PTS Patch Notes v8.1.2

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

The Elder Scrolls Online v8.1.2 activates a new event to test – Heroes of High Isle. In addition to several fixes for the Lost Depths dungeons, we’ve made numerous adjustments to Damage and Healing over Time ability standards, class abilities and other skill lines, item sets, and more. We’ve also copied all PC EU characters in this patch, which is approximately 522MB in size. We appreciate all the feedback everyone has taken the time to provide thus far – please continue to let us know your thoughts after testing out the changes in this latest patch.

New Features / Updates / Big Changes
- Event Testing - Heroes of High Isle
Template Updates
Known Issues
Fixes & Improvements
- Chapters & DLCs
- Combat & Gameplay
  - Combat & Abilities
  - Companions
  - Itemization & Item Sets
- Base Game

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

Event Testing – Heroes of High Isle
Return to High Isle for chivalric adventures!

Society of the Steadfast reward coffers come from High Isle daily quests or from exploring the zone and its dangerous locations.
- These coffers can contain valuable materials, style items, zone set items, furnishings, or Companion gear if you have Ember or Isobel active when they are opened.
- Any Society of the Steadfast reward coffer has a chance to drop a tradeable style page of the new Oaken Order armor style.
The first High Isle daily quest or Dreadsail Reef trial weekly quest you complete per account, per day awards you 2 Event Tickets and a gold-quality reward coffer with a better chance of higher quality rewards.
High Isle daily quests have their normal reward boxes doubled and harvest nodes in High Isle have an improved yield.
High Isle world and delve bosses, along with any boss in the Dreadsail Reef trial, drop additional loot.
The Impresario has bound versions of the Oaken Order armor style pages for 5 tickets each, in addition to all three fragments of the Daggerfall Paladin morphing collectible outfit for 10 tickets each.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

PTS Item Set bags for the Earthen Root Enclave and Graven Deep item sets will no longer say they can be found 'somewhere'.
- Deeproot Zeal, Stone's Accord, Rage of Ursauk and Archdruid Devyric item set bags will note these sets come from Earthen Root Enclave.
- Pangrit Denmother, Grave Inevitability, Phylactery's Grasp and Euphotic Gatekeeper item set bags will note these sets come from Graven Deep.
Fixed an issue causing the Crafter's Limitless Library to not show up in the inventory of new template characters.
Crafter's Limitless Library Special Edition, Volume I, II and III have had their flavor text updated to better reflect the contents of the containers.
The following Style Materials can now be found in the Advanced Crafter's Style Materials container available on new template characters:
- Engraved Leaves
- High Isle Filigree
- Preserving Saltwater
- Scalloped Frog-Metal
Updated the descriptions of several Monster Mask set containers for consistency.
Individual bags for the Archdruid Devyric and Euphotic Gatekeeper sets available from the PTS template are now Gold quality to reflect the gear they contain.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

General

Surprise Attack’s guaranteed Critical Strike can currently fail in some cases.
Howl of Agony’s bonus damage is currently failing in some cases.
Flurry can sometimes incorrectly inherit bonuses to Damage over Time.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

Antiquities

The Druidic Provisioning Station is now available to purchase from Jeran Antieve at Furnishings of Finesse in Gonfalon Bay, for adventurers who have found and assembled that Antiquity.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

Furnishings

The "High Isle Wall, Thin Castle" furnishing can now be correctly found in the Walls and Fences subcategory, instead of the Platforms subcategory.

Quests

Tower Full of Trouble: You can now use the Spoon of Undo on Huldressa the Guar once you reach the bridge where she tires out from running.

General

Fixed an issue where spamming Patron powers while a card was being played could result in the game getting stuck.

Rewards

Fixed an issue so Transmute Crystals will display the total gained instead of stacks of 1.

