[Class Rep] Werewolf Feedback Thread

Aznox

@Mr_Wolfe good recap.

As for timer don't forget Call of the pack gives you 20% even when alone.

So before if you got hit every 3 sec you would gain timer over time (0,6sec every 3 sec at best).

Now if you do damage every 5 sec you will loose a little over time (0,2 every 5 sec at best)

So this will have to be covered by 2-3 more pounce per minute, but overall the swap from damage received to damage done is still a big boost in PvE and a not-so-bad-maybe-good in PvP.

Also don't forget the Fear buff.

Coolio_Wolfus

I wonder if the Pack Leader Direwolves attacks count as doing damage for the timer increase as well?

Aznox

Coolio_Wolfus wrote: »

I wonder if the Pack Leader Direwolves attacks count as doing damage for the timer increase as well?

No reason they wouldn't, but this doesn't change anything as i can't imagine a situation where they would deal damage while you don't have any other damage ticking (bleed, claws, etc..)

Ramesses

Paint point: werewolves must have fast finishing moves (if target below 10% HP and proc chance = crit chance) something like: two-handed skull crush; powerful strike through the chest with the target's heart in the claws; or simple tearing the target apart (for ex: tear hands off and blow the chest off with the roar).
Where did you see fierce beasts fight like kittens - no blood, no fear, no rampage?

anadandy

Ramesses wrote: »

I think werewolves must have fast finishing moves (if target below 10% HP and proc chance = crit chance) something like: two-handed skull crush; powerful strike through the chest with the target's heart in the claws; or simple tearing the target apart (for ex: tear hands off and blow the chest off with the roar).
Where did you see fierce beasts fight like kittens - no blood, no fear, no rampage?

NPC werewolves have some cool moves like this that Player WW don't. In one of the Wrothgar delves (I think?) There is one where they leap in the air and do an overhand punch that leaves you stunned. That's what our HA animation should be instead of the awkward bear hug.

Irylia

anadandy wrote: »

Ramesses wrote: »

I think werewolves must have fast finishing moves (if target below 10% HP and proc chance = crit chance) something like: two-handed skull crush; powerful strike through the chest with the target's heart in the claws; or simple tearing the target apart (for ex: tear hands off and blow the chest off with the roar).
Where did you see fierce beasts fight like kittens - no blood, no fear, no rampage?

NPC werewolves have some cool moves like this that Player WW don't. In one of the Wrothgar delves (I think?) There is one where they leap in the air and do an overhand punch that leaves you stunned. That's what our HA animation should be instead of the awkward bear hug.

Every magdk boss or npc in the game has cooler animations than the actual character class

AuldWolf

@Mr_Wolfe's amazing write up on this pretty much gives words and numbers to the sinking feeling I've had. This is what MMOs start to do when they begin to lose players. They lose sight of FUN (which is what 90 per cent of all players want, not skinner boxes, not grind, not whatever other substitutes they might have) and replace it with 'balance.' Because reasons. This is how MMOs die. Admittedly, this is only a very narrow subsection of ESO, but if they start applying this attitude to all areas of the game, then things are going to go very badly for them.

Honestly, I can see Wolfhunter leading to a lot of werewolf players just giving up. I know I have. I tend to think of myself as one of their whales as between myself and my partner I easily spend hundreds of pounds (even more in dollars) on the game each and every month. With Wolfhunter, I've committed to not buying even one more crown. I'm not bothering with the grotto or any other half-hearted inclusions they're offering to try and lessen the blow.

What I am doing is looking forward to playing co-op Skyblivion and Skywind with my partner, so I can enjoy a fun werewolf. Which is all I really ever wanted from ESO.

Like I've said elsewhere, I've never had a patch so succinctly kill my enthusiasm for a game. It's as sublime as it is genuinely impressive. I want to congratulate whomever was responsible because it truly is a feat. I mean, it's not one you'd desire but it is an accomplishment nonetheless. This is going to leave to werewolf players leaving en masse. It'll be like the first exodus of Champions Online.

I'm sick of seeing these patterns repeat, which is why after ESO I'm swearing off MMOs. I'm tired of this. It's like Groundhog Day for me. Stupid decisions are made in the name of 'balance' as that's what the higher-ups believe people keep playing their game for; People leave the game as it's no longer fun (which is why they were playing it and sticking with it in the first place, not for the grind); And so it goes, on and on and on and on and on....

I don't see this changing. So right now I'm just playing around with TES III for a Ravenous Hunger (mod) run. That'll be a blast!

