5.1.0 - Well Done!

wills43b14_ESO

Be sure to understand the ramifications of lower dps on the DPS CHECK oriented mechanics (the mage and vHOF HM) and then unmitigatable debuffs like baneful mark have. They will vastly influence your perception of whether these skills are overtuned or not. Simply put, there's just not enough aoe healing skills with a great enough hps output to heal through these mechanics. Maybe for 90% of the encounters this level of healing is OKAY (minus the sustain issues brought by only one orb), but it's very damaging to the clear rates of some of these trials. Only a handful of groups will heave the dps to clear vHoF before exhaustion becomes too much for the healers or any of the support-like dps you add into the group (as you turn dps away from dpsing group dps drops and exhaustion dmg becomes worse). The only argument you can kinda make here is for vCR, but then you run the risk of portal phases becoming pretty daunting and baneful being too much even w/ full support dps. And mitigating baneful w/ a shield is probably impractical as well considering the increased cost and decreased effectiveness they're pushing in the patch notes (the PvP changes are not only bad for PvE, they might actually be gamebreaking and prevent anyone from clearing trials).

wills43b14_ESO

Remember, only a handful of groups are even completing the HM content for the trials in the game as is... and that's with insanely high dps and "insane healing" as some are calling it. This will push that number down to a very minute number and make it nearly impossible for newer groups to progress in trials since the learning curve will be even higher.

puupaa

For tippitytop pve, maybe the plan is to use this pts cycle to test how much they need to tone down that content in light of these changes?

Anyways, as probably the only person running senche's bite, it's weird of to see the only reliable damage set turned to a purely rng one. It might be a buff tho, it's not like the 430(?) WD buff is massive against players on non-crits, need to test. The increased duration is really nice for me though no question.

Altyrann

I like the idea of ST skills for ST damage and AoE skills for AoE damage. I do feel for players without gear/skill swap addons as it might start to feel mandatory to have dedicated trash and boss setups in a much wider range of groups than today.

Quantorn

My Favorite are the changes to MagDen, hes already very weak. And now, oh boi, hes getting weaker in PvE again. I mean wtf, why do you even make this a playable class if you make it dealing 0 DMG. For my part its even more interessting to see what in the Opinion of ZOS needs a buff.
@ZOS_GinaBruno Could you or maybe anyother GM pls explain, why you:

1. Dont Buff Magicka Warden in PvE
2. Think it needs a "nerf"

If you want to nerf it in PvP fine, there it is very strong, but PLEASE also think of the PvE Capability of this Class. There are so many ways you could easy buff MagDen inPvE without making it stronger in PvP;
Some Examples:

a) Rework the Eternal Guardian (since Pets cant die in PvE anymore this Ulti is trash, instead also increase the DMG like Wild Guardian or maybe give the Eternal Guardian bonus magic DMG for when its summoned (3% or so wont be Gamebreaking but would be a buff in PvE.) -> Bears arent usable in PvP

b) Increase the DMG of WInters Revenge (Its a static DoT, its sometimes used in PvP but more often the other Morph is used.)
You could buff the DMG and make the AoE size smaller if you think this kill would be to strong for PvE

DreadDaedroth

Not so well done.

satanio

back to the drawing board!

Alucardo

Pretty good changes, and yeah, survivability was too much in PvP. As for PvE (before any of you people with a *** for PvE tell me to clear vHoF), perhaps if things are too difficult in terms of healing they could look at balancing the dungeons/trials instead of abilities. With PvP they HAVE to adjust the skills when it comes to balancing because both you, and your enemy use them. When you're fighting AI you don't have to worry about that, so you can just balance the environment instead.

kaithuzar

For people complaining about this nerfing healers in vet trials..,
Who ever told you it was a great idea to run with only 2 healers anyways?
Damage is fine & realistically you’ve got maybe 3-4 people carrying the groups damage anyways so drop 1 or 2 dps for more healers #ProblemSolved

Druid40

A lot of players a missing an important component of the healing changes. You now have higher uptime on your healing abilities. You can more easily stack multiple heals if the need arises.This should also ease the strain on resources. In place of spamming a single heal, you can now have two or three heals active simultaneously. There is of course the reduction to group synergy activations needed to proc certain set bonuses. That can be replaced with other synergies. These changes may not adversely impact group play much or at all.

