PTS Patch Notes v3.2.0 (Clockwork City)

Toc de Malsvi

So when I read the following initially I was excited about what appeared to a buff for bows, provided you were using a particular trial weapon. 5 seconds of 50% more damage from Snipe appeared to be a single target buff, requiring a shifting of skills but a buff none the less.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

[*]Piercing Spray (Perfected)

• When you deal damage with Arrow Spray, you cause enemies hit to take 50% more damage from the direct damage portion of your next Snipe, Scatter Shot, or Poison Arrow used within 5 seconds.

[*]Piercing Spray

• When you deal damage with Arrow Spray, you cause enemies hit to take 45% more damage from the direct damage portion of your next Snipe, Scatter Shot, or Poison Arrow used within 5 seconds.

After rereading this it appears to come up very short. So we have to cast Arrow Spray before every Snipe? I mean really?

zassasaurus

Not a fan of loosing the passive bonuses on Master and vMA weapons, for my healer I'd much rather have the extra mag than any of the enchants I could put on it. Would be better if you made the passive bonus the base enchant the weapon comes with so if you want to change the enchant you will loose the passive bonus but you can choose to keep it

Bowser

I don't like that 1HS and DW specialty weapons are only a 2pc set bonus. Could you split the existing bonus into two separate 1pc bonuses?

Examples:
Defensive Position
1pc: Restores magicka on spell reflect/absorb.
2pc: Also restores magicka if the buff expires.

Chaotic Whirlwind
1pc: Adds duration to Twin Slash and Blade Cloak.
2pc: Also adds duration to Lacerate.

Jayne_Doe

Dymence wrote: »

xdbl0ckx wrote: »

" Transmutation requires Transmute Crystals, precious resources occasionally received for successfully completing Veteran PvE activities such as Pledges, Trials, and Arenas, and several PvP sources such as Rewards for the Worthy, Battleground end of match rewards, and AvA end of campaign rewards. Transmute Crystals are an account wide, capped currency which cannot be banked or traded. "

So does this mean I have to complete the vet content on my crafter in order to use the crystal since it can't be banked?

What do you presume ACCOUNT WIDE means?

EXACTLY! People seem to focus on "cannot be banked or traded" rather than ACCOUNT WIDE. I think the goal here is not only to make them untradeable, which bind on pickup could easily resolve, but that they want to limit how many you can accumulate. By making it an account wide currency, they can limit how many you can have at any given time and thus limit how much gear you can retrait at any given time.

elfantasmo

I just read the patch notes and while a lot of this content looks very exciting you need to have a serious look at the Maelstrom weapon reworking.

'Due to the fact these items can now be enchanted or poisoned normally, their extraneous stat bonuses have been removed. For example, the Maelstrom’s Greatsword no longer adds 189 Weapon Damage on top of the modifier to Critical Charge.'

I mean this is a real kick in the teeth to end game content players. Not only is it extremely difficult to run and finally get to the level where you can 'farm' vMSA you need to also factor in the payoff in terms of RNG.

I have spent 1000s of hours and a huge amount of gold invested into both practice and farming of this very tedious content just to get the best weapons to run in PVP. (Since you made pretty much only the Lightning staff and Bow worth running in PVE). Now you are going to remove the only reason I and i'm sure many people run them in PVP? No one cares about the 'special' enchantment in PVP, 99% will be running a poison over the top of it.

I won't lie, when I heard that you would introduce the transmutation system for vMSA weapons I thought, this is too good to be true! Please don't prove me right.

@ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom I urge you to look at the weapon/spell dmg magicka/stamina enchantment on vMSA and vDSA weapons and consider abolishing this change.

Sincerely,
elfantasmo

SecretAtoz

What does it mean by capped currency? Is there a limit of Transmutation Crystals you can earn in total and also a limit you can earn per day?

