PTS Patch Notes v5.3.3

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The Elder Scrolls Online v5.3.3 is the final PTS patch before the Harrowstorm DLC launches on PC/Mac on February 24, and for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on March 10. This patch includes several additional fixes for both Harrowstorm dungeons, in addition to more adjustments and fixes for some combat abilities and item sets, some crash fixes, and more. The size of this last patch is approximately 330MB.

• Fixes & Improvements
  • DLCs & Chapters
    • Clockwork City
    • Elsweyr
    • Harrowstorm
    • Horns of the Reach
    • Summerset
  • Combat & Gameplay
    • Combat & Abilities
    • Itemization & Item Sets
  • Base Game
    • Combat & Gameplay
    • Housing
    • Miscellaneous
    • Quests & Zones
    • UI

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Monsters

• Nameplates for the Imperfect now move correctly when it animates.

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Necromancer

• Grave Lord
  • Boneyard: Fixed an issue where the synergy granted from this ability and its morphs would fail to deal damage if you activated it from the edge of its radius. 

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Figure

• The appropriate buckles appear on the Windhelm Scale Tunic chest piece when equipped.

Dungeons

• Icereach
  • General
    • Fixed impact audio for several abilities.
    • Removed a black box that appeared across one of the doorways.
    • Fixed an issue where monsters were unable to walk through certain doorways.
  • Sister Skelga
    • Sister Skelga will no longer use her Steal Essence ability immediately after teleporting.
  • Vearogh the Shambler
    • Vearogh no longer has a chance to become unresponsive during the encounter.
    • Vearogh now always animates during its Burning Ground ability.
  • Mother Cainnait
    • The Bitter Winds ability no longer persists after Mother Cainnait has been defeated or the encounter resets.
    • Sister Hiti can no longer cast her Melting Torrent ability twice in a row after being shielded or interrupted.
• Unhallowed Grave
  • General
    • Fixed impact audio for several abilities.
    • You can no longer interact with the ground sigils in the second statue room before the Keeper of the Kiln fight. You’ll need to use the grappling hook mechanic to reveal the correct symbol.
  • Ondagore the Mad
    • All visual effects are now properly grounded for the Malediction ability.
    • You will no longer see a generic “Damage Taken” effect on your character during the Malediction ability.
  • Kjalnar Tombskald
    • There is no longer an invisible monster that can be healed in the encounter.

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Dungeons

• Bloodroot Forge
  • Galchobar now correctly faces the center of the island when throwing his weapon.

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Monster Abilities

• Yaghra Larva
  • Spiked Missile now correctly displays visual effects when it deals damage.

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Dragonknight

• Ardent Flame
  • Lava Whip:
    • Flame Lash (morph): The special attack from this ability, Power Lash, can now also be cast on enemies that are Immobilized, and reverted the cooldown back to 3 seconds.
      Developer Comment:
      With the recent changes to Off Balance, we wanted to ensure this ability stayed up to speed with its original power. We first took a conservative approach of reducing the cooldown, which allowed you to gain an extra Lash per Off Balance period during one on one interactions, which would be better when used in outnumbered situations. This still left the morph feeling lackluster in comparison to Molten Whip, so we decided to enable Power Lash to return to a state with something that fit into the stand-your-ground and lock-‘em-down play style the class has. 
• Earthen Heart
  • Helping Hands: This passive no longer triggers off Stamina costing Earthen Heart abilities, namely being Stonefist and Stone Giant.
    Developer Comment:
    While the numbers previously balanced themselves out with the higher cost on Stonefist but the return of this passive, it made using the ability early or when low on resources overly penalizing. We’ve opted to simply reduce the cost to a normal amount and implement an exclusion so it doesn’t interact with this passive, resulting in less polarizing experiences with the ability.
  • Stonefist: Reduced the cost of this ability and the Stone Giant morph to 2295 from 3443.
    • Stone Giant (morph): This morph now applies Stagger to enemies hit by the initial cast to help improve the impact of landing the cast time. 

Weapon

• Two Handed
  • Uppercut:
    • Dizzying Swing (morph): Enemies hit by this ability that are immune to Off Balance are now snared by 40% for 2 seconds.
      Developer Comment:
      Like the situation of Power Lash, the changes to Off Balance greatly affected the power of this morph in one-on-one scenarios. While we are okay with the loss of a frequent stun on a spammable, we wanted to still ensure this morph didn’t feel like it wasn’t adding anything to your gameplay throughout the entirety of the fight; we’ve opted to add in a function that helps you become more “sticky” to your target when trying to use it multiple times. Traditionally, we try and avoid CC’s without intense requirements on high damage abilities, but similar to Puncturing Strikes, cast time abilities are far harder to land at a frequent cadence, so we are more comfortable adding the snare here in addition to enabling a contextual stun with Off Balance.

