Zombie & Vampire Form

[Daemoneyes]

Hey

both still are weak choices and could use a bit ramping them up

Zombie Form,
remove attack speed penalty & remove increased dice and add movement speed penalty instead.
Because the Dice increase does in no way make up for the damage lost through attack speed penalty.
Movement penalty fits better because we all know the shambling hordes of undead are slow.

Vampire Form,
i would still remove the extra extra light damage but obviously you think its fun to get fizzed so ok, leave this as it is.
BUT when you get WAY higher damage you should get a way to live through it, so add lesser Vampirism to the Base form and add Vampirism to the improved Form.


thanks for your time

[Urist]

Vampire Form,
i would still remove the extra extra light damage but obviously you think its fun to get fizzed so ok, leave this as it is.

I think the problem isn't so much the increased damage, as the double-dipping that goes on with the likes of Searing Light, which itself already does extra damage to undead. Turbine should either 1) remove the light-weakness from PM forms; or 2) remove the undead-clause on the light spells, and just give all NPC undead a weakness to light instead.

[esoitl]

Think about every Vampire movie you have watched... one of the ways to kill them is by sunlight and hence the vulnerability to light exists.
It isn't Turbine trying to screw players, it's them implementing a characteristic of the form, and I feel it should be present even if it sucks.

[Charononus]

Think about every Vampire movie you have watched... one of the ways to kill them is by sunlight and hence the vulnerability to light exists.
It isn't Turbine trying to screw players, it's them implementing a characteristic of the form, and I feel it should be present even if it sucks.

Even if it means no player in their right mind uses the option? Seriously I've never seen anyone other than a brand new player use vampire form, it's that bad.

[Soulfurnace]

Even if it means no player in their right mind uses the option? Seriously I've never seen anyone other than a brand new player use vampire form, it's that bad.

I'm using it at times on my monk/palemaster, on quests where I know I'm safe from light damage... Only because Wraith form is delayed until 20 :P

[Iriale]

Hey

both still are weak choices and could use a bit ramping them up

Zombie Form,
remove attack speed penalty & remove increased dice and add movement speed penalty instead.
Because the Dice increase does in no way make up for the damage lost through attack speed penalty.
Movement penalty fits better because we all know the shambling hordes of undead are slow.


thanks for your time

No thanks. Movement speed penalty do this shroud worse for pure wizards. I think they would eliminate this shroud and add a ghoul shroud without int and speed attack penalty. No wizard would want become into a (mindless/silly) zombie- wizards are the smartest people!

[Iriale]

I think the problem isn't so much the increased damage, as the double-dipping that goes on with the likes of Searing Light, which itself already does extra damage to undead. Turbine should either 1) remove the light-weakness from PM forms; or 2) remove the undead-clause on the light spells, and just give all NPC undead a weakness to light instead.

Undead are immune to ability damage; PM not. If we don’t obtain all immunities, why should we have the same vulnerabilities? Light damage should be lower in the character, or we should get all the immunities.

I'm fine with light damage if we obtain the immunities. We need too items that protect against light damage. These items exist in the pnp game (although they are used by NPCs) and they would do vampire shroud less dangerous.

[bsquishwizzy]

Hey

both still are weak choices and could use a bit ramping them up

Zombie Form,
remove attack speed penalty & remove increased dice and add movement speed penalty instead.
Because the Dice increase does in no way make up for the damage lost through attack speed penalty.
Movement penalty fits better because we all know the shambling hordes of undead are slow.

This makes absolutely no sense. If a zombie is slow to move, why would they be any faster when they attack?

I’ve done Zombie Form before, when people said that you shouldn’t take any form but Wraith. It is a slam-dunk when used with Web and Wall of Fire.

Vampire Form,
i would still remove the extra extra light damage but obviously you think its fun to get fizzed so ok, leave this as it is.

Light damage is devastating to Vampire mobs. Why should it be any different here?

BUT when you get WAY higher damage you should get a way to live through it, so add lesser Vampirism to the Base form and add Vampirism to the improved Form.

While I agree with this in principle, the damage-dealing these forms have are nice to have but are not their sole purpose for existence. They are for caster toons, and not pure melee. Hence they exist in an arcane tree, and not in a Barb or a Fighter tree.

Multi0classing is working with what you have in each tree, not demanding that the devs modify a tree or an enhancement for your specific build.

[Enoach]

First let us keep in mind at what point each of these forms are available

Zombie is available at a minimum of Level 3 and 5 AP spent in the PM tree.
What this shroud does is give the Wizard a melee option at the sacrifice of 1 DC and 2 CHAR skills. The 1 DC at lower levels may or may not effect the effectiveness of spells depending on feats and equipment available. The -20% attack speed can be overcome with the use of Haste making it only -5%. But movement speed would not necessarily be effected because the PM is still considered an Intelligent Undead.

