Update 26 Combat Preview

ZOS_BrianWheeler · April 2020

Greetings Gang!

We’d like to take a moment to share a preview of combat updates coming with Update 26 (Greymoor). The full list of changes will be revealed with the patch notes next week, but for now we’d like to provide some insight on our goals. This update is primarily focused on reinforcing itemization standards, improving quality of life for werewolves, and a few adjustments regarding PvP balance. As many of you are already aware, the team recently experimented with some significant changes to Light and Heavy Attacks. We’d like to again thank everyone who participated in the off-cycle PTS test of those changes, and remind you all that those changes will not be included with Update 26. Today, we’ll be focusing on the other changes that will be appearing next week on the PTS for Update 26.

U26 not only has Vampire updates, but Werewolf updates as well! We want to keep the “in your face” action of the Werewolf and also want to add rotation options when you’ve transformed into this ferocious form. For example, Pounce now has a follow up attack afterwards that also has an execute scaled on Bleed. We’re also making adjustments to allow buffing and debuffing to give a sense of being a pack leader. Sustain for werewolves is also something we noted needs an adjustment, so Hircine’s Bounty now has some added functionality if you’re already at full health and don’t need the heal from the ability. We believe these changes will keep the Werewolf playstyle competitive and entertaining for all players!

About a year ago, we started our standardization pass and we’re finishing that off in U26 with Monster Masks/Shoulders. Remember standards aren’t written in stone, but we now have equal measures of power and performance from these 2 piece sets; some are having their 1 piece adjusted to better suit the function of the set. Valkyn Skoria, for example, now gives Spell Penetration rather than Max Health as this is a damage-based set.

Other sets are receiving functionality adjustments (damage values, trigger conditions, cooldowns, etc.) to follow their intended functionality based on their sourcing. A good example of this is Tremorscale: enemies hit by the damaging effect of this ability are no longer snared, but instead have their Physical Resistance reduced. To help with performance, some sets are having their “chance to proc” removed and instead now have a cooldown. Again, we’ll look at Tremorscale as an example: we are removing the proc chance from this set and increasing the cooldown damage. Note that because the cooldown is increasing, the damage is also increasing.

Continuing on itemization, we are also introducing Perfected Veteran Maelstrom and Perfected Dragonstar Arena weapons. This has been a long standing request by the players, and it finally brings these two arenas up to par with others that add Perfected versions. These are earned by completing Veteran mode in each of those arenas and will have additional bonuses much like other Perfected sets. Completing Maelstrom or Dragonstar Arena will now grant Blue versions of the non-perfected weapons from these arenas. In this pass, we are making a few adjustments to ALL Arena weapons to meet standards. One example of this is the BRP weapon set Spectral Cloak: this item set now increases your damage done and reduces your damage taken whenever you deal damage with Blade Cloak, rather than granting Major Protection for 3 seconds after casting. This fits the concept of Blade cloak as it deals with damage as well as protection.

Lastly, in this update we are making some small adjustments to Critical Resistance and Healing affecting PvP specifically. Over the years, we’ve seen healing become quite volatile in PvP with the ability to negate a high amount of damage in just 1 ability cast for many players at once. This isn’t just 1 ability that causes this type of health bar swinging, so we are making adjustments to Battlespirit which now reduces healing taken by 60% instead of 50%.

Gearing up for PvP isn’t a simple task because of the need for Critical Resistance. The other issue regarding itemization in PvP is that it’s very limiting due to the need for building Critical Resistance. This means other popular traits and builds aren’t as viable in PvP unless you’re a glass cannon or top-end player. To bring more viable stat and set combinations into PvP play, we are now granting a baseline Critical Resistance. In conjunction with that change, we are making several adjustments to item sets which grant Critical Resistance. We also are making changes to the Impenetrable trait by reducing the value.

We hope these updates enhance your day to day adventures in ESO, and we’ll see you in Tamriel! We look forward to your feedback regarding the changes above, as well as item sets and your general playtesting experience when Update 26 hits PTS next week!

Woeler · April 2020

So does this mean everyone will have to re-farm their all time favourite; maelstrom arena?

Darktrox · April 2020

I just got the bow man, I'm going to cry lmao

NirnStorm · April 2020

This is absolutely amazing to hear, looking forward to see the patch notes!

Impen has been way overused in PvP for the longest time, it will be super interesting to mess around with different traits.

As for the perfected maelstrom/master weapons, will the ones we currently have turn into perfected versions (as they were obtained in veteran difficulty)?

