Surely you guys will show the same passion for balance when we get the sorcerer rework! And oh boy I can’t wait for Warden, I can already tell it will be a wild discussion!

Obligatory feedback: More blood please, our beasts should look absolutely lathered in gore after a battle! [at least after feeding]

I see where you are coming from but still think you might be off the mark here. There were no proc-sets used in @React's post. Unless status effects, rip and tear and light attacks are proc setcs I haven't heard of. Check out the CMX, its actually very interesting. And all the buffs used on PTS in the clip are simply the buffs inherent to the class itself (so will be the same on live). I'm glad we're on the same page that WW is currently strongly overperforming. I'm personally unsure which specific tweaks will help mitigate WW's ability to output truly tremendous damage while being able to invest into survivability to heavily.

Wuuffyy wrote: »

SlagasaurusRex wrote: »

On PTS currently, WWs are: highly mobile melee bruisers who can dish out extremely high rates of consistent dps when they dive a player; i.e 'get on top of you.' Their mobility additionally means they can stay on you with relative ease & dive players fairly easily.

I feel a lot of the issues on PTS are caused by 3 things:

-abundance of generic buffs to get juicy proc set numbers

-low cost on abilities (stam) incentivizing health-based stacking even at a slight loss of damage due to lower max stam pool

-abundance of health-based heals.

///

SlagasaurusRex wrote: »

[Far from an instance where the problem might be unique to dueling, I think duels might understate the potential gameplay implications unless other people have compelling reasons as to why it might not.

About dueling:

This is very similar to the nerfed berserker ultimate bleed and the 6 second version of claws which are significant (per cast) reductions for both DPS as well as maximum uptime on opponent even compared to the unviable ‘live’ werewolf. These buffs will very quickly fall off (especially the bleed) whenever you are given any reason to target shift or deprioritize (taking too much damage/ player moves in their group/ etc)[/spoiler]

I know for a fact that:

If you believe werewolf needs no improvements right now, you are wrong.

If you believe werewolf needs no nerfs right now you are also wrong.

I want to draw attention to some easier-to-implement suggestions I have a couple of comments above this one.

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

I disagree with you on point number 1. The heal could be just as high with high weapon damage and they would still be able to run 50k hp. 50k wouldn't be required though. Health scaling isn't a problem.
Point number 2, they should just remove the class masteries from werewolf and create our own optional bonuses. I say that because if we run werewolf as a certain class just for that mastery and that class mastery takes a nerf because the class is now too strong, then our werewolf takes a nerf indirectly too. If they separate it, then it can be balanced separately.

Health scaling heals are ALWAYS problematic. In every form. Not just on WW. This was an issue for years with polar wind, it was an issue with the reworked hardened ward, it is an issue now with the current state of soul burst/wield soul/chakrams and how people are building 50-60k HP shielding builds to abuse them.

It is EXTREMELY problematic in the case of the reworked WW because of how much damage and mobility the spec inherently has. With the ability to have this damage with 50k HP and the high mobility, you end up in a situation where you can't stop a WW built like this from hitting you. You can try to hit them back, but good luck dealing that amount of damage before you; 1) die from their absurdly oppressive DPS, or 2) they heal to full health with the health scaling burst heal + offensive heals. There is no winning a fight against this spec currently.

It's a terrible balance. It would be much more reasonable if the heals all scaled with offensive stats, which would devalue proc sets and also force a sub-40k HP setup. You're saying you could still build 50k HP even with offensive stat scaling heals which is true sure, but you'd be giving up way more healing power to do that - meaning that you'd be able to be pressured back, reducing your DPS and ultimately improving the issue at hand. Meanwhile you'd still be able to build an extremely oppressive 30-35k HP damage oriented setup, but you'd actually be susceptible to burst at that level where with 50k HP you're completely invulnerable to it.

Right now there is no trade off. We're seeing 50k HP wolves with insurmountable healing doing 10k DPS in duels. What exactly whould you say is the counter to someone attacking you with that? From what I've seen, the only possible counter is to play the same setup, or build a trial-tier tank and stalemate them (and still probably die).

