Werewolf Sustain Nerf hits the Weakest WW Builds Hardest and Doesn't Address Problem Areas

twing1_ · August 5

The sustain nerf to Werewolf abilities in PTS patch 12.1.0 misses the problem with WW builds entirely.

After the rework, Werewolf in its purest form is not problematic, and in a very balanced state IMO in both PvP and PvE. That being said, overpowered Werewolf builds do exist and are extremely problematic right now, in PvP especially. But this has nothing to do with the Werewolf form or skills themselves, but rather the certain interactions between Werewolf form and Class Passive/Mastery skills, like Sorc's Conservation of Energy and Static Reverberation, Warden's Minor Toughness, Wild Adaptation, and Green-Keeper's Hide, Nightblade's Eye for Exploitation, and others that enable these problematic and near game-breaking Werewolf PvP builds.

As it currently stands, Werewolves are able to build entirely into defense and max health and still prop up their damage and sustain using some of these Class Passive and Mastery skills, or vice-versa.

The increased stamina cost to Werewolf abilities wrongfully nerfs the weakest Werewolf builds without addressing this problem. Sorc Werewolves will still have infinite sustain and free damage through Conservation of Energy and Static Reverberation, for instance. If this change will do anything, it will actually drive more Werewolf players toward the currently overperforming Werewolf builds (Sorc Werewolves especially), because the alternatives just got hit with a major sustain nerf.

A better approach to nerfing Werewolf in PvP (which is desperately needed) would have been to disable all class passive and mastery skills while in Werewolf form. This targeted change would resolve the problematic interactions between Werewolf form and passives/masteries sourced from outside of the skill line, and hit the most problematically overperforming Werewolf builds the hardest, while leaving the weakest and more balanced Werewolf builds relatively untouched.

The path forward for Werewolf should be to:

1. Revert the increase to stamina cost of Werewolf skills that came with PTS patch 12.1.0
2. Disable all Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form

If this change were to be adopted, all classes of Werewolf would be much closer together in terms of power level and Werewolf builds as a whole would be in a much more balanced and healthier spot.

Kazajhan · August 5

I agree but disable class passive and mastery skills only in PvP if you do that.

There’s no reason that balancing PvP should affect Werewolf as a valuable member of an advanced content party (trials, etc) in PvE.

acanca · August 5

Agreed, tried out sorc ww and it was noticeable but fine even without making a single change to my old build to accodomate the cost changes. But it was very very miserable on other classes.

Conservation of Energy is the culprit of werewolf sustain, not the ability costs. And im afraid all these changes are doing is making it so we can only play werewolf on basically one class for pvp. For pve, its fine either way.

ItsNotLiving · August 5

Very true.

Wuuffyy · August 5

Kazajhan wrote: »

I agree but disable class passive and mastery skills only in PvP if you do that.

There’s no reason that balancing PvP should affect Werewolf as a valuable member of an advanced content party (trials, etc) in PvE.

Agreed. These sustain nerfs should not have hit PvE as they said themselves they were ‘happy with its performance’… and then nerfed it anyway for the sake of PvP:

MSattrtand · August 5

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Wuuffyy · August 5

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Because in actual content, there is never any pressure of any kind : D it’s all just different shades of dummy parsing, glad you covered the remaining 99.9% of the actual game with your parses! 😊

Also, I’m fairly certain my sustain in a 1 v 1 via PTS for my PvP sorc wolf looked about the same as that first one too haha (although everything else without CoE mastery looks like about the third one down if not worse). I’m sure that’s an intended outcome for sustain nerfs!

twing1_ · August 5

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Panderbander · August 5

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Chrlynsch · August 5

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

MSattrtand · August 5

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Because in actual content, there is never any pressure of any kind : D it’s all just different shades of dummy parsing, glad you covered the remaining 99.9% of the actual game with your parses! 😊

There is some pressure for sure. It doesn't change the fact that Werewolf has the best stamina sustain of all classes.

