Werewolf Theorycrafting (PvP)

Aznox · February 2018

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Does Automaton scale with all weapon damage multipliers?

Yes, automaton has been fully tested by vTrials runners (currently BiS for StamSorc) and buff like major brutality do augment automaton weapon damage bonus.

Chrlynsch · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Does Automaton scale with all weapon damage multipliers?

Yes, automaton has been fully tested by vTrials runners (currently BiS for StamSorc) and buff like major brutality do augment automaton weapon damage bonus.

Savage strength, and howl of rage as well? I'm guessing the VTrials guys haven't tested that

Qbiken · February 2018

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Aznox wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Does Automaton scale with all weapon damage multipliers?

Yes, automaton has been fully tested by vTrials runners (currently BiS for StamSorc) and buff like major brutality do augment automaton weapon damage bonus.

Savage strength, and howl of rage as well? I'm guessing the VTrials guys haven't tested that

In that case automaton would be a really nice setup for group-play scenarious together with Pelinial. Feels like you need a group since you´ll be missing out of "heal-spam" compared to running with Prisoner. I shall see if I can test it later tonight, think I got all the Automaton pieces needed.

Aznox · February 2018

For Savage Strength and Hircine's Rage, i'm pretty sure they buff Automaton's weapon damage, because they work like the medium armor buff (that was tested working).

Also for those running Pelinial, I encourage you to give Shacklebreaker a shot, as the +2k Magicka / +129 Spell Damage / +129 Magicka recovery do help a lot with healing while the others bonus help damage output.

Below you can compare Howl of Agony damage if you want (heavy armor with werewolf buffs only)

Chrlynsch · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

For Savage Strength and Hircine's Rage, i'm pretty sure they buff Automaton's weapon damage, because they work like the medium armor buff (that was tested working).

Also for those running Pelinial, I encourage you to give Shacklebreaker a shot, as the +2k Magicka / +129 Spell Damage / +129 Magicka recovery do help a lot with healing while the others bonus help damage output.

Below you can compare Howl of Agony damage if you want (heavy armor with werewolf buffs only)

That's some pretty solid output. @Aznox, have you played around with Mechanical Acuity at all instead of shackelbreaker? You lose the Regen and about 1000 stats, but you gain that 5 second crit beastmode which really is nice while wearing heavy. I found it made my sorc a lot more tanky as it procs 100% crit heals as well.

I had ran Shackelbreaker on my stam sorc wolf, but found MA much more rewarding in pvp. If we get jewelry crafting we won't have to pick!

Aznox · February 2018

I think Mechanical Acuity is an awesome set, but my build is optimized to achieve highest duel win-rate against experienced opponents who all run high critical resistance, where MA crit bonus would not help me so much.

Still need to verify this feeling though.

Chrlynsch · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

I think Mechanical Acuity is an awesome set, but my build is optimized to achieve highest duel win-rate against experienced opponents who all run high critical resistance, where MA crit bonus would not help me so much.

Still need to verify this feeling though.

Yup I understand where your coming from, I utilize the same thought process with another one of my wolf set ups. It uses Kena, Pelinals, and essence thief.

I would suggest giving MA a try if you have the means. Damage output is awesome, but it also helps your werewolf heal with that 100% crit chance as well. Allowing you to play all out aggressive and fall back on a couple crit heals all within that 5 second span.

I'm for sure gonna dig out that automaton and give that a whirl.

Lughlongarm · February 2018

Great ideas, never considered the power of Mechanical Acuity, the short duration gave me the impression it doesn't worth it.
I was surprised that shimmering shield is still bugged and considered as a "damage shield".

Wanted to ask your opinion regarding "briarheart" with "seventh legion"(for stem Sorc), if I can squeeze more crit chance with potion. For some reason after trying this combo on PTS, it felt like it's not procking that much while in WW, it's like the DOTS from wolf do wort with set? Anyone know anything about that?

Also regarding armor of truth - how off-balance works in PVP now, it's got a cool down like in PVE?

Some more sets to consider for WW.

Willow's Path - could be very nice on nightblade WW build together with Troll king.