UI

Updated the text on cards using the refresh mechanic to explicitly say if they can target any card or a specific type.
Updated the text on some game elements.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

Dungeons

Earthen Root Enclave
- General
  - You no longer have a chance to remain in combat after defeating Archdruid Devyric.
  - Only player characters affected by individual orbs will see the associated effects.
  - Petrify will now only be applied to the initial target and the stun will ignore block and CC Immunity.
  - Lurchers no longer play boss music.
- Corruption of Root
  - Reduced damage of Corruption of Root and Root Node on normal difficulty.
  - Reduced the health of Root Node and Fauns on normal difficulty.
  - The Trellis Sentinel barriers once again have collision during the encounter.
  - The Rootwalk phase of the encounter will no longer have a chance to end prematurely.
- Archdruid Devyric
  - Electric Breath now displays the proper icon in the Death Recap UI.
Graven Deep
- General
  - The following achievements will now be awarded when the proper conditions are met:
    - Fist of Tava
    - Life Among the Undying
    - Respect the Dead
    - Storming the Beach
  - The following achievements can now only be earned on Veteran difficulty:
    - Respect the Dead
    - Share and Share Alike
  - The Giant Undead Slayer achievement now correctly states that Flesh Abominations are included as valid monsters for completion.
  - Updated the description for the Wildlife Preservation achievement to better reflect the requirements for completion.
  - The Light of the Lost Depths achievement now has the correct icon.
  - Chralzak and Mzugru are now always immune to stun effects as intended.
  - Your character will now always be teleported to the correct location when failing to navigate the traps.
  - Dhulef is easier to talk to throughout the dungeon.
  - Dhulef is a little more discrete when reappearing after Varzunon is defeated.
  - Dhulef will no longer hold an imaginary map instead of a real one.
  - Dhulef will no longer disappear once one player character enters the Observatory.
  - The Big Bubble effect no longer indicates a duration.
  - Bristlepitch no longer has a chance to prevent player characters in Werewolf form from attacking until transforming again.
  - Boss music will no longer play during the encounter with Pangrits before the Euphotic Gatekeeper.
  - The Bristlepitch effect now correctly deals damage on Veteran difficulty.
  - The Bristlepitch synergy prompt will now be correctly removed from your character.
  - Companions will now also receive the relevant buffs when traversing the section before the final boss encounter.
- Euphotic Gatekeeper
  - The Bristlebombard ability now correctly displays a negative effect icon.
- Zelvraak the Unbreathing
  - The visual effects from Defense System will now be visible in the afterlife phase of the encounter.

General

Archdruid Devyric and Euphotic Gatekeeper Monster Masks in Earthen Root Enclave and Graven Deep will now follow curated loot rules.

Furnishings

Updated the audio for the “Deeproot’s Undying Bloom” achievement furnishing.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

General

The quest reward associated with Red Petal Bastion is now appropriately named “Red Petal Bastion Armaments”.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

General

Damage and Healing over Time ability standards are now better differentiated based on the type of ability they are. These changes mainly target Area of Effect-based abilities to increase their tick rates and reduce their durations.
- Damage over Time effects that stick to a target remain at their new standard introduced in PTS v8.1.0 with a 20 second duration, 2 second frequency, coming in at 0.105 coefficient DPS.
- Adjusted Damage over Time abilities that are bound to a static area back to 10 seconds, 12 seconds, or 15 seconds depending on their sourced skill line. These tick once every second (with a reduced cost compared to what’s currently on the Live servers) and 0.14 DPS (down from 0.1575 currently on Live and up from 0.105 from PTS v8.1.0).
  - If an ability's DPS has been adjusted to a value outside of 0.14, the individual change list will note the change in efficacy.
- Healing over Time abilities sourced from a static area now tick once every second, with their overall coefficient per second remaining the same as PTS v8.1.0.
Developer Comment:
After sifting through nothing short of mountains of feedback, we have identified some key areas that we've seen a lot of constructive criticism on. The main objectives of the adjustments listed above are as follows:
- Improve reactive game play of ticking Area of Effect-based abilities
- Better differentiate the gameplay elements of ticking Area of Effect based abilities and "sticky" ticking abilities
- Allow for more choice of speed and complexity of your rotation
We believe these changes empower these 3 points by condensing the effectiveness of these abilities. This will allow for better Area of Effect events at higher risk and reward actions with more cost and micromanagement than sticky abilities. Mobility still counters them (but not as harshly as the first PTS patch) while reducing their costs compared to what’s on Live which helps alleviate the loss of recasting them early. On top of this, the increased tick rates for Area of Effects will vastly aid in their responsiveness and retain some of the steady stream of healing needed for some harsher encounters.

