U74 Preview 1: Dhampir Race
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NomadDog
DDO Hawaiian Style!
After playing around with it a bit last night as a pure fighter (no DL), here's my thoughts.
Cores: Get rid of charges to the bite, give it a decent cooldown, and then replace Core 1/3/5 with +5 or 10% neg healing amp
Tier 1:
Draining Bite is on flavor, but really won't be very effective outside heroics. Didn't really do much when I was playing around with it last night.
Tenuous Relationship with death should be 10/20/40 unconscious range.
Everything thing else in this tier is fine.
Tier 2:
I like Lifeblood a lot, wouldn't change it. It will be interesting if Bite goes from Charges to Cooldown to see if people can keep the +3 ability bonuses going long term.
Dominate Animal SLA - 100% flavor, 0.5% practical usage. Not sure what could go here that would be balanced, but lesser death aura would be nice.
Embrace Death: Fine with all of it except the 10% chance to get 1d3 HP healed. Just make it Lesser Vampirism or Vampirism.
Rush of Bats: Love it, but not as a Dire Charge. Having to target something just absolutely sucks. But I love the attack itself.
MRR/MRR Cap is great.
Tier 3:
Really no issues with any of these enhancements.
Tier 4:
I like everything in this tier except Dominate Person. Another 100% Flavor, 0.5% practical usage.
Overall, I think there's potential here. I was ruminating on an EK/PM hybrid with this as the race. I'm not a great theorycrafter, but I can see something there. Hope there is some iteration based on all the feedback and look forward to seeing what we're gonna get with the Iconic.
Cores: Get rid of charges to the bite, give it a decent cooldown, and then replace Core 1/3/5 with +5 or 10% neg healing amp
Tier 1:
Draining Bite is on flavor, but really won't be very effective outside heroics. Didn't really do much when I was playing around with it last night.
Tenuous Relationship with death should be 10/20/40 unconscious range.
Everything thing else in this tier is fine.
Tier 2:
I like Lifeblood a lot, wouldn't change it. It will be interesting if Bite goes from Charges to Cooldown to see if people can keep the +3 ability bonuses going long term.
Dominate Animal SLA - 100% flavor, 0.5% practical usage. Not sure what could go here that would be balanced, but lesser death aura would be nice.
Embrace Death: Fine with all of it except the 10% chance to get 1d3 HP healed. Just make it Lesser Vampirism or Vampirism.
Rush of Bats: Love it, but not as a Dire Charge. Having to target something just absolutely sucks. But I love the attack itself.
MRR/MRR Cap is great.
Tier 3:
Really no issues with any of these enhancements.
Tier 4:
I like everything in this tier except Dominate Person. Another 100% Flavor, 0.5% practical usage.
Overall, I think there's potential here. I was ruminating on an EK/PM hybrid with this as the race. I'm not a great theorycrafter, but I can see something there. Hope there is some iteration based on all the feedback and look forward to seeing what we're gonna get with the Iconic.
I don't have time to test on lammania right now but i hope the 10% healing proc scales with something?
In Pale Master it scales with negative spell power. I am not saying it has to be the same. Maybe 200% melee power or something completely different.
But just make it scale with something.
In Pale Master it scales with negative spell power. I am not saying it has to be the same. Maybe 200% melee power or something completely different.
But just make it scale with something.
Some quick notes:
- The heal from the bite seems to act weirdly when you are undead and take Deathly Bite. I was noticing that trying Shadow Shrouding and Embrace Death; I was actively getting more healing in Shadow Shrouding. Need to test this with other undead shrouds.
- As other's have pointed out the bite breaks attack chain/animation and plays an animation. Personally I don't hate this, but I'd love to see the animation lockout/freeze quickened on the back end after the bite visibly displays. There's about 1~ second of delay before you can take an action again and that feels bad.
- I actually like Rush of Bats. It seems to not have the typical charge attack issues. But I'd really prefer if it had a multiselector with a 'Wings' type version as well.
- Speaking of the Bite; without the ability being able to crit per the tooltip. The healing is indeed going to suffer at endgame without epic/legendary scaling attached to the values. Might I echo other sentiments to add a source of temp HP to the Draining Bite, it wouldn't even need to be a large amount. Something like 5 per character level; 170 temp HP isn't amazing at endgame, but it's another source of deflection HP.
- I'd like to also say merge Dominate Person and Dominate Animal if we're keeping the charm concept around. Replace one of these with a racial heal spell. Either a DA or Neg Burst, maybe bring back the version of Neg Burst SLA from the old Dark Disciple that could be cast on enemies?
- The Art style is... Interesting. Not quite what I wanted after years of looking at the various Vampire NPCs ingame. And the style clashes a bit with the established graphics imo. That being said I like bits of it. Could the fangs get a touch of love and reshaped a bit? Right now they feel like MoonMoon the Werewolf and not really a vampire spawn of any sort. I think it's the angle? They just look a tad goofy. Similarly the bloody mouth facial options need a coat of aging. The bright red blood looks like strawberry syrup rather than actual gore.
