[Patch Notes] PvP Break Down

Taylor_MB

Public Test Server patch notes.

-PvP Vendors-
Cyrodiil and IC vendor changes. Basically we can spend AP on overland set RNG instead of gold for specific item via guild traders, dungeon sets still require the grind:

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Imperial City Vendors
The vendors in Imperial City have had their wares updated!

• The Tel Var Greater Lockbox Merchant is now known as the "Tel Var Equipment Lockbox Merchant".
  • These boxes now contain armor, weapons, and jewelry for every Imperial City set in all traits except Impenetrable and Nirnhoned.
  • Their prices have also been reduced.
• The Tel Var Lockbox Merchant is now known as the "Tel Var Jewelry Lockbox Merchant".
  • They now sell Jewelry Boxes for each Imperial City item set; these boxes contain a gold-quality piece of random jewelry from that item set.
  • These jewelry pieces can possess the Healthy, Robust, or Arcane item trait depending on the item set.
• The Tel Var Armorer and Greater Armorer are now known as the "Tel Var First Armorer" and "Tel Var Second Armorer".
  • The First Armorer sells the item sets Black Rose, Meritorious Service, Phoenix, Powerful Assault, Reactive Armor, and Shield Breaker.
  • The Second Armorer sells the item sets Galerion's Revenge, Imperial Physique, Thews of the Harbinger, and Vicecanon of Venom.
  • They both sell armor for the item sets available in Imperial City in Impenetrable directly to you (with no intermediate container item).
• In addition to the satchels of Alchemical reagents introduced in a previous update, the Tel Var General Merchant now sells the Superb Imperial Reward box, which has been reduced in price. This vendor now also sells Alkahest, as well.

Cyrodiil Vendors

• The vendors found in the base camp of the alliances in Cyrodiil have changed significantly.
  • Some vendors, finding that their wares simply aren't selling very well, have left for greener pastures. They might return in the future when they find new markets to serve.
  • There is now a Regional Equipment Vendor in the base camps of Cyrodiil. These vendors sell "Zone Bags" of all Alliances' home zones.
    • Each Zone Bag offers a random item from a random item set, otherwise found in that zone. For instance, the Unknown Alik'r Desert Item container might contain an item from the Robes of the Withered Hand, Sword-Singer, or Order of Diagna item sets.
    • The items in the Zone Bags are typically Blue-quality, with a small chance of being Purple-quality.
    • Equipment found in Zone Bags will scale to your level at the moment you open it.
  • There is now a War Researcher vendor in the base camps of Cyrodiil. These vendors have taken some of the work of the Siege Vendors, to ease their burdens.
    • The Akaviri Motif chapters, and the Style Items for Akaviri and Alliance styles, are now found in the War Researcher's store.
  • An Enchanter can now be found in the base camps of Cyrodiil. They sell runes in exchange for Alliance Points.
  • The Elite Equipment Vendor's wares have been renamed. They no longer bear the name of Hew's Bane.
• The vendors found in the capturable towns have had their wares slightly modified.
  • The boxes now list which item sets are available inside them.
  • The prices of the containers have been reduced by 75%.
  • Because of their use elsewhere in Tamriel, we have removed some item sets from the capturable towns' wares and containers. They include:
    • Armor of Truth
    • Barkskin
    • Crusader
    • Durok's Bane
    • Noble Duelist's Silks
    • Prayer Shawl
    • Robes of Onslaught
    • Sergeant's Mail
    • Twin Sisters

-Minor Magickasteal-

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Buffs & Debuffs

• Created a new debuff category, Minor Magickasteal. This is a debuff applied to enemies that restores a flat value of Magicka to the attacker every second (400 Magicka every second at CP160).

This is the single most major change in the patch notes. It will allow magicka user to run all damage sets and still receive a whopping 800 magicka regen from this debuff. So far the abilities with this debuff added are Restoration Staff: Siphon Spirit (instead of 1% of max magicka) , Destruction Staff: Elemental Drain (instead of flat magicka return from elemental damage) and Templar: Restoring Aura (12m AoE applying of Minor Magicka Steal (upon activation)).

These changes give PvP viability to 3 usually ignored skills and give magicka users the resource management of stam users. However, @Leandor - "As they are implementing this as a debuff on enemies, not a buff on yourself/your group, it is vulnerable to the most overused ability in PvP - purge."



