PTS Patch Notes v2.7.0 (Homestead)

Rittings · January 2017

What's with the nerfing of Magicka Nightblades?? They already hit like wet fishes... now you want to charge 38% more resources to hit like wet fishes?

That's ridiculous.

Magicka builds nerfed... Stamina builds buffed... Smells like PVPers getting their wishes as PVEers suffer... AGAIN!!

This game is in its final throws for me. Homestead is a rare bone being thrown designed to placate the oppression of PVE content players.

blazjit420 · January 2017

DOES THIS PATCH FIX LAG? IF NOT I DONT WANT IT!

unwoman · January 2017

PvP buffs and nerfs shouldn't effect the PvE side of the game. They are two vastly different aspects of a game and the two should never cross over. PvP imo is a side part of a game, it is separate from how everything is supposed to work. Keep the mechanics and rule sets within PvP separate because those mechanics and rule sets don't work for PvE. You run into issues when you try nerfing and buffing for both. Simple as that.

sirtadzio · January 2017

I agree with previous posters in regards to Magica Nightblades; they suffer in terms of DPS comparatively to other classes. Now the magica increase for the one skill is understandable, but needs to be in context with that skill hitting harder, or being reworked in some way. I'd like to use my MagBlade more often in end game PvE content, but it's just not realistic with how it's currently structured. Show us some love please ZoS!

Curragraigue · January 2017

@ZOS_GinaBruno does this mean the Craglorn cave house we saw in the video is coming later or that it is going to be a crown exclusive purchase home?

Rohamad_Ali · January 2017

It's amazing the pts could not open up today .

ArchMikem · January 2017

Pets, Assistants, and Mounts cannot be summoned inside of homes, but can be placed inside homes as decorations.

You guys have no idea how giddy I am over that part.

Not to mention these;

Elemental Ring (Impulse morph): This morph no longer adds a small Damage over Time component to the ability. Instead, it allows you to cast the ability at a ground-targeted location up to 28 meters away.

Lightning Staves: Increases your Area of Effect damage dealt by 4/8%.

Are going to make my MagSorc UNSTOPPABLE in PvE content.

cellobuddy · January 2017

If a target can be affected by curse and the little haunt thing that comes after, the change to velocious curse into haunting will actually be a decent buff for PvE. 1 cast every 6 seconds for the same amount of damage as 2 casts in 7 seconds. This does nothing for PvP, of course, but it'll be nice having that extra bit of damage in PvE. I definitely don't appreciate the warhorn change, though. It really makes the shadow stone just about useless and the TBS set, which almost everyone has a set of for trials, significantly weaker. There's so much else that seems wrong, but I'll just leave my opinions on that for when we get to confirm our suspicions.

coplannb16_ESO · January 2017

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

Sylance9 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

MAGICKA TANKS ARE A THING NOW, I COULD CRY I AM SO HAPPY.

I was a magicka tank before this...

So was I, but this is -GOLD-.

Or it would be for some builds.

Hm, do not really like it. DK magicka tanks use fire damage and benefit from the DK passives and dunmer racials. Id rather have some sort of Focus (or wand, e.g. magicka 1-hand weapon usable with a shield) that restores magicka on heavy attack however still blocks with stamina.

Using an ice staff reduces my damage and still offers less protection and less set/gear-flexibility... Also taunt on heavy attack is crap cause you might need it to gain magicka, then however the boss gets taunt immunity causing your group to get wiped the next moment...

not really well thought-through there

also still wonder where the mDK pvp buffs are? 5% on Lash? yeah that will fix the DOT class in a burst-meta where everyone can cleanse ...

Abob · January 2017

Haha! That nerf to Engine Guardian!

petraeus1 · January 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

HOMESTEAD
[*]Seating
Many chairs, thrones, benches, pews, stools, and other seating objects throughout Tamriel are now interactive. You just need to approach the furniture and interact with it to sit down, provided there is room and the furniture is placed in an accessible location.
This applies to seating placed in homes as well as those found in the world.

Seating objects that aren't placed in a level, open area may not be valid for interaction.

PogChamp

Ffastyl · January 2017

Major Evasion got too light of a nerf here. 15% dodge is, on average, 15% damage mitigation. This is now the second strongest defensive ability, after Restoring Focus. The armor cap (found through testing) is 32500, and the Devs have stated in the past that the cap is 50% damage mitigation. 32500 / 50 = 650; the standard armor buff of 5280 is 8.12% damage, a little more than half of the mitigation this new Major Evasion offers.

Compare this to the Heavy Armor skill Immovable: (using my own character)
Immovable- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Evasion
4246 Stamina cost- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 3774 Stamina cost
15 seconds- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23 seconds
8% mitigation- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15% mitigation
5 seconds CC-immunity- - - - - - - - - - 15% chance to negate CC for 23 seconds

So, why would I ever use Immovable, even when wearing 7/7 Heavy Armor?

