Werewolf ultimate use

ksbrugh · April 15

I would have to say that I am not very happy with the large consumption of ultimate used during battle with werewolf.
I play a werewolf because I consider it a class of its own it's not an ultimate to me it's its own stand-alone class.
You know if you got to make a five piece armor set triple your ultimate gain while in combat then you've done something wrong in the design of the new werewolf. You should never have to use a five piece set or any piece of armor for that matter to fix an issue with a class, a spell, an action nothing.
Imagine removing dragon's breath from the DK and the only way to get it back and fix the DK is to wear a five piece Ashen's grip.
It would be some very unhappy dks in the game that's for sure me included LOL.
If you're going to want to do any type of long-term werewolf battling you're going to have to wear werewolf hide five piece armor set.
With this Nerf to werewolf transformation you are pretty much pigeonholed into just a few sets build diversity is destroyed Imo.
I mean it is good if you just want to walk around and not fight anything you can be a werewolf all day long.
But for my PVPr's out there you know how getting stuck in combat is a never-ending trip to the cheese dip. Imagine trying to maintain that were with that never getting out of combat glitch it still has not been addressed or fixed in a decade
Please forgive me if I've misspelled or double spoke anything I've been at work all night and tried pts werewolf out for the first time and 8 seconds after being a werewolf I was back to human form I said hold up wait a minute something ain't right took me a little while to figure things out but still maintaining that werewolf form it's ridiculous y'all have a nice day

YandereGirlfriend · April 15

I still don't understand why WW isn't just a toggle that you can turn off and on at-will.

That isn't OP and it would eliminate what feels like dumb micromanagement for the sake of dumb micromanagement.

Wuuffyy · April 15

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

I still don't understand why WW isn't just a toggle that you can turn off and on at-will.

That isn't OP and it would eliminate what feels like dumb micromanagement for the sake of dumb micromanagement.

This would certainly help the current berserker feel less awful to manage (if turned into a pure toggle). At the moment, you go 'in wolf' as a berserker with the minimum ult (100 or so) and lose it within a handful of seconds if you are not immediately wailing on an enemy (any even then the first ult reduction seems to come so quickly it doesn't appear to matter).

Although... the dedication helps prevent it from being abused by simply proc'ing standard skills and then going in for desired benefit- even if at a fraction of of the ult it used to be.

Ataskir · April 15

I recommend running in a pack with the berserker morph or using ultimate cost reducing items like pack leader’s beef broth and or the shapeshifter’s chain mythic for solo.

You don’t need a whole five piece set to sustain it, there’s other options. Plus it encourages werewolves to group up, which is the best way to play it.

Maybe the base cost could stand to be lowered a bit more though…

Panderbander · April 15

There are better ways to encourage group play for werewolves than punishing them for playing alone.

Some examples might be:

- werewolf specific cross-healing (x% of healing affects transformed werewolves within x meters as well)
- werewolf specific group buffs for transformed werewolves
- each transformed werewolf in the group receives x additional Regen/speed/healing %/etc
- and so on.

The saying is honey catches more flies than vinegar (dunno if that's actually true but...) and generally speaking you're more likely to get the desired outcome if it comes with a reward rather than a punishment for not doing the thing that was desired.

MashmalloMan · April 15

WW cost = -80 ult/10 s (W/ passive)
Base ult gen = +3 ult/s
Fury gen = 25/s (W/ passive)
Rampage = 1000 cost + 20s of free WW cost

Let's say you're solo, berserker, you activate WW at 500 ult in a sustained fight, no additional fury ability morphs for now. AKA, worst case scenario:

0s Activate WW: 500 - 100 = 400
10s: 400 + 30 - 80 = 350 ult, 250 fury.
20s: 350 + 30 - 80 = 300 ult, 500 fury.
30s: 300 + 30 - 80 = 250 ult, 750 fury.
40s: 250 + 30 - 80 = 200 ult, 1000 fury -> Activate Rampage.
50s = +30 ult = 230 ult
60s = +30 ult = 260 ult -> Rampage ends.

By the end of this rotation, you've gone from 400 to 260 ultimate, a rate of -140 ult/60s allows for roughly 3 minutes, so you'll need to Devour about once a minute to keep this up permanently. Again, this is worst case scenario and it's already pretty good.

