Cinbri wrote: »

Its all matter of incentives . It seems they made Scion ultimate keeping in mind that you can push down its ult cost to even lower than 150ult. Coz despite on Stage 1 Scion is comparable to Goliath Transformation of necros, de facto it has far less survivability.
So on stage 1 Scion will be weak to build around this ult, but on stage 4+vampire set and constantly spam this ult will be strong.

How are you getting scion ult down to 150? On pts at stage 4 swarming scion is 191 ult, unless your using sorc or a ulr cost redux set i don't see how, also ult gain is surpressed in scion so you need to start from 0 ult when its over

Hi all,

Please don't crucify me as I am a very casual player and have not done the type of extensive testing I admire you of all for doing. I installed PTS for the first time yesterday (have played ESO since original beta) to play around with the new vamp changes.

I can think of one reason to go above stage 1 (stopping at stage 3) ... so that you can afford any other vamp skill (including ultimate) beside Eviscerate and maybe Blood Mist. I started to reply in more depth here but I got a bit carried away and decided to start a new thread as I wanted to have a focused discussion on the high base cost of some vamp skills and how that might limit playstyle. Still, this post turned out long :-D

For ZoS to claim a 40% reduction of vamp ability cost at stage 4 is laughable, it's like in retail when they jack the price up before putting an item "on-sale" ... Take Drain for instance. Today (according to eso-skillbook.com and my "playing around" on PTS):

Invigorating Drain
Cast Time: Instant (3 seconds channel)/Target: Enemy
Range: 12 meters/Cost: 2700 Magicka
Skill description: Consume an enemy's life force, dealing 472 Magic Damage, restoring 15% of your missing Health, and generating 5 Ultimate every 1 second for 3 seconds. When you finishing draining, the enemy is stunned for 3 seconds

vs

Exhilarating Drain
Cast Time: 3 seconds/Target: Enemy
Range: 22 meters/Cost: 3888 Magicka
Skill description: Siphon away your enemies' vitality, dealing 211 Magic Damage, healing you for 23% of your missing Health, and generating 4 Ultimate every 1 second for 3 seconds.

The new Drain puts out less than half of the damage, generates less ultimate and drops the stun completely. Yet it is >1K more magicka. Sure it does more healing (but by only 8%) and it has a longer range (but lest face it between the cheapness of Eviscerate, the damage reduction of Blood Mist and the range of Mesmerize, vamp is begging for a melee playstyle)

Why is the base price of Drain so high??? I'm a Magcro right now so i'll compare based on what I know ... Hunger Scythe does more a melee damage w/health steal & AOE with a base of cost of 2970 and Ricochet Skull as ranged attack does way more damage with a base cost of 2700. Again we see here that Drain is ~1K more and for what reason??? not the ult gen (which only comes from a morph so I think its still safe to compare with the non-morphed versions of the skills I mentioned), also there are WAY cheaper ways to get ult in the game including the old Drain.

10-40% off is not a discount if all it does is make a spell cost the same as every other skill in the game .. even at stage 3 it just starts to fall inline.

Mesmerize and ultimate are the same. IMO even Blood Mist is overpriced for the damage it does ... you end up spending all almost all your magika on blood mist then are forced to drop it to do any real damage yet all you can do is spam Eviercrate since its the only spell you can afford. Which brings me to the lack of magkica regen in while in mist form ... I agree that you should have your Magicka recovery stat at zero (no doubt about it) but spells and passives that generate/restore Magicka should still work. Also how you can restore Magicka in mist form is not consistent. Why does Hollowfang proc but mystic siphon does not? Here's hoping Hollowfang is not a bug as I am prepared to buy it as the only option for good sustain. Way to causal of a player to get that set myself ;-)

Nagastani wrote: »

Look, this is the real test ppl. When my NB is in Imperial City getting gap closed and snared by 1 or 2 Templars, spamming jabs, and my Magicka and Stamina drop to 50% in a split second, snared and can't cloak or move significantly, will the cost increase enable me to escape or will I just sit there and die surrounded by AD Templars or Wardens?

I've read majority of the posts on here and that's all well and good. I respect the opinions and thoughts given. However for NBs especially, it's these moments that make you think, it makes you think ... is a cost increase to all skills (even if these skills would help in some small way) really going to salvage a Critical situation? (Like when I'm running around IC carrying a truck load of silver and run into AD ball group)

You can heavy attack and restore magicka, you can kite monsters around all day and play with fancy new Ultimates but seems like it will not change the meta. If anything, I'm concerned that some of these new Vamp abilities that drain health are so toxic to high end combat that maybe best to avoid Vamp or do as others have suggested and contain Vamp to a very small scope of it's overall functionality.

There are tools in the vamp tree that might have helped you in that situation such as Mistform, but ultimately, that scenario you just described has nothing to do with how well justified the cost increase is, or is not. Being caught out is being caught out no matter what you play. Your critical scenario is not reflective of any kind of balance. It can not tell you if something is over powered or under powered. Just because you die to something, or while you are playing something does not mean anything is under or over powered. Especially in a situation where you are fighting multiple enemies and your resources are critically low.

So no, the cost increase will not enable you to do anything, but balance is not all about what you can do as a vampire, and balancing goals should not be to make something new the most powerful and obvious meta. Nothing should guarantee that you can escape with your truck load of loot in IC nor should anyone think that when building new skills. Being able to be caught is fine.

