[Suggestion] Werewolf Improvement Suggestion, Feedback appreciated.

Tornaad · August 2017

It seems to me that while the werewolves need to get a bit of love so that they become more viable for high level end game play and I had a thought about a way to possibly do that.

Right now if you transform into the werewolf you go from (assuming you are a high enough level to have a back bar) you go from 2 bars to 1 and have one preset selection of skills to use. However if instead of removing access to your two normal bars you get access to a 3rd bar that you can choose from.
Perhaps make it so that using werewolf abilities allows to stay in the form longer, or using non werewolf abilities makes it so the time lowers a little bit.

What do you think?
Do you think this would make the werewolf more viable for high end game play?
Do you think it even needs any love? If so why?

Thanks in advance for keeping this positive.

Chrlynsch · August 2017

The hardest thing about balancing the werewolf is that there is soo much being added and even more so being taken away from them that it is hard to really see where they are balance wise. I'll breakdown a couple of balance points, as well add some quality of life improvements and susuggestions.

The Werewolf Ultimate cost: 300 when ranked, without passive reductions and gear. This is way too high, most characters that build for werewolf do so by having to use very specific sets that more or less make you weaker in human form then your humanoid counterparts. My thought is to reduce the ultimate to 100, this will allow players to go in and out of werewolf easier, lowering the investment of the transformation, allowing you to be more situation with your ultimate instead of having to hold on to it for the absolute opportune moment.

The Timer: I overall have grown to enjoy the timer, as it takes time to master, and gives some counterplay for certain situations. The call of the pack is great as well, as it allows a pack to sustain form, but some functions need tweeked. Remove the minimum range requirement for Feral Pounce, increase the minimum range if you need to. Devour should be a channel, giving me time in form, stamina, health, magic/sec. I think 1,500/sec is fair number, as the devour leaves you exposed, can be interrupted, and givin how fast corpses disappear. Werewolves have no other way to restore stamina besides heavy attacks and potions.

Damage: The werewolf is in a good place when it comes burst, but their overall dps leaves something to be desired. We can't just expect ZOS to increase our Howl of "Blank" damage and call it a day. I also don't want to see abilities just spammed more by reducing the costs. Two thing I would request. 1. Increase light attack damage by 10% 2. Allow heavy attacks to apply Heavy werewolf bleed, compare with axe passives giving both a light and heavy bleed.

Survivability & Sustainability: The speed of the wolf used to be a great utility of the ultimate. With the speed cap put in place this means that the mobility of the wolf has much to be desired due to the amount of snares that can be stacked from multiple sources, with no way to remove them. The solution is add at the very least a snare effect reduction of 50% and Sprint cost reduction to the werewolf. With the unique devour mechanics restoring resources, and increased light attack and bleed, this gives wolves extra damage allowing them to refrain from spaming expensive abilities. Heavy attacks need slight boost to resource return, they were missed when heavy attack return values were adjusted with marrowind, 2000 return at base value is a good number. Let werewolves sneak, they took increased damage away from stealth attacks. Hunters gotta hunt.

Spark Notes
-Lower ultimate cost to 100
-Devour restores resources
-Increase light attack damage
-Add heavy attack bleed, increase base stamina return from heavy attacks.
-Sprint cost reduction (add to pursuit), snare reduction (add to savage strength)
-Let werewolves sneak

mandricus · August 2017

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Allow heavy attacks to apply Heavy werewolf bleed, compare with axe passives giving both a light and heavy bleed.

Heavy attacks need slight boost to resource return, they were missed when heavy attack return values were adjusted with marrowind

100% agree on these two points.

Looks Like Heavy attack resource return in Werevolf form were just forgotten by developers, as in Morrowind all the others were somehow adjusted, except WW heavy attack. And keep in mind that Heavy Attack is the ONLY way you have to recover Stamina when you are in WW form. At the moment WW is almost impossible to sustain.

Heavy Attack should apply beeding as well. I just don't understand why they don't apply it already.

RouDeR · August 2017

They shud improve Salvation set also , for example :
5 pc: increase weapon and spell damage by 300
And provide major Mending while transformed ( this will make the set viable for pvp and pve )
V2. Increase the bleed damage by 15% and adds snare immunity

Tornaad · August 2017

Chrlynsch wrote: »

The hardest thing about balancing the werewolf is that there is soo much being added and even more so being taken away from them that it is hard to really see where they are balance wise. I'll breakdown a couple of balance points, as well add some quality of life improvements and susuggestions.

The Werewolf Ultimate cost: 300 when ranked, without passive reductions and gear. This is way too high, most characters that build for werewolf do so by having to use very specific sets that more or less make you weaker in human form then your humanoid counterparts. My thought is to reduce the ultimate to 100, this will allow players to go in and out of werewolf easier, lowering the investment of the transformation, allowing you to be more situation with your ultimate instead of having to hold on to it for the absolute opportune moment.