Destruent

I really like the changes to single-target and AoE-Dots, looks really nice.
But i'm kinda surprised to the changes to healing skills and executioner...Executioner did not need a buff imo...but we'll see how it looks like in the end

Sun7dance

Destruent wrote: »

I really like the changes to single-target and AoE-Dots, looks really nice.
But i'm kinda surprised to the changes to healing skills and executioner...Executioner did not need a buff imo...but we'll see how it looks like in the end

The problem isn't executioner itself, but the other morph. Reverse slash is much more effective, because you also deal the bonus damage to enemies which have more than 50% health.
But instead of balance reverse slash, they buff executioner.

Destruent

Sun7dance wrote: »

Destruent wrote: »

I really like the changes to single-target and AoE-Dots, looks really nice.
But i'm kinda surprised to the changes to healing skills and executioner...Executioner did not need a buff imo...but we'll see how it looks like in the end

The problem isn't executioner itself, but the other morph. Reverse slash is much more effective, because you also deal the bonus damage to enemies which have more than 50% health.
But instead of balance reverse slash, they buff executioner.

True, Executioner already did as much Damage as radiant destruction while being instant...now it's even stronger and imo too strong.

Murador178

Alucardo wrote: »

Pretty good changes, and yeah, survivability was too much in PvP. As for PvE (before any of you people with a *** for PvE tell me to clear vHoF), perhaps if things are too difficult in terms of healing they could look at balancing the dungeons/trials instead of abilities. With PvP they HAVE to adjust the skills when it comes to balancing because both you, and your enemy use them. When you're fighting AI you don't have to worry about that, so you can just balance the environment instead.

The gap between PvE content seems too huge anyways if vHof is that hard. All the PvE content i ever did as aPvPer was pretty easy when u understood it. Maybe vMA or vDSA wont be a faceroll anymore - but probably it will still be.

And in the end it would also be nice if beating PvE content would take a while and new tactics - Probably would be good for the guys raiding anyways. Didnt Hodor beat almost all content without CPs... ?

Tommy_The_Gun

So... so the leaked patch notes were 80% true...
Werewolf Transformation:
Pack Leader:
- The Direwolves can no longer be targeted or die.

As as said before... how the F*** this morph will be of ANY use if pets are untargetable. The whole point of this morph is to be able to solo content. Look, I don't care about PvP and issues it is causing there because of poorly designed targeting system. In fact I am willing to say that there is significantly more players that use this morph in PvE for dmg tanking pets rather than ppl using it in BGs or Cyro. In fact when I last played cyro I have seen little to no WW there at all.

This is a very bad move. It will kill this morph entirely and we will end up in a situation where Werewolf Berserker morph is picked 100% of times. Because lest face it - it is far superior if we take into account the PTS version of Pack Leader in every way, shape or form.

Not to mention this:
- This ability and the Pack Leader morph no longer apply a bleed to enemies hit with Light Attacks, or deal area damage with Heavy Attacks.

Less dmg with no compensation what so ever. Just a dmg reduction. Why ? The other morph has its dmg increased... Oh, and even the base morph still has bleed dmg...

- Reduced the damage of the Direwolves’ Gnash attack by approximately 70%, and decreased the frequency of its attack speed to 2 seconds from 1 second.
- Gnash now applies Minor Maim to enemies hit for 4 seconds.
- Reduced the damage of the Lunge attack by approximately 60%.
- Lunge will now be cast every 10 seconds, rather than have a 25% chance every 3 seconds to cast.
- Lunge will now snare enemies hit by 30% for 4 seconds.
- The Direwolves will now return to your side if you travel far enough away from them, since they are lost and confused without their leader of the pack.