Leki's Focus - Could be nice for Templar for a Pelinal's Aptitude WW build with Kena. You can even go medium armor for this setup for even more weapon&spell damage. Leki's Focus is great defense vs Dawnbreaker of Smiting, WW greatest counter.

Clever Alchemist +Bone Pirate+Kena/Domihaus for Argonian DK could be interesting

Durok's Bane+seventh legion+troll king - Nice set to consider, giving you the option to go with "Claws of Life" morph which means more healing.

Ranger's Gait - For warden WW build, making its only passive ,(icy aura, should really get buffed to 25% ), which go over to WW count. For the snares while in WW issue.

Ravager or Veiled Heritance for Pelinal's Aptitude builds - same concept as already been discussed.

Nelson_Rebel · February 2018

I'm still building min out but here's my basic layout for my Werewolf

Race-Orc
Class-Warden

Sets
Hunting's rage 5 heavy Body
Troll King -2 heavy monster set
Salvation Jewlery and weapons 1h and Shield, and 2h back bar

The warden has a ton of interesting and powerful skill morphs to get you to werewolf while Debuffing your opponent for constant pressure reverb bash (heal debuff and stun) and Heroic slash (damage debuff, ult gen, and snare) It all flows well with wardens passives and skills for constantly healing and gaining ult from using your animal skill line. Plus sub assault is such a powerful skill and debuff to use right before werewolf

There's a lot more to the build with specific skill choices but I'll be glad to share if you have questions on it

Qbiken · February 2018

@Lughlongarm

Wouldn´t consider it a "bug" regarding Shimmering shield (unless it´s stated from the devs that it´s a bug and I´ve missed that). At least Shieldbreaker will do it´s job against wardens...(even thought the bleed-damage from lightattacks often is enough to put a lot of pressure on them)

Briarheart was one of the first sets I used on my werewolf back when Orsinium launched. Back then it was a really nice set, since the healing from causing critical damage could crit. Since Briarheart is considered a proc-set, the healing from the set can´t crit either making the set less useful. Briarhearth is used for it´s ability to backbar/frontbar it and keep the weapon-damage on another bar. But since we can´t do that as a werewolf, I wouldn´t use briarhearth. If you can have 5 piece hundings rage active at all times, it will perform better than Briarhearth.

7th Legion is not useful anymore since the healing has a cooldown.

Off-balance: Don´t think there´s a cooldown for players.

Leki´s: (Did some research and it does reduce the damage from Dawnbreaker). So can be interesting set to use.

Clever Alchemist +Bone Pirate+Kena/Domihaus for Argonian DK could be interesting

Would definitely try it out for group-play. Not so sure about solo, but you never know

Durok's Bane+seventh legion+troll king - Nice set to consider, giving you the option to go with "Claws of Life" morph which means more healing.

As I wrote earlier, 7th Legion is history (Sadly). Durok´s Bane is a really nice debuff-set if you play in a group. The Claws of Life skill has it´s healing reduced by half in cyrodil, and the healing is kinda weak to begin with. Unless ZOS severely buff it, I don´t see any use of it at the moment

Ranger´s Gate is a really nice set actually if you play solo or don´t have access to a "purge-bot".

Qbiken · February 2018

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

I'm still building min out but here's my basic layout for my Werewolf

Race-Orc
Class-Warden

Sets
Hunting's rage 5 heavy Body
Troll King -2 heavy monster set
Salvation Jewlery and weapons 1h and Shield, and 2h back bar

The warden has a ton of interesting and powerful skill morphs to get you to werewolf while Debuffing your opponent for constant pressure reverb bash (heal debuff and stun) and Heroic slash (damage debuff, ult gen, and snare) It all flows well with wardens passives and skills for constantly healing and gaining ult from using your animal skill line. Plus sub assault is such a powerful skill and debuff to use right before werewolf

There's a lot more to the build with specific skill choices but I'll be glad to share if you have questions on it

Never really understood the usage of Warden for werewolf, since there´s only 1 passive that will be active in WW-form. For me, warden is the #1 support-class for a werewolf and there´re some really nasty setups that can make a werewolf extremely tanky and dangerous (if playing as a support-warden together with another werewolf). But as you say, you´re useful in "human-form" as a warden and have access to a lot of debuffs/buffs that are helpful

Aznox · February 2018

Lughlongarm wrote: »

Durok's Bane+seventh legion+troll king - Nice set to consider, giving you the option to go with "Claws of Life" morph which means more healing.

