Werewolf Should be Allowed to Sneak

Erickson9610

For whatever reason, the ability to use stealth while in Werewolf form is disabled. This may have been inspired by Skyrim's Werewolf implementation, but it wasn't always this way. In this thread, I'll outline the reasons why Werewolf should be allowed to sneak.

Werewolf "sneaking" animations already exist in-game. Below is a screenshot of a player who is crouched. Due to a visual bug, they are shown on the client side as being in Werewolf form, when in actuality, they are in human form. This allows me to see the "unused" Werewolf stealth animations that would otherwise never be seen.


EDIT: Here is a video of some of the usually inaccessible Werewolf animations, courtesy of @IncultaWolf. This is only possible with the aforementioned visual bug; I am not actually in Werewolf form in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2xkQSbr6io

• 0:00 to 0:18: I toggle between crouching and uncrouching. To get an idea what the uninterrupted idle crouch animation looks like, see the next video.
• 0:18 to 0:38: I showcase the movement animations for crouching with weapons sheathed and toggle walk enabled. This is the prowling animation that werewolf NPCs use.
• 0:38 to end: I showcase various animations using emotes. In chronological order, they are /kneelpray, /begone, /crouch, and /playdead. Additionally, other emotes like /take, /smash, and /cower have been known to work, but those are not shown in this video.

Further, you can see this animation for yourself in-game if you use an Invisibility potion while in Werewolf form and sheathe your weapons. Here is a video of what that idle stealth animation looks like:
https://youtu.be/eYMqCqBr1zQ
Also notice the animations of the NPC werewolves in the background. They use different animations than the player does, but the fact that these animations already exist in the game means that allowing Werewolf to sneak wouldn't require new animations to be made.


Werewolves were able to sneak in past Elder Scrolls titles. For instance, here is a video clip taken from The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, from the Bloodmoon DLC. In this video, I demonstrate how crouching in Werewolf form looks in first and third person:
https://youtu.be/lDmSwCruQFE
Notice the pickpocketing icon on the lower left that appears whenever the character uses stealth. Werewolves were able to sneak in TES III, but for whatever reason they were not given that functionality in their next appearance in TES V. Given that ESO's implementation of Werewolf is heavily inspired by the implementation in TES V, it's not surprising that the functionality just wasn't considered.

EDIT: In TES II: Daggerfall, being afflicted with Lycanthropy also gave you +30 to your Stealth attribute, in both your human and werewolf forms.


The inability to sneak causes problems in certain content. The most infamous example is in the March of Sacrifices dungeon, where during the indrik hunt phases, you must "crouch down" in order to avoid being detected. Werewolves can receive a boon to become immune to the teleporting magic, but they must first complete the 2nd side indrik hunt in their human form to receive it.
Furthermore, the Graven Deep dungeon has a crouch mechanic for the 2nd side boss. In the corridor to reach it, there are laser traps, and some of them are designed to only let you through if your character is crouching, or otherwise ducking under them. This is an annoyance for werewolves, because they cannot get past these lasers without dropping form.
Werewolves cannot complete content which requires players to crouch, as they currently have no ability to crouch.


Werewolves cannot engage in stealthy playstyles without invisibility potions. Since they cannot use stealth, and their only source of invisibility comes from potions, they must rely on potion cooldown builds to mimic the capacity for stealth that other builds have access to. Even if you play a Nightblade Werewolf, your options for being sneaky are limited, so Werewolf ganker builds just do not work. Granting Werewolf the ability to sneak would bring them on a more level playing field, and it would grant Werewolf access to sets which proc off of crouching, like Sentry and Darloc Brae, increasing build diversity.


Sneaking is thematically appropriate for werewolves. As hunters, werewolves need to be able to get the jump in on their prey. They have the supernatural endurance to chase their foes down, but as it is now, they will always be spotted first. Werewolves shouldn't have their ability to sneak taken away from them just because they transform into a beast that is supposed to be better suited for hunting.

