For DK, the class mastery Lead From the Front grants Major Berserk, and basically makes sorcerer's unique ultimate in a trial setting useless. Why summon an atronach when you can get Standard of Might and Major Berserk from the same buff toon? I don't really like this because DK already has a unique group damage boosting ult. It's kinda the same thing where adding more sources of Major Vuln has made necro's ult less special.


For Templar, Judgment’s Brand is too restrictive. Obviously it incentivizes players to use the multi-hit jabs. Unless the tooltip is wrong, "damage done" increases apply to each hit, similar to the Draugurkin set. So any single hit spammable like Dark Flare is disadvantaged. Also the Templar-only skill condition means that Templar is pigeonholed to Templar only skills. No other class has such a skill restriction on their class masteries. Every other class gets all damage boosts that apply to the character itself. Either this mastery should be nerfed but applies to all damage, or the condition is changed, such as boosting magic and physical damage only, to open up other spammable options: e.g. weapon spammables like Traveling Knife, Uppercut, Focused Aim, Elemental Weapon, or even Radiant Destruction as a spammable (meme but why not?)

After giving it a try, I can say that I largely overall enjoy and/or find anything I dislike acceptable, save for two aspects.

Firstly: The White werewolf having pink skin and white claws looks very off-putting. At least the nose should be dark colored like the other colors, and the claws should be black/dark colored as well.

Secondly: The glowing markings for the two morphs. I knew this was coming for the sake of PvP, but they're so distracting and takes away from an otherwise fairly decent model, and stand out garishly so, especially the red berserker ones. Could something be done about this?

The community as a whole has been calling out for pvp group buffs so it's of great relief to see that ZOS has listened to the feedback yet again.

Free Major Berserk and Protection from DK's in group regardless of the ultimate they cast.
Lead From the Front: This passive upgrades rank 2 of The Storm Voice to also apply Major Berserk and Protection for 1 second per 15 Ultimate spent to you and group members within 28m of you.

Free Major Heroism and Major Brittle on your enemies from Warden.
Tundra’s Maw: This passive upgrades the Chilled status effect to also apply Major Brittle for 2 seconds upon application.
Nature’s Bounty: This passive upgrades rank 2 of Nature’s Gift to grant the healed target Major Heroism for 4.5 seconds and an additional 250 Magicka and Stamina.

Extra 15% HP shields on Shielded targets from Pure Sorc.
Sphere of Influence: This passive causes your damage shield abilities to grant an additional damage shield to the target for 3 seconds that absorbs up to 15% of their Max Health as damage, scaling with 25% of the higher of your Max Magicka or Health. Targets also gain 150 Health, Magicka, and Stamina Recovery for 4 seconds.

This surely is the pinnacle of balance.

Definitely this precedent is MEGA-SUS and should be reverted.

Also very aggravating that these sorts of Frankenbalancing schemes always seems to happen to Warden.

I’m concerned that the Warden setup with Shattered Path was nerfed in both places - Glacial Presence is disabled entirely, and the Shattered Path itself is half as effective when the bear is up. We’ll have to see how everything works out in practice once PTS is up, but on paper this seems very heavy-handed.

This was a unique setup that played into a particularly class’s strengths to do something different. It would be a tragedy if this gets nerfed to the ground and we’re back to “eh, guess you better like Arcanist”.

I'll come out and say it right away.

Fantastic work ZOS!

I just did some testing today for the feel of werewolf, the new challenge mode difficulties and (of course) frost warden.

I was at work when everyone started dooming about shattered paths signet, and it was then promptly cleared up by Gilliam in @skinnycheeks stream that the only nerf that is staying is the pet one, which for bear specifically is justified, however, it's actually still insanely strong post-nerf. It'd be nice if sorc pets didn't cop a stray, but bear's interaction with it definitely needed to be nerfed.

These are my results from my master's ice staff theme build settup





I really like the changes to northern storm and nature's gift too.

Other than that, Honestly i can't really think of anything i dislike about this patch so-far from the things i've tested, it's all been very fun.

Werewolf's changes feel good. the new model has been cleaned up in the right ways and i now like how it looks. The fact that werewolf now provides the group aoe major courage and minor force is simply wonderful for making it feel wanted. the gameplay loop of consuming blood hunger on rip and tear is fun and engaging, and being able to benefit from werewolf even as a magicka scaling character is so good for not just the ease of gameplay, but also has good roleplay implications too for people who want that.

I will legitimately play a werewolf character now as opposed to ignoring it, though i do have 1 point of feedback, i think that the malabal tor medium armor set "Salvation" should be heavily buffed, specifically its weapon and spell damage bonus while inside werewolf form, as well as changing its 2-4 piece bonuses to weapon and spell damage, offensive penetration and/or critical chance.

Moving on,
Challenge difficulty is just that! it is very easy to die on vestige mode, but a -80% damage done effect actually does not feel anywhere near as bad as it sounds on paper. enemies feel like they have an appropriate level of HP and aren't just sponges.

I haven't tested other classes masteries though many of them seem really awesome. i especially like nightblade and arcanist's ones outside of my own class's ones.


Honestly this patch is a massive win ZOS. I simply cannot wait to see how the warden refresh goes. You have my trust.