World

• Soul Magic
  • Soul Trap: Fixed an issue where Soul Trap and its morphs would not clear when clearing all spent points while respeccing.

Item Sets

• Armor of Truth: This set now grants its bonus after dealing damage to an enemy who is Off Balance, rather than after setting an enemy Off Balance. 
  Developer Comment:
  The power of this set overall should be closer to its Live function when utilized in combat against multiple enemies, while dialing back some of its raw strength in one-on-one combat where it tends to do better than most sets.
• Critical Riposte: 
  • Increased the duration of this set to 9 seconds, up from 4. 
  • Increased the cooldown of this set to 10 seconds, up from 7.
  Developer Comment:
  This item set’s original values were residual from internal testing, where it was much weaker than intended. Since the bonuses it provides are Minor Debuffs that counteract highly accessible bonuses, we’re far more comfortable with the higher uptime as opposed to a set that would grant a powerful Major Buff instead.
• Draugr’s Rest: Fixed an issue where this set wasn’t triggering off its stated requirements.
• Draugrkin’s Grip:
  • Removed the proc chance from this set. 
  • Increased the damage bonus to 617, up from 530. 
  • Increased the cooldown to 9 seconds, up from 6.
  Developer Comment:
  This set’s design is targeted toward helping builds focused on Damage over Time get more mileage out of their attacks, but the original proc chance on Direct Damage attacks made it really difficult to engage with on classes that didn’t have rapid firing Direct Damage attacks, such as Flurry or Puncturing Sweeps.
• Essence Thief:  This set now displays a beam of light visible to the wearer when the sigil spawns in and finalizes its location, in order to help increase its visibility in visually noisy areas.
• Ice Heart: 
  • Reduced the shield size to 5000, down from 6050. 
  • Reduced the cooldown to 6 seconds, down from 12.
  Developer Comment:
  Based on much of the feedback of this set, we decided to have the baseline function meet the same standards as the Mother Ciannait set, with a 5k shield that lasts up to 6 seconds with a 6 second cooldown. With Iceheart’s auxiliary function being focused on preserving the shield to maximize its damage potential, and Ciannait around rushing in boldly to break the shield and gain as much Magicka as possible, there’s a much better parity between the two sets that helps them both meet our overall item set power standards, as well as feel different from an engagement point. 
• Jolting Arms: Slightly redesigned this set to operate more efficiently on the server, resulting in a fix for the Bash damage failing to apply properly in most cases, and tuning its numbers to be more appropriate for a set with its level of engagement. 
  • Reduced the amount of Armor granted to 4620, down from 6450. 
  • The bonus damage now adds a flat 6086 damage to your Bash attacks, rather than a separate proc of 5805 Shock damage. 
  • Updated the tooltip to properly mention the cooldown of this damage bonus. 
• Valkyn Skoria: Fixed an issue where this set could proc multiple times at once if hitting a large number of enemies.
• Zaan: The ramping damage bonus to this set now has a maximum of 5 stacks to match its duration, to prevent it from becoming wildly powerful when used in conjunction with duration extension bonuses like Elfbane. 

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Monster Abilities

• Dwarven Sphere
  • Steam Wall no longer causes your health/position to display incorrectly when blocked.
  • Steam Wall’s second strike now correctly responds to players who block it.

Furnishings

• Adjusted the recently renamed "Breton Runner, Bordered" one more time, to "Breton Carpet, Green" to avoid having two furnishings with the same name.

General

• Fixed a common crash that would occur in Cyrodiil.
• Improved memory management in the physics system, which leads to a lower likelihood of memory-related crashes

Anniversary Jubilee

• Fixed an issue where using the Jubilee Cake mementos would not hide personality props in your character’s hands.

Greymoor Prologue Quest

• Riften Ratway and Blackreach now have proper load screens.
• Added new lore text to all associated loading screens.
• The great lift now has proper assets in place to make your elevator journey more exciting.
• The Coven Conundrum:
  • You may now re-enter Blackreach via the same door you exited if you choose not to take the fast travel option from Lyris.
  • Updated the visual effects from the Icereach Coven Magic trail to be more visible.

Jester’s Festival

• Fixed an issue where it was too easy to get bounty taking the mudcrab apples.

General

• Updated the name and location of the Greymoor category in the Prologue section of the Achievements menu.

Gamepad Mode

• Fixed an issue where keybinds on the Announcements screen would not properly update.
• Fixed a UI error that could occur when previewing the daily login rewards.
• Fixed an issue where closing the attribute purchase window could make it so you are unable to move left or right.
• Fixed a UI error that could occur when navigating through the guild roster after filtering out offline players.
• Fixed an issue where the scroll indicator would not appear on announcement windows with long descriptions.