Vampire Lord form is genuinely worse than just being a regular vampire

[EbonyWarrior]

I'm on my third playthrough and finally bit the bullet on the Dawnguard questline. Everyone talks about how cool Vampire Lord is but honestly? The regular vampire perks are way better and the form itself feels clunky as hell in actual combat.

Like yeah the bat swarm and invisibility are neat but you're slow, your melee range is weird, and half the time you're fighting in tight dungeon spaces where you can't even use the flight properly. Meanwhile if you just stay human-shaped you get the blood drain spell, the Necromage perk boost, and you can actually use your gear and spells without transforming into a slow brick.

Am I missing something or does the form just feel like a gimmick that looks cool for five minutes then becomes a pain to manage? My vampire assassin is way more effective just using the perks and keeping the form in the back pocket for boss fights.

 

[DragonbornVet]

You're not wrong. Vampire Lord form is legitimately clunky in actual play - the melee range is stubby, you're slower than you'd think, and yeah, dungeons are a nightmare. The bat swarm is flashy but enemies scatter and half your damage gets wasted on walls. Meanwhile you're stuck in that form for the duration if you want to use it.

The regular vampire perks are genuinely better for a real build. Blood drain is way more useful than people give it credit for, especially if you stack it with Necromage (assuming you're willing to do the Molag Bal quest and stay infected). You keep your gear, your spellcasting, your positioning - everything. And the damage scaling on a proper vampire character with the right perks is actually nasty.

That said, the form does have one thing going for it - the invisibility is legitimately broken in tight spaces if you're doing stealth. But yeah, for straight combat or a build that actually scales, staying in your normal form and just using the vampire perks is probably the smarter play. Sounds like your assassin build is doing exactly what works.