Vampire Nerf Discussion

[Whoopin]

Was waiting for someone else to bring up this topic, but you guys are slackin. Many people agree that Vampires skewed race/class/profession balance in many ways. However there is a fine line between nerfing Vamps and gimping them. Use this thread to post your idea(s) to put Vamps in their proper place.

1) Drain damage not greater than how much HPs is missing from maximum.

This idea seems the most viable solution to to all classes and professions across the board... it also doesnt require refining skills. It stems from the sole fact that Vamps tend to use a drain as an opening attack for bonus damage that no other race has available, main reason being is to make sure the recast is up sooner so they can drain again ASAP. This tactic is what truely sets them apart from other races in the DPS department.

Secondly this will force a more tactical use of timing of when to drain, as in to wait until HPs are lower to maximize the damage. This idea can be circumvented by Vamps purposely missing HPs prior to engaging so they can drain decently for an opening attack, however there is more risk involved and truely will not be used too frequently. Finally the AoE drain could be coded to hit all in range with the same value (ie missing 700 HPs, AoE drain everyone for 700).

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2) Decrease drain range from 100 units to ~50-70 units.

One of the first odd balance issues I discovered since thinking that Vampires actually have to bite their target to drain, but for the sake of game balance, point blank range is gimp on a very necessary and interruptable race defining power. 50-70 units will require the Vamp to purposely close the distance when fighting and will in effect hamper kiting. Also draining a flying or wall perched target will be much more difficult (most fliers dont have high HPs and will have to be at the top tier).

However this idea may gimp Vamps for large stack type fights and force them to drain their own guildmates to replenish HPs lost from using powers or damage received. But in most situations there should be a target within range when its needed (Charging Warriors, Barbs, Sentinels, etc. are good examples of primary drain targets).

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3) Add Draining resist prefix/suffix available to shields & jewelry as an option.

Not that great of an idea but its not overpowered. Bleeding damage and most Drains are the only types that cannot be countered by selective resistance equipment. Possibly make the maximum resistance values less than other damage equivalents (making 50+% Drain Resist impossible without stacking every single item with Drain Res). Just realize not everyone will mega stack the Drain Res without gimping themselves VS other targets. Finally the Vamp can always attempt to choose a Drain target they believe has less Drain Res.

This change may or may not affect Confessors, Darksworn, Doomsayers, Furies, Sentinels, Templars, Warlocks, and Wizards. I dont know the answer to that question for proper balance.

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4) Add a 0 range "Vamp Only Stun" component to the "Kick" power.

Some classes that have no Stun can potentially run up to a Vamp and "Kick" them in the teeth to counter a Drain. Most Vamps may want to create a distance buffer or Stun/Powerblock a target to avoid getting "Kick"ed during Drain casting.

Unarmed & Sundancers may be the only exceptions.

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5) Nightstalker Love

If more Nightstalkers were around and can PvP effectively against targets other than just Vamps then that will be an indirect Vamp nerf (just like how Scouts got love and Mage Stealthers got nerfed...btw I remember back in the day when Scouts were at the bottom of the food chain right above Priests but thats a different topic, heh)

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Of course I dont expect all these changes, they are simply some ideas that can be tweaked and pondered to find the right solution. I believe this topic is important to SB's future - please post your ideas/comments/suggestions so we can provide some decent balance options for the Devs to consider.

[_Rake_]

For the drains I'd like to see that no Vampire drain ever tops any profession's main nuke in average damage. Most Vampire mages can drain regularily for 1k+. Not many mage nukers can top that. Now think that the Vampire does not have to debuff. There is no resist to drain damage. Only another Vampire can reduce that drain damage. Vampire drains are 20 train powers, mostly from discipines. Vampires are granted 25 free points into their focus. And, there's an aoe version too!

The huge drains are the biggest issue for me in regards to Vampires. The concept behind the race was to have a different way of playing. This meant using health instead of stamina or mana, and having to use a drain to replenish that spent health. This gave Vampires a much larger "stamina" or "mana" pool than anybody else. Drains should barely be better than the amount of health spent over a period of time. I don't think it's possible to spend 1k+ mana in 10 seconds, so why can a Vampire drain for 1k+ health every 10 seconds?

Make drains uneffected by power damage buffs, including mage stances.