Edit: It's really damn sad. My partner and I put together these incredible characters in preparation for Wolfhunter. They were going to be our werewolf characters and I was so happy, I had so much faith in ZOS, I believed they'd get it right and that belief was genuine. Now those characters are worthless and I just feel kind of cold. I enjoy werewolves, they have a significant meaning to me, so the chance to actually play fun werewolves in ESO was thrilling. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up or trusted them.
 

Chrlynsch

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

I was under the impression they added the movement speed and defense buffs to those passives, not that they replaced the old effects.

[Edit] Yeah, they both say "This ability now also" does yadda yadda, so we aren't losing the previous/current effect of those passives.

Overall I'm a bit concerned about some of these changes. The more I look at them, the more most of them seem like nerfs.[/edit]

Honestly the removal of the 10% weapon damage bonus from Hircine's Rage is the most glaring nerf PvE wise (to me at least). Everything else seems to be more or less a buff though (for PvE). I'm interested to see what my SOLO wolf form up time and DPS are after the update.

Healing Nerfs:

The change to Hircine's Bounty is a nerf to most currently effective wolf builds. It changes the priority from stamina/weapon damage + magicka/spell damage to stamina/weapon damage + health, which not only renders hybrid sets like shacklebreaker and pelinial's less effective, but also means things that increase your max weapon and spell damage (such as Kena, berzerk weapon enchant, etc) no longer boost your healing.

It also removes the heal over time from the Hircine's Fortitude morph, which makes you reliant on claws of life or healing potions to proc Earthgore, which is basically the only way a werewolf can group heal.

Damage:

The 10% buff to light and heavy attacks granted by Howl of Despair's 'Feeding Frenzy' synergy has been replaced with a much shorter duration Empower. This doesn't apply to heavy attacks, doesn't stack with othet sources of empower, and judging by the wording now only affects the person activating the synergy, instead of buffing the whole group. So while it could be as much as a 30% increase for the person activating it, the other people in your party not getting the buff makes this a net loss--which gets worse the bigger your group is.

The 10% damage buff from Hircine's Rage was removed, and replaced with Major Brutality. Just one person running Rousing Roar used to give Major Brutality to your entire group, now each werewolf will have to choose between a 20% damage buff or a slightly bigger heal.

Only one of the morphs to Roar causes Off-Balance now. The other morph inflicts Major Fracture, which doesn't stack with the numerous other sources of that debuff--in addition to making it harder to sustain and causing everyone in the group to miss out on the extra damage granted by the exploiter passive.

We lost our stuns, making it much harder to take down mobs and other players in PvP.

No fix for the bonus LA/HA damage we lost due to a dev mistake with Summerset, which effectively nerfed WW by leaving us out while just about everyone else got a buff to their light attack damage.

Timer:

The new version of bloodrage is a nerf. It's easier to trigger since it procs on dealing damage instead of taking it, but they increased the cooldown so you can't actually stop your timer with this ability, just slow it down. That means the new version actually makes it harder to maintain werewolf form.

There are some upsides: A tiny boost to resistances. (34 points, lol) The ability to rez. (Long overdue) The ability to use synergies. (Which doesn't actually do anything unless you're in a party with non-werewolves.) Faster leveling and immediate access to Devour. (Which does nothing if you've already maxed your werewolf.) Improvements to how Devour works. (Yes!) Buffs to Pack Leader's direwolves and a few much needed bugfixes.

But overall? We're stuck even tighter n a very narrow niche (Stamina DPS), while Vampire remains an improvement to virtually any build--and now our effectiveness in that niche has been nerfed hard despite the fact that we were already underperforming.

Not real happy about that.

Couple things

Honestly the removal of the 10% weapon damage bonus from Hircine's Rage is the most glaring nerf PvE wise
Werewolves are now achieving 45k+ self buffed damage. We will be fine.

The change to Hircine's Bounty is a nerf to most currently effective wolf builds. It changes the priority from stamina/weapon damage + magicka/spell damage to stamina/weapon damage + health, which not only renders hybrid sets like shacklebreaker and pelinial's less effective, but also means things that increase your max weapon and spell damage (such as Kena, berzerk weapon enchant, etc) no longer boost your healing.
I am healing more on my pelinals build on pts then on live, I can now ditch pelinal's for something else that provides more damage, sustain, or utility. At zero loss. Healing change is a buff.

Not having to stack weapon damage for a heal opens up way more doors then it closed. The heal is also always on and maxed, meaning I don't need those glyphs/sets to be procc in order to maximize my heal. Revving up the heal is no longer a thing.

