I would like to see them switch to a theme with a lot of stealth abilities and charm like mechanics @kalasle @free20play @Thbigchief @potatonuts What would you all like to see for vamps ? I made this thread because I didn't wanna clutter the whole non-client non-balance thread with the talk of vamps, I figured we could get a list of ideas and send them over to sok, rather than cluttering up his thread.
flavorful in form themes of cleanse. maybe a vampyre support who sacrifices health to cleanse other vamps in aoe? (only usable after landing 1 or 2 attacks a turn but it'd have life siphon or drain and the ability would cost 0 to 1 ap?) and a new in combat based cleansing after landing multiple attacks on the same unit? ( would cleanse the skill holder and the nearest vamp to it) would work best on ranged but that might be too strong so we could give it only to mobile melee with lowish dmg,multiattack and good at staying alive? also a vampyre designed around tanking and aggro. some ways to increase their def or more survivability tools. ( defender in vamps would be nice but maybe too cookie cutter and boring) i'm thinking maybe of a vampyre spell or ability that would increase all vamps defense the lower their health is. (similar to tales of valor) fw variants of bloodgoyle or blood abhorrent or make them split and give them race vampyre. and a vampyre with detection? i know vamps have blood tracker and dark ravens and elder bloodbinder if she takes dark raven form but a proper stealth detector would be nice. i'm thinking of a stealth detecting melee vampyre with dark raven form and maybe another transformation skill that turns him into a wolf? he could be really fast like 8 speed but have low health and damage. also a vampyre that sacrifices health to create weaker then normal bloodballs around him or at a targeted location. ( the bloodballs could be worth like 1,2 or 3 health) and to tie with the above vamp we could give more vamps teleport blood ball or have that same vamp give all vamps in play teleport blood ball.
about that vamp tank i think something new and interesting would be nice. rather then a tank that tanks through def like all the others. how about a new type of tank. that tanks through drain and health regen? ( stitched first doesn't count ) this new vamp tank could have regen 3, enlightened,drain 2, spontaneous regen,siphoning aura, soul channeling, and antagonize, 6 speed ,4 or 6 dmg, between 55 and 65 health. all while having 0 defense. (if his cost ended up being too much we could place some neg skills on him) do you guys think this would be interesting?
I'm kind of working on a more complete list of upgrade suggestions for vamps atm but the gist of it is more utility and mitigation. Stuff like Charm, Fear, Invigorate, Deflect, Hex, Void Shield, Scrapper, Evasive, Reflexes etc etc. Cleanse is a big requirement for them but keeping it in theme is kinda tricky, I think Cleansing Flame is the best bet but fire isn't their thing at all. Maybe something Vampyre specific like; Blood Cleanse - Target champion is cleansed but loses 6-10hp and a bloodball worth 3-5hp is created in an adjacent space (Wasn't sure on the numbers.).
- Stealth and Charm is definitely an archetype for vampires that is familiar for people. I'm cool with it and I think its interesting but first we have to discuss if that's what "pox" vampyres do or if that's what we want them to do? Obviously the rare "vampyre" used to be that guy but he got revamped too. If we are in agreement that they are charmy stealthy...then we should consider vaporize mechanics as well or shapeshift. - As I mentioned in the other thread I love stealth mechanics and have made several deck iterations trying to maximize this to mixed results. The major problem is that before you can balance stealth it has to work as it's intended. The specific issue being stealth as a function of DMZ or resolving at the end of turns (for those not familiar if a champ has hidden: dmz it triggers at the end of the turn which is fine but does not register dmz that arrives on the champ or grows under the champ during the turn). Blood bind also has an interaction with DMZ so either we need to remove all DMZ stuff or fix it. Then we can get into real issues beyond that being detection vs stealth etc. - So for now I think if vamps are to utilize stealth then it has to go with the current forms of stealth that are more reliable. I think a "bloodball" form of fading light would be good skills to consider. Fading light works with nora globes simply make an ability called "Sanguine camouflage" and make it work the same but with blood balls triggering the stealth condition. - Some obvious things to slide around are bloodseeker, teleport: bloodball and existing abilities like bleed/blood knowledge/blood magic/bloodpsurt etc need some streamlining but can be splashed around in some creative ways on current vamps to flesh them out. Abilities like bloodseeeker/bloodtracker/hunter:bloodied are perfect the way they are. - As for charm, there are some skills to think about like abash/psychic magnetism/fascinate/siren's song/charm ..... Hunter:charmed could be a thing? - I also want some abilities triggered by the bloodied condition. This champion gains Rend/lifedrinker/latch on/comb0 attack: rend/drain etc.
