alike.

Jeremy · April 2020

Lintashi wrote: »

Jeremy, people tell you in details, why vampires do not have viable rotations using only their skills, yet you continue to say it is fine. And you still never answered, according to what logic, should vampire healers and tanks be weaker than mortal healers and tanks on stage 1. Also, thank you. I had really good laugh, when I imagined Lord Harkon sneaking around the castle in his human form, hissing angrily, and clawing at prisoners, because he, a vampire of more than 1000 years, absolutely corrupted monster, somehow forgot how to use spells and sword. Maybe we should rename disease to sanguivore dementia, since apparently, skilled warriors and mages forget how to properly use their skills after drinking blood?

Lintashi, the Vampire tree is viable. It may not live up to your standards, but a player can use it and use it successfully to play this game. I know because i was able to do it - and I'm not some exceptional player who can do things others cannot. And in any case: the Vampire skill tree grew this last update (it did not shrink). So I have trouble understanding why someone would be more satisfied with the last Vampire skill tree (which had less options) then the one we have now (which has more options). And it's not as if you could play as a Vampire Healer or Tank by just using the Vampire skill tree before Greymoor anyway. You couldn't... or at least certainly not very well if you tried.

So Geymoor was a step in the right direction for Vampires however you look at it.

As to being a Vampire healer or tank - as I've said countless times before - those options are still available to you. You simply have to play at a lower stage of Vampire. You won't be weaker if you do that, and you're not a stage 1 mortal.. you're a stage 1 Vampire. And you will be stronger, because now you can more easily use your Vampire and Healing/Tanking skills together without having to worry about dealing with the higher stage penalties (which you could not do before).

As to the logic of why a stage 4 Vampire is less powerful as a healer or tank than its stage 1 counterparts - and I'm guessing here - but from the way the game describes the new stages it sounds as if higher stages make you more "corrupted" meaning you become more feral and savage...animalistic..etc. So you become more of a monster, basically. Which is why you are reduced to running around raking victims with your claws and drinking their blood. That being said: I would be fine with adding a more extensive skill set to Vampire so they can perform all roles at stage 4. I'm not against that. I'm just not going to let the absence of that ruin what is a very nice update for Vampires for me.

Vevvev · April 2020

The vampire tree after playing with it isn't very viable for an enjoyable experience, and that's what really matters here. Some of the numbers are ridiculous and the Blood scion on the PTS is beyond broken in PVE, and especially PVP with my strategy literally being to heal myself until the ultimate wears off on my opponent. It doesn't feel very fun to fight against nor does it feel comfortable using. Like for example that HP drain on blood frenzy isn't fun to deal with but if you wear a healing set to aid in power healing through it you will have even more powerful heals and be able to blast holes into people. You know how the tooltips always say something deals around 8-12k damage? ((depending on your build.)) With blood Frenzy it will actually deal that damage...

Also that cost doesn't even nerf the vampires, and it probably never will since you'll kill everything with a few hits anyway. All it does is serve to frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. Flame damage also got tuned down on the PTS which is a BAD idea... ZOS should have cranked those flame damage numbers up if they thought it was a good idea to give players this much weapon/spell damage.

In my opinion I think this whole rework is a mess. They never should have made an ability like Blood Frenzy and the non-vampire cost increases make the whole experience unenjoyable. It feels like a magicka werewolf or bloodfiend skill line instead of what vampires have been known for in the Elder Scrolls. Sneaky and subtle with a strong emphasis on using their gifts to the fullest. Not sacrificing their lives to suicide themselves in close range combat and scratch at people with claws.

Bobby_V_Rockit · April 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

Lintashi wrote: »

Jeremy, people tell you in details, why vampires do not have viable rotations using only their skills, yet you continue to say it is fine. And you still never answered, according to what logic, should vampire healers and tanks be weaker than mortal healers and tanks on stage 1. Also, thank you. I had really good laugh, when I imagined Lord Harkon sneaking around the castle in his human form, hissing angrily, and clawing at prisoners, because he, a vampire of more than 1000 years, absolutely corrupted monster, somehow forgot how to use spells and sword. Maybe we should rename disease to sanguivore dementia, since apparently, skilled warriors and mages forget how to properly use their skills after drinking blood?

