[Irene]

As someone who absolutely loves playing Vampire, it saddens me to see them so weak. It is not a matter of stats, no; it is them being so outdated, that they absolutely cannot fit into this sustain-based meta, where nearly everyone has some form of reliable sustain, and even those without built-in sustain can, for the cheap price of a hundred to two-hundred murai, buy PR in order to heal more than a Vampire ever could. It saddens me to see Fasting Vampire being a requirement for serious PvP. It saddens me to see them not excel in even 1v1's, where they supposedly shine most, as many players tend to say.

It is a matter of sustain, and there are three ways to fix this.

1) - PR effectiveness is halved with longer cooldown, or nerfed to only twenty-five percent of its current power.
Believe me when I say it's absolutely demoralizing to see someone heal for 500 with a single PR.

- Graft is nerfed.
80/85/90/95/100% Light ATK, 100% Scaled WPN ATK to 60/65/70/75/80% Light ATK, 90% Scaled WPN ATK.

- Phoenix is nerfed. Not only is it an AoE revive, but it's incredibly braindead and heals for a ridiculous amount of HP.
80/90/100/110/120% Light ATK to 60/65/70/75/80% Light ATK

-The healing that comes from Needle is reduced by half.

These nerfs seem ridiculous.
Yes.
But they are deserved. Priests and LBs should have to think as well. They should not be able to have infinite sustain. Not everybody has Interference, and let's not forget that there are LB supports who run initiative just to give immunity to interference, allowing for unhealthy, unbalanced teamfights, where a team can heal infinitely so long as they came prepared for the fight. This should not be a thing. Heavy damage should be able to keep up with heals. Heals and sustain should be able to be countered just as much as other races and classes can. They shouldn't be the only deciding factor in teamfights and most one-on-ones alike.

Even Burst damage cannot deal with healing, most of the time, because of the intensity heals have.





2) - Interference becomes more common.

This one's simple.

Give us a reliable way to apply Interference. An item, maybe. I do not know. Not everyone is a MG, Evoker, Hexer or LB.

Again, even if such an item existed, Priests and LBs would still have little trouble in organized teamfights. They would become actual supports, unable to crush one-on-ones anymore purely based on sustain alone. Currently, one can build like a 'Support' and still be incredibly oppressive in every form of PvP, not to mention utterly unfun and frustrating to play against. It isn't fun. There are many oppressive things in this game, but none demoralize you and take away your motivation to bother with PvP more than the absolutely ugly sustain.





3) - Silvermists are changed, and Banquet is buffed.

Vampires need some sustain. They feel incredibly outdated. Like they were meant for so many different things, but manage to do none of them.

Instead of converting 33% of your Essence, it should cost 20% of your Essence, and heal for 200% of your current Essence (e.g. if you have 200 Essence on you, heal 400.)

You abandon precious stats you've spent SAN on, stats that Kaelensians can get on a superior scale without trading them for sustain, in order to heal a measly 200 HP (assuming you run 52 SAN, which is anything but SP-efficient compared to running 40 SAN) because you cannot use healing items and cannot heal through even the likes of Disengage and Rebound. Hell, even Huggessoan Magic doesn't heal Vampires, with Huggessoa as their Patron God, at full effectiveness.

Banquet Hit modifiers is changed. Instead of debuffing one's hit. .
- Strike with your base hit up-front.
- Gain +15 hit from the sides.
- Gain +30 hit from behind.

This is a heavy, heavy, HEAVY buff in the form of a change, but it is the only way that vampires can keep up with this sustain, and even if these changes were made, it'd still be weaker than the sustain available to every single other race bar for Dullahans, though Dullahans make up for it with insane base stats and immunity.
Vampires would STILL be bad in drawn-out teamfights -- practically, most organized teamfights. That's a given. They would at least shine more in one-on-ones, however.

Again, this is if the unhealthy sustain remains the same, for some reason. Many other people want sustain nerfed in some form. I personally only want Vampires to be playable, or reworked in some way.