Nagastani wrote: »

Tessitura wrote: »

Nagastani wrote: »

Look, this is the real test ppl. When my NB is in Imperial City getting gap closed and snared by 1 or 2 Templars, spamming jabs, and my Magicka and Stamina drop to 50% in a split second, snared and can't cloak or move significantly, will the cost increase enable me to escape or will I just sit there and die surrounded by AD Templars or Wardens?

I've read majority of the posts on here and that's all well and good. I respect the opinions and thoughts given. However for NBs especially, it's these moments that make you think, it makes you think ... is a cost increase to all skills (even if these skills would help in some small way) really going to salvage a Critical situation? (Like when I'm running around IC carrying a truck load of silver and run into AD ball group)

You can heavy attack and restore magicka, you can kite monsters around all day and play with fancy new Ultimates but seems like it will not change the meta. If anything, I'm concerned that some of these new Vamp abilities that drain health are so toxic to high end combat that maybe best to avoid Vamp or do as others have suggested and contain Vamp to a very small scope of it's overall functionality.

There are tools in the vamp tree that might have helped you in that situation such as Mistform, but ultimately, that scenario you just described has nothing to do with how well justified the cost increase is, or is not. Being caught out is being caught out no matter what you play. Your critical scenario is not reflective of any kind of balance. It can not tell you if something is over powered or under powered. Just because you die to something, or while you are playing something does not mean anything is under or over powered. Especially in a situation where you are fighting multiple enemies and your resources are critically low.

So no, the cost increase will not enable you to do anything, but balance is not all about what you can do as a vampire, and balancing goals should not be to make something new the most powerful and obvious meta. Nothing should guarantee that you can escape with your truck load of loot in IC nor should anyone think that when building new skills. Being able to be caught is fine.

Yes being caught out was a tactical mistake however it should not be an automatic death sentence. There needs to be the option to counter play otherwise that's not balanced. Having the freedom to make choices or to choose to not accept fate is part of a balanced system. My scenario, an example of a Critical situation demonstrates this deficiency from the NB's perspective and the Vamp Skills for the most part do not buff, reinforce or support counter-play from the NB, although the passives might help. But that's no different than Traditional Vamp passives now.

Therefore, if the new Vamp Skills are not applicable to any use case for Critical PvP situations, they are simply not useful or necessary in PvP. It's just more filler. More clutter for two poor skill bars that are already overwhelmed with nothing to gain otherwise and now are drowning from an unnecessary skill cost increase. Obviously this affects both vamp and non vamp skills which does affect overall balance. Which goes totally against what you're saying. Being a Vamp now affects everything.

And Mistform is terrible advice for someone trying to escape gap closers. Mistform is not now and has never been fast enough to escape most players even. Furthermore, it costs magicka which a NB needs to cloak with later. I have no idea why anyone would recommend it and have rarely seen it provide an escape outlet except for situations where the player is running a max speed build. Sure people use it in PvP but once they're out of magicka not only can they not move but now they are out of magicka also

Judging by your post I'm going to guess you don't play Stamblade or probably NB at all. PvErs is all fine and good however in PvP the type of Critical Scenario I described happens frequently and in order to PvP you must understand how to react which requires an adaptability to a fast paced and ever changing situation. NCPs, mobs, bots do not behave randomly like people do. What is it about making fast decisions in a critical situation that makes you think it doesn't reflect on game balance? My definition of balance and whatever it is you are thinking is not the same. The ability to react or inability to react to the situation is solely based on the user's experience level and the 'tools' available to them. You use abilities to react, if these abilities are more expensive than they should be or are broken or are not fit for the class itself then this make the class not balanced with other classes in the game. And most of the time the best way to test how well a system performs is to place it under intense pressure to determine levels of quality, which is why I used that example.

I am primarily a solo NB player which is significantly more demanding than your DK or Templar and I login to fight, not to just die or just to quit or to feed ap to others who don't deserve it. You get nothing from me without a fight. The point of PvP is to win and to demonstrate excellence but the game needs to give everyone a chance to do so... who wants to. The Meta I'm referring to is not trying to make Vamp OP it is how Vamp might change the existing Meta, making it less OP not starting a new one.... I don't think you understood my meaning. It seems we value different things and are not going to agree. But by now the discussion on here is pretty much summed up anyways so moving on.

Yeah but the vampire skill line is not obligated to give you that counterplay, it's design should not be focused around giving you that counterplay. The viability of builds in this game should not be judged or designed around the idea of how much it can help ONE class in a specific scenario. Proper testing demands multiple tests in multiple environments with multiple scenarios. all the testing I have done shows vampire as a decently strong skill line, and if we get too wrapped up in a weakness that I haven't noticed anywhere near as much as the health regen issue then we might make it too strong, and if we do that, it just becomes a new must have meta which they have stated they want to avoid. In fact while playing I sometimes forget about the cost increase entirely. Its most notable in Non-cp environments but outside of that I barely remember it's a thing.

Nagastani wrote: »

I'm not certain where you get this from as I am specifically referring to the traditional vamp foundation that has existed in ESO for years, has been impartial to Stam or Mag builds and not the individual skills themselves.

Right now, in ESO, there's no such thing as a vampire build. Players take vampire on their characters because it's flat out better than not being one, so either you take it, and pick up the passives, or you choose to gimp yourself.

