What Exactly is Wrong with Werewolves?

Tendeep

I feel that everyone in this thread is correct, in the current state, the Werewolf form is useless and saddening.

darkkterror_ESO

Werewolf has been pretty underwhelming for me so far. My main is a VR2, almost VR3 Nightblade and my Werewolf skill line is at like 7 or 8 (don't remember exactly). I spend all this time gathering up the 900+ ultimate I need to transform and all I get for it is a form that makes me considerably weaker than my normal human form.

As a Nightblade, I can take out a group of 2 or 3 VR2 enemies pretty quickly, without taking much damage. If I'm in werewolf form that same group of enemies easily takes twice as long (probably more) to kill and I basically get my ass handed to me, even while trying to spam the AOE fear skill. The fear is the only form of CC I have and I don't even particularly like it. Enemies can easily run into other enemies, which creates a very bad situation.

From my experience, either I'm doing something extremely wrong (not sure what that would be) or werewolf is in need of major buffs. Right now I only keep it for the novelty and badass-edness of turning into a werewolf. From a functional standpoint it's pretty pointless.

Jonnymorrow

Everything is wrong with them. They need a complete overhaul if you ask me. More skills, more passives that work in humanoid form. And yeah the cost of the ult to transform is crazy for how weak ww form is atm even on a full stamina character.

MasterLanz

Being a pure health/stam character built around werewolf, I can say that it hits harder than my normal form. Per-swing it hits slightly harder than my two-hander, but it swings faster than DW. I think the people who are having troubles with ww damage output aren't built for it.

However, everything else is still pretty bad. The increased armor doesn't compensate for the lack of tricks, rolling, and healing and it overall doesn't feel like an ultimate but rather just a 'for fun' ability.

It seems to purely focus on aggression with its high (in my experience, anyways) damage output, a fear that makes things vulnerable for CC, and its high speed and leap attack. It's not destructive enough to actually survive off that aggression, however. It's a bit of a novelty.

It's actually pretty good for farming, really. That's pretty much all I use it for. Build up alt, and go find a place with humanoid targets that provide both food and loot, and then just go wild until my inventory is full. It is fun, and it is pretty well-optimized for that use, but it's a useless character feature almost everywhere else, and a huge hinderance in PVP.

Azriuel

MasterLanz wrote: »

Being a pure health/stam character built around werewolf, I can say that it hits harder than my normal form. Per-swing it hits slightly harder than my two-hander, but it swings faster than DW. I think the people who are having troubles with ww damage output aren't built for it.

However, everything else is still pretty bad. The increased armor doesn't compensate for the lack of tricks, rolling, and healing and it overall doesn't feel like an ultimate but rather just a 'for fun' ability.

It seems to purely focus on aggression with its high (in my experience, anyways) damage output, a fear that makes things vulnerable for CC, and its high speed and leap attack. It's not destructive enough to actually survive off that aggression, however. It's a bit of a novelty.

It's actually pretty good for farming, really. That's pretty much all I use it for. Build up alt, and go find a place with humanoid targets that provide both food and loot, and then just go wild until my inventory is full. It is fun, and it is pretty well-optimized for that use, but it's a useless character feature almost everywhere else, and a huge hinderance in PVP.

I agree, im a lvl 42 Redguard Sorc bow/2h building around the WW wearing 5medi 2heavy and as I can the tell is that I hit the crap out of the creeps with the 27% crit. Critical Surge gives a good burst for the first couple of seconds.

But I still wasn't in PvP with this build. After all this writing im a bit scared to go though :P

MasterLanz

I tried PVP yesterday for a few hours with WW. I managed to take down a Vet2 character at level 42 in WW form, but she obviously had no fighter's guild tricks. I tried to break a siege from the back later the same session and the second I wolfed out I got taken out by silver bolts from every direction.

At least 2 times I got vaporized by the 5% instant-kill from silver bolts too.

And the poison weakness reaaaaallly hurts. Every archer I faced was a massive threat.