Yarcanine wrote: »

I think you could get your point across much more clearly if you would also show an optimized Base Class build running the same or very similar combination of sets to the ones being shown here and how it performs comparatively side by side. There's nothing in WWs kit that is boosting the HP to 50k and its not the only build with HP scaling heals.

Yes, HP scaling heals are obviously a huge issue in PVP and in this particular situation, they're part of what is pushing this spec to obscene levels.

Funnily enough though, if you go all the way back to page two of this thread, you'll see me asking the simple question about whether class mastery passives are supposed to work in WW form. That is the very first thing I asked because it is very clear that a base, reworked WW is still very strong - but not the absolute insanity that is WW taking advantage of the new class mastery passives. Many of the WW enjoyers really did not seem to like me suggesting this though, which is what has led to all of the ongoing testing now being provided to demonstrate why this is an issue.

In any case, here is a fight with pelican using no class mastery passives. Still a very strong power level for the reworked WW I'd say, but not unacceptable in the context of the ongoing class reworks.

React wrote: »

Fights today vs Pelican (4/28, post week 3 adjustments)

No Class Mastery Passives in on his end

I disagree with you on point number 1. The heal could be just as high with high weapon damage and they would still be able to run 50k hp. 50k wouldn't be required though. Health scaling isn't a problem.
Point number 2, they should just remove the class masteries from werewolf and create our own optional bonuses. I say that because if we run werewolf as a certain class just for that mastery and that class mastery takes a nerf because the class is now too strong, then our werewolf takes a nerf indirectly too. If they separate it, then it can be balanced separately.

On werewolf class mastery

I absolutely agree that werewolf should ultimately have its own, thematic class mastery to avoid punishing werewolf players for building pure human builds while decoupling the werewolf itself from the ‘shifting sands’ of buffs and nerfs that will likely be the class mastery system for a while.

On werewolf health-based healing

On your counter argument to your health-based healing, I disagree in that I believe the health based healing is the primary reason it is so viable, especially outside of a 1v1 where I’m less likely to consider armor pots as an option in lieu of mag sustain from mag pots.

This is because while I’m trading a lot of potential damage health stacking, I’m retaining it with HPS. If I remove this interaction and still decide to build 50k health- you are likely to cut through me like butter (think padding) while I have less hps than your standard vigor+soul healing active.

Another, additional suggestion

With that being said, if they were to consider increasing the cost of werewolf skills (yes in PvE as @React even mentioned a possible 100k parse with 50k health which is relatively low but still significant and enabled by low costs/lack of need to focus actual sustain) to 25% under live values (so this is considered ‘normal’ cost) then it may help provide more disparity and opportunity cost to choosing b/w stam and health and also bringing actual meaning back to heavy attacking for werewolf again.

///

Strong Recommendations

I think if they decide to do NOTHING else though:

-need to at least partially revert the duration nerf for werewolf berserker bleed (as you can still maintain near 100% uptime in a duel anyway so this isn’t affecting duel parses) as both the bleed duration and damage per second are already a nerf from live

and

-add minor resolve to Hircine’s rage. I am already taking up to 12% damage with this morph of the ‘healing howl’ and this morph is scaling for ‘less than a breath of life’ with wep and spell damage so I see this as appropriate.

Arunei wrote: »

After feeling too bleh from COVID for the last like week and a half to bother with the forums, I come back.

@React
Let me ask something and this is a genuine question, but do you truly think the average player is going to be hitting these numbers? The whole reason U35 happened was because ZOS nerfed damage thanks to the top percent of players, in an effort to "lower the ceiling" of DPS and accessibility to content. But all it did was nerf the average player nowhere near able to hit those numbers while those top players just kept on hitting ridiculous numbers in other ways.

This right here is one of the biggest problems with this whole thing, in my opinion. Compared to your average "two bar" meta or pure class PVP build, this new WW has probably half the mechanical complexity required to achieve the top end results. There is only one bar of abilities to manage. This reduces complexity for the obvious reason of not having a second bar to deal with, but also comes with the benefit of never being on the "wrong bar" to deal damage or heal. You're always on the correct bar to respond to incoming pressure/burst, and always on the correct bar to continue dealing damage. This allows you to be very efficient at both of these things.