Lintashi, the Vampire tree is viable. It may not live up to your standards, but a player can use it and use it successfully to play this game. I know because i was able to do it - and I'm not some exceptional player who can do things others cannot. And in any case: the Vampire skill tree grew this last update (it did not shrink). So I have trouble understanding why someone would be more satisfied with the last Vampire skill tree (which had less options) then the one we have now (which has more options). And it's not as if you could play as a Vampire Healer or Tank by just using the Vampire skill tree before Greymoor anyway. You couldn't... or at least certainly not very well if you tried.

So Geymoor was a step in the right direction for Vampires however you look at it.

As to being a Vampire healer or tank - as I've said countless times before - those options are still available to you. You simply have to play at a lower stage of Vampire. You won't be weaker if you do that, and you're not a stage 1 mortal.. you're a stage 1 Vampire. And you will be stronger, because now you can more easily use your Vampire and Healing/Tanking skills together without having to worry about dealing with the higher stage penalties (which you could not do before).

As to the logic of why a stage 4 Vampire is less powerful as a healer or tank than its stage 1 counterparts - and I'm guessing here - but from the way the game describes the new stages it sounds as if higher stages make you more "corrupted" meaning you become more feral and savage...animalistic..etc. So you become more of a monster, basically. Which is why you are reduced to running around raking victims with your claws and drinking their blood. That being said: I would be fine with adding a more extensive skill set to Vampire so they can perform all roles at stage 4. I'm not against that. I'm just not going to let the absence of that ruin what is a very nice update for Vampires for me.

Its not a complete skill set though, its like a class with one skill line. How are players supposed to use both bars? How will it contribute to group play if I cant even reliably put down dots or debuffs? What was the point of unlocking any other skill lines at all?

Even werewolf has a toggle to play as normal in mortal form. I’m all for the changes but I just feel like the cost increase is way out of line. Sure, have the front bar all vampire abilities, great. But its missing everything else.

Ghnami · April 2020

The fault is they say "*** it you can have it all when you press R" so there's never a reason to NOT use that vamp ult if you're a vamp, and never a reason to be higher than stage 1 if you're using that ult. It's really terrible design that offers 0 choice of what to do with the system, there is one best way to play, and that's with the ult, with the damage amp, at stage 1, and if you do it differently, you're going to lose a lot.

Honestly vamp needs to be EXACTLY like WW, no buffs/debuffs untransformed, no access to anything while untransformed, but you transform and THEN you get your vamp powers. That's why they were broken in the first place, because any class, any spec could just get 33% mitigation below 50%, a skill that provides such huge defensive utility in PVP it almost isn't worth playing without, and now we have MULTIPLE skills that provide huge defensive utility in PVP, even MORE effective damage reduction since it applies from 99%-0% health, and the stuipidest, least skillful, least interesting way of buffing damage, literally putting a skill on your bar that says "press me I'm damage." This game already has a problem of skills replacing entire item sets. This just means anything that allows itself to foucs on different offensive stats than spell power/wep damage is going to be better because the wep damage doesn't need to come from a set, it comes from a skill. PFG/MS/Thrassian/1 pc crit can reach like 80%+crit, and now you're saying I can have all that AND 4200 additional spel power? Siroria trash tier. Decon those inferno staves and gold jewels cuz 600 is now all ONE skill gives you, or 1200 if you morph Like imagine farming for that stuff, and then being like "Well one single skill removed this entire set's usefulness." Nearly every class/spec has a decently easy way to sustain this.NBs siphon, sorcs crit surge, templars ritual of retribution, necros either get damage reduction or ult gen with their self heal, or just scythe, DKs and wardens get the short end of the stick here, but if they wanted to they could figure out a way, but simply because it slots so seamlessly into other classes skill bars, I can almost guarantee those are the weakest classes in Greymoor. If 4/6 classes have excellent utility abilities that are already used in situations, the skill is practically free.