-AoE Caps-

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

• Adjusted the Area of Effect damage thresholds for all abilities. The new thresholds are as follows:
  • Targets 1 – 6: 100% damage taken with all secondary effects applied.
  • Targets 7 – 24: 75% damage taken with no secondary effects applied (formerly 50% damage taken).
  • Targets 25 – 60: 50% damage taken with no secondary effects applied (formerly 25% damage taken).
  /quote]

-Proc Sets-
Will no longer crit. This effects all proc sets (including healing sets) and doesn't address proc stacking, so *sad face*


-Dragonknight-
Rather conservative changes so far, does not appear DK is getting over buffed so props to ZOS for that...

Lava Whip damage increased by 5%

Ferocious Leap now deals flame damage instead of physical.

Standard of Might got a 5% nerf to damage taken and damage dealt, an odd change, stationary ults are already so situational they are virtually useless.

Coagulated Blood now heals for 33% of missing magicka instead of HP.
• Useless to recover from ganks
• Hurts HP DK's
• If you can successfully fight with a depleted magicka pool, this could be an effective heal. It's weird that ZOS is rewarding fighting with low resources, but this *could* be useful to use right before an ult to regen HP and resources.... but then the heal becomes useless again.
• Requires stacking of magicka.


-Nightblade-
Nothing too exciting, just some skill adjustments.

Shadow Cloak is getting another fix that won't work.

Strife is getting a massive 38% cost increase, hurting rangeblades for sure. Potentially off-settable by magickasteal.


-Sorcerer-
Some weird changes in here. Slight buff to pets that I will not go into detail about.

Encase is getting a 6% cost reduction. Not huge, but we don't really need it to be cheaper to spam a 16x6m AoE root and snare, did they forget bombard?

Velocious Curse deals damage after 6 seconds and 12 seconds from applying. *cries*. So a Sorc now has to either rely on force shock for spammable dps or stall for 3seconds before dropping their combo? Not attractive. Sorc always had such a unique playstyle, now they are getting relegated to spammable dps like all other classes or stall before they can drop their combo, boring.

Hurricane now deal significantly less damage.

Ultimate can now only be stored up to 500 (down from 1000), hurting Overload users.


-Templar-
They are trying to make some useless skills useful so that's good, but I think they missed the mark

Eclipse can now be placed on unlimited targets. Another skill that only effects magicka users. Yes, this skill can only be used on people without CC immunity, but a spammable skill that reflects ultimates (and magicka skills) is stupid as.

Radiant Destruction damage nerfed by 21%. This wasn't really needed, an adjustment to range or lowering of execute threshold would've been better by allowing for more counterplay rather then just a flat damage reduction.

Radiant Aura no longer provides major regen buffs but instead on activation hits all enemies within 28 metres (12 metres unmorphed) with minor magickasteal. Cannot see many slotting instead of Repentance in PvP or PvE unless by a secondary templar, repentance is much more powerful and only getting magickasteal from radiant aura does not seem worth it. **unclear if magickasteal replaces major regen buffs, updating when tested.

Blazing Spear no longer stuns.


-Destruction Staff-

Elemental Storm 5% damage nerf.

Force Shock now non-reflectable.

Frost Staff increases the amount of damage you block by 20%, reduces the cost of block by 30%, blocking drains magicka instead of stamina and heavy attacks taunt the enemy (via destruction staff passives). This only makes it slightly less efficient then sword and board. Frost status effect (chilled) changed to Minor Maim (reduces targets damage done by 15%) instead of snare.

Flame Staff increases single target damage by 8%.

Lightening Staff increases AoE target damage by 8% (so 3% buff to elemental storm). Lightening status effect (concussed) changed to Minor Vulnerability (increase targets damage taken by 8%) instead of Minor Maim.


-Vampire-

Clouding Swarm requires testing, seems like it could be useful on a magDK.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Vampire

• Clouding Swarm (Bat Swarm morph): This morph no longer causes your character to pulse invisibility every second it is active. Instead, activating the swarm now allows you use the ability again to instantly teleport to an enemy up to 22 meters away and deal high damage. This teleport can be used as many times as possible within the swarm’s duration.

