Spectral_Force wrote: »Anyone else wonder why the nightblade siphoning tree is more "vamp" than the new vampire skills.
How does one design a vampire that has little lifesteal mechanics built in?
Why is there ult gen built into the class, but you are not allowed to build ult while in vamp....that was like the only identity of vamp before. People used to stack bat swarms and maintain them so they played like a lifestealing build.
The problem is, if Vampire becomes even just a little more like the siphoning tree, Nightblade mains will come out in droves and complain about class identity. So ZOS have shot themselves in the foot with Vampirism from the very start, I'd say.
Idk i mean there is plenty that zos could have done like adding in major lifesteal or Frenzy could have cut outside healing, but healed for % damage done. All the abilities could have cost health, if the engine of the skill line was based on lifesteal. I mean vamp is pretty one off to run on mag builds as is, but no matter how i look at it there is no point on a stam build.
Seems silly that zos thinks WW = stam and Vamp = mag....I dont agree with making everyone pigeon holed down one path.
Vampire is actually totally OP and it's a well deserved nerf.
However, vampire and werewolf should have possible set-up specially designed for them.
So if they want to specialize fully in it and use the most of it, they should be close to meta.
We have ton of possibility on this game and it's trully a shame and a waste to see so little viable option...
MotownMurder wrote: »I know what a lot of people already want to say: "You're just mad because being a Vampire isn't passive anymore, and it's an active decision that you have to build around now."
But that's where you would be wrong. Vampirism being an active decision is exactly what I was excited for before Greymoor launched. It was something I was looking forward to for a long time. But it's time to face facts: What the developers tried--vampirism as an active playstyle--has not worked. A viable "vampire build" is not possible. And now, with the launch of 6.1.0 on the horizon, every single vampire skill will soon be worthless.
- Blood Scion: This is a decent self buff, especially with the Swarming Scion morph, but it's crippled by the fact that it costs so much ultimate to use. This ultimate was originally balanced around the assumption that Stage 4 Vampirism would reduce vampire power costs by 40%. This was supposed to be the "headliner" to encourage Stage 4 Vampirism. Now that Stage 4 only reduces vampire costs by 24%, however, this will always be one of the most expensive ultimates in the game. As such, this ultimate cannot compete with other ultimates that do more for a lower cost, and cannot be justifiably used in anything other than PvP where anything goes. And to add insult to injury, one of the morphs, Perfect Scion, is totally worthless.
- Eviscerate: This was the one bright spot in the whole skill line. Blood For Blood, one of the morphs of this skill, could almost singlehandedly solve a class' sustain problems, provided they had a good source of healing. It felt like the one good extension of the devs' "risk vs reward" concept; where yes you lost health per cast, and yes you're in melee range, but it does a ton of damage. Unfortunately, this will be nerfed into uselessness as of 6.1.0. Not only will the execute percentage be decreased, but using it will now render you unhealable for 5 seconds. Obviously, a spammable power will be used one every 5 seconds, and going without healing in serious content is a death sentence, so Blood For Blood will no longer be useable. There's the second morph, of course, but it will fail to outperform almost all class magicka spammable powers, and also has the drawback of being a melee power with no large upside. Overall, Eviscerate will be generally unviable after 6.1.0.
- Blood Frenzy: This is a power that shared the same journey as Blood For Blood, it just happened to go on that journey before Greymoor launched. The large boost to spell damage caught the attention of a lot of players at the time of 6.0.0's PTS, and a lot of people saw the potential rewards. Having it be toggled on prevented outside healing and drained your health, but it was a constant rate of drain and it was off the global cooldown, making it possible to manage. Before Greymoor launched, however, the skill was nerfed into uselessness by having the health drain increase by 1/5th every second. This was too much to handle for anything except short bursts, which was probably the developers' intention, but neither of the Blood Frenzy morphs provide enough DPS to justify their existence if they're only on for short bursts. As such, this became yet another power nobody uses in any serious capacity.
