Ways of Addressing Berserker Form Sustain

Arunei · April 17

So, I think those of us who've tested the Berserker Morph have realized that keeping the form isn't intuitive AT ALL. Unless you either a) go into a fight with 400-500 Ult or b) will be in a fight where there's a steady supply of trash/adds that you can (safely) eat, it is next to impossible to generate enough Ult to stay in WW form for more than 15-20 seconds. Part of the problem is it takes longer than that (or feels like it at least) to get the 1k Fury needed to use Rampage to make the Ult drain stop for a short time. Generally if you can go into a fight with full Ult or at least close to it, your initial transformation will last long enough that you can hit Rampage, stop the drain and get back Ult, and repeat the cycle.

However, if you have like 300 or less Ult, it just feels like it goes way too quickly and your Ult gen is way too slow to balance it out. The worst thing is that once you lose form for the first time, it then becomes nigh impossible to maintain it long enough to get Rampage. A big part of that is because you lose all your Fury once you leave WW form, so there's pretty much no way to get that 1k Fury within the 10 seconds of using your Ult if you're going right back into WW form as soon as you can. And if you're waiting until you get to 400 or so Ult before doing it...that completely defeats the purpose of WW being reworked to only take 100 Ult to pop. What's the point of the adjustment if we can barely use the form unless we wait to get nearly full Ult anyways?

So I've been thinking of some possible ways to make it easier to stay in WW form for Berserker. I don't know if making these apply to the Pack Leader Morph would be a good idea or not since I haven't tested the sustain there but have heard it's a LOT easier than it is for Berserker, so for the time being I'd say anything listed only apply to the Berserker Morph.

1) Let Fury carry over between transformations. As long as you're in WW form, you generate your Fury, and when you're out of the form it stop generating but isn't lost. This would make it so if you do eventually lose WW form, you aren't stuck in a loop of not getting enough Fury within 10 seconds to use Rampage. Eventually, you'll be able to pop it, stop that drain, and hopefully have enough time to build your Ult back up so you can use it again before the Ult drain knocks you out. And even if i you can't keep the loop going the whole duration of a fight, at LEAST you'll be able to spend more time in WW form than now.

2) Reduce the amount of Fury it takes to use Rampage. Drop the amount down to 750 to start maybe. Making it cost less is probably easier than doing the coding to let Fury carry over between transformations. It being cheaper obviously means you can use Rampage sooner, aka before your Ult drains out entirely and you lose your fur coat.

3) Make WW Skills give more Fury. Another option is just to make Fury generation faster. It does essentially the same thing, just in a different way.

4) Reduce the Ult drain. Instead of losing 10 Ult every second for 10 seconds, maybe make it 5. This effectively cuts the cost in half, which again has the same outcome of giving you more time to regain Ult to counter the drain. Back when I first read that the cost would be 100 Ult every 10 seconds I genuinely thought it was a typo and was supposed to be 10 Ult every 10 seconds.

5) Add Major Heroism to the Berserker Morph. Could be the easiest option, just slap Major Heroism on the Morph and have it proc every X number of seconds. That way it can stack with Oakensoul or Heroism Pots to get Minor Heroism too. Minor Heroism on its own isn't enough either, as my WW runs Oakensoul and even with that I was having a very hard time maintaining WW form in longer fights without adds/trash to eat. This was also the case for Light/Heavy Attacks, weaving those in just didn't generate enough Ult to counter the drain, even with Minor Heorism from Oaken.

6) Conversely, rework Shapeshifter's Chain to give Major Heroism. As it stands now, the Skill reduction cost is largely pointless given how much the WW Skills have already had their costs reduced. Keep the reduced cost to use the Ult, or potentially rework it that it slows the Ult drain to maybe 7 or 8 Ult every second or something. Could also either make it give Minor Heroism or leave that as a buff to get from other sources, but it's already the WW Mythic and is now outdated given WW's rework. I'd also say to add the caveat that the Heroism buff only applies while transformed.

7) Add Major Heroism to one of the WW Sets, or a 5-piece bonus that slows the drain. This basically would have the same effect as the other two points, which is to say give Major Heroism. Now grainted, these last two things might be harder to restrict to just Berserker because I imagine it would be a pain to code it so only Berserkers get the Heroism bit, and could also potentially break the Sets/Mythic or other things relating to combat in WW form.

I'm sure there are probably other ways of figuring it out that aren't too broken or OP, these are just things I've thought of over the last day or so.

Arunei · April 17

Also because I just know someone's gonna come by and go "just run in a group of other WWs/with someone using Pack Leader", we shouldn't be forced into groups to play one of the Morphs when the other can function fine by itself. Yes, wolves irl tend to run in packs, but real life doesn't have to be mirrored in a game. On top of that, there's never going to be a time where another person or a group of other people are going to want to play the same content at the same time that you do EVERY single time you want to play.

A lot of us like playing on our own, a lot of the time schedules or interests don't allow for people to play together. I don't want my ability to play my character properly being dictated by others having the time and desire to also play WW at the same time I do.

Erickson9610 · April 17

Let the Blood Rage passive generate Ultimate when dealing damage, just like how the old Blood Rage passive added transformation time when dealing damage. It's as simple as that.