Best part about the new design is they've intentionally made all the stamina abilities 1/3 of the regular cost, sustain investment isn't necessary, that allows a lot of wiggle room to focus on ult gen or ult cost reduction, but I wouldn't go as far as devoting full 5 piece or even mythics to this as many of them aren't worth it.

For example: A Sorcerer + WW food = 80 transformation cost and 63 cost/10s with Call of the Pack solo.

Using that same 60s rotation example; it goes from 420 to 348 ultimate, -72 ult every 60 seconds is nearly half the first example and allows for 6 minutes of transformation with only 1 Devour every 2 minutes to keep up indefinitely.

You don't even need to Devour when you throw in Minor Herosim (Potion/Oakensoul/group buff) and the numerous ways to generate extra Fury to Rampage more often from Feral Pounce/Carnage, Hircine’s Rage, and Claws of Anguish.

If you manage to get Major Heroism from CP, a group member, or a kill from the Assault passive in PVP, you're also making it easier. This is all before even considering running with another WW which would make it free to use before the other hopps.

Frankly I think it's fine the way it is once you begin to understand how to build for it. Also, since many of the new Class Masteries require conditions that can't be met in WW form and your pure/base class matters less than simply aiming for strong passives, subclassing is a much more competitive and lossless option to consider.

Wuuffyy · April 15

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WW cost = -80 ult/10 s (W/ passive)

Base ult gen = +3 ult/s

Fury gen = 25/s (W/ passive)

Rampage = 1000 cost + 20s of free WW cost

Let's say you're solo, berserker, you activate WW at 500 ult in a sustained fight, no additional fury ability morphs for now. AKA, worst case scenario:
0s Activate WW: 500 - 100 = 400

10s: 400 + 30 - 80 = 350 ult, 250 fury.

20s: 350 + 30 - 80 = 300 ult, 500 fury.

30s: 300 + 30 - 80 = 250 ult, 750 fury.

40s: 250 + 30 - 80 = 200 ult, 1000 fury -> Activate Rampage.

50s = +30 ult = 230 ult

60s = +30 ult = 260 ult -> Rampage ends.

By the end of this rotation, you've gone from 400 to 260 ultimate, a rate of -140 ult/60s allows for roughly 3 minutes, so you'll need to Devour about once a minute to keep this up permanently. Again, this is worst case scenario and it's already pretty good.

Best part about the new design is they've intentionally made all the stamina abilities 1/3 of the regular cost, sustain investment isn't necessary, that allows a lot of wiggle room to focus on ult gen or ult cost reduction, but I wouldn't go as far as devoting full 5 piece or even mythics to this as many of them aren't worth it.

For example: A Sorcerer + WW food = 80 transformation cost and 63 cost/10s with Call of the Pack solo.

Using that same 60s rotation example; it goes from 420 to 348 ultimate, -72 ult every 60 seconds is nearly half the first example and allows for 6 minutes of transformation with only 1 Devour every 2 minutes to keep up indefinitely.

You don't even need to Devour when you throw in Minor Herosim (Potion/Oakensoul/group buff) and the numerous ways to generate extra Fury to Rampage more often from Feral Pounce/Carnage, Hircine’s Rage, and Claws of Anguish.

If you manage to get Major Heroism from CP, a group member, or a kill from the Assault passive in PVP, you're also making it easier. This is all before even considering running with another WW.

Well, you see the main issues here are if 1) devouring isn't ready and safe in the content you're doing (handling a ball group or harder end-game-pve boss fights may require more movement which is not location independent) and 2) generally when you're having to move for extended periods of time without active werewolf combat...

(keep in mind going in and out of wolf is both not desirable for RP/build purposes and still consumes ult both to go back in and the timer seems to check almost right after entering for another huge tick).

Additionally, NOT going in with 500 ult (so around 150-100) can be very rough if you aren't straight dummy parsing immediately after transforming with a corpse nearby to devour (this scenario is more likely to be the case in PvP)- you will be taken out RATHER quickly after transforming and be worse-off ult wise (of course) for it.

YandereGirlfriend · April 16

I guess, at a foundational level... what problem is the ultimate cost mechanic trying to solve?

It seems like a solution in search of a problem, TBH.

It obviously is intended for WWs to be able to sustain the form indefinitely. So why don't we just allow them to... do that... without having to jump through all of these artificial hoops?