Joy_Division

First Impressions:

• I'm not sold on losing the losing the bonus spell damage on Maelstrom weapons. Your PvE DPS tests may show this to be a buff, but it makes them pointless to use for PvP. On a side note, stop using target dummies DPS as a basis for balancing.
• It interesting after all this time, so many patches that you finally made Eclipse back to what it was at the beginning of the game when it was semi-useful in that it reflected everything and could be CC broken. Except now it doesn't reflect anything, only returns some damage to the caster. It either needs to reflect everything or just act as a unbreakable, though purgable, debuff that returns a portion of the damage or templars still won't use this ability.
• If I played a NB, I'm sure I'd be mad: nerf their signature ability and while I thought agony was a terrible ability, I'm not exactly sure why I would cast a HoT on one ally that damages me instead of rapid regeneration on two allies with no negative effect. I suppose I'll actually have to see the ability because it makes no sense in the patch notes.
• Overall, there is a lot to like and I do appreciate that you are trying to make little used skills interesting choices and doing something to buff the bad DSA weapons.

Minno

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

As a Magplar, I like the utility buff to Eclipse. Ill have to test the PTS to see if it works with my current PvP build.
Having a reflect to direct dmg abilities (which is a lot of abilities mind you lol), helps the survival of stam/mag Templar in PvP that has been missing since our blinding flashes was removed 2-3 years ago.

Good change, same for NB fear nerf (I wonder how good the other morph will be in PvP encounters; doesn't it drop a mine at your location in addition to one that is ground target-able? if not, then its a terrible nerf for nightblades lol)

The other Aspect of Terror morph (Manifestation of Terror) is a place-able AOE trap that triggers fear... but it is place-able and as far as i know has like 1 sec "arming" time. For PvP it is pretty useless so yes - it is a big nerf for NB

Congrats to all of you who complaining about it. Complain more and maybe NB won't even have its class passives in a couple of updates in the future...

That sucks. It should be that morph drops under you, still arms, but fears 6 people. This way it's still usable, especially for mobile magblade builds looking for a cc defensive utility similar to re-arming trap.

Sigma957

SecretAtoz wrote: »

What does it mean by capped currency? Is there a limit of Transmutation Crystals you can earn in total and also a limit you can earn per day?

Probably means you can only have so many at any given time.

Kneighbors

Seems like a really nice patch. Hope there won't be any underwater stones this time.

akl77

Templar still being ignored, why ZOS only promotes evil character and play styles. Not all ESO players like night blade and sorcerer ZOS.

sevomd69

Emphatic_Static wrote: »

Still no fix for Warden's Swarm and it's morphs counting as direct damage instead of DOT, it has been this way since Warden release..

ZOS will not even comment on this even though it has been brought up several times.

Can we finally get a comment on whether or not this is intended or if it is a known bug @ZOS_GinaBruno ???

Do you realize how long the same bug for twisting path was in game...I wouldn't hold your breath...

Biro123

oo.. buffs to DW sorcs... interesting...

Inarre

please keep buffing sorc skills. they need it.

Koolio

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

As a Magplar, I like the utility buff to Eclipse. Ill have to test the PTS to see if it works with my current PvP build.
Having a reflect to direct dmg abilities (which is a lot of abilities mind you lol), helps the survival of stam/mag Templar in PvP that has been missing since our blinding flashes was removed 2-3 years ago.

Good change, same for NB fear nerf (I wonder how good the other morph will be in PvP encounters; doesn't it drop a mine at your location in addition to one that is ground target-able? if not, then its a terrible nerf for nightblades lol)

The other Aspect of Terror morph (Manifestation of Terror) is a place-able AOE trap that triggers fear... but it is place-able and as far as i know has like 1 sec "arming" time. For PvP it is pretty useless so yes - it is a big nerf for NB

Congrats to all of you who complaining about it. Complain more and maybe NB won't even have its class passives in a couple of updates in the future...

This morph in Pvp is not useless. Actually really good just takes some practice timing and experience. I really have a hard time choosing a morph. The buff definitely makes my choice. Even if they didn't nerf mass hysteria. Now rushing a breach without immovable pots is suicide. 12 people get feared in oils is not someone to overlook.

Tommy_The_Gun

So ZOS I can already tell you some feedback:
For the "Mass Hysteria" (Aspect of Terror morph) you need to give something to make up for reduction of "feared" enemies
(3 -> 2). This morph will now only gives Minor Maim (reduction of reduces damage done by 15%).

Don't get me wrong - this is CC ability that NB needs in its toolkit. In a scenario when NB fight against 3 opponents - you can fear them go to stealth and run away to safety. Now in this scenario - only 2 opponents will be "feared" - and the one remaining will be able to either chase you, prevent from going to stealth etc. This will decrease NB survivability severely and NB already has problems with survivability...

