Maintenance for the week of September 15:
• [COMPLETE] Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – September 16, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – September 16, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – September 16, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
• [COMPLETE] PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – September 16, 6:00AM EDT (10:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
U46 a positive review - ESO's best state? Solo/accessibility perspective (with build).
SkaiFaith
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Console player (Xbox Series X). UPDATE: completed my review; edited in some UPDATES.
New game cover: 10/10 I love it so much that I have downloaded the 4K wallpaper you kindly provided us and I set it up as background for both my consoles.
New starting screen: 10/10 appreciate both the original music and the scenery that reminds of Oblivion's Cyrodiil.
New character select screen: 10/10 just perfect.
(These 3 things I would keep them as they are forever, if we had the possibility to choose)
UI modernization: I've seen the comparisons on the forum to logos minimalizations... I hate minimalistic logos too BUT in this case I am loving these UI changes, especially health bars! I always struggled to keep track of followers health and bosses health with the past health bars' style - with the new one they stick so much out that I always see them, it's wonderful! At least in this regard I really love this change, thank you very much! I have vision issues and this really helps a lot
Solstice aesthetics: Gorgeous! I like contrasts in general and being able to see a tropical island with high elves structures mixed with nords architecture and argonians' it's fantastic! The vegetation and animals are also really beautiful. I also really appreciate the wall - it could have been a dark omen on the otherwise pretty landscape but its design make it pleasant in the whole image and not a punch in the eye. Also it really works as a device to make people curious about "what is going on here?"
What I'm a bit sad are the dimensions, since I am enjoying it so much that I would have loved being able to have more like this! Last year we had a beautiful region and I was expecting this year to be grim and dark; I am happily surprised about Solstice but I have "the bad feeling" that the upcoming half of the isle will be in Ossein Cage (Coldharbour) style. I'm okay with this, but I will miss not having more about this biome.
UPDATE: While I would have appreciated a bigger zone, I am very much okay with getting this more little bites of great content frequently if this means that the Devs get to work out things like remastering old zones, implementing cross-play, improving QoL features such as a vertical camera slider, create new systems, allow add-ons, etc...
World Bosses: Soloed them and I really like them, I think they are a step up from last couple years, not in difficulty but in design - nice fights! I would appreciate if future Bosses take these as an example more than those from 2023 or 2024.
UPDATE: Public Dungeon and Delves: To be honest 3 out of these 4 were kinda cool as locations but didn't hype me up much; difficulty balance seemed better than last two years but I don't know how much of it is due to subclassing.
Anyway, I need to praise whoever worked on the Vale of Revelry Delve, both design and quest - IT'S AWESOME! The atmosphere brings you in and it works out perfectly with the theme of the quest, which even if brief has very good dialogues; especially appreciated the fact we can meet again the characters with dedicated dialogues. One of the best quests in recent memory.
UPDATE: Story: While I've never been a big fan of the original Main Story I appreciate the fact it is getting a "sequel". I've liked the characters involved and I got "frustrated" when a certain event happened, since e I was kinda fond of "you know who", but my frustration was more caused by my immediate thought "wonder who they'll bring back for the 20th year of ESO" - the suspect I'll have to wait 10 years is what pissed me, but who knows what will happen. Luckily the "surprise" was nice and it worked. Also, "the last environment" was cool!
Dialogues were good at times and weird other times, but generally an improvement over recent years. The quests were well designed and as I said before, I am okay with having frequent DLCs the size and quality of this one.
I want to point out one bad thing - while veteran players knew all along about the "bad guy", I think it's a huge disservice to new players and to devs to market this DLC as something they can jump in playing this zone's story first: please don't! I think U46 is phenomenal BUT I wouldn't encourage new players to play it right away; to enjoy it at the fullest they should seriously play the base game Main Quest first, I would push this direction more. I can't imagine how much less appreciation I would have had for the story if I had no clue of everything happened before...
I skipped the Trial.
Subclassing: I've followed the PTS cycle's feedback and while I was excited I was also a bit worried. Now I can say that IN MY CASE, I LOVE IT! It's easily one of the best things you did to the game!