Next, make Feral Fury a scalable power. Next, remove it from Strigoi and place it on Saboteur instead, essentially granting the power to all rogues and reducing the gap between rogues and fighters. Fighters are brute power (high damage). Rogues should be sneaky and able to get through passive defenses.

There's other ideas out there, but I don't have them in front of me at the moment. I'm sure others will continue the discussion though.

[Avarix]

I've voiced this in quite a few threads but i'll repost it. All i believe that needs to be done is the removal of the Vampire discs. After that they are in line with other classes.

Theres no reason one race with superior stat allotment, that doesn't have to worry about stam and mana issues should get the toys and special powers of every other class in the game.

Ghoul and Feral Fury should of never been introduced in the first place.

I would consider advocating a decrease in power to drains, but with no discs it would be quite a point sync to train up bloodcraft to the point of a 1k drain every thirty seconds which i think would be balanced.

[WyvernWulf]

Interesting idea with the potions, but the only down side many will see on that angle is that it forces everyone else to adapt to the overpowered race by rolling, buying and using potions instead of directly looking at the race itself.

Perhaps altering or removing the vampire disciplines would be a good path, or the other suggestions of limiting their drains in conjunction with new prefixes and suffixes on shields and resist jewelry to block drains, a much more permanent defense against vamp drains - however would this also affect any other draining profession like Doomsayers or just vampires? I would rather not see Doomies get hit by any said changes. Or would changing how the drains function with vampires help, such as costing stamina and reducing the returns? That might have an effect on the playstyle and current approach for sure.

Just for the record though I've never played a vampire, never was interested in the playstyle. But I have fought against them many times and agree that they need a change of some kind. SOMETHING, even in some small way, to put them in a more realistic light (or dark if you will:rolleyes: ).

[Jeremor]

I never understood why the Drain has a range at all. To the best of my knowledge, Vampires drain with their fangs, right? So how can they suck your blood if they are half a screen away?

Also, why are vampires the only people to get a useful racial ability? The nephilim 'Bald-guy Transformation' isn't at all useful. It shouldn't be a vampire first, imo. It should be a wizard(Or what have you), that happens to be a vampire. Like every other race. My elf doesn't get any special power that allows him to negate the max amount of damage. He also doesn't get any nukes(drains) if he becomes a scout, just from being an elf.

Hell, I'd be happy if vampires were just removed altogether, but that isn't gonna happen I guess.

[Cohort]

There are spells out there to counter a vampires draining abilities. Only thing that needs to be done is possibly add an aoe version of that spell and maybe give it to another class. Besides half the class's being played have either a holy nuke or a fire nuke, which dessimates a vampire. Also I will say there are other class's that can nuke in the 800-1k range of damage.

[Cools_]

That confessor's drain powerblock is pretty mean. Most fessors think it's stupid and worthless, but it absolutely DESTROYS my vamp mage assassin... and any vamp that relies on huge drains. Vamps are dead super quick if their drains are blocked.

[Alishea]

1-3) you have to remember their are some classes that depend alot on drains to do damage... fessors and specially doomies( which would really be gimper than they are in now) templars have drains as well...vamps have good drains... but vamps also have to use their health in battle to use powers so you can damn near kill yourself by just casting powers. so their is a fine line between using health for powers and losing it due to dam... vamps have to have good drains even if 1 drains misses it kind of screws them. nerfing drains would make them about as a gimp as an r3 mage.

4)i dont really see a point in this

5)making NS better at vamp hunting is probably the best of these suggestions.


i dont know how many of you actually ever played a vamp.... but IMVHO opinion overpowered they are not. they have two forts( unless you gimped yours) magical and melee. if both are gmed you can switch between them as needed. but you cant be resistant to both magical and melee at the same time..( thats why when i lvl with my vamp necro i pick melee only mobs and not ones that cast)

vamps typically have very low con so the fort kicks in at a lower dam. and so they take less. compare vamp and say..... elf mages in battle. and elf mage depends on mana to nuke so until he runs out of mana ( not including your stuns and pbs here) he can still nuke. he remains at full health till he takes dam. a vamp uses health to nuke so he has to drain to get health back to nuke and take more dam. you got a 1200 hp vamp nuking and taking 50-60 dam at a time and it dont take long to kill him. the same goes for vamps of other classes... they dont have the luxury of other classes of running out of mana and stam in a battle from fighting and then be like well im still alive.... vamps run out of juice they are dead.