So basically this morph will now have almost no dmg what so ever, the pets will do almost no-existing dmg and apply Minor Maim & Snare to a random or the same single target enemy every 4 or 10 or seconds, because as far as I can tell the wolfs attacks will still be more or less random, so if the same affect is going to be applied while it is already be on a target. And one important thing is that all Dungoen Bosses are immune to Snares. Which means that this Wolf pets will now offer close-to-nothing single target de-buff.

The other Morph:
Werewolf Berserker (morph): Increased the damage of the bleed from your Light Attacks by 25%.

So... what is the reason some one would like to pick Pack Leader over Werewolf Berserker ? There is no content in eso where "new" Pack Leader will be useful. Solo PvE ? Nope. PvP ? Nope. Group PvE ? Nope. There is no content in ESO where this morph will be used if it goes live like this.

Developer Comment:
The werewolf morphs were initially designed to have Pack Leader emphasized on utility, while Berserker was meant to be the offensive and raw damage choice. Due to the Direwolves' damage and attack speed, Berserker was constantly eclipsed, and Pack Leader wasn't provided much utility other than causing target complications for enemies. Now, Pack Leader allows your doggos to enfeeble your foes, while Berserker lets you rip and tear.

So I can understand the idea. Pack Leader for until / support and Werewolf Berserker for raw dmg / burst / dps. Great concept. But the problem is that Pack Leader has no way to offer utility. It is simply too little, too random, too unreliable (pet commands & stuff) and narrow. I simply can not think of content or scenario or situation where this utility could be of any use.

Some ideas how to fix it:
- First of all, Direwolves can no longer be targeted or die. This either needs to go away or exist only for other players. Mobs & Bosses should be able to target those pets. Otherwise it is useless.

- Lack of dmg and lack of bleed dmg. WW Base morph has Bleed dmg this one does not have. If this is going to be a utility / support morph, than you can add this utility. You have stated that this morph no longer deal area damage with Heavy Attacks.

It is so obvious.... just add a T A U N T to this morph heavy attack. I mean it is so obvious. It possible could not be more obvious at this point. Utility / Support... It makes so much sense. Common. You even stated yourself it is supposed to be Utility / Support. You know what role it is. It is a TANK role ! Utility & Support is what tank does !
It would fit perfectly. PPl were asking about it for ages. Besides it will make both morphs useful and distinct. WW has all the tools needed. More Stamina, more dmg mitigation, gap closer, CC.
- Pack Leader: Significantly less DMG traded for a Taunt and de-buffing pets.
- Werewolf Berserker: Raw dmg DPS morph.

Pleas ZOS, it will work. Make it correct. You have a chance !

Thraben

Those will be the first PTS notes for more than a year that I mainly appreciate.

There are some pain points left, of course, and there will be winners and losers, of course (my Pet Sorc will lose, but I think rightly so),

but they did listen to their player base this time. Of course, the solutions they came up with won´t please everyone, but at least they tried.

synnerman

I fully agree with the OP, these patch notes seem to have been done by people who actually play and see the problems. Love most of the changes and fully hope that ZoS don't give in to the inevitable whiners. TY ZoS for once

tthhyyss

Horrible nerfs.. 1 orb at a time??? Who even comes up with such a *** idea??? ... And some ability cost increase are also way out of the ballpark... Just leave the game allone...I wish you were as good on fixing buggs as on ruiining the game every time...

Leinova

From the perspective of a small scaler:


Eclipse. Who thought that an ability that completely prevented you from attacking for 4 seconds would be a good idea? This is honestly the most broken thing I have ever read. This will be the strongest Xv1 skill that will have ever come into the game if it is not reverted to be CC broken again.

Shuffle. Shuffle is far too strong. They have made the ability infinitely times better. Reduced cost, almost permanent major expedition in a PvP scenario when it used to not give it at all, and they doubled the amount of time you are snare immune. I want shuffle to be buffed as much as the next guy, but you can absolutely not look at this from an unbiased standpoint and tell me that isn't the most overloaded ability in the game.