Claws of Life healing isn't worth a 5 piece imo.

You can combine Claws of Anguish with Fasalla's Guile Set, i stopped running that because the amount of crying i was getting in pm after duels was annoying ...

Aznox · February 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

Off-balance: Don´t think there´s a cooldown for players.

Rousing Roar does not put enemy off-balance if it is cc immune and the fear does not proc.

Nelson_Rebel · February 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

Nelson_Rebel wrote: »

I'm still building min out but here's my basic layout for my Werewolf

Race-Orc
Class-Warden

Sets
Hunting's rage 5 heavy Body
Troll King -2 heavy monster set
Salvation Jewlery and weapons 1h and Shield, and 2h back bar

The warden has a ton of interesting and powerful skill morphs to get you to werewolf while Debuffing your opponent for constant pressure reverb bash (heal debuff and stun) and Heroic slash (damage debuff, ult gen, and snare) It all flows well with wardens passives and skills for constantly healing and gaining ult from using your animal skill line. Plus sub assault is such a powerful skill and debuff to use right before werewolf

There's a lot more to the build with specific skill choices but I'll be glad to share if you have questions on it

Never really understood the usage of Warden for werewolf, since there´s only 1 passive that will be active in WW-form. For me, warden is the #1 support-class for a werewolf and there´re some really nasty setups that can make a werewolf extremely tanky and dangerous (if playing as a support-warden together with another werewolf). But as you say, you´re useful in "human-form" as a warden and have access to a lot of debuffs/buffs that are helpful

There's actually a few passives that are active in wolf form. The winters embrace line has a reduce all snares passive for 14% that is active and I think 1 more or so.

I'm not on right now to look at it. But the idea is that the warden actually has the best toolkit (In my opinion) to stay alive and gain ult in so many ways from both heroic slash, and the ult gain from just casting animal abilities, the damage and healing is also tied to casting animal companions.

I use saviors hide to gain a bit more damage in wolf form and having it at such a low cost with the wardens ult gen +other ult gen from S&B has me at werewolf pretty much on demand at any given time.

I also used my cp in a specific way to focus on heal debuffs to utilize in wolf form as well as human form to keep a near constant healing debuf without using a set to achieve it

Aznox · February 2018

Sorcerer abilities that have a synergy with Werewolf :

Passives

Unholy Knowledge : Reduces Magicka and Stamina costs for all abilities by 5%
Power Stone : Reduces the cost of Ultimate abilities by 15%
Capacitor : Increases Magicka Recovery by 10%
Energized : Increases your Physical and Shock Damage by 5%
Implosion : Whenever you deal Physical Damage you have a 6% chance to instantly pulverize enemies under 15% Health, dealing [y] Physical Damage

Active

Critical Surge (33 sec) : Major Brutality + Critical Strike heals you for [x] Health. This effect can occur once every 1 second.
Hurricane (15 sec) : Major Resolve, Major Ward, Minor Expedition + zapping nearby enemies with electricity dealing [x] Physical Damage every 1 second for 15 seconds.

No doubt stamWarden is very strong at the moment but stamSorc brings more to the Werewolf form.

Lughlongarm · February 2018

@Qbiken & @Aznox

Thanks for feedback.

The nerf to seventh legion is so bad it considered trash now? From what I understood it's only got 2 sec CD, so even if you get less healing from it, you still can mintain close to 100% on the weapon damage buff, no??

Qbiken · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Off-balance: Don´t think there´s a cooldown for players.

Rousing Roar does not put enemy off-balance if it is cc immune and the fear does not proc.

True, but the big + for rousing roar is that doing heavy attacks against those enemies won´t consume the off-balance effect

.....but since you´ll put a lot off points into the Atronach CP-tree anyway (Master-at-arms) so you´ll get the tactician passive.