EDIT: Hildegard (a werewolf character in the Dark Brotherhood) even discusses how stealthy she is in her werewolf form, further reinforcing the idea that it is appropriate that werewolves in TES can (and should) be stealthy, especially when stalking prey or completing contracts for the Dark Brotherhood:



A Werewolf "assassination" ability (equivalent to the Blade of Woe or Vampire feeding) and the ability to pickpocket would make Werewolf assassins and thieves possible. The Werewolf assassination ability could include animations reminiscent of those killmoves/Kill Cameras from TES V: Skyrim, such as one where you pin your target down and rip their throat out or rend their flesh, and maybe a ranged one could be made using a projectile like Piercing Howl. Currently, the lack of an assassination ability means that it is impossible for Werewolves to complete Dark Brotherhood Sacraments without accruing a bounty attacking their targets. Werewolves cannot reasonably complete Dark Brotherhood Sacraments and Thieves Guild Heists due to problems that stem from not having the ability to crouch in the first place.


Looking back at previous threads about Werewolf crouching (which go back to 2015!), a common objection is that the Werewolf Transformation timer is too short and restrictive to justify giving Werewolves the ability to sneak. Since then, the Call of the Pack passive increases the duration of your Werewolf Transformation when you pick the Pack Leader morph, so it is less of a concern now than it used to be. Plus, I'd suggest that crouching should slow or pause the timer, and assassinating an NPC in Werewolf form should refill your transformation timer, similar to how Vampire feeding restores your Health to full.



Thank you for reading my post. I sincerely hope that we can receive some developer comment on why the ability to sneak was taken away from werewolves. If it took us receiving the Wolfhunter DLC in order to be able to resurrect our allies while in Werewolf form, then I hope that we soon receive some other relevant DLC to give us the ability to sneak.

Panderbander

Seconded on this, though I worry such implementation would only happen during a rework of werewolves as a whole which I don't really expect to see happen at any point before this game sunsets.

IncultaWolf

I agree, werewolves should be able to sneak and utilize stealth! I loved that feature in Morrowind and not being able to in ESO prevents werewolf players from doing some of the game content. The lasers in Graven Deep is a good example. The animation is already there, I imagine it would be very easy to enable. This is so cool to see, and it would make playing werewolf more enjoyable from having options.

Rohamad_Ali

They should and just as fast as vampire sneak. Great suggestion.

Wandering_Immigrant

Every time I picture a werewolf sneaking around I hear the Pink Panther theme song playing in my head. That's reason enough to me for them to do it.

Seriously though I don't see the harm. I can't imagine werewolf stealth gank builds out of crouch being much of a thing.

XSTRONG

No

Soarora

I don’t see why not. Can’t be less sneaky than a tank in full heavy armor. And it is ridiculous that being a werewolf is so difficult in MoS.

Tommy_The_Gun

Yep, definitely. I always thought it is weird that they literally can not sneak around. I mean many RL wolves aside from hunting in packs, often sneak as close as possible near their potential prey. So why WW can't do it is actually very weird. Especially lone wolves.

If I were to guess why it is disabled for WW is maybe because originally, when the game launched WW was designed pretty much only with PvP Brawler in mind. Later on WW changed many times. Nowadays WW is kinda a meme and joke & RP thing. They are weaker than pretty much every other class / build out there in both PvE & PvP. So allowing them to sneak actually kinda makes sense.

Panderbander

If I can sneak as a big, creaky bone goliath, I should be able to sneak as a lithe, agile werewolf.

boi_anachronism_

Agreeee

IncultaWolf

There's a lot of dedicated werewolf players that would love to have this ability! Can anyone on the dev team comment that this is being looked at, or at least considered? Eso werewolves need a lot of love

@ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

Theignson

Ok, you can let them sneak, but they have to have their tails tucked between their hind legs, and have a hang-dog expression

Panderbander

Theignson wrote: »

Ok, you can let them sneak, but they have to have their tails tucked between their hind legs, and have a hang-dog expression

I will accept this only if vampires are all made to sparkle in the most unfortunate ways any time they see the light.