Onslaught. Corrosive is one of the most oppressive abilities in the game. Whether you are 1vX, Xv1, 4v4, 1v1, etc it is extremely strong and I think almost everyone would agree it should be toned down. Why are you making onslaught, an already annoying ability (but not broken, mostly only because it is single target) into an AoE nuke that then gives you 80% of corrosives true damage passive for EIGHTEEN seconds? Again, I don't see how anyone can look at this and from an unbiased standpoint say that this isn't broken. I want you to take a second and imagine a stamplar in automaton and shieldbreaker AoE onslaughting a group for roughly 10k damage each, and then having true damage jabs in two non-pen dps sets for 18 seconds. It is broken.

Vigor/Rapid Regen. I understand these changes. However, what I don't understand is how come staminas main self-heal can be cast with any weapon, on any bar and is applied to themselves, but now magickas main self-heal can only be cast on resto AND can not be reliably applied to themselves? I dislike them pigeonholing us into playing with a specific weapon loadout and playstyle.

Cleansing Ritual/Purifying Light: I do not understand these (healing) changes. Why make purifying light heal 30% less and ritual heal 100% more? This just reduces the skill cap for no apparent reason as the overall healing should be unchanged, however it will be far easier to achieve. The only reasoning I can think of is they think stamplars need extra healing and magplars don't.

maxjapank

synnerman wrote: »

I fully agree with the OP, these patch notes seem to have been done by people who actually play and see the problems. Love most of the changes and fully hope that ZoS don't give in to the inevitable whiners. TY ZoS for once

While I agree with many of the changes, not all of them are good. To be honest, I see a lot of changes by Stamina pvp whiners. And the game doesn't revolve around them alone.

jadarock

Evito wrote: »

Server performance fix patch - drive players away to reduce server load.

This^
Also as healing has become stronger the lag has also dramatically increased
So they make it harder to heal people die quicker= less server load it's a stealth performance fix for sure

StShoot

Thraben wrote: »

Those will be the first PTS notes for more than a year that I mainly appreciate.

There are some pain points left, of course, and there will be winners and losers, of course (my Pet Sorc will lose, but I think rightly so),

but they did listen to their player base this time. Of course, the solutions they came up with won´t please everyone, but at least they tried.

I somehow dont see anyone who wins with this patch notes, could you pls explain me who wins with this nerfhammer ? well maybe the saltminers in the forum xD

code65536

Alucardo wrote: »

Pretty good changes, and yeah, survivability was too much in PvP. As for PvE (before any of you people with a *** for PvE tell me to clear vHoF), perhaps if things are too difficult in terms of healing they could look at balancing the dungeons/trials instead of abilities. With PvP they HAVE to adjust the skills when it comes to balancing because both you, and your enemy use them. When you're fighting AI you don't have to worry about that, so you can just balance the environment instead.

Sure, yes, that's an option. Nerf all the healing and then nerf all the heal checks in PvE. But then that begs the question, what's the point of a healer?

This is why the game needs a separate PvE/PvP balance. In PvP, you don't always have a healer. In 1v1, you don't have a dedicated healer. If you're in a BG, you often don't get a dedicated healer. So people rely on self-healing and damage levels are such that, in evenly-matched fights, people can get by without a healer.

Which is why once you introduce dedicated healers in PvP, the power balance shifts so much. A lot of PvPers cry about healing being too powerful because of this. Add a good dedicated healers to coordinated groups, and they become almost unstoppable.

But in PvE, you're supposed to have a dedicated healer. It's that whole MMO trinity thing. And to encourage that, there are heal-check mechanics that you need healers for and can't self-sustain through.

So here's the problem: Make healers strong, and they tip the scales of balance in PvP. Make healers weak, and then you either fail heal-check mechanics in PvE or get heal-checks that are so watered down that there's no need for a healer (e.g., look at the final boss "heal check" in Fungal Grotto II).