Vamps are easy to kill you guys just dont do it right. you cant use a barb or a wizzie to kill a vamp( unless used togather then its easy cause they can only run 1 fort). and thats the problem people think my 1200 nuke wizzie does 80 points of dam on that vamp and my 1k a hit barb does 70 pts of dam on that vamp...they are overpowered.... they even do it with a scout....

people you cant take a toon with a dam absorber that only kicks in at a high lvl of dam( 10% of their max so for that 1200 hp necro anything over 120 is going to get dam reduction. ) and say it overpowered cause your barb only hits him for 70 points.instead here is great idea.... get on a dagger chucker or a low dam nuker( assies are good for this) and kill him.

Using a huntress i find vampires to be the squishy toons because i use both melee dam type and magical dam. if your a vamp and you see me ot i dont care how good you think you are... you just better recall now and save yourself some money cause imma be looting your grave in 20 sec of that first arrow hitting you.

huntresses, assassins, nightstalkers, templars, and other melees with casting powers( sents, saders, lates are good but holy is so over used that vamps usually are high resist to holy anyway) are great vamp killers .... just dont bring your cent barb or your wizzie to kill my vamp and youll do great i promise.

[BratsCankill]

Honestly, I haven't read this thread nor do I plan on it. All the posts are too long, and chances are VERY good I've read most of the suggestions before :P

I am going to suggest a change to the drains that I suggested a long time ago and didn't get much response then:

Halve the damage of the vampire drains. However, increase the efficiency of the transfer to 200% efficiency so that the healing power of the drains stays the same, while reducing the actual damage caused.

[_Rake_]

Honestly, I haven't read this thread nor do I plan on it. All the posts are too long, and chances are VERY good I've read most of the suggestions before :P

I am going to suggest a change to the drains that I suggested a long time ago and didn't get much response then:

Halve the damage of the vampire drains. However, increase the efficiency of the transfer to 200% efficiency so that the healing power of the drains stays the same, while reducing the actual damage caused.

Halve the damage but vampires don't need a 1k+ heal every 10 seconds. Nor do they need a 1k+ per hit aoe heal. The damage and the return are both obscene for a discipline/racial power. It overshadows most profession nukes even.

The damage and drain return should just cover the potential spent health over that time. The Belgosch drain should return at most 200 health. The racial drain maybe 500 health max and the Gorgoi drain should do 1k damage TOTAL or have its recast adjusted to about 30 minutes.

[uncphoniex]

I like the idea of making the drains very very short range, ie a biting attack.. i would not mind a vamp mage asn or scout draining me if he had to do it in melee range:)

otherwise yes please half the damage drains do either by making stances/power dam buffs not work or just by halfing the damage. It really is quite stupid that you can drain 1k health every 10 seconds while taking only 10 to 5 % of your health in damage from sources of your choice (except fire and holy)

oh and Back Stab should go through forts

[LeddZeppelin]

now i didn't read the entire thread (only actually the first few posts as i dont really feel like it) but as i scanned through the posts i noticed noone did the math, now ive done it on the doomy boards so i just copy/pasted it

Vamp MA: doesn't need to do anything but drain health and this simulation will show anything a vamp needs to survive

pops out of stealth drains for 1000 with the belg drain - 5 second cast time
stuns for 9 seconds
Vamp racial drain 1000 points of damage - 5 seconds
4 seconds, doesn't do any damage for the sake of this demo
1 second after the stun is up belg drain again another 1000 points of damage - 5 seconds
so in 19 seconds (9 of which the opponent cant attack) the vamp MA does 3000 damage (thats conservative to, ive seen belg go as high as 1200)

Healer doomy: average drain 500 and average 280/tick on the health dot (thats what mine does with 12 int/corruption gear and bard buffs). and this simulation does everything a doomy needs to do to survive...

mana dot -5 seconds 0 damage
health DoT-5 seconds 280 damage
health DD-4 seconds 500 damage
health DD-4 seconds 500 damage
a second after DD starts casting health dot ticks for another 280 damage
4 seconds after other health DD another 500 damage
22 seconds after first attack the doomy does 2060 damage ALL of which the opponent can attack

now this was on my healer neph doomy, and the vamp part of this also applies to ANY mage, its just vamp MAs are the most popular so i used them, and i saw a SS of a vamp mage doing 1500 with belg and something like 1300 with racial drain...