BohnT2 · April 2020

Are you aware that healing isn't all that big of an issue but rather the naturally high health pools and the abstinence of being burstable for most of the time, due to casttimes on ults, lack of offensive CCs.
@ZOS_BrianWheeler

ZOS_BrianWheeler · April 2020

Your current VMA and DSA Weapons will not be automatically upgraded to Perfected versions.

heaven13 · April 2020

Not cool.

themaddaedra · April 2020

Hello @ZOS_BrianWheeler can you tell us what is gonna happen to current MSA and DSA weapons we have? Will they be categorized as normal or perfected versions? As there's no weapon dropping from normal now, i believe the weapons we already have should be reverted to perfected version automatically.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Too late already, rip.

UtopianWarrior88 · April 2020

Absolute *** not to upgrade these items, we earned them on vet, and now we have to do it again?

Darktrox · April 2020

Oof.

Bowser · April 2020

Why not?

zDan · April 2020

Finally! you have listened and made adjustments to battle spirit! This is a huge step forward and also acknowledging the tank and healing meta is really good too. I like this.

Rehdaun · April 2020

So what you're saying that you're giving everyone who put in the time and effort, spending weeks upon weeks getting these weapons the big middle finger?!?!??!?!

How low can you go???

Inarre · April 2020

Can we see adjustments to the achievements:

These are nearly impossible to achieve. Before adjustment to Battleground queue, players used to create groups and game the queues in order to "farm" these achievements. This is now impossible to do with single queue, and will be even more difficult to achieve now that healing will be nerfed in PVP come Greymoor.

The BG leaderboards prove that healing large amounts is not conducive to the high crit and burst damage goal of the game, and with the reduction of burst heals becomes even less probable. These achievements need a complete rework, or a HUGE reduction of expected value.

Darktrox · April 2020

I highly doubt that's what "many" people asked for tbh... I just transmuted mine! dang!

themaddaedra · April 2020

Can you be so very kind to tell us the reasoning behind this?

Dottzgaming · April 2020

i have no words for how little sense this makes.

code65536 · April 2020

I expect most people will not like this.

I can clear vMA in about half an hour. If I'm forced to re-farm my weapons, I can and it won't be that painful.

But I don't want to. There are things that I'd rather do than to re-run content that I've ran literally hundreds of times over the past 4.5 years.

PureEnvelope35 · April 2020

[snip] in what backwards method of thinking does leaving the weapons that people have farmed for ages as non perfected make sense?

[snip] vDSA actually needs damage and some communication and I am fairly sure most people can probably clear nMA with just light attacks, not that vMA is much harder but it takes way longer to complete and not every person has the mental health to do another 50 vet Maelstrom runs only to end up with 0 infernos but 12 ice staves that are about as useful as a gapcloser in primetime Cyrodiil.

Please don't make us refarm all of the bloody weapons we spent ages trying to get or successfully getting.

~Literally Everyone

[Edited for inappropriate commentary]

Masel · April 2020

Here I was, knowing that the world would be set on fire, with no way to prevent that from happening.

ELawlis · April 2020

Not cool on the weapons. We put in too much work to get those weapons on veteran difficulty for this change without them being adjusted to perfected. This is a major slap in the face for veteran players.

I do regular Maelstrom on new level 15 characters for the skill point and fighter’s guild points because it’s laughably easy.

relentless_turnip · April 2020

I like the subtlety of adjusting it by only 10%

Derra · April 2020

So you just want to force players that already complete the content on vet to rerun old content for the sake of it - because running an arena you already did 200 times for another 50 times is fun.

I really hope you get the backlash this deserves.

AntonShan · April 2020

Well thought decisions here.

MaddPowered · April 2020

bruh

Grandma · April 2020

It took me over 100 drops to get my vma fire stick [not even the right trait fire stick, just *A* fire stick, at all, over 100 drops]. and now, if i want to min/max, you're telling me I have to do that again. And god knows zos is going to put off the wrothgar event as long as possible now.

sigh. deep, heavy, sigh.

Darktrox · April 2020

Talk about rewarding veteran players.

bharathitman · April 2020

Introducing artificial longevity for old content by making these minor changes

Sanguinor2 · April 2020

What makes this even more interesting is that when I got the majority of my vma weapons they had the perfected bonuses. Only that perfected items didnt exist then. I dont know which patch it was that took them away but now reintroducing them but not to the vma weapons I own that had them taken away is downright insulting.

relentless_turnip · April 2020

I imagine the issue is logistical...

mav1234 · April 2020

what the hell, why not? That is unfair.