Combine that with unarmed combat the 1d6 INT damage can be a powerful ability to stun low level creatures as most don't have high intelligence scores.

Vampire is available at a minimum of Level 6 and 10 AP spent in the PM tree.
It has no negatives to stats, only positives like +2 strength and charisma and a bonus of +2 DC to Enchantment as well as -25% threat. Unarmed attacks can generate a negative level on a natural 20.

Yes they are more susceptible to light damage and using this form in quests full of light damage is hazardous. However, if taking a more vampire type approach to combat - strike fast, hard and disappear out of range, or utilizing the "Charms" of the enhanced abilities such as Diplomacy/Bluff as well as control spells, it is possible to survive against light damage. Additionally investment into the Cloak of Night enhancement can reduce the light damage by as much as 50%. Uses of spell absorption items can also help reduce light damage.

In my opinion most wizards don't use vampire form because they are scared of the light damage (that is not in every quest) as well as they don't have a mind towards Enchantment spells but are looking more at spells that do damage. In many cases not understanding that you don't have to kill everything in every dungeon to win. Sometimes it is better to let them kill each other and move on to the end chest instead.

I still don't recommend Undead form for the first 1/2 of Running with the Devils, but if the forms are used to their strengths they can make for a very versatile and powerful wizard.

Also very few PMs that get to Wraith and Lich forms will ever return to the Level 3 and Level 6 versions as they don't offer anything these two forms could cover. With the new enhancement system I will us Wraith form for quests where sneaking through them is better resource wise then steamrolling - Such as Claw of Vulcore.

My point is that the earlier forms are fine as they are with their benefits vs retractors.

[bsquishwizzy]

Undead are immune to ability damage; PM not. If we don’t obtain all immunities, why should we have the same vulnerabilities? Light damage should be lower in the character, or we should get all the immunities.

I'm fine with light damage if we obtain the immunities. We need too items that protect against light damage. These items exist in the pnp game (although they are used by NPCs) and they would do vampire shroud less dangerous.

I agree with you, however, if this were the case then you would have no one taking AM at all.

You can't enchant undead, you can't poison them, the don't breathe, they don't tire, immune from instakills,...the list of immunities goes on and on. It would literally unbalance the game as a whole. Leaving stat damage in makes the whole thing a little more balanced.

[Charononus]

I agree with you, however, if this were the case then you would have no one taking AM at all.

You can't enchant undead, you can't poison them, the don't breathe, they don't tire, immune from instakills,...the list of immunities goes on and on. It would literally unbalance the game as a whole. Leaving stat damage in makes the whole thing a little more balanced.

If that's the case they don't need the light damage debuff, also a way to heal stat damage with potions or spells they can natively cast would be needed.

[Soulfurnace]

I agree with you, however, if this were the case then you would have no one taking AM at all.

You can't enchant undead, you can't poison them, the don't breathe, they don't tire, immune from instakills,...the list of immunities goes on and on. It would literally unbalance the game as a whole. Leaving stat damage in makes the whole thing a little more balanced.

Take both trees, why not? AM isn't that appealing to me anyway.

If that's the case they don't need the light damage debuff, also a way to heal stat damage with potions or spells they can natively cast would be needed.

Yes, make harm cure stat point damage. Requires UMD, but that's not too hard to get.

[Skavenaps]

Undead are immune to ability damage; PM not. If we don’t obtain all immunities, why should we have the same vulnerabilities? Light damage should be lower in the character, or we should get all the immunities.

I'm fine with light damage if we obtain the immunities. We need too items that protect against light damage. These items exist in the pnp game (although they are used by NPCs) and they would do vampire shroud less dangerous.

This. Stat dmg as undead sucks. Fix it please.

Also, as somebody said before, change zombie to ghoul. No damage increase and no damage to in, and instead +2Str and +2 Con. Northing else. Any wiz at level 3 will like that.

[Charononus]

Yes, make harm cure stat point damage. Requires UMD, but that's not too hard to get.

It does now, but it's very hard to get as the scroll is not sold and doesn't help at low level like lesser restoration potions help fleshies.

[Failedlegend]

The thing is when people get Lich form they still use Wraith form due to its unique abilities but both Vamp and Zombie form have no reason to use after that.

Pre-U19 it still sucked but it wasn't a big deal as you could just not take them but in a Post-U19 world were forced to waste AP (a frankly a core slot that other trees how far more awesome abilities) on zombie/vamp to take Wraith and Lich.