[Cools_]

Vampires are a bad nightmare. Operation cover-up needs to mobilize. Start by deleting all occurances of the word Vampire from both the Shadowbane site and the Chronicle.

Make a nightstalker imo.

[kaanapali]

What if vamp fortitudes were removed? Wouldn't that be a nerf enough? They can still spam powers and fight forever, but they would be squishier. Maybe that and don't grant them any free trains into bloodcraft.

[Soulwanderer]

What if vamp fortitudes were removed? Wouldn't that be a nerf enough? They can still spam powers and fight forever, but they would be squishier. Maybe that and don't grant them any free trains into bloodcraft.


Then instead of seeing all int builds (the only stat that matters to a vamp mage) you'd see int/con builds and vamps with 4K HP.

[BenSBG]

Marker

[kaanapali]

Then instead of seeing all int builds (the only stat that matters to a vamp mage) you'd see int/con builds and vamps with 4K HP.

Great - melee and other casters would have full damage against them, they are now forced to use 2 stats instead of 1, and they still have the uniqueness of using their health for their power cost and draining. Now you have a more balanced but still unique race.

[Whoopin]

1) Drain damage not greater than how much HPs is missing from maximum.

This idea seems the most viable solution to to all classes and professions across the board... it also doesnt require refining skills. It stems from the sole fact that Vamps tend to use a drain as an opening attack for bonus damage that no other race has available, main reason being is to make sure the recast is up sooner so they can drain again ASAP. This tactic is what truely sets them apart from other races in the DPS department.

Secondly this will force a more tactical use of timing of when to drain, as in to wait until HPs are lower to maximize the damage. This idea can be circumvented by Vamps purposely missing HPs prior to engaging so they can drain decently for an opening attack, however there is more risk involved and truely will not be used too frequently. Finally the AoE drain could be coded to hit all in range with the same value (ie missing 700 HPs, AoE drain everyone for 700). I think this concept might have been misinterpreted so I will explain a little further.

Example:
Vampire Mage's Drain damage = 800-1100. If Vamp has 2500 of 3000 HPs then the Drain will cap out at 500 Damage. If the Vamp has 200 Hps, then the Drain will do normal damage 800-1100. In no way did this idea suggest that the Drain would exceed the damage range dictated by the maximum (ie the Drain would NOT be 2800 damage).

This would end the stupid opening bonus damage Vampires use as a crutch. Having a high Bloodcraft will still be useful for ATR and good damage so the Vamp will still be able to replenish lost HPs. The key will be to time the Drain when the Vamp is missing ~800-1100 HPs to maximize it.

Also I like the -50% damage +200% efficiency idea, the true problem with Vamps is the "Bonus Damage" that no other race gets and should be put in check so that Vamp classes use their true profession skills as primary damage just like every other race.

[LionofJudah]

I know this has been brought up probably, but what will nerfing vampires do to the unholy charter on the Lore Server? We have to make sure this doesn't completely hurt that charter from future competitiveness.



Btw, you could lower vamp holy/fire resists to -30 instead, and get rid of fortitudes but instead change them to damage absorbers, such as 3500 damage absorbers. So the absorber still goes down, but its better than the other classes, and vampires are still hurt by fire/holy.

[KenshinDC]

A DA would be an upgrade from a fortitude...

DAs are now far more reliable than any fortitude. It's why on the Necro boards we have templates being posted that work around the Necro DA instead of fortitudes for Vamps.

Not to mention, a 3500 DA for 20 points would be so messed up. Shoot.. I still go to noob isle with my Fessor BoTs measly 720 damage DA and it doesn't go down for quite some time even against Giant Rats in the bog on Mourning or on Test server while hanging out in the snow orc tent.

[_Rake_]

I know this has been brought up probably, but what will nerfing vampires do to the unholy charter on the Lore Server? We have to make sure this doesn't completely hurt that charter from future competitiveness.

Nerfing vampires will allow that charter to be balanced properly, with bards.

