I guess many here or anywhere else know that werewolves are bit, well useless. Its not completely useless, just say that reaching 800 (725) ultimate takes something close to ages (and you cant "store" it till later, and god forbid you zone somewhere else.. puff ultimate gone).
Even if you have both Ultimate cost reducing sets (Savoir's Hide 33% from Werewolf transformation and Akaviri 20% from Ultimate cost), you are sitting on something close to 400 ultimate per transformation. Quite a lot..
Werewolves do have passive in human form, which is pretty useful, when you take damage you generate ultimate. Well, it would be useful, if for one werewolf could survive that and most of the game every sensible person is trying to avoid damage. Especially later in game.
Thats where I think would be better to do a bit of change and either generate simply additional ultimate by attacking based on damage done, or simply you do damage and generate few points of ultimate each second (same way as its now, just by doing damage not taking it).
Also would be nice, if werewolves had ultimate they generated while in werewolf form usable when they turn back (it does puff and when you turn back human, your ultimate is gone).
I think whole that idea, pay crazy ultimate price for being for a moment werewolf is bit not-thought thru. Cause result simply is that you play "normal character which rarely can be werewolf". Right now its bit like if you enable vanity pet/trophy from backpack "look cool pet/trophy effect" (only its look cool werewolf).
So, obviously I have another idea.. (I hate those whiny posts "ooh its bad, nerf it bla bla".. and nobody ever thinks something new instead).
Werewolf change and stages
You probably know that vampires have stages, with "deeper" vampire stages they look more and more dead and also become quite a bit more deadly (also self-heal slower -75% regen at stage 4).
So I thought, hm.. how to do werewolf stages?
Well, first thing. Werewolf transformation would be free, or some very low cost ultimate price (100 lets say or 50). Once you are transformed, clocks will start to tick..
- To stay in stage one, you need to feed on regular basis (yea small tweak there, add passive which allows to devour everything .. probably apart already dead things like skeletons, but.. I would prefer everything, I can chew bones..). If you dont feed, you will progress to stage two. Also you can go back to human any time you want.
- Stage two means, you are slightly bit more crazy, also slightly bit more powerful, you do more damage and have a bit more stamina, but also have a bit less armor, cause you know.. you are bit crazy now. Keep eating, if you want to stay that way, or if you eat enough, go back to stage one. You can un-wolf any moment you want.
- Stage three, you didnt eat at all, did you? As bonus, you get more stamina (wolf damage is based on stamina) and health per attack (or simply increased health regen, exact opposite of vampires). But you again get much less armor. Your character will sometimes loose control when being too near enemies and attack. You still can control your character in combat, just cant prevent attack. Keep eating, if you want to be at least a bit sane. You can go back to human form, but it might take few tryes to do it (random number of tries 1-5).
- Stage four. You should have eaten, now its too late. You are complete wolf lunatic, you dont need to be near enemies, you can feel them, you lust for blood and fresh meat and you track and attack everything around. Which will very soon kill you cause you have no control over your character at all and also have no armor at all (cause you are crazy thus not thinking about defense). Apart that nothing changed since stage three. And you cant go back to human form, you are simply going to die. Plus you get debuff preventing you from being werewolf for an hour (or less with passive).
With this, you could really play werewolf, like vampires play.. well, vampires (they dont need to play them, they simply are vampires).
Werewolf skills
Current ones feel pretty ok, so keep them. But we have whole bar to fill.
Diseased bite - rather simple skill, in which werewolf will simply try some chewing on enemy, does as it says disease damage and also has bit of armor/spell resist penetration.
Morphs to
Steel jaw or
Arcane bite
Steel jaws does again disease damage, but has much increased armor/spell penetration, plus with passive it mangles enemies snaring them for short while.
Arcane bite does damage depending on weapon you are using as human (options are fire, cold, lightning, magic). It will use either type of staff or weapon enchant, if neither of these is available it will do simply magic damage. It doesnt have armor penetration, but it has slightly increased spell penetration and with passive it will cause active effect (electrified, frozen, bursting in flames, or disintegration - just DoT like others with some cool blue flame effect).
So that leaves us with two empty slots.
Claw swipe (simply swings claws from one side to another, both of them)
Does normal wolf damage to 1+1 enemy, can cause bleeding with passive. Morphs into
Long claws and
Provoking claw.
Long claws do AoE damage in front of werewolf. Bleeds with passive.
Provoking claw does damage to only one enemy, while taunting up to 2 others to attack him (including that enemy of course). Adds healthy dose of armor to werewolf for duration of taunt. Passive increases health regen for duration of taunt.
Last skill is
Ripper
As it says, werewolf attacks with high ferocity, using really fast attacks to literally rip victim apart. Its just sequence of fast hits for normal damage ending with one bit stronger at the end. Does more damage to low HP enemies. Morphs into
Bestiality and
Wolf call.
Bestiality is just improved variant of Ripper, difference is much bigger damage bonus against low HP enemies (and bit of HP regen if you kill them with that skill). And when enemy is stunned/disoriented werewolf will jump on him and throw him on ground (while happily ripping him apart).
Wolf call does something entirely different. Werewolf howls for help, while disorienting everyone around. Two white wolves will come to his help and figth with him till they die. Lowers stamina till they die (ergo werewolf does less damage). Lasts till wolves are alive or canceled (going back to human form wont despawn wolves, you can keep them till they die).
Now I said passive skills, yea two new.
Razorteeth - give snare to Steel Jaw and active damage effects to Arcane Bite
Taste for blood - causes Claw swipe and Long claws to do bleed damage and gives HP regen to Provoking claw.
Also Ripper and morphs should be fed from magicka, or there is need for really increased stamina pool and stamina regen. Whole stamina builds are bit iffy now..
And, thats pretty much it I think. Share your thoughts! How would you like werewolves this way?