Please nerf vampire lurkers or do something holy shit

General Discussion
61

I think the healing on vamp is fine. Sure it helps them sustain, but that’s sorta the point of a backline brawler caste. Backliners are made to exist off-weeds. And the health regen is only when they hit their abilities iirc… it makes sense they’re rewarded, no?

Warrior/bers heal is a lot worse balance impact imo… on every slash? Sure they get shot more but that’s like 300 extra hp… Very tanky, compared to vlurker hitting every ability and getting like 150 hp. They really gotta risk their ass to get that. Idk, maybe i’m wrong

I feel like vamps probably fine now, since you can counterplay it by just shooting it (no more 2 range stun). 2 range reposition/conditional stun ability is still powerful, but not unbeatable like it was before.

Summary

I do agree that it’s super powerful. Mobility + healing is an amazing combo, since you get hit less, are able to position in better positions then your enemy (because you can position faster then your enemy), and thus avoid dmg more reliably. So your healing is worth more value, and can sustain in a fight a lot longer (more effective hp).

That ontop of it’s incredibly high dps output (and effective usage of dps, because speed means can use dps easier) means it’s a titan to go up against.

Still, now that the caste has counterplay, it’s more or less the same as other castes imo. Sure it’s gonna be frustrating to fight (even in small groups), but if you position well and fight back well, you’ll get out alive. With tailjab nerf it’s gonna be harder to kill, since it’s no longer an instant disable and they’ll have to risk health for dmg.

It’ll be pretty unlikely to get instakill combos off on it tho, like buck pb → mk2 bursts. So many escape options on vlurker. Maaaybe in groups… I’d say it’s very difficult to leverage teamwork on it to get a kill, because of its ability set being so safe and sustainable.

It’ll probably still have a really easy time killing marines tho, especially if catching offguard. Dmg on vlurker is bonebreak in like 3 seconds lol, just like acid rouny

It rly does feel like a oversouped version of acid rouny tbh. The health pool on it is huge when it can sustain it for so long. Still, when compared to acid rouny, I feel like vlurker does slightly less dps but has way easier escape/engage options, which probably makes it more reliable overall.

Personally i never had problems with vlurker outside of the annoying ass stun. (altho i only frontline really, and haven’t played in a bit)
will have to see ingame how the nerf goes tho

I think in terms of balance discussion u gotta compare it to t2s, all incredibly powerful. Not to t1s. I feel like in that comparison, vlurker is pretty similar in its current state to them. Overall harder to kill, and having a lot higher group pvp potential then base lurker.

I think the worst part is theres just not a lot of glaring weaknesses to its kit. But I don’t completely think that’s poor design. It makes it a lot more fun to play. And to win, you actually have to outplay it mechanically, positionally, teamwork-y, etc.

62

people are grossly underestimating how much effort you need to put to actually be able to effectively heal a good amount of health using flurry ability

it’s literally impossible for vampire to outheal any damage you deal to him, unless you’re missing every single shot

63

For those curious, here are the actual stats from the VSC since the wiki was wrong when I last checked a few weeks ago:

image

fumbled the numbers:
lurker has an attack speed of 1.2
vamp has an attack delay of 1

A lower speed/attack speed is faster (ex: 0.6 attacks faster than 1)

Keep in mind pheros effect these stats

64

I think it’s still useful tho, it’s free extra hp mid-combat if u hit your abilities right. But yeah you’ll still have to heal up on weeds every time you get in a brawl

Whaaaaat i thought only acid rouny/rouny had sped up attack speed
Good to know lol, that dmg on vamp is crazy high then

65

If it is the attack cool down we see on the chart, then lurker has 35 DPS, and vamp has 37 (runner has 36).

66

Remove vampire lurker leap ability and it will be balanced. I witnessed many times a vamp lurker gets stunned by buckshot or scout impact rounds and survive due to its leap ability.

Another issue I have are its ability cooldowns are really short. The consequence of this is that a vampire lurker can have a very long prolonged engagement with the only concern of its health. I don’t think any other xeno has this luxury and most of their engagement is tied to their cd’s. When a vampire lurker has a pocket healer this becomes a bigger issue. (I have seen players before macro vamp to simply spam all its abilities over and over)

2 Likes
67

so an attack speed of 0.6 means you can get 1 slash every 0.6 seconds.

often faster clicks is better for fighting since you have more chances to get slashes off

68

I am pretty sure those attack speed stats are wrong. Base lurker has an attack delay of 2, which is higher than the default of 0 that most castes have. Runner has -4. Vampire’s attack delay gets modified by -2 when the strain is picked, so it should go from 2 to 0 I believe.
How exactly these numbers translate into attacks per second I’m not sure though. From experience I was under the impression Lurker attacks are twice as slow but not sure.

69

edit: I think I fumbled the numbers some, default attack_delay is 0

the actual attack delay is calculated in deciseconds - (10 + X.caste.attack_delay + X.attack_speed_modifier))

runner has attack_delay of -4 (1 attack every 0.6 seconds)
lurker has an attack delay of 2 (1 attack every 1.2 seconds)
vamp has an attack delay of 2 and a mod of -2 (1 attack ever 1 second)

1 Like
70

Neat, that means my DPS calculation was correct.

71

Oh that’s interesting. My estimation of lurker being twice as slow was WAY off… Perhaps going from a quick double slash with crippling slash into the 1.2 attack delay exaggerated it in my mind. 1.2 is not as bad as I thought.
It is interesting that vampire has normal attack delay, I didn’t know that until today. Runner is very fast but that’s the tradeoff for being very fragile, and it’s slash damage is on the low end anyway.

72

the other day I was playing sadar spec and I accidentally got trapped on the sacrificial boat to shore up the flanks, me and PFC tito were trapped on board with a full health or full health ish vamp. Vampire got a good bit of damage in on me, then we all got knocked down, when I stood up, I scared it off by wielding my sadar, then inched closer to it, and when it tried to attack me again I direct impacted it adjacient to me with an ANTI TANK rocket, and it didn’t outright die, although it was critted. This was a tier 2 backline ambush caste, surviving a direct impact with a rocket meant to kill tanks, if it had weeds and like one friendly bug on board it probably would have lived, healed up, and eaten us for lunch.

also if I had used any other rocket it would have killed me and tito, but we survived and the boat didn’t crash hooray!

73

AP rockets do shit damage, and are only really used to stun xenoes into a followup. I don’t even think you can outright kill anything with it alone, other then runners.

74

worst news all month, I thought they were good at killing armored enemies

75

They are good in the sense that they stun anything from runner to queen for like 7 seconds, which makes them a fish in a barrel for your team.

1 Like
76

hay they are great at stuns with out blowing up the whole front.

77

They are good at killing armored teammates tho!

78

Also worth noting that current nerfs to remove the tailstab (which was necessary because of how insane stacking the damage was) have left vamps with no options to deal damage to shocked doors or cades from more than one tile away making them inconsistent with other xenos since the nerf

79

this is actually an intended change as vampires cannot enter your home without permission, this was done as a balance change since survivors don’t have access to garlic and wooden stakes.

5 Likes
80

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bro please do something, why does a t2 have a t3 impact. Reemove the strain or put this strain at t3…