The ability to use synergies. (Which doesn't actually do anything unless you're in a party with non-werewolves.)
Undaunted passive triggering

Aznox

Aren't we over-reacting a bit here ?

I am myself very, very implicated in Werewolf, but i'm nowhere near the level of distress you seem to be in @AuldWolf

Could you list specifically what is affecting you in the announced changes ?

This is going to leave to werewolf players leaving en masse

Where could we go ? There is barely enough of us to form a football team

Mr_Wolfe

Aznox wrote: »

@Mr_Wolfe good recap.

As for timer don't forget Call of the pack gives you 20% even when alone.

So before if you got hit every 3 sec you would gain timer over time (0,6sec every 3 sec at best).

Now if you do damage every 5 sec you will loose a little over time (0,2 every 5 sec at best)

So this will have to be covered by 2-3 more pounce per minute, but overall the swap from damage received to damage done is still a big boost in PvE and a not-so-bad-maybe-good in PvP.

Also don't forget the Fear buff.

Being able to fear six targets instead of three is nice, but trash mobs are already easy to kill as a werewolf. It won't help us much in boss fights, or in PvP where everyone seems to be be chugging immovable pots or something. Honestly the loss of off balance overshadows this buff for me.

As for the timer issue, Call of the Pack hasn't been changed. However good the timer situation looks on paper, in practice it's been difficult for solo werewolves to maintain form without constant snacks.

The changes to devour should help this somewhat, but having Bloodrage proc on damage done instead of damage taken may actually make it worse, because you can't rely on DoTs to keep your timer up between fights anymore.

Before, there were three main circumstances where I had trouble keeping form:

1) Long boss fights without any adds to feed on.

This was generally the least troublesome, because it usually wasn't hard to keep a DoT on myself or back off for the occasional leap. (At the cost of DPS.) The change to Bloodrage means I can avoid more damage in some cases, but makes me more reliant on Feral Pounce and forces me to give up even more DPS to stay in form. Considering all the other damage nerfs WW is looking at, that's going to hurt.

2) PvP, especially dueling, where the opponent would stealth and wait for my timer to run out.

This won't be affected much by the change, you're still pretty much screwed when this happens. It will be a little worse since your oppenents now get a handy indicator when you have detect pots active.

3) When there's a lot of time between fights without anything to feed on. (Also PvP, mostly.)

This will be worse, because you can't rely on DoTs to keep your timer up anymore. Putting DoTs on your enemies won't help here, since at this point your enemies are dead and not taking damage.

So yeah, overall nerf to our ability to maintain form, presented as a buff by the devs as a buff.

Aznox

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

Aznox wrote: »

@Mr_Wolfe good recap.

As for timer don't forget Call of the pack gives you 20% even when alone.

So before if you got hit every 3 sec you would gain timer over time (0,6sec every 3 sec at best).

Now if you do damage every 5 sec you will loose a little over time (0,2 every 5 sec at best)

So this will have to be covered by 2-3 more pounce per minute, but overall the swap from damage received to damage done is still a big boost in PvE and a not-so-bad-maybe-good in PvP.

Also don't forget the Fear buff.

Being able to fear six targets instead of three is nice, but trash mobs are already easy to kill as a werewolf. It won't help us much in boss fights, or in PvP where everyone seems to be be chugging immovable pots or something. Honestly the loss of off balance overshadows this buff for me.

There is still an off balance morph.
This fear was already one of the best CC in the game and just got a lot better (instant cast + 6 targets)

As for the timer issue, Call of the Pack hasn't been changed. However good the timer situation looks on paper, in practice it's been difficult for solo werewolves to maintain form without constant snacks.

The changes to devour should help this somewhat, but having Bloodrage proc on damage done instead of damage taken may actually make it worse, because you can't rely on DoTs to keep your timer up between fights anymore.

Before, there were three main circumstances where I had trouble keeping form:

1) Long boss fights without any adds to feed on.

This was generally the least troublesome, because it usually wasn't hard to keep a DoT on myself or back off for the occasional leap. (At the cost of DPS.) The change to Bloodrage means I can avoid more damage in some cases, but makes me more reliant on Feral Pounce and forces me to give up even more DPS to stay in form. Considering all the other damage nerfs WW is looking at, that's going to hurt.

2) PvP, especially dueling, where the opponent would stealth and wait for my timer to run out.

This won't be affected much by the change, you're still pretty much screwed when this happens. It will be a little worse since your oppenents now get a handy indicator when you have detect pots active.

3) When there's a lot of time between fights without anything to feed on. (Also PvP, mostly.)