That's Stamina Werewolf from live. Tri-stat potions, sustain food, proper Rampage usage. And I removed points from the sustain passive from Imperial, since I'm Dunmer on PTS. Yes, sustain is worse, but it's not significant. And Werewolves on live have no problems with stamina sustain in content. There's not much reason to assume that PTS Werewolf would suffer from sustain issues.

Let's compare it to Stamina Sustain of Stam NB. Well, it's obviously worse than WW on live or on PTS. I can't sustain green food without tri-stat pots. With recovery food, I still need to run potions that restore Magicka. And still NB has zero sustain issues in content.

Well, let's compare sustain in content. Taleria HM is considered a pretty stam-intensive fight, so let's check it. All screenshots belong to one random log I found.

Werewolf:

Stam NB:

Stam Plar:

Well, Werewolf has the best sustain on dummy and in content. Stam Plar, the class with the worst stamina sustain, can't sustain on dummy without weird prebuffs, but can sustain in actual content. That's because sustain in content is generally better than on dummy.

In conclusion:

Classes with far worse sustain on dummy than PTS Werewolf can sustain in PvE content just fine. There's no reason to assume that it will struggle with stamina sustain in real PvE content. Sustain nerf is irrelevant in PvE.

twing1_ · August 5

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

Class Masteries should synergize only with the class skills they belong to. They exist to reward "pure class" styles of play that have since been watered down by the power creep brought about by the introduction of several skill lines sourced outside of the class system and, most recently and prominently, subclassing.

Seeing as Werewolves cannot utilize class skills and instead can only use Werewolf active skills while transformed, they should not synergize with the Class Mastery system at all. An argument can be made for Werewolf synergizing with class passives for flavor purposes, but Class Mastery skills should be reserved for pure-class playstyles and the painfully overpowered interactions they have with Werewolf form in the current state of the game only further supports this point.

Conservation of Power is the current offender, but before that it was Warden's Wild Adaptation and Green-Keeper's Hide. Class Mastery Skills are hard enough to balance against the other classes and multi-classed builds, and adding Werewolf form on top of that is a death sentence. Class Mastery Skills should have absolutely no synergy with anything outside of pure-class playstyles, and should be completely off the table for werewolves in werewolf form.

Wuuffyy · August 5

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

Class Masteries should synergize only with the class skills they belong to. They exist to reward "pure class" styles of play that have since been watered down by the power creep brought about by the introduction of several skill lines sourced outside of the class system and, most recently and prominently, subclassing.

Seeing as Werewolves cannot utilize class skills and instead can only use Werewolf active skills while transformed, they should not synergize with the Class Mastery system at all. An argument can be made for Werewolf synergizing with class passives for flavor purposes, but Class Mastery skills should be reserved for pure-class playstyles and the painfully overpowered interactions they have with Werewolf form in the current state of the game only further supports this point.

Conservation of Power is the current offender, but before that it was Warden's Wild Adaptation and Green-Keeper's Hide. Class Mastery Skills are hard enough to balance against the other classes and multi-classed builds, and adding Werewolf form on top of that is a death sentence. Class Mastery Skills should have absolutely no synergy with anything outside of pure-class playstyles, and should be completely off the table for werewolves in werewolf form.

*In PvP-only/ in favor a ‘werewolf mastery’. I think this is especially case as this is seemingly the only real route to bring other classes up to DK and sorc level.

Wuuffyy · August 5

MSattrtand wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Because in actual content, there is never any pressure of any kind : D it’s all just different shades of dummy parsing, glad you covered the remaining 99.9% of the actual game with your parses! 😊

There is some pressure for sure. It doesn't change the fact that Werewolf has the best stamina sustain of all classes.