It really doesn't help that the tree in general is fairly meh

- Animate ally: First off it makes them a zombie 2nd they die pretty quickly)

- Cloak of night: Its detrimental it reduces your healing by the same amount light damage is reduced...all other damage still does the same...overall it just makes you die quicker)

- SLAs: The spells themselves are ok (not great but passable) but the problem is WAY to many enemies are immune because random buffs/defense (ie. insta-kills immunity) that have nothing to do with negative damage block negatriive damage spells (ie. The GH giants blanket immunities)

- Skele Knight Line: First off theres no choice for mage or archer anymore...the boosts still makes this guy pretty useless (ie. My fully buffed Lvl 13 skele knight died to about 10 lvl 2 kobolds in kobold assault on normal) not to mention these guys should have their own AP

- Efficient Metmagic/Spell Crit : DO the same thing as every other spell class...boring but pretty much required

- Improved Shrouding - Ok this one is actually pretty cool making wraith even better...it does irk me that instead of adding something new to Lich they just took something a way and stuck it here...of couirse this does nothing for Zombie/Vamp form which this would be the perfect place to upgrade them to a useful point for later levels since it requires CL 12 which is the same time a single-class wizrd would get wraith but no that would be smart.

- Negative energy conduit: no really complaints here its a cool ability.

- Everything else: The remaining abilities seem to focus on making your wizard a little tougher nice but not enough to save the tree

To be fair though at least the PM tree has interesting names and abilities that COULD have been awesome...AM is just boring REALLY boring with nothing unique or fun to play with...so I guss AM wins by default :P

[Skavenaps]

- Animate ally: First off it makes them a zombie 2nd they die pretty quickly)

Animate ally its terrible. Its easy enought to have some form of rez (clickies, UMD, hirelings). It should be something like each time you kill an an enemy it spawns a zombie that intimidate enemies. At least THAT will be usefull drawing aggro off.

- Cloak of night: Its detrimental it reduces your healing by the same amount light damage is reduced...all other damage still does the same...overall it just makes you die quicker)

Cloak have uses, but a 100% uptime its a bad idea. Lucky its a toggle and for a few quest i use it.

[Failedlegend]

I'd really like to see Necrotic Bolt and Blast shifted down one tier each and than Harm added as an SLA to tier 5 with the pre-req arrows removed or at least don't require the 3 offensives SLAs for it it.

[Jay203]

Think about every Vampire movie you have watched... one of the ways to kill them is by sunlight and hence the vulnerability to light exists.
It isn't Turbine trying to screw players, it's them implementing a characteristic of the form, and I feel it should be present even if it sucks.

i assume we're going to pretend a certain vampire movie doesn't exist right?

[Daemoneyes]

i assume we're going to pretend a certain vampire movie doesn't exist right?

Which one of them?
After all there are a lot of Vampire Movies where they can endure Sunlight at least for a short amount of time. (Often based on their Age, the older the Vampire is the more Sunlight it can endure)
Also there are Hybrids (Blade etc) which are immune to Sunlight.


btw

it was a total worth going to see Twilight just to scream out *OMG es ist so Flauschig!* (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmvYvmTc9sA) when the werewolves appeared, should have heard the laughter it got from all the guys and the deadly stares i got from the woman ^^

[Daemoneyes]

The thing is when people get Lich form they still use Wraith form due to its unique abilities but both Vamp and Zombie form have no reason to use after that.

Pre-U19 it still sucked but it wasn't a big deal as you could just not take them but in a Post-U19 world were forced to waste AP (a frankly a core slot that other trees how far more awesome abilities) on zombie/vamp to take Wraith and Lich.

It really doesn't help that the tree in general is fairly meh

- Animate ally: First off it makes them a zombie 2nd they die pretty quickly)

- Cloak of night: Its detrimental it reduces your healing by the same amount light damage is reduced...all other damage still does the same...overall it just makes you die quicker)

- SLAs: The spells themselves are ok (not great but passable) but the problem is WAY to many enemies are immune because random buffs/defense (ie. insta-kills immunity) that have nothing to do with negative damage block negatriive damage spells (ie. The GH giants blanket immunities)

- Skele Knight Line: First off theres no choice for mage or archer anymore...the boosts still makes this guy pretty useless (ie. My fully buffed Lvl 13 skele knight died to about 10 lvl 2 kobolds in kobold assault on normal) not to mention these guys should have their own AP

- Efficient Metmagic/Spell Crit : DO the same thing as every other spell class...boring but pretty much required

- Improved Shrouding - Ok this one is actually pretty cool making wraith even better...it does irk me that instead of adding something new to Lich they just took something a way and stuck it here...of couirse this does nothing for Zombie/Vamp form which this would be the perfect place to upgrade them to a useful point for later levels since it requires CL 12 which is the same time a single-class wizrd would get wraith but no that would be smart.

- Negative energy conduit: no really complaints here its a cool ability.

- Everything else: The remaining abilities seem to focus on making your wizard a little tougher nice but not enough to save the tree

To be fair though at least the PM tree has interesting names and abilities that COULD have been awesome...AM is just boring REALLY boring with nothing unique or fun to play with...so I guss AM wins by default :P

this a hundred times
but i got to say since Necro SLA require so much AP they are useless to me now
investing 9AP to get a meh SLA? (which cant be metad) no way in hell i would take it