JimT722 · April 17

I'm probably going to try having 2 different setups. a pack leader one for solo for sure. the idea behind berserker is damage at the cost of sustain. in groups you balance the cost thru the passive and having 1 pack leader making it a non issue. it seems good in theory and could be fine since we can quickly change gear and morphs with the armory system.

I haven't tested it but I can see it possibly working fine.

BattleAxe · April 17

Simple solution rework shapeshifters chain mythic to essentially remove the ultimate cost of maintaining ww form as well as increase fury generation. This would make it a difficult choice between Oakensoul or shapeshifters.

Arunei · April 17

JimT722 wrote: »

I'm probably going to try having 2 different setups. a pack leader one for solo for sure. the idea behind berserker is damage at the cost of sustain. in groups you balance the cost thru the passive and having 1 pack leader making it a non issue. it seems good in theory and could be fine since we can quickly change gear and morphs with the armory system.

I haven't tested it but I can see it possibly working fine.

The whole point of my second post is that taking Berserker shouldn't all but force you into playing with others to sustain it. BOTH forms should be able to sustain on their own. No other playstyle goes "well if you want to reliably do the special thing your build is based on you need to play with others".

A lot of people prefer playing on their own.

A lot of people don't want to be bound to the schedules and desires of other people to play WW properly.

A lot of people don't want to be bound by others they're playing with having to afk for a while or log off because irl something came up.

A lot of people want to be able to play WHEN and HOW they want. Thus "just run with someone using Pack Leader" is, respectfully, advice that ignores basically my entire second post and does not make the problem of Berserker sustain a "non-issue". I DO NOT WANT to have to find a person I know that wants to run WW, wants to take Pack Leader, will be free whenever I want to do something, will want to do the same thing I do, and will have the time to play for as long as I do, JUST so I can actually play Berserker without bouncing back and forth between the form every handful of seconds.

I don't want to be restricted to what and when I play based on other peoples' schedules and wishes. I prefer playing stuff on my own, and while I am in a couple of Guilds who I could ask any given day if any Pack Leaders are around, there is never a guarantee there Will be. But I don't want to. 'Play how you want' is still a core philosophy of ESO and how I want to play is by not relying on other people for a build I want to play to be reliable.

Also Berserker shouldn't have to trade sustain for damage. By that logic Pack Leader should be trading sustain for Major Protection and being able to tank more damage. Both Morphs should be as viable in solo as in group play, but in sustained fights where there's nothing to eat to get Ult, it's far too hard to sustain Berserker unless you're going into every fight with full or near full Ult.

It's even worse in fights where you're getting Stunned or hit with Knockback because every literal second counts for getting your Fury built up.

MashmalloMan · April 18

BattleAxe wrote: »

Simple solution rework shapeshifters chain mythic to essentially remove the ultimate cost of maintaining ww form as well as increase fury generation. This would make it a difficult choice between Oakensoul or shapeshifters.

I will be converting an alt character to a WW with U50 for PVE DPS, so I was curious about Oakensoul. These were my findings:

Minor Endurance and Intellect -> Don't need sustain anymore.
Minor Aegis, Fortitude, Protection, and Mending -> All defensive, not required for DPS, can be provided by supports.
Empower -> Not interested in heavy attack rotations.
Minor Slayer -> Trial sets are not a detriment to use, they tend to be the strongest so gaining a 5 piece set slot at the cost of this mythic isn't worth it.
Minor Courage -> Decent, but covered through groups and if you have Pack Leader WW with you.
Minor Heroism -> The only thing I really care about, but I could just use a Heroism Potion or a group buff.
Redundant buffs -> Minor Berserk and Force, Major Brutality, Sorcery, Prophecy, Savagery, and Resolve.

So.. Minor Courage and Heroism is all it really gives me, which is covered by groups or a pot. Not worth a mythic slot, in non serious content I have Devour, in serious content I'll use a potion.

Oakensoul is obviously for a specific demographic so I guess I'm not surprised since WW shares some of those design princibles. Oakensoul buffs you for losing a bar, but WW already does that within passives and abilities, so of course there's overlap, seems intentional so that's fine... WW needs a real mythic.

Shapeshifter's is a pretty mid though, I'm surprised they didn't change it at all this patch. The -15% cost see's more value than before if it also applies to the ult cost/10s, but if you can manage it without it, all you're getting is 1700 stamina so I'm all for your suggestion to improve it by disabling the upfront cost as an easy solution for people who can't manage the ultimate or don't want to invest into as much.

So yeah both of these mythics even with your suggestion seems more like an early-mid game choice or for PVP where they get much better value, neither I'd use for PVE DPS which brought me to looking at Signet.

WW doesn't have a real ult spender, Rampage uses Fury and you want your ult well above 200 before it becomes dangeriously low so the full bonus is active all the time. WW also has abilities for guaranteed status effects or 2 damage types in one, with light attacks giving random status effects and Berserker adding a dot to your light attack, this feels like a perfect match all things considered. It might even outpace Warmask in single target without the aoe dps sacrifice and the debuff management.

JimT722 · April 18

Arunei wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

I'm probably going to try having 2 different setups. a pack leader one for solo for sure. the idea behind berserker is damage at the cost of sustain. in groups you balance the cost thru the passive and having 1 pack leader making it a non issue. it seems good in theory and could be fine since we can quickly change gear and morphs with the armory system.

