The Gold Road Chapter – which includes the Scribing system – and Update 42 is now available to test on the PTS! You can read the latest patch notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/656454/
In response to the ongoing issue, the North American PC/Mac megaserver is currently unavailable while we perform maintenance.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8100050/#Comment_8100050

Major Berserk and Minor Resolve for Werewolves

  • The_Titan_Tim
    The_Titan_Tim
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    At the very least, Werewolves could get an ultimate, kind of ridiculous it’s not a thing…

    Coming from someone who absolutely hates Werewolves and has been playing this game since launch and still lacks the Werewolf achievements.
  • Wuuffyy
    Wuuffyy
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Tbh. I don't think those buffs would change much. I mean look at WW skills and all of those buffs you get. Despite all of those things that look extremely OP on paper, WW isn't actually used that much. I would even say that it is kinda underperforming.

    The only thing imho that WW needs and would be a game changer is if WW had access to skill similar to race against time, that gives you CC immunity. WW is supposed to be fast, but despite 30% speed bonus it is actually the slowest spec in the game, as every single snare slows you down.

    Werewolf is absolutely underperforming. To be honest, the entire thing needs a proper rework considering how many issues it has, things like:
    • Brutal Pounce not always swapping to Brutal Carnage after pouncing.
    • Brutal Carnage requiring a target in range to cast, yet it's a conal AOE that can be easily ranged and thus rarely hits in PVP
    • Claws of Life being our only pseudo-"heal over time" and the return on that being so small as to not be noticeable, even on multiple targets.
    • The obscene cost of werewolf abilities in relation to their damage done, which seems to have been balanced with the extra 30% stamina in mind though that gives very little extra damage or ability uses in practical use.
    • The damage of werewolf abilities being often lower than similar abilities of base classes despite this extra ability cost.
    • Werewolf having a unique 30% movement speed buff but without snare removal we actually move slower than base classes (all of which can access snare removal).
    • Both morphs of our heal being tied to max health while our damage is tied to weapon damage and max stamina/magicka, meaning we're forced to split stats more than anyone else (which leads to the common complaint about werewolves having 40k+ HP).
    • Pounce routinely leaping us at gods know what because when we land there certainly isn't anything there (anyone that's played long enough has seen this).
    • An inability to stealth (some hunters we are) or detect stealth (some enhanced senses we have).
    • No ability to synergize with other werewolves despite a timer minigame that clearly wants us to run with other werewolves.
    • THE [snip] TIMER MINIGAME.
    • Next to no weapon passives carrying over to werewolf form despite there being no indication that this is the case and causing a lack of interesting choices when building our character.
    • No proper heal over time meaning that while we have to stay aggressive to keep our timer up, we can't afford to do so because there is no passive healing.
    • Health recovery (which WAS our heal over time) has been completely gutted.
    • An inability to run both a monster set and a mythic while running two five-pieces because we can not split sets with a back bar.
    • Our fear occasionally only applying off balance on non-CC immune targets.
    • No ability to recover magicka, leading to an inordinate use of magicka recovery in our builds or heavy armor (for pvp at least)
    • No ultimate and no way to combo with our abilities (it's all pure pressure) despite seemingly every single werewolf themed set in the game offering ultimate generation/cost reduction. (I know about Savage Werewolf)
    • ...and there's more.

    I don't expect ZOS to ever fix werewolf (or even vampire tbh) to be a proper playstyle and not just some meme'd on RP ability, but perhaps someone might see this and actually take the time to look into improving things for us. Those of us that still play werewolves don't really have any other choice for playing this in another game; there just aren't any good variations of werewolves out there. All I want is for us to be at least on par with the middle of the field.

    TL;DR: Werewolf has a lot of problems, more than just these buffs.

    [Edited for Censor Bypass]

    Much agreed. Once again I’d like to tag @ZOS_Kevin and @ZOS_GinaBruno for just a quick response to see if this has been considered recently.
    Edited by Psiion on February 17, 2023 12:56AM
    Wuuffyy,
    ESO player since 2014
    -PM for questions
  • deejayvee
    deejayvee
    ✭✭✭✭
    At the very least, Werewolves could get an ultimate, kind of ridiculous it’s not a thing…

    Coming from someone who absolutely hates Werewolves and has been playing this game since launch and still lacks the Werewolf achievements.

