The current state of Vampire.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

Let’s face it Vampire skills are great for solo rp content but terrible for endgame which creates a problem. I can’t do both on the same character, unless I want to cure and reinfect all the time. Also, the skill line punishes you heavily for higher stages rather than reward you and the pros just aren’t worth it. Finally, the skills just aren’t useful in any serious build which I think is a shame. Even werewolves can hit acceptable DPS with the right setup. So below I have a suggested rework that doesn’t do much to change what’s already there but allowing it to perform better in endgame and not penalise players too much while at the same time having the penalties just bad enough that players will need to think carefully.

Blood Scion: No Change

Perfect Scion: While active you become a stage 5 Vampire doubling the bonuses from your passives but negating the penalties. Duration is increased by 4 seconds.

Ancient Scion: While slotted, your Vampire abilities gain a damage bonus depending on your current stage. The lower the stage the greater the bonus. 1/2/3/4 Vampire Ability Damage Bonus: 25%/15%/8%/2%.

Evicerate: No change.

Arterial Burst: Becomes a Stamina Morph. If this skill deals Critical Damage it causes the target to Bleed for 300 Damage every second for 2 seconds.

Blood for Blood: No Change.

Blood Frenzy: No Change.

Simmering Frenzy: Lose no health while your Vampire Ultimate is active. While slotted you gain 1 Ultimate every time you deal damage to an enemy. This effect can occur once every second.

Sated Fury: Killing enemies while this effect is active will heal you for 1500 Health and reset the stacking damage penalty.

Vampiric Drain: Deals 600% more damage to enemies under 25% health.

Blood Link: The skill becomes a tether allowing you to use other skills while the effect is active and it’s duration is doubled but lose the execute bonus.

Insatiable Thirst: Killing an enemy with this skill awards 20 Ultimate. Killing an enemy with this skill while your Vampire Ultimate is active will increase your Vampire Ultimate duration by 4 seconds.

Mesmerise: Removed

Bat Swarm: New skill: Summon a swarm of bats around you for 10 seconds that deal 550 Physical Damage every second to enemies in the area. This skill scales off your highest offensive stats.

Vampire Bats: The bats heal you for 20% of the damage they deal.

Bat Shroud: The bats no longer surround you and instead surround a target enemy. Dealing 20% more damage to the target enemy but 30% less to nearby enemies.

Mist Form: PvE Damage reduction reduced to 30% mitigation.

Cleansing Mist: Purge 1 negative effect every 2 seconds while active. Skill costs more.

Elusive Mist: No Change.

Passives:

Feed: Allows you to feed on an unsuspecting target, killing them and increasing your Vampire Stage. Higher Stages make you a stronger Vampire. Stages decrease over time.
1/2/3/4: Health Recovery: -100%/-80%/-60%/-40%
1/2/3/4: Flame Damage Taken:
+50%/+40%/+30%/+20%
1/2/3/4: Vampire Ability Cost:
-10%/-15%/-20%/-25%
1/2/3/4: Vampire Ability Damage:
+2%/+4%/+6%/+8%
All other passives remain unchanged.

NeeScrolls · December 2021

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Let’s face it Vampire skills are great for solo content but terrible for endgame

Not sure what your exact template is but i must respectfully disagree. My Vamp alt does just fine, even in PVP. And, tbqh, i don't understand why so many players complain about Vamp so much, since after all it's meant to be fringe.

Vamp Life ain't for everyone.

But anyways, you're a bit late to the party--> https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/588652/vampire-3-0

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

Vamp does do fine in PvP but it’s terrible for endgame pve. Which means if you want to do endgame stuff you are FORCED to cure it unless you’re happy paying a boat load of extra Magicka for using your non vamp skills. This is the crux of the problem.

Brrrofski · December 2021

I'm not trying to ignore your point as I agree, most the vamp skills are less than exciting, and the biggest use of it in pvp is the extra damage from stealth and undeath passives.

But, about your point about curing and reinfecting, you can get around that now with the armory system.

Make a build with vampire, save it.

Cure yourself, save it.

You can then swap between builds and vampirism.

Like I said, doesn't help vamp in general, but that might go a little bit of the way of helping you with deciding on having it or not.