Oh, and they will all be required to wear programmer socks... and nothing else.

Kalthea

Agreed, this would open up a few options for Werewolves if they could sneak!

autocookies

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wilykcat

boi_anachronism_ wrote: »

Agreeee

I also agree

Vevvev

OP you forgot that in a dungeon you can sneak as a werewolf. It's a bonus for killing the side indriks in March of Sacrifices, and it lets you sneak in werewolf form during the boss fight where you have to sneak.

So the devs knew this was a problem and remedied it in a dungeon, but never decided to allow it outside that dungeon.

Erickson9610

Vevvev wrote: »

OP you forgot that in a dungeon you can sneak as a werewolf. It's a bonus for killing the side indriks in March of Sacrifices, and it lets you sneak in werewolf form during the boss fight where you have to sneak.

So the devs knew this was a problem and remedied it in a dungeon, but never decided to allow it outside that dungeon.

I mentioned this in my post. You only become immune to the teleporting magic, but you still cannot crouch even with that boon. Please test it out for yourself if you don't believe me.

Panderbander

Vevvev wrote: »

OP you forgot that in a dungeon you can sneak as a werewolf. It's a bonus for killing the side indriks in March of Sacrifices, and it lets you sneak in werewolf form during the boss fight where you have to sneak.

So the devs knew this was a problem and remedied it in a dungeon, but never decided to allow it outside that dungeon.

Yeah, can't sneak, just don't get teleported during the sneak phase of the Tarcyr fight.

Panderbander

To that end, I find it frankly insulting that for being a werewolf-themed dungeon in the final resting place for werewolves, it is an incredibly unfriendly dungeon for werewolves while also being super easy to play the mechanics as a vampire (no sneak movement penalty). Werewolves can't even complete the side content enabling them to complete the main content without dropping form.

autocookies

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Erickson9610

EDIT: The quoted post was deleted, so here's the link mentioned in the deleted post for context: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/418184/class-reps-meeting-notes-june-7/p1. It's a post by ZOS in 2018 which mentions various features Werewolf players requested at the time, including the ability to sneak.

That list is very insightful. Most of the Werewolf players I talk to would actually disagree on some of those requested features, namely:

• Hircine's Bounty not scaling off stamina/weapon damage or to cost Stamina.
  • Actually, many of us want Hircine's Bounty and Hircine's Fortitude to continue scaling off of Max Health, while Hircine's Rage would scale off of Weapon Damage. The reason for this is that damage dealer werewolves are required to stack Health, which is not their primary stat, in order to have some survivability in PvE content. Making Hircine's Rage (which is currently designed to be the "damage dealer" morph as it's cheaper than and has less healing than Hircine's Fortitude and can grant Major Berserk) scale off of Weapon Damage would help damage dealer werewolves out a lot.
  • Further, a Stamina-based heal on demand would help out tremendously, because as it is, the heal is insanely expensive with no good way to sustain it. I'd actually argue that the Hircine's Fortitude morph would fit best as a Stamina heal, because if Hircine's Rage is to be used in PvE as a damage dealer heal, and Stamina is the primary stat for dealing damage, then tying the heal (which shouldn't need to be used too frequently in PvE with a dedicated healer) to Stamina would put too much pressure on sustain. Rather, in PvP, where Hircine's Fortitude is primarily used, Magicka Recovery is difficult to build for, so making Hircine's Fortitude cost Stamina instead would help Werewolves with the poor uptime on their heal when there may be no dedicated healer.
• Roar to cost Magicka.
  • I have never seen anyone request this, but I suppose it makes sense as it is a utility spell. The problem with that is that Werewolf does not have an in-kit source of Magicka restoration, as their heavy attacks always restore Stamina and there's no buff to Magicka Recovery anywhere in their toolkit. Needing to conserve Magicka to use their only heal on demand on top of reserving Magicka to fear their enemies would put too much emphasis on Magicka Recovery.

Anyway, I'm glad that Werewolf eventually got the ability to resurrect allies (with the Wolfhunter update), they have more ways to keep Werewolf form over longer periods of time, and they can use synergies.