Balancing PvE and PvP together will never work. PvE you're dealing with enemies that cannot react and cannot think. PvE, you're designing content for the MMO role trinity. It's two fundamentally different worlds, and this continued insistence that they be treated as a coherent whole is just foolish hubris on the part of ZOS.

StShoot

code65536 wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

Pretty good changes, and yeah, survivability was too much in PvP. As for PvE (before any of you people with a *** for PvE tell me to clear vHoF), perhaps if things are too difficult in terms of healing they could look at balancing the dungeons/trials instead of abilities. With PvP they HAVE to adjust the skills when it comes to balancing because both you, and your enemy use them. When you're fighting AI you don't have to worry about that, so you can just balance the environment instead.

Sure, yes, that's an option. Nerf all the healing and then nerf all the heal checks in PvE. But then that begs the question, what's the point of a healer?

This is why the game needs a separate PvE/PvP balance. In PvP, you don't always have a healer. In 1v1, you don't have a dedicated healer. If you're in a BG, you often don't get a dedicated healer. So people rely on self-healing and damage levels are such that, in evenly-matched fights, people can get by without a healer.

Which is why once you introduce dedicated healers in PvP, the power balance shifts so much. A lot of PvPers cry about healing being too powerful because of this. Add a good dedicated healers to coordinated groups, and they become almost unstoppable.

But in PvE, you're supposed to have a dedicated healer. It's that whole MMO trinity thing. And to encourage that, there are heal-check mechanics that you need healers for and can't self-sustain through.

So here's the problem: Make healers strong, and they tip the scales of balance in PvP. Make healers weak, and then you either fail heal-check mechanics in PvE or get heal-checks that are so watered down that there's no need for a healer (e.g., look at the final boss "heal check" in Fungal Grotto II).

Balancing PvE and PvP together will never work. PvE you're dealing with enemies that cannot react and cannot think. PvE, you're designing content for the MMO role trinity. It's two fundamentally different worlds, and this continued insistence that they be treated as a coherent whole is just foolish hubris on the part of ZOS.

I think the reason that zos dont want to seperate pve from pvp is because everyone is blaming the other group for the unballance in the game (pve players hate pvp players for the healing nerf or back in the old days for the proccs cant crit nerf, while pvp players blame pve players for too high dmg procc sets / too high healing etc.). If zos decides to seperate pve from pvp every player would start to blame zos for the mistakes and not each other

TheValar85

And again...
They nerfed teh sorc shileds more. and now teh ehalers.
Hey ZOs how about to actualy focus your atention on fixing teh game and teh performance issues instead of nerfing the sheet out of this game? that wont solve your problem you are just goign to loose a massive incomes.

Asgari

Overpowered aoe healing has always been an issue, I love the changes coming. Can’t wait to get onto pts and check these changes out

mobicera

I had to read these changes twice I just couldn't believe them...
What about the average player base trying to progress in vet trials?
Are we just supposed to stop doing what we like because we are simply being forced out of content we are getting close on due to nerfs?
These are simply some of the dumbest and worst changes done since console release.
I really can only sit here in disbelief...

TheValar85

mobicera wrote: »

I had to read these changes twice I just couldn't believe them...
What about the average player base trying to progress in vet trials?
Are we just supposed to stop doing what we like because we are simply being forced out of content we are getting close on due to nerfs?
These are simply some of the dumbest and worst changes done since console release.
I really can only sit here in disbelief...

I know right?

This is how an incpometency looks like form a Developer team and from the community office department. This equals ZOS dosent have any clues about their game they become Blizzard 2.0

Ragnaroek93

From PvP perspective it looks pretty nice indeed. I'm excited to test all the upcoming stuff.

Icy_Waffles

The only thing I even think is good is the changes to some of the heavy armor sets and sword and shield skill line. Nerfing aoe dots? That’s a basis for pve dps and the nerf seems overdone.

Now it doesn’t even make sense to run a mag sorc. I realize some changes may have been needed but damn.