Johngo0036 · January 2017

WOOOOOW these balance changes are all crappy......

Zenni it is time to fire wrobel and get somebody in who knows what they are doing,

i mean seriously................

My goldfish could do a better job balancing classes....

Silver_Strider · January 2017

Ok I just want to say that going into this patch, my expectations where low. Really, REALLY low, almost to a point that I thought it would be impossible to be disappointed in them.

I WAS WRONG. I was horribly, horribly wrong.

I am more disappointed now than I've been in a long while.

Ice Staff becomes a very crappy Tank Weapon
Magic NB DPS/healers took a Hit
Magic Sustain is possibly taking a hit (need confirmation but this is ZOS so I'm not hopeful)
Sorcs got eviscerated in both categorizes
Templars goes some mild healing buffs but at a cost of losing their main CC move as well as a nerf to Jesus Beam.
DK will have more whips and a Magic Leap but at the cost of their Standard and the Dragon's Blood change is just odd.
Black Rose Nerf doesn't fix anything, neither does the Proc set nerf

Just.....ugh. I just can't. It hurts my very soul looking at these notes.
Burn them. Burn them and bury them in a ditch.

f047ys3v3n · January 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

A Target Skeleton can be used to practice with new weapons, abilities, and combat in general. It does not fight back, but is a resilient opponent, roughly as difficult to put down as the second boss from Veteran Spindleclutch II (Bloodspawn).

Not enough health. That's like 40 seconds or less for a stam DK. Needs at least 4x that. Also needs to have a 1 damage attack that does not stunn or interupt in any way every second to proc relevant proc sets.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Previously, this was divided evenly by weapon category (Destruction Staff, Two Hand, etc). Now, it is based on the individual item type (Dagger, One Handed Sword, etc), and all damage weapons within the item type have an equal probability to drop.

We also slightly reduced the drop chance for Healing Staves, Bows, and One Hand and Shields.

Not clear exactly what this means. There are several interchangeable weapons for each stam type (eg. maul and greatsword) and magica weapons are not interchangeable (eg shock and inferno staff.) Is an inferno staff now the same likelyhood as any stam two handed or the same likelyhood as each stam two handed? Looks like less trash drops overall though. That is good but given how many there were might still be pretty bad rng.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Coagulating Blood (Dragon Blood morph): This morph now heals you for 33% of your missing Magicka instead of 33% of your missing Health.

So.... um less healing. I thought you were going to make it more.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Strife: Increased the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 38%.

Magica NB's are dead. Ok, maybe they were dead already (most 1st tier raids take few to none as they are the lowest dps loadout) but they did vMA well. They are really dead now and I am not exaggerating that. The resource sustain they had because their main heal / spam-able was cheap was really all they had going for them. 38% damn, that is huge and after a 25% increase a couple patches ago (though this was stealth not in patch notes.) While, I suppose somebody could just drop funnel for force pulse (the highest dps builds already do), at that point they are just a really, really bad sorc who has one DOT instead of 2, a worse execute, far less compelling class passives, no shield, no frags, and no heals. I guess you can sneak around and steal stuff.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Destruction Staff

Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order:
1) Force Shock

This means my masters inferno now buffs Force Shock, correct? Please oh please say yes. I happen to have a masters inferno and wouldn't that be sweet to have a masters front and vMA back bar on that sorc I have to switch to now that mNB will be well and truly dead with a 38% increase in the cost of it's spam-able.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Force Shock: This ability and its morphs can no longer be reflected. Beam-type attacks cannot be reflected, but are able to be blocked.

Elemental Ring (Impulse morph): This morph no longer adds a small Damage over Time component to the ability. Instead, it allows you to cast the ability at a ground-targeted location up to 28 meters away.

Hmm, maybe ranged magica toons are now a thing in PVP. Very interesting.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Ancient Knowledge: This passive ability no longer decreases the cast time of your Destruction Staff Heavy Attacks by 5/10%. Instead, it grants you a bonus as long as you have one Destruction Staff ability slotted. This bonus depends on your staff type:

Flame Staves: Increases your single-target damage dealt by 4/8%.
Frost Staves: Increases the amount of damage you Block by 10/20%, and reduces the cost of Block by 15/30%.
Lightning Staves: Increases your Area of Effect damage dealt by 4/8%.

Hmm, relevant passives for magica users. They might actually use staves and maybe even a few different types. Got to say I am finding the staff line rework very interesting. Would be nice if I still had my magica NB to play with it but I do still have a mag sorc that I think will function as it's nerfs look less fatal. Overall the staff line rework looks very interesting from a variety of angles.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Flame Staves: Increases your single-target damage dealt by 4/8%.
Lightning Staves: Increases your Area of Effect damage dealt by 4/8%.