That's not a build. That's something which is overperforming.

We had this same situation with stam builds and werewolves way back in 2014. You got +15% stam recovery for being a werewolf. So, if you were stam, you needed a wolf bite. (There was also an ult gen on taking damage passive way up the tree, but that was an era when generating ult was way easier.)

And the salt when that went away was epic.

Nagastani wrote: »

As a Stam Blade, I have put far more time and gold into these builds than I care to admit ...

Again, as a Stamblade main, you don't have a vampire build. You have a stamblade build that you added Supernatural Recovery and Undeath to. You might have also added Dark Stalker because that's just convenient to have.

That's not a build. That's just grabbing some persistent buffs. I'd compare it to taking your standing stone sign, but ironically you actually have choices there. With your vampire passives, it's going to be the same cookie cutter every time.

Nagastani wrote: »

...and have done tons of research surrounding each build type, including looking at how the build or character concept exists from outside sources. Please keep in mind, these are my builds and not Alcasts or Streamer builds. Nothing wrong with them I'm just saying.

There are legitimate critiques of Alcast's builds. They tend to be very uniform. Not to the level of Deltia, back when he was trying to play everything as a DK, and then proclaiming the other classes as trash, but if it's an Alcast build you can usually start filling in the blanks before you look at the write up.

The irony is, when we're talking about stamblades, there isn't a lot of variety. You're going to be running Surprise Attack and Killer's Blade, you're going to be running Relentless Focus, and Leaching. You're going to have Incap as your in rotation ult. Your out of rotation ult is up to you, but it's not going to see much use, and because Incap is dirt cheap, it's going to be going off all the time. After that, you want Barrage, though if you've still got Razor Legos slotted, I won't judge you too harshly. You probably have Resolving Vigor as your self-heal. Because you've already got a bow slotted anyway, you take Poison Injection. There's most of your skills already. At that point you need a source of brutality, you can get that from your potions, but it's cheaper to simply slot Shrouded Daggers. If you elected for 2h, then probably Rally and Brawler, but that's more PvP or Maelstrom.

You might notice that I didn't list a single vampire skill in there.

Now, in fairness, there is one vampire ability that can synergize nicely for a Stamblade, and that's Elusive Mist. Not, because it does damage, but because the damage mitigation can be a life saver. It can help you ignore some mechanics designed to one shot DPS, but leave the tank intact. It's not enough to keep it slotted, but you might drop a skill to take it in situations where you need it.

Nagastani wrote: »

But If ZOS decide the Vamp Skill Line should favor synergy in Mag builds and no longer offer the same for Stam builds, then no that is no longer "Play your Way" by their design.

What's funny about this is... the only thing you're losing is the +10% stam recovery from being a vampire. This is on a class that already gains +15% resource recovery from Refreshing Shadows.

Undeath is being nerfed for everyone, and there are legitimate arguments that it's overperforming on live.

Nagastani wrote: »

It can't be because my Stam Bat is not really playing as a Vampire proper when it has already done so for years before.

Again, you've never played as a vampire. You've taken vampirism on your characters for certain passive buffs. Things like increased resource recovery, and that was where the story ended.

Unless you were using batswarm years ago, but you should have moved off that awhile back.

Here's the problem, batswarm used to do excellent damage for the cost if you were in Stage 4. By the way, "for the cost," means it was almost free. The lowest I've heard was somewhere around 6 ult on a sorc, stacking Akiviri Dragonguard and the original Stage 4 discount. Needless to say, that discount was severely nerfed.

The Devouring Swarm heal was still really good, and stayed good until ~2016 or so. For a time, it was uncapped, and could restore a lot of health in a pinch. Now, that's not really viable. If you want a panic button for those times when you do not trust your healer, you're much better off with with Reviving Barrier. No outgoing damage, but that didn't do much to begin with, however, it does cloak you and your team in a massive damage shield that can soak some one-shot mechanics. (I'm used to seeing a ~30k shield on my stamblades with this.

Nagastani wrote: »

I completely disagree with your third paragraph. Surely you have watched movies like Underworld? Without getting into the weeds, Vampires in lore have been closer to humanoid form than monsters, though there are in Elder Scrolls Lore different Vampire types. Vampirism itself is just a mystical power. Its nature is both Magicka and Stam because the host entity is both Magicka and Stam in nature. Vampires in many sources of literature or media have significantly improved physical strength and speed, ie... Physical Damage.

If we're going into the weeds here, let's actually get into the weeds. The Vampires in The Elder Scrolls are the product of a daedric curse. Not that different from Werewolves. There are a lot of different bloodlines or clans, some better suited to brute force, and others more suited to spellcasting. Specific bloodlines have unique abilities and characteristics, which are uniform across an entire bloodline. Players in ESO, with vampirism are, without exception members of the Lamae bloodline.

More importantly, none of the established lore for the Lamae bloodline suggests it was ever advantageous for non-mages. The abilities themselves do Magic type damage (when they do damage at all), and there have been no stamina morphs available. The only thing they had that was useful for a stam character was the stam recovery buff, which is still valuable to a magicka character because they will inevitably need to break free, sprint, or dodge roll, consuming their limited supply of stamina.