This will be worse, because you can't rely on DoTs to keep your timer up anymore. Putting DoTs on your enemies won't help here, since at this point your enemies are dead and not taking damage.

So yeah, overall nerf to our ability to maintain form, presented as a buff by the devs as a buff.

1) Boss fights is a non-existant problem with the new passive, one pounce every 2min will be enough for perma wolf while dealing damage.


2) If you opponent is not dead after 15sec in a duel you are doing something wrong.

3) Everyday i'm able to do full 15min battleground with 1 or 2 transformations, i don't see this changing at all.

Aznox

In case you missed this, the current situation for werewolf on PTS is that it might be "too good"

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/424438/50k-werewolf-light-attack-build/p1

Mr_Wolfe

Aznox wrote: »

There is still an off balance morph.
This fear was already one of the best CC in the game and just got a lot better (instant cast + 6 targets)

Maybe your experience is different than mine, but I've never been able to reliably fear players with WW in PvP. Being able to not fear six people instead of three doesn't strike me as an improvement, and making PvE mobs easier to handle is a solution to a non-existent problem. With Rousing Roar no longer providing major brutality to the group or triggering off balance, and Ferocious Roar only triggering off balance on targets it fears, both morphs are effectively useless to me in pvp and boss fights.

Aznox wrote: »

1) Boss fights is a non-existant problem with the new passive, one pounce every 2min will be enough for perma wolf while dealing damage.

Pounce hasn't been changed, except to remove the stun. What has changed is that Bloodrage is now less effective at maintaning timer, leaving all werewolves dependant on using Feral Pounce to maintain form during boss fights.

Aznox wrote: »

2) If you opponent is not dead after 15sec in a duel you are doing something wrong.

Yes, and that something is called 'using werewolf.'

Here's how it goes: You pop wolf, they stealth while you're stuck in the animation. They keep out of range until you lose timer, then gank you while you're stuck transforming back.

Aznox wrote: »

3) Everyday i'm able to do full 15min battleground with 1 or 2 transformations, i don't see this changing at all.

That's the point. This change was presented as a buff. At best it makes no difference, at worst it's a slight nerf.

Aznox wrote: »

In case you missed this, the current situation for werewolf on PTS is that it might be "too good"

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/424438/50k-werewolf-light-attack-build/p1

Yeah, I don't see doing 50k on a relequen build as 'too good', considering YouTube is full of videos of people doing 70-80k parses with non-werewolves. Make no mistake, werewolves are behind the curve on DPS--which is the only role they're actually capable of performing.

Avran_Sylt

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

Yeah, I don't see doing 50k on a relequen build as 'too good', considering YouTube is full of videos of people doing 70-80k parses with non-werewolves. Make no mistake, werewolves are behind the curve on DPS--which is the only role they're actually capable of performing.

@Mr_Wolfe out of curiosity, are these parses raid-buffed, or solo-buffed?

The 50K WW DPS parse was for the most part solo-buffed.

RiskyBiz

I am really looking for to testing werewolf on my day off wednesday I think the changes are good we will see

Aznox

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

Aznox wrote: »

There is still an off balance morph.
This fear was already one of the best CC in the game and just got a lot better (instant cast + 6 targets)

Maybe your experience is different than mine, but I've never been able to reliably fear players with WW in PvP. Being able to not fear six people instead of three doesn't strike me as an improvement, and making PvE mobs easier to handle is a solution to a non-existent problem. With Rousing Roar no longer providing major brutality to the group or triggering off balance, and Ferocious Roar only triggering off balance on targets it fears, both morphs are effectively useless to me in pvp and boss fights.

Aznox wrote: »

1) Boss fights is a non-existant problem with the new passive, one pounce every 2min will be enough for perma wolf while dealing damage.

Pounce hasn't been changed, except to remove the stun. What has changed is that Bloodrage is now less effective at maintaning timer, leaving all werewolves dependant on using Feral Pounce to maintain form during boss fights.

Aznox wrote: »

2) If you opponent is not dead after 15sec in a duel you are doing something wrong.

Yes, and that something is called 'using werewolf.'

Here's how it goes: You pop wolf, they stealth while you're stuck in the animation. They keep out of range until you lose timer, then gank you while you're stuck transforming back.

Aznox wrote: »

3) Everyday i'm able to do full 15min battleground with 1 or 2 transformations, i don't see this changing at all.

That's the point. This change was presented as a buff. At best it makes no difference, at worst it's a slight nerf.

