Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.

i guess that's why they quit

This is incorrect. The Blood Rage passive restores time when dealing damage. Ravage Health causes you to deal damage to yourself, which does work with the passive. Werewolves still use this when traveling long distances in the overworld or in dungeons.

Further, that is not why werewolves quit. Many of the Werewolf players I talk to have quit because of the lack of adjustments to the playstyle. Mainly, Werewolf is not competitive in PvE, and especially not in PvP. For instance:

• Werewolves cannot do the bar swap mechanic in Cloudrest, so they have to drop form, otherwise risk killing their teammates. This mechanic at one point used to skip over players in Werewolf form or players using Oakensoul, but the last I've heard, those players are no longer skipped over.
• Werewolves cannot crouch, so they have to drop form at some point in March of Sacrifices, otherwise risk killing themselves from fall damage during the Tarcyr fight or in any of the side indrik hunts, one of which is necessary for making werewolves immune to the teleporting magic. Also, their inability to crouch makes it impossible to duck under the laser traps for one of the side bosses in Graven Deep. This inability to crouch makes doing Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests extremely difficult.
• Werewolves have no taunt or ally heal, so they can't be tanks or healers on their own. They must rely on proc sets (like Tormentor, which gets nerfed next update) for tanking or healing.
• Werewolves do not have a heal over time, so they have no sustained healing. They are forced to build for Magicka Recovery and Maximum Health, because their only heal on demand costs a lot of Magicka and all morphs scale off Maximum Health.
  • The only other heals Werewolf has are Devour, which is a channeled heal which scales off Maximum Health and requires a corpse, and Claws of Life, which heals you for a percentage of the damage done by the damage over time component. In PvP, Claws of Life is affected by Battle Spirit and is nearly useless, while in PvE, it can heal you for an overtuned amount, depending on how many enemies are affected.
• Werewolves have no snare removal or purge, so they are easily countered by damage over time. The current meta is particularly rough on werewolves for this reason.
  • Further, the +30% Movement Speed that Werewolf gets from the Pursuit passive means nothing if it's completely negated by snares which cannot be purged without proc sets.
• Werewolf abilities cost 25% more than standard abilities, and deal 25% more damage than standard abilities. This means that the abilities deal the same damage per cost, at the expense of putting much more emphasis on sustain.
  • Despite the increased damage, Werewolf still has no delayed burst ability. I suppose the idea is to outsustain your enemy while pressuring them with the three damage over time abilities (Werewolf Berserker light attack bleed, Carnage, Infectious Claws) but even then, Werewolf itself doesn't have the defensive tools everyone else has, so the werewolf is usually the one who gets outsustained.
• Werewolf has no in-form Ultimate ability. Casting your Ultimate again reverts your form. It would've been great if the Werewolf Transformation Ultimate reverted your form at less than x Ultimate, but had some alternate function at x or more Ultimate, similar to Incapacitating Strike.
• Werewolf's main spammable is a projectile which deals increased damage to enemies facing them. This means in PvE, you always want to be in front of the boss, where the tank should be. In PvP, you can mitigate this extra damage by turning away from the werewolf.
• Hircine's Rage in particular requires you to be at 100% Health to grant Major Berserk. As mentioned before in several other posts about the skill, Werewolf players don't mind taking the 5% extra damage for 10 seconds when the skill procs — the issue is that it is nigh impossible to proc. Werewolf has no damage shields, so any tick of any damage taken in either PvE or PvP will cause you to be at less than 100% Health, and casting the skill at even 99% Health will just waste your already-limited Magicka pool and you'll be in a worse position.
• Werewolves also have no in-kit way to recover Magicka. Even if you transform with a staff equipped, your heavy attacks will always restore Stamina. This makes the sustain for the only heal on demand ability very harsh.
• Werewolves also don't receive Weapon Passives at all. They receive Armor Passives, Undaunted Passives, Racial Passives, some Alliance War passives, some Crafting passives, a few Class Passives, and Champion Point passives.
• Since Werewolf can't slot non-Werewolf skills, you can't supplement any existing abilities to fix the holes in your build. You're stuck with the 5 Werewolf skills you're given, and you only get to choose their morphs. However, you can still slot the Werewolf skills on your human form bar without being able to use them, if you want to receive Major Brutality and Sorcery passively in your human form.
• Werewolves also have no cosmetic customization whatsoever. Their fur color is tied to the chosen morph of Werewolf Transformation — brown fur is for unmorphed, black fur with white accents is for Werewolf Berserker, and white fur is for Pack Leader. The cosmetic system is tied to the combat system, unlike with the Warden bear, which while its markings are determined by the morph of the Ultimate, its fur color can be changed from brown to grey via the Slate-Gray Summoned Bear collectible.
• Werewolf cannot mount, and they don't run as quickly as a mount. So, running long distances — especially between keeps in Cyrodiil — will always result in werewolves lagging behind, separated from their group, and thus easy to pick off by assassins, especially if the werewolf was burning stamina by sprinting.
• Werewolf also has no stealth reveal outside of potions. The Sentry set can't be used, because Werewolf can't crouch, and Werewolf can't slot non-Werewolf abilities that bring enemies out of stealth.
• Werewolf's gap closer, Pounce, morphs into Carnage whenever cast. The problem with this is that it costs a lot of Stamina to cast Pounce->Carnage in a rotation in PvE, and a high mobility player in PvP can evade you if you don't cast Carnage in time, because you'll be locked out of being able to use Pounce for a duration if Carnage is not cast.
• This goes without saying, but werewolves and non-cursed players miss out on the perks of Vampire. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a reason to keep in mind why players might move away from playing Werewolf — maybe there just isn't anything that Werewolf does better than a regular Class or a Vampire might do. Further, any non-Werewolf ability that gets buffed obviously can't be used by Werewolf, so there's much less incentive to play Werewolf when you could instead play with both Vampire and those non-Werewolf abilities.

