ZOS Buff Werewolf for PVE

FoulSnowpaw · January 2018

Goal:

The goal is to make Werewolves more viable to PVE content while still providing counter play in pvp against werewolves.
Increase the population of Werewolves because there's currently little incentive to become one.
Offer more incentive to sacrificing an ultimate slot and two ability bars just to be a werewolf.
Try to make this as simple as possible and hopefully give ZOS some more focus into the Werewolf Skill Line and make some improvements.

ULTIMATE

Werewolf Transformation
Pack%20Leader.png

Transform into your Werewolf Form. While transformed, your Light Attacks cause enemies to bleed for [x] Physical Damage over 8 seconds and your Physical and Spell Resistance are increased by 9966.
While slotted, your Stamina Recovery is increased by 20%.
You receive 25% more damage from Poison.

Remaining in Werewolf Form no longer has a timed duration, but it still costs Ultimate points to activate the ability. Players should be able to be a Werewolf as long as they want and should be integrated into the roleplay part of The Elder Scrolls Online experience much like any other part of TESO. Below are additional reasons.
- Because the Werewolf Form literally takes an Ultimate Slot it should be at the very least, as powerful as any other ultimate.
- You literally cannot gain additional Ultimate while in Werewolf Form, which further reduces damage potential in comparison to 2 ability bars and consistent ultimate gain of a regular ultimate ability. Being in Werewolf Form already has the penalty of no additional ultimate gain, and the current time limit makes it like it's too powerful or something that there needs to be a limit and high ultimate cost. So there absolutely needs to be compensation for those losses.
- While in Werewolf Form you have no Ultimate Ability, so you need to be as powerful as an Ultimate; the Warden Class bear at least has an Ultimate, but WW doesn't.
- Vampires typically have full immunity to flame penalty at Stage 1 and don't lose any ability slots or ultimate slots. They get a flat 10% bonus to both magicka and stamina recoveries and are able to maintain full functionality of all Class passives and abilities and the bonuses pertaining to abilities slotted.
- If the cost of Werewolf Transformation has to increase in order rid of the duration, it is totally worth it, so as long as we get to play the character we want to be.
ACTIVE ABILITIES:
- The mechanics of these abilities work out fine except provide viable end game PVE potential of which suggestions for adjustments are listed below in passives.
=======================================================
Passives
=======================================================

Pursuit (2 ranks)
- WHILE IN WEREWOLF FORM
- Increases Stamina return from Heavy Attacks by 50/100%.
Devour (1 rank)
- WHILE IN WEREWOLF FORM
- Restore [x] Health and [x] Stamina whenever you devour a corpse.
Resource return on devouring corpses gives incentive to feed. Feeding on corpses also makes the werewolf vulnerable to attacks as it takes some time to fully devour a corpse. In pvp, most players just resurrect before you can even devour them anyways.

Blood Rage (2 ranks)
- WHILE IN WEREWOLF FORM
- Increases your Weapon Damage by 20 for 10 seconds every time you take damage. This effect can stack up to 10 times(+200 weapon damage).
This allows more tactical counter play when in combat with werewolves, such as utilizing more ranged poison attacks and immobilization traps in lieu of taking them head on and bust. Unlike vampires, a Werewolf's weakness is widely exposed once it has transformed to its beast state, triggering a full assault of poison attacks. And yes this was the once glorious Wrath passive of Heavy Armor.

Blood Moon (1 rank)
- Allows player to turn another player into a Werewolf once every 7 days by returning to the Werewolf ritual site.
- Players infected with Vampirism cannot be turned.
Savage Strength (2 ranks)
- WHILE IN WEREWOLF FORM
- Increases Weapon Damage by 28%.
By remaining in Werewolf Form, all abilities other than Werewolf abilities are unable to be accessed, hence cutting off a huge part of damage output potential. Note also by remaining in Werewolf Form, most class passives are negated as well. By making the Werewolf Form damage slightly more in likeness with normal ability bars, passives, and rotations, the Werewolf Transformation is now more viable for endgame Vet Trials and Dungeons

Adamantine (2 ranks)
- WHILE IN WEREWOLF FORM
- Increases Health Recovery by 20%.
This perk better reflects the nature of werewolves having some regenerative abilities. Since most poison attacks deal relatively massive amounts of direct damage and damage over time, there needs to be some compensation for the large influx of damage received. The idea is for a werewolf beast to be a creature that takes effort to defeat rather than take it on with no effort at all. And considering werewolves are quite noticeable in size, it is very likely to get sprayed with waves of poison attacks anyways.

