It's almost useless, even on stage 4 vamprisim.

This drain should be more powerful then it already is, even on stage 1. Another thing that is dumb, is that although you can drain a little more health on stage 4, it costs more magic to do so. On stage 4, you should be able to drain more health, while also not spending more magic.

Anyone agree?

I can't really say, as I've not become a Vampire yet. (Although I am sorely tempted to make a Necromancer-type character and RP him going down that route.)

But personally, I wouldn't give it a huge buff - you don't want to whittle things down with it too fast, mainly because I tend to like having the option for variety, and having battles last a little longer make the general experience more entertaining.

nope, they should get rid of vampire drain ability and give it to all mages (since that is a magic spell, not some lesser power of the vampries) while remaking vampires to fit the lore (making them paranoid ice-dwellers with awsome abilities like freezing people with their breath [but that was wasted on a dragon shout])

I have used it, and its really only good for taking down already downed enemies who have little health. Im not saying that it should be buffed heavily....but a little would be nice.

Five points of health per second is pathetic, and it's not even affected by perks! Without perks, the most basic healing spell in the game heals twice as much for less magicka: Vampire Drain is 5 per second for 15 magicka per second, while Healing is 10 per second for a base cost of 12 per second--and that cost goes down with leveling and perks!

Since everyone ever has access to the Healing spell, there's no reason to use Vampire Drain. Yes, not only would I say that this needs a massive buff so that the choice between the two is at least balance, but this also must have been a massive oversight in development. There is no valid reason whatsoever to use this spell when Healing does more for less (and for everyone).

Being that not everyone will be a vampire, I'd say that the buff needs to make Vampire Drain unbalanced in the other direction: without being overpowered, it needs to be buffed to the point that Healing is inferior, not just a balanced choice with advantages and disadvantages. This way, vampires can have something that makes players feel more immersed without making vampirism overpowered. It has to be just powerful enough.

My personal recommendation:

Stage one Vampire Drain: 10 health per second for 10 magicka, with cost and effect unchanging regardless of skill and perks (basically programmed the same as it currently is)
Stage two: 15 health per second for 15 magicka
Stage three: 20 health per second for 20 magicka
Stage four: 25 health per second for 25 magicka

Like that, IMO, it's perfectly viable. At stage one, it's competitive with Healing: lower base cost, but Healing can be upgraded to do as much as 15 points per second at a very low cost (heals up to 16 per second with the perk and a certain quest reward). At stage two it's still competitive: higher base cost and it will stay higher regardless of Restoration skill, but it heals as much as Healing would with the Regeneration perk without need to actually spend a perk point. At stage three, the healing power of Vampire Drain is better than Healing can ever be, but again, at higher cost. Still balanced. Competitive choices are balanced choices.

Stage four is what's most important. For a modest but reasonable cost, a vampire can heal a good amount of health. However, it comes at more than a cost of magicka: a vampire's weaknesses are most pronounced at stage four, and this spell requires the player to both be in combat and be damaging the enemy, not retreating, which is a tactic that can only be done with Restoration spells. And most importantly, it is not competitive with higher-level Restoration spells; for the purposes of restoring health, Restoration is still king. A Vampire Drain spell with those stats has its own advantages, like being able to deal damage while it heals and healing quite a nice amount, but it will never do a dual-casted Grand Healing's 792 points of health in a fifteen foot radius!

Check out http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1337634-relwip-asbe-aleks-skyrim-balanced-experience. Among other things it will scale vampiric drain up to +400% by your destruction skill.

If you sever a main artery, it could take 30 - 60 sec for one to bleed to death. In some cases it could be more. And some it could be even less. An NPC with 300 HPs would take 60 sec to kill @ 5 per sec. I'd say it's pretty good the way it is.

If your Destruction skill is 100, the magucka cost is about 6 per sec. Using gear or potions that boost your Des Skill can reduce that to zero cost.

/snip

double post

Somebody give this man a medal. He explained it better then i did why it needs a buff. And what you said how to fix it does sound reasonable. Just hope the powers that be read your ideas.

Well i play Skyrim on the Xbox, so that won't help.

Yes, it seriously needs to be stronger, as it stands it's absolute crap, and serves as nothing more than a novelty in my spell list.
I didn't bother to crunch any numbers about it, on paper it might sound cool and somewhat useful, in practice it's [censored] worthless.

Too bad, until console gain access to mods there is no point in hoping for a change of that sort.

Well, it's not as powerful as other destruction spells. That is very obvious. It comes down to playatyle as well as the fact it heals the caster as well. It is comparable to Healing the healing spell that increases your HPs @ 10 per sec. The VD heals you at 5 per sec and does 5 dam pers sec for about the same magicka cost.

Any time I use Vampire Thralls, they are at 100% HPs at the end of most battles. I hardly lable the Vampiric Drain as usless. Wielded as a Spellsword type char, it can be used to an effective state.

Double the damage. Zero cost.

NPC have better spells you don't have access to.

Is VD boosted by the Regeneration perk in the Restoration tree?

Granted, I haven't tested this. I assume (and we can break that word down) that the NPC version of VD is the same as the PC.


That's a good Q. Since every other aspect is increased, ie spells and enchantments, that would increase VD to 6 damage per sec and 6 health per sec. Not a huge difference, but still.

EDIT : Sorry, I was referring to the Necromage Perk, in the Restoration page.

I have used the spell once.
I then went to look for ways to buff the effect.
Couldnt find any, never used it again.
The spell is completely useless.

This is why spellmaking should never have been removed.
As I said before release, Bethesda has a horrible track record when it comes to creating spells that are actually useful.
Finger of the mountain, anyone?
Now we have no spellmaking and have no choice but to just ignore crap like this, as there is no longer any way to tweak it into something actually useful.

Bah.

I have Regeneration (It's a Necromage prerequisite) and it drains 5 per second at stage four.

Also Flames and Frostbite outdamage it at a lower cost. (8 damage per second without any perks)

It is considered to be destruction spell and therefore can be boosted by fortify destruction potions. Regeneration perk has no effect on it.

So assuming you've got a bunch of fortify destruction by 300% (or so) potions sittng around (I don't) It might become vaugely useful. Good to know.

Agreed. I miss it as well. Prior to release, Todd said that Mages were going to get a surprise to offset the loss of Spellcrafting. Well...SURPRISE! He was just kidding...

Why thank you I try.