Werewolf is incredibly frustrating to play in dungeons, trials and arenas

Amarthiul

I've been playing a WW build a bit recently and wow is it frustrating in group PvE content. There is far too much downtime between combat what with quests, raid lead mechanics explanations, doing actual mechanics that don't involve dealing damage, and looting chests and heavy sacks that it's nigh-on impossible to stay transformed for the entire experience. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for permanent WW transformation in certain activities, particularly as it could sit nicely alongside Oakensoul HA builds as another accessible option for players to do decent damage without the full complexity of a two-bar LA-weaving rotation.

(Incidentally, I'm aware of and use the "solution" - chug Ravage Health potions to stay transformed but that's frankly a ridiculous thing to have to do, and I would love to not have to micromanage that. Particularly in veteran content.)

Erickson9610

The Werewolf experience isn't looking good. We're fortunate that the Blood Rage passive still procs with Ravage Health, but consider how it plays in practice:

• In PvE, you use a Ravage Health potion during phases where there are no enemies to target. Then the enemies come back — but since you don't have a purge or any damage shields, you likely won't be able to cast Hircine's Rage at 100% Health, as you'll constantly be losing Health, so you can't get the Major Berserk you need for your rotation.
• In PvP, especially when running between keeps in Cyrodiil, you use a Ravage Health potion to keep your timer sustained when you can't find any enemies around. Your group members in their human form can mount up and they ride much faster than you even when you're in a max movement speed build. So you're left alone, and now some enemies jump at you from stealth — and since you recently used a Ravage Health potion, your potions are on cooldown, and you're constantly damaging yourself. The odds of surviving that encounter are not in your favor.

I personally think Werewolf Transformation needs to be made free while keeping the timer system in place. The timer is good for encouraging Werewolf players to group together and to continually hunt things, as those activities are established in the lore as things that TES werewolves do, but the high Ultimate cost is a remnant of an old design decision where older TES games wanted werewolves to transform every full moon (Daggerfall) / every night (Morrowind) / once every 24 hours at a time of their choosing (Skyrim). ESO's werewolves — especially NPCs — are found to be frequently transformed for long durations, at any time of day, so that old design decision should once again be modified.

I don't think control over when Werewolf Transformation is used should be taken away from the player, because this is a video game and the gameplay would suffer if more choice was stripped from the player, but it's silly that it's so difficult to stay in form, compared to all of these NPCs who ostensibly can't stop themselves from transforming. If anything, Werewolf should receive a buff whenever the moons are out (maybe even when they are full) in order to reestablish the original intent behind the seldom transformations, to encourage Werewolf players to act in a way that TES werewolves are known to act.

ItsNotLiving

My favorite part is Werewolf is only so bad in PvP because you HAVE to be a vampire lol.

Erickson9610

ItsNotLiving wrote: »

My favorite part is Werewolf is only so bad in PvP because you HAVE to be a vampire lol.

I disagree. Werewolf's limited toolkit is a major factor for why the playstyle is genuinely worse than a Vampire or even a non-cursed character. There's no in-kit Werewolf ability to crouch, bar swap, ally heal, taunt, purge, heal over time, damage shield, or much else that a non-Werewolf can find a Class or other skill line to do. There are plenty of builds for the human form which can do much more than what Werewolf can, but can also do it for much cheaper and from a range.

It's unfair to compare Werewolf to Vampire. Werewolf is practically its own subclass, more easily compared to the traditional 7 Classes than to Vampire, which is used alongside the 7 Classes, rather than used apart from them.