And tbh, I´ve never had any issue with rousing roar and CC-immune enemies after this patch. Immovable pots got a nerf in their duration (down to 10 seconds). And If I can´t survive against someone who is CC-immune for less than 10 seconds, I´m doing something very wrong

Lughlongarm · February 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

Aznox wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Off-balance: Don´t think there´s a cooldown for players.

Rousing Roar does not put enemy off-balance if it is cc immune and the fear does not proc.

True, but the big + for rousing roar is that doing heavy attacks against those enemies won´t consume the off-balance effect

.....but since you´ll put a lot off points into the Atronach CP-tree anyway (Master-at-arms) so you´ll get the tactician passive.

And tbh, I´ve never had any issue with rousing roar and CC-immune enemies after this patch. Immovable pots got a nerf in their duration (down to 10 seconds). And If I can´t survive against someone who is CC-immune for less than 10 seconds, I´m doing something very wrong

My initial interest with the off-balance in pvp was more focused toward "armor of truth", and rather it's possible to keep the weapon damage buff 100% of the time?

Qbiken · February 2018

Lughlongarm wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Aznox wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

Off-balance: Don´t think there´s a cooldown for players.

Rousing Roar does not put enemy off-balance if it is cc immune and the fear does not proc.

True, but the big + for rousing roar is that doing heavy attacks against those enemies won´t consume the off-balance effect

.....but since you´ll put a lot off points into the Atronach CP-tree anyway (Master-at-arms) so you´ll get the tactician passive.

And tbh, I´ve never had any issue with rousing roar and CC-immune enemies after this patch. Immovable pots got a nerf in their duration (down to 10 seconds). And If I can´t survive against someone who is CC-immune for less than 10 seconds, I´m doing something very wrong

My initial interest with the off-balance in pvp was more focused toward "armor of truth", and rather it's possible to keep the weapon damage buff 100% of the time?

Truth buff lasts 10 seconds, so in theory it should be possible to have close to 100% uptime in WW-form.

Aznox · February 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

True, but the big + for rousing roar is that doing heavy attacks against those enemies won´t consume the off-balance effect

That's actually a very annoying bug that i have reported in-game : heavy attack against off-balance enemy should give back double stamina and deal increased damage but this doesn't work with WW heavy attack.

Doing [Rousing Roar - untransform - heavy attack] works as expected so the problem is with Werewolf HA

Qbiken · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

Qbiken wrote: »

True, but the big + for rousing roar is that doing heavy attacks against those enemies won´t consume the off-balance effect

That's actually a very annoying bug that i have reported in-game : heavy attack against off-balance enemy should give back double stamina and deal increased damage but this doesn't work with WW heavy attack.

Doing [Rousing Roar - untransform - heavy attack] works as expected so the problem is with Werewolf HA

It´s not a bug

The 2x stamreturn on off-balance enemies as a werewolf works as intended. Was the first thing I tested when the patch went live. The "bug" lies with the hit area for the werewolf heavy attack. But if you correctly hit an off-balanced enemy as a werewolf you´ll get the 2x stam-return, I can guarantee you.

The reason the off-balanced isn´t consumed:

Heavy attack against an off-balanced enemy will stun them, which will cause the off-balance effect to be consumed.
But since the WW-fear is also a "stun", doing a heavy attack against a stunned enemy won´t stun them, and therefore not consume the off-balance effect. This is a massive buff for werewolf who already get more stam back with the pursuit passive.

Here´s a link to my testings with the stamreturn on off-balanced enemies (this was tested on live)
The 6,285 is the stamreturn with 5 Heavy Armor + some points into tenacity.
The 12k value is the heavy attack value when the enemy is off-balanced

https://imgur.com/vKOmASc

Aznox · February 2018

Nice ! didn't try the stam return against a players, will go back to testing.

But for the stun part it should (not saying it would be better) work because target isn't CC immune until they break free or the CC ends, see the roar-howl combo that does stun a feared target.

Chrlynsch · February 2018

It is possible to maintain a 100% up time on truth in PVP.

If you use fear as your primary CC.