- Vampiric Drain: This power is an absolute joke. It does pitiful healing for how long it takes, it does virtually no damage, and it leaves you vulnerable as the skill channels. This is probably one of the most worthless skills in the entire game, which nobody will ever find any use for. DPS won't use it because wasting several seconds channeling a heal is a DPS loss. Tanks won't use it because channeling it prevents you from blocking. PvP players won't use it because it doesn't even stun the enemy like it used to! Bottom line: nobody in their right mind would ever use this completely worthless skill. And the worst part of it is, I suspect ZoS sees this as the justification for all the "prevents outside healing" clauses in the vampire powers; they expect that vampire players should constantly be using this skill. I hope I'm wrong about that, because it would prove beyond any doubt how out of touch they are.
- Mesmerize: The one good thing about this power is that you can hypnotize NPCs into talking to you. That is cool from a lore perspective, but it also kind of screws over new players that need to grind to the fourth power on the tree if they made the mistake of becoming Stage 4 too early. Other than that, this is a boring power. It stuns and potentially snares, sure, but the bottom line is that there are other powers that do the same thing but better. I also don't like that one of the five "real" power slots is wasted on something that will only ever be useful for tanks.
- Mist Form: It's nice that it's a toggle now, and I'm sure it's nice for PvP, but it's another power that feels underwhelming. Blood Mist is conceptually cool, but the damage is so low that you would probably be better off just healing yourself with your own power rather than counting on this to save you. You can't even count on this saving you from OHKO's from bosses in serious content, so unless if you're PvPing, there's no good reason to slot this.
Now, perhaps you could look at each of these powers individually and conclude "well all of these powers look ok." And by themselves, maybe they would be. That may have been the developers' exact thought process as they were creating the powers. But what makes it all fall apart is this one simple fact:
You're expected to make a build where these powers are the core of your strategy
There's no possible way to do that! If you remember, all you have to work with in the vampire tree is:
- An ultimate
- A spammable that kills you
- Two mutually exclusive toggles (one of which will kill you)
- A stun
- A self healing channel
That's not a build! There is no possible way to make a worthwhile build out of that! And then we need to consider how many of these powers, like Vampiric Drain, are just complete non starters to begin with. Maybe if you're ok with dying all the time and being no help to your team, then you could run a build focused solely on these powers (in the same way you could make a build out of nothing but Mage's Guild spells I guess), but for anyone who doesn't want to be kicked out of their group, there is no way to make a half-decent build for any role in the game with these powers.
You might say "fine then, just use your other powers instead," but you can't, because the game is designed to penalize you for using other powers by increasing the cost of all the other powers! Maybe that would be ok if you were using your other powers rarely and your vampire powers frequently, but that's impossible. Even if you try to use your vampire powers as liberally as possible, any build that is even halfway viable will be using their non-vampire powers over their vampire powers by a factor of 9 to 1.
Of course you might think "it's fine if I don't use my vampire powers, I'll just use the passives," but you can't do that either, because the passives are locked behind your stage of vampirism! You only get full access to your vampire passives when you're at Stage 4, and each stage increases the cost of your regular abilities by somewhere between 2-4%. And I'm going to tell you right now, there is nothing in the vampire passives that is going to justify wasting 2-4% extra resources per level. The only way to justify going higher in vampirism is if you intend to use the unique vampire powers, and they are so objectively horrible that there's no reason to even try.
What's even more ridiculous is that the whole stated point of this update was to encourage vampires to feed and be stronger, to get players to "embrace being a vampire." That is why the update was an abject failure of game design. Not because of the powers, not because of the passives, but because that objective was not reached. Before the update, vampires didn't feed and stayed at stage 4, and now it's the same: vampires don't feed and stay at stage 1. Only now, I guess the difference is that most of them have probably cured themselves and saved themselves the trouble!
