some initial thoughts on the new pts patch notes

Browiseth

overall, they seem to be taking a "ripping off the band-aid" approach with this one. not a bad idea, elsweyr's changes were insane and warranted some drastic changes.

i'll just read through the notes again and list anything here that sticks out to me.

necro changes: no major complaints here. looks like they want to make the whole corpse consumption mechanic more of a requirement for playing the class with the changes to graveyard.maybe siphon will be worth using now, etc. can't really speak for the changes in the other trees since i only play necro dps, and this class is the most linear by design yet.

bleeds being affected by resistances: fair enough

seeing some "spring cleaning" changes like stam based heals that were scaling off elfborn now scaling off precise strikes, which is appreciated. that bugfix for ground targeted abilities being queued up is long overdue. would like to mention that all the changes to sets are nice to see, though i doubt it will make much of a dent in the meta it's appreciated nontheless

dk changes: mostly fine with these, though it looks like sustain will be even more of a nightmare. molten whip should have had the weapon damage removed outright, but maybe stam builds will be less inclined to use it regardless.

nb changes dunno. are these good, bad? i don't play nb

sorc changes no direct stam sorc changes. oh well. can't speak for the mag/pet changes much i'm afraid.

templar changes: eclipse looks cool. total dark might help templar tanks a bit which is nice.

one hand and shield: i like the new defensive posture/absorb magic. pve tanks need everything they can get. ransack change is good.

dual wield: blade cloak is good i guess. never liked the ability, but it'll get more use now i suppose. hidden blade is just bizarre now. twin blade and blunt axe bleed getting buffed? yes please.

bow: here's the big one. volley nerf is long overdue. this ability has been absolutely insane for eons so this was coming from a mile away. i like the rapid fire buff, dunno if poison arrow needed a buff but i'll take it. snipe buff is omegalul but it's just 9% so whatever.

destro staff: destructive touch is a bit generic at base now but i guess it'll see more use. destructive clench will be used by no one. wall of elements nerf is fair, brings it more in line with the volley nerf.

fighter's guild: circle of protection has good changes, might use this on my stam healer next patch. flawless dawnbreaker is a big oof, i'm gonna miss the passive damage buff but it'll maybe encourage us to mix up our ults more in pve since flawless has always been a no brainer. don't get the changes to hunter at all but they look like improvements i guess. trap beast seems...good? dunno.

mages guild: 5 years later and entropy might finally be worth using hot damn. and fire rune too! dunno why this took 5 years but here we are at least.

undaunted: necrotic orb changes are great, my stam healer will enjoy that.

alliance war: vigor changes are fine. caltrops is a big oof but i'm okay with it, gives all stam builds access to easy major fracture which is nice.

that's everything that stood out to me. so my initial thoughts:

- eso is dead
- orsinium was the only good patch
- elder nerfs online
- except for the many buffs
- i only care about the changes that specifically affect me rather than considering the game as a whole
- probably the best patch ever added to the game
- hold on, no argonian buffs
- eso is dead

all in all a solid first pts patch.

Gythral

Seems they have worked out how to fix the servers...

Hack everyone of so they all leave & then the server hamster has a lot less work to do!

Raudgrani

Eclipse fine? It looks outright ***. "Cannot be CC broken, but it can be cleansed". Like "Pouuuhh.... Lucky thing ALL of my toons are Templars themselves, or at least 50k magicka toons!". F**k that.They don't play the game, and imagine this is used "defensively", which it generally isn't - no, they slap up purifying light on you, Eclipse, and then (after putting Vampires Bane, Flame Clench etc. on you, of course) spam Puncturing Sweeps on you, reducing your movement speed and all. And what can you do? Ah! Yeah, cleanse........... If you can't, just wait for the sphere to expire, and enjoy a new one cast on you!

Why do they insist on keep ruining the game?

Navras

My first thought was "why such a big patch when you have so many many many issues to fix and work on? Fix before implementing new stuff!"

All that said I understood the meaning of those changes and I'm ok with that. Few are really good, a few others a bit less but it's ok... let's see where this will bring us and judge later on.

SaucyMcSauceface

I found the change to Immovable weird. Here, have freeedom from CC by applying a CC to yourself!

Tommy_The_Gun

Werewolf: Pack Leader untargetable wolf pets.
^ This will kill this morph for solo pve pets off tanking dmg (as they will be untargetable).

Now I understand that it was done because of PvP (targeting system could not handle it), but as a result a large player base of ppl wont be able to use it in PvE.

As a result.. I don't think this morph will be used by anyone. I cant think of a scenario or type of content where PTS's Pack Leader will be better choice than Werewolf Berserker morph. Werewolf Berserker simply looks superior in every possible way.
They say that Pack Leader will offer utility, but the utility it offers is so miserable and unreliable it simply makes this morph obsolete and not worthy DMG sacrifices.


Thing I thought could help:
- Pets should still be targetable by NPCs, mobs & bosses.
- Lack of DMG, Bleed dmg and heavy attack AOE dmg should be compensated by adding taunt to this morph heavy attacks.

shaielzafine

They're doing too many changes at the same time without good reason. When they did racial changes they said it was for the sake of "balance" but you just had people rerolling races because the best racials got changed up. You still didn't see Breton stamina dps or Orc healers, or redguard magic DPS. But at least all they did was racial passives and it was easy to cope and figure out how to redo my builds. This time around, they just went and redid / nerfed a bunch of the classes, skill lines, passives, etc right as they introduce new content such as the new proc sets which also affect combat and balance. How are they going to be able to tell if the changes are balanced or correct if they make all these sweeping changes at once? How are typical average players (or even ESO content creators) supposed to keep up with this massive list of changes? Even the official patch notes they released had typos lol. Doesn't look like they respect our time working on our characters and leveling, getting passives and skill lines. But no worries I guess if I reroll because now I can buy Undaunted, Mages guild and I won't even have to PvP, I can buy alliance skill abilities and use the points from my skyshards zone pack.

yodased

SaucyMcSauceface wrote: »

I found the change to Immovable weird. Here, have freeedom from CC by applying a CC to yourself!

Walking slow doesn't stop you from gapclosing

NolaArch

shaielzafine wrote: »

They're doing too many changes at the same time without good reason. When they did racial changes they said it was for the sake of "balance" but you just had people rerolling races because the best racials got changed up.

Yep. My response was, “Okay I’ll just be an Orc then.”