Aznox wrote: »

In case you missed this, the current situation for werewolf on PTS is that it might be "too good"

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/424438/50k-werewolf-light-attack-build/p1

Yeah, I don't see doing 50k on a relequen build as 'too good', considering YouTube is full of videos of people doing 70-80k parses with non-werewolves. Make no mistake, werewolves are behind the curve on DPS--which is the only role they're actually capable of performing.

I'm going to stop after this one because you are obviously not reading me.

Pounce hasn't been changed, except to remove the stun. What has changed is that Bloodrage is now less effective at maintaning timer, leaving all werewolves dependant on using Feral Pounce to maintain form during boss fights.

Current passive : Perma wolf is not possible in serious group PvE with a serious rotation. Fact

New passive : Perma wolf is easily doable in serious group PvE with a serious rotation. Fact.

Yes, and that something is called 'using werewolf.'

I've won hundreds of duel using werewolf, if done correctly using werewolf in a duel is everything but a handicap.

Here's how it goes: You pop wolf, they stealth while you're stuck in the animation. They keep out of range until you lose timer, then gank you while you're stuck transforming back.

A bursty stamblade is the trickiest thing to pop werewolf against and i would recommend using your other ultimate, that's true. However you can attempt it if he doesn't have shade. In BG claws is a very nice way to pop them out of stealth.

That's the point. This change was presented as a buff. At best it makes no difference, at worst it's a slight nerf.

In PvP it makes little difference, in PvE is completely game changing, can't you see that ?

Yeah, I don't see doing 50k on a relequen build as 'too good', considering YouTube is full of videos of people doing 70-80k parses with non-werewolves. Make no mistake, werewolves are behind the curve on DPS--which is the only role they're actually capable of performing

I'm not a PvE specialist, but "is it too strong ?" is currently being asked more than "is it too weak ?"

Aznox

Also here's your 70k parse with trial buffs :

ruikkarikun

So what is the best race and class for werewolf with this changes?

Or I should wait more?

Sharee

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

Here's how it goes: You pop wolf, they stealth while you're stuck in the animation. They keep out of range until you lose timer, then gank you while you're stuck transforming back.

My experience is different:
Pop wolf, this fears them because you waited with the transform till they weren't CC immune.
While they run around arms flailing, you land a piercing howl or two.
Now they panic and hit cloak, which does not work because you expected it and saved a detect pot for the occasion.
LA LA while they wonder why they aren't invisible to you.
Have a dinner.

Mr_Wolfe

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

@Mr_Wolfe out of curiosity, are these parses raid-buffed, or solo-buffed?

The 50K WW DPS parse was for the most part solo-buffed.

That's a good question. I just know I've been seeing and hearing about 70-80k dps builds for ages. If those are all just rumors or cheese parses then great, but it was my understanding that this is about what a top-tier dps could expect to pull off.

Chrlynsch

Devour
Works like a dream, how I always hoped it would. It is smooth and responsive. I get about a 2k heal per second in pvp, and it can crit heal as well (unsure if spell crit or weapon crit). You get about ticks of time restore before the corpse is consumed. You can devour for two seconds and come back if the corpse is there and finish the last 2 seconds. Feels like the total duration is the same. There is now a blood pillar hovering over those you haven't devoured making it easy to detect what corpses you haven't devoured without hovering over the corpses.

There is now no cooldown on devour. This means you can devour one corpse and then immediately start devouring the next if your timer isn't full. Awesomeness!

Bloodrage
Operates like we have theorized. It is a vast improvement in pve. In pvp it leaves a little to be desired mainly in Cyrodiil during seiges. We used to have to stand in fire or draw fire from enemies to stay in form, now we have to do damage but have no range attack. Solution equip a set that procs damage on a target like twin sisters... or... fire a siege weapon. Now that damage procs our bloodrage firing a seige weapon at a wall or dumping oil will grant us time in form.

While in combat and actually fighting you don't notice much difference. While pouncing with feral pounce you notice your bar jump. As you get 8 total seconds* for a pounce while jumping into the fight.

Resurrect
Works smoothly and the animation looks solid.

Pack Leader
Direwolves do in fact return if the pack leader is killed.

Direwolves move slightly faster then before and attacks are faster. They could be used to eat away at an enemies stam or as meat shields.

The Direwolves however do not trigger bloodrage. I am not sure if this is intended or if this is how other pets operate in terms of passives.

When solo the dire wolves will taunt targets. When near an ally the dire wolves do not taunt.

Animations
New animations were added to claws (swipe streak (helps you identify impact range), howl (mini horizontal tornado vortex projectile), synergy activation animation for all synergies, resurrecting animation looks great.