Some of these problems could be fixed with 2024's Scribing and Skill Styling systems, but as far as we know, Werewolf isn't getting any Grimoires or Skill Styles this year. The lack of attention given to the glaring problems of this playstyle has driven many dedicated Werewolf players away. At most, Werewolf gets minor updates which are the result of balance changes elsewhere in the game — for instance, the Empower and Hemorrhaging changes, both of which caused some Werewolf ability to be updated. Werewolf has been randomly nerfed without explanation (such as the Pack Leader dire wolves losing their snare) and they haven't received any buffs to compensate, so most Werewolf players have given up hope.

I'll reiterate how the Werewolf experience goes in PvE and PvP:

• In PvE, you can't be a tank or a healer, so you are a damage dealer who picks Werewolf Berserker for the extra damage over time. You want to be in front of the enemy for optimal damage, right where the tank is, and you want to be at 100% Health to get Major Berserk from Hircine's Rage, which does cause you to take 5% extra damage for the duration, so you take extra damage being in a position where damage dealers are generally not supposed to be, in order to deal optimal damage. Somehow, you have to manage a rotation of keeping Brutal Carnage stacks up, Claws of Anguish up, and spamming Howl of Agony, and you have to be at 100% Health in order to not waste your precious Magicka, but to also recover some Stamina you need for your rotation, because every single ability is insanely expensive. On top of that, you manage your Werewolf Transformation timer, sometimes drinking Ravage Health potions during phases where there are no enemies to target, and then of course since you're damaging yourself, you aren't at 100% Health, and you can't purge the damage over time from your Ravage Health potion, so you might end up wasting Magicka healing yourself at 97% Health. Despite all this, you don't deal optimal damage compared to other classes, and you might have more fun and deal more damage playing something that works at a range and takes less effort.
• In PvP, you need to build tanky. You'll likely pick Pack Leader for the unique 10% damage mitigation, and maybe you'll pick Hircine's Fortitude and build into having a lot of Maximum Health and Magicka Recovery. The result is you don't deal a lot of damage and you don't have much damage mitigation to begin with, compared to most other builds which somehow deal a lot more damage with proc sets and can be extremely tanky. You don't have the burst needed to take anyone down, and you don't have any crosshealing, healing over time, or any group utility besides a 10 second synergy (which goes on a 20 second cooldown) that grants Empower and Minor Force, a slowed timer for grouped werewolves (which are generally few and far between) and Minor Courage for grouped allies while transformed as a Pack Leader.

Probably the most concerning part about all this is that Werewolf doesn't bring anything unique to groups. It doesn't do anything that an average human form build couldn't do. You could take any Werewolf build, apply it to a human, and the human form would do far better than the werewolf form could.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.
2. Oak is pretty much all of the werewolf buffs, so no need to use werewolf if you have Oakensoul. It is imho the worst mythic for a WW.
3. I am not sure, but I think that "core combat abilities" (dodge, block, bash break free etc) either cost the same in werewolf form or more. In any case, werewolf is nothing special for bash builds. If something, it is worse as you don't have weapon passives active in WW form, so your bashes are weaker.
4. I think that Sorc is still best for WW min-max. As for the race, it is either Imperial, Orc, Dark Elf or Khajiit.