New Moon Acolyte is another example, about 600 spell power/wep damage, same 5% cost increase. Why would I ever wear that set as a vampire when I could stack more crit for pve or now with stuhn more pen for pvp and just slot that somewhere? Zos is awful.

Jeremy · April 2020

Bobby_V_Rockit wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

Lintashi wrote: »

Jeremy, people tell you in details, why vampires do not have viable rotations using only their skills, yet you continue to say it is fine. And you still never answered, according to what logic, should vampire healers and tanks be weaker than mortal healers and tanks on stage 1. Also, thank you. I had really good laugh, when I imagined Lord Harkon sneaking around the castle in his human form, hissing angrily, and clawing at prisoners, because he, a vampire of more than 1000 years, absolutely corrupted monster, somehow forgot how to use spells and sword. Maybe we should rename disease to sanguivore dementia, since apparently, skilled warriors and mages forget how to properly use their skills after drinking blood?

Lintashi, the Vampire tree is viable. It may not live up to your standards, but a player can use it and use it successfully to play this game. I know because i was able to do it - and I'm not some exceptional player who can do things others cannot. And in any case: the Vampire skill tree grew this last update (it did not shrink). So I have trouble understanding why someone would be more satisfied with the last Vampire skill tree (which had less options) then the one we have now (which has more options). And it's not as if you could play as a Vampire Healer or Tank by just using the Vampire skill tree before Greymoor anyway. You couldn't... or at least certainly not very well if you tried.

So Geymoor was a step in the right direction for Vampires however you look at it.

As to being a Vampire healer or tank - as I've said countless times before - those options are still available to you. You simply have to play at a lower stage of Vampire. You won't be weaker if you do that, and you're not a stage 1 mortal.. you're a stage 1 Vampire. And you will be stronger, because now you can more easily use your Vampire and Healing/Tanking skills together without having to worry about dealing with the higher stage penalties (which you could not do before).

As to the logic of why a stage 4 Vampire is less powerful as a healer or tank than its stage 1 counterparts - and I'm guessing here - but from the way the game describes the new stages it sounds as if higher stages make you more "corrupted" meaning you become more feral and savage...animalistic..etc. So you become more of a monster, basically. Which is why you are reduced to running around raking victims with your claws and drinking their blood. That being said: I would be fine with adding a more extensive skill set to Vampire so they can perform all roles at stage 4. I'm not against that. I'm just not going to let the absence of that ruin what is a very nice update for Vampires for me.

Its not a complete skill set though, its like a class with one skill line. How are players supposed to use both bars? How will it contribute to group play if I cant even reliably put down dots or debuffs? What was the point of unlocking any other skill lines at all?

Even werewolf has a toggle to play as normal in mortal form. I’m all for the changes but I just feel like the cost increase is way out of line. Sure, have the front bar all vampire abilities, great. But its missing everything else.

It's more of a complete skill line then it was before, Bobby. You could never play effectively on this game by just using Vampire Skills. So even if you want to look at it like that, Vampire has still improved. Because a stage 4 Vampire using just Vampire Abilities on Geymoor is better than a Stage 4 Vampire just using Vampire skills on Live.

If you want to use more of your regular abilities, contribute more to group play, and reliably put down dots and debuffs - just lower your stage and play Vampire there. The cost increase is not way out of line if you do that. So these changes don't prevent you from doing that. In fact, they make it easier for Vampires to pick their stage and then stay there. So how you play your Vampire, and how focused it is around using Vampiiric skills vs your regular skills is entirely up to you.

drkfrontiers · April 2020

I just cured all my vampires after four years.

