PTS Patch Notes v2.4.0

RebornV3x

Are these patch notes for real they can't be right someone tell me this is a joke please..... anyone.....anyone.... well looks like Ive got a great excuse to leave the game now.

AzraelKrieg

RebornV3x wrote: »

Are these patch notes for real they can't be right someone tell me this is a joke please..... anyone.....anyone.... well looks like Ive got a great excuse to leave the game now.

This is the first round of PTS patch notes. They usually go through about 3-4 updates before it goes live.

Silver_Strider

I like a lot of these changes especially for the changes to DK and NB skills so they scale off Mighty, however, I can't help but notice that Power Extraction, the stamina morph for Drain Power wasn't included in the changes and still will deal magic damage.

Is this intended or just a possible oversight?

Anything on this @ZOS_GinaBruno

Solid_Metal

ok to be fair...

i tho the changes was crap, especially for DK stamn, but the more i think about it, its actually buff so yeah thats that...

and i also how this patch they make heavy armor back in the game, dunno if its necessary enough, but i will try to rebuild my tank

Dagoth_Rac

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Combat & Gameplay

Templar

• Aedric Spear
  • Burning Light: This passive ability now deals Physical Damage or Magic Damage, based on whether your Weapon Damage or Spell Damage is higher respectively.

This is a very nice change. Why not do this for Ultimates? It would make all ultimates equal for all characters. While there are now a few better ultimate options for stamina builds, it did come at the expense of magicka builds.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Dawn’s Wrath
  • Power of the Light (Backlash morph): This morph now deals Physical Damage instead of Magic Damage.

Kind of pointless, as the damage is still capped at same number as before this change. Is that on purpose? Or was damage cap supposed to go up by 25% if you have 100 points in Mighty?

cpuScientist

Silver_Strider wrote: »

I like a lot of these changes especially for the changes to DK and NB skills so they scale off Mighty, however, I can't help but notice that Power Extraction, the stamina morph for Drain Power wasn't included in the changes and still will deal magic damage.

Is this intended or just a possible oversight?

Anything on this @ZOS_GinaBruno

Please do make this change, more build viability is always better. PLEASE add this change.

ub17_ESO

ginoboehm wrote: »

Nafirian wrote: »

This might actually might be a good patch o.O

don't you think they made stam dks and nbs silly overpowered?

Considering stam DKs can already pull 30K plus single tgt, then the answer is "yes"! I'm not smart about stamblade so I cant speak to that, but it appears they receive a nice boost, up to 25% on those new disease abilities.

For all those dunmer stam DKs, consider dusting off your robes.

Still no love for the stamplars and stam sorcs. Thundering presence might be used a bit more, but not what that community has been asking for. Also I have to imagine the change to the heals will adversely effect the surge heals. Although on a similar note will no longer be penalized by battle spirit. So that's a break even for PvP and loss for PvE?

I cant remember off the top of my head, does biting jabs do physical or magic damage?

DUTCH_REAPER

@ZOS_GinaBruno been on the PTS and I must say the change to Nirn on weapons is painful. Anyway sharpened can just be the trait a Stam user would use for weapon penetration and potent nirn for spell penetration? I mean the value potent nirn will have will drop dramatically as well as Magic users need to pour a heck of a lot of CP into spell penetration to compensate. Just curious because as it is my Stams weapon will remain untouched with sharpened but due to the armor resistance of medium wearers and heavy wearers the amount of penetration for spell damage is not the same although the values of the sharpened trait are locked equally. Recommend either beef up the sharpened spell pen or put potent nirn back. Thank you for your time.

CP5

"Thundering Presence (Lightning Form morph):
Renamed this morph to Hurricane.
Redesigned this morph so it now increases the size and damage of the periodic effect the longer it is active, increasing up to 225% more damage and up to 9 meters in size.
This morph now deals Physical Damage instead of Shock Damage."

Another thing, since thundering presence (er, Hurricane) now deals physical damage, does that mean it doesn't proc disintegrate anymore? That passive scales off of max health and was (occasionally) helpful but now hurricane is a storm calling skill that can't proc this passive? Unintentional side effect?

Dagoth_Rac

Abilities no longer increase their cost by 1% per Veteran Rank, but will now increase at their normal rate for every 10 Champion points, up to a cap of 160.

Most abilities will cost about the same, but cost reduction abilities should return more predictable results.

Is this working properly on PTS? My skill costs went up by roughly 7%-11% across the board, which is most definitely not about the same! The more cost reduction jewelry glyphs being used, the higher the percentage cost increase. So it seems like both costs went up quite a bit and the effectiveness of cost reduction jewelry glyphs went down quite a bit. This is very significant and negates about half or more of the 16% cost reduction from 100 points in Warlord or Magician star. For example, Biting Jabs now costs my Stamplar 1811 compared to previously costing 1634 (1 cost reduction glyph). Crystal Frags now costs my Sorceror 2722 instead of 2541 (0 cost reduction glyphs). I am seeing similar results with all skills: class, weapon, guild, etc. I am pretty sure I have all CP and skill points re-allocated properly.