-Major Evasion-
Reduced to 15%


-Beast Trap-
Reduced damage by 30% and Minor Force reduced to 10%. Only stamina root so will still be used (definitely still be used in PvE). Definitely turned into a utility skill now rather then utility and dps.


-Sets-

Viper's Sting will no longer proc from weapon enchantments (so no more range proccing).

Infernal Guardian will have a line of sight check and no longer pull people out of stealth or hidden.


-Light Armour-
Evocation passive currently reduces cost of ultimate, dodge roll and block on PTS. No word if this is intended.

---

Let me know if I missed anything important, more skills have been modified then I listed so do check out the patch notes for more details.

Remember this is just the PTS patch notes, this is a long way from live.

loki547

Forgot:

Force Shock is now unreflectable. CC immunity is now 7 sec instead of 5 if you don't break free. Blazing Spear no longer stuns but lasts longer. Ferocious Leap morph now deals Fire Dmg instead of Physical.

IxSTALKERxI

Patch 2.7 - The unbalancing patch with ice staff housing.

Xinthisis

Nightblade
Nothing too exciting, just some skill adjustments.

Shadow Cloak is getting another fix that won't work.

Yup.

Taylor_MB

loki547 wrote: »

Forgot:

Force Shock is now unreflectable. CC immunity is now 7 sec instead of 5 if you don't break free. Blazing Spear no longer stuns but lasts longer. Ferocious Leap morph now deals Fire Dmg instead of Physical.

Added thank you!

My understanding of the CC immunity change is that currently it awards 5 second immunity on application of the CC, so if you wait the 2 seconds for it expire you only have 3seconds left. So the change is normalizing it to always give 5 seconds (even though it says 7, 2 of those you spend CC'd) even when you don't break it. That accurate? Kind of why I didn't include it on the list cause that's is how most (well... at least me) expects it to be.

Joy_Division

Forgot potentially the biggest: Aoe Caps adjustment.

That and the no crit for proc sets (which we know about).

Taylor_MB

Joy_Division wrote: »

Forgot potentially the biggest: Aoe Caps adjustment.

That and the no crit for proc sets (which we know about).

Good idea will ad those in. Completely forgot about them cause of the sneak peek.

Publius_Scipio

The change to Black Rose, is that going to swing the set away from stam users and onto magicka users?

FloppyTouch

Dragon blood nerf maybe ugh these guys have no clue how to buff, ..|.. ZoS

Leandor

I do disagree with you on magickasteal. As they are implementing this as a debuff on enemies, not a buff on yourself/your group, it is vulnerable to the most overused ability in PvP - purge.

It will not increase the use of the two staff abilities in cyrodiil except for stacking a debuff that may make resource draining poisons last longer.

Not yet sure about the templar aura change. It's appreciated for myself as we are running small to medium size and everyone of us is chugging pots anyways, but the change sounds mostly like an attempt to tone down magicka in PvE and make it more comparable to stamina instead of eliminating the need for magicka reg stats.

Taylor_MB

Leandor wrote: »

I do disagree with you on magickasteal. As they are implementing this as a debuff on enemies, not a buff on yourself/your group, it is vulnerable to the most overused ability in PvP - purge.

It will not increase the use of the two staff abilities in cyrodiil except for stacking a debuff that may make resource draining poisons last longer.

Not yet sure about the templar aura change. It's appreciated for myself as we are running small to medium size and everyone of us is chugging pots anyways, but the change sounds mostly like an attempt to tone down magicka in PvE and make it more comparable to stamina instead of eliminating the need for magicka reg stats.

Very true, being reminded it can be purged decreases its attractiveness. Updating with a note in OP.

Mako1132

Publius_Scipio wrote: »

The change to Black Rose, is that going to swing the set away from stam users and onto magicka users?

No necessarily. Stam users still use magicka, and in stam sorc and DK case they can convert that magicka into stam for sustain purposes.

Preyfar

Taylor_MB wrote: »

Frost Staff increases the amount of damage you block by 20%, reduces the cost of block by 30%, blocking drains magicka instead of stamina and heavy attacks taunt the enemy (via destruction staff passives). This only makes it slightly less efficient then sword and board. Unsure how I feel about this change, feels weird.

I've always want to have an ice staff build that really worked. And while this change is interesting, it doesn't do anything for making ice magick viable for combat. At all. In any way.

This makes me really, really sad.