Not bothered with this mess. vMA, vCR+3, vSS can't wait to see what vamps can achieve. Hope you all can handle being vote kicked, because that one thing you will see alot of.

Jeremy · April 2020

Vevvev wrote: »

The vampire tree after playing with it isn't very viable for an enjoyable experience, and that's what really matters here. Some of the numbers are ridiculous and the Blood scion on the PTS is beyond broken in PVE, and especially PVP with my strategy literally being to heal myself until the ultimate wears off on my opponent. It doesn't feel very fun to fight against nor does it feel comfortable using. Like for example that HP drain on blood frenzy isn't fun to deal with but if you wear a healing set to aid in power healing through it you will have even more powerful heals and be able to blast holes into people. You know how the tooltips always say something deals around 8-12k damage? ((depending on your build.)) With blood Frenzy it will actually deal that damage...
Also that cost doesn't even nerf the vampires, and it probably never will since you'll kill everything with a few hits anyway. All it does is serve to frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. Flame damage also got tuned down on the PTS which is a BAD idea... ZOS should have cranked those flame damage numbers up if they thought it was a good idea to give players this much weapon/spell damage.

In my opinion I think this whole rework is a mess. They never should have made an ability like Blood Frenzy and the non-vampire cost increases make the whole experience unenjoyable. It feels like a magicka werewolf or bloodfiend skill line instead of what vampires have been known for in the Elder Scrolls. Sneaky and subtle with a strong emphasis on using their gifts to the fullest. Not sacrificing their lives to suicide themselves in close range combat and scratch at people with claws.

I thought it was pretty fun, myself. It's an aggressive play style to be sure - but I thought it offered something unique and the game is better off for having it. It feels similar to old school Dark Knight builds that sacrificed their health to do more damage and then used drain spells. The stage 4 passive Unnatural Movement is also pretty amazing and easily one of the best passives in the game - especially for PvP. That being said, I'm not against making it better. I just don't think it's nearly as bad as players are making out. It's certainly better than any build on live that attempts to make a Vampire Tree-only build.

I also disagree with you that these changes frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. I believe these changes make it easier (not more difficult) for players to experiment with using Vampire Skills in their builds. They simply have to be mindful about what stage they choose. That's all. But considering players feel so compelled to become Stage 4, maybe it would be wise for the developers to just abandon the stage system entirely and call it something else. Maybe stages of corrupt madness or something. That way players won't feel like they are becoming weaker versions of Vampires just for staying at lower stages. Just less corrupted and insane ones.

drkfrontiers · April 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

I thought it was pretty fun, myself. It's an aggressive play style to be sure - but I thought it offered something unique and the game is better off for having it. It feels similar to old school Dark Knight builds that sacrificed their health to do more damage and then used drain spells. The stage 4 passive Unnatural Movement is also pretty amazing and easily one of the best passives in the game - especially for PvP. That being said, I'm not against making it better. I just don't think it's nearly as bad as players are making out. It's certainly better than any build on live that attempts to make a Vampire Tree-only build.

I also disagree with you that these changes frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. I believe these changes make it easier (not more difficult) for players to experiment with using Vampire Skills in their builds. They simply have to be mindful about what stage they choose. That's all. But considering players feel so compelled to become Stage 4, maybe it would be wise for the developers to just abandon the stage system entirely and call it something else. Maybe stages of corrupt madness or something. That way players won't feel like they are becoming weaker versions of Vampires just for staying at lower stages. Just less corrupted and insane ones.

If you stay stage 1 you loose all passives. (Strike from the Shadows - While you are at vampire stage 2 or higher; Undeath - While you are at vampire stage 3 or higher; Unnatural Movement - While you are at Vampire Stage 4). Not to mention at Stage 1 leaves you about as powerful as a limp biscuit in coffee.

If you want to get benefit out of any of the vampire passives that are meaningful, you forced to increase to stage 4.