1. I've mentioned this in my post above. Blood Rage still procs with Ravage Health potions.
2. Oakensoul is useful for getting Minor Force, Minor Berserk, and a few other buffs which might be more difficult to get in Werewolf form otherwise. I personally use it in PvE, but in PvP, you might consider a different mythic which counters some weakness to Werewolf (such as Snow Treaders to counter the lack of a snare purge, or Shapeshifter's Chain to reduce the cost of Werewolf's expensive abilities some more)
3. Werewolf does not inherently increase the cost of core combat abilities; it is simply the Werewolf active abilities which were given the "25% more cost for 25% more damage" balance change some years ago. Regardless, for bash builds, you would be better off if you could benefit from the Deadly Bash passive in the One Hand and Shield skill line, but Werewolf currently does not benefit from weapon passives.
4. Sorcerer has long been the reigning Class for Werewolf, but ever since the Burning Light passive was changed to work without an Aedric Spear ability, Templar Werewolf is the best in slot Class Werewolf for PvE damage dealing. I would still recommend Sorcerer Werewolf for PvP, but if you want to use a set which procs off of Class damage like Overwhelming Surge, you'll need to use Templar Werewolf. I personally recommend Imperial or Orc for PvP, and Khajiit for PvE — because since you'll want to stand in front of the enemies in PvE to get the most damage out of your main spammable, you won't benefit from the Backstabber CP star, so you want to make up your Critical Damage elsewhere.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

moo_2021 wrote: »

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.

i guess that's why they quit

This is incorrect. The Blood Rage passive restores time when dealing damage. Ravage Health causes you to deal damage to yourself, which does work with the passive. Werewolves still use this when traveling long distances in the overworld or in dungeons.

Further, that is not why werewolves quit. Many of the Werewolf players I talk to have quit because of the lack of adjustments to the playstyle. Mainly, Werewolf is not competitive in PvE, and especially not in PvP. For instance:

