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Vestige Difficulty Light Attack Bug

ilawana
ilawana
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I've run into a bug on PTS while testing Vestige Difficulty. Every so often when I am fighting random overland enemies, I get a large critical damage overtime strike from my light attacks while using a lightning staff. I'm on a High Elf Sorcerer. He is wearing Mighty Chudan, Crafty Alfiq, Wretched Vitality, and Death Dealer's Fete. I also have the weapon's expert star slotted in the Champion Points menu. So far, I have only experienced this while using light attacks on my lightning staff (which is on my front bar) and I haven't been able to recreate the effect with the frost staff on my backbar.

Here is a clip where I fight various enemies. Some of them are more difficult to kill, but most of them received a very large damage over time crit from my light attacks.
https://youtu.be/hNkf9pmdcfk

It doesn't always happen though. In this clip, I fight two of the same Trolls and only one of them gets the big crit.
https://youtu.be/dVxfUFvBPlg
  • ilawana
    ilawana
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    After jumping back in, I noticed a couple other things. I attempted again to recreate the situation with both a frost staff and an inferno staff on my front bar (note neither were pieces from the correct item set). However, I still only had this problem with the lightning staff. Also, I was able to trigger the large crit with both a light attack from the lightning staff and a cast of Crushing Shock with a lightning staff independently. Maybe an issue with a status effect? I also noticed that I'm not getting all three instances of damage from Crushing Shock. On my inferno staff, Crushing Shock only has one instance of damage while it only has two on my Lightning Staff. That being said, I think the lack of damage instances may be because the character's damage is too low, resulting in no damage when it's cut by 80% from vestige difficulty. Also, I don't know if it's an issue with the enemies themselves as I got into fights with a few and couldn't trigger the large crit until they were at half health, while other times it triggers instantly. Last thing, I did not purchase any of the class mastery passives yet on this character, so I assume they aren't involved either.
    Edited by ilawana on April 14, 2026 11:21AM
  • ZOS_Finn
    ZOS_Finn
    Associate Design Director
    Thanks for this report. We are looking into it.
    Associate Design Director
    Staff Post
  • Eternity_Was
    Eternity_Was
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    Sounds like a weapon enhancement if it’s only coming from one weapon. Do you have another/different lightning staff to try?
  • ZOS_Finn
    ZOS_Finn
    Associate Design Director
    So, some questions from our testers if you could be so kind:

    - What level were you? Champion Rank?
    - What level is your gear?
    - How were your Champion Points spent?
    - What gear were you wearing exactly? Weight, set, enchants, etc?
    - What weapons and weapon enchants did you have?
    - How were your attribute points spent?
    - Were you subclassing? If so, what subclasses and abilities?
    - What mundus were you using?
    - What abilities and gear did Bastian have equipped?

    Thanks in advance!
    Edited by ZOS_Finn on April 14, 2026 6:03PM
    Associate Design Director
    Staff Post
  • ilawana
    ilawana
    ✭✭✭
    My setup:
    - Level: Champion 3600
    - Mundus: The Mage
    - Champion Points:
    Warfare Slotted: Deadly Aim, Weapons Expert, Master-at-Arms, Arcane Supremacy
    Warfare Passive: Maxed
    Fitness Slotted: Sustained by Suffering, Rejuvenation, Bastion, Survival Instincts
    Fitness Passive: Maxed
    Craft Slotted: Steed's Blessing, Gifted Rider
    - All gear level 50/CP 160
    - Gear:
    Head: Mighty Chudan, Heavy, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Prismatic Defense, Infused
    Shoulder: Mighty Chudan, Light, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Prismatic Defense, Well-fitted
    Chest: Apparently none at the time of testing
    Legs: Wretched Vitality, Light, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Prismatic Defense, Infused
    Gloves: Crafty Alfiq, Light, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Prismatic Defense, Divines
    Feet: Wretched Vitality, Medium, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Prismatic Defense, Divines
    Waist: Wretched Vitality, Medium, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Prismatic Defense, Divines
    Neck: Crafty Alfiq, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Increase Magical Harm, Arcane
    Ring: Crafty Alfiq, Epic, Truly Superb Glyph of Increase Magical Harm, Arcane
    Ring: Death Dealer's Fete, Mythic/Legendary, Truly Superb Glyph of Increase Magical Harm, Arcane
    (Frontbar) Lightning Staff, Crafty Alfiq, Legendary, Truly Superb Glyph of Poison, Sharpened
    (Backbar) Frost Staff, Wretched Vitality, Epic, Damage Magicka Poison IX, Powered
    - Attributes: 64 Magicka, 0 Health, 0 Stamina
    - Not subclassing and no points spent in class mastery