OK, so most magica dps DOT's used for single target are actually AOE's (wall of elements, liquid lightning, embers, puncturing sweeps, even force pulse) How does this calculation go? Do I get an 8% dps buff on a single boss from my DOT's with flame or lightning? Also, since I don't think lighting light attacks are AOE's like their heavy would they not be buffed? That is a problem since you can't weave the lightning heavy attack? With flame staff would my heavy attack be buffed but neither my spam-able (force pulse is an AOE) nor almost any DOT as they are almost all AOE. While these passives look compelling on the surface a little deeper and they look very poorly conceived as far as what staff does what and how that actually works out for real builds.

Well I'm interested to try this stuff out on PTS, especially the staff line changes and especially since I will have dps test dummies. The one thing I am sure of though is that magica NB's are dead as dps toons. They really have only the one good class DOT in cripple (it is a very nice DOT as well) and with the 38% funnel cost increase they won't be able to use that as their spam-able between DOT applications. Funnel is lower dps than force pulse anyway and now will cost more. Therefore, for solo such as vMA, they will have to slot it as a HOT and use force pulse at the cost of a bar slot, a good bit of heals as it ticks less often when not being spammed, and a lot of resources. I know my immediate plan is to abandon my mNB dps, which was already on the low end of raid dps, in favor of a sorc that I have been bumping around with. I'll see how that goes as I would like to stay ranged. If it is not competitive though I will call it quits for a while. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic I do not intend to be forced into melee to be competitive. Boss ball sniffing is not for me. I have never become melee in any game and don't intend to start now. I am willing to hop from ranged class to ranged class, and have since the start, but if none can get the dps necessary I'm done.

happymaarit · January 2017

I need to make some gold!

One month until it comes to PS4 so how to heck do I make 4 mil...

Dracane · January 2017

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Destruction Staff

Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order:
1) Force Shock

This means my masters inferno now buffs Force Shock, correct? Please oh please say yes. I happen to have a masters inferno and wouldn't that be sweet to have a masters front and vMA back bar on that sorc I have to switch to now that mNB will be well and truly dead with a 38% increase in the cost of it's spam-able.

No

Let's hope the force shock master weapon comes with Vvardenfell.

LittlePumpkin030 · January 2017

happymaarit wrote: »

I need to make some gold!
One month until it comes to PS4 so how to heck do I make 4 mil...

when you wanna have all houses its ~26 Mio X)

thomas1970b16_ESO · January 2017

I really like many of the changes.

Destruction staff changes are really great.

I am a Templar myself and our execute needed a nerf. Maybe not 21% but hey it is ok. Executing so early on a boss percentage of health meant that there was something wrong.

I also liked the changes to Templar ground auras.

I am hoping for some crafted set tweaks in the future, more crafted sets, and jewelcrafting too!

All in all, some very good changes though.

Cinbri · January 2017

Dracane wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Destruction Staff

Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order:
1) Force Shock

This means my masters inferno now buffs Force Shock, correct? Please oh please say yes. I happen to have a masters inferno and wouldn't that be sweet to have a masters front and vMA back bar on that sorc I have to switch to now that mNB will be well and truly dead with a 38% increase in the cost of it's spam-able.

No
Let's hope the force shock master weapon comes with Vvardenfell.

In some case it does because Ancient Knowledge: Flame Staves: Increases your single-target damage dealt by 4/8%.

Dracane · January 2017

Cinbri wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

f047ys3v3n wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Destruction Staff

Adjusted the order of the Active Abilities in this skill line. They now unlock in the following order:
1) Force Shock

This means my masters inferno now buffs Force Shock, correct? Please oh please say yes. I happen to have a masters inferno and wouldn't that be sweet to have a masters front and vMA back bar on that sorc I have to switch to now that mNB will be well and truly dead with a 38% increase in the cost of it's spam-able.

No
Let's hope the force shock master weapon comes with Vvardenfell.

In some case it does because Ancient Knowledge: Flame Staves: Increases your single-target damage dealt by 4/8%.

Hm yes. But you could use any fire staff for that matter.

Enodoc · January 2017

Forsaken Stronghold, 1,285,000 gold: When Hakkvild drove the Orcs of Yashnag's Kingdom out of Falkreath in 2E 467, the exiled Orsimer came east to establish Forsaken Stronghold. But the last Orcs died in 563 after they were visited by a merchant infected with Knahaten Flu.

Forsaken Stronghold is west of Falkreath, not east.

happymaarit · January 2017

LittlePumpkin030 wrote: »

happymaarit wrote: »

I need to make some gold!
One month until it comes to PS4 so how to heck do I make 4 mil...

when you wanna have all houses its ~26 Mio X)

OMG! In FF XIV one large house was 60 mil. this game rocks!

