Introduction
Greetings! It has officially been an entire update with subclassing in the wild, and we’ve been closely monitoring all the fun and wacky antics unfold in its wake. We know there’s a lot of discussion over its impact in the game and how it could potentially change a lot of things moving forward (namely game balance), but we’re going to continue to watch as data comes in and solidify this brave new world! This patch will be relatively light with balance adjustments on classes, since we’re still discussing a lot of potential ways to move forward and waiting to see how behaviors, sentiment, and engagement change. This period is critical to ensure adjustments in the new subclassing era are done right for a positive play experience.

Being light on class balance still means there is some! We still have a few adjustments, largely aimed at correcting some of the less ideal behavior we’re seeing with passive slot effects. Abilities like Grim Focus and Bound Armor are often being used purely passively, granting more power than we’re happy with for how simple they’re being used. So we’re going to do some gentle reworking of what they grant. In this update, neither of these abilities nor their morphs will grant unique, unnamed effects for slotting. Instead, they’ll be granting Major or Minor effects to ensure they’re still helpful, but not in the same way as before.

Outside of this, you can expect two other main initiatives in this patch; regular bug fixing and a balance pass on some of our item sets. This update we’ll be doing a pretty hefty number pass on our trial sourced sets, where we try and better reward stack-based sets for their more restrictive requirements, while also lessening the delta between those who can utilize them perfectly and those who struggle to get good milage from them. The two main ways we’ll be achieving this is by building some amount of power into a passive effect, The other will be through lowering how many stacks you need to reach for them to be worthwhile! Most of these cases result in buffs for reaching their upper limits, while also making them more consistently viable by allowing you to reach those limits.

Outside of these initiatives, we’ll continue to lurk and watch over the discussions and experiences you get into, while we formulate on how to best deliver on improving the gameplay experience Tamriel has to offer. Happy reading, safe travels, and we hope to see you in Tamriel!


General

• Updated the visual effects for Dodge Roll to better convey the ramping Stamina cost of rolling multiple times in quick succession.
• Many Fear sources have been updated to no longer place two effects on you while under their influence (a fear effect and an immobilization to prevent you from moving around). Fear will now handle both occurrences in one, resulting in a case where some interaction with passives and sets will change.
• Block no longer fails if the required resource was gained while actively Bracing.
• Block no longer fails when using channel or cast time abilities while bar swapping and reinputting the command.
• Fixed an issue where some effects in your buff tray and character sheet could appear as if they had multiple stack counts, even when they didn’t. This occurred mainly when an effect with a stack count ended; their stacks would not properly flush and instead appear on the UI of the next effect in line.
• Fixed an issue where some abilities could set your Health to full when activated in very specific and rare cases. Those who know, know.
• Fixed an issue where some transformation Ultimates could surprise you upon completion, interrupting your abilities while causing them to go on cooldown.
• Interacting with certain doors no longer prevents your character from being able to use single target abilities against targets. Some doors are better left un-opened.
• Fixed an issue where temporary summon abilities could be cast and drain resources, even when their summon would fail to spawn due to being at the pet limit. This affects the following abilities:
  • Summon Shade and morphs
  • Sacrificial Bones and morphs
  • Skeletal Mage and morphs
  • Spirit Mender and morphs
• The following passives granting unique forms of Ultimate when meeting their conditions now have similar effects. With this change, on cooldown, they cannot be stacked.
  • Affects the following: Prism, Transfer, Mountain's Blessing, Savage Beast, Implacable Outcome, and Corpse Consumption.
  • This cooldown works by taking the first effect to activate and using the cooldown of that effect to prevent any of these other effects (including itself) from activating for the listed duration. If you have Corpse Consumption and Prism and trigger Corpse Consumption first – you will not be able to trigger either for 16 seconds. If you trigger Prism after that cooldown window, the next cooldown would be 6 seconds.

Abilities

• Alliance War
  • Support
    • Barrier
      • Replenishing Barrier: This morph no longer grants 1-4 Ultimate when the shield ends. Increased the Magicka restored when the shield ends to 1200-1500, up from 700-1000.
• Guild
  • Fighter’s Guild
    • Expert Hunter
      • Evil Hunter: The damage bonus granted from this morph now applies to the damaging effects of Torchbearer.
  • Mage’s Guild
    • Meteor
      • Shooting Star: This morph now ranks down to a cost of 185. The Ultimate generation now grants 10 Ultimate per enemy hit up to a maximum of 6 times, rather than 9-12 based on rank with no limit.
        [Developer Comment]
        Shooting Star should be a bit rarer to use than it currently is - so we're putting a hard cap on this effect of the standard 6 enemies, rather than 100. Realistically there are very few cases where more than 6 enemies grouped up within 5 meters of one another, so this shouldn't hurt its effectiveness in general play experiences. This is mainly to make master mob shepherding a little less powerful.