    Bastian Hallix Setup (not really setup lol):
    - Skills: Elemental Barricade, Drake's Blood, Starfall, Kindle, Scorching Strike
    - Gear:
    Head: Companion's Helmet, Normal, No Enchant
    Chest: Companion's Robe, Superior, Augmented
    Shoulder: Companion's Arm Crops, Superior, Quickened
    Hands: Companion's Gauntlets, Superior, Bolstered
    Waist: Companion's Belt, Normal, No Enchant
    Feet: Companion's Sabatons, Fine, Bolstered
    Legs: Companion's Guards, Normal, No Enchant
    Neck: N/A
    Ring: N/A
    Ring: Companion's Ring, Fine, Vigorous
    Weapon: Companion's Inferno Staff, Superior, Vigorous

    I did get the bug to trigger after unsummoning Bastian. Also, the flame staff that I used for testing did not have a poison enchantment, but rather a weapon damage enchantment.
  • ilawana
    ilawana
    ✭✭✭
    I just tried to swap enchantments on my lightning staff and couldn't get the bug to trigger. However, when I switched it back, the bug didn't still trigger. Also, during my second testing session, I was getting completely different numbers on my crushing shock than I was earlier today. I was getting all 3 instances of damage between 1,000 and 3,000, whereas earlier I was only getting 1 to 2 instances of damage bellow 1,000. Not sure if that means all of the damage instances were experiencing issues earlier today or maybe the 80% damage done reduction isn't calculating properly now(?).
    https://youtu.be/ceYU6GwgipU
  • ZOS_Finn
    ZOS_Finn
    Associate Design Director
    Heya, thanks again for the information. We are having a hard time reproducing these reports.

    From our QA folks:

    "Could you give us additional information prior to capturing those videos?  Any detail will be of help, we've been unable to reproduce the large damage number being seen."
    Associate Design Director
    Staff Post
  • ilawana
    ilawana
    ✭✭✭
    Here's all of the information I can recall.

    I opened the launcher and the PTS started updating. While the PTS was updating, I logged on to the main server for a few minutes. Once the PTS was updated, I opened it and created a new character to test out the werewolf updates. After that I switched to my sorcerer (the one from the video) and noticed the difficulty icon on the bottom of the load screen. Then I opened the character menu and read the descriptions of the difficulty settings. I fought a few things on Master difficulty before deciding to try the Vestige difficulty, and after switching to Vestige difficulty, I noticed the bug within the first couple of enemies I killed.

    I do remember that while I was still on Master difficulty, I selected the change difficulty button a few times before it dawned on me that I needed to select a difficulty before selecting the change difficulty button. So, I was on Master, pressed change difficulty a couple of times, then pressed Vestige and pressed change difficulty again. Tested it out, grabbed some videos, and closed the game and launcher.

    The second time I went to try it out, the launcher itself had an update. That updated and I opened the PTS again. This time I could access new Tamriel Tome and all that, but I couldn't reproduce the bug.

    I did not swap around any build pieces (gear, skills, etc) before testing the difficulties. I logged on and immediately noticed the difficulty and began testing that.
  • Maddjuju
    Maddjuju
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    y8rtln1hq6nd.png
    I have to say that I was getting some interesting poison ticks while on vestige difficulty when I first signed on to PTS. When I first logged in, I saw it was set to Master. I changed it to Vestige and started to see those numbers so started logging. Once I zoned into a delve, I stopped seeing that. Was unable to recreate the rest of the time on that character.

    I logged onto a second character and repeated the same thing in the another zone. It was set on Master when first logging in. Fought a few things with nothing of note. Switch to Vestige and then started to see those number spikes again but with killer blade instead of poison. When I ported to a different zone, it stopped happening.
    ktqz01hb5gsi.png

    [EDIT] In my grogginess last night, I forgot to say that 'yes', the rest of the attacks during that time on Vestige before zoning were very hit and miss about having any damaged logged on them as seen with the killer blade log screen shot.
    Edited by Maddjuju on April 16, 2026 3:01PM
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