That's Stamina Werewolf from live. Tri-stat potions, sustain food, proper Rampage usage. And I removed points from the sustain passive from Imperial, since I'm Dunmer on PTS. Yes, sustain is worse, but it's not significant. And Werewolves on live have no problems with stamina sustain in content. There's not much reason to assume that PTS Werewolf would suffer from sustain issues.

Let's compare it to Stamina Sustain of Stam NB. Well, it's obviously worse than WW on live or on PTS. I can't sustain green food without tri-stat pots. With recovery food, I still need to run potions that restore Magicka. And still NB has zero sustain issues in content.

Well, let's compare sustain in content. Taleria HM is considered a pretty stam-intensive fight, so let's check it. All screenshots belong to one random log I found.

Werewolf:

Stam NB:

Stam Plar:

Well, Werewolf has the best sustain on dummy and in content. Stam Plar, the class with the worst stamina sustain, can't sustain on dummy without weird prebuffs, but can sustain in actual content. That's because sustain in content is generally better than on dummy.

In conclusion:

Classes with far worse sustain on dummy than PTS Werewolf can sustain in PvE content just fine. There's no reason to assume that it will struggle with stamina sustain in real PvE content. Sustain nerf is irrelevant in PvE.

These are post- nerf PvE logs then? This applies to mag wolf which is a playstyle they have mentioned they want to be viable? Do you have the PvP combat log as well?

Estin · August 5

It's like subclassing all over again. ZOS nerfs the core skills but does nothing to address the problematic interactions. This in turn nerfs everyone who does not use the most problematic setup which in this case is Sorc WW with conservation of energy. If they were capable of preventing WW and warden from using shattered path's signet, then they should easily be able to disable class masteries for them in PvP. Some of the tooltips still need to be adjusted, but Sorc WW has been the problem since the start, not WW entirely on its own. Instead of making this type of change, they take the more difficult route of trying to adjust the skills with PvP and PvE in mind, drastically raise for the floor for people not using the problematic setup, and let the problem still persist.

The WW changes smell like spreadsheet balancing which is something I thought they wanted to move away from. Would it actually take more time/resources to make what seems like a simple restriction?

MSattrtand · August 5

Wuuffyy wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Because in actual content, there is never any pressure of any kind : D it’s all just different shades of dummy parsing, glad you covered the remaining 99.9% of the actual game with your parses! 😊

There is some pressure for sure. It doesn't change the fact that Werewolf has the best stamina sustain of all classes.

That's Stamina Werewolf from live. Tri-stat potions, sustain food, proper Rampage usage. And I removed points from the sustain passive from Imperial, since I'm Dunmer on PTS. Yes, sustain is worse, but it's not significant. And Werewolves on live have no problems with stamina sustain in content. There's not much reason to assume that PTS Werewolf would suffer from sustain issues.

Let's compare it to Stamina Sustain of Stam NB. Well, it's obviously worse than WW on live or on PTS. I can't sustain green food without tri-stat pots. With recovery food, I still need to run potions that restore Magicka. And still NB has zero sustain issues in content.

Well, let's compare sustain in content. Taleria HM is considered a pretty stam-intensive fight, so let's check it. All screenshots belong to one random log I found.

Werewolf:

Stam NB:

Stam Plar:

Well, Werewolf has the best sustain on dummy and in content. Stam Plar, the class with the worst stamina sustain, can't sustain on dummy without weird prebuffs, but can sustain in actual content. That's because sustain in content is generally better than on dummy.

In conclusion:

Classes with far worse sustain on dummy than PTS Werewolf can sustain in PvE content just fine. There's no reason to assume that it will struggle with stamina sustain in real PvE content. Sustain nerf is irrelevant in PvE.

These are post- nerf PvE logs then? This applies to mag wolf which is a playstyle they have mentioned they want to be viable? Do you have the PvP combat log as well?

There are no post-nerf logs, since it's a PTS.

If Stam Plar, whose stamina sustain without prebuffing Rune+Forward Momentum looks like this

can sustain in content, I don't see a reason why Magicka WW shouldn't - its stamina sustain is better. Not to mention Stamina WW.