Bashev · January 2017

"* In addition, when a Dual Wield weapon is awarded, you will receive two Dual Wield weapons."
ZoS, you did this but you didnt do any changes for the 2 handed weapons to be counted as 2 pieces from a set. Very disappointed.

iTzStevey · January 2017

So you basically gave MagDKS 5% more damage,rearranged some skills,changed some passives, made a change to DB thats isnt even worth mentioning,nerfed PVE dps by a huge amount when the real issue was in pvp,ignored heavy armor being OP, killed the mageblade class(pfft) added some crappy houses that are gonna be 100% worse than the ones youll sell in the crown store and ignored pretty much every piece of advice and constructive criticism given by your playerbase. TWO years you've been at this and you're still pretty useless at "balancing"
At this point we'd be better off going to pvp in RUNESCAPE so yeah two more words for your combat/balancing team: F*UCK YOU.
Zenimax, the development team of *** children -_-

Twohothardware · January 2017

Stamina builds dominate PvP and your solution ZOS to bring the Magicka classes back up to an even level with all the stamina based proc sets, heavy armor abuse, ect is a range of sweeping nerfs to the few stronger Magicka abilities like Velocious Curse, Radiant Destruction, and Strife? And the change of Dragon Blood to restore magicka when the entire complaint was it didn't heal enough compared to stamina heals like Vigor? You guys really have no clue what you're doing or you simply barely play the PvP in your own game one.

InvitationNotFound · January 2017

I just took a short peak at the patch notes, but somehow this feels like a *** up social experiment.
Like:
How much *** can we serve our customers until they leave?
Or how will our company perform when we let *** make decisions?

Now let's take a look at a few points of this balancing or magicka patch or whatever this *** should be:

1) Blazing Spear (Spear Shards morph): Increased the duration of this morph to 8 seconds from 6 seconds, causing it to tick damage an additional 2 times; however, it no longer stuns the enemy when it first hits them.

Very good decision. I mean we all know that people are keep staying around in PVP and this time increase will wipe groups!!!
Well, not really. It's actually an unnecessary nerf.

2) [Velocious Curse] This morph no longer shortens the duration of the curse to 3.5 seconds from 6 seconds; instead, it causes the curse to echo and trigger one additional time 6 seconds after the first explosion.

An unnecessary sorc nerf. Was anyone asking for this?
The only buffs i can see for sorcs are buffs for pet builds, which aren't very common (and i probably know only one person who can use such a build and only in IC).
It isn't enough to destroy other viable builds with previous patches, no... now magicka sorcs should be forced more and more to run around with *** pets?

3) Item Set procs which deal damage or healing can no longer Critically Strike.

Who came up with this *** ***? Will this change anything in PVP? No. Will it hurt PVE? Yes.
But who complained and where are proc sets an issue right now? Yes, PVP.

4) [Frost Staff]
- This passive ability now taunts the enemy after you use a fully-charged Frost Heavy Attack.
- This passive ability now causes your block to drain Magicka (instead of Stamina) and stops your Magicka Recovery (instead of Stamina Recovery) while blocking when you have a Frost Destruction Staff equipped.
- Frost Staves: Increases the amount of damage you Block by 10/20%, and reduces the cost of Block by 15/30%.

Wooohooo. One more cancer build. Block on your frost bar until magicka gets low and switch to your shield bar and block until your stamina gets low. Switch back to frost bar and repeat.
Seriously, what the *** is wrong with ZOS and the Wrobler? Does he want to make it feel awesome to block with a *** frost staff? >_<

5) [Elemental Storm]
- Reduced the damage for this ability and its morphs by 5%.
- Lightning Staves: Increases your Area of Effect damage dealt by 4/8%.

Well, insert "at least you tried" meme here...
First, a 5% reduction will absolutely not change anything of the mess we currently have.
But yet you consider BUFFING it a good idea as you will deal more damage with lightning staff now.
How *** up is this?

This whole patch is very far away from a "balancing patch". It doesn't fix any real issues at all and instead will add more crap to the game nobody was asking for.

ZoM_Head · January 2017

Getsome122 wrote: »

I can't actually believe people are happy about any of these changes. Seems all you guys do anymore is nerf everything, then give us more *** to buy from you.

Happy? I play a mDK since beta, you think i am happy with the 5% buff to whip and 5% nerf to 250 ulti costing Banner? Or dragon blood changes?

robvs · January 2017

Please, a "Craft X amount of potions/food" option on console.

Dymence · January 2017

Pretty satisfied with overall changes, looks like a pretty interesting balance patch. Don't know why people are throwing such a fuss. Most of the posters seem to have no clue whatsoever...

Bit sad for the nightblades though, but oh well.