Okay, so I thought it might have been due to the time of day or what ever. But no, the Vampire lord form is STILL weaker then my level 43 warrior human form.

Is anyone else noticing this?

My warrior can kill a Falmer in about 2 hits with a Daedric sword. The Vampire Lord takes about half a dozen (If I can even get him into position to hit something!) and his life drain skill is just pointless.

Life drain is weaker with serana as a follower.

If you get all the perks and the artifacts the vampire lord is overpowered imo. It's melee may not be as powerful as a well perked warrior but its magic is very strong as well as its dodge/stay alive moves. The way to get the most out of it is to focus on the magic.

Thats fair enough, it's taking sooooo long to get any perks for my VL though. I've come across nothing but Falmer and Dwemer automotons during the quest so I've had a grand total of three perks.
It's hard to slog it out, because the combat at the moment is just so unfulfilling and tedius I often just revert back to my Human form and own them. 3rd person fighting is bogus in this game.

If you want to get a boost on your way up the perk tree, float off down to somewhere like the Rift and spend a day zapping wildlife.

Vampire lord is obscenely powerful imo, it's effectiveness against multiple enemies on open ground is crazy.
The ability to float is by itself crazy powerful, you are the most mobile thing on the battlefield, it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Consensus seems to say a follower affects power levels but I read a question in a thread by a staffer who seemed concerned that it may be perk or enchantment related.

My life drain was powerful initially, but now its just useless.

Yeah for some reason serana nerfs the damage on the VL if she is your follower.

That's kind of [censored]. I mean, the MQ and all...

Well its a bug that has not been fixed even though the beta testers reported it during the beta so you can blame bethesda for this one.

I don't think anyone actually expected them to fix anything just because it was reported though. I mean hell... look at the laundering list of other broken [censored] that hasn't been fixed all this time -.-

I don't know whether or not we should blame them or just expect it at this point haha.

Its overpowered when you don't have a follower. The life drain is not pointless, in fact, it seems to do the most damage of any spell in the game. AOE to boot. it just romped through fort greymoor filled with marauders on master in less than 2 minutes

Once thing that is annoying is arrows can stunlock you >_<

I get that, especially when serana nerfs your vampiric drain throughout the main quest.

To me, using the VL is not about pure Damage, but using your magic to your advantage. Vampiric Grip is the most over powered piece of magic in the game.

Yeah I have heard about it, just found out in game myself. Without here, you can kill high level enemies in about 5 hits. With her, you barely do any damage. Pretty grievous error by Bethesda to let this slip