And worst of all, the few times there actually were good points in the vampire tree, like Blood for Blood and the PTS version of Blood Frenzy, ZOS didn't hesitate to nerf them back down to uselessness. I think that's what bothers me most of all, that ZOS seems to want vampires to suck. That seems like their design goal. It makes them happy. Which, fair enough I guess, but maybe don't tease people with a vampire based expansion, right?
And before I end this extremely long post, let me respond to one final comment. One that I hear far too often:
"Vampirism is supposed to be a curse!"
Sorry, but that doesn't fly. I agree that "it's a curse" if you mean it should have some drawbacks, no argument there. But vampires are not supposed to be "cursed" in the same way that lepers are cursed. A vampire is supposed to be strong and capable and feared. Compare that to an ESO vampire, where if they try to use their powers, in the best case nothing happens, and in the worst case they kill themselves faster than the enemy. Vampires have weaknesses, that's what makes it a curse. They are not supposed to be a joke. Lycanthropy is also "a curse" but I don't see anyone saying werewolves should be bad. Then again, werewolves used to suck in ESO too, and these days they're looking pretty good for once. Could the same be true for vampires someday? Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath.
MotownMurder wrote: »I know what a lot of people already want to say: "You're just mad because being a Vampire isn't passive anymore, and it's an active decision that you have to build around now."
But that's where you would be wrong. Vampirism being an active decision is exactly what I was excited for before Greymoor launched. It was something I was looking forward to for a long time. But it's time to face facts: What the developers tried--vampirism as an active playstyle--has not worked. A viable "vampire build" is not possible. And now, with the launch of 6.1.0 on the horizon, every single vampire skill will soon be worthless.
- Blood Scion: This is a decent self buff, especially with the Swarming Scion morph, but it's crippled by the fact that it costs so much ultimate to use. This ultimate was originally balanced around the assumption that Stage 4 Vampirism would reduce vampire power costs by 40%. This was supposed to be the "headliner" to encourage Stage 4 Vampirism. Now that Stage 4 only reduces vampire costs by 24%, however, this will always be one of the most expensive ultimates in the game. As such, this ultimate cannot compete with other ultimates that do more for a lower cost, and cannot be justifiably used in anything other than PvP where anything goes. And to add insult to injury, one of the morphs, Perfect Scion, is totally worthless.
- Eviscerate: This was the one bright spot in the whole skill line. Blood For Blood, one of the morphs of this skill, could almost singlehandedly solve a class' sustain problems, provided they had a good source of healing. It felt like the one good extension of the devs' "risk vs reward" concept; where yes you lost health per cast, and yes you're in melee range, but it does a ton of damage. Unfortunately, this will be nerfed into uselessness as of 6.1.0. Not only will the execute percentage be decreased, but using it will now render you unhealable for 5 seconds. Obviously, a spammable power will be used one every 5 seconds, and going without healing in serious content is a death sentence, so Blood For Blood will no longer be useable. There's the second morph, of course, but it will fail to outperform almost all class magicka spammable powers, and also has the drawback of being a melee power with no large upside. Overall, Eviscerate will be generally unviable after 6.1.0.
- Blood Frenzy: This is a power that shared the same journey as Blood For Blood, it just happened to go on that journey before Greymoor launched. The large boost to spell damage caught the attention of a lot of players at the time of 6.0.0's PTS, and a lot of people saw the potential rewards. Having it be toggled on prevented outside healing and drained your health, but it was a constant rate of drain and it was off the global cooldown, making it possible to manage. Before Greymoor launched, however, the skill was nerfed into uselessness by having the health drain increase by 1/5th every second. This was too much to handle for anything except short bursts, which was probably the developers' intention, but neither of the Blood Frenzy morphs provide enough DPS to justify their existence if they're only on for short bursts. As such, this became yet another power nobody uses in any serious capacity.