I have nerves issues so I started using Oakensoul back then. When I tried Arcanist I also found it enjoyable. Now with subclassing I've been able to create my perfect build, which is not min/maxed or optimised but it allows me to vary my gameplay style: I can Heavy Attack, I can Beam, I can Jab... And I already made it work on all my 12 characters of all classes - every one of those now it's a banger of a soloist!
The fact is, as most Oakensoul builds, it does the most DPS just spamming HA, but that isn't fun gameplay. Now I can add diversity, even if I lose DPS I have MORE FUN!
Something to point out: Point 1) Arcanist Beam IS NOT OP IMO. I use it on all characters, most without any crux, and I definitely can't spam it as now it has a huge cost; I necessarily have to throw in Heavy Attacks to restore resources, also because I run Banner Bearer, which takes me to Point 2) I was worried seeing comments on how the cost changes on Banner Bearer made it unusable... Well, not on any of my characters from all classes. I have between 1.000 to 1.500 recovery and it's plenty to solo hard World Bosses and World Events; my banner didn't go off anytime, fort the time being; in fact it seems to me that this was another good choice from the devs. (BUILD BELOW). Point 3) Leveling Subclassing doesn't seem too bad - 38 Master Writs with just one 150% XP buff. This means around 400 Master Writs to have everything maxed, OUT of an event! And having everything maxed is a bit overkill, not really required.
Game Performance: before U46 I switched to Fidelity Mode because it looks better, maintaining higher resolution even in overwhelming situations, and I now found it to be smoother than before! Gold Road update broke the game on console for me but with U46 it seems it is performing better than ever! At least on my side. UPDATE: due to add-ons I am returning to Performance mode, because those can make things choppy. Smoother, but that loss in resolution... Hope next gen consoles will fix these "issues".
Servers on launch days are continuing to kick out of game BUT Zos themeselves aknowledged that they are target of DDOS attacks and this seems to always happen on Updates launch days. I remember their livestreams got attacked too, so many issues aren't entirely their fault but bad actors.
Population, even on Xbox EU, felt much better anyway; I can see this update help some players come back.
UPDATE: I read on the forum couple of people saying their Series X get loud while playing ESO. I can tell you this: I've had 3 Xbox Series X (for some reasons. Not even 1 got broken) and the first one I had always got loud while playing ESO. The two I bought later on never get loud. So it could be an hardware issue or something like that.
UPDATE: Console add-ons: much appreciated addition! I understand issues aren't on Zos with these, so I hope what's broken get fixed eventually and I'm grateful to the community for their free work. Also hope add-ons support can see expansion maybe in the future to allow more, different stuff. But the improvement in QoL was immediate with this implementation.
All in all, even tough I was skeptical at the reveal with the Content Pass "thing" (which I am still frustrated with) I am really digging this Update 46; such a good update for me...! Some minor issues but they'll get fixed. UPDATE: I have high hopes for U47 and I'm crossing fingers that it doesn't devastate everything good they've build at the moment. Right now, with all ESO has added over the years, the game is in its best state IMO.
On a sidenote: Devs, if you'd ever want to lift a bit Oakensoul to not let it fall off now that the ceiling is higher, I'd suggest to give it back Major Berserk and Major Courage instead of their minor counterparts. Just this would make a difference in keeping it relevant, I think, without making it OP.
MY ACCESSIBILITY SOLO BUILD (this is not meant to max out DPS but to make accessibility more fun)
Warden/Arcanist/Templar - Swap out Templar with any other class, trying to maintain the lines that offer passive resources.
Animal companions, Herald of the tome, Aedric spear.
Gear: Oakensoul + Sergeant's Mail (3+2) + Deadly Strike (3+2) + Valkyn Skoria (1). Lightning staff, Defensive.
Skills: 1) Puncturing Sweeps (replace with Unstable Wall) 2) Deep Fissure 3) Banner Bearer (Magicka + Class or Sage's remedy + Resolve) 4) Torchbearer (Healing + damage reduction + evasion) 5) Pragmatic fatecarver 6) Eternal Guardian
CPs: Blue, Weapons expert, Arcane Supremacy, Reaving blows, Master at arms; Red, Strategic reserve, Boundless Vitality, Fortified, Bastion.
Mundus: Lover
I try to build to have 30K health, 20K magicka, 15K stamina circa, unbuffed. + I use tri-stat food.
