Werewolf topic. What needs to be added or changed.

sneakymitchell

Werewolf ultimate. Pack leader has been main go to for lot of werewolves. Berserker morph still needs something more. Recommend beserker morph give out minor berserk when slotted so you can have it both in human and werewolf form. Since the cost of werewolf is high and needs to be slotted. Especially for the stam recovery. This be close to par to pack leader in both pvp and pve

Pounce/carnage is good on paper but the cost is pretty high and carnage doesn’t give out an initial burst which is bad for both pve and pvp. I would recommend giving a burst for carnage.

Hircine bounty always good heal but the hircine rage is lacking in heal even though cost reduction is decreased but the heal is little weak for most part and the increase damage taken is a crutch when it’s 10% increase damage. Recommend removing the increase damage taken. It’s a part of the past when major berserk was 25%

Roar good stun but the Ferocious roar. It lacks compared to the other morph for utility and dps increase. Recommend for light attacks to get increase attack speed as well it fits the main damage source for werewolf.

Piercing howl is all round great spamable. Don’t see a change needed here.

Infectious claws is the greatest aoe spamable DoT in the werewolf skill. No changes needed both morphs are great on their own way.


I been playing werewolf my whole time in eso during the beginning. Seen the changes and reworks. I hope there be changes addressing to the skills I mentioned above.

cosmostaas

Playing werewolf as a beginner also feels clunky.
You loose your form when entering location like a cave, you can't sneak or toggle it to a mount form, your dual skill is leveling in the WW form but you are not getting weapon passive bonuses.
Why do you need utilize weird alchemy potions to stay in form? Can't we just add a passive consumption of meat to balance the costs or something?
Also I think it would be logical if warden and nord had more werewolf bonuses than some dark elf sorcerer.

Erickson9610

First, I'll quote an earlier post of mine where I talk about the pain points of the playstyle:

Erickson9610 wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.

i guess that's why they quit

This is incorrect. The Blood Rage passive restores time when dealing damage. Ravage Health causes you to deal damage to yourself, which does work with the passive. Werewolves still use this when traveling long distances in the overworld or in dungeons.

Further, that is not why werewolves quit. Many of the Werewolf players I talk to have quit because of the lack of adjustments to the playstyle. Mainly, Werewolf is not competitive in PvE, and especially not in PvP. For instance:

• Werewolves cannot do the bar swap mechanic in Cloudrest, so they have to drop form, otherwise risk killing their teammates. This mechanic at one point used to skip over players in Werewolf form or players using Oakensoul, but the last I've heard, those players are no longer skipped over.
• Werewolves cannot crouch, so they have to drop form at some point in March of Sacrifices, otherwise risk killing themselves from fall damage during the Tarcyr fight or in any of the side indrik hunts, one of which is necessary for making werewolves immune to the teleporting magic. Also, their inability to crouch makes it impossible to duck under the laser traps for one of the side bosses in Graven Deep. This inability to crouch makes doing Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests extremely difficult.
• Werewolves have no taunt or ally heal, so they can't be tanks or healers on their own. They must rely on proc sets (like Tormentor, which gets nerfed next update) for tanking or healing.
• Werewolves do not have a heal over time, so they have no sustained healing. They are forced to build for Magicka Recovery and Maximum Health, because their only heal on demand costs a lot of Magicka and all morphs scale off Maximum Health.
  • The only other heals Werewolf has are Devour, which is a channeled heal which scales off Maximum Health and requires a corpse, and Claws of Life, which heals you for a percentage of the damage done by the damage over time component. In PvP, Claws of Life is affected by Battle Spirit and is nearly useless, while in PvE, it can heal you for an overtuned amount, depending on how many enemies are affected.
• Werewolves have no snare removal or purge, so they are easily countered by damage over time. The current meta is particularly rough on werewolves for this reason.
  • Further, the +30% Movement Speed that Werewolf gets from the Pursuit passive means nothing if it's completely negated by snares which cannot be purged without proc sets.
• Werewolf abilities cost 25% more than standard abilities, and deal 25% more damage than standard abilities. This means that the abilities deal the same damage per cost, at the expense of putting much more emphasis on sustain.
  • Despite the increased damage, Werewolf still has no delayed burst ability. I suppose the idea is to outsustain your enemy while pressuring them with the three damage over time abilities (Werewolf Berserker light attack bleed, Carnage, Infectious Claws) but even then, Werewolf itself doesn't have the defensive tools everyone else has, so the werewolf is usually the one who gets outsustained.
• Werewolf has no in-form Ultimate ability. Casting your Ultimate again reverts your form. It would've been great if the Werewolf Transformation Ultimate reverted your form at less than x Ultimate, but had some alternate function at x or more Ultimate, similar to Incapacitating Strike.
• Werewolf's main spammable is a projectile which deals increased damage to enemies facing them. This means in PvE, you always want to be in front of the boss, where the tank should be. In PvP, you can mitigate this extra damage by turning away from the werewolf.
• Hircine's Rage in particular requires you to be at 100% Health to grant Major Berserk. As mentioned before in several other posts about the skill, Werewolf players don't mind taking the 5% extra damage for 10 seconds when the skill procs — the issue is that it is nigh impossible to proc. Werewolf has no damage shields, so any tick of any damage taken in either PvE or PvP will cause you to be at less than 100% Health, and casting the skill at even 99% Health will just waste your already-limited Magicka pool and you'll be in a worse position.
• Werewolves also have no in-kit way to recover Magicka. Even if you transform with a staff equipped, your heavy attacks will always restore Stamina. This makes the sustain for the only heal on demand ability very harsh.
• Werewolves also don't receive Weapon Passives at all. They receive Armor Passives, Undaunted Passives, Racial Passives, some Alliance War passives, some Crafting passives, a few Class Passives, and Champion Point passives.
• Since Werewolf can't slot non-Werewolf skills, you can't supplement any existing abilities to fix the holes in your build. You're stuck with the 5 Werewolf skills you're given, and you only get to choose their morphs. However, you can still slot the Werewolf skills on your human form bar without being able to use them, if you want to receive Major Brutality and Sorcery passively in your human form.
• Werewolves also have no cosmetic customization whatsoever. Their fur color is tied to the chosen morph of Werewolf Transformation — brown fur is for unmorphed, black fur with white accents is for Werewolf Berserker, and white fur is for Pack Leader. The cosmetic system is tied to the combat system, unlike with the Warden bear, which while its markings are determined by the morph of the Ultimate, its fur color can be changed from brown to grey via the Slate-Gray Summoned Bear collectible.
• Werewolf cannot mount, and they don't run as quickly as a mount. So, running long distances — especially between keeps in Cyrodiil — will always result in werewolves lagging behind, separated from their group, and thus easy to pick off by assassins, especially if the werewolf was burning stamina by sprinting.
• Werewolf also has no stealth reveal outside of potions. The Sentry set can't be used, because Werewolf can't crouch, and Werewolf can't slot non-Werewolf abilities that bring enemies out of stealth.
• Werewolf's gap closer, Pounce, morphs into Carnage whenever cast. The problem with this is that it costs a lot of Stamina to cast Pounce->Carnage in a rotation in PvE, and a high mobility player in PvP can evade you if you don't cast Carnage in time, because you'll be locked out of being able to use Pounce for a duration if Carnage is not cast.
• This goes without saying, but werewolves and non-cursed players miss out on the perks of Vampire. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a reason to keep in mind why players might move away from playing Werewolf — maybe there just isn't anything that Werewolf does better than a regular Class or a Vampire might do. Further, any non-Werewolf ability that gets buffed obviously can't be used by Werewolf, so there's much less incentive to play Werewolf when you could instead play with both Vampire and those non-Werewolf abilities.