These are suggestions for the most part.
Feel free to comment out suggestions of your own, and let's pray that Dev sees this.



tl;dr nerf this sustain shit already they hit u 200000 damage five times priest jutsu rasenshuriken senbon of the mercala like haku then heal for equal amount, beat u in 1v1 by pressing one button graft graft needle needle graft needle graft sanctuary needle graft needle graft sanctuary, do 4k turbofist damage to vampire from timbuktu, only way to beat priest teams is to have a bumrush team of ur own and pray that u got enough damage to end it round 0 to 1 and that u got more stupid high initiative than their full tank + faith priest or LB or their full mobility + initiative + faith-only LB or priest or both of them who gives everyone interference immunity, PR pots are sold like warm bread and everyone runs like 2 or 3 pr pots in their item belt to heal themselves better than even mercala herself can heal u

[WaifuApple]

Any buff to vampires is a buff I unfortunately cannot get behind, because Vampires are not a terrible race. Far from - in fact, they're really good. One of quite a few common classes you'll see around this game. To make them even better is a terrible idea. With that in mind, I have no faith in option 3 being healthy for the game, and would like to say that I would never under any circumstances recommend it. The healing problem is not solely about vampires, and should never be made just about them. Not for a healthy game, that is.

Number 2, I also cannot recommend. Interference is like silence as one of those things that, like silence, can make someone feel worthless - and healers often have to deal with both. Interference being as common as it is now seems fine to me, and I wouldn't want to tip the balance. Besides, that wouldn't stop immunity anyway, and things would probably carry on as normal.

Now, for number 1, however: Healing could, indeed, come down a bit in scaling. I cannot say I have any opinion on the numbers provided, for I can't really tell what that would look like in game - but someone more experienced could likely be able to tell whether a better number could be suggested. On the part of PR-His, though, I'd like to see them keep their effectiveness, or take a hit not as substantial as literally halving it (because that would just make the item a little bit... eh, really) but have a cooldown that makes it so that in the space of a "normal" battle, they're unlikely to see use more than once. A ten turn cooldown or something like that.

I'd like to then propose another idea, to deal with the issue of literal immunity from lantern bearers. That could, in fact, just give them a certain amount of status resistance to a certain element (a large amount, still) but allow for the possibility of at least a chance that you can break through. A healer with its weaknesses patched up against most people solely by itself seems like it shouldn't exist.

[Mewni]

I can't get behind those changes either, i'm sorry you are under the impression Vampires should be raid bosses like you said at SL2 discord, but that is definitely not the case and not mentioned anywhere.
I know i know...your favorite race has one downside but like in all races, learn to play with their positives instead of trying to change all the negatives that makes up for it.

[MakeshiftWalrus]

While I agree with Mewni and Apple that the Vampire race doesn't need any major overhaul, it's by far not as powerful as they make it out to be, for two huge reasons:

The healing penalty will utterly cripple you in a team-fight, which, almost all important fights are going to be. Even regardless of the healing penalty, their strongest suit, which is one-on-ones can be determined just as easily by someone slapping on a holy weapon. Much more so if they're packing potions, or other forms of sustain.

I don't think these weaknesses warrants a major change to the race, because it isn't the worst race, but I do think it warrants for a couple of exceptions in terms of sustain. Things that would make sense for a Vampire to have, despite their race.

I made a previous post here about one such exception, but I'll be going over a couple here as well:
https://www.neus-projects.net/viewtopic....amp;t=7387

The post is specifically about Rebound, but I agree with Chaos and GSM in it, who mentions they should receive full healing from sources not pertaining to Mercana, or other light-based sources.

Things like:
-Rebound
-Disengage
-Tenacity
-Meditate
-Aid
-Ingrain
-First Aid
-Black Elixir
-Stability (The trait)
-Avalon (The enchant)(Although this one I could see as a little iffy)

I might have missed a couple along the way, but you get the gist.

Like Irene said, Vampires are outdated, so I think a change to these skills would serve to bring them back to consideration for serious RP-PvP.

[Autumn]

While I do think PR-Hi needs to changed, I'd like to support Mark's post for the most part, those forms of healing other than maybe Avalon would suit vampires better imo.

I also think Bright Darkness should be changed to its previous iteration, it served as a safeguard to holy, but not completely while also preventing it from used with spirits. But currently its overshadowed by Fasting Vampire (Which prevents holy's effects completely but leaves you at 0 essence, Bright darkness doesn't fulfill its purpose well enough to justify using over Fasting Vampire.)

I wanna say ahead of time that nerfing healing is not the way to go, other than PR-Hi Potion restoring upwards to 1400 HP on abusive cases, healers will feel worthless if they cannot actually heal for an effective amount, leaving them as a glorified mage slot.