Recoveries between 1.000 and 1.500.
Resistances should be around 25K minimum and reach 30K depending on races + 3.000 given from Banner Bearer.
Penetration is around 8.000 at base, but you'll take advantage of Deep Fissure to be around cap.
Damage is almost 4K.
Crit is low at 28% circa.
Banner Bearer always on. You keep up Deep Fissure debuff. The emergency heal is torchbearer but in most cases you won't need it unless you want to help your companion; just use Puncturing sweeps on multiple enemies to get health back (or keep up unstable wall as dot and fully rely on torchbearer as healing). When you have full magicka and are facing multiple enemies use Fatecarver, otherwise just Heavy Attack. If a boss keeps hitting you just alternate HA and Sweeps. Don't activate Bear's attack since Ultimate points serve to have health recovery.
This is accessible (easy on hands), varied, and difficult to die with - not optimised, not overpowered but kinda fun. Able to clear base game vet hard modes and some normal DLC dungeons, everything overland (if you're able to manage the stamina you rely on for the emergency heal) even Wandering World Bosses and Harrowstorms/Dragons.
Edited by SkaiFaith on June 25, 2025 7:27PM New game cover: 10/10 I love it so much that I have downloaded the 4K wallpaper you kindly provided us and I set it up as background for both my consoles.
New starting screen: 10/10 appreciate both the original music and the scenery that reminds of Oblivion's Cyrodiil.
New character select screen: 10/10 just perfect.
(These 3 things I would keep them as they are forever, if we had the possibility to choose)
UI modernization: I've seen the comparisons on the forum to logos minimalizations... I hate minimalistic logos too BUT in this case I am loving these UI changes, especially health bars! I always struggled to keep track of followers health and bosses health with the past health bars' style - with the new one they stick so much out that I always see them, it's wonderful! At least in this regard I really love this change, thank you very much! I have vision issues and this really helps a lot
Solstice aesthetics: Gorgeous! I like contrasts in general and being able to see a tropical island with high elves structures mixed with nords architecture and argonians' it's fantastic! The vegetation and animals are also really beautiful. I also really appreciate the wall - it could have been a dark omen on the otherwise pretty landscape but its design make it pleasant in the whole image and not a punch in the eye. Also it really works as a device to make people curious about "what is going on here?"
What I'm a bit sad are the dimensions, since I am enjoying it so much that I would have loved being able to have more like this! Last year we had a beautiful region and I was expecting this year to be grim and dark; I am happily surprised about Solstice but I have "the bad feeling" that the upcoming half of the isle will be in Ossein Cage (Coldharbour) style. I'm okay with this, but I will miss not having more about this biome.
UPDATE: While I would have appreciated a bigger zone, I am very much okay with getting this more little bites of great content frequently if this means that the Devs get to work out things like remastering old zones, implementing cross-play, improving QoL features such as a vertical camera slider, create new systems, allow add-ons, etc...
World Bosses: Soloed them and I really like them, I think they are a step up from last couple years, not in difficulty but in design - nice fights! I would appreciate if future Bosses take these as an example more than those from 2023 or 2024.
UPDATE: Public Dungeon and Delves: To be honest 3 out of these 4 were kinda cool as locations but didn't hype me up much; difficulty balance seemed better than last two years but I don't know how much of it is due to subclassing.
Anyway, I need to praise whoever worked on the Vale of Revelry Delve, both design and quest - IT'S AWESOME! The atmosphere brings you in and it works out perfectly with the theme of the quest, which even if brief has very good dialogues; especially appreciated the fact we can meet again the characters with dedicated dialogues. One of the best quests in recent memory.
UPDATE: Story: While I've never been a big fan of the original Main Story I appreciate the fact it is getting a "sequel". I've liked the characters involved and I got "frustrated" when a certain event happened, since e I was kinda fond of "you know who", but my frustration was more caused by my immediate thought "wonder who they'll bring back for the 20th year of ESO" - the suspect I'll have to wait 10 years is what pissed me, but who knows what will happen. Luckily the "surprise" was nice and it worked. Also, "the last environment" was cool!