Some of these problems could be fixed with 2024's Scribing and Skill Styling systems, but as far as we know, Werewolf isn't getting any Grimoires or Skill Styles this year. The lack of attention given to the glaring problems of this playstyle has driven many dedicated Werewolf players away. At most, Werewolf gets minor updates which are the result of balance changes elsewhere in the game — for instance, the Empower and Hemorrhaging changes, both of which caused some Werewolf ability to be updated. Werewolf has been randomly nerfed without explanation (such as the Pack Leader dire wolves losing their snare) and they haven't received any buffs to compensate, so most Werewolf players have given up hope.

I'll reiterate how the Werewolf experience goes in PvE and PvP:

• In PvE, you can't be a tank or a healer, so you are a damage dealer who picks Werewolf Berserker for the extra damage over time. You want to be in front of the enemy for optimal damage, right where the tank is, and you want to be at 100% Health to get Major Berserk from Hircine's Rage, which does cause you to take 5% extra damage for the duration, so you take extra damage being in a position where damage dealers are generally not supposed to be, in order to deal optimal damage. Somehow, you have to manage a rotation of keeping Brutal Carnage stacks up, Claws of Anguish up, and spamming Howl of Agony, and you have to be at 100% Health in order to not waste your precious Magicka, but to also recover some Stamina you need for your rotation, because every single ability is insanely expensive. On top of that, you manage your Werewolf Transformation timer, sometimes drinking Ravage Health potions during phases where there are no enemies to target, and then of course since you're damaging yourself, you aren't at 100% Health, and you can't purge the damage over time from your Ravage Health potion, so you might end up wasting Magicka healing yourself at 97% Health. Despite all this, you don't deal optimal damage compared to other classes, and you might have more fun and deal more damage playing something that works at a range and takes less effort.
• In PvP, you need to build tanky. You'll likely pick Pack Leader for the unique 10% damage mitigation, and maybe you'll pick Hircine's Fortitude and build into having a lot of Maximum Health and Magicka Recovery. The result is you don't deal a lot of damage and you don't have much damage mitigation to begin with, compared to most other builds which somehow deal a lot more damage with proc sets and can be extremely tanky. You don't have the burst needed to take anyone down, and you don't have any crosshealing, healing over time, or any group utility besides a 10 second synergy (which goes on a 20 second cooldown) that grants Empower and Minor Force, a slowed timer for grouped werewolves (which are generally few and far between) and Minor Courage for grouped allies while transformed as a Pack Leader.

Probably the most concerning part about all this is that Werewolf doesn't bring anything unique to groups. It doesn't do anything that an average human form build couldn't do. You could take any Werewolf build, apply it to a human, and the human form would do far better than the werewolf form could.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.
2. Oak is pretty much all of the werewolf buffs, so no need to use werewolf if you have Oakensoul. It is imho the worst mythic for a WW.
3. I am not sure, but I think that "core combat abilities" (dodge, block, bash break free etc) either cost the same in werewolf form or more. In any case, werewolf is nothing special for bash builds. If something, it is worse as you don't have weapon passives active in WW form, so your bashes are weaker.
4. I think that Sorc is still best for WW min-max. As for the race, it is either Imperial, Orc, Dark Elf or Khajiit.