[Fern]

I don't agree with nerfing healing or PR-His, but I agree with vampires needing these healing sources enabled for them:

Things like:
-Rebound
-Disengage
-Tenacity
-Meditate
-Aid
-Ingrain
-First Aid
-Black Elixir
-Stability (The trait)
-Avalon (The enchant)(Although this one I could see as a little iffy)

I might have missed a couple along the way, but you get the gist.

I'm also aware that Dev feels like Vampires tip-toe between the overpowered line, though I'm certain that this won't get out of hand if there are some more healings that are allowed for them. They're already pretty easy to blow up with Holy weapons and this comes from someone that runs Holy often.

Though, I don't think Avalon should be working with Vampires personally, if only because of what the enchant implies.

[Irene]

In regards to Mewni and Waifu's posts.

I do not want Vampires to be raidbosses.
In PvP of any decent level, everything is decided by whether your enemy has sustain/holy weapon or not. Vampires are far too easily countered. This is true.

They are certainly not a strong race.
No, they do not have the strengths other races do. You cannot play around their flaws, because twenty-five percent healing from all sources, including Disengage, Rebound, and even Huggessoan magic, is impossible to PvP with, and this is especially so in teamfights, but can also count in 1v1's, where should one not possess interference, the fight (between two competent people) is decided by sustain for the most part.

I do not care for spars. Sparring is not a serious fight. To have a race only be strong in spars -- and even then, there are much better options than vampire -- is bad design, and I'm a hundred percent sure this is not what Dev meant for Vampires to be.

You can get countered by far too many things as a Vampire. Seeing Holy in a fight is now common, if you've been bothering to keep up with people's recent builds.
I can play any other race and play to its strengths well.
Vampire has no such thing, because whatever strengths it may have is utterly overshadowed by their lack of sustain, which is one of the -- if not the -- most important thing(s) in this game when it comes to PvP, except in the very specific situation where one of the teams is attempting a bumrush strategy. Though even then, sustain can save you.

I have given many different suggestions in the case that people don't agree with them. Vampire is clearly outdated, as Mark and many others agree.

As for Spo's comment, I will follow your words and suggest that PR-His should be capped to 500 HP, if only because you've far more experience than me when it comes to PvP. As a Ghost player myself, I've tested it out and noticed that you can, indeed, heal for an incredibly ridiculous amount.

In a world where PR-His are easy to come by, Vampires do not fit in. I do not ask for them to be raidbosses.
I ask for them to be playable.
It isn't as if their stat buffs are that oppressive. Any competent Dullahan/Kaelensian can outstat them, and they get far too many weaknesses for playing to their race. As it is now, you are practically forced to be a Fasting Vampire in order to perform in serious, high-level PvP, where both sides are out for each-other and the outcome will affect your IC, and even if you were to rely on teammates for protection, you are still, by no means, as good of a support as other races can be.

In one-on-ones, you can get destroyed by Holy or Sustain.
In teamfights, you either get outsustained or the fight probably ended the first three turns with one side's victory.

Trust me when I say this.
I enjoy having a Light weakness.
I enjoy having a Holy weakness.
I enjoy running 52 SAN builds for the hell of it.
Because they fit the thematic.

But it just doesn't work out anymore. It's a very outdated idea.

There are other ways you could make Vampires fit the thematic even better, without crippling them so much.
Not even Spirit Pain heals me on my Vampire, and it's Huggessoan magic.
Rebound doesn't, either, even if it's blood magic and I live off blood.
Disengage doesn't, either, and it's literally just jumping back and magically restoring HP. I don't think that's Mercana or Light magic.

Life Drain does, yes, but in a serious PvP fight, let's be honest; you seldom get that off, and it usually doesn't work out as well as you'd think it would.

There should be a cap, a limit, a nerf of some sorts, to Healing.
That, or Vampires should have a reliable way to sustain themselves. Silvermists is a joke, and you're better off not using it at all in the majority of fights, if only to try and blow your enemy up faster than they can sustain, because the stats you'll lose from having relied on SAN and using Silvermists, thus draining precious Essence and losing out on an insane amount of stats, will eventually end up biting you in the ass.

My apologies, Mewni, but you either definitely didn't read all I've said, or you don't PvP that much to see how frail Vampire weaknesses make them in comparison to the majority of other races.