Is anyone else seeing this?

Elsonso

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Collectibles in Character Select
  • Active Appearance Collectibles (Hats, Personalities, Polymorphs, Costumes, Skins) can now be seen from the Character Select screen, in addition to your active mount and/or pet!

Any chance that this could apply to the in-game costumes (inventory items) at some point in the future? Alternately, make them collectibles so they don't take up inventory space?

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Additional Character Slots
You will now be able to purchase additional character slots through the in-game Crown Store!

How much?

Dredlord

Hagebutte wrote: »

Focused Healing:

Renamed this passive ability to Sacred Ground.
This passive ability has gained a new effect. In addition to providing the Minor Mending buff, it now also reduces the Movement Speed of enemies by 15/30% whenever they stand in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area of effects.

So the Major Mending buff is changed into Minor? That's kinda disappointing...

This has got to be a typo

AzraelKrieg

Dredlord wrote: »

Hagebutte wrote: »

Focused Healing:

Renamed this passive ability to Sacred Ground.
This passive ability has gained a new effect. In addition to providing the Minor Mending buff, it now also reduces the Movement Speed of enemies by 15/30% whenever they stand in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area of effects.

So the Major Mending buff is changed into Minor? That's kinda disappointing...

This has got to be a typo

It is a typo

SirSilverMask

Two points:

First:
"Experience gain rules will continue to function as they did for Veteran Ranks:

Mobs 40 Champion Points below your level will grant 75% of their normal XP.
Mobs 50 or more Champion Points below your level will grant 30% of their normal XP."
Considering that mobs are going to be maxed at 160 cp, will everyone who has over 210 be nerfed and lose 70% of xp no matter where they are? Hopefully that isn't the case, at least not intended, because that would significantly increase the difficulty of players trying to play catch up with cp in the 200-400 range. Please don't accidentally make it tougher for others to catch up.

2nd: Why the nerf to tanking?
"Heavy Armor

Bracing:
Renamed this passive ability to Wrath.
Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 10/20 for 6 seconds after taking damage at Ranks I/II respectively, stacking up to 10 times."

The change to bracing will cause tanks to spend 20% more stamina per block, yet the increase in damage will be insignificant especially for trials. So why the decision to nerf tanks ability to block against multiple attackers by increasing block costs by 20%? Honestly it probably wouldn't be bad if bracing/wrath provided both benefits, increasing damage and decreasing block costs.
And what dps will stop wearing 5 light or 5 medium armor to wear a 5 piece of heavy armor.

Radburn

Lots of great changes; I look forward to coming back to the game when DB releases.

Xsorus

SirSilverMask wrote: »

Two points:

First:
"Experience gain rules will continue to function as they did for Veteran Ranks:

Mobs 40 Champion Points below your level will grant 75% of their normal XP.
Mobs 50 or more Champion Points below your level will grant 30% of their normal XP."
Considering that mobs are going to be maxed at 160 cp, will everyone who has over 210 be nerfed and lose 70% of xp no matter where they are? Hopefully that isn't the case, at least not intended, because that would significantly increase the difficulty of players trying to play catch up with cp in the 200-400 range. Please don't accidentally make it tougher for others to catch up.

2nd: Why the nerf to tanking?
"Heavy Armor

Bracing:
Renamed this passive ability to Wrath.
Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 10/20 for 6 seconds after taking damage at Ranks I/II respectively, stacking up to 10 times."

The change to bracing will cause tanks to spend 20% more stamina per block, yet the increase in damage will be insignificant especially for trials. So why the decision to nerf tanks ability to block against multiple attackers by increasing block costs by 20%? Honestly it probably wouldn't be bad if bracing/wrath provided both benefits, increasing damage and decreasing block costs.
And what dps will stop wearing 5 light or 5 medium armor to wear a 5 piece of heavy armor.

You can get the old bracing via Traits now..in exchange you've basically picked up 600 magicka/stamina recovery every 2 seconds (its 1200 every 4 seconds) that works while Blocking....The Heavy Armor changes are vastly superior in every way to previous setup.

Solariken

I am LOVING what I see on paper so far. This update is helping restore hope.

Even with so many excellent changes, I am still worried about overall class balance. I still feel strongly that Stamplars will be considerably less effective than other classes. Stamplars still have a few crippling-ly weak passives - I hope you will consider my wishlist of suggestions:

[passive] Light Weaver (the worst class passive in the game in my opinion, consider changing to the following:) Healing yourself while below 50% health restores X magicka and Y stamina. This effect has a cooldown of Z seconds. [X/Y/Z is obviously determined/balanced by ZOS, and I feel that the stamina return should be slightly greater as Stamplars struggle the most with resources.]