- Overall I'm not hating it. But it needs more substance? It feels very barebones/flavorful at the moment with no actual identity. I'm afraid that all of the actual mechanical theme and design is going into the yet-unpreviewed Iconic rather than some love in the base race. (And I voice that concern as a Warlock and vampire Junkie.)
- Ideas for potential identity/flavorings:
- Profane HP bonus of 5%; not as high as Master Zombie but enough to make it worthwhile for undead tank builds.
- More Negative Amp: Positive Amp races get a max of +60, half elves get +40, at least give half vamps +40.
- Play with the Bat swarm theme; a reskin of Hellish Rebuke that deals Piercing or Negative damage and procs invis guard would be neat. Bonus points if it has a visual effect.
- Give it a T4 that adds some class interplay options IE: Palemaster shrouding bonuses apply/stack with Embrace Death, same for AbyssalLock and Shadow Shrouding for DA. An option that allows Lay on Hands/Healing Hands/Ameloriating Strike to apply negative energy healing. So on and so forth.
It currently does not. I was really disappointed to see a roll of +1's whenever it procs.
Ying
5000+ hours played
T4: Add 1/2/3 Dodge Cap with T3 Improved Dodge as a prereq.
Purr
Well-known member
Maybe a multiselector for 20/40/60 Hamp Or Neh Hamp or 10/20/30 for both.
Vamps should have:
Beefiness (this should be con not str race)
Self-healing (either regen (good) or draining (evil).
Fly/wings: dragons flight would be fine her with bats animation
Lominal
Well-known member
Ok so having mulled and played with dhampir, I have more detailed feedback.
Overall, the current version feels like a Cha/caster race that had str/melee shoehorned in. It lacks the +dmg/DS/hit/sneak/imbue that every other melee/ranged race gets, has no active attacks (chains, raging crush, wide sweep, scratch). If you want to lean into the physical prowess (vs magical which is supposed to be the iconic) of the vampire it needs to feel like it supports that. I think added some of these stats would do well for making the race embody the physical power of vampires (+1 dmg x3-4 tiers, maybe an evil imbue, etc).
I also feel that the entirety of the race is locked behind spending racial AP, which doesnt feel great (base race is just +2 str and water breathing).
I think the cower need to be short (6m?) range instead of touch (BUG: currently has no range limitation). The animation is slow. The cc duration is too short to be worth using instead of an active attack. I can't think of any situation where a caster or ranged wants to run up to a pack to cc one of them for 6s while getting hit by the other mobs. Making it have a short range would allow a melee to use it as they run up to the packs. Another option would be to keep it touch range but make it aoe.
Bite has several issues. Many have adressed the healing side of it, offering good options to fix this so i'll focus on the other side of it: the damage and utility. This is not an active attack, meaning we get no sneak dmg, imbue, etc and it cant crit. For every decently built melee, bite will be worse damage (with a slower animation) than an attack. So, what cc does it give? the negative level is decent, but its generally better to just attack and kills things. The instakill is interesting, but losing 2 melee attacks to instakill (one to cower one to bite) is an odd choice. If you truly want to support the iconic = caster, base race = more physical focus it needs to be an active attack. I also think the charge system should be done away with for bite, and replaced with a longer CD (20-30s) active attack.
The vampire shroud/undead aspect of the race is great, but I have two issues. First, the race needs more negative amp. adding another 20 in t3+4 would put it on par with most other races with positive hamp, which is alreayd going to be higher than negamp (PL+ items support it better). Second, I think the shroud should be the first core. locking it behind 6-7 points is going to hurt lower life toons.
Lastly, the SLA's. Dominate and charm spells are ripe for griefing (intentional or not) with modern quest design. levers, doors, barriers that require killing of enemies means that you need to spend the time to dismiss the charm once the other monsters are dead to progress. These SLA arent inheritly bad, but the design directions SSG has taken quests the past 5-7 years is antithical to having these spells in game. They need to be replaced by somthing that won't hinder group play (confusion, paralyze) or replaced entirely. my personal preference is to leave these SLA for the caster iconic and replace them with more things that play into the physical prowess of dhampirs.
Rush of bats is clunky, like every other targetted charge. Make it not require a target.
Overall, the current version feels like a Cha/caster race that had str/melee shoehorned in. It lacks the +dmg/DS/hit/sneak/imbue that every other melee/ranged race gets, has no active attacks (chains, raging crush, wide sweep, scratch). If you want to lean into the physical prowess (vs magical which is supposed to be the iconic) of the vampire it needs to feel like it supports that. I think added some of these stats would do well for making the race embody the physical power of vampires (+1 dmg x3-4 tiers, maybe an evil imbue, etc).
I also feel that the entirety of the race is locked behind spending racial AP, which doesnt feel great (base race is just +2 str and water breathing).
I think the cower need to be short (6m?) range instead of touch (BUG: currently has no range limitation). The animation is slow. The cc duration is too short to be worth using instead of an active attack. I can't think of any situation where a caster or ranged wants to run up to a pack to cc one of them for 6s while getting hit by the other mobs. Making it have a short range would allow a melee to use it as they run up to the packs. Another option would be to keep it touch range but make it aoe.