Sustain is a must, because every race -- Dullahan included, for they benefit from Mercana along with insane stats -- has some form of it, and it's insanely strong as it is now, where a PR pot can heal you for 700+ or, as Spo said, in rarer cases, 1000+. I would even list you characters that can do this right now, but I don't wish to call anyone out on their build/strategy etc.

I agree that Vampire should be able to sustain off sources that aren't Mercana.
At the same time, it still wouldn't be enough, purely because you can heal a ridiculous amount of HP with PR pots, and those sustain sources that aren't Mercana also definitely aren't that strong.


TL;DR

- If it's decided that Vampires shouldn't use PR pots, then Silvermists needs some form of buff.

- Vampires should be able to sustain from non-Mercana healing regardless of the above.

- PR Pots should be capped at around 500 HP. You can literally heal 700+ with a PR pot or, in rarer cases, 1000+. ALL of my characters heal 600+ from a single PR, bar for my Vampires. Colby, one of my Ghosts, can heal up to 1000 or so.

- Bright Darkness needs a minor buff or, as Spo said, changed to its previous iteration.



God knows how much I tried to design a Vampire teamcomp that works in PvP only to then turn towards the easier options and rely on sustain anyway because I didn't want to do a bumrush comp.
1v1's don't work either because there's just turbofist 509300 damage Holy kek, yet that's where they're supposed to shine most.

No, I do not want to be limited to fighting in spars.
Trust me when I say I've spent literal days' worth of hours in an attempt to find a way to make up for these weaknesses.

[Snake]

Make Bright Darkness reduce Holy's effects by 50% and make a Vampire's Healing Penalty % equal to (20% + Scaled SAN) by default. (Or alternatively, interact with how much Essence you have at the moment. The more essence, the bigger penalty.)

This proposal's always been my favorite because it makes it optional if you want power at the exchange of sustain, or vice versa. Vampires have taken a hard L since the day they got an update.

Sure it's fine to hate them because they can be busted. I also hate them and their bonuses as much as any sane person with a fairly normal race would be. But the healing penalties is like a SCP containment cell that limits them from being a part of more serious situations, or situations of group, which are where most of SL2's fun lies.

In a summary, Vampires are now fun to play against, but not to play as. Because 90% of the time you'll be shafting them by just drinking a potion or using a Graft, and it's laughable.

[Irene]

I think it should be less, tbh.

It's mainly just the fact that you really don't get that much power by building SAN. It comes with more bad than good.

Edit: I think 10% + Scaled SAN is better, tbh, but your suggestion's also fine.

I believe the Essence-scaling thing is better than that.

Vampires should still be able to heal from non-Light and non-Mercalan sources, though.

[Perdition]

I think vampires, while they are outdated and could use a touch-up in regards to their relationship with (non-Mercalan) healing, are just the symptom of a bigger problem. PR-his, and most likely priests, should definitely be looked at.

Anywhere that you allow players the options to choose things specific to their setup, like traits, talents, and slots on your item belt, it becomes very problematic if there are certain things that are on the level of "why wouldn't you take this?"

That's where PR-his are. There's almost no real reason to not take one outside of game mechanic restraints. It effectively 'locks' you out of one of those slots that you're 'choosing' what item to bring with you in combat. This is the bigger issue to me because, while you might be able to make a race with a thematic reduced effectiveness in regards to healing, it's far too crippling than it normally would be if every other race didn't have access to absurd amounts of healing in their back pocket at all times.

The issue is only exacerbated when it comes to priests. If you couple those heals together it becomes downright obnoxious. As has been mentioned previously, interference should be slightly more commonplace, either that, or look at the scaling on suspect heals from Priest. Hell, even if interference is sprinkled about more, many times a Priest will have some ungodly amount of status resist, upwards of 200. Good luck sticking that on them outside of stuff like MG or Black Bolt.

But ultimately, vampires are the main focus of the topic, to which I would say that the above suggestion of letting non Mercala heal sources be fully effective on them would go a long way in making vampires feel better to play. Meaningful weaknesses are one thing, but when they're so debilitating to the point where you're 'countered' just by things players are more or less expected to carry on them at all times, these weaknesses need to be looked at differently.

As an aside, I speak all of this from the point of view of someone that plays priest quite a bit and sees full well just how stupid healing makes battles in this game.