I haven't tested it but I can see it possibly working fine.

The whole point of my second post is that taking Berserker shouldn't all but force you into playing with others to sustain it. BOTH forms should be able to sustain on their own. No other playstyle goes "well if you want to reliably do the special thing your build is based on you need to play with others".

A lot of people prefer playing on their own.

A lot of people don't want to be bound to the schedules and desires of other people to play WW properly.

A lot of people don't want to be bound by others they're playing with having to afk for a while or log off because irl something came up.

A lot of people want to be able to play WHEN and HOW they want. Thus "just run with someone using Pack Leader" is, respectfully, advice that ignores basically my entire second post and does not make the problem of Berserker sustain a "non-issue". I DO NOT WANT to have to find a person I know that wants to run WW, wants to take Pack Leader, will be free whenever I want to do something, will want to do the same thing I do, and will have the time to play for as long as I do, JUST so I can actually play Berserker without bouncing back and forth between the form every handful of seconds.

I don't want to be restricted to what and when I play based on other peoples' schedules and wishes. I prefer playing stuff on my own, and while I am in a couple of Guilds who I could ask any given day if any Pack Leaders are around, there is never a guarantee there Will be. But I don't want to. 'Play how you want' is still a core philosophy of ESO and how I want to play is by not relying on other people for a build I want to play to be reliable.

Also Berserker shouldn't have to trade sustain for damage. By that logic Pack Leader should be trading sustain for Major Protection and being able to tank more damage. Both Morphs should be as viable in solo as in group play, but in sustained fights where there's nothing to eat to get Ult, it's far too hard to sustain Berserker unless you're going into every fight with full or near full Ult.

It's even worse in fights where you're getting Stunned or hit with Knockback because every literal second counts for getting your Fury built up.

I didn't ignore what you wrote. I just thinking i might try using the armory system to work around it. They seem to want pack leader to have an easier time with sustain. that's how it was before and it remains true now. sustaining werewolf actually feels easier overall now. it might be OK running berserker solo with certain sets under the right conditions.

having pack leader ready to go for an easier time in certain situations is an option and possibly a good one.

MashmalloMan · April 18

Don't mind the DPS, it sucks because I transformed on back bar by mistake, losing my 5p set. If anything this illustrates my point better as it dragged the fight out to 5 minutes and 31 seconds. Green is ultimate, as you can see it's mostly upwards the whole time. Started at 420 ultimate, ended with more than what I had, some ult was lost due to hitting 500 while in Rampage.

Investments:

Sorc = -15% ult
Bonebroth = -5% ult
WW Solo Passive = -20% ult
Minor Heroism pot = +0.66 ult/s (22% increase)
Feral Pounce = Additional Fury gen

Let's say I could Devour occasionally, over 5 minutes I'd expect the option, so what would I get?

75 ultimate.
12s of no ult cost = 96 ult retained (76 for my setup).
15 ult from the 10s weave buff.
125 fury (Neutral to just casting abilities).
100% health (Safety net).

With the retained ult and ult generated during the immunity window, you're nearly +200 ult farther than what you would be had you not Devoured. It's extremely overloaded and meant to be interacted with. If you can't or don't want to Devour as frequently, then you need to build for ult gen, and since stamina recovery is a non factor, this is easier than ever.

From my perspective, they've nailed the balance here. It's something you actually need to consider and maintain, but also not incredibly punishing when built for correctly. The only aspect not everyone should have by default is Daedric Summoning and Minor Heroism, of which you can cover through other means via subclassing, masteries, class passives, or sets.

All this to say I'm not against buffing other sources as mentioned in the OP especially since many of them are downright terrible, but I heavily disagree on the notion that you NEED Pack Leader or other WW's.

If I were to tinker with the balance a bit, I could see making the transformation free out of combat. Would make prep a bit easier and more forgiving, especially if you built yourself up to 500 or even a lower 300 ultimate, you wouldn't imediately bring yourself down by -100 before combat even begins and the race to maintain it starts. They could then add to Shapeshifter's Chain that WW transfromation is free in combat as well.

I also wouldn't be against giving Minor (Not Major) Heroism to a WW ability or passive, it adds minimal gains overall, but it would feel like a natural evolution of what they're going for while reducing the need to use Heroism potions which is a little counter intuitive for a subclass that is meant as a early-mid tier playstyle option. Those players are the ones using Oakensoul and avoiding spending money on Heroism pots at all costs, but at the same time, it would remove a min/max build path, so idk, but food for thought.

Arunei · April 18

MashmalloMan wrote: »

Don't mind the DPS, it sucks because I transformed on back bar by mistake, losing my 5p set. If anything this illustrates my point better as it dragged the fight out to 5 minutes and 31 seconds. Green is ultimate, as you can see it's mostly upwards the whole time. Started at 420 ultimate, ended with more than what I had, some ult was lost due to hitting 500 while in Rampage.

Investments:
Sorc = -15% ult

Bonebroth = -5% ult

WW Solo Passive = -20% ult

Minor Heroism pot = +0.66 ult/s (22% increase)

Feral Pounce = Additional Fury gen

Let's say I could Devour occasionally, over 5 minutes I'd expect the option, so what would I get?
75 ultimate.