- Vampiric Drain: This power is an absolute joke. It does pitiful healing for how long it takes, it does virtually no damage, and it leaves you vulnerable as the skill channels. This is probably one of the most worthless skills in the entire game, which nobody will ever find any use for. DPS won't use it because wasting several seconds channeling a heal is a DPS loss. Tanks won't use it because channeling it prevents you from blocking. PvP players won't use it because it doesn't even stun the enemy like it used to! Bottom line: nobody in their right mind would ever use this completely worthless skill. And the worst part of it is, I suspect ZoS sees this as the justification for all the "prevents outside healing" clauses in the vampire powers; they expect that vampire players should constantly be using this skill. I hope I'm wrong about that, because it would prove beyond any doubt how out of touch they are.
- Mesmerize: The one good thing about this power is that you can hypnotize NPCs into talking to you. That is cool from a lore perspective, but it also kind of screws over new players that need to grind to the fourth power on the tree if they made the mistake of becoming Stage 4 too early. Other than that, this is a boring power. It stuns and potentially snares, sure, but the bottom line is that there are other powers that do the same thing but better. I also don't like that one of the five "real" power slots is wasted on something that will only ever be useful for tanks.
- Mist Form: It's nice that it's a toggle now, and I'm sure it's nice for PvP, but it's another power that feels underwhelming. Blood Mist is conceptually cool, but the damage is so low that you would probably be better off just healing yourself with your own power rather than counting on this to save you. You can't even count on this saving you from OHKO's from bosses in serious content, so unless if you're PvPing, there's no good reason to slot this.
Now, perhaps you could look at each of these powers individually and conclude "well all of these powers look ok." And by themselves, maybe they would be. That may have been the developers' exact thought process as they were creating the powers. But what makes it all fall apart is this one simple fact:
You're expected to make a build where these powers are the core of your strategy
There's no possible way to do that! If you remember, all you have to work with in the vampire tree is:
- An ultimate
- A spammable that kills you
- Two mutually exclusive toggles (one of which will kill you)
- A stun
- A self healing channel
That's not a build! There is no possible way to make a worthwhile build out of that! And then we need to consider how many of these powers, like Vampiric Drain, are just complete non starters to begin with. Maybe if you're ok with dying all the time and being no help to your team, then you could run a build focused solely on these powers (in the same way you could make a build out of nothing but Mage's Guild spells I guess), but for anyone who doesn't want to be kicked out of their group, there is no way to make a half-decent build for any role in the game with these powers.
You might say "fine then, just use your other powers instead," but you can't, because the game is designed to penalize you for using other powers by increasing the cost of all the other powers! Maybe that would be ok if you were using your other powers rarely and your vampire powers frequently, but that's impossible. Even if you try to use your vampire powers as liberally as possible, any build that is even halfway viable will be using their non-vampire powers over their vampire powers by a factor of 9 to 1.
Of course you might think "it's fine if I don't use my vampire powers, I'll just use the passives," but you can't do that either, because the passives are locked behind your stage of vampirism! You only get full access to your vampire passives when you're at Stage 4, and each stage increases the cost of your regular abilities by somewhere between 2-4%. And I'm going to tell you right now, there is nothing in the vampire passives that is going to justify wasting 2-4% extra resources per level. The only way to justify going higher in vampirism is if you intend to use the unique vampire powers, and they are so objectively horrible that there's no reason to even try.
What's even more ridiculous is that the whole stated point of this update was to encourage vampires to feed and be stronger, to get players to "embrace being a vampire." That is why the update was an abject failure of game design. Not because of the powers, not because of the passives, but because that objective was not reached. Before the update, vampires didn't feed and stayed at stage 4, and now it's the same: vampires don't feed and stay at stage 1. Only now, I guess the difference is that most of them have probably cured themselves and saved themselves the trouble!
And worst of all, the few times there actually were good points in the vampire tree, like Blood for Blood and the PTS version of Blood Frenzy, ZOS didn't hesitate to nerf them back down to uselessness. I think that's what bothers me most of all, that ZOS seems to want vampires to suck. That seems like their design goal. It makes them happy. Which, fair enough I guess, but maybe don't tease people with a vampire based expansion, right?
