Vampire has never been bad. They have great passives, and the downsides are easily able to be avoided if you build for them. I play most of my characters at stage 4, and the extra fire damage is not noticeable. Mist form is a really fun skill, and great for the extra damage mitigation, even on a stam toon.

It's all up to you what you prefer with skills. I would mess around with them and see which you enjoy more.

My main is a vampire stamblade, and I like to be at stage 4 the whole time. I use the health+ recovery food for the sustain and extra survivability, and I can spam skills for days with a couple heavy attacks in between. I've also used a magicka setup with the same kind of food with mag recovery instead, and I get the same sustain on it.

I also like to take advantage of the passives, especially Undeath, which is one of my favorites. I've always played at stage 4, and have had not issues with the negatives at all. Again, it's how you build your character.

[snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

WhereArtThouVampires wrote: »

Djennku wrote: »

Vampire has never been bad. They have great passives, and the downsides are easily able to be avoided if you build for them. I play most of my characters at stage 4, and the extra fire damage is not noticeable. Mist form is a really fun skill, and great for the extra damage mitigation, even on a stam toon.

It's all up to you what you prefer with skills. I would mess around with them and see which you enjoy more.

My main is a vampire stamblade, and I like to be at stage 4 the whole time. I use the health+ recovery food for the sustain and extra survivability, and I can spam skills for days with a couple heavy attacks in between. I've also used a magicka setup with the same kind of food with mag recovery instead, and I get the same sustain on it.

I also like to take advantage of the passives, especially Undeath, which is one of my favorites. I've always played at stage 4, and have had not issues with the negatives at all. Again, it's how you build your character.

[snip]

Vamp is trash. And badly designed. That's the harsh truth. Especially on a stamblade. Feel free to post your build and what content you do in order to prove me wrong. But objectively stamblade does not work with vampire unless you are purely just blood frenzy poison shot/snipe spam ganking in PvP.

[snip]

Also, objectively your stamblade would be way more effective if they weren't a stage 4 vampire due to all the weaknesses and downsides presented with such. Not to mention not being able to use any of the skills in the kit aside from Blood frenzy.

[snip] Because as someone who has also tested stam and magicka variants of vampire, I can tell you magicka is and will always be better

TBH, most that I see playing a Stamblade vampire really only use Stage 4 for the invisibility dash - there's really not much going for it build wise aside from a playstyle that heavily leans on using Blood Frenzy and pew pewing with a bow from stealth and maybe some light mist form trolling. Riveting gameplay. /s

I guess my 300+ hours of theorycrafting, sinking 3.8 mil on materials and gear, 50+ hours of grinding dungeons for gear and transmutes, and reading up on hidden mechanics of the line that plays with gear procs... Gee. I guess I don't know how to play anything.

Anyways, advice time.

How I've made it 'work' is basically the same as Vevvev, but I use some sets a little more unconventionally which also relies on how my CP is allocated. With the overhaul incoming, things are undoubtedly going to change - so I'd take the time to read up on those changes once they go live, or keep up with them on the PTS. I had to sacrifice some of my Thaumaturge and throw it into MaA and Elemental Expert with CP System 1.0. With the right sets you can have that tooltip way over 10k. While I can clear most vTrials HMs with it, my character dishes out more DPS without vampirism.

Magblade arguably has the best time with the line with just how the line works overall. The main issue is how you want to deal damage and keep things up. Most of the Siphoning tree fits thematically and I've had some pretty interesting results, but nothing that I'd put in a vTrial. Mileage is going to vary depending on what exactly you want to do.

WhereArtThouVampires wrote: »

Sephyr wrote: »

WhereArtThouVampires wrote: »

Djennku wrote: »

Vampire has never been bad. They have great passives, and the downsides are easily able to be avoided if you build for them. I play most of my characters at stage 4, and the extra fire damage is not noticeable. Mist form is a really fun skill, and great for the extra damage mitigation, even on a stam toon.

It's all up to you what you prefer with skills. I would mess around with them and see which you enjoy more.

My main is a vampire stamblade, and I like to be at stage 4 the whole time. I use the health+ recovery food for the sustain and extra survivability, and I can spam skills for days with a couple heavy attacks in between. I've also used a magicka setup with the same kind of food with mag recovery instead, and I get the same sustain on it.

I also like to take advantage of the passives, especially Undeath, which is one of my favorites. I've always played at stage 4, and have had not issues with the negatives at all. Again, it's how you build your character.

[snip]

Vamp is trash. And badly designed. That's the harsh truth. Especially on a stamblade. Feel free to post your build and what content you do in order to prove me wrong. But objectively stamblade does not work with vampire unless you are purely just blood frenzy poison shot/snipe spam ganking in PvP.

[snip]

Also, objectively your stamblade would be way more effective if they weren't a stage 4 vampire due to all the weaknesses and downsides presented with such. Not to mention not being able to use any of the skills in the kit aside from Blood frenzy.

[snip] Because as someone who has also tested stam and magicka variants of vampire, I can tell you magicka is and will always be better

TBH, most that I see playing a Stamblade vampire really only use Stage 4 for the invisibility dash - there's really not much going for it build wise aside from a playstyle that heavily leans on using Blood Frenzy and pew pewing with a bow from stealth and maybe some light mist form trolling. Riveting gameplay. /s

I guess my 300+ hours of theorycrafting, sinking 3.8 mil on materials and gear, 50+ hours of grinding dungeons for gear and transmutes, and reading up on hidden mechanics of the line that plays with gear procs... Gee. I guess I don't know how to play anything.

That sounds about right. Contrary to what @Djeriko says, the vampire community HAS tried to make vamp work. Some have gotten it to work, yes, but all agree they are gimping themselves and would be doing better if they weren't vampires.