• Necromancer
  • Grave Lord
    • Flame Skull: Resolved the issue where corpses generated from this ability and its morphs could not be replaced, causing you to quickly reach the summon limit and be unable to activate other summon abilities.
• Nightblade
  • Assassination
    • Grim Focus: This ability and its morphs now grant Major Prophecy and Savagery (12% Critical Chance) for slotting on either bar. These abilities no longer grant increasing Weapon and Spell Damage per stack. Additionally, these abilities now play their special sound effects when reaching their activation conditions.
      • Relentless Focus: This morph now ranks up in cost reduction, since there is no Weapon and Spell Damage granted per stack any longer. Instead, this morph reduces the number of stacks needed to activate the ability to 4, down from 5.
  • Shadow
    • Shadow Cloak: This ability and the Shadowy Disguise morph now grant Minor Protection (5% reduced damage taken) for slotting on either bar, rather than Major Prophecy and Savagery.
      • Dark Cloak: The bonus healing condition for this morph now requires you to be actively Bracing (holding Block), rather than to not be moving. The healing duration from this ability is no longer influenced by the Dark Veil passive.
  • Siphoning
    • Catalyst: Reduced the Ultimate generated by this passive to 11/22, down from 15/30.
• Sorcerer
  • Daedric Summoning
    • Bound Armor: This ability and its morphs grant Minor Protection. Bound Armor and Aegis' duration are now based on your combined Physical and Spell Resistance - 1 second for every 10000 rating. Minimum duration of 3 seconds, maximum duration of 15 seconds (if you for some reason decide to stack that insane amount of Resistances).
      • Bound Aegis: This morph now increases your block mitigation by 50% at rank IV, up from 40%. This morph no longer passively increases in duration directly, as it does indirectly from the Minor Resolve granted.
      • Bound Armaments: This morph now grants Major Sorcery and Prophecy (12% Critical Chance) for slotting, rather than 8% Max Stamina.
  • Dark Magic
    • Dark Exchange
      • Dark Deal: This morph no longer grants Minor Force. This morph’s Minor Berserk is no longer half as long as the base ability.
    • Blood Magic: This passive now only heals you if you are not at full Health. If you are at full Health, it now increases the higher of your Max Magicka or Stamina by 5/10% for 10 seconds.
      
      [Developer Comment]
      We’re taking the passive slot effect from Bound Armor and its morphs and placing it here to ensure base Sorcerer classes can retain the effects (and get a small boost in some cases), while also moving it to a less utilized skill line. We know this isn’t a silver bullet to making Dark Magic a desired skill line – but we’re using this as an experiment to see if this sort of shuffling of power is seen as a good thing or not in the brave new subclassing world. Definitely give us your feedback on this.

• Warden
  • Winter’s Embrace
    • Frozen Gate: Fixed an issue where the immobilize from this ability and its morphs could become stuck and unable to be removed early with effects like Roll Dodging’s immobilize immunity.
• Weapons
  • Restoration Staff
    • Blessing of Protection: Fixed an issue where this ability and the Blessing of Restoration morph's healing and buff application was twice as long as intended (800ms delay instead of 400ms).
      • Combat Prayer: Fixed an issue where the healing and buff application from this morph was instant, rather than having its intended 400ms delay.
  • Two-Handed
    • Berserker Strike
      • Berserker Rage: This morph's Crowd Control Immunity now work as intended.

Buffs & Debuffs

• Major Heroism: Reduced the intensity and volume of sound effects from this effect.

Scribing

• Grimoires
  • Banner Bearer
    • Banner Bearer: The Class Mastery script when paired with this Grimoire as an Arcanist now generates 3 Ultimate if the effect did not generate a Crux. This is in an effort to offer a universal/role agnostic reward in cases where you already have a Crux.
    • Certain script effects no longer remains active after the ability is removed.

General Itemization

• We’ve updated many stack-based item sets to grant a portion of their bonuses up front with no conditional requirements or grant more bonus per stack, while reducing their maximum stacks. This is in an effort to ensure they offer more consistent power bonuses. This also means some have seen an overall reduction in power, in efforts to reduce their ability to outshine other sets in gameplay. This is a case-by-case point however, where many sets have also been generally buffed.