Nagastani wrote: »

It seems some of you guys are trying to prioritize the mystical benefits of being a Vampire without considering the fact that physical augmentation is also a mystical benefit.

Since you're mentioning the term "physical," it's worth remembering that's a damage type in ESO, associated with stam characters, and nothing in the vampire skill line does Physical damage. Also, Poison and Disease, the other two stam damage types, are also missing. Historically, Baleful Mist did poison damage back before 1.6, but that was rotated out with the introduction of Champion Points. (Also, I think the name may have been changed from Poison Mist to Baleful, but I'm not 100% certain.)

"Play how you want," great, but hybrids don't work in high end content, and haven't since 1.6. Fixing that would require a complete rework of how our stats stack damage, and a significant overhaul of game systems.

Glurin wrote: »

Whoa, hold up there. I think we're on two different pages here. I'm talking about play as you want as a concept. You seem to be trying to categorize everything into neat little boxes while strangely at the same time using ESO's flexibility to try and justify doing so.

The reason I referenced generic fantasy is because that's what the play as you want idea tries to get away from. It's what the Elder Scrolls series has always done. But when you set hard and fast rules like S&B is strictly for tanking or DPS should only ever use dual wield, 2h or mage, what you're doing is actually pushing us toward generic fantasy.

I'm not saying that a completely random smattering of gear and abilities is going to work well. What I am saying is that play as you want as a concept is a whole lot closer to that than shoving everything into perfectly organized, mutually isolated categories.

Some of this kicks over from the older TES games. Skyrim is very permissive, and lets you do whatever, but the earlier games asked you to pick (or build) a class, and then play that role. It doesn't hard lock you into a specific gear loadout. In fact, some classes had "alternative competing" skills. Such as a character having both Long Blade and Short Blade, Axe and Blunt, or Light Armor and Unarmored. However, your Monk wouldn't be well suited for sword and board, your Nightblade wouldn't be well suited to heavy or medium armor.

The problem is, your character is bland in Skyrim. I don't mean, in the conventional way that TES protagonists are mostly interchangeable, with minor details that might make you step back and realize you're playing as someone distinct if you spend too much time over-analyzing. I mean, "what was your favorite Skyrim build?" Was it the Stealth Archer, the Stealth Archer, or the Stealth Archer? Maybe to mix things up, this time you'll try a... oh, wait, it's a Stealth Archer again.

(And, yes, I'm aware this can be fixed with mods.)

So, going from Skyrim where you have the freedom to make whatever kind of character you want, and change your mind at any time, so long as you end up with a Stealth Archer, to ESO is a bit jarring. Because suddenly classes have some identity again. Roles have some identity, again. Stuff that was never really viable in the classic games, like healers, are suddenly... kinda irrelevant for many groups. However, the effort was made.

It's not flawless. I still question the ice staff decision. However, you are being given the freedom to pick the kind of character you're playing. The only major caveat is that each piece of gear has specific applications. I'm going from memory a couple days later, but I think the specific comment I made about S&B DPS isn't that it's impossible. I've actually seen a handful of healers running S&B in the dungeon queue without incident. It's that many inexperienced DPS who pick S&B will also take pierce, and as a result, taunt the boss.

If you dig around, I've actually said, in the past, that I feel ransack should be changed to be an increased damage that removes the taunt. I'd be on board with One Hand and Shield becoming a viable DPS choice. I've also said the Ice Staff's taunt should be moved to an active ability, so if you're taunting with it, it's not an accident. However, like all games, ESO has rules, and those rules shape the value and application of all gear.

Also worth noting, very few games really give you complete freedom to who your character is. Even with Elder Scrolls, there's a lot of blank spaces about who they've been, but who you are when you click "Create" is already partially defined. You cannot play a character in ESO who does not have a background in magic. Dragon Knights are masters of Akaviri martial arts (which are, in turn, patterned off of dragon magic.) Templars are channeling aedric magic. Nightblades are practitioners of Shadow Magic (which isn't the first time we've encountered this concept.) Sorcerers are experts of Conjuration and Destruction Magic, (much like the class's single player incarnation going all the way back to Arena.) Wardens are nature mages (which is also something we've seen before.) Necromancers are, well, necromancers.

That was what I was getting at with my, "warrior class," comment. ESO doesn't give us a fighter/warrior class option at all. No matter who your character was, no matter what their current spec, they are a mage of some variety. Ironically, that's a freedom you don't have, even if you do choose to eschew any magicka skills, there are still numerous times where your character will exhibit a high degree of technical proficiency with magicka during the course of the main quest.

We do have a lot of freedom. One of my sorcs is a heavy armor, sword and board, who goes in swinging. The rules of the game mean that character will be a tank, but they are definitely not a witch in a pointy hat. There's room for violating stereotypes, and ESO does an excellent job of that. However, it's also important to be mindful of how the decisions you're making, with a build, fit together. Play how you want, does not mean, every choice is equally valid. It would be hideously dull if that were the case.

EDIT: Typo

Nagastani wrote: »

Okay nevermind hah. I was trying to bullet all of those quotes individually however I've never had much luck doing that on the forums.

First of all, I think most of what you said was right however please understand I am specifically referring to my builds, as I said previously. And all of these builds synergize with the Traditional Vampire Skill line composition without significant issues. So it is a net loss for these builds without those bonuses which are more favorable than WW's constraints. Although I at least in theory, could switch over to WW.