Synergizes
Being able to activate synergies is a big plus, damage increase, sustain, survivability overall big bonus for group play.

Healing
Big change, a lot of recoil from the wolf community. On pts it is great! I am getting Similar heals to a pelinals set up before replacing with a new set.

Passive Reworks
Moving speed to pursuit and armor and spell resistance to savage strength makes the perks a little easier for new wolves to digest.

DPS
In pve werewolf can make use of Relequen and bloodmoon the combo of these sets can lead to some pretty extreme dps. Set light attack to your scroll wheel and watch the numbers fly.



Suggested changes
-Allow werewolf the ability to place siege, or prepare for whispers from werewolves begging to use your siege.
-Make direwolves taunt the target to you. (For werewolf tanks)
-Nerf that blood moon.
-Allow werewolves the ability to stealth, it is a slap in the face to werewolves to finally get into The Hunting Grounds and have one of the boss mechanics require stealth and not be able to do.

Koolio

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Devour
Works like a dream, how I always hoped it would. It is smooth and responsive. I get about a 2k heal per second in pvp, and it can crit heal as well (unsure if spell crit or weapon crit). You get about ticks of time restore before the corpse is consumed. You can devour for two seconds and come back if the corpse is there and finish the last 2 seconds. Feels like the total duration is the same. There is now a blood pillar hovering over those you haven't devoured making it easy to detect what corpses you haven't devoured without hovering over the corpses.

There is now no cooldown on devour. This means you can devour one corpse and then immediately start devouring the next if your timer isn't full. Awesomeness!

Bloodrage
Operates like we have theorized. It is a vast improvement in pve. In pvp it leaves a little to be desired mainly in Cyrodiil during seiges. We used to have to stand in fire or draw fire from enemies to stay in form, now we have to do damage but have no range attack. Solution equip a set that procs damage on a target like twin sisters... or... fire a siege weapon. Now that damage procs our bloodrage firing a seige weapon at a wall or dumping oil will grant us time in form.

While in combat and actually fighting you don't notice much difference. While pouncing with feral pounce you notice your bar jump. As you get 8 total seconds* for a pounce while jumping into the fight.

Resurrect
Works smoothly and the animation looks solid.

Pack Leader
Direwolves do in fact return if the pack leader is killed.

Direwolves move slightly faster then before and attacks are faster. They could be used to eat away at an enemies stam or as meat shields.

The Direwolves however do not trigger bloodrage. I am not sure if this is intended or if this is how other pets operate in terms of passives.

When solo the dire wolves will taunt targets. When near an ally the dire wolves do not taunt.

Animations
New animations were added to claws (swipe streak (helps you identify impact range), howl (mini horizontal tornado vortex projectile), synergy activation animation for all synergies, resurrecting animation looks great.

Synergizes
Being able to activate synergies is a big plus, damage increase, sustain, survivability overall big bonus for group play.

Healing
Big change, a lot of recoil from the wolf community. On pts it is great! I am getting Similar heals to a pelinals set up before replacing with a new set.

Passive Reworks
Moving speed to pursuit and armor and spell resistance to savage strength makes the perks a little easier for new wolves to digest.

DPS
In pve werewolf can make use of Relequen and bloodmoon the combo of these sets can lead to some pretty extreme dps. Set light attack to your scroll wheel and watch the numbers fly.



Suggested changes
-Allow werewolf the ability to place siege, or prepare for whispers from werewolves begging to use your siege.
-Make direwolves taunt the target to you. (For werewolf tanks)
-Nerf that blood moon.
-Allow werewolves the ability to stealth, it is a slap in the face to werewolves to finally get into The Hunting Grounds and have one of the boss mechanics require stealth and not be able to do.

Thank you for writing this up.

esp1992

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Devour
Works like a dream, how I always hoped it would. It is smooth and responsive. I get about a 2k heal per second in pvp, and it can crit heal as well (unsure if spell crit or weapon crit). You get about ticks of time restore before the corpse is consumed. You can devour for two seconds and come back if the corpse is there and finish the last 2 seconds. Feels like the total duration is the same. There is now a blood pillar hovering over those you haven't devoured making it easy to detect what corpses you haven't devoured without hovering over the corpses.

There is now no cooldown on devour. This means you can devour one corpse and then immediately start devouring the next if your timer isn't full. Awesomeness!