I mentioned in the other thread that I think Vampyres are FW's best and possibly only choice for a strong early theme, with the right changes they could be hard to bully early and do well in the late game becasue of their sustain and FW etc. I wouldn't lose my Bane Shift over a couple more stealthy vamps but I'd much rather see Spirits stay as the stealth theme so vamps can be their own thing. Abash/Psychic magnetism would definitely be cool btw, hadn't thought of those.
I made a suggestion about a blood cleanse in another thread, I can't seem to find it though. The concept was an aoe type cleanse for all vamps within 3 spaces or something.
- Yes so now we got a good convo going... do we feel spirits should be the stealth/vaporizers and let vamps bleed/lifestealers ? Good debate that I think people should focus on first.
1) I love stealth and I love charm for vamps, vaporize and shape shift gets too much in the spirit category in my opinion. Unless they are shape shifting into bats. 2)Agreed that hidden dmz needs fixed, in it's current form it's a worthless ability. I'd like the concept of blood ball fading light if I didn't think it would become broken with every vamp being stealthed and splits. 3) I don't like the idea of pushing further into the blood theme, the reason vamps now are so weak is because of them being pulled in so many directions. Bleed is basically a ud ability and concept that actually fits ud better in my opinion. 4) I would love charm, abash, hinting towards vamps using their grace and what not compared to all out power. 5) Again I don't wanna lean so much towards the bleed concept, it's already pretty well fleshed out and was super competitive when abhorrent came out, but then was nerfed into oblivion. I could see certain fw vamps having bleed options for splits with ud, but I wouldn't want vamps as a whole revolving around the bleed aspect. Some good points here though and I agree with most of it.
- I love the idea of a cleanse that is unique. Like vamps could transfer negative conditions by attacking enemies like STD's!! jk but I stand by it being cool...blood passed negative conditions.
Also would love to see some vamps with masochism, the ability itself just seems so fitting for vamps.
http://forums.poxnora.com/index.php...-they-suck-can-we-fix-them.23443/#post-321645 Some old thoughts I had on vamps, I had a better thread a while back but can't seem to find it. See if you guys like any of those ideas at all. Also potato started that thread, I just threw in some suggestions.
thats a good idea also but i feel like it'd also fit in with goblins and maybe imps if they ever get a future expansion expanding upon them.
I'm concerned with this also but that also leads me to think that we should leave the stealth option alone for the moment. I think it would be best if we could focus on the weakest elements of the theme first and see where that gets us, assess which champions need changing and why and which don't before we get carried away throwing abilities at stuff.
same here i don't mind more vampyres having stealth but i wouldn't turn them into a full on stealth theme.
Cool, so it might be easier to actually decide which vampyres are okay now and then we will know which ones we need to focus on. As of right now their are more vamps that need "revamped" than vamps that are okay. What vamps do you think are currently viable ?
As of now here is my list of vamps that are okay in my opinion bloodtracker demonologist is okay but a little all over the place tomb raider golden lamia banshee if she got a bit cheaper with mindwipe =) Also think it might be smart if we made all the naria fw/ud, it will take away from a whole expansion for k'thir but let's be real it didn't really make sense for them to be vamps to begin with. Essentially it pulled vamps into 3 factions and made things nuts. Or maybe just remove the vamps themes entirely from these dryads and leave them as ud/k'thir. They look mostly like trees and plants anyways.
God Tier Bloodtracker Wailing Banshee Strong Archfiend - Too simple, could use some more creative upgrades. Count - 1 vs 1-3 range etc etc. Tomb Raider - U1 is trash. Golden Lamia - Kinda meh upgrades but hard to say what to change. Meh Dark Enchantress - Really wierd combo of abilities, could use a full rework imo. Demonologist - Summons counter, pretty ok champ Demonvein - Really good in UD so tricky to make viable in FW without breaking. Elder BB - 80 nora for the impact of a 60nora champ, Greater Vampirism is a huge sandbag and upgrades are pretty trash. Elder Vampyre - Would like to play him more before passing judgement. Mysian Lamia - Used a lot on witches, has a very niche role. Seeker of Blood - Seems kind of good, havn't used him enough to say really. Soul Collector - Too important and squishy to use as a melee beater, would like to see him go full support with Hex/Invigorate/Shroud etc Vampyre - Too simple, easily countered before he can scale and very expensive for a melee beater. Wormguy and Bloodbird aren't Vampyre only so disregarding them for now.
