Marto wrote: »

Or make it so the glowing only appears when Rampage is ready to be activated.

Oh wow I think I like that better than my idea to configurable in outfit station.

Love that idea, glows when ready to be activated.

Not to mention the daedric summoning set punishes you for daedric summoning. If there is ANY set that should have boosted pet sorcs it is the daedric summoning set. The lightning set should be the no-pet sorc set. Completely unfair that not only did pet sorcs not get a set but that the class set that is specifically for their skill line punishes you for using that skill line. Is there any other class set that punishes you using the skill line it's meant to boost?

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

This is the official feedback thread for Combat Refresh changes for the Werewolf coming in Update 50. After you have a chance to try out different combat scenarios, let us know what you think of the current balance and changes.

Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Do the refreshed abilities correctly portray the mechanics of the ability?
• Are there any key Werewolf changes that you enjoyed?
• Are there any key Werewolf changes that did not feel great?
• Is there anything else you would like to share about the Werewolf changes?

I have a lot that I want to talk about regarding this refresh, so bearwolf with me here:

My first impression is that the mechanics are not plainly explained. While I do see some mechanics repeated in several places (Werewolf Transformation and Blood Rage both explain how Rampage works) I had to look between several abilities to figure out what Blood Hunger does and where it's sourced from. It also took me some time to discover that the old Werewolf Transformation timer bar is a meter to show you how much Fury you have accumulated.

My current understanding is that, at least for a PvE damage dealer build using Werewolf Berserker, we want to use Carnage (Feral for single target, Brutal for AoE) and Bloodclaws as DoTs, use Hircine's Rage and Ferocious Roar as buffs, and Bloody Gnash as our spammable... or we can use Claw Fury as a channeled spammable and use Bloody Gnash as an execute spammable at 25%. For tanking, we want to use Pack Leader, Feral Pounce/Carnage, Hircine's Fortitude, Deafening Roar, Rip And Tear (casting this while Bracing to taunt enemies), and Bloodclaws.

To me, that divides PvE Werewolf into three playstyles:

1. Single Target DD (Bloody Gnash)
2. Channeled AoE DD (Claw Fury)
3. Tank (Deafening Roar + Rip And Tear)

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There are plenty of key Werewolf changes that I enjoy. I love the Slaughter mechanic, especially that I can Slaughter enemies back-to-back. This really reminds me of the rampages I would go on in TES V: Skyrim, and I love all of the animations I've seen from this mechanic so far.

The model and animations look great! I also like the ability to change our fur color via Skill Styles, although I wish the Black fur color was a bit darker, to differentiate itself from the Ashen fur color. I was looking for both grey and brown fur color styles, assuming grey was Ashen and brown was the color when you didn't use a Skill Style, but I was surprised to find that there are only three colors, and our default color continues to change with the morph we pick, and we can equip a style that makes us look exactly as the morph we pick would've made us look anyway. I don't like how these styles are tied to a Dynamic Encounter which presumably won't be available until Season One — this will be a long wait. I hope we get the "Hircine's Hunter" style in the meantime.

I appreciate the Stealth Detection and the "PvE sneak" that we have now, as they're both thematic to werewolves being hunters. I like that Spaulder of Ruin was updated to proc off of Prowl as well. I haven't tested it yet, but I'm hoping Rampage lets us get away without a bounty if there are no witnesses, because I think Sacraments and Heists would be fun to do as a Werewolf. I still found that several monsters spotted me from a long distance away, though. I know it's not within the vision to give us proper sneak, but other PvE content like March of Sacrifices still won't let us complete it as a Werewolf, and there are still the old sneaking animations in the game (even an actual "prowling" animation when you toggle walk with weapons sheathed while invisible):
I would be happy to have PvE content like March of Sacrifices modified to let Werewolves complete it, even if we won't get to use sneaking in PvP. It would be nice to have the actual prowling animation be active while we're Prowling.

Other things I like include Pounce/Carnage being separated by distance, Hircine's Rage finally scaling off of offensive stats, and, of course, no time limit to the transformation out of combat. I spent several hours socializing with some friends in Werewolf form the entire time on the PTS, and this is the sort of experience I'm excited to have more of on the Live server. The in-form Ultimate is pretty cool, too — although when you use it while wearing Balorgh, it instead credits you for the rate of which Werewolf Transformation drains, rather than 1000 (the cost in Fury, or even whatever your current Ultimate value is). It's nice that bonuses which were specifically made to reduce the cost of Werewolf Transformation (Salvation, Shapeshifter's Chain, and Pack Leader's Bone Broth) affect the Ultimate drain rate. It's also nice to see the "supernatural regeneration" werewolf trope being represented by Pack Leader's "Enduring Rampage" Ultimate granting them a huge amount of extra Health Recovery.