Bloodrage
Operates like we have theorized. It is a vast improvement in pve. In pvp it leaves a little to be desired mainly in Cyrodiil during seiges. We used to have to stand in fire or draw fire from enemies to stay in form, now we have to do damage but have no range attack. Solution equip a set that procs damage on a target like twin sisters... or... fire a siege weapon. Now that damage procs our bloodrage firing a seige weapon at a wall or dumping oil will grant us time in form.

While in combat and actually fighting you don't notice much difference. While pouncing with feral pounce you notice your bar jump. As you get 8 total seconds* for a pounce while jumping into the fight.

Resurrect
Works smoothly and the animation looks solid.

Pack Leader
Direwolves do in fact return if the pack leader is killed.

Direwolves move slightly faster then before and attacks are faster. They could be used to eat away at an enemies stam or as meat shields.

The Direwolves however do not trigger bloodrage. I am not sure if this is intended or if this is how other pets operate in terms of passives.

When solo the dire wolves will taunt targets. When near an ally the dire wolves do not taunt.

Animations
New animations were added to claws (swipe streak (helps you identify impact range), howl (mini horizontal tornado vortex projectile), synergy activation animation for all synergies, resurrecting animation looks great.

Synergizes
Being able to activate synergies is a big plus, damage increase, sustain, survivability overall big bonus for group play.

Healing
Big change, a lot of recoil from the wolf community. On pts it is great! I am getting Similar heals to a pelinals set up before replacing with a new set.

Passive Reworks
Moving speed to pursuit and armor and spell resistance to savage strength makes the perks a little easier for new wolves to digest.

DPS
In pve werewolf can make use of Relequen and bloodmoon the combo of these sets can lead to some pretty extreme dps. Set light attack to your scroll wheel and watch the numbers fly.



Suggested changes
-Allow werewolf the ability to place siege, or prepare for whispers from werewolves begging to use your siege.
-Make direwolves taunt the target to you. (For werewolf tanks)
-Nerf that blood moon.
-Allow werewolves the ability to stealth, it is a slap in the face to werewolves to finally get into The Hunting Grounds and have one of the boss mechanics require stealth and not be able to do.

Already Training my Werewolf Warden for this Update.

NyteKyss

The combat abilities are obviously key, but appearance is...fun? the appearance for a casual player can be just as frustrating as the mag based heal issue.

I could suggest each race have a separate 'look', but that would lock things down, and cause more upset, and require backside coding that would take time.. There are already models in game for some very simple, and yet 'revenue generating' methods that can be implemented. For example, an Argonian could transform into the mondo lizard form in Mazzatun. Looks very WW berserk. But don't tie it to the race, tie it to...an illusion.

The Warden bear has one singular illusion (color), we were all waiting for different pet forms to be availability as unlock or purchase, still waiting. But the WW is also primed to accept a look over-ride. So you can be a Were-wolf, were-bear, were-cat, were-croc? unlock or buy the visual illusion, and your change triggers another visual meta.

Personally i would pay real money to be able to transform into the huge croc form, or a daedric monster form. or the were-panther form with psijic runes that are spilling from rifts in update 21...lol?

point is, there are some simple fixes that can be done IN TIME for update 19. Looks are just as important as function to many players, and like houses...they sell.

Mr_Wolfe

@Chrlynsch Thanks for the rundown, it's good to get some feedback from someone who's actually had a chance to playtest it!

I'm glad to hear things aren't playing out at badly as it looks on paper. In fact I'm beginning to wonder if there's some kind of undocumented buff to werewolves in this patch, considering how much better they seem to be doing despite losing several DPS buffs.

Still kind of wish they'd just given us the Devour fixes and the ability to res and use synergies, and left the rest alone.

Avran_Sylt

How would you react to this: Lower the Overall LA and Bleed damage. (15% each)

Buff the Feeding Frenzy Synergy, either duration or number of people effected (WW offers a group more overall DPS)

Deafening Roar: Make this morph apply Off-balance instead of Ferocious Roar
Ferocious Roar: Make this morph Grant you and nearby allies Minor Berserk for a Duration

Piercing Howl: Make the base skill (and Morphs) Apply Major Fracture.
(Add in a Taunt somehow)

Lykanus

Avran_Sylt wrote: »

How would you react to this: Lower the Overall LA and Bleed damage. (15% each)

Why do you think the base Werewolves damage needs to be lowered? Cause of parses with high dps numbers? Dont let impress you with those numbers!
First, the damage numbers currently wouldnt be less, just on that dummy setup you couldnt sustain form thats why you havent seen such parses.
Second such setups doesnt tell anything about true environment where a WW can do his damage (needs melee, missing good group aoe damage, no alternatives ie no bar switching if he needs to leave target for whatever encounter reason).
Third balance those sets before you nerf WW damage! A set that does increase 1/3 of all your damage is...a lot! Cause a base WW damage nerf hits all which requires then looking for those damage sets to get even on par with other classes.

