There are a surprising amount of players in the game that still have no clue you can be a Vampire or Werewolf in Elder Scrolls Online. As such I’ve provided a quick guide on both to let you in on how you go about becoming one and what the advantages and disadvantages are. 

Overview

Similarly to joining a guild (such as Fighters or Mage) becoming a Vampire unlocks a set of active and passive skills that you can invest in. Unlike other guild lines though, becoming a Vampire has both a positive and negative impact on the player the longer you are one, with only two methods in the game that allow you to pursue the fang path: contracting the disease from a player or NPC. 

If you’re pursuing contracting the disease from a Vampire, you’ll first need to locate one. Unfortunately there’s no set or guaranteed location for them (yet) with the exception that they tend to be located in high level zones (across all 3 provinces) with several confirmed reports of them being heavily present in Cyrodiil. If you’re high enough level you’ll need to be able to withstand a single bite from the Vampire at which point the disease quest line, Scion of the Blood Matron, will become active. Similarly to any quest you simply have to complete the objectives presented before becoming one, although I’d recommend you’re at least level 25 before attempting and better still, have several friends to help you. 

The other options for becoming a Vampire if you can’t locate an NPC out in the game world is to ask another player to convert you. Unfortunately I’ve yet to find a player in Elder Scrolls Online who is capable of doing this, but considering those who are already Vampires can only do so once a week, it won’t be very common. Be aware that if you’re infected with the Lupinus disease (Werewolf) you won’t be able to turn into a Vampire and if you do choose to pursue either Vampirism or becoming a Werewolf you can remove it for a price. 

Skills and Abilities

Once you’ve completed the Scion of the Blood Matron quest line you’ll be awarded with a new set of skills and abilities. Similarly to all other skills in game you can more these:

Active Spells:

• Drain Essence - Stuns target for 3 seconds and deals magic damage to it, while recovering 150% of the damage dealt as health and stamina to you every 1 second.

1. Invigorating Drain – Also recover Ultimate.
2. Midnight Drain – Recovery is more effective at night.

• Mist Form- You take 75% reduced damage from all sources and are invulnerable to healing and crowd control effects for 3 seconds.

1. Elusive Mist – Increases your movement speed in mist form.
2. Poison Mist – Damages nearby enemies.

• Bat Swarm- Summons a swarm of bats dealing damage to all enemies around you.

1. Clouding Swarm – Also grants you additional invisibility.
2. Devouring Swarm – Gain life for every enemy hit.

Passive Abilities:

1. Savage Feeding – After feeding your target is off-balance and stunned for 2 seconds.
2. Supernatural Recovery – Increases magicka and stamina recovery by 5%.
3. Blood Ritual – Allows you to turn another player into a Vampire once every 7 days, giving them the Vampire skill line.
4. Undeath – Increases damage mitigation by up to 50% when you are below 30% health.
5. Unnatural Resistance – Health recovery is improved in Vampirism stages 2 through 4.
6. Dark Stalker – Increases your movement speed while sneaking and allows you to enter stealth more quickly at night.

It should be noted that the Vampire skills rely heavily on Magika while the Werewolf skills rely heavily on stamina. 

Pro’s and Con’s

As mentioned above there are Pro’s and Con’s to becoming a Vampire. The biggest drawback is the constant need to feed on humans (NPC’s work), your weakness to fire (they take an additional 50% damage from all fire abilities). As you’re also classed as Undead, skills and weapons which are effective against that enemy type also hurt you more. Considering many classes are capable of dealing fire damage in some form and harming undead, it doesn’t always work out well for PvP. The four different stages of hunger are below:

• Stage 1: 30 minutes; no additional effects.
• Stage 2: 60 minutes; -25% health regeneration, -20% mana cost for Vampire skills
• Stage 3: 90 minutes; -50% health regeneration, -40% mana cost for Vampire skills
• Stage 4: 120 minutes; -75% health regeneration, -60% mana cost for Vampire skill

Should I be a Vampire?

Being a Vampire is fun and great for role-playing. There are some excellent skills and it really suits Nightblades more than other classes. Considering you can cure the disease if you ever change your mind, there’s no harm in giving it a go. All you really need to be weary of is other players in Alliance versus Alliance as fire seriously hurts.

View our guide: How to Become a Werewolf