Daemonai · December 2021

I'm going to agree with NeeScrolls. Vampires are supposed to be fringe and the fact that they aren't the best at anything is probably for the best, otherwise people would feel like they HAD to be a vampire, which is what ZOS was trying to move away from with the update.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

@Daemonai

Daemonai wrote: »

I'm going to agree with NeeScrolls. Vampires are supposed to be fringe and the fact that they aren't the best at anything is probably for the best, otherwise people would feel like they HAD to be a vampire, which is what ZOS was trying to move away from with the update.

I understand this but the passive changes I included take that into consideration hence the increased penalty to Flame Damage taken. Furthermore, if a player was to take Ancient Scion they would be encouraged to stay at Vamp Stage 1. Resulting in 27% more damage with their vamp skills but having -100% Health Recovery and take 50% more Flame Damage. I mean I suppose you could increase it to 60% or even 80% if you really wanted it to be super risky.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

On another note, why is it that higher stages result in you looking more monstrous? Surely by feeding a Vampire would remain looking youthful and only look terrifying when they are starved of blood. It should be reversed, stage 1 should look the most monstrous resulting in NPC’s not interacting while Stage 4 would be the most human look and NPC’s would not be able to tell the difference.

StarOfElyon · December 2021

Daemonai wrote: »

I'm going to agree with NeeScrolls. Vampires are supposed to be fringe and the fact that they aren't the best at anything is probably for the best, otherwise people would feel like they HAD to be a vampire, which is what ZOS was trying to move away from with the update.

But it's not fringe. At least 90% of the pvp population are vampires. So they failed if that was their goal. They only managed to buff night blades with their passives.

NerfSeige · December 2021

Daemonai wrote: »

I'm going to agree with NeeScrolls. Vampires are supposed to be fringe and the fact that they aren't the best at anything is probably for the best, otherwise people would feel like they HAD to be a vampire, which is what ZOS was trying to move away from with the update.

Bro, undeath is BiS in pvp right now what do you mean? Even with the drawbacks, people are still using it. At least if you want to stay competitive.

katorga · December 2021

Ruined for pve, and great for pvp.

Perfectly designed to sell the armory system and 5K crown armory assistant.

Vevvev · December 2021

I wouldn't remove Mesmerize but would rather instead fix it by making it stun all enemies in the cone, but it only becomes unblockable when the target is facing you. Then take your bat swarm thing and replace Blood Mist with it since Blood Mist is basically a PvE ability that no longer works very well in PvE against enemies with any sort of decent damage.

Also Vampire is strong in solo PvE and absolutely denied from group PvE due to many nerfs over the year since it's rework release. Most of it has to do with the non-vampire cost increase in conjunction with the fact Vampire's most powerful and useful abilities lock you out of outside healing. Pretty painful combo that pushes vampires out of group play, even in PvP. If ZOS rectified that we'd see a lot more vampires again.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

@Vevvev

Vevvev wrote: »

I wouldn't remove Mesmerize but would rather instead fix it by making it stun all enemies in the cone, but it only becomes unblockable when the target is facing you. Then take your bat swarm thing and replace Blood Mist with it since Blood Mist is basically a PvE ability that no longer works very well in PvE against enemies with any sort of decent damage.

Also Vampire is strong in solo PvE and absolutely denied from group PvE due to many nerfs over the year since it's rework release. Most of it has to do with the non-vampire cost increase in conjunction with the fact Vampire's most powerful and useful abilities lock you out of outside healing. Pretty painful combo that pushes vampires out of group play, even in PvP. If ZOS rectified that we'd see a lot more vampires again.

Agreed. Which is why I removed the extra cost to non vamp skills. The execute on Vampiric Drain and Bat Swarm ideas were to give the line viable skills. The penalty is increased Fire Damage and Health Recovery, the former of which is made more severe to compensate for the extra power my idea brings to the skill line. Also, the option for which Scion to take let’s vamps feel unique from each other too with Perfect Scion Vampires opting for less penalty and a slight buff, while Ancient Scion Vampires can stay at stage 1 for a huge power spike to their abilities but take 50% more Flame Damage and have -100% Health Recovery. Furthermore, I feel higher stages should trick NPC’s into thinking you are a normal human. Higher stages should look more human as you have fed more and thus stay looking youthful. While Stage 1 look terrible due to not being fed.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

An alternative idea is to have Ancient Scion morph prevent any increase to stages at all. Something like this:

Ancient Scion: While slotted, you no longer have stages and instead gain permanent unique bonuses and penalties.
Health Recovery: -100%
Flame Damage Taken: +80%
Fighter’s Guild Ability Damage Taken: +30%
All other Damage Taken: -35%
Vampire Ability Cost: -50%
Vampire Ability Damage: +30%

You also cannot be healed by anyone but yourself, but your own self heals heal for 30% more.