I do not have PvP logs, since I'm talking only about PvE.

Wuuffyy · August 5

MSattrtand wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Wuuffyy wrote: »

Because in actual content, there is never any pressure of any kind : D it’s all just different shades of dummy parsing, glad you covered the remaining 99.9% of the actual game with your parses! 😊

There is some pressure for sure. It doesn't change the fact that Werewolf has the best stamina sustain of all classes.

That's Stamina Werewolf from live. Tri-stat potions, sustain food, proper Rampage usage. And I removed points from the sustain passive from Imperial, since I'm Dunmer on PTS. Yes, sustain is worse, but it's not significant. And Werewolves on live have no problems with stamina sustain in content. There's not much reason to assume that PTS Werewolf would suffer from sustain issues.

Let's compare it to Stamina Sustain of Stam NB. Well, it's obviously worse than WW on live or on PTS. I can't sustain green food without tri-stat pots. With recovery food, I still need to run potions that restore Magicka. And still NB has zero sustain issues in content.

Well, let's compare sustain in content. Taleria HM is considered a pretty stam-intensive fight, so let's check it. All screenshots belong to one random log I found.

Werewolf:

Stam NB:

Stam Plar:

Well, Werewolf has the best sustain on dummy and in content. Stam Plar, the class with the worst stamina sustain, can't sustain on dummy without weird prebuffs, but can sustain in actual content. That's because sustain in content is generally better than on dummy.

In conclusion:

Classes with far worse sustain on dummy than PTS Werewolf can sustain in PvE content just fine. There's no reason to assume that it will struggle with stamina sustain in real PvE content. Sustain nerf is irrelevant in PvE.

These are post- nerf PvE logs then? This applies to mag wolf which is a playstyle they have mentioned they want to be viable? Do you have the PvP combat log as well?

Huzzah! I the post cut off here or something.

Ah, yes I’m talking about PTS for both mag wolf and all forms of PvP. It looks like your thing doesn’t exactly line up with what I’m referring to.

I’m trying to say that a solo mag wolf under pressure would fold.

I’m saying that this nerf (which they stated was never geared at PvE whatsoever), didn’t resolve the issue for PvP (sorc CoE) and everything else feels like garbage considering they didn’t return anything we had before they changed our sustain format (so I can properly compensate)

Chrlynsch · 12:32AM

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

Class Masteries should synergize only with the class skills they belong to. They exist to reward "pure class" styles of play that have since been watered down by the power creep brought about by the introduction of several skill lines sourced outside of the class system and, most recently and prominently, subclassing.

Seeing as Werewolves cannot utilize class skills and instead can only use Werewolf active skills while transformed, they should not synergize with the Class Mastery system at all. An argument can be made for Werewolf synergizing with class passives for flavor purposes, but Class Mastery skills should be reserved for pure-class playstyles and the painfully overpowered interactions they have with Werewolf form in the current state of the game only further supports this point.

Conservation of Power is the current offender, but before that it was Warden's Wild Adaptation and Green-Keeper's Hide. Class Mastery Skills are hard enough to balance against the other classes and multi-classed builds, and adding Werewolf form on top of that is a death sentence. Class Mastery Skills should have absolutely no synergy with anything outside of pure-class playstyles, and should be completely off the table for werewolves in werewolf form.

The logic doesn't really hold up when you look at how the Class Mastery system actually functions today.

Right now, many Class Masteries and a large number of class passives don't require you to cast a single class ability. If someone builds entirely around Vampire, Guild, Weapon, World, or Alliance skill lines while slotting zero class skills, they still receive the full benefit of those passive bonuses and Class Masteries. By your definition, that isn't a "pure class" playstyle either.

So why should that character retain access to those bonuses while a transformed Werewolf doesn't? In both cases, neither character is actively using class abilities.