This skill is almost always used as a means of emergency escape, especially if there are more than 2 players chasing you.
When engaging enemy - It is almost always used to attack a single target (lone player for example). Not a group of players. Take that in to account.

Hymzir

My customary notes on the changes in this update - and most likely my last bit of feedback, since ZOS never ever, under any circumstances (unless it affects sorc players) listens to the feedback we provide. No matter how stupid or inane the changes are, ZOS will still go through with them despite any amount of proof pointing towards them being bad...

Note that these are taken in order as I spotted them on my read through, so they are not presented in a thought out order.

Anyway, here goes:

We’ve also added 12 new item sets, two new Motifs, over 200 new furnishings, and a host of fun, new collectibles.

Yay. I think. More pointless stuff to try to collect. Goes to the same heap with the 500 or so other "collectables" I am yet to "collect". You no doubt will make everything so rare and difficult to collect, that why even bother. Especially the furnishing plans, but also the motifs. At the moment I only have like 200 or so chapters I need to collect. Will I bother trying to get them all? Not really, no. I have better things to do with my time.

Perfect Asylum weapons have the same benefit as the imperfect Asylum weapons, but at a greater magnitude. Perfect Asylum weapons are available only for those intrepid heroes who can conquer the hardest battle available in Asylum Sanctorium - St. Olms, and both of his allies, fighting alongside one another..

This alarmed me for awhile. OF course it is still pretty hard to say, how hard this thing really will be. Or if some guilds will start selling farming trips for these things or not, but I am pretty sure that most of us will never see a perfected Asylum weapon on our characters.

However, after reading the difference between the perfect and imperfect versions, I am not all that worried anymore. The differences between perfect and imperfect seem to be reasonably small.

As for the weapons... Well the Destro staff seems like it might become mandatory piece of gear, and the 2-hander will also work really well with bursty melee builds. Dawnbrekaer is already fairly cheap ulti...

New Collectibles
We’ve added many new Collectibles that are available to earn from the Clockwork City area and content.

Most of these seem fairly reasonable - except for Clockwork Curator. If the trial is as hard as it seems to be implied then... Well it better have more decent change of dropping than the one Molag Ball dishes out in IC is all am saying.

New Item Sets

Well the dropped ones seem gimmicky and may or may not be utter trash. REamins to be seen. But the crafted ones are continuing the trend started with Morrowind, that of catering to hybrid builds. I see theoretical interest in those things, but am still not convinced they are worth much. Except for few niche builds. The problem with hybrids is, and has been since the removal of soft caps, the fact that abilities are tied to max resources, and thus stacking one resource as high as you can, is still more useful than stacking two resources to a lesser amount. Even if their combined value is a lot more.

New Target Dummy: The Precursor

This one actually seems really cool and fun addition. Perhaps this is finally a target dummy I can place in my home. Having skeletons lurking about never really felt appropriate to me, and those lumbering Dwemer things didn't feel quite right either. Perhaps I can also pretend that this thing is my robot butler...

New Furnishings
Over 200 new furnishings have been added to the game through various sources, many of which can be purchased through the Housing Editor or crafted. The associated recipes and additional furnishings can be found throughout Clockwork City, with sourcing including everything from Justice activities and monster drops, to various containers and merchants.

So more murder and robbery, topped off by some more murder and robbery. How about adding these things as rewards for doing crafting writs? You know, an activity actually related to crafting?

New Motifs
Two motifs have been added to the Horns of the Reach DLC game pack, in conjunction with two new motif achievements.

Wait what? So that's 4 new styles added by this update then? 56 motif chapters with no doubt abysmal drop rates, and with the Horns of the Reach motifs only coming from the final boss of the said dungeons. So it would seem the options to get them are to either mindlessly repeating the same stupid dungeons over and over again or buy them from guild stores. I'd assume their price points will settle on similar level as the ones for Shadows of the Hist. That means about 25to40k a pop, and that means about a million in gold to get them. Well... I suppose you will just add them in the Clown Store for a ridiculous price. More stuff for me to ignore then it seems.