Although perhaps this could be a reworked Vampire Lord set.

Vevvev · December 2021

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Vevvev

Vevvev wrote: »

I wouldn't remove Mesmerize but would rather instead fix it by making it stun all enemies in the cone, but it only becomes unblockable when the target is facing you. Then take your bat swarm thing and replace Blood Mist with it since Blood Mist is basically a PvE ability that no longer works very well in PvE against enemies with any sort of decent damage.

Also Vampire is strong in solo PvE and absolutely denied from group PvE due to many nerfs over the year since it's rework release. Most of it has to do with the non-vampire cost increase in conjunction with the fact Vampire's most powerful and useful abilities lock you out of outside healing. Pretty painful combo that pushes vampires out of group play, even in PvP. If ZOS rectified that we'd see a lot more vampires again.

Agreed. Which is why I removed the extra cost to non vamp skills. The execute on Vampiric Drain and Bat Swarm ideas were to give the line viable skills. The penalty is increased Fire Damage and Health Recovery, the former of which is made more severe to compensate for the extra power my idea brings to the skill line. Also, the option for which Scion to take let’s vamps feel unique from each other too with Perfect Scion Vampires opting for less penalty and a slight buff, while Ancient Scion Vampires can stay at stage 1 for a huge power spike to their abilities but take 50% more Flame Damage and have -100% Health Recovery. Furthermore, I feel higher stages should trick NPC’s into thinking you are a normal human. Higher stages should look more human as you have fed more and thus stay looking youthful. While Stage 1 look terrible due to not being fed.

Fair enough, was just a lot to unpack and my mind at the time of writing the reply wasn't in the greatest of states, my bad lol. ((I admit I didn't read it fully))

50% more flame damage taken.... if that went live we'd be back to the old days! Would definitely be an issue though in this current PvP meta. I thought people were joking about the bands of DKs and threw the claims as being silly.... 12 man AD group of DK vampires. Madness I tell you!!!

Anyways, yes I can see where this is going. While we're at it give the Blood Scion hair, they need it, ZOS lol. And I know ZOS actually was going to change the vampire appearances but for some odd reason went back on it. Some could say the backlash at the blood effects did it or ZOS falling back on their "We refuse to change cosmetics" did it. Needless to say I don't think ZOS are ever going to touch the vampire skin appearance much to our dismay.

Captain_OP · December 2021

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Perfect Scion: While active you become a stage 5 Vampire doubling the bonuses from your passives but negating the penalties. Duration is increased by 4 seconds.

Ancient Scion: While slotted, your Vampire abilities gain a damage bonus depending on your current stage. The lower the stage the greater the bonus. 1/2/3/4 Vampire Ability Damage Bonus: 25%/15%/8%/2%.

I like the idea to add passiv bonus on the Scion, maybe perfect scion would be cool is you gain stage 5 while it is slotted. This way you choose between damage or sustain.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Evicerate: No change.

Arterial Burst: Becomes a Stamina Morph. If this skill deals Critical Damage it causes the target to Bleed for 300 Damage every second for 2 seconds.

Blood for Blood: No Change.

This one would be cool, this close range skill should have something usefull for stamina builds and adding bleed on critical strike is a great idee.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Blood Frenzy: No Change.

Simmering Frenzy: Lose no health while your Vampire Ultimate is active. While slotted you gain 1 Ultimate every time you deal damage to an enemy. This effect can occur once every second.

Sated Fury: Killing enemies while this effect is active will heal you for 1500 Health and reset the stacking damage penalty.

Blood Frenzy is already very strong, making it stronger isnt what should be aimed for. The Problem of this skill is that you cant use it in group content. Do you have a idea to solve this Problem?