Current Item Sets

• Crafted Sets
  • Highland Sentinel: This set now passively grants up to 986 Critical Rating when wearing 5 or more pieces. This set now increases your Critical Rating by 443 per stack with 3 stacks max, rather than 357 per stack with 10 stacks max (Maximum Critical reduced to 2315, down from 3570). Moving reduces your stack count by 1, rather than half of your current stacks (to avoid rounding confusion).
• Dungeon Sets
  • Phoenix Moth Theurge: The Minor Force granted from this set no longer breaks when paired with other sources of Minor Force and now grants its effects properly.
  • Rush of Agony: This set no longer pulls enemies to the caster after its delay but instead creates an area of effect at the initial location, pulling enemies to it. The warning visual effects of this set activating have been greatly increased, in order to help improve counter-play.
    
    [Developer Comment]
    We're making a change to this set to correct some exploitative behaviors in high load situations or when paired with specific abilities that allow the caster to move quickly from place to place. The pull will retain the same timing as before but now leaves a notable area of effect with a telegraph, warning enemies of the incoming pull in efforts to aid counterplay.

• Mythics
  • Rakkhat’s Voidmantle: Fixed an issue where this set’s damage done bonus to Heavy Attacks that did not operate as other damage done bonuses, resulting in it being much higher than intended in certain cases. The Heavy Attack damage bonus no longer works with Overload, as Overload's Heavy Attacks do not exhibit the penalty of the set. The restore from this set is now treated as a Heavy Attack restore, so it can be augmented by more effects.
• PvP Sets
  • Netch Oil: Fixed an issue where this set’s Snare and Immobilization Immunity re-activated for a short period when Crowd Control Immunity ended.
• Trial Sets
  • Arms of Relequen: Fixed an issue where the cooldown for this set was shorter than its listed cooldown. Reduced the damage this set deals by ~2%.
  • Bahsei’s Mania: This set now grants up to 10% damage done against monsters and reaches its cap at 50% Magicka, rather than up to 12% damage done against monsters and reaching its cap at 0% Magicka.
  • Berserking Warrior: This set now passively grants up to 986 Critical Rating when wearing 5 or more pieces. This set now grants up to 298 Critical Rating per stack with 5 stacks max, rather than 241 Critical Rating with 10 stacks max (Maximum Critical Rating is now 2476, up from 2410). The 3 piece of this set now grants 657 Critical Rating, rather than 129 Weapon and Spell Damage.
  • Coral Riptide: This set now grants up to 600 Weapon and Spell Damage and reaches its cap at 50% Stamina, rather than up to 740 Weapon and Spell Damage and reaching its cap at 33% Stamina.
  • Destructive Mage: This set no longer causes the enemy marked to be susceptible to any Heavy Attack damage (so it can no longer trigger off Ally attacks). This also means multiple wearers can apply the set to the same target. Increased the damage of the explosion by ~13%. Decreased the cooldown of applying the mark to 3 seconds, down from 4.
  • Dolorous Arena: Updated the set tooltip to be more concise about how it applies, including its 2s delay before stacks apply to targets (which was previously missing from the tooltip). Increased the duration of the stacks to 5 seconds per stack, up from 2 seconds, to ensure there’s a grace period between application. Additionally, Bar swapping while this set is active no longer restarts the 2 second delay timer. You can now apply stacks consistently when bar swapping frequently.
  • Kazpien’s Cruel Signet: Increased the damage per sword by ~32%. The damage bonus granted when a Sword is applied is no longer removed when a Sword ends, allowing for the bonus to persist when fighting more than 1 target at a time.
  • Harmony in Chaos: This set now grants up to 200 Weapon and Spell Damage when wearing 5 or more pieces. Reduced the Weapon and Spell Damage granted per stack to 88, down from 135. Increased the duration of the stacks to 15 seconds, up from 10.
  • Mantle of Siroria: This set now passively grants 200 Weapon and Spell Damage when wearing 5 or more pieces. Reduced the Weapon and Spell Damage granted per stack to 44, down from 63.
  • Recovery Convergence: This set no longer prevents you from generating Overhealing charges after activating the synergy.
  • Roaring Opportunist: This set’s 2 piece bonus is now 129 Weapon and Spell Damage, rather than 1487 Offensive Penetration.
  • Twice-Fanged Serpent: This set now passively grants 2305 Offensive Penetration when wearing 5 pieces or more. This set now grants 660 Offensive Penetration per stack up to 5 stacks max, rather than 544 per stack up to 10 stacks max. This set’s 3 piece bonus is now 1487 Offensive Penetration, rather than 1096 Max Stamina.
  • Whorl of the Depths: Increased the damage this set deals by ~3% in total.
  • Yandir’s Might: This set now grants 129 Weapon and Spell Damage for its Perfected bonus, rather than 1487 Offensive Penetration. This set now grants 86 Weapon and Spell Damage per stack up to 5 stacks max, rather than 41 Weapon and Spell Damage up to 10 stacks max (Maximum is now 430, up from 410). Fully-charged Heavy Attacks consume all stacks to grant 136 Weapon and Spell Damage per stack, up from 63 (Maximum is 680, up from 630).