Dialogues were good at times and weird other times, but generally an improvement over recent years. The quests were well designed and as I said before, I am okay with having frequent DLCs the size and quality of this one.
I want to point out one bad thing - while veteran players knew all along about the "bad guy", I think it's a huge disservice to new players and to devs to market this DLC as something they can jump in playing this zone's story first: please don't! I think U46 is phenomenal BUT I wouldn't encourage new players to play it right away; to enjoy it at the fullest they should seriously play the base game Main Quest first, I would push this direction more. I can't imagine how much less appreciation I would have had for the story if I had no clue of everything happened before...
I skipped the Trial.
Subclassing: I've followed the PTS cycle's feedback and while I was excited I was also a bit worried. Now I can say that IN MY CASE, I LOVE IT! It's easily one of the best things you did to the game!
I have nerves issues so I started using Oakensoul back then. When I tried Arcanist I also found it enjoyable. Now with subclassing I've been able to create my perfect build, which is not min/maxed or optimised but it allows me to vary my gameplay style: I can Heavy Attack, I can Beam, I can Jab... And I already made it work on all my 12 characters of all classes - every one of those now it's a banger of a soloist!
The fact is, as most Oakensoul builds, it does the most DPS just spamming HA, but that isn't fun gameplay. Now I can add diversity, even if I lose DPS I have MORE FUN!
Something to point out: Point 1) Arcanist Beam IS NOT OP IMO. I use it on all characters, most without any crux, and I definitely can't spam it as now it has a huge cost; I necessarily have to throw in Heavy Attacks to restore resources, also because I run Banner Bearer, which takes me to Point 2) I was worried seeing comments on how the cost changes on Banner Bearer made it unusable... Well, not on any of my characters from all classes. I have between 1.000 to 1.500 recovery and it's plenty to solo hard World Bosses and World Events; my banner didn't go off anytime, fort the time being; in fact it seems to me that this was another good choice from the devs. (BUILD BELOW). Point 3) Leveling Subclassing doesn't seem too bad - 38 Master Writs with just one 150% XP buff. This means around 400 Master Writs to have everything maxed, OUT of an event! And having everything maxed is a bit overkill, not really required.
Game Performance: before U46 I switched to Fidelity Mode because it looks better, maintaining higher resolution even in overwhelming situations, and I now found it to be smoother than before! Gold Road update broke the game on console for me but with U46 it seems it is performing better than ever! At least on my side. UPDATE: due to add-ons I am returning to Performance mode, because those can make things choppy. Smoother, but that loss in resolution... Hope next gen consoles will fix these "issues".
Servers on launch days are continuing to kick out of game BUT Zos themeselves aknowledged that they are target of DDOS attacks and this seems to always happen on Updates launch days. I remember their livestreams got attacked too, so many issues aren't entirely their fault but bad actors.
Population, even on Xbox EU, felt much better anyway; I can see this update help some players come back.
UPDATE: I read on the forum couple of people saying their Series X get loud while playing ESO. I can tell you this: I've had 3 Xbox Series X (for some reasons. Not even 1 got broken) and the first one I had always got loud while playing ESO. The two I bought later on never get loud. So it could be an hardware issue or something like that.
UPDATE: Console add-ons: much appreciated addition! I understand issues aren't on Zos with these, so I hope what's broken get fixed eventually and I'm grateful to the community for their free work. Also hope add-ons support can see expansion maybe in the future to allow more, different stuff. But the improvement in QoL was immediate with this implementation.
All in all, even tough I was skeptical at the reveal with the Content Pass "thing" (which I am still frustrated with) I am really digging this Update 46; such a good update for me...! Some minor issues but they'll get fixed. UPDATE: I have high hopes for U47 and I'm crossing fingers that it doesn't devastate everything good they've build at the moment. Right now, with all ESO has added over the years, the game is in its best state IMO.
On a sidenote: Devs, if you'd ever want to lift a bit Oakensoul to not let it fall off now that the ceiling is higher, I'd suggest to give it back Major Berserk and Major Courage instead of their minor counterparts. Just this would make a difference in keeping it relevant, I think, without making it OP.
MY ACCESSIBILITY SOLO BUILD (this is not meant to max out DPS but to make accessibility more fun)
Warden/Arcanist/Templar - Swap out Templar with any other class, trying to maintain the lines that offer passive resources.