Normal classes will still be superior because of higher possible maximum damage (always), AoE support and of course the most important: more flexibility! Something a Wolf will never deliver.

The wolf will need to have a strong base damage at least on a pure melee target to compensate at least his downsides a little bit. Dont ignore the limitations he has to suffer, if you put down the stamina dps classes in comparsion they will still be superior, give the WW at least a chance to not being completely useless.

Mr_Wolfe

Yeah, there's a big difference between a skeleton parse and what you can actually put out in a real fight.

Also, taking something away from werewolf in order to give it something else presumes that WW is balanced, which as of live it is not. Whether the PTS changes actually bring WW up to par remains to be seen, but there's nothing wrong with just giving a straight buff to something that's underperforming.

Datolite

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

Mr_Wolfe wrote: »

I was under the impression they added the movement speed and defense buffs to those passives, not that they replaced the old effects.

[Edit] Yeah, they both say "This ability now also" does yadda yadda, so we aren't losing the previous/current effect of those passives.

Overall I'm a bit concerned about some of these changes. The more I look at them, the more most of them seem like nerfs.[/edit]

Honestly the removal of the 10% weapon damage bonus from Hircine's Rage is the most glaring nerf PvE wise (to me at least). Everything else seems to be more or less a buff though (for PvE). I'm interested to see what my SOLO wolf form up time and DPS are after the update.

Healing Nerfs:

The change to Hircine's Bounty is a nerf to most currently effective wolf builds. It changes the priority from stamina/weapon damage + magicka/spell damage to stamina/weapon damage + health, which not only renders hybrid sets like shacklebreaker and pelinial's less effective, but also means things that increase your max weapon and spell damage (such as Kena, berzerk weapon enchant, etc) no longer boost your healing.

It also removes the heal over time from the Hircine's Fortitude morph, which makes you reliant on claws of life or healing potions to proc Earthgore, which is basically the only way a werewolf can group heal.

Damage:

The 10% buff to light and heavy attacks granted by Howl of Despair's 'Feeding Frenzy' synergy has been replaced with a much shorter duration Empower. This doesn't apply to heavy attacks, doesn't stack with othet sources of empower, and judging by the wording now only affects the person activating the synergy, instead of buffing the whole group. So while it could be as much as a 30% increase for the person activating it, the other people in your party not getting the buff makes this a net loss--which gets worse the bigger your group is.

The 10% damage buff from Hircine's Rage was removed, and replaced with Major Brutality. Just one person running Rousing Roar used to give Major Brutality to your entire group, now each werewolf will have to choose between a 20% damage buff or a slightly bigger heal.

Only one of the morphs to Roar causes Off-Balance now. The other morph inflicts Major Fracture, which doesn't stack with the numerous other sources of that debuff--in addition to making it harder to sustain and causing everyone in the group to miss out on the extra damage granted by the exploiter passive.

We lost our stuns, making it much harder to take down mobs and other players in PvP.

No fix for the bonus LA/HA damage we lost due to a dev mistake with Summerset, which effectively nerfed WW by leaving us out while just about everyone else got a buff to their light attack damage.

Timer:

The new version of bloodrage is a nerf. It's easier to trigger since it procs on dealing damage instead of taking it, but they increased the cooldown so you can't actually stop your timer with this ability, just slow it down. That means the new version actually makes it harder to maintain werewolf form.

There are some upsides: A tiny boost to resistances. (34 points, lol) The ability to rez. (Long overdue) The ability to use synergies. (Which doesn't actually do anything unless you're in a party with non-werewolves.) Faster leveling and immediate access to Devour. (Which does nothing if you've already maxed your werewolf.) Improvements to how Devour works. (Yes!) Buffs to Pack Leader's direwolves and a few much needed bugfixes.

But overall? We're stuck even tighter n a very narrow niche (Stamina DPS), while Vampire remains an improvement to virtually any build--and now our effectiveness in that niche has been nerfed hard despite the fact that we were already underperforming.

Not real happy about that.

I am healing more on my pelinals build on pts then on live, I can now ditch pelinal's for something else that provides more damage, sustain, or utility. At zero loss. Healing change is a buff.

Just curious, which sets are you more leaning towards for Cyro/BG effectiveness?

IlCanis_LupuslI

Me personally Wyrd Tree, but I used tactically to remove annoying debuffs like oil/defile