Transmutation

No mention about the cost in the notes. Is it one crystal per transmutation or more? It seems everyone and their cousins will be swamped in crystals if you get them from all the things mentioned. Unles the capped and account wide means that you can only have like 10 max at any time.

You can also bet on that every guild of any size will get one of these things in their guild hall ASAP. This in turns seems to mean that the grind for gear is pretty much over then. Which is a good thing from my perspective, since I hate repeating the same content and spend most of my game time in PVP of fooling with housing.

Do wonder how this will impact the playing habits of those who do enjoy grinding the same content, since now there seems to be no reason to do so. Guess only time will tell, but for me this is a godsend and does not seem to be tied up in the kind of nonsense that Mythic Aetherial Ambrosia is. In all the game time since it's introduction, I have yet to find a cipher or even have a single bit of Aetherial Dust drop for me. Talk about rare drops...

Crafting Writ Turn-In Site Universalization
With the Clockwork City base game update, you may now turn in your Crafting Writs at any Writ turn-in site throughout the world, regardless of crafting rank.

Huzzah for this one. It was about a bloody time for it to happen. My sincere thanks on getting this implemented. Much appreciated. And also... Farewell Belkarth, I've spend way too much time there already.

New Houses

No mention about Clown store exclusive nonsense... Does that mean you can buy them for gold? If so then how much? I am actually kinda interested in both, but only if you can buy them for ingame gold. If they cost similar amount of real life cash as the other Clown Store exclusive Notable homes, then I will pass. I can think about a hundred better things to do with my money than buy these houses in game.

For this update, we’ve supplied one max-level template aptly named "Clockwork City". [

It was about a bloody time too.

If you owned the Amaya Lake Lodge prior to the release of Update 15, the planter between your front steps is now a furnishing and can be moved.

I sincerely hope this also means that the planter is now a craftable furnishing item too. And that we can finally have planters in our homes.

Petrify: This ability and its morphs are no longer 30-second disorients. Instead, they are 2.5 second stuns that cannot be blocked or dodged, and they can be placed on multiple targets. We also reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 23%.

Holy ***! Do you people understand how powerful unblockable undodgeable stuns are in this game? Even if you break the stun immediately, the stun break animation takes a ton of time (and is utterly unreliable in lagtastic PVP) can't be animation cancelld and is often a death sentence. This thing is gonna be murder to non sorcs. (Sorcs will break the stun, shield up, and then run to the hills with bolt escape, and reset the fight like they always do) Guess I gotta start spending more of my time on my PVP DK then.

Rune Prison: This ability and its morphs are no longer 30-second disorients. Instead, they are 2.5-second stuns that cannot be blocked or dodged, and they can be placed on multiple targets.

Are you people insane?!?! Now you are giving sorcs too an unblockable undodgeable stun? Like this is beyond stupid. This is utterly insane. They already had a really powerful ranged stun in frags, now tehy can also go though block and dodge. And then do their insane bust on you. Let's see... Do your typical Crushing Shock/Light attack spam. Proc Frags, cast this unavoidable stun, launch your Frag and go pack to spamming Crushing Shock. If there is a curse ticking on you at the same time, its pretty much Goodnight and Game Over. Getting stunned by the frag is bad enough when faced with the burst a sorc can dish out. But at least that you can avoid it if you keep your wits about. But an unavoidable stun... Yaeh that's it then - Game Over.

Mass Hysteria (Aspect of Terror morph): This morph no longer fears an additional enemy, but only fears the same amount of enemies as the base ability (2 enemies). It continues to inflict Minor Maim as a morph effect.

Speaking of unblockable and undodgeable CC... This is a move in the right way. The ability is way too powerful, and is prolly still too powerful even after the nerf. You really should stop calling it Mass Hysteria and just make it a single target ability called Hsyteria. Or at least make it require facing your target like you nerfed BoL.

Even though you nerfed the most powerful and broken CC in the game, you ended up giving both DK and Sorcs a ranged unblockable undodegable stun. And yet... You do not give Templars one. Well, of course not. 'Cause *** Templars right?

I am utterly disgusted by these changes.

Crystal Blast (Crystal Shards morph): Increased the splash damage of this morph by approximately 25%.