Animal companions, Herald of the tome, Aedric spear.
Gear: Oakensoul + Sergeant's Mail (3+2) + Deadly Strike (3+2) + Valkyn Skoria (1). Lightning staff, Defensive.
Skills: 1) Puncturing Sweeps (replace with Unstable Wall) 2) Deep Fissure 3) Banner Bearer (Magicka + Class or Sage's remedy + Resolve) 4) Torchbearer (Healing + damage reduction + evasion) 5) Pragmatic fatecarver 6) Eternal Guardian
CPs: Blue, Weapons expert, Arcane Supremacy, Reaving blows, Master at arms; Red, Strategic reserve, Boundless Vitality, Fortified, Bastion.
Mundus: Lover
I try to build to have 30K health, 20K magicka, 15K stamina circa, unbuffed. + I use tri-stat food.
Recoveries between 1.000 and 1.500.
Resistances should be around 25K minimum and reach 30K depending on races + 3.000 given from Banner Bearer.
Penetration is around 8.000 at base, but you'll take advantage of Deep Fissure to be around cap.
Damage is almost 4K.
Crit is low at 28% circa.
Banner Bearer always on. You keep up Deep Fissure debuff. The emergency heal is torchbearer but in most cases you won't need it unless you want to help your companion; just use Puncturing sweeps on multiple enemies to get health back (or keep up unstable wall as dot and fully rely on torchbearer as healing). When you have full magicka and are facing multiple enemies use Fatecarver, otherwise just Heavy Attack. If a boss keeps hitting you just alternate HA and Sweeps. Don't activate Bear's attack since Ultimate points serve to have health recovery.
This is accessible (easy on hands), varied, and difficult to die with - not optimised, not overpowered but kinda fun. Able to clear base game vet hard modes and some normal DLC dungeons, everything overland (if you're able to manage the stamina you rely on for the emergency heal) even Wandering World Bosses and Harrowstorms/Dragons.
A: "We, as humans, should respect and take care of each other like in a Co-op, not a PvP 🌸"
B: "Many words. Words bad. Won't read. ⚔️"
B: "Many words. Words bad. Won't read. ⚔️"
5
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LunaFlora✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭that's wonderful!
i also love update 46. the User Inferface changes and Subclassing has made the game more accessible to me as well.
i have made several different Subclassed builds, but i might try out your build too.
I'm so happy that i can finally use Fatecarver, Sorcerer pets, with Feral Guardian on my main character, a Warden.
Big agree on the world bosses, they are much more fun than past bosses, especially Gaulm the vahath behemoth that rolls around.
West Solstice is one of my favourite zones and i am looking forward to East even if it is probably darker.
miaow! i'm Luna ( she/her ).
🌸*throws cherry blossom on you*🌸
"Eagles advance, traveler! And may the Green watch and keep you."
🦬🦌🐰
PlayStation and PC EU.
LunaLolaBlossom on psn.
LunaFloraBlossom on pc.1 -
SkaiFaith✭✭✭✭✭
✭Updated my review, now complete. UPDATES are pointed out.
Happy with the game now I'll wait for the crownstore showcase article hoping for Feral Guardian Snow Bear and Mammoth Mount to show up and then look forward to U47
Not a long wait 'til PTS... The bar of my hopes is set higher than usual, credits to you Devs - keep up the good work! Don't waste this opportunity you've built to regain players.A: "We, as humans, should respect and take care of each other like in a Co-op, not a PvP 🌸"
B: "Many words. Words bad. Won't read. ⚔️"1 -
tsaescishoeshiner✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Looks like a fun solo build with some variety. Dawn's Wrath is also nice over Aedric Spear if you want a powerful execute and passive DPS buffs. And Assassination works well with heavy attack builds now with the new Grim Focus (which can now stack up to 10 stacks, with each cast using 5, making it way more accessible), and there's something satisfying about hearing that huge bow proc get launched and 1-shot something.
It's nice to have more variety with subclassing, but the concerns about arcanists outperforming the other classes mainly comes from endgame settings. Hopefully they can adjust it without impacting other parts of the game too much.PC-NA
in-game: @tsaescishoeshiner2