However, I can say that, against the NPCs in PVP like keep defenders and such, ww is pretty solid, but that assumes no players are pumping you full of silver and poison.

marion.coleman83_ESO

Another experience-breaking glitch that I have heard about is the pack-leader morph of the werewolf transformation ability. Evidently, if you have your transformation ultimate morphed to that, you immediately turn back into human form once you activate it, regardless of if you immediately use devour or not. I have not experienced this because my transformation is morphed to berserk werewolf, but, nonetheless, the glitch needs to be fixed.

This, unfortunately, is not isolated to Pack Leader. I am only WW L3 and when Im in a dungeon or I get CC'd as I am transforming, I instantly turn back to main form.. Instant waste of 1000 Ultimate.. Its total BS. If the Vamps get to stay in their form then WW should be no different imo.

Hodorius

Some good points!

Only thing I would add is that it´s "unrealistic" if a WW changes back into human form infight.
If the tranformation-timer has ended it should "wait" until the fight is over.

popfbiub17_ESO

Same point to me
WW time is too short and a few skill with bug in sometimes.
WW skill and bug need to be polished .
Hope zos care about it

MasterLanz

I think we should get everyone in the game infected with Lycanthropy so that the entire game population is complaining to zenimax to fix it, then we'll see how long they leave it.

biodragon

Ikumarbeh wrote: »

[...]

As long as I'm engaging in combat and producing corpses I should remain in Werewolf form. Every melee hit should add more timer, every ability should add more timer and the whole Devour mechanic should be revamped. There must not be a delay between Devours, animation must not waste timer but should freeze it, and the number of Devourable targets should be increased. Also it shouldn't be interruptable, but damage may still be taken.

[...]

It's obvious imo that vamp/wolf mechanics were simply not ready for launch.

I Agree with that

Dimossa

So i was a ww before. Today i switched to vamp, played a bit and didnt like it. So i cured vampirism and got bitten by a ww again, but when i enter hunting grounds for the ww quest and morph into ww to take down a prey i cant atack, only block. i can atack in human form. tried to relog, revisit the zone...abandoning the quest. I did wrote to customer service guys, got response that they aware of the issue. And i was wondering if its come with 1.05 patch and if anyone encountered it before. Its a real pity its broken...like everything else in this game.

Ikumarbeh

Spriggen wrote: »

@Ikumarbeh The second point I agree with though the first well... no.

If they bring down the current ultimate, WW would not be balance AT ALL. You all need to understand that WW are VERY powerful in melee that even a duel-wielding dragon knight or nightblade cannot match your speed and sheer damage output. Not even a two handed sorc could come close.

Now, with that said. There are sets that decrease the ultimate point grind.
They are the following
elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Akavari+Dragonguard+Set#.U1SWiPmSx5Y

elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Hide+of+the+Werewolf+Set#.U1SWi_mSx5Y

elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Savior%27s+Hide+Set#.U1SWjvmSx5Y


Choose one and build your werewolf around it. Or mix and match. Have Akavari and Savior set to bring down the you ultimate to 53% of 1000.

@Spriggen i c your point, but you don't mention the whole situation. True WW still has the gratest DMG output single-target, but for that, WW has basicaly NO defences, NO hp/stam regen mechanic. We only have the CC fear, but thats 50% of all our skills. Besides, its broken atm, because of the effect being placed at the end of the animation, so we cannot interrupt anything right now.

And for this big DMG output we have our standard weaknesses, mensioned in all tooltips.

Thats not enough? Well, if it's not enough, then maybe the whole concept is a gamebreaker and ESO is better off without it. Its just silly. Maybe people will call me "balanced" only if my transformation unequips all my items, a?



Besides, the sets you mentioned cannot combine. Savior set is 5 pieces, including helm and chest. Akaviri is 3 pieces - helm OR chest included. Hide of the WW is also 5 sets.
Yeah, i guess you can combine Akaviri and Hide, but why. Savior is much better Ult reduce by itself.