Cause, shocker, the line is bad.

How I've been running, I've pulled more DPS without vampirism (both mag and stam). I'm holding out hope that something will be added to the new CP system one day, but I'm also not holding my breath considering it took them a while to fix werewolf back when Wolfhunter wrecked their toolkits. Needless to say, I've had to improvise on all fronts just to get something substantial working that performs well enough in all modes of gameplay. It's annoying.

Pauwer wrote: »

I wish you could get some +5% or so buff based on what kind of blood you have drank. Like dunmer blood would give like fire related buff and nord blood ice related buff or resistance buff or something like that.

Khajit blood should make you cough up fur balls.

JMadFour wrote: »

So I've cured and been re-bitten. I've tried to play other classess/specs, but I just don't enjoy stuff as much as I enjoy my Stealthy NB Vampire character.

So, advice on how to make the best of it?

I really wish that one of the Eviscerate morphs was ranged. I really kinda want to play a Vampire Mage kind of character, but that's more difficult when the Spammable (Arterial Burst) is melee range, and does a lot more damage and costs a lot less than my Class Ranged Spammable(Swallow Soul). For reference, my Swallow Soul IV tooltip is 5594, and my Arterial Burst II tooltip is 6083 for over 600 less Magicka at Stage 2. I know those aren't super high numbers because I gear is not great yet, but the difference is still noticeable.

So people who have been stubborn like me and still play Vampires despite the changes, how are you making the best of it? What is the conventional wisdom on how to successfully manage Vampire now? (on a side note, I'd love to see a video from ESO Devs, explaining in detail their vision for how they prefer Vampire to be played)

All general suggestions/advice welcome.

I just cured mine. My sorc was always a vamp, but just don't care for it now.

JMadFour wrote: »

I saw a build on Alcast's website that doesn't use bfb at all, it uses Swallow Soul as the spammable. I might start with that, and tweak it to my personal preferences. (like, I legit just don't like the Frenzy skill, I tried using it and I just can't make the best use of it, like other people can).

Swallow Soul imo, is the only real feasible alternate spammable, mainly because it heals and it is so cheap even at stage 4 compared or every other spammable in the game.

I've tried that build and it just feels reeeeeeally clunky and while thematically it fits with vampire, it's just... Oof. Using it as a starting point is good, but I found out I ended up changing out a lot of my build just to compensate for what was lacking in Vampire.

I'll start with the spammable first. While it feels cheap, in high combat situations - if you use AoE at all, that cost is pretty negligible. In most situations I'm personally in, I've got to make the choice on when to back off and wittle down with my spammable because I'm running out of resources and this is something that people conveniently ignore when going for an all purpose playstyle. The heal over time with Strife (and it's morphs) is good, but I've had to compensate sometimes with Dark Cloak and even opted to use Spell Symmetry. Heavy Attacks only bring in so much.

The second is the fear Alcast uses. Hypnosis and Mesmerize are pretty flashy, however there's one thing that he neglects to mention to you. Your target has to be directly looking at you and it doesn't seem to be a conical view despite the animation of Mesmerize. I found that Mass Hysteria and my shade were better alternatives to it and it just really seems poorly done.

Sap Essence is probably going to be your bread and butter AoE because of the heal. I didn't like Soul Harvest with it, nor the drain because it just didn't feel as fluid as he made it seem. Personally, I like more of an AoE stun and only use Blood Scion when I need to up my magicka pool for the added spell damage and cushion heal.

There's a whole heck of a lot more I'd change, if I'm being honest. It was not the 'ultimate vampire experience' that he was passing it off to be.

Vevvev wrote: »

Sephyr wrote: »

The second is the fear Alcast uses. Hypnosis and Mesmerize are pretty flashy, however there's one thing that he neglects to mention to you. Your target has to be directly looking at you and it doesn't seem to be a conical view despite the animation of Mesmerize. I found that Mass Hysteria and my shade were better alternatives to it and it just really seems poorly done.

I want to add onto this and give a visual on why its so hard to land this thing. So you have a very small cone in front of you that stretches out 10 meters. Your target has a cone as well, but you cannot see this cone as it is invisible and it is this cone that dictates whether you stunned them or not.

Here is a picture of the cone with red lines making it easier to see.



As you can tell that cone is very small. Now lets put a target in here to show why they won't be mesmerized. Here we see a target that on our screens is clearly looking at us but because they're probably jumping, cast spells, struggling to keep the reticle on us, and all other manner of things, their character model according to the server isn't looking at us as their cone is offset from our position.

I could have put the cone even closer to the center of our position and you'd begin to see where the issues begin to form. Your target could be looking just a hair too far to the left or just a hair too far to the right and the stun will not land.

Here is an obvious example of them not looking at you and I'll stick it in a spoiler since its painfully obvious this won't work.

What you're looking for is the target to blatantly be starring you dead in the eyes, not strafing, and with some distance so they fall inside the cone.


This ability is incredibly hard to land because of this issue. Hypnosis is a bit better, but you're still fighting with getting your enemy's cone to line up with you. I feel like a good fix ZOS could do is keep this cone system, but for the enemies inside of the cone that have us targeted it should land on them even if their model is not facing our direction.

Yeah, I should probably also emphasize that in PvP targets also aren't always facing where they appear to be. It's pretty common on MMOs, but this ability makes it all the more painful which is why I felt that it didn't seem to have one for the person getting stunned. Especially during primetime. It's so annoying that I just ended up slotting what my classes have access to and ate the ability cost.

ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE GRAPHICS.

I'm using the Bat Swarm Ultimate, but I'm curious...is there actually a usage case for Perfect Scion?

Like, why would you use it instead of the Bat Swarm?