12s of no ult cost = 96 ult retained (76 for my setup).

15 ult from the 10s weave buff.

125 fury (Neutral to just casting abilities).

100% health (Safety net).

With the retained ult and ult generated during the immunity window, you're nearly +200 ult farther than what you would be had you not Devoured. It's extremely overloaded and meant to be interacted with. If you can't or don't want to Devour as frequently, then you need to build for ult gen, and since stamina recovery is a non factor, this is easier than ever.

From my perspective, they've nailed the balance here. It's something you actually need to consider and maintain, but also not incredibly punishing when built for correctly. The only aspect not everyone should have by default is Daedric Summoning and Minor Heroism, of which you can cover through other means via subclassing, masteries, class passives, or sets.

All this to say I'm not against buffing other sources as mentioned in the OP especially since many of them are downright terrible, but I heavily disagree on the notion that you NEED Pack Leader or other WW's.

If I were to tinker with the balance a bit, I could see making the transformation free out of combat. Would make prep a bit easier and more forgiving, especially if you built yourself up to 500 or even a lower 300 ultimate, you wouldn't imediately bring yourself down by -100 before combat even begins and the race to maintain it starts. They could then add to Shapeshifter's Chain that WW transfromation is free in combat as well.

I also wouldn't be against giving Minor (Not Major) Heroism to a WW ability or passive, it adds minimal gains overall, but it would feel like a natural evolution of what they're going for while reducing the need to use Heroism potions which is a little counter intuitive for a subclass that is meant as a early-mid tier playstyle option. Those players are the ones using Oakensoul and avoiding spending money on Heroism pots at all costs, but at the same time, it would remove a min/max build path, so idk, but food for thought.

I don't feel like you should need highly specific builds that lock out variation in Class and Sets to be able to maintain Berserker form, especially since Pack Leader doesn't need this level of being built for 'correctly'. My experience (and that of others I've seen posting around here) is that keeping up Berserker is too hard if you're not at like 400-500 Ult before going into a fight. This is especially the case against bosses that don't summon adds and you can't get that Devour boost, or even in cases where there ARE adds but mechanics or numbers prevent you from Devouring reliably.

And the second you lose your WW form the first time, it becomes nest to impossible to sustain it going on unless you're waiting until you get around 400 Ult. Which, again...what's the point of lowering and changing the cost if in order to make the most use of it, you're still having to get that much Ult? You're not going to be earning 100+ Ult in ten seconds to avoid being knocked out of the form and you definitely won't be getting 1k Fury to activate Rampage and stop the drain.

Minor Heroism didn't help. Light/Heavy Attacking between Skills didn't help. Making sure I was doing my Fury gen right to get Rampage didn't help. The Ult drain is essentially 10 Ult every second; L/HA only gives you 3 Ult every second and Minor Heroism only gives 1 every 1.5 seconds. Rampage only helps if you have enough Ult to last you the time it takes to get 1k Fury, and it takes longer than 10 seconds to do that:

-Every WW Skill at base gives 15 Fury and it doesn't seem there's a cooldown on generating it.
-Blood Rage adds an extra 5|10 Fury per source, but only once every 6 seconds.
-Devour for Berserker only will give 15 Fury for each tick, doesn't help for fights without anything to eat. Same thing goes for the Ult drain pause; in fights without things to eat, you aren't getting that perk.
-If I'm understanding the Patch Notes correctly, Feral Pounce can generate 30 Ult, while Feral Carnage can generate 45, but over a 12 second period (4 every second).
-And Hircine's Fury, again if I'm reading right, gives 30 Fury.

So let's say you're doing Feral Pounce to close distance, then Carnage next. Follow Up with Bloody Gnash/Rip and Tear to get the respective debuff on the enemy, Ferocious Roar twice to get double Blood Hunger stacks, go into Claw Fury, use Hircine's Rage mostly to get the 30 Fury. Each of those at base gives 15 Fury:

Feral Pounce: 15 + 30
Feral Carnage: 15 + 45 over 12 seconds
Gnash/Tear: 15
Ferocious Roar x2: 30
Claw Fury: 15
Hircine's Rage: 30 (this seems to double the base generation basically, which is why there's no 15 + 30)

Given Claw Fury is a channel lasting almost five seconds, you'll almost certainly proc Blood Rage twice in that rotation. Now I don't know if the "once every 6 seconds" applies to each source separately (so you get 10 per source every 6 seconds) or if the cooldown gets applied to all sources after the first (so you get the 10 from Feral Pounce and then don't get any additional 10 from any other sources for 6 seconds). Let's just assume it's the former and tack on 10 to every source:

Feral Pounce: 15 + 30 -> 25 + 40
Feral Carnage: 15 + 45 over 12 seconds -> 25 + 55 over 12 seconds
Gnash/Tear: 15 -> 25
Ferocious Roar x2: 30 -> 40
Claw Fury: 15 -> 25
Hircine's Rage: 30 -> 40

So let's say this whole rotation takes like, seven seconds. Maybe more like eight to account for throwing a LA in there somewhere for the Bleed and to get Ult gen. Ultimately it probably doesn't really matter what order your rotation is in using this particular set of Skills because really, it'll take the same amount of time regardless and your generating the same amount of Fury. In this rotation of 7-8 seconds, you're generating less than 300 Fury. And if you're getting that little Fury over that long, you sure as heck ain't getting the REST of that 1k you need in 2-3 more seconds.