I'll repeat:

1. Make fortitudes breakable and reduce the types of damage they work with.
2. Make vampire drains unaffected by power damage and reduce the damage, especially on the minimum end.
3. Move Feral Fury to the Saboteur discipline and make it scale from 10 second duration to 30 second duration (0-20 trains) with a 60 second recast.
4. Remove Ghoul Form.
5. Adjust fire and holy resistances to -30 each.
6. Grant The Lesser Kiss with 20 trains.

[Soulwanderer]

There's already a lot of solid fixes to the vampire race in here, but I have my own thoughts on them.

The problems in advantages that vamps have are primarily with mages and rogues. Vamp Warrior's are solid for some things, but not the best at much. In regard to the drains being overpowering, just reduce the top end by 25% and the bottom end by 50%. This will only lower their max down to 900ish (assuming roughly 1200 is the average max on most buffed vamps), but it will also spread their possible range of drains out a bit. Currently they're guarenteed a major hit every time. As well, Belgosch's Crimson Feast needs to go to a 15 second recast timer. Those changes will allow vamp mages to still be unique and useful, but require them to use their class based spells as well.

Second, raise the amount of damage let in by forts from 5% to 10% (or, if I have the numbers wrong, just double it from what it is currently). This thing is supposed to help them survive, not make them immune from certain classes.

Also, FF is the single most overpowered ability in the game. 1 train negates up to 260+ (dual spiked passives). That is just retarded. This one needs to change, or better yet, just go out of the window and not be replaced with anything. There are already more than enough advantages of going vamp. It's almost like a second class option rather than just a base race.

Lastly, give some love to Mage Assassins. I know that one sounds odd, but I gave a godly int MA a try recently and Shadowbolt just doesn't compare to what it used to be. There's no chance a MA is taking down or even hurting a fighter base much, and even against healers, with as much cold res as there is around from SoS and charmed gear, the assassin seems to have been left behind other mages. I mean damn... they get no DA, no track, and no run speed buff. They're supposed to accept being that squishie for the ability to drop a single target fast, and the new wizzies do it better imo. The reason this one has to do with vamps is that you pretty much only see vamp MA's anymore (and good lord are they plentiful). Allow them to be useful as other races and at least some players would play them that way.

[LeddZeppelin]

a 900 point drain is still TO MUCH, it shouldn't be a nuke, it should be a heal, why not just make it a 200 point drain with 500% effieciency... there it heals for the same amount as it does now but is ALOT more balanced, and wont be used as the most powerful nuke in the game, being able to drain evey 10 seconds for an unresistable 1000+... how is that not overpowered...

[Avarix]

The amount that is healed back is just as big a problem as how much it does in the first place.

[Kargrym]

Up vampire healing resist. Give vampires a constant health ticker, that slowly removes life. Call it the Vampires Thirst, so that they must almost constantly be draining mobs and people in order to stay at full health. That makes long distance travels with low con builds require to stop and drain a mob, or get healed a lot in order to go into a fight fully ready. Sit in town afk on a vamp and you die from thirst.

[BratsCankill]

Up vampire healing resist. Give vampires a constant health ticker, that slowly removes life. Call it the Vampires Thirst, so that they must almost constantly be draining mobs and people in order to stay at full health. That makes long distance travels with low con builds require to stop and drain a mob, or get healed a lot in order to go into a fight fully ready. Sit in town afk on a vamp and you die from thirst.

If there were mobs outside the zones then this would be possible, but because there aren't it's not even feasible.

What's the point, anyway? To annoy vampire players into not playing vampires? That's not quite the solution we need.

[_VEGAS_]

The only nerf that is needed for vampires, is to wake up one day and have them all mysteriously erased from the world. Make up some Lore aspect for it (any will do) and remove vampires. I'd rather play a lizardman race anyway.