Also, thank you for giving Werewolves a unique +6% damage done for allies via their Feeding Frenzy synergy. I hope this is enough to make them desirable in competitive groups, in both PvE and PvP.

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Specifically for pain points, I think the biggest offense is how the change to Blood Rage makes it impossible to sustain Werewolf when you have no other Werewolves or dire wolves in your group. On Live, you can sustain Werewolf as a Werewolf Berserker so long as you continually hit the enemy and proc Blood Rage while you have Call of the Pack learned. On the PTS, you will eventually lose form if you don't have additional external sources of Ultimate Cost Reduction (i.e., Imperial's "Red Diamond", Templar's "Restoring Spirit", Sorcerer's "Power Stone") or Ultimate Generation (i.e., Nightblade's "Catalyst", Nord's "Stalwart", Emperor's "Authority"). This is a glaring issue for solo players who are stuck in combat who have no corpses to feed on nearby and are not equipped with Pack Leader, Werewolf friends, or an Ultimate-generating build.

While I was initially put off by the red/green markings depending on your morph, I recognize why they're there. I like that the Werewolf Berserker has glowing eyes just like in the ability icon. And I love that, with the existing Verdant Green Skill Styles for Rending Claws and Roar, you can make a green-themed Werewolf (Pack Leader, Hircine's Fortitude, Roar w/ Verdant Green, Rending Claws w/ Verdant Green) or a red-themed Werewolf (Werewolf Berserker, Hircine's Rage, no Verdant Green Skill Styles).

Another pain point I have is that Werewolf still has no crosshealing ability. Werewolves are supposed to be group-oriented, yet they lack the most important part of a group composition in their build. I'm also a little disappointed that we still have lifesteal in our toolkit, rather than a proper heal over time. Also, the loss of Disease Damage and Major/Minor Defile is felt, since that was part of our burst in PvP. Heavy Attack spam builds are also gone.

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Overall, thank you for making this refresh a reality. This feels like a completely new game, in a very positive way. I've been telling a whole lot of people about this rework because it's genuinely the most exciting thing coming to this game in my eyes. It is giving a positive first impression for people who haven't played the game yet, so I hope issues like the unclear mechanics are sorted out so they'll want to stick with it.

As always, I have to ask, since these are on my wishlist and all:

• Can we get a Scribing Grimoire for the Werewolf skill line? Something that interacts with the other abilities that opens up new gameplay possibilities. I would really love to have the option of replacing one of my Werewolf skills for a Werewolf Scribing skill that expands my build options, such as an ability that could crossheal, grant buffs which I otherwise lack (like Minor Resolve), or utilize Scripts like Class Flourish or Wayfarer's Mastery to create unique effects. For instance, a Scribing ability which placed an effect on the Hunting ground would even allow us to use certain sets we couldn't before, like Dark Convergence.
• Can we get a Werewolf Companion? I think having a Companion who can transform into a Werewolf would be really cool. Not only should they count towards Call of the Hunt (helping address the pain point about it now being harder to maintain form as a solo player) but they could have all of the updated visuals for the model and abilities.
• Can we get Werewolf added to Vengeance soon? I'm not sure how the new Werewolf would be optimized for this campaign, but a lot of us Werewolf players want to be able to play as a Werewolf in any experience, and Vengeance currently lacks it.

We already have Werewolf Transformation Skill Styles, and we have as close to sneaking as we're (likely) going to get. We got so many other cool things like cinematic kills and an infinite timer out of combat. I hope you'll continue to consider Werewolf in the future as more balance updates happen! I'm running out of things to ask for!

I agree. I understand wanting to bring no-pet sorcs up to par with pet sorcs. But why is that being accomplished by nerfing pet sorcs into the ground when they are already weaker than other classes? It's legitimately unfair that the dev solution to having pets handing out massive punishments for using them.

They already have to be double slotted. That's a massive cost in and of itself. And then you need Daedric prey to make them work. That's 5 skill slots taken up by them. Yet, they are NOT stronger than other AOE DOTS that cost significantly less than the pets. And NOW we get NOTHING from the class mastery system and nerfs to a mythic item because of a completely unrelated skill.