The inability to sneak has been a concern since 2018, and it's still a present issue today. Werewolf has come a long way since then, but I hope that Werewolf can eventually receive the ability to sneak as another quality of life update. I also hope that the concerns over cross healing and unique buffs are eventually tackled, too.

Panderbander

It's amazing how disconnected the werewolf points in that thread are from the reality of werewolf today, 5 years later.

Werewolves don't want to be good, we want to feel special? No, no I want werewolves to be as good as any other playstyle, in both pve and pvp.

Werewolves are teetering on overpowered? Have they ever been overpowered without a specific set interaction causing them to be so?

autocookies

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Erickson9610

The original post has been updated with the following information:

Erickson9610 wrote: »

EDIT: Here is a video of some of the usually inaccessible Werewolf animations, courtesy of @IncultaWolf. This is only possible with the aforementioned visual bug; I am not actually in Werewolf form in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2xkQSbr6io

• 0:00 to 0:18: I toggle between crouching and uncrouching. To get an idea what the uninterrupted idle crouch animation looks like, see the next video.
• 0:18 to 0:38: I showcase the movement animations for crouching with weapons sheathed and toggle walk enabled. This is the prowling animation that werewolf NPCs use.
• 0:38 to end: I showcase various animations using emotes. In chronological order, they are /kneelpray, /begone, /crouch, and /playdead. Additionally, other emotes like /take, /smash, and /cower have been known to work, but those are not shown in this video.

If it was possible to sneak in Werewolf form, this is what it would look like. The animations for werewolf sneaking are there. It's just a matter of ZOS re-enabling the feature.

SandandStars

Sure fine, but then put a cooldown on howl. Fair trade?

Erickson9610

SandandStars wrote: »

Sure fine, but then put a cooldown on howl. Fair trade?

Do you mean "howl" as in

• Piercing Howl (and its morphs Howl of Agony and Howl of Despair), Werewolf's main single target spammable
• Hircine's Fortitude (and its morphs Hircine's Rage and Hircine's Fortitude), Werewolf's only heal on demand ability, and which happens to play a "howling" animation
• Sheathing/Unsheathing your weapon in Werewolf form, which plays the same "howling" animation

Werewolf only has 5 curated skills they can use while in-form. Putting a cooldown on their limited selection of abilities would be unfair to them — even Werewolf Behemoth, which actually has a cooldown system, still has one single target spammable ability which has no cooldown.

No, unless you want to give cooldowns to every spammable (including bashing for bash builds, heavy attacking for heavy attack builds, Resolving Vigor, etcetera), then Werewolf shouldn't be the first to receive this cooldown treatment. Sneaking is a mechanic that everyone else in the game can do, including transformed Blood Scions and Bone Goliaths, so Werewolf should be given the same functionality as everyone else before receiving balance changes to compensate.

autocookies

deleted

IncultaWolf

Erickson9610 wrote: »

The original post has been updated with the following information:

Erickson9610 wrote: »

EDIT: Here is a video of some of the usually inaccessible Werewolf animations, courtesy of @IncultaWolf. This is only possible with the aforementioned visual bug; I am not actually in Werewolf form in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2xkQSbr6io

• 0:00 to 0:18: I toggle between crouching and uncrouching. To get an idea what the uninterrupted idle crouch animation looks like, see the next video.
• 0:18 to 0:38: I showcase the movement animations for crouching with weapons sheathed and toggle walk enabled. This is the prowling animation that werewolf NPCs use.
• 0:38 to end: I showcase various animations using emotes. In chronological order, they are /kneelpray, /begone, /crouch, and /playdead. Additionally, other emotes like /take, /smash, and /cower have been known to work, but those are not shown in this video.

If it was possible to sneak in Werewolf form, this is what it would look like. The animations for werewolf sneaking are there. It's just a matter of ZOS re-enabling the feature.