No one will use it even after this buff. I know you will refuse to listen, you have always refused to listen about this ability and why no one uses it. The fact is - this morph is crap compared to Cyrstal Frag.

Everything about Frag synergises with Magicka Sorc build. Having a cast time dependent ranged mediocre AoE does not. And if you do need to have that, you can always use a Destro staff for that kinda stuff. Frags offer a super potent burst as an insta cast, for reduced cost and buffed damage. And it stuns! You people do not seem to understand how powerful direct stun abilities are!

What you need to do is to take frags and split it to two abilities. One that procs for instant casts for less magicka and more damage, and one that procs for instant cast and stuns, but with base cost and base damage. Not that you are gonna do that since this Is after all Elder Sorcs Online, and nerfing Sorcs is anathema.

Templar

The only buff for underused skill you managed to do was not nerfing Templars. Considereing your track record, that is itself a buff for the class.

Eclipse: This ability and its morphs now returns damage whenever the affected enemy casts a direct damage attack. It still grants crowd control immunity when the effect ends and can now be removed by Break Free. Eclipse can also now be placed on an unlimited amount of enemies as a baseline effect.
Total Dark (Eclipse morph): This morph will heal you when the target casts a direct damage attack.
Unstable Core (Eclipse morph): This morph adds area of effect damage when the effect ends.

Another update, another attempt to re-invent the same bloody skill into something useful. And as is traditional, failing to do so completely. This is rubbish. This is crap. This is actually less useful than the current version.

Casting Eclipse when you have low health means the enemy may be able to ignore it and still kill your character. However, if you are able to stay alive, it can shift the tide of battle in your favor against an aggressive opponent.

The only real use for the skill was in shutting down those a fore mentioned high burst spamming Crystal frag proccing sorcs when they burst you down to single digit percentage health values. Casting Eclipse gave you a few seconds of respite to heal up. Now... they will just burst you down with their Curse/Frag proc while spamming Crushing Shock and light attack weaving, you cast this thing and they laugh while bursting you down with more of the same. Total failure of design once again.

Solar Barrage (Solar Flare morph): This morph now has a cast time that matches the base ability, and now causes you to pulse point blank area of effect damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds.

A melee range ability with a cast time? Are you *** serious? No one will use it. There is no space on anyone's bar for this crap. It's a magicka based skill, it now has a cast time. It will do 3 pulses total. Are you *** serious? How do you think this thing will fit in anyone's rotation? I run a magicka Templar melee build. I can not think any reason to use this except if you guys give me a Crown for each time I cast it in combat. It is that bad

The Master and Maelstrom unique enchantments have been rebuilt as Item Sets, with the new Asylum Weapons following suite as an Item Set and not an enchantment. This means you can now safely enchant and re-enchant these weapons, and still gain the special ability-altering benefit.
Due to the fact these items can now be enchanted or poisoned normally, their extraneous stat bonuses have been removed. For example, the Maelstrom’s Greatsword no longer adds 189 Weapon Damage on top of the modifier to Critical Charge.

Oh my dear lord... Another Holy *** moment... This is a huge nerf. Like unimaginably huge one. I don't think the special skill altering ability modifier was the reason these things were so good. I mean, those skill buff bits were nice and all, but the real reason to use them was that you could compensate for the loss of an item slot while using a 2 handed weapon. Well... am sure happy I never wasted my time with Maelstrom weapons for sure now.

The Wabbajack no longer grants Ultimate when used.

Well... It was about this exploit was fixed. Still... It was a fun little glitch in the system, but I suppose it is ultimately for the best.

The Collectible tab in the Quickslots menu has been broken out into Mounts, Pets, Appearance, Mementos, and Assistants tabs.

Another little change I truly appreciate. Thanks for this.

Consumables will now remain quickslotted when you run out of them so they’re still there when you acquire more.

I'm sure most wont pay much attention to this, but it is a little quality if life improvement I at least do appreciate. Thanks.

You can now Filter your furnishings by theme! These themes include the various playable races, as well as a few other more exotic options such as Daedric and the new Clockwork theme.

To be frank, this should've been in from the launch of housing, but better later than never.

And finally... Nothing done about the disgusting Destro-Ulti Heal span balls running amok in cyro.