    I don't know. I think it's fine that we don't have an ultimate, if being a werewolf compensates for the lack of an ultimate. But if werewolves are underpowered, then the lack of ultimate is bad.
    PC - NA
  • Wuuffyy
    Wuuffyy
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    deejayvee wrote: »
    At the very least, Werewolves could get an ultimate, kind of ridiculous it’s not a thing…

    Coming from someone who absolutely hates Werewolves and has been playing this game since launch and still lacks the Werewolf achievements.

    I don't know. I think it's fine that we don't have an ultimate, if being a werewolf compensates for the lack of an ultimate. But if werewolves are underpowered, then the lack of ultimate is bad.

    The simplest way is best. I’ve always talked about WW potentially having some kind of very extended hot and maybe a purge as an ult.

    Defensive in nature as to not encourage toxic gameplay and assist with some of the overbearing weaknesses of the spec.
    Wuuffyy,
    ESO player since 2014
    -PM for questions
  • The_Titan_Tim
    The_Titan_Tim
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    deejayvee wrote: »
    At the very least, Werewolves could get an ultimate, kind of ridiculous it’s not a thing…

    Coming from someone who absolutely hates Werewolves and has been playing this game since launch and still lacks the Werewolf achievements.

    I don't know. I think it's fine that we don't have an ultimate, if being a werewolf compensates for the lack of an ultimate. But if werewolves are underpowered, then the lack of ultimate is bad.

    An option could be heightened senses, where for a duration you get the ability to see invisible targets, maybe having a HoT like @Wuuffyy mentioned, light attacks and heavy attacks could be faster and do more damage, similar to how Blood Moon works.

    It wouldn’t need to be a huge burst or an excessive bleed, and could easily just be an overdrive that you can activate in situations where it’s needed.
    Edited by The_Titan_Tim on February 17, 2023 4:01AM
  • Wuuffyy
    Wuuffyy
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    deejayvee wrote: »
    At the very least, Werewolves could get an ultimate, kind of ridiculous it’s not a thing…

    Coming from someone who absolutely hates Werewolves and has been playing this game since launch and still lacks the Werewolf achievements.

    I don't know. I think it's fine that we don't have an ultimate, if being a werewolf compensates for the lack of an ultimate. But if werewolves are underpowered, then the lack of ultimate is bad.

    An option could be heightened senses, where for a duration you get the ability to see invisible targets, maybe having a HoT like @Wuuffyy mentioned, light attacks and heavy attacks could be faster and do more damage, similar to how Blood Moon works.

    It wouldn’t need to be a huge burst or an excessive bleed, and could easily just be an overdrive that you can activate in situations where it’s needed.

    Ooh that would be really cool. I’d love to see something like this, if no other changes.
    Wuuffyy,
    ESO player since 2014
    -PM for questions
  • The_Titan_Tim
    The_Titan_Tim
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Wuuffyy wrote: »
    deejayvee wrote: »
    At the very least, Werewolves could get an ultimate, kind of ridiculous it’s not a thing…

    Coming from someone who absolutely hates Werewolves and has been playing this game since launch and still lacks the Werewolf achievements.

    I don't know. I think it's fine that we don't have an ultimate, if being a werewolf compensates for the lack of an ultimate. But if werewolves are underpowered, then the lack of ultimate is bad.

    An option could be heightened senses, where for a duration you get the ability to see invisible targets, maybe having a HoT like @Wuuffyy mentioned, light attacks and heavy attacks could be faster and do more damage, similar to how Blood Moon works.

    It wouldn’t need to be a huge burst or an excessive bleed, and could easily just be an overdrive that you can activate in situations where it’s needed.

    Ooh that would be really cool. I’d love to see something like this, if no other changes.

    Additionally, those light and heavy attacks within that Ultimate could receive a small execute bonus to help combat Stage 3.
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    To be honest, anything would help. Right now the survivability and combo-ability of werewolf is so trash that the only way to do either is through sets alone (in a mediocre manner) so that as soon as folks complain about the sets and they get nerfed, werewolf gets nerfed alongside it.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Tommy_The_Gun
    Tommy_The_Gun
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    To be honest, anything would help. Right now the survivability and combo-ability of werewolf is so trash that the only way to do either is through sets alone (in a mediocre manner) so that as soon as folks complain about the sets and they get nerfed, werewolf gets nerfed alongside it.

    Yep. As soon as WW gets playable (especially in pvp, but pve was the reason for WW nerfs in the past too) people complain which results with a nerfs.