Images Source: http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/World+Skills

Conclusion:
- This is a suggestion. Numbers are obviously subject to change.
- Compensation for sacrificing ability bars, Ultimate slot, Class Passives, and the ability to generate additional ultimate while in WW Form.
- ZOS needs to see to making WW more viable and with more incentives. Everyone is a vampire because of meta. There needs to be diversity in terms of build options, and without severe penalties.
To disagree and state opinions is fine. Just keep it civil and no bigotry.

Ladislao · January 2018

FoulSnowpaw wrote: »

The goal is to make Werewolves more viable to PVE content while still providing counter play in pvp against werewolves.

The problem is that "viable" is a very stretchable concept. Talking about PVE, for most people, viable is BiS, meta in vTrials. WWs will not be "viable" until everyone in the raid is a werewolf.

FoulSnowpaw wrote: »

Increase the population of Werewolves because there's currently little incentive to become one.

I do not understand this position at all. Is this an example of a herd feeling?
People should make a choice based on personal preferences.

FoulSnowpaw wrote: »

Offer more incentive to sacrificing an ultimate slot and two ability bars just to be a werewolf.

In fact, WWs offer enough if you play around it. I do not want to say that they are imbalance, but they are fairly well balanced, except for some skill morphs. In my opinion, here are some of these morphs and it would be worth paying attention to.

FoulSnowpaw wrote: »

ZOS needs to see to making WW more viable and with more incentives. Everyone is a vampire because of meta. There needs to be diversity in terms of build options, and without severe penalties.

It seems to me that you are positioning these skill lines a little incorrectly. First of all, this is just an option. You are offered an additional set of skills in return for some shortcomings. Are you ready to accept this?

All this is exclusively my opinion. And it is likely that it coincides with the opinion of the developers, since they have not yet brought changes. Better let's continue to ask for bug fixes, which are described, for example, here.

Qbiken · January 2018

+ For well made post.

I´ll mostly speak from a PvP point of view, even though I know your post is aimed towards PvE.

I agree werewolf could use more love. While most, if not all PvE content is possible for werewolf's (some people even do flawless runs in vMA with them), I think PvP is where they really could shine the most. When it comes to terms of damage output werewolf´s can cause some serious damage. In 1v1 situations a well-played werewolf is nearly impossible to beat (with exceptions of course).

My own suggestions to Werewolf:
- Give them back the "permawolf-form". Some people have stated that this still works even thought the passive states otherwise. Confirmation from ZOS here would be helpful/nice. Your suggestion isn´t bad, but encouraging people to play in group to get the most benefits out of werewolf is probably a better idea. 5+ werewolfs in a group = permanently in werewolf form.

- Give Werewolf some sort of snare-reduction and/or purge-mechanic. Either in their passives or make Hircine´s Fortitude a purge skill.

I like the suggestion of changing the blood-rage passive, its design is very similar to how The Fury set works. I can imagine a lot of QQ if a change like that would occur however. Another suggestion would be that the less HP you´ve as a werewolf the more weapon-damage you get?

ccfeeling · January 2018

I Didn't play with ww for a long time in pve
Sad to say, just give up, dont beg anything from Zos, they dont care

Datthaw · January 2018

ccfeeling wrote: »

I Didn't play with ww for a long time in pve
Sad to say, just give up, dont beg anything from Zos, they dont care

Lol sadly enough this is true. Zos don't give a damn about our problems

Daedric_NB_187 · January 2018

OP. I agree 100%. I like all of your ideas. My only thing would be to cut down the stamina recovery to 10%. 20% seems much. But that is just my opinion. But otherwise, excellent post.

KeiruNicrom · January 2018

Personally would make devour a channel that keeps working even when corpse disappears

LordSemaj · January 2018

Werewolf will never be PVE viable. They cannot be until ZOS decides to balance PVE and PVP separately.

Classes in PVE depend on skill rotations. They stack DOTs repeatedly and synchronize buff timers to maximize their DPS. Without cooldowns, this the most efficient way to play. Yet Werewolves don't have such a capability. They only have five powers, two of which do no dmg and serve as our buffs/healing. Yet having end game dps level damage from only using TWO BUFFS would be broken. Having end game dps level damage from a THREE DAMAGE SKILL ROTATION would be as well. It's missing caltrops, endless hail, rearming trap, etc, no ability to stack damage means the skills themselves would have to be insanely damaging. On top of that, the skills don't synergize, there's a gap closer, an AOE DOT, and a burst-CC skill while most of the damage comes from Light and Heavy attacks and bleeds.

Making such a braindead easy archetype to play into a powerhouse dps without adding a huge amount of skills to the list would mean the Werewolf skills themselves would have to be extra strong to make up for the lack of buff and dot stacking. Extra strong skills means they do phenomenal burst in PVP which can't happen because it would bring us back to the old days of overpowered werewolves running around in zergs. If we keep them in line with the rest of PVP then it means their skills are weaker. Five weaker skills cannot be stacked effectively to equal PVE damage from other classes no matter how you try to combo them.