The "drawback" of WW always was the lack of a solid toolkit due to the limited functionality on the skills themselves, as well as the buffs available. With this rework, the developers have shoehorned a TON of buffs and functionality into that same bar of skills. The end result is that much of the "drawback" has now been removed, and you're left with an extremely strong spec with less mechanical complexity to worry about.

As far as I can tell from a PVP perspective, there are more or less only two real drawbacks remaining with WW which are a lack of cross healing, and a lack of AOE. I'd argue these are more than made up for with how strong the rest of the toolkit has become, especially when class mastery passives are added to the mix.

As my very first comment stated and based on the week 3 adjustments, I think all of this would be well and good if the class mastery passives did not work in WW form. Reworked WW would still be very strong, especially when subclassed properly which is something we obviously have not been testing on the PTS. But not the absurdity that is reworked WW + class mastery passives.

Arunei wrote: »

After feeling too bleh from COVID for the last like week and a half to bother with the forums, I come back.

@React
Let me ask something and this is a genuine question, but do you truly think the average player is going to be hitting these numbers? The whole reason U35 happened was because ZOS nerfed damage thanks to the top percent of players, in an effort to "lower the ceiling" of DPS and accessibility to content. But all it did was nerf the average player nowhere near able to hit those numbers while those top players just kept on hitting ridiculous numbers in other ways.

It feels like the same is happening here now. The top few can push numbers super high, and it's being held up as something that's a problem as though everyone playing WW on the PTS is hitting these numbers. So ARE these numbers from top PvPers who are top tier at LoS, timing executes, putting together solid builds with strong sets that mesh well with skills, and so on, something that the average PvPer can also easily achieve even without the skill you and others like Pelican have?

Because it's been shown and said time and again over the years that a person can perfectly copy a high performing build thats capable of hitting 150k+ DPS, but come nowhere near those numbers if they can't get the rotations down properly and/or lack the experience to use the build.

And like I said before I have no horse in the PvP race since I don't. At this point I'm just more curious if this is an actual problem in general or only a problem because high-end players are testing in a very limited form of PvP. And I'm also worried PvE WW may still suffer nerfs by the end of the PTS. I haven't had a chance to test yet myself on my NB WW since like I said, COVID, but I'm hoping things aren't too bad from last week.

Edit: WW Class Mastery would be cool, too. Especially since it seems WW is never going to get Weapon Passives since they weren't included in the refresh.

Clearly React is begging for another Update 35 to happen again and I say let's go ahead and give it to him and the top pvp player base and lower the ceiling and raise the floor since obviously his high DPS parses are just astronomical and we need to rebalance the entire game to bring up the PVE and PVP masses to get on his level and establish true balance.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin any chance we can get Vengeance across all pvp zones please so we can establish balance and appease the top % of pvp duelers and pvpers like React and Pelican and Flamingo?

Wuuffyy wrote: »

React wrote: »

Compared to your average "two bar" meta or pure class PVP build, this new WW has probably half the mechanical complexity required to achieve the top end results.

For your consideration

I personally wouldn’t call half or so of your bar being buffs ‘skill’, especially as they continue to tack major/minor buffs and dense utility into singular skills that also give you somewhere around 1-3 burst moves in your rotation (somewhat referring to DK/meta subclassing).

Testimony

I main a werewolf, swap over, and have no issues with a 2 bar build myself. I play werewolf because it’s werewolf and it’s suppose to a thoughtless, fun, ‘rampaging’ experience.

If I can’t do this without building around exploitable, broken mechanics within werewolf itself (or not having my core balance feature them) then I’d rather them return us to a semblance of live werewolf with PTS animations. As we receive nerf after nerf for these overtuned interactions, while receiving no love within the already-underperforming morphs/passives within the organic kit… it becomes less and less exciting and more and more dreadful to think about.