Abob

The nerf to Engine Guardian seems like a major nerf to templars

KisoValley

Balance by @Wrobel

heystreethawk

Preyfar wrote: »

Taylor_MB wrote: »

Frost Staff increases the amount of damage you block by 20%, reduces the cost of block by 30%, blocking drains magicka instead of stamina and heavy attacks taunt the enemy (via destruction staff passives). This only makes it slightly less efficient then sword and board. Unsure how I feel about this change, feels weird.

I've always want to have an ice staff build that really worked. And while this change is interesting, it doesn't do anything for making ice magick viable for combat. At all. In any way.

This makes me really, really sad.

Well, I dunno. I've been running an ice staff every night that I've PvPed since the TG patch, and that was long before Icy Rage was introduced. Sharpened Spinner ice staves sell for over 100k, even the blue ones, and I'm sure people aren't buying them for their PvE builds. I don't think you can just look at the tooltips or whatever and declare the weapon useless; try it out.

Ashamray

If Magickasteal actually steals magicka from affected target, those full damage manabuilds, affected by it, don't get any benefit from their own Magickasteal and go OOM fast.
Templar's Aura is a big radius debuff. All battlefields will be under Magickasteal lol.

Soulac

What is it with zos making everything unreflectable? First Meteor, now this ***. If it goes the same way as meteor you soon can't cloak it either

Kutsuu

IMO you should have just posted the notes without trying to tell us what will be good and not. I think you missed the mark in a lot of your statements, but we'll see what comes after PTS testing.

Taylor_MB

Kutsuu wrote: »

IMO you should have just posted the notes without trying to tell us what will be good and not. I think you missed the mark in a lot of your statements, but we'll see what comes after PTS testing.

Thank you for your valuable input! This thread is much better informed now that you've taken the effort to reply! You are very appreciated!

Why don't you inform us of your interpretations of that notes? What do you think I got wrong? What are you excited for that I presented in a negative light?

Takes-No-Prisoner

Console player here, Magkica Steal may not be as useful on PC. But on PS4, no one slots or runs Purge from the Alliance skill tree.

Yeah, we have Templars running Ritual to clean themselves off, but no one ever runs Purge at all. I am expecting abilities granting Magicka Steal to be slightly more popular on console for that.

Astanphaeus

You should include the fire and lightning staff changes as well with fire increasing single target damage by 4/8% and lightning increasing AoE by 4/8%. This will likely result in many players switching to lightning since an 8% AoE increase is so much more desirable. And when paired with the destro ult "nerf," Eye of the Storm is actually seeing a 3% increase in damage.

Taylor_MB

Astanphaeus wrote: »

You should include the fire and lightning staff changes as well with fire increasing single target damage by 4/8% and lightning increasing AoE by 4/8%. This will likely result in many players switching to lightning since an 8% AoE increase is so much more desirable. And when paired with the destro ult "nerf," Eye of the Storm is actually seeing a 3% increase in damage.

Thankyou, added! Along with status effect change.

Kutsuu

Taylor_MB wrote: »

Kutsuu wrote: »

IMO you should have just posted the notes without trying to tell us what will be good and not. I think you missed the mark in a lot of your statements, but we'll see what comes after PTS testing.

Thank you for your valuable input! This thread is much better informed now that you've taken the effort to reply! You are very appreciated!

Why don't you inform us of your interpretations of that notes? What do you think I got wrong? What are you excited for that I presented in a negative light?

I don't have any concrete opinions until I have time test things on PTS, simply ideas and things to try out. I think it's a little unreasonable to tell everyone how it's going to work without any interaction with the changes. I really don't want to spend the time mentioning everything in your post, but just Radiant Aura for example - You say nobody is going to use it... but I see a high likelihood of it making the front bar of my magplar DPS, and giving me the opportunity to run 800 magicka regen (instead of the ~1600 I'm comfortable with now) which should increase my magicka pool by ~2000, and spell damage by ~400. Requires testing to be sure.

Taylor_MB

Kutsuu wrote: »

Taylor_MB wrote: »

Kutsuu wrote: »

IMO you should have just posted the notes without trying to tell us what will be good and not. I think you missed the mark in a lot of your statements, but we'll see what comes after PTS testing.

Thank you for your valuable input! This thread is much better informed now that you've taken the effort to reply! You are very appreciated!