And before I end this extremely long post, let me respond to one final comment. One that I hear far too often:
"Vampirism is supposed to be a curse!"
Sorry, but that doesn't fly. I agree that "it's a curse" if you mean it should have some drawbacks, no argument there. But vampires are not supposed to be "cursed" in the same way that lepers are cursed. A vampire is supposed to be strong and capable and feared. Compare that to an ESO vampire, where if they try to use their powers, in the best case nothing happens, and in the worst case they kill themselves faster than the enemy. Vampires have weaknesses, that's what makes it a curse. They are not supposed to be a joke. Lycanthropy is also "a curse" but I don't see anyone saying werewolves should be bad. Then again, werewolves used to suck in ESO too, and these days they're looking pretty good for once. Could the same be true for vampires someday? Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath.
Disagree and WAY TOO LONG, full of deck stacking to boot.
1. Ult = requires too much ult, FALSE. Built correctly, 164- low 2XX ult while keeping the downsides of Vamp Lord set back barred, maelstrom staff on front bar. So that the most powerful ult in the game is "crippled" due to its AVERAGE big ult cost is absurd and hyperbolic on its face. All the big ults have similar cost, no idea what OP is going on about here on a 20 second long large AOE that HEALS the user AND buffs all resources to a greater degree than ANY FIVE PIECE SET IN THE GAME BY A MILE at the same time.
2. Eviscerate, more hyperbole. First, patch is not live and so OP's preemptive complaint is disingenuous to include non-live changes in general complaints about vamp. So since that's OP's only gripe, then why isn't the thread "please don't bring the BFB change live?" Eviscerate is fine as is, advocate against an upcoming patch instead of hyperbole.
3. Blood Frenzy. More hyperbole. Toggling on and off a skill that adds +600 SD/WD without a huge tradeoff is a balance no-brainer, suggesting otherwise, "uselessness" is plain silly. It is made for burst, it is made to be used with the ult, it is made to be used with the passives, it is NOT made as a permanent Raid parse tool, and shouldn't be, that would be absurdly OP. There ARE many possible builds to maximize and compliment the use of this skill. They are emergent and will be very cool and interesting. Blood Frenzy is one of the BEST things about the new vamp and is a great addition to buildcraft.
4. Vamp Drain. Not an "absolute joke." Needs a small buff. Why not just ask for a small buff? instead of the false "absolute joke" claim? The skill and its use is fine at base. I've been using the ult-pushing portion of it for years towards devastating effect in keeping ults up as fast as possible.
5. Mesmerize. The hyperbole continues. Anyone who tanks or pvps in ESO will tell you that ALL of the AOE CC skills in ESO are wonky. Anyone who claims otherwise is in error. It's not really that complicated with Mesmerize, you get bigger range and less resource cost in exchange for the condition. If you don't like that, use another CC. SIMPLE. I think Mesmerize is great and claiming it's only use is on merchants is absurd.
6. Mist Form. Toggled 75% dmg reduction at key times is NEVER "underwhelming" in any game mode. No other skill line has similar, and this alone and how it's tweaked in new vamp makes vamp worthwhile. Oh, in higher stages it's cheap as hell to use. Smart players can ignore tons of red (and fire, hint hint) that don't amount to out and out one shots. Either morph has uses, I prefer the speed. New Mist Form is great, but Mist Form has ALWAYS been a great skill for those willing to master it, just much better now.
7. Who said it was mandatory to make a 100% vamp skill build? NO ONE, and that was plainly not the intent anyway. For comparison, that is as silly as complaining that ANY CLASS must make pure class skill builds. That's not how ESO or pretty much any game with classes works. Spare the straw man.