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Vampiric Drain: Deals 600% more damage to enemies under 25% health.

Blood Link: The skill becomes a tether allowing you to use other skills while the effect is active and it’s duration is doubled but lose the execute bonus.

Insatiable Thirst: Killing an enemy with this skill awards 20 Ultimate. Killing an enemy with this skill while your Vampire Ultimate is active will increase your Vampire Ultimate duration by 4 seconds.

Adding Excecution Damage to it is a great idee and i would add highest offensive stat scaling aswell. I really like the idea of of increasing the duration of the Scion, but isnt this making the Vampire to another Werewolf?

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Mesmerise: Removed

Mesmerise ha some tweaks, but is a perfect fit for a vampire. Instead of removing it, i rather like to see some additional debuffs to enemies.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Bat Swarm: New skill: Summon a swarm of bats around you for 10 seconds that deal 550 Physical Damage every second to enemies in the area. This skill scales off your highest offensive stats.

Vampire Bats: The bats heal you for 20% of the damage they deal.

Bat Shroud: The bats no longer surround you and instead surround a target enemy. Dealing 20% more damage to the target enemy but 30% less to nearby enemies.

A bat swarm as a baseline skill is all i really want for vampire, maybe replace blood frenzy with it and make it cost health as a toogle.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Mist Form: PvE Damage reduction reduced to 30% mitigation.

Cleansing Mist: Purge 1 negative effect every 2 seconds while active. Skill costs more.

Elusive Mist: No Change.

It is already very strong in pvp and this is a straight up buff and adding the damage reduction back to pvp will not solve the problem it has. The Problem is that a tank can use it in pve, which wasnt a problem until latest patch.

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Passives:
Feed: Allows you to feed on an unsuspecting target, killing them and increasing your Vampire Stage. Higher Stages make you a stronger Vampire. Stages decrease over time.
1/2/3/4: Health Recovery: -100%/-80%/-60%/-40%
1/2/3/4: Flame Damage Taken:
+50%/+40%/+30%/+20%
1/2/3/4: Vampire Ability Cost:
-10%/-15%/-20%/-25%
1/2/3/4: Vampire Ability Damage:
+2%/+4%/+6%/+8%
All other passives remain unchanged.

I dont think that you have played on release a vampire, because back then the flame damage was that high and a vampire was unplayable against any fire enemy. Doing this change will make it unplayable again. There have to be another way to make stages benefitial for vampire skills in a tradeof.

Minno · December 2021

There was a time when they were so OP they were required for pvp (vamp DKs). And it was so OP, guild mafias controlled the mobs that caused you to get the vamp debuff and tried to charge like 30k gold each bite.

We will likely never see vamp or wearwolf reach such a level again.

2014 ESO was a fun time haha.

validifyedneb18_ESO · December 2021

Hot take coming in;

This game is not that hard, being a vampire is really not that much of a disadvantage as long as you've well geared and know what you're doing, in a group that is likewise. (From someone that used to co-run and raid lead a mediocre veteran trials guild)

If you chase the meta, you will always be a meta slave. Nothing wrong with that but you have to accept the loss of freedom of choice in such cases.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Hot take coming in;

This game is not that hard, being a vampire is really not that much of a disadvantage as long as you've well geared and know what you're doing, in a group that is likewise. (From someone that used to co-run and raid lead a mediocre veteran trials guild)

If you chase the meta, you will always be a meta slave. Nothing wrong with that but you have to accept the loss of freedom of choice in such cases.

No one said it was a disadvantage. That isn’t the point of the post. The point was to make it more of an option for builds outside of rp and one skill.

Vevvev · December 2021

validifyedneb18_ESO wrote: »

Hot take coming in;

This game is not that hard, being a vampire is really not that much of a disadvantage as long as you've well geared and know what you're doing, in a group that is likewise. (From someone that used to co-run and raid lead a mediocre veteran trials guild)

If you chase the meta, you will always be a meta slave. Nothing wrong with that but you have to accept the loss of freedom of choice in such cases.

I don't think it's meta chasing but the fact you can't actually use the skill line in group play the way it was intended in ESO's combat system. Encounters being made have heal checks for the healer, and when they can't heal someone they die. Simple as that and vampire's useful abilities like Blood for Blood, Blood Frenzy, and Mistform all cut off outside healing making it a liability in group content.