You can help keep off balance up if you spec CP into the attronach to unlock tactician. Using this form of off balance does cause you to only get one heavy attack on an opponent unless they are CC immune.

I spec this way on several of my wolves, as I do tend to farm IC with them (This let's me set bosses off-balance). This CC combo works better on really responsive players that are quick to break free. Allowing you to land Heavy attack, Howl of agony, and Light Attack /Bleed damage in one stroke.

On another note:
Claws of _____ , needs attention. It was missed again in the balancing of abilities. This ability can be both blocked and dodged. The ability that works the most like claws of _____ is cleave.

Cleave is an frontal cone aoe damage ability that applies a dot. Cleave can be blocked but it cant be dodged. Give claws of _____ the same treatment.

Qbiken · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

Nice ! didn't try the stam return against a players, will go back to testing.

But for the stun part it should (not saying it would be better) work because target isn't CC immune until they break free or the CC ends, see the roar-howl combo that does stun a feared target.

Howl doesn´t (and shouldn´t) stun the target after it´s feared. That´s called double-CC and is considered a bug in most cases. Same thing works with nightblade´s Mass Hysteria. You can´t " stun" someone a 2nd time with like incap-strike after you´ve feared them. Would be very broken if it worked that way.

Werewolf Fear and Howl works as intended and should stay the way it is. Think @Chrlynsch can agree with me here.

Aznox · February 2018

Qbiken wrote: »

Howl doesn´t (and shouldn´t) stun the target after it´s feared

I just checked some videos of me playing WW and you are right ... again.

I don't know if i thought this because people stop running from the fear (but are still under the status) at about the same time my howl land, or because i've read cc immune time starts at the end of CC status, but footage do show that feared target do not gain stun status from howl.

Chrlynsch · February 2018

The fear used to not kick in CC immunity until the duration expired... This allowed you to chain fear Npc's to your hearts extent, including resource guards

This changed around dark brotherhood if I remember correctly. The nice thing is you can get multiple empowered howl of agonies on npcs... or player characters (if they don't break free).

One thing that might help werewolf dps is changing howl of agony to increase its damage on off balance targets and not feared targets. It is impossible to fear a boss and thus you see no benefit to boss dps.

Where spike damage for a werewolf during the off balance phase would help the state of pve werewolf dps.

In PVP it would give you a better chance of landing an empowered howl with a 5 second window.

Aznox · February 2018

That would be nice for PVE, but for PVP i fear any more buff to werewolf would get us into overpowered territory ...

Qbiken · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

That would be nice for PVE, but for PVP i fear any more buff to werewolf would get us into overpowered territory ...

Well, the changes to off-balance wasn´t a direct buff to werewolfs (a welcomed indirect buff however) so buffs would be nice to have, or at least bugfixes.

Aznox · February 2018

I'm all for quality of life / bugfixes (Tormentor set taunt on ww leap plz ZoS !) but after months refining a werewolf build i feel i'm wrecking anyone that isn't outplaying me in duel/BG.

I think we got into a sweet spot with werewolf being a powerful enough tool for someone showing dedication to it, but not overly powerful so that all the stamina builds include it and it gets eventually nerfed.

Curious to know your thoughs on this though.

Qbiken · February 2018

Aznox wrote: »

I'm all for quality of life / bugfixes (Tormentor set taunt on ww leap plz ZoS !) but after months refining a werewolf build i feel i'm wrecking anyone that isn't outplaying me in duel/BG.

I think we got into a sweet spot with werewolf being a powerful enough tool for someone showing dedication to it, but not overly powerful so that all the stamina builds include it and it gets eventually nerfed.

Curious to know your thoughs on this though.

A wellplayed werewolf will have a high win-rate in 1v1, but duealing is a bad way to measure balance in PvP, the same way maelstrom arena is a bad way of measuring balance for PvE

Well, this isn´t a buff/nerf thread but to make a long story short:
- More skills that offer group-utility
- Antistealth mechanic (like the guards in Hew´s Bane)
- Details regarding certain morphs/skills and passives(will be a topic for another thread, think there´re some already if you look around the forum)