1. I've mentioned this in my post above. Blood Rage still procs with Ravage Health potions.
2. Oakensoul is useful for getting Minor Force, Minor Berserk, and a few other buffs which might be more difficult to get in Werewolf form otherwise. I personally use it in PvE, but in PvP, you might consider a different mythic which counters some weakness to Werewolf (such as Snow Treaders to counter the lack of a snare purge, or Shapeshifter's Chain to reduce the cost of Werewolf's expensive abilities some more)
3. Werewolf does not inherently increase the cost of core combat abilities; it is simply the Werewolf active abilities which were given the "25% more cost for 25% more damage" balance change some years ago. Regardless, for bash builds, you would be better off if you could benefit from the Deadly Bash passive in the One Hand and Shield skill line, but Werewolf currently does not benefit from weapon passives.
4. Sorcerer has long been the reigning Class for Werewolf, but ever since the Burning Light passive was changed to work without an Aedric Spear ability, Templar Werewolf is the best in slot Class Werewolf for PvE damage dealing. I would still recommend Sorcerer Werewolf for PvP, but if you want to use a set which procs off of Class damage like Overwhelming Surge, you'll need to use Templar Werewolf. I personally recommend Imperial or Orc for PvP, and Khajiit for PvE — because since you'll want to stand in front of the enemies in PvE to get the most damage out of your main spammable, you won't benefit from the Backstabber CP star, so you want to make up your Critical Damage elsewhere.

Now, I'll comment on a bit of what was said in the original post:

sneakymitchell wrote: »

Hircine bounty always good heal but the hircine rage is lacking in heal even though cost reduction is decreased but the heal is little weak for most part and the increase damage taken is a crutch when it’s 10% increase damage. Recommend removing the increase damage taken. It’s a part of the past when major berserk was 25%

Here's what ZOS_Kevin has told us about the request for removing the debuff from Hircine's Rage:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

huskandhunger wrote: »

I definitely care about werewolves and feel a consistent approach should be carried out for this buff @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin can we please look into updating the Hircine's Rage ability Major Berserk morph to remove the 5% penalty since Wrecking Blow and the DK chains are being updated in a similar direction? 🙂

We want to follow up here on the request for the removal of the debuff on Hircine’s Rage, given the DK now has access to Major Berserk. We want to note now there are no plans to change this currently. One thing to keep in mind with skills like these are there has to be some sort of balance. The Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation now lasts for 4sec and the DK has to manage resources to make effective use of the skill. Also remember that Major Berserk is being added to incentivize usage of a traditionally underutilized skill. Hircine’s Rage gives Werewolves access to Major Berserk for 10sec, which is a significant amount of time for it to be up. More than double the time of Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation. So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage.

The damage taken debuff is to justify the long duration. This duration is particularly useful in a parse against a target dummy which cannot attack back, but in PvP (and harder PvE content), it's effectively only useful as a prebuff skill, due to the high Health requirement and the long duration. I believe removing the Health requirement entirely would see the buffs from the skill get more use in combat, as it's easy to burn limited Magicka when accidentally using the heal at 99% Health due to some incoming damage, particularly some DoT which Werewolf has no way of purging.

Tommy_The_Gun

For starters, I would enabled weapon passives in werewolf form. It would not give much, but at least it would be consistent. Armour passives do work. Weapon enchants/poisons do work also. If you have a set weapon it still counts towards 5 piece bonus in werewolf form.

It makes literally "ZERO" sense for the weapon passives not to work in Werewolf form. It feels unintuitive & weird.

Erickson9610

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

For starters, I would enabled weapon passives in werewolf form. It would not give much, but at least it would be consistent. Armour passives do work. Weapon enchants/poisons do work also. If you have a set weapon it still counts towards 5 piece bonus in werewolf form.

It makes literally "ZERO" sense for the weapon passives not to work in Werewolf form. It feels unintuitive & weird.

I believe weapon passives not working is the result of a bug. Hasty Retreat is the sole weapon passive that works on special bars (like Volendrung and Werewolf), but it doesn't work with Werewolf Behemoth (Infinite Archive version), which explicitly disables weapon enchantments and various other procs like Reaving Blows or Ring of the Pale Order, likely due to leftover dungeon mechanic requirements from Stone Garden. This doesn't even mention how you still get XP towards the weapon you transform into a Werewolf with, even if you unequip it or change it while still transformed.

I believe that because Werewolf Behemoth is an example of a case where weapon passives are definitely not allowed, that Werewolf (and Volendrung) are cases where the weapon passives would work, had this buggy behavior been properly fixed. There's already a ton of buggy behavior regarding Werewolf and your equipped weapon.