[passive] Piercing Spear in addition to current effects, increases the damage of Aedric Spear abilities against enemies with a damage shield by 5/10%. [mageplars currently have 0 chance of busting shield-stack builds because everything they do is negated by Harness Magicka and gives the target infinite magicka sustain. Also, there aren't any counters to damage shields within any skill trees yet - this is a great place to do it!]

[passive] Balanced Warrior in addition to current effects, provides Minor Expedition (+10% movement speed) at all times while Aedric Spear ability slotted.

[passive] Master Ritualist (does not currently help the Templar at all) - in addition to current effects, increases weapon attack speed by 5/10%. [same effect as the 2.3 weighted weapon trait]

Toorlokviing

just when i was starting to enjoy wrecking blow after over 2yrs and never leveling 2hand till now...it gets nerfed...im sad.

AzraelKrieg

Toorlokviing wrote: »

just when i was starting to enjoy wrecking blow after over 2yrs and never leveling 2hand till now...it gets nerfed...im sad.

Now you have a choice; get the power boost from Wrecking Blow or knock fools on their butts with Dizzying Swing. I'll still use WB though. The power boost is too much to give up

ub17_ESO

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

SturgeHammer wrote: »

Oh.... Whelp maybe I am wrong but that change to wrecking blow just made Stam Sorc a lot worse in pvp, unless they provide another reliable melee range stun.

Or maybe you should go play nightblade if you were relying on wrecking blow to make stam sorc work...

That cant be the answer right??

AzraelKrieg

ub17_ESO wrote: »

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

SturgeHammer wrote: »

Oh.... Whelp maybe I am wrong but that change to wrecking blow just made Stam Sorc a lot worse in pvp, unless they provide another reliable melee range stun.

Or maybe you should go play nightblade if you were relying on wrecking blow to make stam sorc work...

That cant be the answer right??

If a stam sorc was relying purely on Wrecking Blow there is an issue with the build and the player. A bow and dual wield is just as good if not more effective for a stam sorc then a 2h spammer

Spearshard

@ZOS_GinaBruno, I may have missed it, but are going to get a respec when the patch goes live? There are some big changes.

AzraelKrieg

Spearshard wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno, I may have missed it, but are going to get a respec when the patch goes live? There are some big changes.

No respec. They reiterated that at PAX in there Q&A. After people complained about having to respec with IC release they stopped doing it completely.

DocFrost72

Damn, looks like the sorcs are already rerolling to Dragonknights in the forums with all the toxic spew going around.

Serious response; three things I would like to see.

One, the changes to vampire that require one to be at their most vulnerable to have the vampire's weakest passive is silly, in my opinion. Regen at 2, but sneak speed at 4? Ah well, still hope to make them something special. The 6 hour timer with accelerator was a brilliant idea!

Two: The shield cut was a little brutal, truth be told. I like the change because it makes shields uniform (barring brawler and empowered at 8, and bone shield at 5 or ten if synergized). The issue is how far the initial step was... I mean, 20 to 6? In the DKs' case, even longer to 6? I could totally see 10 seconds, but to cut 70% (or more) right off the top might be a bit too much all at once, even if the idea behind it is very, very good.

Also, removing any mat to put it for sale only is a bad step down a slippery slope. Maybe I'm blind, but I dunno what the logic could even be for this change.

On to the good!

Stam shields: YAS, FINALLY! *Many hugs* I understand why it is percent off max stam, that will buff it but not make it as powerful as something like hardened ward for example (stam can be rollie pollies, especially with new gear traits).

Love, LOVE the dawnbreaker change! Even the passive damage was really unchanged because of the rewritten second passive!

Really excited for a lot of the stamplar and stamiknight changes, they're going to be hitting harder now more than ever!

Hype train for VR removal is so real! No more super-grind to get a toon I want to the max level, especially seeing as I've done it thrice already.

And for the record, I am happy there is no cp cap increase. Let people get used to one big change at a time. There's not really incentive to add a higher ceiling just yet. Don't listen to the haters who want "progression" (not sure how clicking 17 more times is "progression").

O.M.G. DIREWOLF ADDS!!!!

Crafting bags are AWESOME, first time since launch my bank was empty!

Personalities are an exciting prospect. Hopefully we see more as time goes on, the assassin one is not -quite a my style, but definitely cool! (Try lean back, folks!)

Lastly, geeking out heavily for the new wolf mount. Cannot WAIT for that to hit live!

TL:DR

Not perfect, but digging it!

Ishrii

Averya_Teira wrote: »

Hagebutte wrote: »

Focused Healing:

Renamed this passive ability to Sacred Ground.
This passive ability has gained a new effect. In addition to providing the Minor Mending buff, it now also reduces the Movement Speed of enemies by 15/30% whenever they stand in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area of effects.