The Timer: I overall have grown to enjoy the timer, as it takes time to master, and gives some counterplay for certain situations. The call of the pack is great as well, as it allows a pack to sustain form, but some functions need tweeked. Remove the minimum range requirement for Feral Pounce, increase the minimum range if you need to. Devour should be a channel, giving me time in form, stamina, health, magic/sec. I think 1,500/sec is fair number, as the devour leaves you exposed, can be interrupted, and givin how fast corpses disappear. Werewolves have no other way to restore stamina besides heavy attacks and potions.

Damage: The werewolf is in a good place when it comes burst, but their overall dps leaves something to be desired. We can't just expect ZOS to increase our Howl of "Blank" damage and call it a day. I also don't want to see abilities just spammed more by reducing the costs. Two thing I would request. 1. Increase light attack damage by 10% 2. Allow heavy attacks to apply Heavy werewolf bleed, compare with axe passives giving both a light and heavy bleed.

Survivability & Sustainability: The speed of the wolf used to be a great utility of the ultimate. With the speed cap put in place this means that the mobility of the wolf has much to be desired due to the amount of snares that can be stacked from multiple sources, with no way to remove them. The solution is add at the very least a snare effect reduction of 50% and Sprint cost reduction to the werewolf. With the unique devour mechanics restoring resources, and increased light attack and bleed, this gives wolves extra damage allowing them to refrain from spaming expensive abilities. Heavy attacks need slight boost to resource return, they were missed when heavy attack return values were adjusted with marrowind, 2000 return at base value is a good number. Let werewolves sneak, they took increased damage away from stealth attacks. Hunters gotta hunt.

Spark Notes
-Lower ultimate cost to 100
-Devour restores resources
-Increase light attack damage
-Add heavy attack bleed, increase base stamina return from heavy attacks.
-Sprint cost reduction (add to pursuit), snare reduction (add to savage strength)
-Let werewolves sneak

I like your thoughts and those seem a lot easier to implement than my suggestion.

Zardayne · August 2017

This is one of my biggest complaints..way too much ultimate..

The Werewolf Ultimate cost: 300 when ranked, without passive reductions and gear. This is way too high, most characters that build for werewolf do so by having to use very specific sets that more or less make you weaker in human form then your humanoid counterparts. My thought is to reduce the ultimate to 100, this will allow players to go in and out of werewolf easier, lowering the investment of the transformation, allowing you to be more situation with your ultimate instead of having to hold on to it for the absolute opportune moment.

Skullstachio · August 2017

mandricus wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Allow heavy attacks to apply Heavy werewolf bleed, compare with axe passives giving both a light and heavy bleed.

Heavy attacks need slight boost to resource return, they were missed when heavy attack return values were adjusted with marrowind

100% agree on these two points.

Looks Like Heavy attack resource return in Werevolf form were just forgotten by developers, as in Morrowind all the others were somehow adjusted, except WW heavy attack. And keep in mind that Heavy Attack is the ONLY way you have to recover Stamina when you are in WW form. At the moment WW is almost impossible to sustain.

Heavy Attack should apply beeding as well. I just don't understand why they don't apply it already.

the reason they do not give heavy attacks bleed is because regardless of the weapons you hold when you transform, a werewolf's heavy attack can hit more than 1 target.

give this build a gander, use it right & werewolves are already a force to fear.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/351953/were-warden-build-update-1-2-divine-were-warden

Zardayne wrote: »

This is one of my biggest complaints..way too much ultimate..

The Werewolf Ultimate cost: 300 when ranked, without passive reductions and gear. This is way too high, most characters that build for werewolf do so by having to use very specific sets that more or less make you weaker in human form then your humanoid counterparts. My thought is to reduce the ultimate to 100, this will allow players to go in and out of werewolf easier, lowering the investment of the transformation, allowing you to be more situation with your ultimate instead of having to hold on to it for the absolute opportune moment.

The reason for having so much ultimate (Which is reasonable from my perspective) is because werewolves don't just get bleed damage on light attacks & heavy attacks hitting more than one target, but also because it grants 15% extra stamina recovery (even while transformed) It grants 9966 physical/spell resistance while transformed & the morphs give either an added 40% bleed damage to light attacks or to have two dire wolves fighting by your side for the duration of your transformation which can also distract some enemies in dungeons which is even more useful.

Chrlynsch · August 2017

@Alpha-Lupi

Please read carefully.

Werewolf aoe damage gets no where near thst of anyone using good gear and two skills. The bleed attached would help increase the amount of aoe and single target damage where werewolf is behind both other Stam and magic classes. That goes beside the point that Two handers also hit multiple opponents with a heavy attack, while having a chance to proc bleed.

If you are relying on your direwolves to hold the agro of mobs in a dungeon I'm sorry to say that your doing it wrong.

So your telling me that the excessively large ultimate cost of the werewolf transformation is ok because it allows you not to be able to tank, not be able to heal others, not be able to res, and the biggest one, maintsin lower dps then when you are in human form (aoe and single target)? But don't worry because you only gain 5k more then someone that can cast major spell resistance and armor with one of their 10 ability slots they have. Werewolf abilities need to do more because they have less.