Probably not. I mean, the point to playing a werewolf is that you want to play a werewolf. Not that you want to take it for stat bonuses. Keep in mind, that +15% stam recovery still exists, but you need to slot the ultimate to get that bonus.

I think that's a good compromise, though. You do have benefits to being a werewolf, however, it's gated behind actually playing as a werewolf, and not simply something you get from shopping for buffs.

Nagastani wrote: »

Secondly, I do discuss tactics sometimes however would never disclose my builds to the public, I respect what you think and I care to listen to everyone. However, the feedback overall in the times when I have discussed certain setups has been so overwhelmingly negative in the past that I've ironed that out of my thought process because I have done well by my ideas for the most part.

Without seeing them, the problem is that actually pursuing vampirism on a stam character for active abilities is lackluster. Drain is not good. Batswarm was nerfed into the ground years ago, even if you take it anyway, you're still left with an ability that requires you to cross spec your champion points. Meaning, you're actively choosing to reduce the damage from all your other abilities and your weapon, to prop up an underwhelming ult. That leaves Mistform which has excellent utility, once you realize you can cancel out of it, but the skill is still extremely niche.

I'm okay with people building thematic roleplay builds to, you know, roleplay, but there's not a lot of application beyond that.

Nagastani wrote: »

It's kinda like how Toxic people are in Starcraft 2 Public Multiplayer maps. You are welcome to go ahead and take a shot at me for saying that if you guys wish however in doing so it's just proving me right. And on the flip side, you can use whatever builds or setup you would like to.

When it's just you, in overland content? Yes. Sure, have fun. It's absolutely not a problem.

When it's going into dungeons, even on normal?

Look, it's absolutely heartbreaking to look down at combat metrics and see that I'm pulling 50% of group DPS on the tank. I don't get toxic, I don't yell at people or call them trash. I don't fly off the handle at them. I get it, my tanks pull unusually high DPS for tanks, but they rarely break 10k. When group is 20k or worse? This is going to be a slow, painful, run.

Nagastani wrote: »

Thus, my emphasis on keeping Vamp open to both Magicka and Stam builds. See before this division was created I didn't need permission from people who prefer Magicka Vampires in order to build how I like ... say it with me, "Play your Way". The same noisy crowd now who lobbies Vampires to Magicka rather than understanding a Vampire is just a thing. It is not necessarily solely bound to Magicka tactics neither a WW to Stamina.

Except, Werewolf is tied to stamina, by the damage types.

Okay, let's walk this back and explain it. There are eight damage types in ESO: Physical, Poison, Disease, Magic, Fire, Shock, Frost, and Oblivion. Oblivion is a special case, so we'll ignore it. (There's also a few damage types that only exist for NPCs, we can ignore those as well.)

Physical, Poison, and Disease scale with Mighty.

Magic, Fire, Shock, and Frost, scale with Elemental Expert.

Mighty appears in the Ritual, while Elemental Expert appears in the Apprentice.

Beyond these two stars, The Ritual buffs Stamina based attacks in a variety of ways, the Apprentice buffs Magicka based attacks in almost identical ways. The only thing in the Apprentice for a stam character of any variety is Blessed (and this is only for Stam healers.) The only potential thing in the Ritual for Magicka characters is Thaumaturge, which buffs all DoTs.

Incidentally, the Attronach is agnostic. It works with stam or mag indiscriminately.

For an 810, the buff from Mighty and Elemental Expert can easily hit 20% (these cap at 25%, though you'll spend nearly 40 CP for those last 5%.) (Thaumaturge and Blessed are on the same 25% scale.)

Werewolves have a lot of DoTs. That means, you can spec into Mighty and Thaumaturge and end up with slightly under +40% damage from those abilities. (It works out to be about +38%, if both are brought up to +20%) That's a lot of damage, for spending a little over 100 CP. On a stamblade, Mighty will also buff all of your class damage abilities if they're stam morphed. That's +20% damage, globally. (And this is before we remember that there's another star in The Attronach which is another +25% capped star for direct damage.)

This is why crossing resource pools is such a big deal, and why the game makes a point of changing the damage type when you swap resources on a skill.

It's also why sorcs have many abilities which make a lot of fuss about swapping between shock and physical depending on which will be higher. Outside of champion points, it probably doesn't matter, but at high levels, it's very important.

Werewolves are tied to Stamina because, to be blunt, they deal Stamina damage. (Disease and Physical.)

Vampires are tied to Magicka, and (since 1.6) always have been because they deal Magicka damage. (Magic.)

Nagastani wrote: »

Although I do agree it is a better idea to have people choose Vampire for it's own sake rather than just because it's there, not giving the thing itself another thought.

This has bugged me for awhile. People didn't pick vampires because they wanted to play one. They picked them for the buffs. I'm guilty of this as well. Because that was a lot of resource return to leave on the table.

This was the exact state of the werewolf at launch, and that was removed with 1.5. Vampires always had the recovery buffs, but for a long time people passed on them because the fire vulnerability was seen as too high a price to pay. However, since the introduction of the Champion Point system, and with more players hitting the spending cap(s), that stigma has died as they realized that fire vulnerability really wasn't that bad.

In other words, the writing was on the wall.