    Last time WW lost unique armour buff as players were stacking it with Resolve buff and as a result WW was the best use-case for Alessian Order set.

    So, "just to make sure", not only they removed unique buff from WW, but also they nerfed health recovery by half in PvP, but also capped health recovery provided by the Alessian. Wow, I mean enough is enough lol. Players should remember this as a warning sign: "Be careful of what you ask for" lol :joy:

    But yeah, I agree - WW needs some buffs. Despite having 30% speed buff it is super vulnerable to every snare. This alone pretty much disqualifies this spec.

    Also, there are many things that could be designed better. For instance, since they changed vamp Mist Form, I would love to see them altering WW Pounce to operate in the same way - no target required. It would be so much better.

    Edit:
    On the others hand I am kinda afraid of asking for any WW buffs as again... historically, every time WW was playable, it got nerfed hard soon after... :neutral:
    Edited by Tommy_The_Gun on February 20, 2023 1:46PM
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭

    Also, there are many things that could be designed better. For instance, since they changed vamp Mist Form, I would love to see them altering WW Pounce to operate in the same way - no target required. It would be so much better.

    I feel like a ground targeted pounce would be problematic if it still takes a second cast to apply the bleed. Simply changing it so it doesn't "morph" the ability into Carnage and instead just applies Carnage to targets hit by pounce would go a long way in improving the usability and playability of the ability in both PvP and PvE. A huge quality of life improvement.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • SirLeeMinion
    SirLeeMinion
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ...Simply changing it so it doesn't "morph" the ability into Carnage and instead just applies Carnage to targets hit by pounce would go a long way in improving the usability and playability of the ability in both PvP and PvE. A huge quality of life improvement.

    This is so true. A reliable gap closer, one that works every time and isn't on a timer, would be so much better than what we have now.

  • ZOS_Kevin
    ZOS_Kevin
    Community Manager
    I definitely care about werewolves and feel a consistent approach should be carried out for this buff @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin can we please look into updating the Hircine's Rage ability Major Berserk morph to remove the 5% penalty since Wrecking Blow and the DK chains are being updated in a similar direction? 🙂

    We want to follow up here on the request for the removal of the debuff on Hircine’s Rage, given the DK now has access to Major Berserk. We want to note now there are no plans to change this currently. One thing to keep in mind with skills like these are there has to be some sort of balance. The Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation now lasts for 4sec and the DK has to manage resources to make effective use of the skill. Also remember that Major Berserk is being added to incentivize usage of a traditionally underutilized skill. Hircine’s Rage gives Werewolves access to Major Berserk for 10sec, which is a significant amount of time for it to be up. More than double the time of Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation. So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage.
    Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter
    Staff Post
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    I definitely care about werewolves and feel a consistent approach should be carried out for this buff @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin can we please look into updating the Hircine's Rage ability Major Berserk morph to remove the 5% penalty since Wrecking Blow and the DK chains are being updated in a similar direction? 🙂

    We want to follow up here on the request for the removal of the debuff on Hircine’s Rage, given the DK now has access to Major Berserk. We want to note now there are no plans to change this currently. One thing to keep in mind with skills like these are there has to be some sort of balance. The Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation now lasts for 4sec and the DK has to manage resources to make effective use of the skill. Also remember that Major Berserk is being added to incentivize usage of a traditionally underutilized skill. Hircine’s Rage gives Werewolves access to Major Berserk for 10sec, which is a significant amount of time for it to be up. More than double the time of Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation. So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage.

    What about the prohibitive requirement to proc the Major Berserk on Hircine's Rage? The extra damage taken is not nearly as big of a problem as the complete inability to even gain the buff if one sustains so little as a single point of damage.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Erickson9610
    Erickson9610
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage.

    Is the 100% Health threshold requirement also a part of the balance of the skill? In practice, if the buff can never be gained, then the parses people do on trial dummies will skew the perceived performance of werewolves to be greater than it actually is.

    Not only that, but the best DPS that I've ever been able to achieve on a trial dummy using the same meta gear that other classes use this patch but on a werewolf still falls short of the DPS that other classes are able to get, and that's assuming 100% uptime of Major Berserk (since you never take damage in a dummy parse)!

