A Low Level's Guide To Becoming A Werewolf

Darkholynova

Hello and welcome followers of Hircine.

The purpose of this thread is to discuss the process of becoming a werewolf in the Elder Scrolls Online.

Many other threads detail the infection process, so I won’t touch on that much. Simply put, you must find a special werewolf mob in your faction’s level 30-40 zone (Bangkorai for DC, The Rift for EP, and Reapers March for AD). These mobs spawn only at night, most notably during the full moon. Once you locate this mob you must attack it and take damage from it to receive a special buff telling you that you've been scratched by a werewolf. Once you have this debuff, you can go back to town and find an NPC who has a quest for you. You now have the option to get cured or start on the path to becoming a werewolf.

The quest however can be rather difficult for anyone aspiring to become a werewolf before they’re level 30+. You must travel to a ritual site of Hircine and meet with your new pack master. After a brief talk you’ll be spirited away to Hircine’s Hunting Grounds to prove you’re worthy of this gift. A ritual is performed and you are a werewolf for the full duration of this next step: seek out and kill a worthy beast for your pack.

This is the part where many low levels will hit a brick wall in their progress. Unlike the vampire quest line you cannot use any of your normal abilities. You’re stuck with werewolf melee, a stunning pounce, and a fear inducing roar. At low levels, your melee attacks will constantly miss and deal very little damage while your stunning and fear abilities won’t work on the boss monsters. This is a solo instanced area, so no help from your friends.

The area is filled with many level 40ish mobs including panthers, crocodiles, and harpies. There are several clearings with torches, bones and ritual markings. These are the lairs of various bosses that can spawn here. I have personally encountered a Troll boss and a Mammoth boss. Others have reported a large snake as well.

After you've become a werewolf in this zone, practice your new form on some panthers. There’s a yellow spotted one just down the path from your starting point. Keep in mind you’re faster as a werewolf, you can easily run this cat in circles avoiding it’s charge up attack. When you’re confident, go out and find which boss you have. Upon zoning in, the game randomly assigned one of possible bosses to you.

At the very back, on the highest ledge is the Troll. If you’re not level 35+, I wouldn't bother with him. At level 22, he nearly 1 shots me with regular melee attacks. The Snake I've heard is located at the waterfall and he’s just as deadly as the Troll.

Just bellow the troll is the Mammoth. If you got the mammoth on your first try, consider yourself lucky. The Mammoth seams to be the easiest of the bunch. Slow to turn, uses large frontal attacks that give you tons of time to beat on his backside. At 22 in half broken gear and no consumables, I got him down to 30% several times by
staying behind him and beating on him. I would highly recommend bringing a handful of good healing potions and the best health regeneration drink or max health boosting food you can. Stay on his butt, don’t run away because he resets rather easily. Just keep strafing around him and he won’t get too many hits off on you. Spam melee until he’s down.

If you do not get the Mammoth… exit the zone and wait about 5 minutes before you re-enter. I believe re-entering immediately does not give the zone sufficient time to reset your instance of it. Many people have noted rezoning 40+ times and having the same boss every time. I tested this theory myself, had the troll and rezoned immediately
15 times to find it was still the troll. I waited 5-10 minutes and zoned in again to find the mammoth.

I will update this when I complete the quest, hopefully tonight. Feel free to post your success stories, please include your class, level, equipment, strategy and any buffs that might that might have helped you (Mundus Stones, food, etc.).

Darkholynova

Update: I have in fact defeated the Mammoth and become a full werewolf. At the time I was level 24, I used the Lord Stone to boost max health + health boosting food. My total health was 1085. Took a couple tries, but I got him down.

Vexian

One tip I would recommend would be to respec your attributes if you are having difficulties. Since werewolf damage is based off your maximum stamina I would put most of your points there with maybe a handful into hp to absorb some of the hits.

As for the troll. I was able to take him down after a few tries using the following strategy at level 32, but some friends of mine have killed the troll at around level 24-26.

I started out the fight by getting behind the troll and attack with a power attack. Then followed up with a roar. As the troll ran away I hit him with another power attack to stun him and quickly swiped at him a few times while he was recovering.

If the troll decided to not use any abilities I would fear him again and repeat the process.

The 2 abilities I noticed the troll use were a frontal cone move which I would just get behind him and swipe away and a PBAOE, and in this case I would get in front of the troll (outside of the red circle) and swipe away.

The one thing you have to keep in mind us that you need to keep the damage going otherwise he will just regenerate his hp.

