Here is written the current state of werewolves observed by Caius, Packleader of Scourge Alliance as of Wolfhunter.



With the release of Wolfhunter many improvements have been put in place to better improve werewolf Quality of life, I will start by covering these.

-Devour was made a free passive, this means that you no longer have to rank your werewolf to rank 3 before being able to devour. This makes it easier to level your werewolf from the bottom up.

-The Devour Mechanic was changed from a 4 second cast time animation, to a 4 second channel that grants health and werewolf time per second. Critters such as squirrels and deer can no longer be devoured. (Each corpes can only be devoured 4 seconds, this time is shared by all werewolves meaning if another wolf comsumes the full corpse you will not be able to)

-Resurrection can now be done while in werewolf form. This is great for PVE and PVP. Currently your werewolf timer time does diminish during resurrection process. Make sure you have a dot on an enemy before starting the process, or risk dropping form and failing the rez at the same time if you start the process with a low timer.

-Some tooltip passives have swapped over to proper passives to make it easier to understand what you actually gain in werewolf form and to make the werewolf leveling process more dynamic. The 10k Armor and Spell Resistance has been moved to Savage Strength, and 30% speed increase moved to Pursuit. (Note the 10k resistance is bugged and does not currently provide any extra mitigation)

-Bloodrage has changed from gaining 3 seconds when you take damage with a 3 second cooldown, to gaining 4 seconds when you do damage w/ a 5 second cooldown. This has made it easier to maintain form in pve, especially in groups of wolves. Some may have more difficulty maintaining form in pvp.

-Pack Leader dire wolves return if you are killed and then come back to life in human form. Good fix. Wolves also do more damage and alternate between two different attacks, this yields more damage, but does remove Werewolf's only native snare.

-Werewolf timer wont degrade while you are "ghosting" from a death.



Here are some other changes that were made for the werewolf skill line.

-Cost of Howl is reduced to 3510 Stamina from 4050 the has removed the CC from the ability.

-Howl of Despair grants a synergy that empowers the synergizer's light attacks for an extra 40% more damage for 5 seconds.

-Roar is now a instant cast and fears up to 6 targets. No longer sets enemies off Balance.

-Ferocious Roar: Now sets feared targets Off Balance.

-Rousing Roar: Has been renamed to Deafening Roar, and now applies Major Fracture for 10 seconds to feared targets. (No longer has Major Brutality).

-Range of Heavy attacks reduced to 7m.

-Animations were added for Synergizing, Resurrecting, Howl, and Claws.

-Pack leader pets now do more damage but no longer will snare enemies.

-Hircine's Bounty no longer scales off of max Magicka and spell damage. It now heals you for 45% of max health.

-Hircine's Rage: Now also grants major brutality for 20 seconds.

-Hircine's Fortitude: Increases heal from 45% to 60% of max health.

-Claws of Anguish: The duration of the defile is decreased from 8 seconds, to 4 seconds.

Lots of changes here, some buffs, some nerfs.

Itemization (PVP): The days of the Pelinal's wearing Werewolves have come to an end as max magicka and spell damage for powerful heals no longer is relevant. Players can feel free to optime their characters in many different ways and still have a reliable heal. This usually will lead to a more optimized human form as well. To any Humans and Vampires reading don't worry, with the change to Hircine's rage (loss of 10% weapon damage) the average werewolf will see only a slight gain to overall damage.

Itemization (PVE): A couple new sets were introduced with this patch. Savage Werewolf, and Bloodmoon. Savage Werewolf causes an extra set based bleed stack, and Bloodmoon causes a frenzied state after stacking some crit light attacks. Savage Werewolf is a little underwelming in pve (as it can not crit), and is a decent set in pvp. Bloodmoon was a direct answer to Werewolves wanting competitive pve dps, it is a fun set to use but also is a set completely geared towards beast-form dps.

The Heal (PVP): Personally, I do believe that this is an improvement to the old system, partially to new itemization diversification, partially to how accessible it is. Here is a comparison of new and old system based on similar builds (Same damage output).

With the old system, wearing Pelinal's, made you ramp up your buffs before getting a fully optimized heal (weapon damge glyph, Hircine's rage, Major Brutality, Alchemist, Kena, Fury, ect), while most of these might have been active in the middle of combat, they were not active 100% of the time, leading to gaps in your heal potential or bald spots in your fur.

The new system allows for a more consistent heal. Meaning you really don't need any buffs up in order for it to perform well in combat. This is especially true during kiting, when most offensive buffs fall off.

With all this being said werewolf still needs to differentiate itself from most builds meta builds due to its demand for higher healthpool and magicka sustain.

The Heal (PVE): Most wolves wont notice a difference between the new and old heal except brutality being tied to rage.

Roar: The secondary effects from the morphs do not affect enemies if they are immune to fear. This should be changed as these abilities have no use when used on Bosses or larger npc targets. With minimal skills at our disposal it is probably best to make sure all of them have a purpose.

The overall light attack and heavy attack range does feel a little short. Latency in pvp and increased speed of our enemies (mainly, but not limited to swift enemies) makes for a overwhelming lack of connection of abilites and skills. You can literally be right on an enemy that is running yet not land a single light attack, swipe, or roar. This used to be remedied by a howl into the enemy's spine to get them so sit still for a moment. However this skill had its cc removed. This issue is compound by the werewolf's weakness to snares and lack of snares it possesses. It is one thing to have attacks dodged, cloaked, or blocked, it is another to have them just completely not connect.

Claws: This ability suffers from the same issue as the wolf's light attacks you often need to cast 2-3 when near pvp target in order for the game to register an actual hit.

So in a long line of changes and updates here are some things that I personally think still need addressed.


1. Fix Savage Strength passive. This should happen ASAP

2. Overall abilities need better targeting/ increased range for pvp. 1-2 meters could do wonders in pvp. (This is more a pvp latency/client issue, not exclusive to werewolf but werewolves definitely feel it the most)

3. Devour: Make it aoe detection based not targeting ridicule based. Even if the devour aoe is small we would have very little issues finding the right spot with the new blood pillar. Some still have issues activating the synergy.

And here are a few skill adjustment tweeks. To help make them more functional.

1. Brutal pounce: When you take damage increase your timer. 10m+ you knockdown your target. Make it change icons, when range conditions are met.

2. Feral pounce: 5-10m 4s snare resistance, 10m+ 4 seconds to timer. Make it change icons, when range conditions are met.

3. Roar: No longer fears the target. Now causes targets to cower in place. Applies secondary effects to all targets regardless if they are cowarded or not, Off balance immunity still applies.