Sure I've gotten away with it, but I'm playing a healer so I can heal myself while using Blood for Blood, but a DPS built to sustain their own healing won't be receiving any of my buffs because I cannot actually heal them. Ends up being a net loss to them in the bigger picture.

Edit: And if we wanna bring in the glue that makes the Vampire skill line work well, we have to look at the Ring of the Pale Order. That ring got nerfed so the 20% healing you get from doing damage gets reduced by 4% for each person grouped with you with 5 people making it not heal you at all. So in Battlegrounds and Dungeons you only get 8% healing from the damage you're doing, and in Battlegrounds that equates to less than 4% of the healing you actually get because of Battle Spirit. You'd be better off with something else because good luck sustaining just Blood for Blood off that healing even with an AoE DoT build.

Araneae6537 · December 2021

I would much prefer a bat swarm over the current ultimate and I agree that many of the skills look strange and bright, not appropriately dark and vampire-like IMHO.

PileggiPileggi · December 2021

Vamp is really strong in its current state. If it were much better pretty much everybody would run it over human/werewolf, it feels sort of balanced imo. Its good for most situations except group PvE dps.

My vampire necro is pretty godly for solo content. Just killed the minotaur in veteran vatershaan and Im now trying to down the fire boss, cleared maelstrom many times. Solod a vet dung and many many normal dungeons, world bosses and Im pretty new to ESO. I mainly use vampire because blood for blood is free cost essentially with pale order ring + death knell on necro helps it crit and heal for even more. Then you have Swarming Scion, the best pve solo ultimate in the game next to Undo.

Undeath helps to mitigate most extra fire damage taken, atleast when below 50% hp and best to have at least 25khp+ so you can take a fat fire damage hit when necessary.

Also, pretty much every PvP build is running stage 3 vamp for undeath and most tank builds that ive seen. And also some healers use frenzy/fury.

As for group PvE dps? Just doesn't work so well because you cant be healed directly using frenzy or blood for blood. It can't be good at everything.

I think at most Vampire Lord set should be changed to not increase the penalties and only increase the bonuses, just so its actually usable as set.

mocap · December 2021

Cleansing Mist: Purge 1 negative effect every 2 seconds while active. Skill costs more.

oh yeah! A walking bomb affected by Plaguebreak xD

phaneub17_ESO · December 2021

I would probably use Vampire if it were more like a Werewolf with Magicka based melee attacks. I like one of the Vampiric Drain morphs into a gap closer, if you are 8-22 meters away it makes you vanish then reappear behind your target that immobilizes or snare them, casting while under 8 meters to drain, dealing physical (if max stamina is higher) or magic damage. Change Mesmerize into something like a bat's sonic scream as a melee cleave/cone attack that causes ear-splitting bleed (if max stamina is higher) or magic damage and sets all targets hit off-balance, one morph remains the same hitting 360 around you instead of a frontal attack while the other morph gains the stun effect. Eviscerate is fine as the single target power attack, also dealing poison (if max stamina is higher) or magic damage.

The way Vampire passives and skills are setup, they can become more versatile for Stamina or Hybrid builds as well.

MindOfTheSwarm · December 2021

phaneub17_ESO wrote: »

I would probably use Vampire if it were more like a Werewolf with Magicka based melee attacks. I like one of the Vampiric Drain morphs into a gap closer, if you are 8-22 meters away it makes you vanish then reappear behind your target that immobilizes or snare them, casting while under 8 meters to drain, dealing physical (if max stamina is higher) or magic damage. Change Mesmerize into something like a bat's sonic scream as a melee cleave/cone attack that causes ear-splitting bleed (if max stamina is higher) or magic damage and sets all targets hit off-balance, one morph remains the same hitting 360 around you instead of a frontal attack while the other morph gains the stun effect. Eviscerate is fine as the single target power attack, also dealing poison (if max stamina is higher) or magic damage.

The way Vampire passives and skills are setup, they can become more versatile for Stamina or Hybrid builds as well.

Yeah, that’s why I put in a couple of Stam options. But I have a Stam vamp and she’s pretty strong in PVP. Vamp lacks in PVE group play which is why I offered ideas.