    If Major Berserk is meant to incentivize people to use other skills, then why should werewolves even bother with Hircine's Rage if they hardly ever get it?
    PC/NA — Lone Werewolf, the Templar Khajiit Werewolf

    Werewolf Should be Allowed to Sneak
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Just a thought, but what about disengaging the stamina return + major berserk buff from the requirement to have full health and instead have both proc off just overhealing with the ability? That would be a more consistent/clean flow of gameplay than requiring a 100% full health bar for any benefit.

    If too much sustain from the stamina return were a concern, then scale it off the amount of overhealing done in relation to the total heal. Something like a full health cast would return the full 3000 stamina and a cast that overheals 50% returns 1500 stamina instead and the like.

    The full health requirement of the ability in general is just obtuse and remarkably painful to work with in a game with so many little dinks of damage going around.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    @ZOS_Kevin I'm sure you all have considered this already, but have you looked at how much can be gained with a single cast of Chains versus Hircine's Rage in relation to their respective costs?

    For example, a single cast of Chains provides the following benefits (with proper speccing and bar setup): for 3780 magicka a DK can deal direct flame damage, proc major expedition and berserk for 4 seconds, gap close, reduce the target's speed by 30%, increase their weapon/spell damage by 100, and increase the damage of their next Molten Whip by 20%. All of these effects are guaranteed on every cast. In addition, the direct flame damage has a relatively high chance to proc burning, applying additional damage to their target and returning 1000 magicka to them.

    In contrast, a single cast of Hircine's Rage provides the following: for 5063 magicka werewolves get a 40% HP heal (reduced by roughly half with battle spirit) OR 3000 stamina and 10 seconds of Major Berserk with a 5% damage taken downside.

    Hircine's Rage costs approximately 33% more and provides significantly fewer benefits; next to none if the caster has a tiny sliver of their health missing.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • TieWolf
    TieWolf
    ✭✭
    I don't expect ZOS to ever fix werewolf (or even vampire tbh) to be a proper playstyle and not just some meme'd on RP ability, but perhaps someone might see this and actually take the time to look into improving things for us. Those of us that still play werewolves don't really have any other choice for playing this in another game; there just aren't any good variations of werewolves out there. All I want is for us to be at least on par with the middle of the field.

    TL;DR: Werewolf has a lot of problems, more than just these buffs.

    What do you mean you want variety in playstyle? (s)

    I would love to see class abilities actually be more useful than universal abilities that tend to steal the uniqueness to individual class playstyles as DPS. I say this on a WW thread, because overall variety in what people are running would be nice to see. It would be nice to queue up for a dungeon as a DPS for vet DLC content and not have people vote to kick me before I can even show the DPS I can pull as WW. I can get around 70k single target DPS in WW occasionally in an optimized group with end game content, but that's rare - averaging around 40-50k where on a target dummy I can hit around 60k consistently. My biggest barriers come from awful CC's and how buggy the LA and HA are in WW. Sometimes they go off and many times they don't lol. Sometimes the HA cycle will get stuck and I just sit there mid-animation waiting to be able to rejoin the content. It isn't a ping, latency, or lag issue - it's just buggy WW combat.

    I like that running Oakensoul has broadened the ability to run WW is some end game vet content without being booted from the group immediately, but strictly depending on Oakensoul to just make it to the middle ground in end game content is sad.

    I think overall people want more variety in playstyles and not having so many sets and play styles remain null for years. (Ahem, looking at you, "Eye of Nahviintaas")

    Anyway... still me spending time TRYING desperately to find a way to make WW viable as PvE DPS in end game content. It does seem like a lost fight having been a neglected playstyle for so many years now. Certainly WW is powerful when done right in PvP, but when does it have a place in the rest of the game? lol If the answer to that question is not beefing up WW for fear of making PvP unbalanced, I am pretty sure there are plenty of discussions regarding separating set and skill effects in PvP versus PvE. Not to bring another MMO into this, but GW2 does this really well in their WvW versus PvE overland content. Everything is separate - period.
    Undoubtedly, you'll find me in Mournhold.
  • Skullstachio
    Skullstachio
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Chiming in here: Removing the damage taken penalty would be a good idea on these grounds:

    The base duration of major berserk on hircines rage could be lowered to about 2 seconds (increases by 1 second as it levels up to IV, maximising to 5 seconds.) and the duration could increase by 1 second for every 10% of max health restored (not counting overheals.) to a cap of 10 seconds.

