Vampire Lord perks are actually terrible compared to just using spells

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

playing through Dawnguard again and I picked Vampire Lord this time around instead of going Dawnguard, and honestly the perk tree feels so underwhelming. Like the drain life spell is cool visually but it does less damage than a novice destruction spell, and most of the perks are just "drain X faster" or "summon gargoyles" which doesn't scale at all once you hit mid-game.

Meanwhile if you just stay human and level destruction you get Augmented Frost/Flames/Shock, impact staggers, dual casting synergies, all of it actually compounds. Vampire Lord feels like a trap option that sounds amazing in theory but falls apart once you realize you can't use your gear, you can't use spells, and the melee attacks hit like wet noodles.

Am I missing something or is the whole Harkon questline just a worse path damage-wise? The roleplay is solid but I'm genuinely struggling to justify it on anything above Adept difficulty.

 

[NordOfSolitude]

I get the frustration, but I think you're underrating the utility side of the tree. The drain perks feel weak on paper until you realize drain life is basically free healing - you're not chugging potions, you're just sustaining through fights. That's huge on higher difficulties where resources matter.

That said, yeah, the damage scaling is legitimately rough compared to destruction. The gargoyle summons are pretty much dead weight once enemies get tanky. Where Vampire Lord actually shines is the perks that let you go invisible, the one that lets you drain multiple targets at once, and the damage reduction you get passively. It's more about being unkillable than being a damage dealer, which is a different playstyle than what destruction gets you.

The real problem is you're comparing a melee form to a ranged magic school. Of course destruction wins on raw DPS - it's designed to. But Vampire Lord competes better with melee builds than with mages. If you compare it to a two-handed warrior or even a dual-wield setup, the survivability and crowd control actually hold up better, especially since you get those perks without needing to invest in armor or block.

That said, if you're on a higher difficulty and want to make Vampire Lord actually work, you kinda need to commit to the roleplay a little. The form is more fun when you're not expecting it to outdamage everything - it's a different tool. But I won't lie, going Dawnguard and just leveling destruction is the objectively stronger choice for pure damage.