The issue isn't that Werewolf has access to Class Masteries, it's that some individual Masteries are simply overtuned. Werewolf actually serves as an excellent litmus test because it removes so many variables from the equation. It can't mix in class actives, it has a fixed skill bar, and its gameplay is very constrained. If a Mastery becomes oppressive on Werewolf, that's a strong indicator the Mastery itself deserves another balance pass rather than Werewolf being singled out for an arbitrary exception.

If the design goal truly is that Class Masteries only function while actively using class abilities, then that rule should apply universally, not just to Werewolf. Otherwise, you're creating an inconsistent exception that punishes one playstyle while leaving every other non-class build untouched.

dark_hunterxmg · 12:55AM

You guys should really play werewolf against good players before you call it overpowered.

twing1_ · 5:43AM

Chrlynsch wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

Class Masteries should synergize only with the class skills they belong to. They exist to reward "pure class" styles of play that have since been watered down by the power creep brought about by the introduction of several skill lines sourced outside of the class system and, most recently and prominently, subclassing.

Seeing as Werewolves cannot utilize class skills and instead can only use Werewolf active skills while transformed, they should not synergize with the Class Mastery system at all. An argument can be made for Werewolf synergizing with class passives for flavor purposes, but Class Mastery skills should be reserved for pure-class playstyles and the painfully overpowered interactions they have with Werewolf form in the current state of the game only further supports this point.

Conservation of Power is the current offender, but before that it was Warden's Wild Adaptation and Green-Keeper's Hide. Class Mastery Skills are hard enough to balance against the other classes and multi-classed builds, and adding Werewolf form on top of that is a death sentence. Class Mastery Skills should have absolutely no synergy with anything outside of pure-class playstyles, and should be completely off the table for werewolves in werewolf form.

The logic doesn't really hold up when you look at how the Class Mastery system actually functions today.

Right now, many Class Masteries and a large number of class passives don't require you to cast a single class ability. If someone builds entirely around Vampire, Guild, Weapon, World, or Alliance skill lines while slotting zero class skills, they still receive the full benefit of those passive bonuses and Class Masteries. By your definition, that isn't a "pure class" playstyle either.

So why should that character retain access to those bonuses while a transformed Werewolf doesn't? In both cases, neither character is actively using class abilities.

The issue isn't that Werewolf has access to Class Masteries, it's that some individual Masteries are simply overtuned. Werewolf actually serves as an excellent litmus test because it removes so many variables from the equation. It can't mix in class actives, it has a fixed skill bar, and its gameplay is very constrained. If a Mastery becomes oppressive on Werewolf, that's a strong indicator the Mastery itself deserves another balance pass rather than Werewolf being singled out for an arbitrary exception.

If the design goal truly is that Class Masteries only function while actively using class abilities, then that rule should apply universally, not just to Werewolf. Otherwise, you're creating an inconsistent exception that punishes one playstyle while leaving every other non-class build untouched.

I think the spirit of what you are saying here is correct: masteries should only apply to class skills, and they currently do not.

It is a problem with the mastery system as it is currently implemented, and their synergy with werewolf form is only a symptom of this greater issue.

In an ideal world, class mastery skills would ONLY interact with class active skills. This would make them true to only buffing the pure class playstyle, as they were intended. Hopefully this is the direction the game is moving toward.

That being said, until the class reworks are completed (and hopefully with them a revamp of the class mastery skills that would restrict them to solely interacting with class active skills), something needs to be done about the current state of Werewolf (and DK as well).

ZOS has stated their intention is to improve the state of the game before the reworks are completed, and I feel like disabling class mastery skills in Werewolf form is a good, simple start.

DK is another question that needs addressing, but I don't have an easy solution for that one yet. Nerfing the sustain on Heart of Flame is a good start, but I fear that isn't the only issue with DK's balance.