    On a synergetic level, using hircines bounty and its morphs could have additional functionality for werewolf players in a group but I haven't got any ideas. Non-Silver lining, something to ponder for in the long run at least.
    I know what you di-Iddly did... (you would be wise not to do that again during a time when Suspicion in the gaming space is at an all time high.)
    by not actually revealing real drop tables in the game for all items, you only prove what has been proven with proof of concept that you can/will manipulate item drop chances based on certain elements performed by the player.
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    TieWolf wrote: »
    I don't expect ZOS to ever fix werewolf (or even vampire tbh) to be a proper playstyle and not just some meme'd on RP ability, but perhaps someone might see this and actually take the time to look into improving things for us. Those of us that still play werewolves don't really have any other choice for playing this in another game; there just aren't any good variations of werewolves out there. All I want is for us to be at least on par with the middle of the field.

    TL;DR: Werewolf has a lot of problems, more than just these buffs.

    What do you mean you want variety in playstyle? (s)

    I was referring to playing "werewolf" outside of ESO or TES games in general. There's just nothing worth mentioning or the implementation is just bad (like GW2 Norn transformations) so I'm stuck here with a dev team that seems to think it's fine as it is.

    I want to leave rave reviews but just can't right now. Heck, I run a YouTube channel dedicated to getting more people into playing werewolf on this game and it's been hard to create new content because I recognize how subpar things are for us compared to seemingly everyone else here (including HA builds that are so mindless to play and perform better with less effort).

    Maybe I missed what you meant with the question lol, but I am 100% with you on what you've said here!
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Chiming in here: Removing the damage taken penalty would be a good idea on these grounds:

    The base duration of major berserk on hircines rage could be lowered to about 2 seconds (increases by 1 second as it levels up to IV, maximising to 5 seconds.) and the duration could increase by 1 second for every 10% of max health restored (not counting overheals.) to a cap of 10 seconds.

    On a synergetic level, using hircines bounty and its morphs could have additional functionality for werewolf players in a group but I haven't got any ideas. Non-Silver lining, something to ponder for in the long run at least.

    I would be on board for this if it also removed the full health requirement (which it seems to do). The damage taken is ultimately more of an inconvenience compared to the difficulty of proccing major berserk and maintaining it.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Skullstachio
    Skullstachio
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Chiming in here: Removing the damage taken penalty would be a good idea on these grounds:

    The base duration of major berserk on hircines rage could be lowered to about 2 seconds (increases by 1 second as it levels up to IV, maximising to 5 seconds.) and the duration could increase by 1 second for every 10% of max health restored (not counting overheals.) to a cap of 10 seconds.

    On a synergetic level, using hircines bounty and its morphs could have additional functionality for werewolf players in a group but I haven't got any ideas. Non-Silver lining, something to ponder for in the long run at least.

    I would be on board for this if it also removed the full health requirement (which it seems to do). The damage taken is ultimately more of an inconvenience compared to the difficulty of proccing major berserk and maintaining it.

    Even more of an inconvenience when stacking the extra damage taken with the poison damage weakness (particularly in places where enemies have poison damage at the ready like sanctum ophidia which makes it even more punishing.)
    I know what you di-Iddly did... (you would be wise not to do that again during a time when Suspicion in the gaming space is at an all time high.)
    by not actually revealing real drop tables in the game for all items, you only prove what has been proven with proof of concept that you can/will manipulate item drop chances based on certain elements performed by the player.
  • Erickson9610
    Erickson9610
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Chiming in here: Removing the damage taken penalty would be a good idea on these grounds:

    The base duration of major berserk on hircines rage could be lowered to about 2 seconds (increases by 1 second as it levels up to IV, maximising to 5 seconds.) and the duration could increase by 1 second for every 10% of max health restored (not counting overheals.) to a cap of 10 seconds.

    On a synergetic level, using hircines bounty and its morphs could have additional functionality for werewolf players in a group but I haven't got any ideas. Non-Silver lining, something to ponder for in the long run at least.

    Lowering the duration of Major Berserk on Hircine's Rage would adversely impact PvE werewolf's rotation. Currently, the duration is long enough to allow you to have Major Berserk during all of your Howl of Agony casts, which is where the bulk of your damage comes from. I would rather keep the damage taken debuff if we can keep the long duration.

    In PvE, the extra damage taken is manageable with a proper healer in your group, but you not only need to place yourself in front of the enemy for the bonus damage, you also need to cast Hircine's Rage at full health so you don't waste magicka you might need for an emergency heal later. To my knowledge, PvE werewolf is the only damage dealer spec where you have to stand where the tank is and also stay at 100% health to maximize your damage output.