8. And OP ignores that working the vamp skills into builds REDUCES resource use because they are cheap, this is a TRADEOFF that is working as intended. My higher stage vamp tanks are finding Hypnotize FAR less expensive than their old CC to use for one of several examples. BFB alleviates ALL the resource cost of melee range spammables, allowing those resources to be spent elsewhere. IF BFB gets nerfed as in the patch, will it be worthwhile to put on Bogdan instead of a DPS monster set? Maybe, maybe not required. Maybe a better change would be minor defile from BFB? But we don't know because OP wants to do hyperbole instead of advocating against the patch change directly.
New PTS is up, no vamp changes, rip
I think the increase to the costs of other skills is ridiculous, it makes zero sense to me.
At most it should be a 3-5% increase not what we have atm...
Frenzy costs way too much each second, a magicka NB should be able to maintain it with strife in PVP but its impossible after 2-3 seconds
I think the increase to the costs of other skills is ridiculous, it makes zero sense to me.
At most it should be a 3-5% increase not what we have atm...
Frenzy costs way too much each second, a magicka NB should be able to maintain it with strife in PVP but its impossible after 2-3 seconds
Honestly, the cost isn't that bad, particularly when your main ability draws from health. As a NB, I originally ran Siphoning Strikes, but swapped it for Debilitate, and don't even need that. Frenzy, however, is ridiculous. I wouldn't mind if it became unmanageable after maybe 10-15 seconds, but it ramps up so fast you can barely get 2-3 casts off. And it's definitely not something you can even consider running with BfB. Maybe it was meant to augment the other eviscerate morph, or works better with all your stats dumped into health...
I find it funny that they nerf New Moon while leaving the 5% cost because "sustain isn't a issue in groups" while the only real bonus of increasing vamp stages is this same sustain they just admitted isn't that great of a bonus. I still don't get why you don't actually become more powerful the higher stage you get. You only get weaker, while having better sustain (if only on a limited box of tools). I say keep the negatives how they are, maybe even increase fire damage a couple percent, but swap the reduced vamp skill cost to increased damage. I'd say it should apply to all skills (increased costs of non-vamp skills should keep vamp options preferred choices), but even just vamp skills would be a massive improvement. A flat 20-25% damage increase would make even a 35-45% (say 35% if the damage increase is vamp-only, 45% if it applies to all skills) fire vulnerable an attractive risk/reward balance.
Calypso589 wrote: »The biggest red flag I see in your post is that your tanks are higher stage vampires.
Oof. Don’t do that. Don’t tank & vamp. It’s a pointless debuff on yourself in all honesty.
I think the increase to the costs of other skills is ridiculous, it makes zero sense to me.
At most it should be a 3-5% increase not what we have atm...
Frenzy costs way too much each second, a magicka NB should be able to maintain it with strife in PVP but its impossible after 2-3 seconds
Honestly, the cost isn't that bad, particularly when your main ability draws from health. As a NB, I originally ran Siphoning Strikes, but swapped it for Debilitate, and don't even need that. Frenzy, however, is ridiculous. I wouldn't mind if it became unmanageable after maybe 10-15 seconds, but it ramps up so fast you can barely get 2-3 casts off. And it's definitely not something you can even consider running with BfB. Maybe it was meant to augment the other eviscerate morph, or works better with all your stats dumped into health...
I find it funny that they nerf New Moon while leaving the 5% cost because "sustain isn't a issue in groups" while the only real bonus of increasing vamp stages is this same sustain they just admitted isn't that great of a bonus. I still don't get why you don't actually become more powerful the higher stage you get. You only get weaker, while having better sustain (if only on a limited box of tools). I say keep the negatives how they are, maybe even increase fire damage a couple percent, but swap the reduced vamp skill cost to increased damage. I'd say it should apply to all skills (increased costs of non-vamp skills should keep vamp options preferred choices), but even just vamp skills would be a massive improvement. A flat 20-25% damage increase would make even a 35-45% (say 35% if the damage increase is vamp-only, 45% if it applies to all skills) fire vulnerable an attractive risk/reward balance.