Chrlynsch · 1:41PM

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

Class Masteries should synergize only with the class skills they belong to. They exist to reward "pure class" styles of play that have since been watered down by the power creep brought about by the introduction of several skill lines sourced outside of the class system and, most recently and prominently, subclassing.

Seeing as Werewolves cannot utilize class skills and instead can only use Werewolf active skills while transformed, they should not synergize with the Class Mastery system at all. An argument can be made for Werewolf synergizing with class passives for flavor purposes, but Class Mastery skills should be reserved for pure-class playstyles and the painfully overpowered interactions they have with Werewolf form in the current state of the game only further supports this point.

Conservation of Power is the current offender, but before that it was Warden's Wild Adaptation and Green-Keeper's Hide. Class Mastery Skills are hard enough to balance against the other classes and multi-classed builds, and adding Werewolf form on top of that is a death sentence. Class Mastery Skills should have absolutely no synergy with anything outside of pure-class playstyles, and should be completely off the table for werewolves in werewolf form.

The logic doesn't really hold up when you look at how the Class Mastery system actually functions today.

Right now, many Class Masteries and a large number of class passives don't require you to cast a single class ability. If someone builds entirely around Vampire, Guild, Weapon, World, or Alliance skill lines while slotting zero class skills, they still receive the full benefit of those passive bonuses and Class Masteries. By your definition, that isn't a "pure class" playstyle either.

So why should that character retain access to those bonuses while a transformed Werewolf doesn't? In both cases, neither character is actively using class abilities.

The issue isn't that Werewolf has access to Class Masteries, it's that some individual Masteries are simply overtuned. Werewolf actually serves as an excellent litmus test because it removes so many variables from the equation. It can't mix in class actives, it has a fixed skill bar, and its gameplay is very constrained. If a Mastery becomes oppressive on Werewolf, that's a strong indicator the Mastery itself deserves another balance pass rather than Werewolf being singled out for an arbitrary exception.

If the design goal truly is that Class Masteries only function while actively using class abilities, then that rule should apply universally, not just to Werewolf. Otherwise, you're creating an inconsistent exception that punishes one playstyle while leaving every other non-class build untouched.

I think the spirit of what you are saying here is correct: masteries should only apply to class skills, and they currently do not.

It is a problem with the mastery system as it is currently implemented, and their synergy with werewolf form is only a symptom of this greater issue.

In an ideal world, class mastery skills would ONLY interact with class active skills. This would make them true to only buffing the pure class playstyle, as they were intended. Hopefully this is the direction the game is moving toward.

That being said, until the class reworks are completed (and hopefully with them a revamp of the class mastery skills that would restrict them to solely interacting with class active skills), something needs to be done about the current state of Werewolf (and DK as well).

ZOS has stated their intention is to improve the state of the game before the reworks are completed, and I feel like disabling class mastery skills in Werewolf form is a good, simple start.

DK is another question that needs addressing, but I don't have an easy solution for that one yet. Nerfing the sustain on Heart of Flame is a good start, but I fear that isn't the only issue with DK's balance.

I can get behind that philosophy, but it has to be applied consistently across the game.

If the design goal is that Class Masteries are meant to reward class gameplay, then they should require class gameplay. That means class passives and masteries should only function when you're using or slotting class abilities. By the same logic, weapon passives should only affect weapon skills, World and Alliance passives should require those skill lines to be used, and so on. Guild skill lines are already largely designed this way.

That's a much more coherent design philosophy than saying, "These passives and masteries are too strong, so this one playstyle shouldn't have access to them."

To me, this isn't fundamentally a Werewolf problem. It's a balance problem. Sorcerer is in a healthier spot in PvP because of the strength and flexibility of its Masteries and passives. Dragonknight, Sorcerer, and Werewolf all currently have sustain that is overtuned for different reasons. Even with Werewolf ability costs being tripled on the PTS, Sorcerer Werewolves will likely continue to sustain comfortably because Conservation of Power is simply that strong.