Buffs and Debuffs

Fixed an issue were several status effects’ Minor debuffs were not properly flagged as procs.
Hemorrhaging: Fixed an issue where Minor Mangle was not being removed if the Bleed was removed early.

Dragonknight

Earthen Heart
- Ash Cloud: Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs back to 15 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.

Necromancer

Grave Lord
- Boneyard:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2970, down from 3780.
  - Reduced the bonus damage when consuming a corpse to 30%, down from 50%.
Living Death
- Spirit Mender
  - Spirit Guardian: Fixed an issue where we missed a 0 on this pet's total health. It is now 30,000 Health rather than 3,000, meaning its owner can take up to 300,000 damage over its duration before it will perish early, significantly increasing its ability to exist as a tool for your bidding for more than a few seconds.

Nightblade

Shadow
- Path of Darkness: Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Twisting Path (morph): Reduced the cost to 2700, down from 3510.
- Veiled Strike: This ability and its morphs no longer stun enemies when using from their flank.
  Developer Comment:
  We previously enabled this ability to crowd control targets, as other forms of CC in the Nightblade kit were rather lackluster. After the pass in this Update, this issue has been amended and we're comfortable that the class will still be just as efficient from the shadows without Veiled Strike’s stun, allowing the new morph biases to be the main selling points of the spammable.
- Shadow Cloak
  - Dark Cloak (morph): This morph now heals for 11-14% of your missing health, down from 17-20%.
    Developer Comment:
    Keep in mind that while this number may seem high, as the ability and other sources heal you it naturally diminishes in power, making it much better to use when you are below 50% Health.

Sorcerer

Dark Magic
- Crystal Shard
  - Crystal Weapon (morph): This morph now splits its damage into two separate hits - the first hit deals damage equal to a ranged spammable, while the second hit deals damage equal to 30% of that.
    Developer Comment:
    This retains the same overall damage as PTS v8.1.0 but is far less punitive if you only get 1 charge of the ability off. Keep in mind this does unfortunately introduce a situation where combat logs will report each damage event as separate abilities. Everything has a price.
Daedric Summoning
- Bound Armor
  - Bound Armaments (morph): Increased the damage of this ability by approximately 44% per hit.
Storm Calling
- Lightning Splash:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2970, down from 3780.
    - Liquid Lightning (morph): This morph now increases the duration by 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
- Overload: Fixed an issue where you could not Light or Heavy Attack if this Ultimate was toggled and you casted another Ultimate.

Templar

Aedric Spear
- Spear Shards:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2970, down from 3780.
    - Blazing Spear (morph): This morph now increases damage done of the entire ability by 30%, up from 20%.

Warden

Winter’s Embrace
- Impaling Shards:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 3240, down from 3780.
    - Gripping Shards (morph): Reduced the cost of this morph to 2970, down from 3510.
- Arctic Wind
  - Arctic Blast (morph):
    - Increased the duration of this morph to 20 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
    - Increased the damage per tick by approximately 9%.
    - This morph now stuns once immediately upon cast, rather than based on the number of ticks you're on, for more active and deliberate gameplay.