MashmalloMan · April 16

Wuuffyy wrote: »

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WW cost = -80 ult/10 s (W/ passive)

Base ult gen = +3 ult/s

Fury gen = 25/s (W/ passive)

Rampage = 1000 cost + 20s of free WW cost

Let's say you're solo, berserker, you activate WW at 500 ult in a sustained fight, no additional fury ability morphs for now. AKA, worst case scenario:
0s Activate WW: 500 - 100 = 400

10s: 400 + 30 - 80 = 350 ult, 250 fury.

20s: 350 + 30 - 80 = 300 ult, 500 fury.

30s: 300 + 30 - 80 = 250 ult, 750 fury.

40s: 250 + 30 - 80 = 200 ult, 1000 fury -> Activate Rampage.

50s = +30 ult = 230 ult

60s = +30 ult = 260 ult -> Rampage ends.

By the end of this rotation, you've gone from 400 to 260 ultimate, a rate of -140 ult/60s allows for roughly 3 minutes, so you'll need to Devour about once a minute to keep this up permanently. Again, this is worst case scenario and it's already pretty good.

Best part about the new design is they've intentionally made all the stamina abilities 1/3 of the regular cost, sustain investment isn't necessary, that allows a lot of wiggle room to focus on ult gen or ult cost reduction, but I wouldn't go as far as devoting full 5 piece or even mythics to this as many of them aren't worth it.

For example: A Sorcerer + WW food = 80 transformation cost and 63 cost/10s with Call of the Pack solo.

Using that same 60s rotation example; it goes from 420 to 348 ultimate, -72 ult every 60 seconds is nearly half the first example and allows for 6 minutes of transformation with only 1 Devour every 2 minutes to keep up indefinitely.

You don't even need to Devour when you throw in Minor Herosim (Potion/Oakensoul/group buff) and the numerous ways to generate extra Fury to Rampage more often from Feral Pounce/Carnage, Hircine’s Rage, and Claws of Anguish.

If you manage to get Major Heroism from CP, a group member, or a kill from the Assault passive in PVP, you're also making it easier. This is all before even considering running with another WW.

Well, you see the main issues here are if 1) devouring isn't ready and safe in the content you're doing (handling a ball group or harder end-game-pve boss fights may require more movement which is not location independent) and 2) generally when you're having to move for extended periods of time without active werewolf combat...

(keep in mind going in and out of wolf is both not desirable for RP/build purposes and still consumes ult both to go back in and the timer seems to check almost right after entering for another huge tick).

Additionally, NOT going in with 500 ult (so around 150-100) can be very rough if you aren't straight dummy parsing immediately after transforming with a corpse nearby to devour (this scenario is more likely to be the case in PvP)- you will be taken out RATHER quickly after transforming and be worse-off ult wise (of course) for it.

I gave a worst case scenario at the top where at 500 ult, you'll still get 3 minutes without Devouring or using the Fury related morphs where it would give you permanent uptime. This is just a baseline, 3 minutes is much higher than the original 30 seconds.

In my 2nd example, just by using Daedric Summoning and the WW specific food, you nearly double the uptime to 6 minutes. This is not hard to do, it doesn't require you to ruin your set composition, although there is many options for that if you struggle, It's an example of how easy it is to improve with very little investment.

Add in Minor/Major Heroism, ult gain on pvp kill, Imperial race, Fury related skills lowering Rampage from 40s to 30s eliminating 80 ult cost maximum, and there's no reason this should be hard to keep up.

WW is not meant to be free without investment to maintain, although it's possible with multiple WW in your group or a reliance on Devour. Sometimes you may need to build up ult to get back on track. This is infinitely better than OG WW which cost 300, lasted for only 30s, was constantly removed out of combat, especially in pve due to dialogue or immunity phases.

I didn't even mention how you don't lose transformation when you die which is huge. A typical BG match, you'll die anywhere between 5~10 times on average, those WW mains had to rebuild up their ultimate every time, that's 1500~3000 ultimate, so to say preparing and retaining 500 ultimate is unrealistic is something a disagree with when it was much, much worse before. You can do it the traditional way of just weaving a bit before you transform or you can pop by a house for the font to max out your ultimate. Since there's really no way to remove someones ultimate outside of Minor/Major Timidity which are fairly rare, it comes more down to mismanaging the form or not investing into ult, which are both a skill or build issue.