Now I'm not great at math and I could be wrong about any number of the things here, so if my numbers are off or if I'm misreading Skills or not taking other things into account by all means, someone correct me. But from my experience, it just isn't possible to get 1k Fury in the 10 seconds you get if you pop Berserker as soon as you hit 100 Ult, rather than spending time getting back to 400 or so to actually HAVE that time to build up enough Fury for Rampage. Which, as has been established, defeats the purpose of changing the Ult to a drain that can be activated at 100 from an Ult that took 350-400 (depending on rank) to use.

At the end of the day, it just really really REALLY feels bad to constantly be knocked out of WW form and then have no real chance of getting into Rampage after that first form loss unless you're spending the time to get to the amount of Ult you needed for the current Live version, at the very least. And I truly don't believe the answer should be having to spec super ultra hard into Ult gen in ways that lock you out of any number of other builds just to keep up with Pack Leader. Sure, make it a bit harder, make it something you need to perhaps spec into one of the WW Sets or Shapeshifter's Chain (if they actually update it at all anyway) for, but NOT something you have to dedicate your Class and all of your Sets to. Berserker needs better ways of generating Ult and/or faster ways of getting Fury so we can get into Rampage quicker to offset the Ult drain.

Edit b/c idk why I was saying Pack Master.

Arunei · April 18

JimT722 wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

I'm probably going to try having 2 different setups. a pack leader one for solo for sure. the idea behind berserker is damage at the cost of sustain. in groups you balance the cost thru the passive and having 1 pack leader making it a non issue. it seems good in theory and could be fine since we can quickly change gear and morphs with the armory system.

I haven't tested it but I can see it possibly working fine.

The whole point of my second post is that taking Berserker shouldn't all but force you into playing with others to sustain it. BOTH forms should be able to sustain on their own. No other playstyle goes "well if you want to reliably do the special thing your build is based on you need to play with others".

A lot of people prefer playing on their own.

A lot of people don't want to be bound to the schedules and desires of other people to play WW properly.

A lot of people don't want to be bound by others they're playing with having to afk for a while or log off because irl something came up.

A lot of people want to be able to play WHEN and HOW they want. Thus "just run with someone using Pack Leader" is, respectfully, advice that ignores basically my entire second post and does not make the problem of Berserker sustain a "non-issue". I DO NOT WANT to have to find a person I know that wants to run WW, wants to take Pack Leader, will be free whenever I want to do something, will want to do the same thing I do, and will have the time to play for as long as I do, JUST so I can actually play Berserker without bouncing back and forth between the form every handful of seconds.

I don't want to be restricted to what and when I play based on other peoples' schedules and wishes. I prefer playing stuff on my own, and while I am in a couple of Guilds who I could ask any given day if any Pack Leaders are around, there is never a guarantee there Will be. But I don't want to. 'Play how you want' is still a core philosophy of ESO and how I want to play is by not relying on other people for a build I want to play to be reliable.

Also Berserker shouldn't have to trade sustain for damage. By that logic Pack Leader should be trading sustain for Major Protection and being able to tank more damage. Both Morphs should be as viable in solo as in group play, but in sustained fights where there's nothing to eat to get Ult, it's far too hard to sustain Berserker unless you're going into every fight with full or near full Ult.

It's even worse in fights where you're getting Stunned or hit with Knockback because every literal second counts for getting your Fury built up.

I didn't ignore what you wrote. I just thinking i might try using the armory system to work around it. They seem to want pack leader to have an easier time with sustain. that's how it was before and it remains true now. sustaining werewolf actually feels easier overall now. it might be OK running berserker solo with certain sets under the right conditions.

having pack leader ready to go for an easier time in certain situations is an option and possibly a good one.

The only problem with the idea of using the Armory is I don't want to play with the Pack Leader Morph. If I did, I'd just take Pack Leader to start. I don't feel like the answer to being able to use WW Berserker in whatever content one is doing is to just get rid of it in favor of the other Morph.

And like I said in the other post, I also don't think the answer is having to run super specific builds in order for it to be the ""right"" conditions. Practically everything has been changed with WW in this rework, so I don't see why they can't make it that Berserker doesn't need to have this sustain problem when the whole point of the change to how the Ult functions was to make it easier to use. Everything else was changed, why not that too? Isn't build variety something people generally want more of? Why should Berserker then have to give up variety that Pack Leader doesn't in order to have decent sustain?

I don't see why both forms can't have viable sustain on their own in solo play and have the main difference be the buffs each one gets. Berserker gets damage and the ability to extend stuff with Devour (when there are things to proc it on anyway), Pack Leader gets damage reduction and better blocking. They would both still retain the ability to either go hard into damage or become tanky, just both can actually hold their forms and one isn't having to use really specific Sets/Classes to do so.

ADarklore · April 18

Will anyone be using the Hide of the Werewolf set to help with sustain? I saw that HTM was talking about that in one of his videos.

JimT722 · April 18

Arunei wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

I'm probably going to try having 2 different setups. a pack leader one for solo for sure. the idea behind berserker is damage at the cost of sustain. in groups you balance the cost thru the passive and having 1 pack leader making it a non issue. it seems good in theory and could be fine since we can quickly change gear and morphs with the armory system.