I still offer my simple and elegant solution: Make Inevitable Detonation an instant cast skill. There are plenty of bomb placing instant cast skill in the game already, so this will not even really affect anything else. Just scale the initial damage to be poor against groups of 2-4 and then really make the thing cause damage when encountering a tightly knit horde of 20-30. 3 or 4 opf these sucker cast at the zerg simultaneously means an ex zerg.

Biro123

Biro123 wrote: »

oo.. buffs to DW sorcs... interesting...

Hm, tho when I think about it. will the new rune prison be worth a slot...? DW throws so many frags out, cc-immunity is up a lot on your opponent - so using rune-prison to guarantee a burst hit may not be as useful as I first thought...

Zer0oo

Was that all for the big balance patch or is there still something that will be added later?

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Machete

On a side note, Warden's trees didn't get nerfed??? I'm honestly surprised Wardens didn't get much of a look over for passives and abilities, especially since without trees their survival isn't as great as the other classes.

sevomd69

Looks like the guild traders in Belkarth are gonna be "nerfed." No-one in Belkarth anymore...

GodHawk

SGT_Wolfe101st wrote: »

So Transmutation is only available in the Brass Fortress? This is DLC, linked to a chapter, so does that mean that I have to have Marrowind to partake in this DLC? If so, then Transmutation is locked behind Marrowind and therefore a pay wall? I am not trying to start anything, I am genuinely curious as to how this will work.

You can buy the transmutation station at vouchers trader

Toc de Malsvi

Rune Prison: This ability and its morphs are no longer 30-second disorients. Instead, they are 2.5-second stuns that cannot be blocked or dodged, and they can be placed on multiple targets.

So glad that they didn't fix draining shot but preferred to give Sorc's a unblockable or dodgeable stun, as if Sorc burst was in need of anything.

Vapirko

The Asylum destro staff is way too strong in pvp I can just say that right now.

Leogon

Krotha wrote: »

Why the hell would they make Battlegrounds CP enabled when everyone knows CP PvP is the most unbalanced area of this game? The best thing about Battlegrounds is the fact there is no CP in it so people have to work together and actually MANAGE RESOURCES.

simeion

Magic Sorc PvP burst just became stupid, as it was not already.
Step by step:

Shields Up (35% chance frag proc)
Curse (35% chance frag proc)
Fury (35% chance frag proc)
If frag is proc'd cast rune prison then cast frag, if not force pulse.
Reset.

by all means this is insane amount of burst that you are not going to be able to block.

Izaki

DPShiro wrote: »

Waiting for @Paulington or someone to post datamined pictures of the new weapons and skins etc

@DPShiro You see the Fabrication Sheath? So now you imagine it without any skin patches and you imagine it in silver instead of bronze. There you go. That's the new skin. (Same yellow glowing eyes btw). #Disappointed

There is a new Polymorph though, which does look very cool indeed. Kinda like this human looking fabricant. Although for some reason you can clearly see that its a suit, so I don't understand why they've made it a polymorph and not a costume.

The weapons look REALLY COOL. Too bad most of them are kinda useless in PvE, aside from the Destro staff. One Sorc should have it in the group to keep a perma uptime on Vulnerability. The 2H could be cool AF on 2H builds though. Mad ultimate generation in the execute phase is pretty decent, especially if said person is using War Machine.

That's what I saw in the first few minutes of PTS.

HEBREWHAMMERRR

Please, please, please take another look at forcing CP enabled BGs on everyone above 50. The enticement to BGs for me is a safe haven away from the zerg and cheese builds that flood cyrodill. This will make 4 man tank metas of unkillable builds, drawn out stalemate fights, and honestly an overall unenjoyable experience for anyone not max CP. The level playing field and skill based gameplay by having to manage resources and time burst more carefully is what makes this gameplay the most competitive. Again, please rethink this decision as this is a very poor alternative to what has become my favorite aspect of ESO.

Bosco916

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Housing

• You can now Filter your furnishings by theme! These themes include the various playable races, as well as a few other more exotic options such as Daedric and the new Clockwork theme.

As I neared the end, I began to think, "man, it would be great if they had separated known furnishing items..." And, Lo and behold---->the second-to-last patch note! Awesome!

Docmandu

Speechless... didn't think it was possible to buff sorcs even more... but ZOS delivers...