It's a vicious cycle, werewolves by design have burst potential and that's it. Any buffs to their sustainable damage would increase their buffs and get complaints from the PVPers. Leaving their burst manageable would make them undesirable by the PVEers. You can't please both crowds with only 2 buffs and 3 dmg dealers, all of which perform essential and situational roles. The only real combo a werewolf has is to hit them with claws, stack bleeds, and then fear+howl repeatedly. In no way will that ever equal decent damage again without being ridiculous in PVP and ZOS refuses to balance them separately.

CardboardedBox · January 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

+ For well made post.

I´ll mostly speak from a PvP point of view, even though I know your post is aimed towards PvE.

I agree werewolf could use more love. While most, if not all PvE content is possible for werewolf's (some people even do flawless runs in vMA with them), I think PvP is where they really could shine the most. When it comes to terms of damage output werewolf´s can cause some serious damage. In 1v1 situations a well-played werewolf is nearly impossible to beat (with exceptions of course).

My own suggestions to Werewolf:
- Give them back the "permawolf-form". Some people have stated that this still works even thought the passive states otherwise. Confirmation from ZOS here would be helpful/nice. Your suggestion isn´t bad, but encouraging people to play in group to get the most benefits out of werewolf is probably a better idea. 5+ werewolfs in a group = permanently in werewolf form.

- Give Werewolf some sort of snare-reduction and/or purge-mechanic. Either in their passives or make Hircine´s Fortitude a purge skill.

I like the suggestion of changing the blood-rage passive, its design is very similar to how The Fury set works. I can imagine a lot of QQ if a change like that would occur however. Another suggestion would be that the less HP you´ve as a werewolf the more weapon-damage you get?

The one problem about encouraging people to play wws in a group together, is that it's difficult to actually find anyone that's willing to do that. And the rare few that are, are mainly doing it for role-play reasons, not efficiency reasons.

Chrlynsch · January 2018

As much as I appreciate the changes here OP, I think they would most deff be major buffs to PVP and would still leave them off the useful scale in Pve. Here is why.

- They don't provide any buffs of value to the group, no armor or spell resistance reduction, no major or minor group buffs or debuffs. The only thing of value that they bring to the table is feeding frenzy, and it isn't good...

- They can't res allies while in werewolf form.

-Their off balance from fear buff doesn't apply to bosses. This would be great to have with the upcoming changes to off balance. Having the ability to off balance the boss on demand at the best opportunity could be huge for raids. Werewolf could provide this.

Daedric_NB_187 wrote: »

OP. I agree 100%. I like all of your ideas. My only thing would be to cut down the stamina recovery to 10%. 20% seems much. But that is just my opinion. But otherwise, excellent post.

It is currently 15%

-Pts wolves have gained extra stam back on heavy attack, and if the change is intended and it will help werewolf sustain issues and at the same time allow for counterplay in PVP.

I'd also have to say that a passive 20% to healing Regen probably isn't the best route to go... I would say shoot for a flat healing Regen value and give it to Hircine's Fortitude and give it a slight AOE heal, that grants healing Regen to nearby allies.

I've always thought devour should be a channel. That grants time/health per second.

I would like to see devour grant a unique food/drink buff for 20 min. This buff increases Max health, stamina, and magicka by 3k and health, stamina, and magicka Regen by 200. This would encourage people to give into the savage nature and embrace Hircine's Hunt and the bounty it grants in and out of werewolf form.

Skullstachio · January 2018

If werewolves are not so viable, then maybe you should read about the Were-Warden (you can find the link in my signature below.)

but to an extent, there could be a small amount of changes that could help werewolves be more viable.

for instance:

from one particular comment, I do agree that werewolves should have a small health regen overtime for the duration of their transformation, but it should only be very small. (around 5-10% respectively.)
The ultimate while transformed could be slightly tinkered with to change to a special skill that only works when the number of ultimate has been attained, but it will still have the part where you can turn back to normal by using the ultimate again but only when one doesn't have the required ultimate number to use the said special skill. (think of the mechanics from the DK's Flame lash where an off balance enemy changes it to a more powerful variant that deals more damage and heals a huge amount of health over 2 seconds, think of that mechanic and implement a similar instance into the ultimate while in werewolf form.)
Devour should be left as it is since it restores a huge chunk of health upon successful consumption of the corpse as well as adding duration. (but it could confer a minor recovery buff for magicka, stamina and health that only lasts for somewhere around 30 seconds to a minute.)

One comment though just literally gave me an idea that could work in and out of werewolf form.