Bite has several issues. Many have adressed the healing side of it, offering good options to fix this so i'll focus on the other side of it: the damage and utility. This is not an active attack, meaning we get no sneak dmg, imbue, etc and it cant crit. For every decently built melee, bite will be worse damage (with a slower animation) than an attack. So, what cc does it give? the negative level is decent, but its generally better to just attack and kills things. The instakill is interesting, but losing 2 melee attacks to instakill (one to cower one to bite) is an odd choice. If you truly want to support the iconic = caster, base race = more physical focus it needs to be an active attack. I also think the charge system should be done away with for bite, and replaced with a longer CD (20-30s) active attack.
The vampire shroud/undead aspect of the race is great, but I have two issues. First, the race needs more negative amp. adding another 20 in t3+4 would put it on par with most other races with positive hamp, which is alreayd going to be higher than negamp (PL+ items support it better). Second, I think the shroud should be the first core. locking it behind 6-7 points is going to hurt lower life toons.
Lastly, the SLA's. Dominate and charm spells are ripe for griefing (intentional or not) with modern quest design. levers, doors, barriers that require killing of enemies means that you need to spend the time to dismiss the charm once the other monsters are dead to progress. These SLA arent inheritly bad, but the design directions SSG has taken quests the past 5-7 years is antithical to having these spells in game. They need to be replaced by somthing that won't hinder group play (confusion, paralyze) or replaced entirely. my personal preference is to leave these SLA for the caster iconic and replace them with more things that play into the physical prowess of dhampirs.
Rush of bats is clunky, like every other targetted charge. Make it not require a target.
ACJ97F
Well-known member
If you think SSG hasn't achieved Evil, you may have missed several updates, hamster-wheel PL bloat, the "bundle" sales plan,
general apathy to bug reports, and Elves. Only thing we're really missing now is hosting a seasonal orphanage S'mores roast.
Magrok
Theorycrafter
So the trend from Tabaxi and Eladrin wrt enhancement trees was that there were no blanks - each had the full 25 abilities, both as a regular race and as an iconic.
Was there design intent in leaving a blank in Dhampir at Tier 4, to show this trend was not a new design decision going forward?
Was there design intent in leaving a blank in Dhampir at Tier 4, to show this trend was not a new design decision going forward?
Marneylaughlin
Member
I love it over all but have a few bugs. Hair color after creation has been reverting to white, eye glow after creation does not appear. Husband reported that sometimes, the vampiric bite did not heal.
saekee
long live ROGUE
Not sure if the devs will do this but what if the bite was passive and procced on a vorpal, or some small percent, instead of an active attack? Then, have it give scaling temp hp.
The 1d3/character level passive healing on 10% of hits could scale with the higher of melee, ranged, or negative spell power.
Idk. But in this way you have some healing, some temp hp shielding and then the player can make choices how to beef up some kind of active heal through other means.
The 1d3/character level passive healing on 10% of hits could scale with the higher of melee, ranged, or negative spell power.
Idk. But in this way you have some healing, some temp hp shielding and then the player can make choices how to beef up some kind of active heal through other means.
Elminster
Sage of Shadowdale
This doesn’t bode well for the overall quality of the expansion.
It’s not like SSG already has the art assets for this:
Anurakh
Little Nixie
Please don't say this looks like a caster race. It has nothing attractive to a caster! All it has is for melee. They may be more or less attractive bonuses for melee, but it is for melee, not for caster. It has some support for hybrids in calculating special attacks/SLAs. But it has nothing for casters beyond enchantment DC at tier 4.
This is a very poor race for a caster. Don't say it's for a caster!
Elminster
Sage of Shadowdale
Mechanically the race is a disaster and won’t be very popular.
On the otherhand, 90% of the reason why I play a particular race is for “the look”.
Please don’t make this another palemaster (else I would just play palemaster!)
Got something really cool you can do, don’t lose out.
Thank you Devs.
On the otherhand, 90% of the reason why I play a particular race is for “the look”.
Please don’t make this another palemaster (else I would just play palemaster!)
Got something really cool you can do, don’t lose out.
Thank you Devs.
Nod
I don't work for SSG- I pay their bills.
Would love that tbh. Maybe, a warlock pass before this comes out, SSG?
<3I pretty much agree with you on this.
The issue is that we have one 'great' form of the undead playstyle with Palemaster, a completely forgotten option in Abysslock, and then there's Dark Apostate which tried but kind of fell flat. It works, it's not great, it's not bad either.
I think in a way I'd rather we had gotten the 'Revenant Universal Tree' that got mentioned by Severlin during one of the QAs. As it stands without the devs injecting a solid amount of love into all classes/trees that could tangentially apply racial healing, they've got to put a lot of goodies in both Dhamphir and the iconic to make us want to play undead on non-PMs.
Ratatoskr_Mikew
Well-known member
Right off the bat with the aesthetics, NO!
Simply modifying the new and improved half elf facial aesthetics should be the starting point, the Dhampir looking this Gaunt is overkill
Simply modifying the new and improved half elf facial aesthetics should be the starting point, the Dhampir looking this Gaunt is overkill
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