Increasing to stage 4 handicaps you potential to experiment using vampire skills in your build because the rest of your build is neutered.

Vevvev · April 2020

Jeremy wrote: »

I thought it was pretty fun, myself. It's an aggressive play style to be sure - but I thought it offered something unique and the game is better off for having it. It feels similar to old school Dark Knight builds that sacrificed their health to do more damage and then used drain spells. The stage 4 passive Unnatural Movement is also pretty amazing and easily one of the best passives in the game - especially for PvP. That being said, I'm not against making it better. I just don't think it's nearly as bad as players are making out.

I also disagree with you that these changes frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. I believe these changes make it easier (not more difficult) for players to experiment with using Vampire Skills in their builds. They simply have to be mindful about what stage they choose. That's all. But considering players feel so compelled to become Stage 4, maybe it would be wise for the developers to just abandon the stage system entirely and call it something else. Maybe stages of corrupt madness or something. That way players won't feel like they are becoming weaker versions of Vampires just for staying at lower stages. Just less corrupted and insane ones.

It just doesn't feel like an Elder Scrolls vampire. The only way I can describe it is that the devs looked at the blood fiends, heard all the people saying they wanted their abilities, and then gave us the wrong abilities like the claw slash but no teleportation gap closer. Then they changed vampiric drain to something mediocre and not worthwhile to use in a fast paced engagement. I enjoyed vampiric drain in ESO because it was actually useful compared to the other single player games. Decent damage, healing, and a stun all in one! It was cool, it felt vampiric, it felt powerful. Now.... it just doesn't feel vampiric. The special effects makes it look like a laser beam and it just doesn't work in PVP where just one interrupt stuns you. Now this interrupt problem is still true on live but now I see no reason to use it because of the loss of that stun. I'm actually using abilities like coagulating blood and rapid regeneration to stay alive despite the fact they cost more.

I know we disagree on how vampire should be but it just doesn't feel right. Its too monstrous instead of refined and that cost increase is very noticeable when you rank up your vampire stages. Amazingly I found my sweet spot for my magDK at vampire stage 3, not 1 like I envisioned. Reason being is Undeath and Strike From the Shadows makes for a very interesting fighting style if you use Elusive Mist correctly. Sadly all attempts at using the stage 4 passive have ended in failure for me... oh well, I'm a DK not a nightblade so cloaking ain't my thing. Also that -100% health regeneration at stage 4 is... inconvenient to say the least. At stage 3 my health regeneration is at 58 which is already bad enough but its something. Won't save you in combat but you at least get some out of combat passive healing while traveling around.

Jeremy · April 2020

drkfrontiers wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

I thought it was pretty fun, myself. It's an aggressive play style to be sure - but I thought it offered something unique and the game is better off for having it. It feels similar to old school Dark Knight builds that sacrificed their health to do more damage and then used drain spells. The stage 4 passive Unnatural Movement is also pretty amazing and easily one of the best passives in the game - especially for PvP. That being said, I'm not against making it better. I just don't think it's nearly as bad as players are making out. It's certainly better than any build on live that attempts to make a Vampire Tree-only build.

I also disagree with you that these changes frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. I believe these changes make it easier (not more difficult) for players to experiment with using Vampire Skills in their builds. They simply have to be mindful about what stage they choose. That's all. But considering players feel so compelled to become Stage 4, maybe it would be wise for the developers to just abandon the stage system entirely and call it something else. Maybe stages of corrupt madness or something. That way players won't feel like they are becoming weaker versions of Vampires just for staying at lower stages. Just less corrupted and insane ones.

If you stay stage 1 you loose all passives. (Strike from the Shadows - While you are at vampire stage 2 or higher; Undeath - While you are at vampire stage 3 or higher; Unnatural Movement - While you are at Vampire Stage 4). Not to mention at Stage 1 leaves you about as powerful as a limp biscuit in coffee.

If you want to get benefit out of any of the vampire passives that are meaningful, you forced to increase to stage 4.