[KenshinDC]

I like a lot of the suggestions with Vampires... Some of them are more adequate to original Vampire lore than others. That's the way I would like to see SBG take it since Vampire lore in its essence has always had significance to an ample amount of people including myself since Vampires are my most favorite monster in any horror film... So, things about Vampires from original lore that need to be taken into consideration:

Vampires are thirsty for blood and need it else they become weak

Possible tweak(s):
Offensively, drains are reduced by 50% lower damage and add a small debuff to health/mana/sta recovery that lasts for 30 seconds but is flagged as a bleed/disease so that it can be dispelled by a simple heal that is Level 20 (includes Rune Caster, Blood Prophet, Shroudbourne... Basically any disc that grants a heal can dispel it and any person that has a heal trained up to 20 can dispel it). This is because when bitten by a vampire, you are drained of blood and blood loss can cause you to pass out and be utterly weak, but I believe a stat debuff would be over-the-top which is why I wouldn't want to add stats to the debuff... Health/Mana/Sta is already enough and this would further contribute to helping balance the current Health regen fad, slowing down powerful hybrids like the Templar, and the Sta recovery one would just follow the health/mana as a required lore consistancy effect. This debuff would also be flagged as a single effect and would not stack with any higher health/mana/sta recovery debuffs.

Defensively, drains will restore health as usual but just as their target is debuffed, Vampires become buffed for 5 minutes to particular areas based upon the Vamp drain they are using... Such as, Lesser Kiss (Level 1 NPC health drain) will grant 40% to 100% Health and Stamina Regen to the caster. It will not stack with any other health/sta regen. Vampire's Kiss (Level 20 PC health drain) will grant +5 to +20 to Str/Dex/Con. It will not stack with Huntress buffs but will with Priest buffs. Blood is the Life (Gorgoi Drain) and Crimson Feast (Belgoshe Drain) will not grant any additional benefits other than being able to health/mana/sta debuff people since Crimson Feast is fast cast thus more effective at debuffing and Blood is the Life is an AoE health drain and thus can hit a large number of targets.


Vampires drink blood to sustain life and cannot drink every drop from their victim nor can they drink blood from the dead without suffering harm.

Possible Tweak(s):
Vamp drain damage will further be restricted based upon the amount of health missing from the Vampire at the time. Also, if a Vampire drains a target and the target dies from that drain... Any additional damage done over the HP of the dead will be transverted back to the Vampire (If a target has 200 HP and a Vampire drains 600 HP... 400 damage is taken by the Vampire) and the Vampire is then debuffed to Health/Mana/Sta like its victim was supposed to be. Finally, Vampires cannot drain undead monsters including Oblivion mobs and other Vampires. This will force Vampires to be much more careful with their drains especially in GvG situations... I mean.. A Gorgoi AoE Drain could potentially kill them if they get a KS on two or more people.

Furthermore, since the traditional way of drinking blood is to bite... All drains will be made melee range to limit their usage. Though, Belgoshe and Gorgoi drains will have their range just shortened since they are mage disciplines. Thus powerful mages have the ability to seep the very blood from your veins with their vast and terrible power. Gorgoi can also fly as well meaning their drain would be more convienent and thus should be kept as a ranged drain only have the range reduced. This way, Mages will have to be in melee range if they wish to actually use both of their drains instead of just their disc one.


Vampires cannot handle UV light, holy relics, fire, or garlic.

Possible Tweak(s):
To help weaken Vampires power aside from just drains... I wish to augment their weaknesses. The biggest and hardest one I could think in terms of coding would be Vampires suffering an additional -20% to Fire/Holy while anywhere in the world besides Oblivion/Chaos. This is because the sun will reach everywhere except those two areas and we do not have an in-game time changes that are accelerated to make it more situational than RL standards which would affect Europeans/Americans/Asians playing together in different time zones. But, in addition, Vampires will lose their -20% resistance penalty to Holy/Fire while on Oblivion/Chaos. The idea for coding this would be to make a large area spire effect that engulfs Oblivion and Chaos and only affects Vampires. Though, this is more or less just a suggested fix to more closely abide by lore and may be a lot more work than what it is worth. I'm just trying to support my lore theory in a creative way despite there being no real way to implement all of their weaknesses in-game. Another idea is to make it where they cannot be within certain range of a Temple of Cleansing Flame, Church of the All-Father, Priest trainer, Fessor Trainer, Nightstalker Trainer, Temple Trainer, Prelate Trainer, Sentinel Trainer, or Crusader trainer without having a debuff to Health/Passive Def/ATK/Def. More trouble than what it's worth, but it would be fun lore restriction IMO.


Vampires are stronger and much more immune to damage than a lot of living things.