That doesn't tell me Werewolf shouldn't interact with Class Masteries. It tells me Conservation of Power and any similarly overperforming Masteries / class passives should be rebalanced. Fix the outliers rather than creating special-case exceptions for one transformation while every other non-class playstyle continues to benefit from the exact same passive systems.

twing1_ · 6:13PM

Chrlynsch wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

Chrlynsch wrote: »

Panderbander wrote: »

twing1_ wrote: »

MSattrtand wrote: »

Sustain nerf is completely irrelevant in PvE.

That's my stamina graph during the whole parse. Green food, armour potions, no Rampage at all. It means that even a new player who uses no food or potions and does not pay attention to Rampage will sustain it just fine:

And here I'm using Rampage properly, running recovery food and tri-pots. Again, sustain is trivial:

This time it's green food, armour potions and double-bash-weaving to keep stamina under 50% for the imaginary MK. This is actually hard because I'm over-sustaining:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, tri-stat potions. You need to survive until the first Rampage, and then you won't have sustain problems again:

Magicka Werewolf, starting with no Fury. Green food, armour potions. Sustaining until the first Rampage is hard, but possible. After the first Rampage, sustain is just fine:

In conclusion: you should not have any problems sustaining as a Werewolf in PvE if you're at least trying.

Great analysis, but I wasn't in the slightest worried about their PvE performance.

This post was more in regards to PvP, where Sorc Werewolves are already insanely overpowered and broken, while most Werewolves of other classes (outside of a few other, problematic builds) are still strong but not nearly as problematic.

The sustain nerfs are only further going to incentivize Werewolf players to play Sorc wolves, as they are the least impacted by this change because they still have Conservation of Power to prop up their sustain and Static Reverberation to feed them free damage.

Removing access to Class Passive and Mastery skills while in Werewolf form will allow all classes of werewolves to maintain the powerful sustain that is complementary (and IMO necessary) for their current playstyle while at the same time placing much needed limitations on their power ceiling. Werewolves currently are more or less forced into the playstyle of applying continuous pressure over long, sustained battles because they lack any sort of burst potential within their toolkit. Succeeding as a Werewolf typically comes down to out-sustaining your opponent or dying.

Reverting the sustain nerf in favor of disabling Class Passive and Masteries while in Werewolf form will allow them to retain this pressure-based playstyle, while at the same time lowering the Werewolf power ceiling that is currently being abused by primarily Sorc, but a few other Class Mastery or multi-classed werewolf builds as well, by completely eliminating their problematic synergies with skill lines sourced from outside of the Werewolf skill line.

Werewolf has been garbage for years while having access to class passives. The ones that apply are few and far between. Without them, choosing to play as a certain class with werewolf loses all meaning; may as well just turn them into their own class at that point.

Better would be to simply rework the problematic passives because they're not only enabling ridiculousness on werewolves (looking at Conservation of Energy)

Conservation of energy is overloaded and needs neutered as a whole. But other class masteries need buffed/ pvp caps removed/ specific condition stipulations removed to make all classes more relevant and versatile (werewolf or not) in pvp land. Making werewolf generic will make it boring. They already lose so much to build diversity by only having one bar with a total of 12 morphs, no weapon passives, and no scrying.

Class Masteries should synergize only with the class skills they belong to. They exist to reward "pure class" styles of play that have since been watered down by the power creep brought about by the introduction of several skill lines sourced outside of the class system and, most recently and prominently, subclassing.

Seeing as Werewolves cannot utilize class skills and instead can only use Werewolf active skills while transformed, they should not synergize with the Class Mastery system at all. An argument can be made for Werewolf synergizing with class passives for flavor purposes, but Class Mastery skills should be reserved for pure-class playstyles and the painfully overpowered interactions they have with Werewolf form in the current state of the game only further supports this point.