I haven't tested it but I can see it possibly working fine.

The whole point of my second post is that taking Berserker shouldn't all but force you into playing with others to sustain it. BOTH forms should be able to sustain on their own. No other playstyle goes "well if you want to reliably do the special thing your build is based on you need to play with others".

A lot of people prefer playing on their own.

A lot of people don't want to be bound to the schedules and desires of other people to play WW properly.

A lot of people don't want to be bound by others they're playing with having to afk for a while or log off because irl something came up.

A lot of people want to be able to play WHEN and HOW they want. Thus "just run with someone using Pack Leader" is, respectfully, advice that ignores basically my entire second post and does not make the problem of Berserker sustain a "non-issue". I DO NOT WANT to have to find a person I know that wants to run WW, wants to take Pack Leader, will be free whenever I want to do something, will want to do the same thing I do, and will have the time to play for as long as I do, JUST so I can actually play Berserker without bouncing back and forth between the form every handful of seconds.

I don't want to be restricted to what and when I play based on other peoples' schedules and wishes. I prefer playing stuff on my own, and while I am in a couple of Guilds who I could ask any given day if any Pack Leaders are around, there is never a guarantee there Will be. But I don't want to. 'Play how you want' is still a core philosophy of ESO and how I want to play is by not relying on other people for a build I want to play to be reliable.

Also Berserker shouldn't have to trade sustain for damage. By that logic Pack Leader should be trading sustain for Major Protection and being able to tank more damage. Both Morphs should be as viable in solo as in group play, but in sustained fights where there's nothing to eat to get Ult, it's far too hard to sustain Berserker unless you're going into every fight with full or near full Ult.

It's even worse in fights where you're getting Stunned or hit with Knockback because every literal second counts for getting your Fury built up.

I didn't ignore what you wrote. I just thinking i might try using the armory system to work around it. They seem to want pack leader to have an easier time with sustain. that's how it was before and it remains true now. sustaining werewolf actually feels easier overall now. it might be OK running berserker solo with certain sets under the right conditions.

having pack leader ready to go for an easier time in certain situations is an option and possibly a good one.

The only problem with the idea of using the Armory is I don't want to play with the Pack Leader Morph. If I did, I'd just take Pack Leader to start. I don't feel like the answer to being able to use WW Berserker in whatever content one is doing is to just get rid of it in favor of the other Morph.

And like I said in the other post, I also don't think the answer is having to run super specific builds in order for it to be the ""right"" conditions. Practically everything has been changed with WW in this rework, so I don't see why they can't make it that Berserker doesn't need to have this sustain problem when the whole point of the change to how the Ult functions was to make it easier to use. Everything else was changed, why not that too? Isn't build variety something people generally want more of? Why should Berserker then have to give up variety that Pack Leader doesn't in order to have decent sustain?

I don't see why both forms can't have viable sustain on their own in solo play and have the main difference be the buffs each one gets. Berserker gets damage and the ability to extend stuff with Devour (when there are things to proc it on anyway), Pack Leader gets damage reduction and better blocking. They would both still retain the ability to either go hard into damage or become tanky, just both can actually hold their forms and one isn't having to use really specific Sets/Classes to do so.

I agree i would much rather have that. I do hope they tweak things a bit because werewolf is almost there. it actually feels nice to play in most circumstances. I'm also trying to find other solutions in the event they don't. I think as is Berserker will only struggle in longer fights when you are the only werewolf.

WuffyCerulei · April 18

BattleAxe wrote: »

Simple solution rework shapeshifters chain mythic to essentially remove the ultimate cost of maintaining ww form as well as increase fury generation. This would make it a difficult choice between Oakensoul or shapeshifters.

This!!!!!!! And probs add a Minor buff like Minor Force for Berserker and Minor Protection for Pack Leader.

Arunei · April 18

JimT722 wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

JimT722 wrote: »

I'm probably going to try having 2 different setups. a pack leader one for solo for sure. the idea behind berserker is damage at the cost of sustain. in groups you balance the cost thru the passive and having 1 pack leader making it a non issue. it seems good in theory and could be fine since we can quickly change gear and morphs with the armory system.

I haven't tested it but I can see it possibly working fine.

The whole point of my second post is that taking Berserker shouldn't all but force you into playing with others to sustain it. BOTH forms should be able to sustain on their own. No other playstyle goes "well if you want to reliably do the special thing your build is based on you need to play with others".

A lot of people prefer playing on their own.

A lot of people don't want to be bound to the schedules and desires of other people to play WW properly.

A lot of people don't want to be bound by others they're playing with having to afk for a while or log off because irl something came up.

A lot of people want to be able to play WHEN and HOW they want. Thus "just run with someone using Pack Leader" is, respectfully, advice that ignores basically my entire second post and does not make the problem of Berserker sustain a "non-issue". I DO NOT WANT to have to find a person I know that wants to run WW, wants to take Pack Leader, will be free whenever I want to do something, will want to do the same thing I do, and will have the time to play for as long as I do, JUST so I can actually play Berserker without bouncing back and forth between the form every handful of seconds.