The single coolest thing about Vampires is their Fortitudes cause Vampires should be able to survive a lot longer than anything that is living cause it is already dead. Though, I think the fortitudes themselves need a bit of work in terms of their function. Also, by nerfing Vampires in their drains and augmenting their weaknesses, this is the one area I feel free to improve on in order to help balance it since Fortitudes are buffs and situational due to Nightstalkers being around.

Level 1 Fortitudes should stack with disc fortitudes. Omgawd overpowered right? Not quite... You see... Fortitudes themselves have resistances heavily involved with them. When a melee does a GM expose on a Vampire, if they go into negative slashing/crushing/pierce resist then that % damage is added back on to the damage since resistances come in after fortitude. This is why you can see Vamp Mages still being hit by 2handed toons for 350 - 450 damage even with their fortitude up if they did not train their shielding and wear no resist clothe. This way, once a fortitude kicks in, it will further reduce melee damage by an additional 50% of 50% if there are melee resists on the disc fort and then they also have their elemental/magic/mental/etc. fort to further protect them. But, like I said, this is not overpowered because resistances still play a big role in the way fortitudes work. So if a Vamp doesn't have decent resists.. It's still in trouble especially if debuffed into negative resist. Also, if Nightstalkers were given a bit of love and more people played them... You wouldn't even have to worry much about forts so it is definately conditional.

Finally, yes Vamps can resist damage better than others... But taking off their head, staking them through the heart, etc. It's still possible to do with any weapon... Therefore, I suggest that fortitude have a 5% chance (like a proc) to fail kicking in at damage cap meaning the Vamp will take full damage. If people get angry about this due to loving their low con builds... I'm sorry. Vampires are not required to train spirit and thus I see no reason why anyone would want to make a High Dex/High Int character as opposed to just a High Int/High Con or High Dex/High Con character and have a 4 k HP mage or 5 k HP rogue. Especially when Holy/Fire is going to destroy you if hit once by either as a low con build. But once again, 5% is a gamble just like procs... Therefore, people can still make low con builds if they wish to gamble. But always have it in the back of their mind that a hit can get through while people that go high con have to deal with the fact that the damage they take will be slightly higher. Finding a balance between the two would be a real challenge and be much more fun for players.


That's about all I have time to come up with since I have to leave in an hour for Tennessee. Oh ya... One last thing, Feral Fury on Strigoi should have never been made. Yes Vampires have super human reflexes and senses, but this doesn't mean that 1 train into a disc should allow Rogues to completely bypass passive def. So, either Feral Fury should have a 5 to 10 minute recast like Valkyr (since Valkyr basically destroys all def in the game) with a longer duration... Or they need to keep it the same but making it a passive def debuff of 30% to 50% from 1 to 20.

EDIT: **Forgot to say that a lot of these changes not only balance Vampires, but overpowered melees as well.**

Thanks

[Soulwanderer]

a 900 point drain is still TO MUCH, it shouldn't be a nuke, it should be a heal, why not just make it a 200 point drain with 500% effieciency... there it heals for the same amount as it does now but is ALOT more balanced, and wont be used as the most powerful nuke in the game, being able to drain evey 10 seconds for an unresistable 1000+... how is that not overpowered...


I said 900 max while opening up the average damage by a lot. For instance, if a vamp would normally have a max of 1200 and a low end of 900, that equals a 1050 average drain. With what I proposed, they'd have a max of 900 and a base of 450, which would be a 675 average drain. Obviously those numbers aren't concrete, but the idea behind them is sound.

[__Pyn__]

The whole health-instead-of-stam/mana thing for powers has to go imo. It's what puts vamp rogues completely out-of-whack against other rogues who have to manage stamina. Likewise against mages there's no need for a vamp to run HR and wear HR gear; they can just drain it back. Of course making vamp powers stam/mana based would remove a weakness that they currently have as well but that's less of a problem than the lack of a need to manage pools imho.

The second thing is the belgosch drain. A vamp mage with belgosch is essentially a drain profession in of itself. Whatever actual profession that they promoted to merely provides secondary capabilities to getting the drain off every 10 seconds so yeah, drain range and/or recycle time and/or damage should be changed.

The forts are fine as they stand. They can be easily worked around by skillful players.