You want vampires to have built in major berserk just for being vampires?
I think the increase to the costs of other skills is ridiculous, it makes zero sense to me.
At most it should be a 3-5% increase not what we have atm...
Frenzy costs way too much each second, a magicka NB should be able to maintain it with strife in PVP but its impossible after 2-3 seconds
Honestly, the cost isn't that bad, particularly when your main ability draws from health. As a NB, I originally ran Siphoning Strikes, but swapped it for Debilitate, and don't even need that. Frenzy, however, is ridiculous. I wouldn't mind if it became unmanageable after maybe 10-15 seconds, but it ramps up so fast you can barely get 2-3 casts off. And it's definitely not something you can even consider running with BfB. Maybe it was meant to augment the other eviscerate morph, or works better with all your stats dumped into health...
I find it funny that they nerf New Moon while leaving the 5% cost because "sustain isn't a issue in groups" while the only real bonus of increasing vamp stages is this same sustain they just admitted isn't that great of a bonus. I still don't get why you don't actually become more powerful the higher stage you get. You only get weaker, while having better sustain (if only on a limited box of tools). I say keep the negatives how they are, maybe even increase fire damage a couple percent, but swap the reduced vamp skill cost to increased damage. I'd say it should apply to all skills (increased costs of non-vamp skills should keep vamp options preferred choices), but even just vamp skills would be a massive improvement. A flat 20-25% damage increase would make even a 35-45% (say 35% if the damage increase is vamp-only, 45% if it applies to all skills) fire vulnerable an attractive risk/reward balance.
You want vampires to have built in major berserk just for being vampires?
Offset by a decided increased fire damage, sure. Right now, there's little tactical reason to go beyond stage 1. I like the stealth sprint, but that's hardly a benefit in group play. The reduced costs aren't that significant, and ZOS even says costs are negligible in group play (ie their justification for not removing New Moon's cost after they reduced the damage). So yeah, why not a damage increase? What other motivation really is there to be full stage 4? Again, they could even increase the negatives to a balanced level to compensate. It would make the various stages more tactical. An encounter with lots of fire? Go to stage 1 with very little power benefit. Have a good healer? Boost to 2 or even 3. No fire? Throw caution to the wind and become the powerful vampire lord people should fear--at a very real risk of getting melted by fire attacks (probably only a threat in PVP, as you can plan more effectively for known mobs in dungeons).
Risk vs return. Right now, there is only moderate risk balanced against very minimal return.
I think the increase to the costs of other skills is ridiculous, it makes zero sense to me.
At most it should be a 3-5% increase not what we have atm...
Frenzy costs way too much each second, a magicka NB should be able to maintain it with strife in PVP but its impossible after 2-3 seconds
Honestly, the cost isn't that bad, particularly when your main ability draws from health. As a NB, I originally ran Siphoning Strikes, but swapped it for Debilitate, and don't even need that. Frenzy, however, is ridiculous. I wouldn't mind if it became unmanageable after maybe 10-15 seconds, but it ramps up so fast you can barely get 2-3 casts off. And it's definitely not something you can even consider running with BfB. Maybe it was meant to augment the other eviscerate morph, or works better with all your stats dumped into health...
I find it funny that they nerf New Moon while leaving the 5% cost because "sustain isn't a issue in groups" while the only real bonus of increasing vamp stages is this same sustain they just admitted isn't that great of a bonus. I still don't get why you don't actually become more powerful the higher stage you get. You only get weaker, while having better sustain (if only on a limited box of tools). I say keep the negatives how they are, maybe even increase fire damage a couple percent, but swap the reduced vamp skill cost to increased damage. I'd say it should apply to all skills (increased costs of non-vamp skills should keep vamp options preferred choices), but even just vamp skills would be a massive improvement. A flat 20-25% damage increase would make even a 35-45% (say 35% if the damage increase is vamp-only, 45% if it applies to all skills) fire vulnerable an attractive risk/reward balance.