Druidwolf16

Another helpful tip to the new wolves would be when leveling your Wolf, keep in mind that you level based on kills while in Wolf form, from what I saw level of the target had no impact on the amount of xp given, it's all about quantity. So the easiest way I've found of leveling it was to farm ultimate points in a level appropriate zone, then port to the starter city, run to an area with a lot of low level creatures, gather them up and mow them down. Only took a few hours to get rank 6 Wolf. Hope this helps some of you.

devinfreeseb14_ESO

I was able to kill the troll at level 19 with 730 health, 550 armor, and around 600 stamina. I used a similar strategy to what Vexian posted. Just save your stamina for the fear and dodge the trolls heavy attacks

Darkholynova

devinfreeseb14_ESO wrote: »

I was able to kill the troll at level 19 with 730 health, 550 armor, and around 600 stamina. I used a similar strategy to what Vexian posted. Just save your stamina for the fear and dodge the trolls heavy attacks

I found the troll resisted my fear every time, but I may have been unlucky.

Bloodlinewolf

I recieved my werewolf bite/scratch at 15, finished the quest at 20 and have access to Bloodmoon now 3 levels later.

To hopefully help out and clarify a few things:
- It seem like there are 4 possible bosses in the "Hircine's Gift" quest to earn access to the skill line. Troll [Elite], Mammoth [Elite], Giant Snake [Elite], and Snow Troll [*Not* Elite]

- These 4 bosses seem to be of almost wildly different difficulty. I found the Giant Snake by the waterfall the worst, followed closely by the elite Troll. The mammoth is easier in general and the snow troll is probably the easiest in at least some situations, if not all. Bear in mind though, lag in combat will make all of these nigh impossible so be aware of that.

- For my personal completion I tried all four bosses and got my success at level 20 fighting the non-elite snow troll that spawns on the little alcove past the river a bit below the mammoth cliff. It does have some regeneration it has far less HP than any of the others and can be feared with the howl. His leash radius is fairly small so you want to circle him rather than running when you kite. I used mostly heavy armor and had in the realm of 700 Max Stamina; if you bring some stamina regeneration and the odd potion for your level this can be done fairly early.

- When leveling the werewolf skill line, once you have the ultimate charge to use it the werewolf kills don't seem to care much what level of things you kill so hitting level 6 for Bloodmoon isn't terribly difficult with a little grinding.

Johnny_NO_skillz

Guys! Does the active effect expire after 7 days like it says on the character sheet? Will I no longer be able to do the quest at that point?

Roboboy2710

This one believes that after the time expires, you have to get infected again. This one has yet to become a werewolf, however, and is going off of the words of others.

Darkholynova

You should go and begin the quest, even if you cannot defeat the monsters to complete it. That should save it to your quest log.

345zac_ESO

Darkholynova wrote: »

You should go and begin the quest, even if you cannot defeat the monsters to complete it. That should save it to your quest log.

^^

Kekrika

This seems like good advice. I'm nowhere near the right level to do this. I'm not entirely sure I'd want to choose werewolf, but I'm still not sure of the negatives. Like vamps are 50% weak to fire, so I wondered if werewolves had a downside. I was going to check a few other posts. Anyway, thanks for the info.

Darkholynova

Kekrika wrote: »

This seems like good advice. I'm nowhere near the right level to do this. I'm not entirely sure I'd want to choose werewolf, but I'm still not sure of the negatives. Like vamps are 50% weak to fire, so I wondered if werewolves had a downside. I was going to check a few other posts. Anyway, thanks for the info.

Currently a werewolf suffers 50% extra poison damage, takes 15% more damage from players with the right fighter's guild perks, and can be stunned by those players with an ability called Silver Bolts.

emilseedb16_ESO

What should I do at level 17? And how many times should I try when resetting the boss?

Darkholynova

emilseedb16_ESO wrote: »

What should I do at level 17? And how many times should I try when resetting the boss?

I'd aim for the frost troll then. I have no personal experience with it, but I've heard it's easier than the mammoth. When resetting the boss, wait 5-10 minutes before you zone back in otherwise it won't have a chance to reset and change.

Roboboy2710

Question: does anyone know where werewolves primarily spawn in Reapers March on the Aldmeri Dominion side?

Darkholynova

Roboboy2710 wrote: »

Question: does anyone know where werewolves primarily spawn in Reapers March on the Aldmeri Dominion side?