Conservation of Power is the current offender, but before that it was Warden's Wild Adaptation and Green-Keeper's Hide. Class Mastery Skills are hard enough to balance against the other classes and multi-classed builds, and adding Werewolf form on top of that is a death sentence. Class Mastery Skills should have absolutely no synergy with anything outside of pure-class playstyles, and should be completely off the table for werewolves in werewolf form.

The logic doesn't really hold up when you look at how the Class Mastery system actually functions today.

Right now, many Class Masteries and a large number of class passives don't require you to cast a single class ability. If someone builds entirely around Vampire, Guild, Weapon, World, or Alliance skill lines while slotting zero class skills, they still receive the full benefit of those passive bonuses and Class Masteries. By your definition, that isn't a "pure class" playstyle either.

So why should that character retain access to those bonuses while a transformed Werewolf doesn't? In both cases, neither character is actively using class abilities.

The issue isn't that Werewolf has access to Class Masteries, it's that some individual Masteries are simply overtuned. Werewolf actually serves as an excellent litmus test because it removes so many variables from the equation. It can't mix in class actives, it has a fixed skill bar, and its gameplay is very constrained. If a Mastery becomes oppressive on Werewolf, that's a strong indicator the Mastery itself deserves another balance pass rather than Werewolf being singled out for an arbitrary exception.

If the design goal truly is that Class Masteries only function while actively using class abilities, then that rule should apply universally, not just to Werewolf. Otherwise, you're creating an inconsistent exception that punishes one playstyle while leaving every other non-class build untouched.

I think the spirit of what you are saying here is correct: masteries should only apply to class skills, and they currently do not.

It is a problem with the mastery system as it is currently implemented, and their synergy with werewolf form is only a symptom of this greater issue.

In an ideal world, class mastery skills would ONLY interact with class active skills. This would make them true to only buffing the pure class playstyle, as they were intended. Hopefully this is the direction the game is moving toward.

That being said, until the class reworks are completed (and hopefully with them a revamp of the class mastery skills that would restrict them to solely interacting with class active skills), something needs to be done about the current state of Werewolf (and DK as well).

ZOS has stated their intention is to improve the state of the game before the reworks are completed, and I feel like disabling class mastery skills in Werewolf form is a good, simple start.

DK is another question that needs addressing, but I don't have an easy solution for that one yet. Nerfing the sustain on Heart of Flame is a good start, but I fear that isn't the only issue with DK's balance.

I can get behind that philosophy, but it has to be applied consistently across the game.

If the design goal is that Class Masteries are meant to reward class gameplay, then they should require class gameplay. That means class passives and masteries should only function when you're using or slotting class abilities. By the same logic, weapon passives should only affect weapon skills, World and Alliance passives should require those skill lines to be used, and so on. Guild skill lines are already largely designed this way.

That's a much more coherent design philosophy than saying, "These passives and masteries are too strong, so this one playstyle shouldn't have access to them."

To me, this isn't fundamentally a Werewolf problem. It's a balance problem. Sorcerer is in a healthier spot in PvP because of the strength and flexibility of its Masteries and passives. Dragonknight, Sorcerer, and Werewolf all currently have sustain that is overtuned for different reasons. Even with Werewolf ability costs being tripled on the PTS, Sorcerer Werewolves will likely continue to sustain comfortably because Conservation of Power is simply that strong.

That doesn't tell me Werewolf shouldn't interact with Class Masteries. It tells me Conservation of Power and any similarly overperforming Masteries / class passives should be rebalanced. Fix the outliers rather than creating special-case exceptions for one transformation while every other non-class playstyle continues to benefit from the exact same passive systems.

I think it's okay for class mastery skills as a whole to be treated differently from class passives, weapon passives and passives from all different skill lines.

I think you're right that class masteries should be consistent in that they either all work with only class skills or all work with every skill, and right now it's a jumbled mess.

Class mastery skills should only work with class active skills, and it's okay for werewolf form, along with any other non-class playstyle, to be excluded from them.