Yeah exactly, it would be so cool to be able to do thieves guild heists as a prowling sneaky werewolf! Right now werewolves are locked out of so much of the game content

SandandStars

Erickson9610 wrote: »

SandandStars wrote: »

Sure fine, but then put a cooldown on howl. Fair trade?

Do you mean "howl" as in

• Piercing Howl (and its morphs Howl of Agony and Howl of Despair), Werewolf's main single target spammable
• Hircine's Fortitude (and its morphs Hircine's Rage and Hircine's Fortitude), Werewolf's only heal on demand ability, and which happens to play a "howling" animation
• Sheathing/Unsheathing your weapon in Werewolf form, which plays the same "howling" animation

Werewolf only has 5 curated skills they can use while in-form. Putting a cooldown on their limited selection of abilities would be unfair to them — even Werewolf Behemoth, which actually has a cooldown system, still has one single target spammable ability which has no cooldown.

No, unless you want to give cooldowns to every spammable (including bashing for bash builds, heavy attacking for heavy attack builds, Resolving Vigor, etcetera), then Werewolf shouldn't be the first to receive this cooldown treatment. Sneaking is a mechanic that everyone else in the game can do, including transformed Blood Scions and Bone Goliaths, so Werewolf should be given the same functionality as everyone else before receiving balance changes to compensate.

Lol I dont know. Howl of Agony, I think? It’s the only werewolf skill I ever seen on a death recap in battlegrounds. The same button, again and again and again and again. Consecutively.

Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony

I always figured people who play werewolf either have a broken Xbox controller or broken keyboard, and only have one button available.

Erickson9610

SandandStars wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

SandandStars wrote: »

Sure fine, but then put a cooldown on howl. Fair trade?

Do you mean "howl" as in

• Piercing Howl (and its morphs Howl of Agony and Howl of Despair), Werewolf's main single target spammable
• Hircine's Fortitude (and its morphs Hircine's Rage and Hircine's Fortitude), Werewolf's only heal on demand ability, and which happens to play a "howling" animation
• Sheathing/Unsheathing your weapon in Werewolf form, which plays the same "howling" animation

Werewolf only has 5 curated skills they can use while in-form. Putting a cooldown on their limited selection of abilities would be unfair to them — even Werewolf Behemoth, which actually has a cooldown system, still has one single target spammable ability which has no cooldown.

No, unless you want to give cooldowns to every spammable (including bashing for bash builds, heavy attacking for heavy attack builds, Resolving Vigor, etcetera), then Werewolf shouldn't be the first to receive this cooldown treatment. Sneaking is a mechanic that everyone else in the game can do, including transformed Blood Scions and Bone Goliaths, so Werewolf should be given the same functionality as everyone else before receiving balance changes to compensate.

Lol I dont know. Howl of Agony, I think? It’s the only werewolf skill I ever seen on a death recap in battlegrounds. The same button, again and again and again and again. Consecutively.

Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony
Howl of Agony

I always figured people who play werewolf either have a broken Xbox controller or broken keyboard, and only have one button available.

Yeah, it's rough playing Werewolf. If you tried playing Werewolf yourself, you'd find that your skills are:

• A Gap Closer (Pounce) which becomes an Execute DoT (Carnage) if activated again within a short time
• A Self Heal (Hircine's Bounty)
• An AoE Fear (Roar)
• A single target direct damage projectile spammable (Piercing Howl)
• An AoE spammable which applies a DoT (Infectious Claws)

So, the best option for a spammable is Piercing Howl. Infectious Claws is AoE, so it gets reduced by Evasion, and Pounce/Carnage is too clunky to make work as a spammable because of the ability switching. Further, it's redundant to reapply the same DoT in combat before it expires, so Infectious Claws and Carnage aren't worth spamming.

Piercing Howl is single target, direct damage, and it deals much more damage than the other two damaging skills in the Werewolf skill line. I think the reason you see most Werewolves using the same skill repeatedly is because they don't have much choice in the matter — after all, you don't see most Templars spamming Biting Jabs in PvP anymore because they can choose better spammables from any of their unlocked skill lines.