Desmadona

I agree with the OP completely.
While it makes no logical sense for me, a healing Templar, to be a werewolf at all, I Chose it because It gives me control over when I transform, as opposed to having to be hideous with constant upkeep all the damn time, and IT'S HORRIBLE! Cosmetically, I'm awesome! Skill-wise, I may as well just be rolling around in the mud.

In my human form, for example, I can take out a pack of 4 skeevers without losing any health. These are easy at-level mobs - they don't hit hard at all, yet in my pathetic werewolf form, I can't take even a pack of 4 sorry little skeevers. I'll grant that I only have the first damn buggy leap skill, but my husband takes less and does more damage from these critters in his werewolf form. The only difference between us is our specs; I'm all magicka and he's all stamina. We're the same level and the same level in the werewolf tree.

Zen couldn't make these forms functional or scalable with magicka-based toons as well? It's not as if they're going for complete immersion/reality here. Making werewolves even remotely useful for only those focusing on stam builds is too limiting. If it were a completely different class, sure... but it's a novelty, at best.

I also agree the ultimate cost is too high for it's reward. Right now, for me, it's not a reward at all, but rather, it's punishment, but even for stam-specced people, it's only marginally useful.

I also think the base attack should be an AOE. There's no rage in picking just one mob to hit. IF it IS an aoe like my husband says, I can't tell. Maybe if my damage as a werewolf was even remotely close to my damage as a human, I'd feel wrong here

doublestickjock7_ESO

I would kill to be a werewolf tank for dungeons.

Zromguy_ESO

@doublestickjock7_ESO‌ A werewolf tank, huh? Well, considering you lose your armor bonus and get sh*t on by CC in werewolf form, have fun tanking!

MasterLanz

Werewolf tanking doesn't really work for several reasons

1) The werewolf needs to devour to sustain itself, but most boss fights are a single-target encounter where you won't get anything to feed on until the end, and many boss battles can last longer than your whole bar.

2) No durability sustaining. Your armor is fine for the most part but you have no means of boosting that armor with your own buffs, or heal yourself.

3) No taunt. This is probably the most important fact. You simply won't be able to hold the boss as a werewolf.


Now, that said, werewolf has a legitimate place in a dungeon. Between bosses shifting into werewolf form will help you clear rooms faster and control mobs with roar to make it easier for your party (especially if your party is mostly ranged and won't have to chase down the fleeing mobs).

Also, as a tank, I've used werewolf form on bosses before and it worked fairly well. However, the dynamic changes at that point from tanking the boss to just burning the boss down quickly. Nothing really outpaces a werewolf for damage in a single fight, so shifting into one can drastically reduce the time of the battle.

For example, just recently I ran the level 40 pirate dungeon (can't remember the name right now) and during the final boss fight my tank and one of the DPS just wolfed out for the boss fight and even though I wasn't holding aggro, the healer was able to keep himself alive while kiting the boss around, and we dropped the boss in less than thirty seconds, pretty much ignoring all his boss mechanics with brute force.

So there is a time and a place for it, and it's easier to make use of if you're running with a competent party who can work around not having a tank in some fights.

TheBull

This is sad. I was going to cure vamp because of passives not working when you die and get wolf...

You might want to check to make sure your passives don't leave when you die too. It took me 4 days to figure out why I felt so weak.

castinchosb16_ESO

As someone that has gotten his Werewolf form pretty late and is trying to(by some form of miracle) to level it up in veteran levels, I can only agree to most of what has been said in this discussion so far.

I am not a PvP based player but I can understand the problems with the lack of utility in the two abilities they get in Werewolf form.

My immediate issue is the multitude of bugs it has on transformation. I morphed for Pact Leader because it made sense to my character's background(I am a roleplayer). I keep losing the transformation soon after changing OR a few seconds afterwards if the abilities do not bug.

The ultimate costs way too much for the short moments we get into it and even devouring will not live up to its current cost am afraid. It is heavily underpowered and even running with a pure based stamina build I have difficulty to survive in the veteran areas.

There is also the fact that you have a permanent 50% damage vulnerability to poison, in veteran levels a mere spider can bring you down very easily. I end up trying to sneak away from these things because I know I can't stand much of a chance without downing 20 potions(of the actual good custom ones).