Why don't you inform us of your interpretations of that notes? What do you think I got wrong? What are you excited for that I presented in a negative light?

I don't have any concrete opinions until I have time test things on PTS, simply ideas and things to try out. I think it's a little unreasonable to tell everyone how it's going to work without any interaction with the changes. I really don't want to spend the time mentioning everything in your post, but just Radiant Aura for example - You say nobody is going to use it... but I see a high likelihood of it making the front bar of my magplar DPS, and giving me the opportunity to run 800 magicka regen (instead of the ~1600 I'm comfortable with now) which should increase my magicka pool by ~2000, and spell damage by ~400. Requires testing to be sure.

Thank you for your contribution. Edited for clarity.

Anazasi

Radiant Aura (Restoring Aura morph): This morph now increases the radius of the Minor Magickasteal to 25/26/27/28 meters.
Restoring Aura: Redesigned this ability and the Radiant Aura morph so they continue to grant the Minor Recovery buffs (Fortitude, Endurance, and Intellect) while slotted. Activating this ability also now applies Minor Magickalsteal to all enemies in a 12 meter radius around you.

since PTS is not available yet I would hold the speculation on pros and cons about these abilities. It could be that radiant aura applies minor magicasteal 28m radius and when activating this ability you keep the minor F E and I and receive the major buffs for x time. Lets not all get crazy just yet about the pros and cons of this patch.

Anazasi

Leandor wrote: »

I do disagree with you on magickasteal. As they are implementing this as a debuff on enemies, not a buff on yourself/your group, it is vulnerable to the most overused ability in PvP - purge.

It will not increase the use of the two staff abilities in cyrodiil except for stacking a debuff that may make resource draining poisons last longer.

Not yet sure about the templar aura change. It's appreciated for myself as we are running small to medium size and everyone of us is chugging pots anyways, but the change sounds mostly like an attempt to tone down magicka in PvE and make it more comparable to stamina instead of eliminating the need for magicka reg stats.

its a debuf you can apply it and it can get applied to you. Apparently the lightning ballista are not as effective as ZOS wants them to be or the magic poison.

Taylor_MB

Anazasi wrote: »

Radiant Aura (Restoring Aura morph): This morph now increases the radius of the Minor Magickasteal to 25/26/27/28 meters.
Restoring Aura: Redesigned this ability and the Radiant Aura morph so they continue to grant the Minor Recovery buffs (Fortitude, Endurance, and Intellect) while slotted. Activating this ability also now applies Minor Magickalsteal to all enemies in a 12 meter radius around you.

since PTS is not available yet I would hold the speculation on pros and cons about these abilities. It could be that radiant aura applies minor magicasteal 28m radius and when activating this ability you keep the minor F E and I and receive the major buffs for x time. Lets not all get crazy just yet about the pros and cons of this patch.

Upon re reading patch notes it doesn't mention the major regen buffs, so possible they are still in there as well as magickasteal, editing to reflect further info needed.

manny254

Has anyone noticed that the wording on force pulse might mean it is also undodgeable? "Beam-type attacks"

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

NBrookus

The balance changes to stam versus magicka regen are weird but possibly effective.

Unfortunately what I am foreseeing overall is a buff to heavy armor encase spamming destro ult ball groups and zergs.

Dyride

Overall @Wrobel I'm not too dismayed over the balance changes outside of a few (DKs heal and Force Shock).

Other Ultis need a rework to be relevant again and as a Sorc main, I would be fine if you reworked Negate.

The one change I really dislike on paper is making Force Shock unreflected. I distinctly remember Crushing Shock spam aka Laser Stick Shotguns from 1.4 Elder Staves Online.

Wings is so buggy as is, sending 1 Force Shock weave (=4 attacks) back to attackers is not overpowered and was the easiest way for a Sorc to get wings down before sending a Frag.

If you slotted SnB reflect, it was only a protection from 1/4 the damage but could also stun and prevent a follow up attack.

Blocking 4 attacks for each weave is excessive, and already one of the best ways to break block. I can see players moving to not even weaving so nothing is reflective.

I don't think DKs got what they needed heal wise. At all. Others have better words to describe what needs to change.

I think Blazing Spear was probably the best AoE besides ultimates but the stun was fine and the delayed landing didn't make it OP.