• Werewolves cannot do the bar swap mechanic in Cloudrest, so they have to drop form, otherwise risk killing their teammates. This mechanic at one point used to skip over players in Werewolf form or players using Oakensoul, but the last I've heard, those players are no longer skipped over.
• Werewolves cannot crouch, so they have to drop form at some point in March of Sacrifices, otherwise risk killing themselves from fall damage during the Tarcyr fight or in any of the side indrik hunts, one of which is necessary for making werewolves immune to the teleporting magic. Also, their inability to crouch makes it impossible to duck under the laser traps for one of the side bosses in Graven Deep. This inability to crouch makes doing Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood quests extremely difficult.
• Werewolves have no taunt or ally heal, so they can't be tanks or healers on their own. They must rely on proc sets (like Tormentor, which gets nerfed next update) for tanking or healing.
• Werewolves do not have a heal over time, so they have no sustained healing. They are forced to build for Magicka Recovery and Maximum Health, because their only heal on demand costs a lot of Magicka and all morphs scale off Maximum Health.
  • The only other heals Werewolf has are Devour, which is a channeled heal which scales off Maximum Health and requires a corpse, and Claws of Life, which heals you for a percentage of the damage done by the damage over time component. In PvP, Claws of Life is affected by Battle Spirit and is nearly useless, while in PvE, it can heal you for an overtuned amount, depending on how many enemies are affected.
• Werewolves have no snare removal or purge, so they are easily countered by damage over time. The current meta is particularly rough on werewolves for this reason.
  • Further, the +30% Movement Speed that Werewolf gets from the Pursuit passive means nothing if it's completely negated by snares which cannot be purged without proc sets.
• Werewolf abilities cost 25% more than standard abilities, and deal 25% more damage than standard abilities. This means that the abilities deal the same damage per cost, at the expense of putting much more emphasis on sustain.
  • Despite the increased damage, Werewolf still has no delayed burst ability. I suppose the idea is to outsustain your enemy while pressuring them with the three damage over time abilities (Werewolf Berserker light attack bleed, Carnage, Infectious Claws) but even then, Werewolf itself doesn't have the defensive tools everyone else has, so the werewolf is usually the one who gets outsustained.
• Werewolf has no in-form Ultimate ability. Casting your Ultimate again reverts your form. It would've been great if the Werewolf Transformation Ultimate reverted your form at less than x Ultimate, but had some alternate function at x or more Ultimate, similar to Incapacitating Strike.
• Werewolf's main spammable is a projectile which deals increased damage to enemies facing them. This means in PvE, you always want to be in front of the boss, where the tank should be. In PvP, you can mitigate this extra damage by turning away from the werewolf.
• Hircine's Rage in particular requires you to be at 100% Health to grant Major Berserk. As mentioned before in several other posts about the skill, Werewolf players don't mind taking the 5% extra damage for 10 seconds when the skill procs — the issue is that it is nigh impossible to proc. Werewolf has no damage shields, so any tick of any damage taken in either PvE or PvP will cause you to be at less than 100% Health, and casting the skill at even 99% Health will just waste your already-limited Magicka pool and you'll be in a worse position.
• Werewolves also have no in-kit way to recover Magicka. Even if you transform with a staff equipped, your heavy attacks will always restore Stamina. This makes the sustain for the only heal on demand ability very harsh.
• Werewolves also don't receive Weapon Passives at all. They receive Armor Passives, Undaunted Passives, Racial Passives, some Alliance War passives, some Crafting passives, a few Class Passives, and Champion Point passives.
• Since Werewolf can't slot non-Werewolf skills, you can't supplement any existing abilities to fix the holes in your build. You're stuck with the 5 Werewolf skills you're given, and you only get to choose their morphs. However, you can still slot the Werewolf skills on your human form bar without being able to use them, if you want to receive Major Brutality and Sorcery passively in your human form.
• Werewolves also have no cosmetic customization whatsoever. Their fur color is tied to the chosen morph of Werewolf Transformation — brown fur is for unmorphed, black fur with white accents is for Werewolf Berserker, and white fur is for Pack Leader. The cosmetic system is tied to the combat system, unlike with the Warden bear, which while its markings are determined by the morph of the Ultimate, its fur color can be changed from brown to grey via the Slate-Gray Summoned Bear collectible.
• Werewolf cannot mount, and they don't run as quickly as a mount. So, running long distances — especially between keeps in Cyrodiil — will always result in werewolves lagging behind, separated from their group, and thus easy to pick off by assassins, especially if the werewolf was burning stamina by sprinting.
• Werewolf also has no stealth reveal outside of potions. The Sentry set can't be used, because Werewolf can't crouch, and Werewolf can't slot non-Werewolf abilities that bring enemies out of stealth.
• Werewolf's gap closer, Pounce, morphs into Carnage whenever cast. The problem with this is that it costs a lot of Stamina to cast Pounce->Carnage in a rotation in PvE, and a high mobility player in PvP can evade you if you don't cast Carnage in time, because you'll be locked out of being able to use Pounce for a duration if Carnage is not cast.
• This goes without saying, but werewolves and non-cursed players miss out on the perks of Vampire. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a reason to keep in mind why players might move away from playing Werewolf — maybe there just isn't anything that Werewolf does better than a regular Class or a Vampire might do. Further, any non-Werewolf ability that gets buffed obviously can't be used by Werewolf, so there's much less incentive to play Werewolf when you could instead play with both Vampire and those non-Werewolf abilities.

Some of these problems could be fixed with 2024's Scribing and Skill Styling systems, but as far as we know, Werewolf isn't getting any Grimoires or Skill Styles this year. The lack of attention given to the glaring problems of this playstyle has driven many dedicated Werewolf players away. At most, Werewolf gets minor updates which are the result of balance changes elsewhere in the game — for instance, the Empower and Hemorrhaging changes, both of which caused some Werewolf ability to be updated. Werewolf has been randomly nerfed without explanation (such as the Pack Leader dire wolves losing their snare) and they haven't received any buffs to compensate, so most Werewolf players have given up hope.

I'll reiterate how the Werewolf experience goes in PvE and PvP:

• In PvE, you can't be a tank or a healer, so you are a damage dealer who picks Werewolf Berserker for the extra damage over time. You want to be in front of the enemy for optimal damage, right where the tank is, and you want to be at 100% Health to get Major Berserk from Hircine's Rage, which does cause you to take 5% extra damage for the duration, so you take extra damage being in a position where damage dealers are generally not supposed to be, in order to deal optimal damage. Somehow, you have to manage a rotation of keeping Brutal Carnage stacks up, Claws of Anguish up, and spamming Howl of Agony, and you have to be at 100% Health in order to not waste your precious Magicka, but to also recover some Stamina you need for your rotation, because every single ability is insanely expensive. On top of that, you manage your Werewolf Transformation timer, sometimes drinking Ravage Health potions during phases where there are no enemies to target, and then of course since you're damaging yourself, you aren't at 100% Health, and you can't purge the damage over time from your Ravage Health potion, so you might end up wasting Magicka healing yourself at 97% Health. Despite all this, you don't deal optimal damage compared to other classes, and you might have more fun and deal more damage playing something that works at a range and takes less effort.
• In PvP, you need to build tanky. You'll likely pick Pack Leader for the unique 10% damage mitigation, and maybe you'll pick Hircine's Fortitude and build into having a lot of Maximum Health and Magicka Recovery. The result is you don't deal a lot of damage and you don't have much damage mitigation to begin with, compared to most other builds which somehow deal a lot more damage with proc sets and can be extremely tanky. You don't have the burst needed to take anyone down, and you don't have any crosshealing, healing over time, or any group utility besides a 10 second synergy (which goes on a 20 second cooldown) that grants Empower and Minor Force, a slowed timer for grouped werewolves (which are generally few and far between) and Minor Courage for grouped allies while transformed as a Pack Leader.