That's the consensus, yeah. At least the ones that are able to give you lycanthropy. There are plenty of werewolf mobs that don't have the ability to turn you.

NyteJade

I completed the quest and got full lycanthropy at level 19. It wasn't easy, but it can be done.

Darkholynova

NyteJade wrote: »

I completed the quest and got full lycanthropy at level 19. It wasn't easy, but it can be done.

Which boss did you kill?

FoyaBeninax

I tried to re-enter the ground several times, even waited for half an hour but every time it was the mammoth. How can I get the frost troll?

Aleksanderrhb16_ESO

i am level 28 and i did the quest and abandoned it until i got frost troll was easy then. wait 5-10 min each time you abandon quest to get a new boss to fight with

Ravinsild

I completed the quest at level 14 with a blue quality weapon and upgraded all my gear to green.

No clue if it helps, but I thought it might.

I got the Frost Troll and brought along some HP potions and used Max Stamina increase food for the extra damage on my hits and ability to use roar more often.

I would let the Troll do it's channeled attacks (the circular AOE ground pound) and swipe from the edges, or the frontal cone swipes and attack from the back.

I would use roar to interrupt every "normal" attack I could as they hurt quite a bit and would heavy attack after every roar to knock it on the ground.

It took me about 2 tries.

ZoM_Head

My only issues:

- Ultimate cost is far too high vs how long it lasts compared to any other ultimate (started with 1,000 now sits at 925).

- Got to face Veteran enemies or at min level 45+ enemies, most enemies are in groups and can be challenging.

- Personally, i thin going into "Beast form" should be an active ability that costs xxx stamina, a lot of stamina. Compared to Vampires, they are constantly in "Vampire mode", yes they take more damage from fire and what not i understand that. But it is not balanced very well compared to Vamps.

Just my opinion.

Hoylegu

I'm a level 21 NB really struggled with the normal 42 Snow Troll Any tips how to manage the encounter would be appreciated.

[edit: Never mind. I got him after the third try. The KEY was staying close, not trying to kit and regen. I just stayed close and stayed behind him. Easy peasy as 21 NB.]

Calorn_Antari

Thank you so much. I knew where to find it but not when. I have been looking for awhile and this is the first time I've seen someone say it. thanks again. can't wait to get the infection. sorry if this was already asked and answered but is there a way to tell in game time? does looking at the sun's position work or something else?

Jinorah

I think I am getting a glitch because I only have the troll on my map. I can't defeat him any advice?

TheOubliette

I've found, you can do this whole thing easily at L20. Get some nice L20 platemail, add stamina glyphs to it all, carry a shielf and sword, use the Tower mundus stone, eat some nice [Enriched Caramelized Goat "Nibbles"] and go do it.

If you don't get the mammoth. just leave the instance and wait10-12 minutes.

Fighting the mammoth is a snap. Here's the trick. People say to kite in a circle. No. If you do this, the mammoth will keep swatting you a little until it nickle and dimes you to death. You need to get behind it yes, but you have to stand still and take a hit or two from it's basic melee. Once it sees that you're silly enough to stand in front of it, then it WILL engage in it's AOE attacks. Once this happens, strike it, a lot. When it's back to basic melee, take a hit or two. Then it will AOE again.

Do this and you'll have it in no time. It literally took me... 30 seconds to down the mammoth this way and I didn't die once.

I say this as if I never died, but this took a good bit of trial and error and listening to people who presume you can just circle-kite and win. At level 20, you can't. You have to pause to let the beast know you're ready to get stomped on.

it's possible to do all of this at lower levels but, I didn't feel like the frustration. L20 is a good break point for fresh armor, good stamina food and such.

Good luck, wolves!

glavius

completed at lvl 10 against mammoth. first try. used 3 healing pots, and had blue heavy armor+weapons, and health regen food and 2 x jewelry enchants

Doom_Lord

How is Werewolf form better as a tank? If the abilities and passives are only available in the form, and that requires the ultimate, how is that benificial? A better tanking ultimate, like magma armor, would be better than the form.

Doom_Lord

Roboboy2710 wrote: »

This one believes that after the time expires, you have to get infected again. This one has yet to become a werewolf, however, and is going off of the words of others.

Is that a Hanar reference, or am I mistaken? This one does not know

Dekkameron

Doom_Lord wrote: »

Roboboy2710 wrote: »

Question: does anyone know where werewolves primarily spawn in Reapers March on the Aldmeri Dominion side?

bit small