Nagastani wrote: »

However, even still, the situation with Stam Blade is so overwhelming against us in nearly every way to the point where by changing Vamp they are indirectly nerfing Stamblade. It's a buff also yes because there are a couple things in the new Vampire that could be useful however there are alot of things I can use that also could be useful... yet I already know what works.

Now it's time to change. I don't blame you for being annoyed with that, but change is the only constant in an MMO.

Nagastani wrote: »

However, in summation I think we're reaching the point where Vamp is no longer for everyone I guess, this would indirectly mean neither is WW. Ok great.

Werewolf hasn't been for everyone since 2014. It's very potent in experienced hands, but it does take a lot of practice. The skill floor on those puppies is brutal.

And, yeah, while it sucks to be on the receiving end, giving Vampires a distinct identity is a good thing for the game overall. We should never have seen an era when being a vampire was the norm just for passive buffs.

Nagastani wrote: »

Now let's go back and cut out at least 50% of these sets in the game, as they are no longer necessary. By locking Vamp and WW into being Mag or Stam, respectfully, that action alone will obsolete a good deal of the sets in game.

I, legitimately, cannot think of a single set that's made obsolete by this change. Vampire Lord was a light armor set to begin with. Salvation is Medium Armor. After that, what?

The community at large is far too gleefuly about declaring sets as trash, but truth is, most of them do have applications. There are a few oddballs out there that just don't deliver, but they're the exception, and it's way less than 50%.

If you're like, "get rid of Ice Furnace," I'm right there with you.

Nagastani wrote: »

And it simply has to because Vamp and WW have their own constraints and special requirements, which overshadows the regular 'human' population in power and scope, thus all must choose between Vamp or WW if they wish to remain competitive (or just go WW ).

Again, we're not going to see a lot of werewolves.

Nagastani wrote: »

Alcast and friends may also wish to remove or revise a chunk of their builds as well because of this because we don't need to think about them. Kinda like burning books.

I mean, Xy's already plotting out to revise all his builds, but that happens every three months. I'm not sure about Alcast, we haven't spoken since the testing event a couple years ago, but, assuming he's coming back for Graymoore, he's probably already planning updates.

For the content creators that publish their builds, this isn't new. Every major release means chunks of their work are torn up and they have to revise their builds.

Eh I disagree that it needs a lot more work. Yes for Blood for Blood they could make it like soul trap where it scales with highest stat and then changes damage type depending on the resource its scaling of off. Using the stamina drain you would be using it for the heal (which scales of max health not magicka) and the stamina regen, not the damage which is already pitiful for magicka but yes I agree they should make the stam drain scale with stamina and the ult drain scale with magicka. You said strike from shadow needs to also add weapon damage but it already does. Also the frenzy being more dangerous for stam I think is a non-issue. Stam has several powerful heals/HoTs and other defensive resources you'll just have to build around using them instead of just slapping frenzy on a build (same as you do for magicka) which is what ZOS seems to want, build around being a vampire. The major issues for vampire to me is not magicka vs stamina its the major penalties at higher stages making you need to invest a little to much into being a vampire and that Vampiric Drain in general just doesn't seem like a good skill (for both magicka and stamina). It would be nice if they beefed up the stamina vamp a little bit but my main point was I don't think its completely unusable like many people are saying.

Glurin wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

Glurin wrote: »

Whoa, hold up there. I think we're on two different pages here. I'm talking about play as you want as a concept. You seem to be trying to categorize everything into neat little boxes while strangely at the same time using ESO's flexibility to try and justify doing so.

The reason I referenced generic fantasy is because that's what the play as you want idea tries to get away from. It's what the Elder Scrolls series has always done. But when you set hard and fast rules like S&B is strictly for tanking or DPS should only ever use dual wield, 2h or mage, what you're doing is actually pushing us toward generic fantasy.

I'm not saying that a completely random smattering of gear and abilities is going to work well. What I am saying is that play as you want as a concept is a whole lot closer to that than shoving everything into perfectly organized, mutually isolated categories.

Some of this kicks over from the older TES games. Skyrim is very permissive, and lets you do whatever, but the earlier games asked you to pick (or build) a class, and then play that role. It doesn't hard lock you into a specific gear loadout. In fact, some classes had "alternative competing" skills. Such as a character having both Long Blade and Short Blade, Axe and Blunt, or Light Armor and Unarmored. However, your Monk wouldn't be well suited for sword and board, your Nightblade wouldn't be well suited to heavy or medium armor.

There was a lot less class identity than you think in those older games. Those "classes" did little more than dictate which skills would level faster, unless you go all the way back to Arena and Daggerfall where they were much more restrictive.

It also controlled how quickly you leveled. Because if you went out of class, advancing that skill would not advance your overall levels. There were ways to exploit this, of course, but, the overall design did push you towards actually playing the role you chose.

Glurin wrote: »

You could almost ignore them completely.

Hmmm....

Glurin wrote: »

And if you keep ending up with a stealth archer in Skyrim, that's your problem. Mods or no mods.

Hmmmm. Okay, so it's fine to intentionally subvert class identity in Oblivion and Morrowind, where the game actually makes an attempt to push you into playing your class, but playing to the game design in Skyrim, where no class system is present is a personal problem. Right.

And, no, that's not my problem. If it was, then it wouldn't have become a general joke about Skyrim as a whole. The game's default balance heavily favors the stealth archer approach, so this isn't a personal issue, it's an optimization issue.

