Weapon Passives aren't working with Special Ability Bars

Erickson9610

"Special" ability bars, such as those you get from Werewolf, Werewolf Behemoth (both in Stone Garden and in the Infinite Archive), and Volendrung, don't properly give you all of the weapon passives you should be getting on that bar. Currently, only one weapon passive — Hasty Retreat in the Bow skill line — will work properly with Werewolf and Volendrung, but not Werewolf Behemoth.

It's clear that Werewolf Behemoth was never meant to have weapon enchantments/passives and so on, so it's possible that the other two were intended to, if enchantments and Hasty Retreat still work for them.

Hasty Retreat proves that it is possible for weapon passives to function with a special ability bar active, so the rest of the weapon passives should follow that standard.

the1andonlyskwex

If anything, I would assume hasty retreat has the bug. Transforming into a werewolf or equipping Volendrung obviously require you to put your normal weapons away. It should behave the same as when you switch between your back and front bar weapons. That is, when you're not on the weapon's bar, you don't get it's passives.

Erickson9610

the1andonlyskwex wrote: »

If anything, I would assume hasty retreat has the bug. Transforming into a werewolf or equipping Volendrung obviously require you to put your normal weapons away. It should behave the same as when you switch between your back and front bar weapons. That is, when you're not on the weapon's bar, you don't get it's passives.

I hope Hasty Retreat isn't the bug. It would do a lot for build diversity for Werewolf builds in particular if our weapon choice actually mattered outside of the enchantments we place on them.

virtus753

Weapon traits also carry over to werewolf form, in addition to their damage rating and enchantments.

If weapon passives not carrying over is a bug, it's been around for as long as the game itself. The devs have had multiple opportunities to change it while redoing werewolf skills, including when they fixed a bug where enchantments were not proccing off of werewolf light attacks. With as many forum threads that have come up about weapon passives being disabled in werewolf form over the past decade, starting back in 2014, one would think that something with this potential effect on combat would have been addressed at some point along the line. That said, the "issue" where there were no resto skill staff books lasted for 9 years, so at this point I might believe anything is possible absent an official comment.

Without hearing from the devs explicitly, we can't say for sure either way whether it's a bug, but I'd agree that if we had to judge from the current circumstances, the singular exception seems to make the rule here. It shows that they presumably could make the rest of the passives work if they wanted, so the fact they haven't suggests to me it's a deliberate choice.

Follow-up question: if a werewolf were to be considered to have their weapon(s) "actively equipped" enough to qualify for the weapon passives, would that not also entail werewolves being given the ability to use active weapon skills from the relevant skill line as well? Those would seem to me to go hand in hand. Just thinking about what would make sense as a follow-on if this were to be changed.

Erickson9610

virtus753 wrote: »

Follow-up question: if a werewolf were to be considered to have their weapon(s) "actively equipped" enough to qualify for the weapon passives, would that not also entail werewolves being given the ability to use active weapon skills from the relevant skill line as well? Those would seem to me to go hand in hand. Just thinking about what would make sense as a follow-on if this were to be changed.

Counterpoint: Werewolves benefit from armor passives, yet they don't have the ability to slot armor skills. They also benefit from Class passives, but they're restricted to using only Werewolf skills. The same is true for Werewolf Behemoth and Volendrung — I wouldn't deny someone wielding Volendrung their Class or armor passives just because they can't slot Class or armor skills.

For all intents and purposes, the weapon, armor, and Class one uses should be considered for passive benefits while denied the ability to slot skills from the respective skill lines. For instance, having dual wield daggers equipped should increase your critical strike rating, regardless of whether you have a special bar active.

virtus753

Erickson9610 wrote: »

virtus753 wrote: »

Follow-up question: if a werewolf were to be considered to have their weapon(s) "actively equipped" enough to qualify for the weapon passives, would that not also entail werewolves being given the ability to use active weapon skills from the relevant skill line as well? Those would seem to me to go hand in hand. Just thinking about what would make sense as a follow-on if this were to be changed.

Counterpoint: Werewolves benefit from armor passives, yet they don't have the ability to slot armor skills. They also benefit from Class passives, but they're restricted to using only Werewolf skills. The same is true for Werewolf Behemoth and Volendrung — I wouldn't deny someone wielding Volendrung their Class or armor passives just because they can't slot Class or armor skills.

