U74 Preview 1: Dhampir Race

[LurkingVeteran]

Overall, love the concepts. Embrace Death is great - finally a way to play Vampire Monk without taking Wizard Levels. That alone makes this a win for me.

The charges on the bite are tough. It would be fun and thematic to be able to bite every 10-20 seconds. The healing while leveling seems like it would be OP if it was unlimited charges. The damage and level drain seem good for no charges and a modest cool down (and it would be fun to have a way to make level drain a bigger part or some builds, even if it is niche.) Maybe make it that the bite has to kill for the healing effect.

I love the idea of adding in the Pale Master tree into the racial tree, like Arcane Archer for elves. I would consider using that empty Tier 4 as a 1AP way to open up Pale Master.

One thing that would be fun to see is more synergy between the vampire form in the racial tree, and undead forms in other trees. Is there a way to upgrade your vampire form for each additional form you can take. Something like:

Embrace Death: basic vampire
If you also have the Pale Master Undead Shroud (Core 2), Embrace Death becomes Ascendant Shroud Vampire
If you have the Pale Master Ascendant Shroud, Embrace Death becomes Vampire Lord - chance to cower any target it hits, level drain on all hits (1s cool down).
If you have the Dark Apostate Shadow Shrouding, Embrace Death adds concealment and Incorp.
If you have the Warlock Undead Form, Embrace Death adds negative immunity strip to bite or bats.

Creating the different combos could be fun, though may add a lot of coding.

It could even be taken further with all forms, such as:
Celestial Spirit - Embrace Death becomes Daywalker (powers work against undead)

Some of those may be OP, but just the general idea. would be fun. Let Dhampir be the gateway to increasing undead strength in any class that has an undead form.

These are all interesting suggestions I think. Although I don't think infinite bite healing is much of a balance concern if you put some condition on its use. It's basically only a few melee classes that don't have some form of near infinite healing already, and anybody can go Bladeforged already. In epics there is the rage-based healing, and the rages regen. They just need to put some conditions on it so it's not spammable. Only recharging if you kill a monster could be one of them.

 

[Dandonk]

I see some typos in that post. Dexterity is not abbreviated to STR.

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

The other way to really monetize +1 hearts would be to lower the price to the point they are bought often when people run iconics.

It's 1195DP as it stands. It should be about half that. Big spenders will buy at whatever price is there. The rest of us are governed by *fiscal responsibility* and there are a lot more of us than them.

I am not sure how most people operate but I have a budget and usually stick to that budget. Whatever SSG plans to raise more money might work to an extent, but all it's doing is causing to spend more in one area and less in another. In 15 years of playing the only thing SSG ever did to make me spend more than I planned was offer the free coupon code and I invested some money in alt accounts. Beyond that anything I spent extra was diverted from other ddo spending.

There have also been some times I reduced my spending on DDO because I didn't like the direction of the game. I am there right now with the lack of attention to cannith crafting and other level cap bugs. I am trying to figure out how deep I want to cut it and potentially may spend nothing more this year including the xpacs. Last year I did buy the basic xpac on 5 accounts and top tier on 1 plus gifted my kid a top tier xpac. I definitely regret that now.

I never do make-up spending once the direction improves out of principal.

Best thing SSG can do to make money is keep people engaged and enjoying the game. Players are going to spend what they're going to spend unless SSG gives them a reason not to.

 

[Elminster]

 

[Lotoc]

One thought on rush of bats, it's not really going to be popular as charge to target abilities just don't work very well or feel good.
If it were instead something like

"Passive: when you tumble you disperse into a swarm of bats and can pass through enemies
You can activate this ability to lash out as a swarm of bats dealing X damage to nearby enemies and gain (Y% dodge that ignores dodge cap for three seconds / Z temporary HP per enemy hit from your swarm's feeding), 12 second cooldown"

Then put an extra max tumble charge in one of the upgrades.

As far as the visual of turning into bats on tumble I imagine it isn't too difficult as animations for dispersing into smoke on tumble exist for deep gnome and the old Magister ED.

 

[Elminster]

#1 Please use the vampire bat swarm animation as seen in Mabar of long past. (Or that vampire cloak) … would be so cool.

#2 some kind of spider-climb ability would be great, it’s actually a cornerstone of the race at least in D&D.

#3 Celerity , or extra-paranormal speed. Above and beyond the current haste caps.

#4 Wolf/Bat form.

 

[saekee]

I think if the bite has some way of regenerating charges then healing these things will have a way forward. You still heal with positive healing ultimately, and the slow rate of 1d3 on a twf melee will top things off bit by bit, but the bite is where the stuff lies. Why not have it gain charges like Horizon Walker trance? I know that would not be popular, but it would reward aggressive play and survival in pronged fights.

 

[Bogrot]

I haven't even seen it yet and the only thing I can be sure of: This race BITES!

I suppose a race that Bites is better than one that Sucks.

 

[mikarddo]

I suppose a race that Bites is better than one that Sucks.

That is not how I see it.

 

[5 Other People]

Rush of Bats requiring targeting like Shield Rush will only work if you fix Shield Rush, these type of targeted attacks do not work well. First you need to target (slows combat), then attack, then you have a chance to rush toward a vacant space, do a 180-270 degree turn to be completely disoriented in battle and do no damage...this is broken as it does this missed attack roughly 30% of the time. Please try to recreate this frustration before you implement it to see what the complaints are about and determine if you want to build around something that many players have tried and abandoned b/c it's broken.