Given how some no-pet sorc players have basically asked us to uninstall the game if we like pet sorcs because they flat out want the class all themselves, why is ZOS feeding into player hostility for people who want to enjoy a skill line by making it weaker and weaker and weaker to other classes.

Is the end goal for pet sorcs to be completely deleted from any vet activity in-game and to be purely "adventurer" tier roleplay, welcome in no more content than someone who isn't even bothering to have a build at all?

The SORC class a whole is in bad shape in PvE. Neither build should be getting nerfed.

Velothi has been the most popular set across end game raiding since the patch it was released.

Why is it suddenly an issue?

Answer: because ZOS finally understood the maths of how they programmed it to be.

Don't help ZOS. Don't tell ZOS anything. Never report a bug or anything you want to stay in the game.

This is getting insane now.



sorc pets don't have a special interation with this mythic. you're using the bear bleed status effect as an excuse to nerf sorc pet builds, for no reason at all!

These are all useless if you're using double pets.

Class Flourish - useless with pets
Beacon of oblivion - useless with pets
Static Reverberation - 66% nerf with pets

These are things that are meant to enhance the sorc. Instead you've basically made these things not exist for sorcs.

You know what's awesome? the stupid pet you get in Infinite Archive counts for these.

Can someone explain why? Can someone show me how pet sorcs are out pacing other classes by so much that they need specific, targetted nerfs.
No pet sorcs are significantly weaker than pet sorcs, but that's an additional issue.

These nerfs should be fixed, not doubled down on.

If sorc pets are so strong, why is no one using the skill line other than a support dps for the atro?
What is going on?

@ZOS_Kevin

I just wanted to start by putting a bug in the art team's ear...

We know that U50 will not include any models beyond the new male and female werewolves, and that it is not currently being discussed to have others. I do agree that the primary target should be to add the basic black/white recolors, and I hope that the team is considering churning out other possible colors like a true brown or a true grey (the old unmorphed wolf color was a desaturated beige that satisfied neither of those colors) since about the only character customization available to players who use werewolf form is the skill style of the transformation, so it would be good to have a lot of options there.

However... I would hope that premium werewolf skill styles that give us alternate beast forms would be considered now that the refresh is here.
It was mentioned that new models would require new rigs and animations, but we have a lot of examples in game currently of Polymorphs that are useable for players despite not sharing the same model as standard humanoids - see the digitigrade hooves of the Minotaur, or the tree stump legs of the various Spriggans, or the three-fingered hands of the Atronachs. They were each rigged for those models, but then they animate with the standard humanoid skeleton so they can still do all of the animations in game.

It would be amazing if the team would consider premium models for alternate beast forms. While Elder Scrolls lore does list several werebeasts, the best option would be something that could be done like the above - a different model that could still reasonably use the werewolf animations. In fact, the two alternate werebeasts that have actually been seen in the series were derived from the werewolf as well: Daggerfall had (playable!) wereboars that used similar sprites to the werewolves, and Skyrim had werebear enemies that used all of the werewolf animations - enough so that mods could easily make the werebears playable simply by replacing the model.

I'll even point out the fact that ESO technically has werebears in game, at least in a fashion. Dagrund the Bulky, the third boss of the March of Sacrifices dungeon, is canonically a werebear and references it frequently in his dialogue... he just never transforms.

There doesn't seem to be much noise on the forums or anywhere about wereboars, but werebears do seem quite popular here and other places (and I'm asking a bit selfishly for myself, since I have a character who is canonically a werebear himself). A werebear model, rigged to use the basic werewolf animations, would be perfect for me, and bonus points if it also includes bear sound effects instead of the standard wolf ones. Not only that, if the model for werebears existed, it could end up like the Spriggan polymorph becoming Nazaray - give it to Finn's team and it could end up being a boss in a Dungeon so the model doesn't go to waste (and also more Dungeons would be incredible).

That kind of thing is also a perfect addition to the Crown Store or Premium Tomes - we see that the more involved Skill Styles tend to end up in there, and I know I for one would pay for it immediately. And, like the Spriggans, that's something that a model could be made once and then several recolors could be sold. I desperately need a standard brown bear, but I'll bet there are people who would also like a black or polar bear variant.

In conclusion:

Thank you

I'll be back in a few days after I've played with the werewolf to talk about the combat feel.