I don't want to be restricted to what and when I play based on other peoples' schedules and wishes. I prefer playing stuff on my own, and while I am in a couple of Guilds who I could ask any given day if any Pack Leaders are around, there is never a guarantee there Will be. But I don't want to. 'Play how you want' is still a core philosophy of ESO and how I want to play is by not relying on other people for a build I want to play to be reliable.

Also Berserker shouldn't have to trade sustain for damage. By that logic Pack Leader should be trading sustain for Major Protection and being able to tank more damage. Both Morphs should be as viable in solo as in group play, but in sustained fights where there's nothing to eat to get Ult, it's far too hard to sustain Berserker unless you're going into every fight with full or near full Ult.

It's even worse in fights where you're getting Stunned or hit with Knockback because every literal second counts for getting your Fury built up.

I didn't ignore what you wrote. I just thinking i might try using the armory system to work around it. They seem to want pack leader to have an easier time with sustain. that's how it was before and it remains true now. sustaining werewolf actually feels easier overall now. it might be OK running berserker solo with certain sets under the right conditions.

having pack leader ready to go for an easier time in certain situations is an option and possibly a good one.

The only problem with the idea of using the Armory is I don't want to play with the Pack Leader Morph. If I did, I'd just take Pack Leader to start. I don't feel like the answer to being able to use WW Berserker in whatever content one is doing is to just get rid of it in favor of the other Morph.

And like I said in the other post, I also don't think the answer is having to run super specific builds in order for it to be the ""right"" conditions. Practically everything has been changed with WW in this rework, so I don't see why they can't make it that Berserker doesn't need to have this sustain problem when the whole point of the change to how the Ult functions was to make it easier to use. Everything else was changed, why not that too? Isn't build variety something people generally want more of? Why should Berserker then have to give up variety that Pack Leader doesn't in order to have decent sustain?

I don't see why both forms can't have viable sustain on their own in solo play and have the main difference be the buffs each one gets. Berserker gets damage and the ability to extend stuff with Devour (when there are things to proc it on anyway), Pack Leader gets damage reduction and better blocking. They would both still retain the ability to either go hard into damage or become tanky, just both can actually hold their forms and one isn't having to use really specific Sets/Classes to do so.

I agree i would much rather have that. I do hope they tweak things a bit because werewolf is almost there. it actually feels nice to play in most circumstances. I'm also trying to find other solutions in the event they don't. I think as is Berserker will only struggle in longer fights when you are the only werewolf.

This has been my experience. In shorter fights or even longer ones with steady adds, I have no problem sustaining Berserker. But in longer fights without anything to Devour and/or ones I'm forced to run around to do X or Y (anything that isn't fighting basically), I struggle a lot with keeping the form up.

Bittergreen the Wild, for example, is awful to try and fight as a WW. The stomp is a pita to avoid given the wide range it has, most of his attacks deal high damage (and that stomp also is a knockdown if it hits), he constantly runs all over the spawn area so you're having to chase him, then you have to deal with slapping the Spriggans and it's hard (for me at least) to try and keep an eye on Bittergreen to avoid the stomp while dealing with said Spriggans...bleah.

The Abomination, however, was...mixed. I tested a handful of times, and a few I had no issues staying in WW form and others I couldn't maintain it. I was at roughly the same amount of Ult going into each fight afaik, so I don't think that was the variable. I'll have to double check that later.

Blueclaw Matron wasn't a problem. The intial little hoard of Dreugh don't despawn for some time after being killed, so you can use Devour on them here and there for at least one tick and to get the Ult drain pause.

MashmalloMan · April 20

Arunei wrote: »

I don't feel like you should need highly specific builds that lock out variation in Class and Sets to be able to maintain Berserker form, especially since Pack Leader doesn't need this level of being built for 'correctly'. My experience (and that of others I've seen posting around here) is that keeping up Berserker is too hard if you're not at like 400-500 Ult before going into a fight. This is especially the case against bosses that don't summon adds and you can't get that Devour boost, or even in cases where there ARE adds but mechanics or numbers prevent you from Devouring reliably.

And the second you lose your WW form the first time, it becomes nest to impossible to sustain it going on unless you're waiting until you get around 400 Ult. Which, again...what's the point of lowering and changing the cost if in order to make the most use of it, you're still having to get that much Ult? You're not going to be earning 100+ Ult in ten seconds to avoid being knocked out of the form and you definitely won't be getting 1k Fury to activate Rampage and stop the drain.

Minor Heroism didn't help. Light/Heavy Attacking between Skills didn't help. Making sure I was doing my Fury gen right to get Rampage didn't help. The Ult drain is essentially 10 Ult every second; L/HA only gives you 3 Ult every second and Minor Heroism only gives 1 every 1.5 seconds. Rampage only helps if you have enough Ult to last you the time it takes to get 1k Fury, and it takes longer than 10 seconds to do that:

As I said in detail, you do not need to make "highly specific builds". Daedric Summoning and Minor Heroism pots are the only additional things I used, 2 things, and 1 of those you were already using via Oakensoul. Bone Broth, Fury generation, and WW passives are all no brainers that everyone should be using so I would hardly consider my 1 build path as highly specific in any stretch of the imagination.

The rest of your math is built on the wrong premise so I'll seek to correct it.