In point of fact, Skyrim suffers from entire play styles, in particular, Magic Users being non-viable in high level play was a problem.

This actually a common theme in games. It's called a noob trap. You see an option that looks viable, can commit to it, and then get screwed over hard in the long term because it simply doesn't deliver later in the game. This leads back to the Stealth Archer example above, because if you're running a Magicka build, when it stops delivering and you need to migrate over to a new build, being sneaky and picking enemies off at range may be your only viable choice that won't involve lots of frustrating reloading.

For game that was replete with noobtraps, let's look at TSW.

Glurin wrote: »

Let me try and shine a different light on this. During my time in TSW, a game that at the time offered a similar degree of freedom in your characters...

Says someone who, and I'm guessing here, never got past Blue Mountain.

Here's the thing about TSW, it sold itself on the idea that you had unlimited freedom, could do whatever wanted. Change your class at any time.

Thing is, it was a lie.

Swords, Hammers, and Chaos Magic were your tanks. Assault Rifles, Fists, and Blood Magic were your healers. (Except, ARs were not a good heal option.) Any weapon could be used for DPS. Later on in the game, with stuff like Slaughterhouse, if you wanted to run the dungeon, it wasn't just restricted to, "you need a tank, healer, and 3 DPS." Your healer actually needed to be Blood Magic. Their second weapon could be whatever, but main had to be Blood for that dungeon.

Starting with Scorched Desert, the game would actively cycle out entire builds. It was possible to leave Blue Mountain and find that the enemies hard countered your build from the previous zone. So, you'd have to go back to the drawing board.

Glurin wrote: »

...some people would become completely bewildered if they discovered that a DPS had slotted a tank item even as those very same people were being frequently one-shot because they didn't. Really folks, it's not that complicated.

I once had a DPS go off on me because I didn't have Subtly slotted. I was the tank, I had Agitator slotted. PUG are dumb. That was as true in TSW as it is in ESO.

Glurin wrote: »

Just stop trying to classify everything as either damage sponge, glass cannon or healbot and suddenly whole new worlds of possibility open up. You can still be a DPS even if your cannon is made of something a little bit sturdier.

And we have another similarity between ESO and TSW.

In ESO, and TSW, many dungeon mechanics will flat out one shot you, regardless whether you have a piece of tank gear or not. In ESO vet content, and TSW nightmare content, splitting your build into a hybrid will (likely) not deal enough damage to actually clear the content you're attempting, with caveats.

In ESO, non-DLC vet content might be clearable with a tankier DPS, while in TSW, they would fall off around Nightmare Ankh or Nightmare Hell Fallen.

In ESO, your ability to push sufficient DPS to justify a tankier DPS, while still clearing, is dependent on your personal skill (with the potential that you're shuffling a lot of work onto the other DPS.)

In TSW your ability to push sufficient DPS to justify a tankier DPS, while clearing, is dependent on your gear (with the potential that you're shuffling a lot of work onto the other DPSs.)

Glurin wrote: »

That is what play as you want is.

Right. /s

Again, to recap, TSW had an incredibly restrictive system. The basic framework was very open, but the content associated with it set requirements that required a high degree of optimization. Even clearing overland in later zones required finely tuning your builds, and in some cases (starting around City of the Sun God or Besieged Farmlands) you'd need to change your build to deal with enemies as you moved from area to area, as they'd hard counter your previous build.

"You can make a character that self buffs... except when you're facing any of these enemies."
"You can make a build that uses this kind of attack... except when you're facing any of these enemies."
"You can make a character that uses this weapon... except in areas where the enemies are flat out immune to the attacks you're using from that weapon."

Optimizing to continue clearing content without spending a lot of time fiddling with your deck was, actually, remarkably limited in late game.

Glurin wrote: »

Not the choice between PvE or PvP, or the choice between which leg of the trinity you want to be. It's all in the freedom to be you.

Which, again, TSW did not deliver at all. The game sold itself on several lies. Much like the, "no levels," thing, their version of "play how you want," was also completely untrue. Get out of Kingsmouth, and you'd start to have your teeth kicked in if you didn't start to optimize.

Glurin wrote: »

The freedom to be Captain Firepants instead of Iron Man Clone #43687. That's why, frankly speaking, the very concept of classes is largely antithetical to the concept of play as you want. And yes, I agree that very few games give you this kind of freedom. Which is exactly the reason that play as you want is a selling point.

Again, ESO does give you a lot of freedom. More than certain members of the community want to admit. It's not absolute freedom, because that's simply not feasible. As someone who actually played TSW endgame content, there is still far more freedom in ESO's endgame building.

starkerealm wrote: »

KeiRaikon wrote: »

The only things that Vampire would need to make it super stamina friendly (at least to me) is having Blood for Blood scale with highest offensive stat which has already been talked about in several threads.

It would need to be a little more than that. At the very least, Blood for Blood would also need to swap damage types to physical based on which would deal more damage (magicka/stamina.)

Realistically, stam characters tend to be more fragile than mag, relying on mobility and placement to survive, so Blood for Blood would still be a bad deal for them.

You'd need to tweak Eviscerate and its morphs to intelligently select, and preferably swap their cost based on the larger resource pool.