I would really love the werewolf form to be bug-free and possibly the following:

~ Add Werewolf transformation to an actual normal skill, if it is not possible then please drop the cost of the ultimate considerably, to maybe 400-500.
~Put either an infinite or a very long timer on the duration of a transformation if adding it to the normal skill tree isn't an option.
~ Allow players to dye werewolf fur by visiting a shrine of Hircine.

Brittany_Joy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKem8B-3iuI
Found this on youtube. It accurately portrays werewolves in PvP.

Valaska

Ult cost is too high, time in transformation is too short, and your werewolf timer counts down in combat. It should stop completely when you are in combat which would help for PVP.

Also, there should be more active skills, vampires might only get two active skills but they have their class skills to use too. There needs to be something for WW to deal with enemies who are blocking without costing the stamina of roar, or being that damn random while in a group of enemies, and something to sap health (maybe a devour skill where you get health from bodies in mid combat, possibly even brings more time to the bar.)

Zromguy_ESO

@Brittany_Joy‌ Basically.

Valaska

Werewolf

Fixed an issue where werewolves could use Devour on the same corpse multiple times.


- Zenimax has officially put the nail in the coffin for WereWolves, it is now essentially the worst skill in the game.

Zhoyzu

Brittany_Joy wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKem8B-3iuI
Found this on youtube. It accurately portrays werewolves in PvP.

thats sums it up

MasterLanz

Valaska wrote: »

Werewolf

Fixed an issue where werewolves could use Devour on the same corpse multiple times.


- Zenimax has officially put the nail in the coffin for WereWolves, it is now essentially the worst skill in the game.

Seriously? This is exactly the *** that I was worried zenimax would pull. Of course they'll jump to fix the bugs that players are using to make the werewolf at least worth using, but they can't be *** to actually fix the bugs and improve the skill line.

Travail

One of the issues with werewolves that I don't see brought up often is... it's kind of a boring power.

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You get the idea. I mean, could they really only come up with 2 werewolf abilities? Did they come up with 2, and just decide to stop there? I can think of a ton of abilities/mechanics just off the top of my head that would have been interesting and entertaining. Werewolf powers that offer synergies to other nearby werewolves, for example, would have been very cool.

I guess I should be thankful that they didn't add even more broken stuff into this skill line. I'm just not sure I'd be all that happy with the werewolf ult even if it was all working well. Part of the appeal of ESO is the vast array of skills I can build with. Each time I transform, I'm giving up 10+2 skills for just 2.

Don't get me wrong, their first priority with regards to this skill line needs to be fixing bugs and balancing what's already there. But I also feel they'll eventually need to think about adding more variety to the transformation.

-Travail.

Sylinias

Becoming a Weremole isn't what I want for my character. The rest of your suggestions are okay.

Sylinias

MasterLanz wrote: »

The fact of the matter is that if the ult cost 0 and werewolves could beast out at will, they'd be very impressive, if not potentially overpowered.

At will doesn't mean OP if there's still a reasonable level-based timer. Read reasonable as longer than 30 seconds beginning at level 1 (perhaps 5 minutes) and progressing longer and longer with level. At cap, you'd have the ability to stay in form up to 48 hrs or face permanency with the loss of NPC interactivity for trade/email/services, becoming a 'wanted' character via Dark Brotherhood/Fighter Guild, etc, and playing a rogue wolf. Alternately, you could get cured and have to restart the WW line again.

Sylinias

ScardyFox wrote: »

The ultimate cost needs to vanish, plain and simple. The ultimate should be its own ability only activated as a Werewolf.

+1

Sylinias

Nitratas wrote: »

Totally agree with most of the posts. Havent noticed if anyone mentioned it yet but i wanted to add that transformation and retransformation animations take too damn long. I've died countless of times on my retransformation animation because it takes too damn long and is buggy. Make it 1 second tops, not 5 to 10 seconds until i can get into combat in human form again

If you lower your graphics does it go any faster?