If all we can say now is ‘nerf’ on repeat, they listen to that (and only that), and they never improve anything ever… werewolf will quite actually end up worse than live. It took 5+ years to get this and this kind of balance management is going to blow this chance in smoke within a matter of weeks to months.

*edit for spelling/grammar

What are the "exploitable, broken mechanics" you speak of? I haven't seen anything of this description, from anyone, on PTS.

Broken in terms of ridiculously strong, yes. But not something that isn't working as intended.
In fact the only thing broken about it is that one of the passives which gave over 1000 WD wasn't working, makinig it weaker than it was supposed to be

@React
Right now IMO the only class reworked werewolf should really be compared to is the reworked DK as we are still waiting to see what the other reworks will look like.

Saying that though, I'm not a regular warden player; but wouldn't a 50k HP warden running this same build with a monster set on top of it. With something like B4B, shalks, executioner, polar wind, ice staff backbar with ele sus, etc. Perform similarly if played correctly? With added versatility and burst damage to boot?

Yarcanine wrote: »

@React

Saying that though, I'm not a regular warden player; but wouldn't a 50k HP warden running this same build with a monster set on top of it. With something like B4B, shalks, executioner, polar wind, ice staff backbar with ele sus, etc. Perform similarly if played correctly? With added versatility and burst damage to boot?

The simplicity of the WW offensive and defensive rotation, as well as the multiple offensive and defensive health scaling heals, help a ton in achieving the DPS/HPS you're seeing with this particular WW spec. In the case of the warden running a similar setup, there are more buffs and heals to cast, skillshots to land (shalks), sustain issues to consider (skills are MUCH more expensive on normal builds, the low max resource pools begin to matter a lot more), etc. That is a ton of time that you're not just spamming your offensive abilities, stats you'd have to give up in regards to sustain, way less healing power from your actual heals if you're choosing to have 50k HP, etc.

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

Still trying to figure out why mechanical complexity of a two bar build matters to anyone. Why should anyone care how hard or easy it is to do something? Maybe take pride in knowing that you did well with a more complex rotation. I know I take pride in performing well with the live werewolf against strong players. Seems like anyone else could do the same.

Well, because this is an MMO, and balance is important.

If you can achieve better results on a one bar setup with half the mechanical complexity required of a two bar setup, what is the incentive to play a two bar setup?

I think it would be fine for WW to be close in power level to the reworked classes, like @Yarcanine suggests. This is not the case with PTS WW + class mastery passives. It has the best damage by a 25%-50% margin when compared to the next best specs, whilst having 50k HP and better HPS than those specs. All for half the "effort" compared to those builds.

Wuuffyy wrote: »

However you posted this which seems like an attempt at a ‘gatchya’: (‘like ‘gatchya’, you’re saying it’s class masteries when it’s totally not’)

React wrote: »

To be clear, these are pelican's PTS characters - not mine. I am pretty certain that name is in reference to the fact that even post-nerf, WW is by miles the strongest thing on the PTS still. In any case, it has nothing to do whatsover with the data being presented in any of these posts.

React wrote: »

Well, because this is an MMO, and balance is important.

If you can achieve better results on a one bar setup with half the mechanical complexity required of a two bar setup, what is the incentive to play a two bar setup?

Live version sucks, PTS “op”. Change scenario based on actual kit values-

(ZOS please don’t do this exact thing) but if we were to… remove the healing on bite and claws right now completely… and Hircine’s Fortitude scaled from weapon and spell (could just make it 25% more wep/scale damage than Hircine’s Rage scaling now)… werewolf would legitimately be worse than live in just about every way without further changes. (this is how close we are to the edge of being worse in every way)

The only ‘saving grace’ would be the sustain passive from sorc mastery… but sorc masteries were removed/ werewolf received its own ‘werewolf mastery’ system- even this would no longer be exploitable to go far over the power budget.