Drain Vigor would need to deal stamina damage and scale with the stam stats (whether it's cost changed or not.) There's a bit of a wrinkle here, though, as your choices are Stam and Ultimate gen, there is no magicka regeneration option.

Also, Baleful Mist might need to swap to stam scaling with poison damage depending on which total would be higher. Though that's less important.

Finally, Strike from the Shadows would need to be changed to buff spell and weapon damage.

It's a lot more than just slapping, "highest resource pool scaling," on Blood for Blood. Not impossible, however after all of that, I'm not sure it would be that advantageous for stam characters to begin with.

You don't need to do any of that, it works very well on stam as is. You don't need the spammable, I mean, even if you did have that spammable you would still use dizzy because even at a elevated cost it out preforms the vampire spammable entirely. Believe it or not vamp is very good for stam builds if you build with vamp abilities in mind. You will find yourself using heavy attacks more, but all the stampires I made so far have been way more effective then I thought they would be.

I do agree it benefits magicka builds more then stamina in a lot of cases, but stam can really put vampire to work if you actually try. I also want to point out that I do not think there is anything wrong with magicka getting more out of it then stamina. Some skill lines are just like that, and that is okay. If we ever get new weapon skills they are going to benefit one play style more then the other and I welcome that.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

Eh I disagree that it needs a lot more work. Yes for Blood for Blood they could make it like soul trap where it scales with highest stat and then changes damage type depending on the resource its scaling of off.

It goes a lot further than that, a stam character using Blood for Blood would get waxed in higher difficulty content, because of the health cost.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

Using the stamina drain you would be using it for the heal (which scales of max health not magicka) and the stamina regen, not the damage which is already pitiful for magicka...

Except they wouldn't. On PTS, Drain has the same fundamental problem as its live counterpart, it's a channeled ability. For 3 seconds you get 15% of your Max stam back (5%/s.)

For a single heavy attack, you get ~10% (modified by passives and CP) of your max stam back while also dealing significantly more damage, and being able to animation cancel into an active ability. So... yeah, there's not much reason to ever use drain, even with it's reduced cost.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

...but yes I agree they should make the stam drain scale with stamina and the ult drain scale with magicka.

Scaling ult is an extremely bad idea. That would be hilariously imbalanced, especially with ultimate discount effects. Remember how I said a 3 second channel isn't worth it? This is how you make that cost a no-brainer.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

You said strike from shadow needs to also add weapon damage but it already does.

When I was making notes of the skill line last, it did not. I didn't fire up the PTS to manually verify.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

Also the frenzy being more dangerous for stam I think is a non-issue. Stam has several powerful heals/HoTs...

Which are meaningless if you're already dead. Additionally they are subject to the increased cost for non-vampire abilities. While I still stand behind the idea that these costs are not that severe for general use, stam heals tend to be pretty expensive to begin with, and having to use them constantly will have serious consequences for your sustain.

Frenzy is catastrophic for stam DPS in group content because it means the healer cannot help you. Meaning you have to pay for all the heals you need, and spend the resources. Doing that in vet content? It's not happening without crippling your DPS, meaning you're not actually helping the group.

It's not a bad skill, but it is a risky one. For the most part, at endgame, it's simply not worth it.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

...and other defensive resources you'll just have to build around using them instead of just slapping frenzy on a build (same as you do for magicka) which is what ZOS seems to want, build around being a vampire.

Yeah, they want you to actually build a vampire. Frenzy fits thematically. However, it's got a very limited application for endgame content.

To be clear, when we're talking about, "you can't do this with this skill," that doesn't apply to overland content, it's specifically a consideration in endgame group content.

If you're alone, doing normal quests or whatever, it really doesn't matter.

If you're thinking, "well I can stack some health on my character and just go in that way," yeah, that's valid for normal quests. It becomes a problem when you're looking at group content. If Frenzy is fine for your stam character when they have 30k health, and are in 5pc heavy, while alone, that's not something you can take into a dungeon.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

The major issues for vampire to me is not magicka vs stamina its the major penalties at higher stages making you need to invest a little to much into being a vampire and that Vampiric Drain in general just doesn't seem like a good skill (for both magicka and stamina).

Yeah, it's not. And hasn't been for some time. Channels need to do something spectacular to justify their existence. It just doesn't deliver, and pushing the ult gen up would be downright broken. As resources go, ult is an entirely different resource economy.

KeiRaikon wrote: »

It would be nice if they beefed up the stamina vamp a little bit but my main point was I don't think its completely unusable like many people are saying.

No, there's some hyperbole there, but it's not unusable. However, it is an end to people taking vampire for the, "free" resource recovery, which is good.

Nagastani wrote: »

Traditional Vamp is so reliable and pliable to any build. And the changes being made will rip that foundation out from under all these people. It's good because it will force more players to think however this sounds like it could be really dangerous too. Is the risk worth doing this?

ZOS is kinda nutty you know? hah They're ambitious enough to break the game under probably 60 to 70% of the overall pop with changes no one really needed or asked for (from a system that worked) but then they keep other things that either need to be fixed or are breaking the game.

I heal vet/norm Trials and vet/norm DLC dungeons. I have already cured my Healer in order to get used to working without the vamp passives. I am certainly not going to start murdering my guildies by experimenting with the new vamp (class) until we've finished with ZoS's normal Hype Boost/Nerf seesaw for the next 3 patches after Chapter release.