If you don't see the weakness you are bringing to both your PVP group and PVE group by hoarding/using and using werewolf transformations, then there is little hope for you pup.

Please do me a favor and stop posting your build in every topic that says anything about werewolf. As I continually monitor werewolf threads to help werewolves in need and your material is often full of bad information and poor advice.

mandricus · August 2017

@Alpha-Lupi any discussion about WV related to PvE, given the game current state, it's pointless. At the moment WW simply don't have place in PvE. They are Impossibile to sustain, the ultimate transformation cost is too high, and the worst of all: when you are WW, you usually do A LOT LESS DAMAGE than when you are using your normal PvE set and skills, because most of the times, in any boss fight, you are out of Stamina. On my Stamina Templar i can easily hit more than 30k single target when I'm using my PvE gear , while in WW form I struggle to achieve 26k, and only in short fights.

So I have less skill to use, a huge transformation cost, an Ultimate to waste, just to become a WV, and to do what? Less damage than when I'm am on my usual configuration, because i'm out of Stamina most of the time and I'm forced to watch the other's fight, just holding down my mouse button doing the slow and boring heavy-attack *** game, because I can't skill anything as I'm constantly out of resources? Nonsense, WW in PVE are dead at the moment. I play it just for fun sometimes, but there is no point in becoming a WW in PVE

PvP is a different story: WW may have their role for some niche playstyle. They are hard to master, but can be effective if used properly (expecially when you use it in a pack of werevolves). But yet, in 1v1 situation / small scale, most of the time they struggle a lot, mainly because they are really hard to sustain (with heavy attacks giving back not enough stamina, compared to the stamina you get doing an heavy attack with any other weapon).

Probably I'm noob playing it and still need to learn it (even if I used it quite a lot in PvP and in duels), but at the moment my experience with WW is that their burst is quite good, but most of the times not good enough to bring down your opponent. So when I play WW, 9 of 10 times in small scale / 1v1 situation I: 1) try to burst, 2) don't succeed, 3) run out of stamina -> I'm screwed.
That is my experience. Yours may be is different, because may be you are a better WW player than me.. but I would say that, even if it may be it's possible in the current game state to create great PvP WW builds (which I'm not sure), WW are really hard to master at the moment, due to their limitations, compared to any other spec.

TLDR; At the moment there is almost no reason to run a WW in PvE, and very few to run it in PvP. They are in a pretty bad spot for various reasons.

It is not a cohincidence that they become almost impossible to see in PvE, and very rare in PvP...... back in the days it was a different story, with Werevolves everywhere

DoonerSeraph · August 2017

Just reposting here my thoughts on another WW thread, I have nothing to add atm that I can remember.

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

I was thinking about a way to make WW as good as vampire for a while, requiring transformation and worst, locking you out of skills kills WW completely, also it makes all WW look the same, without looking at the icon, can you tell the a WW player class? It would be pretty difficult, their only differences are passive ones.

So I was thinking about a middle ground, WW needs buffs and nerfs to compensata those buffs.

1. WW needs 2 bars, period. You lose a lot of versatility just for transforming.
2. WW Transformation must be a toggle and not a timer, and maybe not even a ultimate one, maybe another key could be bound just for transforming.
3. WW could use a compromise, instead if having all skills avaliable like vampires, they could use non-weapon skills since you got paws now, kinda like Overload sorks for sorcerers.
4. WW could have their own ultimate based on berserker (like some huge aoe claw swipe with stun) or a pack leader (buffing howl or w/e)
5. Some passives would work on human form but on a lower degree. Like the Savage Strength would increase the weapon damage by 1% / 2% in human form. Passives based on duration shoul be reworked with a similar framework: micro buffs to human form and okay buffs to wolf form.
6. Poison vulnerability and FG bonus would apply to human form in a lesser degree, like 5% too, and the defense buff for transforming would go to like 2k while in wolf form (since it would be free to transform) and 750 for human.
7. Some more bursty WW skills could use a nerf in this case and a cost reduction, also fixing WW heavy attacks to restore decent stamina would help a lot.

These are just rough ideas for a healthy compromise without taking away the uniqueness of wolf and vamp, also the numbers here are just figure, take all with a grain of salt.

What you think about it?

brtomkin · August 2017

My wishlist:

1. Reduce skill costs to off-set CP changes to cost reduction - reducing all skill costs by 10% would be great!
2. Increased movement speed, not just sprint speed.
3. Passive snare reduction similar to the Warden passive... (or attach purge to one of the skills, but I don't necessarily think this is appropriate).
4. Give Devour bonus when animation completes... even if a body disappears early.
5. Buff the Salvation Set to OPness: In addition to 33% reduced transform cost, give 33% buffs to Blood Rage and/or Call of the Pack passives to help maintain werewolf form. Also, add 150 spell damage to go with the 150 weapon damage bonus while in werewolf form (helps with healing).