You want vampires to have built in major berserk just for being vampires?
Not "just for being a vampire." For being a stage 4 vampire with noticeable weaknesses. Stage 1 would have little, if any damage increase. Maybe stage 1 has a cost reduction. Stage 2, perhaps a little more cost reduction and minor damage increase. 3 and 4 don't get any more cost reductions, but further damage increases.
Offset by a decided increased fire damage, sure. Right now, there's little tactical reason to go beyond stage 1. I like the stealth sprint, but that's hardly a benefit in group play. The reduced costs aren't that significant, and ZOS even says costs are negligible in group play (ie their justification for not removing New Moon's cost after they reduced the damage). So yeah, why not a damage increase? What other motivation really is there to be full stage 4? Again, they could even increase the negatives to a balanced level to compensate. It would make the various stages more tactical. An encounter with lots of fire? Go to stage 1 with very little power benefit. Have a good healer? Boost to 2 or even 3. No fire? Throw caution to the wind and become the powerful vampire lord people should fear--at a very real risk of getting melted by fire attacks (probably only a threat in PVP, as you can plan more effectively for known mobs in dungeons).
Risk vs return. Right now, there is only moderate risk balanced against very minimal return.
The damage would only apply to vampire skills, of course.
Perhaps it's changes more at the skill level. They're nerfing BfB, which probably needed something. So long as I didn't use Frenzy, all my resources stayed maxed. Even solo, with Swallow Soul and Merciless Resolve, I never worried about my health. I've since swapped to Arterial Burst in case BfB ends up with too big a hit. However, it only hits a little harder than Concealed Weapon. Basically, I could be running full Magblade and be pretty similar without any built in downsides. Arterial Burst does allow me to run Frenzy and feels like a more controlled give and take of sacrificing health for damage.
I can understand concerns about a straight power boost making it a "required" class, but right now, it doesn't bring much to the table. Werewolf just feels powerful straight out of the box, and has no downsides if you don't care for it--just unslot the ultimate. Or keep it on for the passive stamina boost. I like that vampire tends to "mix" more with your chosen class. It adds some variety and gives more of a feel that your character as vampire is influenced by past experience. But I'm curious what you may propose? Is the current resource mitigation enough of a boost to warrant living in Stage 4?
I do think that vampire stage 4 needs a buff, but I don't know what it needs. Vampires problem is that it can mix anything, meaning that players will mostly take what's good from vamp and use class skills for everything else. Without significant downsides it easily becomes a must-have for anyone.
I do think that vampire stage 4 needs a buff, but I don't know what it needs. Vampires problem is that it can mix anything, meaning that players will mostly take what's good from vamp and use class skills for everything else. Without significant downsides it easily becomes a must-have for anyone.
Maybe give the stage 4 vampire passive minor expedition as well? Then it'd be useful for people who don't take advantage of the 50% reduced sprint cost, helps vampires close the gap, and can be very effectively paired with certain vampire skills like Drain and Mistform. Vampire used to have minor expedition on that one drain morph and it'd be pretty neat to have it make a comeback in some form.
ParaViking wrote: »I could not agree more...
I naively thought prior to Greymoor the that the "BIG" drawback was that the vampires were going to be forced to feed heavily to maintain a high stage of vampirism (more powerful). This would have been a great way to make you have to feel like a vampire and kill NPC to maintain the higher stages... It would have been a pain to have to continually do this, or have to continually chug potions... I also thought we would get some cool new skills that could fill gaps and help to create some cool new builds... I thought wrong!.. I have been so disappointed with Greymoor. I have not been able to get over it, or fix my vamp toons to work around it in a way that makes the game playable (fun).
Instead you really become less powerful due to the heavy penalties associated with the stages and cost increase to abilities. I feel like anything but a powerful as a vampire...and I don't feel like a vampire at all really. I feel more like a gimpy undead parasite that people laugh at...
I hope they fix it soon... I want to play...