    I would be fine if we just removed the 100% health requirement from the cast. In fact, why don't we just make all morphs of Hircine's Bounty return the stamina as well as the health upon cast? Hircine's Bounty and its morphs are such expensive magicka-costing skills on a spec which you cannot slot a weapon to restore magicka upon heavy attacking.
    PC/NA — Lone Werewolf, the Templar Khajiit Werewolf

    Werewolf Should be Allowed to Sneak
  • IncultaWolf
    IncultaWolf
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    I definitely care about werewolves and feel a consistent approach should be carried out for this buff @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin can we please look into updating the Hircine's Rage ability Major Berserk morph to remove the 5% penalty since Wrecking Blow and the DK chains are being updated in a similar direction? 🙂

    We want to follow up here on the request for the removal of the debuff on Hircine’s Rage, given the DK now has access to Major Berserk. We want to note now there are no plans to change this currently. One thing to keep in mind with skills like these are there has to be some sort of balance. The Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation now lasts for 4sec and the DK has to manage resources to make effective use of the skill. Also remember that Major Berserk is being added to incentivize usage of a traditionally underutilized skill. Hircine’s Rage gives Werewolves access to Major Berserk for 10sec, which is a significant amount of time for it to be up. More than double the time of Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation. So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage.

    I don't mind the increased damage taken part of the ability, what's annoying is the requirement that you have to be at FULL health to proc the major berserk, and playing werewolf in vet trials myself, I noticed that it rarely procs the buff, even if you have multiple healers on you, because you're always taking damage, dots, aoe, that even taking 1 point of damage will make casting the skill useless if you're trying to get that buff in your rotation, and now you've wasted a global cooldown and lost dps. I honestly would love if the Hircine's rage morph scaled off your offensive stats, and fortitude kept scaling off max health, would let werewolves play more of a damage spec in pvp instead of high health and tanky. Wardens get to choose either max hp or max stat scaling for their bust heal polar wind/arctic blast, maybe werewolf can have something similar?
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    I'd like to bring up that none of this has been resolved yet, and we can now add the loss of unique werewolf light and heavy attack range.
    ...
    • Brutal Pounce not always swapping to Brutal Carnage after pouncing.
    • Brutal Carnage requiring a target in range to cast, yet it's a conal AOE that can be easily ranged and thus rarely hits in PVP
    • Claws of Life being our only pseudo-"heal over time" and the return on that being so small as to not be noticeable, even on multiple targets.
    • The obscene cost of werewolf abilities in relation to their damage done, which seems to have been balanced with the extra 30% stamina in mind though that gives very little extra damage or ability uses in practical use.
    • The damage of werewolf abilities being often lower than similar abilities of base classes despite this extra ability cost.
    • Werewolf having a unique 30% movement speed buff but without snare removal we actually move slower than base classes (all of which can access snare removal).
    • Both morphs of our heal being tied to max health while our damage is tied to weapon damage and max stamina/magicka, meaning we're forced to split stats more than anyone else (which leads to the common complaint about werewolves having 40k+ HP).
    • Pounce routinely leaping us at gods know what because when we land there certainly isn't anything there (anyone that's played long enough has seen this).
    • An inability to stealth (some hunters we are) or detect stealth (some enhanced senses we have).
    • No ability to synergize with other werewolves despite a timer minigame that clearly wants us to run with other werewolves.
    • THE [snip] TIMER MINIGAME.
    • Next to no weapon passives carrying over to werewolf form despite there being no indication that this is the case and causing a lack of interesting choices when building our character.
    • No proper heal over time meaning that while we have to stay aggressive to keep our timer up, we can't afford to do so because there is no passive healing.
    • Health recovery (which WAS our heal over time) has been completely gutted.
    • An inability to run both a monster set and a mythic while running two five-pieces because we can not split sets with a back bar.
    • Our fear occasionally only applying off balance on non-CC immune targets.
    • No ability to recover magicka, leading to an inordinate use of magicka recovery in our builds or heavy armor (for pvp at least)
    • No ultimate and no way to combo with our abilities (it's all pure pressure) despite seemingly every single werewolf themed set in the game offering ultimate generation/cost reduction. (I know about Savage Werewolf)
    • ...and there's more.