Increasing to stage 4 handicaps you potential to experiment using vampire skills in your build because the rest of your build is neutered.

The only passive you lose at stage 1 you didn't have before Greymoor is Undeath. That is it. The other two are entirely new, and I seriously doubt any build before Greymoor was dependent on having Undeath (which is incredibly overrated, in my opinion anyway). So I just disagree with you that a player is forced to advance in stages for those passives.

And you're right- stage 4 does handicap you by narrowing your build toward Vampire Abilities. But that is literally the point of stage 4. The earlier stages are there for people who want to experiment with using Vampire Abilities along with their regular abilities. And it works well for that.

Jeremy · April 2020

Vevvev wrote: »

Jeremy wrote: »

I thought it was pretty fun, myself. It's an aggressive play style to be sure - but I thought it offered something unique and the game is better off for having it. It feels similar to old school Dark Knight builds that sacrificed their health to do more damage and then used drain spells. The stage 4 passive Unnatural Movement is also pretty amazing and easily one of the best passives in the game - especially for PvP. That being said, I'm not against making it better. I just don't think it's nearly as bad as players are making out.

I also disagree with you that these changes frustrate people who want to branch off and try new things. I believe these changes make it easier (not more difficult) for players to experiment with using Vampire Skills in their builds. They simply have to be mindful about what stage they choose. That's all. But considering players feel so compelled to become Stage 4, maybe it would be wise for the developers to just abandon the stage system entirely and call it something else. Maybe stages of corrupt madness or something. That way players won't feel like they are becoming weaker versions of Vampires just for staying at lower stages. Just less corrupted and insane ones.

It just doesn't feel like an Elder Scrolls vampire. The only way I can describe it is that the devs looked at the blood fiends, heard all the people saying they wanted their abilities, and then gave us the wrong abilities like the claw slash but no teleportation gap closer. Then they changed vampiric drain to something mediocre and not worthwhile to use in a fast paced engagement. I enjoyed vampiric drain in ESO because it was actually useful compared to the other single player games. Decent damage, healing, and a stun all in one! It was cool, it felt vampiric, it felt powerful. Now.... it just doesn't feel vampiric. The special effects makes it look like a laser beam and it just doesn't work in PVP where just one interrupt stuns you. Now this interrupt problem is still true on live but now I see no reason to use it because of the loss of that stun. I'm actually using abilities like coagulating blood and rapid regeneration to stay alive despite the fact they cost more.

I know we disagree on how vampire should be but it just doesn't feel right. Its too monstrous instead of refined and that cost increase is very noticeable when you rank up your vampire stages. Amazingly I found my sweet spot for my magDK at vampire stage 3, not 1 like I envisioned. Reason being is Undeath and Strike From the Shadows makes for a very interesting fighting style if you use Elusive Mist correctly. Sadly all attempts at using the stage 4 passive have ended in failure for me... oh well, I'm a DK not a nightblade so cloaking ain't my thing. Also that -100% health regeneration at stage 4 is... inconvenient to say the least. At stage 3 my health regeneration is at 58 which is already bad enough but its something. Won't save you in combat but you at least get some out of combat passive healing while traveling around.

I believe that was the intent of the new stage system, for everyone to find their "sweet spot" for their particular build. So it sounds to me like you are just using it as intended.

As to whether or not the new Vampire Skills are in line with previous incarnations of Elder Scrolls, I can't really comment. My arguments are based solely on their game play benefits. They're not lore-based in anyway. So I'll concede all points made on that field.

In respect to the new drain - it seems to be better at healing you now, but builds that are already effective at healing themselves are probably going to find that less appealing, especially considering that it no longer stuns. I'd support giving it back its stun.

Vevvev · April 2020

Or at least ramping up the damage at least. You are doing nothing while that drain is active and you need some way to keep the pressure on your foe. If they don't want a stun on it at least make it more useful in a fight