Probably the most concerning part about all this is that Werewolf doesn't bring anything unique to groups. It doesn't do anything that an average human form build couldn't do. You could take any Werewolf build, apply it to a human, and the human form would do far better than the werewolf form could.

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

1. No, WW only gains timer when you deal damage. If the damage is dealt to you it no longer increase timer.
2. Oak is pretty much all of the werewolf buffs, so no need to use werewolf if you have Oakensoul. It is imho the worst mythic for a WW.
3. I am not sure, but I think that "core combat abilities" (dodge, block, bash break free etc) either cost the same in werewolf form or more. In any case, werewolf is nothing special for bash builds. If something, it is worse as you don't have weapon passives active in WW form, so your bashes are weaker.
4. I think that Sorc is still best for WW min-max. As for the race, it is either Imperial, Orc, Dark Elf or Khajiit.

1. I've mentioned this in my post above. Blood Rage still procs with Ravage Health potions.
2. Oakensoul is useful for getting Minor Force, Minor Berserk, and a few other buffs which might be more difficult to get in Werewolf form otherwise. I personally use it in PvE, but in PvP, you might consider a different mythic which counters some weakness to Werewolf (such as Snow Treaders to counter the lack of a snare purge, or Shapeshifter's Chain to reduce the cost of Werewolf's expensive abilities some more)
3. Werewolf does not inherently increase the cost of core combat abilities; it is simply the Werewolf active abilities which were given the "25% more cost for 25% more damage" balance change some years ago. Regardless, for bash builds, you would be better off if you could benefit from the Deadly Bash passive in the One Hand and Shield skill line, but Werewolf currently does not benefit from weapon passives.
4. Sorcerer has long been the reigning Class for Werewolf, but ever since the Burning Light passive was changed to work without an Aedric Spear ability, Templar Werewolf is the best in slot Class Werewolf for PvE damage dealing. I would still recommend Sorcerer Werewolf for PvP, but if you want to use a set which procs off of Class damage like Overwhelming Surge, you'll need to use Templar Werewolf. I personally recommend Imperial or Orc for PvP, and Khajiit for PvE — because since you'll want to stand in front of the enemies in PvE to get the most damage out of your main spammable, you won't benefit from the Backstabber CP star, so you want to make up your Critical Damage elsewhere.

Erickson9610 wrote: »

AHermitCrab wrote: »

Not sure if it's a bug, but werewolves do end up using magicka to block with a frost staff if you have the Tri Focus passive. It was introduced a while back, around one of the Elsweyr events, with nothing in the patch notes about it, so I'll assume it is one.

I have just tested this, and on the Live server, blocking still costs Stamina when using an Ice Staff with the Tri Focus passive learned. The only weapon passive known to work is Hasty Retreat.

mr1sho wrote: »

It would be cool if WW players can use their passives not in WW mode like Vamps can and tradeoff will be your character becomes more feral overtime

mr1sho wrote: »

It would be cool if WW players can use their passives not in WW mode like Vamps can and tradeoff will be your character becomes more feral overtime

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

AHermitCrab wrote: »

Werewolf buffs with the latest PTS patch, let's hope they make it to the next public patch.

Yes, there are a few buffs and every werewolf buff is welcome. But there are also some um... minor nerfs and some mechanics being added (unique "Terrified" debuff) and Taunt on Heavy attacks that may be problematic. I mean, I am glad WW is getting a taunt cuz this means that ZOS acknowledges them as PvE Tanks, but I would say that it could have been done better.

Still a lot of testing has to be done, but lets say that there might be some weird things going on. WW is gonna have Taunt on Heavy Attack. And WW Berserker morph has AOE Heavy Attack... If it would mean that WW can have AOE Taunt. It it works, then... um... really ? Berserker for PvE Tanks ? huh.