For example, you mentioned the 100-150 ultimate, yeah like you said terrible idea because it's not enough wiggle room to build towards Rampage. It seems like a no brainer at first because of how traditional WW worked and how we normally cast ultimates as soon as they're ready, but new WW requires you to be a bit more intentional. If you know you won't have anything to Devour or you haven't invested into sustaining the transformation, waiting till 300~400 ult may be a good idea.

ksbrugh · April 19

MashmalloMan wrote: »

WW cost = -80 ult/10 s (W/ passive)

Base ult gen = +3 ult/s

Fury gen = 25/s (W/ passive)

Rampage = 1000 cost + 20s of free WW cost

Let's say you're solo, berserker, you activate WW at 500 ult in a sustained fight, no additional fury ability morphs for now. AKA, worst case scenario:
0s Activate WW: 500 - 100 = 400

10s: 400 + 30 - 80 = 350 ult, 250 fury.

20s: 350 + 30 - 80 = 300 ult, 500 fury.

30s: 300 + 30 - 80 = 250 ult, 750 fury.

40s: 250 + 30 - 80 = 200 ult, 1000 fury -> Activate Rampage.

50s = +30 ult = 230 ult

60s = +30 ult = 260 ult -> Rampage ends.

By the end of this rotation, you've gone from 400 to 260 ultimate, a rate of -140 ult/60s allows for roughly 3 minutes, so you'll need to Devour about once a minute to keep this up permanently. Again, this is worst case scenario and it's already pretty good.

Best part about the new design is they've intentionally made all the stamina abilities 1/3 of the regular cost, sustain investment isn't necessary, that allows a lot of wiggle room to focus on ult gen or ult cost reduction, but I wouldn't go as far as devoting full 5 piece or even mythics to this as many of them aren't worth it.

For example: A Sorcerer + WW food = 80 transformation cost and 63 cost/10s with Call of the Pack solo.

Using that same 60s rotation example; it goes from 420 to 348 ultimate, -72 ult every 60 seconds is nearly half the first example and allows for 6 minutes of transformation with only 1 Devour every 2 minutes to keep up indefinitely.

You don't even need to Devour when you throw in Minor Herosim (Potion/Oakensoul/group buff) and the numerous ways to generate extra Fury to Rampage more often from Feral Pounce/Carnage, Hircine’s Rage, and Claws of Anguish.

If you manage to get Major Heroism from CP, a group member, or a kill from the Assault passive in PVP, you're also making it easier. This is all before even considering running with another WW which would make it free to use before the other hopps.

Frankly I think it's fine the way it is once you begin to understand how to build for it. Also, since many of the new Class Masteries require conditions that can't be met in WW form and your pure/base class matters less than simply aiming for strong passives, subclassing is a much more competitive and lossless option to consider.

I have to admit on paper it looks legit it looks good on PTS here and there a few battles looks good feels halfway decent. Have I been wrong in my lifetime, yes more than I'd like to admit but I don't think I'm wrong on this, the way it's set up it's not going to be very popular.
I know z o s wants us to micromanage being a werewolf but most people want to be a werewolf just because it's a werewolf they don't want to be a night blade they don't want to be a Templar I don't want to be a Dragonite I don't want to be a warden or a necromancer they just want to be a werewolf I mean most of the passives for the classes don't come through with the werewolf anyway so why even bother.
The rate of consumption of ultimate will be a problem for PVP and PVE the getting stuck in combat in PVP and when you're running a pug group through a dungeon and they like to rush and race through it leaving half of the trash ads on the way to the main bosses agreed one example City of Ash one or two trying to get through that door at the end good luck maintaining that werewolf form lol.
That one person in PvP that decides to hit you with a light attack then streak away but continue to fight everything moving on the board keeping you in combat even though you went to the other side of the map. Goodbye werewolf form
Yes I know some people love micromanaging their builds but werewolf has never really been about that and now it will be. Before you had to manage your magic and stamina recovery that's it, now you will have to manage your ultimate recovery which is only possible by certain sets and other ways of playing when before I could have gotten my recovery from just a recovery glyph.

But I do hope that I am wrong and I just haven't played around with it enough but I've tried several times now on PTS and it just seems like it's too much work when I get off of work after 12 hours and I sit down I just want to mash buttons (lol)sometimes and sometimes I do want to manage my builds.
We'll see when it goes live with people that don't have access to pts says y'all have a nice day now

ADarklore · April 19

For people with anxieties, some combat encounters can be stressful enough, now you're forcing people to also have to focus on maintaining ultimate to maintain their WW form, increasing that stress level. ESO should be 'fun' not a game of stress-inducing mechanics that serve no purpose other than for 'making a change'.