It seems like we’re wanting to gut all of werewolf or say buffs aren’t needed when rather than that there are “unintended interactions” that can be handled while considering that buffs/changes can also be implemented to better suit werewolf and increase its power where its needed… without giving it ~3 burst moves and the healing live DK gets with vigor, soul scribe heal, and whatever ungodly heals it now has access to in-kit and even the ability for 100k pen on command with ~invincibility~.

Even PvE werewolf parses are yet again exploiting sorc masteries (I assume) and partaking in a copious ~40% wep and spell stim to inflate parses to above 170/180k… this doesn’t mean ‘werewolf good’- this means broken interactions that will be nerfed sooner than later. In terms of PvP these changes and others will mean likely ‘worse than when we started’ absolutely.

Edit: spelling/grammar/readability

Ataskir wrote: »

Not everyone enjoys being a rampaging beast, (or it’s playstyle) so you shouldn’t expect werewolf to suddenly take on DK levels of dominance in PvP.

All of this is, of course to say, the combat team’s duty. However nothing from this point on should just be straight nerfs on the table just because they also are needing to handle these interactions AND should handle existing/fabricated weakness at the same time.

Without health-based healing exploitation, mastery exploitation (*apparently SIGNET mythic exploitation)…

Werewolf on PTS would be nowhere near a DK. We don’t have 3 burst moves, we never will- we can’t support them. If you were to have bite, claws, and fortitude scale from wep/spell dmg or reasonable health values (sub 30k) you’d never have the healing on live anything gets with vigor+soul heal and a few class hots under basically any circumstances.

You’d have convenience in a furry package but nothing more.

*bleh, edit again for spelling and the like, *edit for addition

Wait a second, is werewolf not allowed to be competitive because it’s one-bar?

We the players don’t determine the number of bars it has, it should remain competitive until they figure that out.

I don’t want my werewolf to fall leagues behind due to scrupulous scrutiny while everyone else (like DK) passes through with flying colors.

Having no burst moves and 1 sec dots with nerfed tooltips from live isn’t competitive at all. Turn health-based heals into wep/spell damage scaling ‘while under battle spirit’, if needed, and consider either removing sorc masteries for werewolf or (much better) give werewolf its own class mastery system instead.

Fix the fact we now have a 1 second dot (from 4), 6 second dot (from 20) no access to minor resolve anywhere (literally this is IN SPADES anywhere else via vigor), and we have actually, factually no burst whatsoever in our kit with the removal of ‘Blood Hunger’ damage increase. That is ridiculous I don’t care what dueling parse number ANYONE provides me.

This will NOT be competitive WITHOUT health stacking. I have proof above that shows this. I had become disillusioned again and convinced myself we couldn’t have nice things because ZoS thinks werewolf=one bar.

My disillusionment manifested:



Oh and of course DK can do that and also has access to 3+ burst moves and significant on command healing, and wings, and corrosive. Ah yes, the list of things- the list of things 🫠

And I have… *checks notes*, a very scary execute at a whopping 25% health that is highly telegraphed, and 2 “STRONK” buffs that could be better sourced from dueling via Sea Serpent’s, and exploitable heals… nice

And when that makes it to live and is gutted… I have nothing.

ZOS here my plea! Take feedback from duelers, as well as everyone else, common sense, AND the tooltips I spent SO much time and effort to procure and demonstrate before you hang in the towel on werewolf 2.0 because top end players are exploiting certain werewolf mechanics

I really wish Vengeance wasn't permanently on PTS, because we can't even test Werewolf in the de facto PvP environment.

Do not balance PvP around Duels, Imperial City, or Battlegrounds. Balance PvP around non-Vengeance Cyrodiil.

All of the "broken" CMX parses are not done in the environment where balance matters to the majority of the PvP population. Do not expect those "broken" Werewolf builds to perform well in 1vX, and always analyze every out-of-context screenshot with intense scrutiny.

In these screenshots, they are legitimately exploiting the Signet mythic but not relaying this information to you in said screenshots. They are also not providing information on the opponents themselves (resists and protection).

Master level misinformation campaign, had been dupped too and didn't realize there is yet another interaction they were exploiting for these parses- haha.