Soarora

Something I’ve wanted for a long time is 2 new werewolf forms for tanking and healing. Maybe a 2nd ult or a 2nd werewolf skill line for werewolf behemoth, or two different lycanthropes. Something to make all werewolf runs more… possible. Werewolf supports could also help with werewolf damage by having werewolf specific buffs.

sneakymitchell

@Erickson9610 did they forget the two h spamable gives out major beserk?

sneakymitchell

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

For starters, I would enabled weapon passives in werewolf form. It would not give much, but at least it would be consistent. Armour passives do work. Weapon enchants/poisons do work also. If you have a set weapon it still counts towards 5 piece bonus in werewolf form.

It makes literally "ZERO" sense for the weapon passives not to work in Werewolf form. It feels unintuitive & weird.

I believe weapon passives not working is the result of a bug. Hasty Retreat is the sole weapon passive that works on special bars (like Volendrung and Werewolf), but it doesn't work with Werewolf Behemoth (Infinite Archive version), which explicitly disables weapon enchantments and various other procs like Reaving Blows or Ring of the Pale Order, likely due to leftover dungeon mechanic requirements from Stone Garden. This doesn't even mention how you still get XP towards the weapon you transform into a Werewolf with, even if you unequip it or change it while still transformed.

I believe that because Werewolf Behemoth is an example of a case where weapon passives are definitely not allowed, that Werewolf (and Volendrung) are cases where the weapon passives would work, had this buggy behavior been properly fixed. There's already a ton of buggy behavior regarding Werewolf and your equipped weapon.

I forgot to mention having weapon passives too cause it bring more diverse playstyle to werewolf than being 2h or dual wield meta playstyle. I like to use werewolf on a bow cause it gives out crit chance, damage, and mobility.

Foxxal

It would be nice to have reliable inbuilt taunt options for werewolves seeing as their taunt interaction was inadvertently removed. Most werewolf players don't play werewolf for damage, they're tank players.

sneakymitchell

Foxxal wrote: »

It would be nice to have reliable inbuilt taunt options for werewolves seeing as their taunt interaction was inadvertently removed. Most werewolf players don't play werewolf for damage, they're tank players.

Doubt the devs will do that. Tormentor was the best set for aoe taunt now you have to use feral pounce. But I still use burtal pounce for some sets like dragon appetite.

Erickson9610

sneakymitchell wrote: »

Foxxal wrote: »

It would be nice to have reliable inbuilt taunt options for werewolves seeing as their taunt interaction was inadvertently removed. Most werewolf players don't play werewolf for damage, they're tank players.

Doubt the devs will do that. Tormentor was the best set for aoe taunt now you have to use feral pounce. But I still use burtal pounce for some sets like dragon appetite.

I bet Werewolf will be given a taunt if Werewolf is ever given a Grimoire. Just one Grimoire would be enough to give Werewolf players the option to do things like heal allies or taunt enemies, which would be a massive quality of life update for werewolves.

sneakymitchell

Erickson9610 wrote: »

sneakymitchell wrote: »

Foxxal wrote: »

It would be nice to have reliable inbuilt taunt options for werewolves seeing as their taunt interaction was inadvertently removed. Most werewolf players don't play werewolf for damage, they're tank players.

Doubt the devs will do that. Tormentor was the best set for aoe taunt now you have to use feral pounce. But I still use burtal pounce for some sets like dragon appetite.

I bet Werewolf will be given a taunt if Werewolf is ever given a Grimoire. Just one Grimoire would be enough to give Werewolf players the option to do things like heal allies or taunt enemies, which would be a massive quality of life update for werewolves.

There still no access to weapon passives unless you put the respec and put the points in as werewolf. Devs need to get their head out of the guar’s butt and let us have access to weapon passives. It’s not that hard at all.