So the Major Mending buff is changed into Minor? That's kinda disappointing...

Yeah, not sure if it's a typo. If it isn't, it sucks real bad.

Dredlord wrote: »

Hagebutte wrote: »

Focused Healing:

Renamed this passive ability to Sacred Ground.
This passive ability has gained a new effect. In addition to providing the Minor Mending buff, it now also reduces the Movement Speed of enemies by 15/30% whenever they stand in your Cleansing Ritual, Rune Focus, or Rite of Passage area of effects.

So the Major Mending buff is changed into Minor? That's kinda disappointing...

This has got to be a typo

Typeo. I logged onto PTS earlier -- it's still Major Mending.

ub17_ESO

DUTCH_REAPER wrote: »

Sniff, why do that to nirn on weapons???

I agree! I thought Nirnhoned was in a good place. I'm worried for what the values will be. I did some testing on resistance flat values vs resistance by % to get smart on how to allocate my CP.

Here is the reader's digest version:

I did the testing on my v16 stam sorc wearing 5m 1l 1h. The control to get a rough estimate on the actual mitigation of armor and spell resist was lightning form which grants the major resist buff for both. With lightning form active I mitigate an additional 11-12% Assuming my math is correct, or rather my method (calculators are smart), roughly 480 armor/spell resist will grant you 1% of mitigation. I then took that to the champion system to allocate points to find if there would ever be a situation where as the diminishing return on the % reduction would cause it to come up short against the flat value added resistance of the armor focus and spell resistance. The answer was "no"! Even to the 100th point it was more efficient to choose the % value of mitigation vice adding to the value of your resistance.

Back on point...nirnhoned as it is gives you a % value which is more than likely better than the flat value that will be added.

I will say the same for the defending trait and I do think this is a big deal! Defending trait as it stands only effective for a player that has high resist values, likely a tank, which IMO is the only play style that is taking a hard look at using the defending trait! The flat value would benefit all the players that have no interest in using it. So by my previous calculation if I am a tank with buffed resist values of lets say 22K, and I have a gold 1H with defending trait to accompany my shield I will receive a 6% boost to my resistance values which is 1320 and using the 480-1% value is 2.75% additional mitigation. For min maxers playing a trial tank I think this is a good reason to use the defending trait. Lets assume all the numbers stay the same with the removal of veteran ranks, to make it worthwhile to use the defending trait it will need to add a flat value of no less than 1200 for a 1H weapon meaning 2400 for a 2H or obviously 2x1200...

Quickly by the same math, the flat value of the gold sharpened trait will need to be roughly 6,700 to maintain its current strength.

I suppose bottom line, if they dont get the numbers right, no additional people will use these niche traits, and even worse they might make it mathematical nonsense to use them.

I hope that makes any kind of sense. Also, if you have a better formula for resistance values converted to mitigation I'm all ears!!

Wrecking_Blow_Spam

Agree with the others, not a fan off all the nerfs.

Biggest gripe is having to buy potency runes and no longer able to loot them in the wild. I might be wrong but I have a feeling they'll be expensive.

ub17_ESO

"Heavy Armor

Bracing:
Renamed this passive ability to Wrath.
Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 10/20 for 6 seconds after taking damage at Ranks I/II respectively, stacking up to 10 times."

Why not a % increase. such as 2/4%, 1/2% etc...

Thoughts?

AzraelKrieg

ub17_ESO wrote: »

"Heavy Armor

Bracing:
Renamed this passive ability to Wrath.
Redesigned this passive ability so it now increases your Weapon and Spell Damage by 10/20 for 6 seconds after taking damage at Ranks I/II respectively, stacking up to 10 times."

Why not a % increase. such as 2/4%, 1/2% etc...

Thoughts?

With the buff to the amount of resources returned from the other passive, this isn't really an issue

Septimus_Magna

Francescolg wrote: »

Sorc shield is still on top of all re-castable absorb shields, just because each re-casting can proc Crystal Frag! Every skilled sorc knows how to combine shield-stacking + crystal frag procs in PvP battles, add some ports left and right (not streak^^) and this will work like a charm (still easy mode). You will have a little bit less dps but still mostly instant skills, no casted/channelled spells and very high mobility, while having best-def possible + max dmg output, all out of magicka/spell dmg.

My sorc sees no problems

The problem is that you can be put on the defensive really easy, if someone CCs you just before your shield runs out you'll have no defense unless you instantly break it and reapply the shield. Meanwhile you do 0 dps and the attacker can keep increasing the preassure. We all know some CCs take more time to break (Fear and Fossilze for example) which will make it easy to burst through the 22-25k health pool.

Sorcs will have a very hard time vs skilled stamina DKs and NBs, hard-CC > burst > ult > GG and GN