New Item Sets
Black Gem Foundry

• Black Foundry Steel – Heavy
  • 2 Piece + Health Max
  • 3 Piece + Stamina Max
  • 4 Piece + Stamina Max
  • 5 Piece + Automatically block for 2 seconds at no cost when you begin a Heavy Attack. 12 second cooldown.
• Black Gem Monstrosity – Monster
  • 1 Piece + Offensive Penetration
  • 2 Piece + While in combat, casting a Soul Magic ability consumes a Soul Gem and gives you a Black Gemsplitter for 10 seconds. 6 second cooldown. Dealing Light or Heavy Attack damage fires the Black Gemsplitter at your target, dealing 17.1% of your target's max health as Magic damage, up to 17,100 of magic damage.
• Lustrous Soulwell – Light
  • 2 Piece + Health Recovery
  • 3 Piece + Magicka Recovery
  • 4 Piece + Max Magicka
  • 5 Piece + On casting an Ultimate, grant Magicka, Stamina, and Health Recovery for 2 seconds per 20 Ultimate spent for you and up to 3 group members within 28 meters of you.
• Vykand’s Soulfury – Medium
  • 2 Piece + Crit Chance
  • 3 Piece + Offensive Penetration
  • 4 Piece + Weapon and Spell Damage
  • 5 Piece + Dealing damage with a Full Heavy Attack gives you Major Force, Major Berserk, or Major Courage for 12 seconds. 9 second cooldown.

Naj-Caldeesh

• Bar-Sakka – Monster Set
  • 1 Piece + Health Max
  • 2 Piece + While in combat, performing a roll dodge creates a 6m pool of blood. 10 second cooldown. After a 1 second delay, enemies in the pool take Magic Damage that scales off your max health. Gain a 6 second Damage shield based on how much total damage is done by the pool, capped at 15,000 damage.
• Stonehulk Domination – Heavy
  • 2 Piece + Healing Taken
  • 3 Piece + Stamina Max
  • 4 Piece + Stamina Max
  • 5 Piece + Taunting an enemy applies Major Vulnerability to them for 12 seconds. 15 second cooldown.
• Tools of the Trapmaster – Medium
  • 2 Piece + Crit Chance
  • 3 Piece + Weapon and Spell Damage
  • 4 Piece + Crit Chance
  • 5 Piece + Dealing direct damage with a non-Heavy attack places a stack on you for 5 seconds, 1s cooldown, 4 stacks max. Dealing damage to an enemy with a Fully Charged Heavy Attack consumes the stacks and causes a blade to strike your enemy from below them, dealing Physical damage per stack and applying the Sundered status effect.
• Xanmeer Spellweaver – Light
  • 2 Piece + Crit Chance
  • 3 Piece + Weapon and Spell Damage
  • 4 Piece + Weapon and Spell Damage
  • 5 Piece + Increase your damage done with Flame, Shock, and Frost by 5%. Increase the damage of Burning, Concussion, and Chilled by 15%.

Rewards for the Worthy

• Coup de Grace – Medium
  • 2 Piece + Weapon and Spell Damage
  • 3 Piece + Max Stamina
  • 4 Piece + Weapon and Spell Damage
  • 5 Piece + When you damage an Immobilized enemy, apply Major Vulnerability to them for 3 seconds. 1 second cooldown.
• Spellshredder – Light
  • 2 Piece + Offensive Penetration
  • 3 Piece + Offensive Penetration
  • 4 Piece + Crit Chance
  • 5 Piece + Increase your damage done by 2% for each Damage Shield and Heal over Time effect on your target.
• Unflinching Ultimate – Heavy
  • 2 Piece + Max Health
  • 3 Piece + Max Health
  • 4 Piece + Armor
  • 5 Piece + Gain 1 seconds of CC Immunity after casting an Ultimate for each 20 Ultimate spent.

General

• We are aware some achievements in Naj-Caldeesh are not functioning as intended:
  • Total Self-Control
  • What Traps?
  • Fight Through Pain
  • Cadaver Crunch
• French voiceover support is not available for Updates 47 and 48. We know this is disappointing and appreciate your understanding. We look forward to bringing back French voice over as soon as possible.
• You may encounter Worm Cult agents and their Soul Reapers at Siege Camps along the Writhing Wall. While you can battle the Worm Cultists, their Soul Reapers will remain uninteractable until the Writhing Wall event begins in October. This will be fixed in a future patch so that neither Worm Cultists or Soul Reapers appear until they are ready.