Use of dominate spells is thematically fun, but those spells are not fun in DDO and have very little value in DDO, please consider not just what is fun to design, but also what is fun to play...the dominate spells are just not fun and tend to break others fun. **Perhaps dominate spells could be revived if players could attack a dominated monster?!?**

This tree needs more, it's just not exciting. I think a big temp hit point per each bite attack that can occur every 30 seconds is a start, but even then this tree is still near the bottom of desirable races to play. I get that there was a time when DDO delivered overpowered new races/classes/etc to get folks to move, then you nerfed later, then ya'll moved into this bland over balanced style, plus ya'll almost never correct to the upside by adding power/fun to a race/class/etc...please turn the excitement up?

Putting charges on bite reduces the value of this race to the players, it's just not fun to know a key build component may be exhausted. Most quests the charges are more than adequate, i've learned this from Eldrian, but the fun stops at heroics or when the content is even a little bit challenging.

 

[Elminster]

Reading over the tree once again.

This whole race is going to be a giant fail in terms of demand/popularity.

Please, try harder. Even if it means nerfing later.

I’m talking about your sales $$$.

 

[Purr]

I think if the bite has some way of regenerating charges then healing these things will have a way forward. You still heal with positive healing ultimately, and the slow rate of 1d3 on a twf melee will top things off bit by bit, but the bite is where the stuff lies. Why not have it gain charges like Horizon Walker trance? I know that would not be popular, but it would reward aggressive play and survival in pronged fights.

Maybe have the bite trigger a 2 minute trance that gave you a strength bonus to Hamp?

 

[l_remmie]

5/10/20 Unconscious range is EXTREMELY outdated in the game nowadays. It needs to be updated here and in every tree it exists.

15/30/50. Is still a bad AP investment but it has a tiny chance to actually do anything.

 

[axel15810]

5/10/20 Unconscious range is EXTREMELY outdated in the game nowadays. It needs to be updated here and in every tree it exists.

It is just a tier 1, so should not be all that strong. But yeah maybe a little stronger than this or just a flat 20 for 1 AP instead of being tiered with ranks.

 

[Elminster]

You know what would be cool .

You gain a special bonus/perk depending upon the creature or living being that you bite into.

Say like if you bit a halforc you get a strength bonus and/or you rage for the next 5 minutes or if you bite into a tiefling you get a negative energy bonus or whatever.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

It looks like there is almost universal (all except the I won't group with Lestat guy) agreement that charges should not limit the vampire bite. That's rare in Forum DDO to get such a popular accord. I hope that illustrates how much we like the bite but don't want it hamstrung. Instead of adding 1 charge in each of the Dhampir cores, maybe add 1 imbue? That would be draft sexy.

 

[mikarddo]

It looks like there is almost universal (all except the I won't group with Lestat guy) agreement that charges should not limit the vampire bite. That's rare in Forum DDO to get such a popular accord. I hope that illustrates how much we like the bite but don't want it hamstrung. Instead of adding 1 charge in each of the Dhampir cores, maybe add 1 imbue? That would be draft sexy.

There is nothing new, at all, about posters on the forum wanting effects to *be stronger* when the previews are posted.
Thats pretty much the norm - and sometimes we have ended up with grossly OP effects due to it.

I am not saying that Bite fits that bill - but claiming that its new to see many posters agree about wanting the next new to be stronger is age old.

Besides, the thread has a mere 6 pages. Thats hardly alot.

 

[Ahpuch]

A lot of comments on how much the bite healing sucks*.

I would prefer that it stayed healing but simply avoided the Reaper self healing penalty. That just makes sense to not apply a "self heal during combat" penalty for an effect that can only be used on one self during combat. If the penalty cannot be removed then change it from healing to something else. It also makes the ability unique which may be interesting for some players.

I don't know if swapping to temp HP would be enough for a 5 charge ability as I haven't seen much temp HP that is really that impressive once cool downs and caps get added in. For example, I don't think the tier 5 temp HP in shadow dancer is enticing. Maybe something like temp Con boost would work as it also boosts fort saves in addition to providing temporary HP. But the Con boost would need to be something like 1 per Level for Level seconds to be meaningful at 5 charges per rest.


* got my vampire based pun in. That was ante for this thread right?

 

[Hobgoblin]

A lot of comments on how much the bite healing sucks*.

I would prefer that it stayed healing but simply avoided the Reaper self healing penalty. That just makes sense to not apply a "self heal during combat" penalty for an effect that can only be used on one self during combat. If the penalty cannot be removed then change it from healing to something else. It also makes the ability unique which may be interesting for some players.

I don't know if swapping to temp HP would be enough for a 5 charge ability as I haven't seen much temp HP that is really that impressive once cool downs and caps get added in. For example, I don't think the tier 5 temp HP in shadow dancer is enticing. Maybe something like temp Con boost would work as it also boosts fort saves in addition to providing temporary HP. But the Con boost would need to be something like 1 per Level for Level seconds to be meaningful at 5 charges per rest.


* got my vampire based pun in. That was ante for this thread right?

put a stake in it you're done.

 

[Ahpuch]

put a stake in it you're done.

put some teeth into your rejoinder.