Hircine's Bounty and its morphs are Werewolf's only on-demand instant heal abilities, yet there are a few adjustments I'd propose to make these morphs stand out from one another in the context of PvE versus PvP and Damage Dealer versus Tank, while simultaneously introducing the Healer gameplay style and encouraging Werewolves to group together.
Long ago, Hircine's Bounty and its morphs scaled off of Spell Damage. Hircine's Fortitude in particular even had a Heal over Time, which it lacks nowadays:
Yet, Werewolves have never been able to heal one another, and Werewolves lost their damage-scaling heal and their proper healing over time effect.
Here are the adjustments I propose:
- Hircine's Bounty (base morph):
- To encourage Werewolves to group together while introducing the Healer playstyle, all morphs of Hircine's Bounty should have some form of crosshealing that only affects transformed Werewolves. This crossheal component can be a Direct Heal that scales off of the activator's Maximum Stamina or Magicka, to better align with similar effects designed to scale better for those who specialize as Healers.
- Why should the crosshealing only affect transformed Werewolves?
- ZOS wants Werewolves to have a reason to group together. Thematically, it's appropriate, and illustrated through the design of the Call of the Pack passive and the Terrified effect requiring Damage Dealer Werewolves to enable the Terrified damage bonus for Tank Werewolves. If you're a Werewolf and you want the crosshealing of your Werewolf allies, then you must transform with them. Besides, now the howling animation will have a purpose — a Werewolf pack howls together in order to crossheal one another.
- Werewolves can't use Weapon Passives, so Werewolf Tanks can't benefit from One Hand and Shield block mitigation, nor can Werewolf Healers benefit from Restoration Staff healing done. This makes an all-Werewolf group a deliberate "for fun" or roleplaying choice, yet there's currently no way for all-Werewolf groups to heal one another with their own abilities. Most Werewolf groups currently have human form Healers, who don't contribute to the power fantasy of a Werewolf pack, and item sets used for crosshealing are expensive to fit into the build and they reduce the build diversity of the group by being a requirement — similar to Tormentor, before Werewolf was given their own dedicated taunt.
- Giving Werewolves their own exclusive crossheal won't exacerbate the crosshealing problem in PvP — each human form player could have as many crosshealing abilities as they want, including (but not limited to) Echoing Vigor, Radiating Regeneration, Healing Burst, or Polar Wind, whereas each Werewolf player would only have their chosen morph of Hircine's Bounty to crossheal with.
- If Werewolf's crossheal only affected other Werewolves, then ball groups would either lose access to all of those other crossheals from each player if they went primarily Werewolf (because Werewolves can't slot non-Werewolf skills), or their human form players wouldn't get any benefit from having a Werewolf crosshealing in their group. Thus, a group of both Werewolves and human form players would be best tackled by eliminating the human form players first, as they don't get the crosshealing from their Werewolf allies while their Werewolf allies get the crosshealing from their human form allies.
- Hircine's Rage:
- This is the preferred morph for Damage Dealers in PvE. As such, it should scale off of Weapon/Spell Damage, rather than Max Health, since Damage Dealer Werewolves generally don't have high Max Health to benefit much from it. Plus, glass cannon builds in PvP could use this morph without needing to stack so many Attributes into Max Health.
- The crossheal component should remain the same as the base morph. Alternatively, it could be dropped to allow the Major Berserk effect to remain, if the power budget is a concern.
- Hircine's Fortitude:
- This is the preferred morph for Tanks and PvP players. As such, it should continue to scale off Max Health. But, given the importance of a proper Healing over Time in environments where Claws of Life is ineffective (such as when you're in PvP with Battle Spirit, where there aren't many enemies nearby, or if you don't have much Weapon/Spell Damage) this ability should be given back the Heal over Time it used to have.
- The crossheal component suggested for the base morph should now add or instead function as a Heal over Time, which continues to scale off the activator's Max Stamina/Magicka.
Thank you for reading this far. I sincerely hope these suggestions are seen and considered by the combat team. Werewolf doesn't have a lot to work with, so making these morphs distinct in this way should open up greater build diversity and gameplay styles for all corners of this game for Werewolf players, while encouraging Werewolf group play.
@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno
PC/NA — Lone Werewolf, the Templar Khajiit Werewolf
Werewolf Should be Allowed to Sneak
Please give us Werewolf
Skill Styles (for customizing our fur color),
Grimoires/Scribing skills (to fill in the holes in our builds), and
Companions (to transform with).