Strength of the Bloodmoon

Rank 1:

While in Werewolf form: Increases weapon damage by 10%, Doubles to 20% when the moons are out.
Outside Werewolf form: passively increases weapon damage by 5% while the moons are out.

Rank 2:

While in Werewolf form: Increases weapon damage by 20%, Doubles to 40% While the moons are out.
Outside Werewolf form: Passively Increases weapon damage by 10% while the moons are out.

Think this way: if vampires can enter stealth faster at night, it is only fair that the moons have the power to amplify a werewolves true lethality in the dark. (do watch out for those "Bumps in the night.")

as for the call of the pack passive: it should extend the duration reduction by an additional 5% at night which could allow for an indefinite werewolf duration for a pack of four werewolves.

Four werewolves in a group, initial 20% duration reduction that goes up to 25% at night = a pack of deadly werewolves who will never stop until sunrise.

FoulSnowpaw · January 2018

@Alpha-Lupi You do know that all the warden class passives requires a warden ability to be slotted.

The passives mostly useless while you are in werewolf. So in reality werewolf gains no real benefit other than 15% reduce effectiveness of snares.

Skullstachio · January 2018

FoulSnowpaw wrote: »

@Alpha-Lupi You do know that all the warden class passives requires the ability to be slotted.

So the passives are mostly useless while you are in werewolf. So in reality werewolf gains no real benefit other than 15% reduce effectiveness of snares.

Not all the passives have to be accounted for, only some passives such as Icy aura and Maturation will work in wolf form, but not all passives.

Chrlynsch · January 2018

Alpha-Lupi wrote: »

If werewolves are not so viable, then maybe you should read about the Were-Warden (you can find the link in my signature below.)

but to an extent, there could be a small amount of changes that could help werewolves be more viable.

for instance:
from one particular comment, I do agree that werewolves should have a small health regen overtime for the duration of their transformation, but it should only be very small. (around 5-10% respectively.)

The ultimate while transformed could be slightly tinkered with to change to a special skill that only works when the number of ultimate has been attained, but it will still have the part where you can turn back to normal by using the ultimate again but only when one doesn't have the required ultimate number to use the said special skill. (think of the mechanics from the DK's Flame lash where an off balance enemy changes it to a more powerful variant that deals more damage and heals a huge amount of health over 2 seconds, think of that mechanic and implement a similar instance into the ultimate while in werewolf form.)

Devour should be left as it is since it restores a huge chunk of health upon successful consumption of the corpse as well as adding duration. (but it could confer a minor recovery buff for magicka, stamina and health that only lasts for somewhere around 30 seconds to a minute.)

One comment though just literally gave me an idea that could work in and out of werewolf form.

Strength of the Bloodmoon

Rank 1:
While in Werewolf form: Increases weapon damage by 10%, Doubles to 20% when the moons are out.

Outside Werewolf form: passively increases weapon damage by 5% while the moons are out.

Rank 2:
While in Werewolf form: Increases weapon damage by 20%, Doubles to 40% While the moons are out.

Outside Werewolf form: Passively Increases weapon damage by 10% while the moons are out.

Think this way: if vampires can enter stealth faster at night, it is only fair that the moons have the power to amplify a werewolves true lethality in the dark. (do watch out for those "Bumps in the night.")

as for the call of the pack passive: it should extend the duration reduction by an additional 5% at night which could allow for an indefinite werewolf duration for a pack of four werewolves.

Four werewolves in a group, initial 20% duration reduction that goes up to 25% at night = a pack of deadly werewolves who will never stop until sunrise.

No buffs while outside of werewolf form... This needs to remain true, unless werewolves gain weaknesses in human form... otherwise there would be no reason for any stam user to pick up werewolf and not use it.

This happened to werewolves when the skill line granted 15% stam recovery at all times. 75% of the population was werewolves because there was no downside to picking up werewolf and gaining a passive 15% recovery.

I would prefer it being 25% at all times for call of the pack... man I miss perma wolf...

ccfeeling · January 2018

There are too many restrictions in WW form .
Res unavailable , it's a really big problem in PVE content .

Ihatenightblades · January 2018

Not enough abilities to do good dps. You need to use two bars for any build to pull good dps unless they literally add 5 more skills which will never happen ( i would be for it though )

Also buff duration since they cant last for more than 1 min in pve.

Doing the things listed above would make them the most OP thing in pvp. Case closed.

Unless the 5 skills only work in pve but zos doesnt do this with anything so i doubt they do it now.

Demycilian · January 2018

Also, put some revealing armour on them. I hear thats always a good business idea.

Skullstachio · January 2018

Demycilian wrote: »

Also, put some revealing armour on them. I hear thats always a good business idea.

Already done to death with the skinchanger Armor available during the new life festival.