    I don't expect ZOS to ever fix werewolf (or even vampire tbh) to be a proper playstyle and not just some meme'd on RP ability, but perhaps someone might see this and actually take the time to look into improving things for us. Those of us that still play werewolves don't really have any other choice for playing this in another game; there just aren't any good variations of werewolves out there. All I want is for us to be at least on par with the middle of the field.

    TL;DR: Werewolf has a lot of problems, more than just these buffs.

    [Edited for Censor Bypass]

    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Another pts patch and we can now add no soft CC to the list of things werewolf doesn't have access to. I thought this was a quality of life patch; you can start doing this for werewolf by addressing the list in the post above and by addressing the original problems stated in this thread.
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Udrath
    Udrath
    ✭✭✭✭
    I’d really like to see piercing howl become undodgeable since we don’t have an ultimate - also how do you Dodge strong breath? And maybe a passive that gives us 5% hp back every 2 seconds for the nerf to health recovery.
  • Panderbander
    Panderbander
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    I definitely care about werewolves and feel a consistent approach should be carried out for this buff @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin can we please look into updating the Hircine's Rage ability Major Berserk morph to remove the 5% penalty since Wrecking Blow and the DK chains are being updated in a similar direction? 🙂

    We want to follow up here on the request for the removal of the debuff on Hircine’s Rage, given the DK now has access to Major Berserk. We want to note now there are no plans to change this currently. One thing to keep in mind with skills like these are there has to be some sort of balance. The Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation now lasts for 4sec and the DK has to manage resources to make effective use of the skill. Also remember that Major Berserk is being added to incentivize usage of a traditionally underutilized skill. Hircine’s Rage gives Werewolves access to Major Berserk for 10sec, which is a significant amount of time for it to be up. More than double the time of Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation. So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage.

    Can we now revisit this seeing as Nightblades will be getting this exact buff for the exact same duration except with no downsides and an easier proc condition?

    o8ywxouoy94x.jpg
    Edited by Panderbander on July 24, 2023 10:51PM
    Leader of Lycan Syndicate, PC NA's tri-faction werewolf guild.~~~Played since the beta, got the monkey.~~~"The blood of the pack is now yours. They are your only family, your only allegiance!"
  • Erickson9610
    Erickson9610
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Which is easier to proc?

    10 second Major Berserk from Concealed Weapon, which costs 2275 Magicka and requires you to either cast the ability while affected by Major Expedition, or leave stealth/invisibility...

    ...or 10 second Major Berserk from Hircine's Rage, which costs 5063 Magicka, must be cast at 100% Health, and causes you to take 5% more damage from all sources?
    PC/NA — Lone Werewolf, the Templar Khajiit Werewolf

    Werewolf Should be Allowed to Sneak
  • IncultaWolf
    IncultaWolf
    ✭✭✭✭✭
    Which is easier to proc?

    10 second Major Berserk from Concealed Weapon, which costs 2275 Magicka and requires you to either cast the ability while affected by Major Expedition, or leave stealth/invisibility...

    ...or 10 second Major Berserk from Hircine's Rage, which costs 5063 Magicka, must be cast at 100% Health, and causes you to take 5% more damage from all sources?

    I really don't understand why the combat devs hate werewolf so much, last time they were good was back in Greymoor, and they got gutted because of a broken set (Alessian Order before it had a cap) and health recovery. Please listen to the players who have been playing werewolf in pve and pvp for years, listen to every single streamer and content creator who repeatedly say how terrible it is in all content, how unfun, and weak it is. If you want feedback, the most helpful thing to give us right now is minor resolve, changing the hircine's rage morph to scale off offensive stats/weapon damage, make both morphs of the heal, also heal an additional ally for half ONLY IF they are also a werewolf, because this would encourage pack play, right now having multiple werewolves in your group is a detriment because you lack cross healing every single other spec in the game has access to.

    Attach a snare removal of some form to an ability, and get rid of the 100% health requirement to proc major berserk, because if a single dot ticks on you, you've just wasted 5k mag and get nothing, this happens so so much in all content, I've been in trials with healers, and there are multiple times where you just won't get the buff because you got hit by something at 99% health and you waste a global, lowering your dps even more. You nerfed the packleader morph without any form of explanation, but when other classes or abilites get changed, there's almost always a reasoning behind it. I have watched and asked several streamers and content creators what they think about werewolf, and they will always tell you how terrible it is, how can you say it's in a balanced state, when it's universally agreed that it underperforms in all content of the game to the point where it's a meme to play it
Sign In or Register to comment.