Ult drain is not 100/10s, at it's very worst with no investment it's 80/10s because of the WW passive reducing it by -20%. When you include Bone Broth the 80 lowers to 76 ult/10s. With Daedric Summoning or Shapeshifters Chain, I can lower that 76 to 63. Again, super easy to accomplish. Subclassing is great and Masteries don't all work for WW's.

Arunei wrote: »

-Every WW Skill at base gives 15 Fury and it doesn't seem there's a cooldown on generating it.
-Blood Rage adds an extra 5|10 Fury per source, but only once every 6 seconds.

There is no cooldown for either, Blood Rage grants +10 fury 100% of the time so the 15 becomes 25. You can see this in game. The 6s cooldown you're mentioning was only touched on in the patch notes because ZOS was explaining the old effect being replaced:

Blood Rage: This passive now increases the amount of Fury you generate by 5|10 per source, rather than adding 3|5 seconds to your Werewolf timer when dealing damaging, up to once every 6 seconds.

Arunei wrote: »

-Devour for Berserker only will give 15 Fury for each tick, doesn't help for fights without anything to eat. Same thing goes for the Ult drain pause; in fights without things to eat, you aren't getting that perk.

The passive upgrades all sources including this, so it's 25/tick or 125 total. In my previous comment I lasted 5+ minutes without the need to Devour once, it makes it easier, but is not a requirement. If you think you can't or don't want to Devour, include another source of Ult gen or Ult cost reduction like I have with Daedric Summoning. Shapeshifters Chain does the same thing.

Arunei wrote: »

-If I'm understanding the Patch Notes correctly, Feral Pounce can generate 30 Ult, while Feral Carnage can generate 45, but over a 12 second period (4 every second).

They both generate Fury, not ultimate, but I think you put a typo.

Feral Pounce = 25 (activation) + 25 (morph) = 50
Feral Carnage = 25 (activation) + 25/tick (morph - 4s cooldown) = 100 over 12s

Arunei wrote: »

-And Hircine's Fury, again if I'm reading right, gives 30 Fury.

50 with passive and no cooldown. In a rotation, you should be casting this once every 15s. If you're between packs, waiting for an Immunity phase, etc, you can cast this constantly to generate extra Fury. One cast of this is basically -2s off of your Rampage cooldown. If nothing is happening, cast it.

I'm going to have to stop there, comment is getting super long and confusing for the rest of your example and it's based on flawed math so it doesn't really matter.

The basic premise is this.. they designed Fury to cost 25 deliberately so it fits neatly with Rampage's 1000 cost. 1000/25 = 40 seconds of casting WW abilities. If you use Feral Pounce and Feral Carnage in conjunction with Rage every 15s, you'll reduce Rampage from 40s to roughly 30s, 1/4 the ultimate drain gone, an entire +80 ult.

Also, you keep making comments like this which is slightly concerning to this discussion:

Arunei wrote: »

"Maybe more like eight to account for throwing a LA in there somewhere for the Bleed and to get Ult gen."

Since WW is now designed around ultimate drain, ultimate gen is very important which makes weaving very important. Berserker at its core is designed around light attack weaving with the bleed, you need to be doing this before every single ability cast, if not for the dot, at least the ult gen.

At base, the dot Berserker applies ticks after 1s, then at 2s, and finally 3s, meaning if you light attack weave it's basically the same as just allowing it to run its 3s duration out. 1 tick every 1 second. However.. The dot now stacks up to 5 times which allows it to tick on 0s (application). Very important becasue this means you get 2 ticks every 1 second when you weave once every global cooldown. This is how Relequen works and why the DPS it produces is 2x that of what the tooltip seems to show.

All this to say I don't entirely disagree with you, I think the upfront cost should be removed out of combat, then add an extra line to Shape Shifters that says "ultimate cost for WW is also reduced to 0 within combat". This eliminates the weird up and down nature of the ult when you're trying to get the ball rolling while still including a build path for people who want to shift in/out during combat via Shape Shifter.

Also also.. Shape Shifter as you wrote in your original comment is not useless. It lowers WW transformation and the ult/10s by -15%, it's effectively a universal Daedric Summoning passive. Again, not hard to build for. I understand Oakensoul is a good entry level option, but there are better mythics for WW's especially due to all the redundancies, as I previously mentioned that set only really gives Minor Heroism, Minor Courage, and Empower once you get a trial set the Minor Slayer is useless. The rest of it is defensive. If you like heavy attack WW I guess it's the best there is unfortunately.

tomofhyrule · April 20

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Let the Blood Rage passive generate Ultimate when dealing damage, just like how the old Blood Rage passive added transformation time when dealing damage. It's as simple as that.

This is the best option right here. Simple and in line with Live.

I have no issue staying in WW form permanently on Live, even in fights with no adds. But on PTS, the Berserker is so hard to keep up long enough to get into Rampage in the first place.

coop500 · April 20

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Let the Blood Rage passive generate Ultimate when dealing damage, just like how the old Blood Rage passive added transformation time when dealing damage. It's as simple as that.

This is the best option right here. Simple and in line with Live.

I have no issue staying in WW form permanently on Live, even in fights with no adds. But on PTS, the Berserker is so hard to keep up long enough to get into Rampage in the first place.

Yeah I'd be totally fine with this too. Simple, effective, no need to make it complicated or dramatic