Weapon

Bow
- Volley:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2700, down from 3510.
    - Endless Hail (morph): This morph now increases the duration by 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.
Destruction Staff
- Wall of Elements:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2970, down from 3510.
  - Wall of Frost and its morphs now cost 3240, down from 3780.
  - Wall of Fire and its morphs now deal 10% increased damage against Burning enemies, down from 20%.
    - Unstable Wall (morph): Decreased the damage of this morph's explosion by approximately 33%.
Restoration Staff
- Grand Healing: This ability and its morphs now tick once every second, rather than once every 2 seconds. The healing per tick was reduced to preserve current healing per second.
Two Handed
- Cleave
  - Carve (morph): Increased the damage per tick of this morph by approximately 33%.
- Critical Charge
  - Stampede (morph):
    - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 15 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
    - Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 5%.

Guild

Fighters Guild
- Circle of Protection
  - Ring of Preservation (morph):
    - This morph now ticks once every second, rather than once every 2 seconds.
    - Fixed an issue where the healing of this morph was not properly increased to the new standards.
Undaunted
- Necrotic Orb:
  - This ability and the Mystic Orb morph now last 10 seconds and tick every second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2970, down from 3780.
  - Increased the movement speed to 1.2 meters per second, up from 0.6 meters per second, now that they do not need to stay in the same area for as long.

Alliance War

Assault
- Caltrops:
  - Returned the duration and tick rate of this ability and its morphs to 10 seconds and 1 second, rather than 20 seconds and 2 seconds.
  - Reduced the cost to 2295, down from 2984.
    - Anti-Cavalry Caltrops (morph): This morph now increases the duration by 5 seconds, down from 10 seconds.

General

Companions now only block incoming blockable attacks if they are the target or are standing in the relevant Area of Effect.
Ember now has more things to say when successfully trespassing in areas of Tamriel.

Quests

Tower Full of Trouble: You can now use the Spoon of Undo on Huldressa the Guar once you reach the bridge where she tires out from running, if you did not previously receive the prompt.

Ability Altering Weapons

Merciless Charge:
- This set now once again ticks once per second over 7 seconds, rather than once every 2 seconds over 10 seconds.
- Reduced the damage per tick by approximately 39%.
- This set no longer stops refreshing early when using in tandem with Stampede.
Spectral Cloak: Fixed an issue where this set was not persisting through the entire duration of Blade Cloak or its morphs.

Monster Masks

Baron Thirsk: Fixed an issue where this set would not proc with certain area direct damage abilities.

PvP Sourced

Nocturnal’s Ploy: Updated this set’s tooltip to better describe its requirements, such as its inability to trigger off delayed or ticking events.
Plaguebreak:
- Fixed an issue where this set was not proccing off some direct damage abilities.
- Reinstated the 100ms cooldown of this set to prevent it from proccing multiple times per attack and becoming too powerful again.

ZOS_GinaBruno · July 2022

General

Fixed an issue where the Silver Rose Motif would appear invisible.

Undaunted Celebration

Fixed an issue where the Iceheart Style Page could be purchased during the event from Pledge Master Glirion.

General

Criminals and players with Stage 4 Vampirism can now interact with Pack Merchants.
Multiple lower quality items will now stack to 200 instead of 100:
- Ash
- Balithil's "Potato Porridge"
- Brittle Molten Rock
- Carapace
- Charcoal
- Clockwork Oscillator
- Daedra Husk
- Dwarven Gear
- Ectoplasm
- Elemental Essence
- Foul Hide
- Gnawed Bone
- Membrane
- Ruined Chaurus Egg
- Spoiled Food
- Stony Sliver
- Supple Root
- Vampire Dust
- Vampire Fang
- Void Essence

Furnishings

Fixed an issue that could cause the screen to briefly turn black or the camera to rotate for a moment when moving between furnishing previews.
Fixed an issue where only the hanging rod for the “High Isle Tapestry, Seaside Tourney” Master Writ furnishing could be selected in the housing editor. The full tapestry can now be selected, as intended.
Updated the audio for the “Potted Trees, Stonelore Dogwood” Master Writ furnishing.

Addons

Fixed a crash that could occur when calling GetTributePatronIdAtIndex from Lua.