For all intents and purposes, the weapon, armor, and Class one uses should be considered for passive benefits while denied the ability to slot skills from the respective skill lines. For instance, having dual wield daggers equipped should increase your critical strike rating, regardless of whether you have a special bar active.

I see the inconsistencies there, yeah, although I think I am ending up taking the opposite approach. It doesn’t really make sense to me in theory that these pseudo-classes get armor passive abilities but not active ones. I would say do both or neither, and the latter would be a significant nerf, which I’m not sure is justified. Using armor active abilities would mean unslotting a werewolf skill, so that’s an opportunity cost there that would help keep overall power in check. The only way I can reason that disabling the weapon passives alone (while allowing armor ones) could be justified is that the devs felt weapon passives would be OP in practice on top of the werewolf power budget.

And sometimes stuff like that just never gets changed to account for the fluctuations in that budget, which werewolf has undeniably seen. Take Templar’s Ritual of Retribution, for example, where it is a ground DoT that has always ticked every other second (in direct violation of the rules for ground DoTs as explicitly laid out in U35) because once upon a time it used to heal as well as do damage. It hasn’t done that in years, since well before U35, but it won’t be updated to account for that no matter how many times we point out the issue. This pain point got even worse when they drastically changed how its damage scales, which exacerbated the problematic nature of its every-other-second cadence. So it remains an exception to DoT rules due to something that hasn’t been true for half the game’s lifetime, and there is no evidence that this is seen as an issue, even when it hurts the skill in ways they have explicitly said they don’t want. That’s an issue.

If weapon passives were initially felt to be OP on werewolf, perhaps they would not be now - it could be worth reconsidering. I still don’t necessarily think the weapon passives being disabled on werewolf/behemoth/volendrung is a bug per se, but I would support the idea of it being re-evaluated ten years on and the result being explained either way. (I am always in favor of devs explaining their choices so we can understand why things are the way they are. It also confirms whether things are working as intended or not.)

Erickson9610

I would like to know if this is an intentional design. I've done some investigation and found many other bugs relating to special bars and weapons, such as how you continue to earn XP for the weapon you transform into a werewolf with — even if you swap it or unequip it — and how despite switching weapons, you will always properly get the bonus from Hasty Retreat if a bow is currently equipped, even if it isn't the "saved" weapon you transform with. It gives me the impression that there's something wrong with how weapons and special bars are handled.

Erickson9610

Erickson9610 wrote: »

"Special" ability bars, such as those you get from Werewolf, Werewolf Behemoth (both in Stone Garden and in the Infinite Archive), and Volendrung, don't properly give you all of the weapon passives you should be getting on that bar. Currently, only one weapon passive — Hasty Retreat in the Bow skill line — is known to work properly when these special ability bars are active.

Hasty Retreat proves that it is possible for weapon passives to function with a special ability bar active, so the rest of the weapon passives should follow that standard.

I just ran the Infinite Archive to test Hasty Retreat on the Werewolf Behemoth, and it turns out that for this one instance, it does not work. Yet, it does work with Volendrung and with the regular Werewolf Transformation. Given that the Infinite Archive's Werewolf Behemoth is a modified version of Stone Garden's Werewolf Behemoth (and that version had a Dodge Roll Cost of 10 million Stamina, whereas the IA version has a Dodge Roll Cost of about 4000) and things like weapon passives, weapon enchantments, the heal from Reaving Blows and Ring of the Pale Order, and so on were explicitly disabled for that dungeon's mechanics, it gives the impression that Werewolf Behemoth is a case in which weapon passives were absolutely not wanted by any means. This could mean that weapon passives might've been allowed on other special bars, if they weren't explicitly disabled the way Werewolf Behemoth disables them.

I'm hopeful that this could mean that weapon passives would be allowed if they were only fixed to apply. I have reason to believe that something is broken with weapons and special bars, and I have an example of what it looks like when weapon passives are explicitly denied when in other cases they might've been allowed.

Erickson9610

Apparently weapon passives aren't meant to work in Werewolf form. This is extremely disappointing for a number of reasons.


I hope ZOS reconsiders their stance on werewolves and weapon passives. What reason do armor passives have to persist on werewolves that weapon passives do not have?
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin