PTS Patch Notes v3.0.4

Tonnopesce · May 2017

argouru wrote: »

luen79rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Did I read that right? Lightning staff heavy attack is now 15% weaker and cast time remains untouched... GG to the only decent magic weapon I've gotten from MSA in 1+ year. I'm furious! >:(

I think it's because Lightning staff heavy attacks, like resto staff ones, are beams that do continual small bits of damage, rather than a delay for a single large hit like flame and ice staffs. That delay for a build up hurts flame and ice staff users because of the pause in doing continual damage.

^^This

Midori_Oku · May 2017

I'm honestly happy with the balance changes for the most part. Also, I never thought I would see that day when people would be asking for sorc pet nerfs!

Kas · May 2017

what happens on medium attacks now? more or less damage? probably client crash...
i really like the general idea, though.

it'll be interesting to see how HA works in duels now. Especially since the extra 30% seem to be a base increase and increased again by the HA (and resto??) passive. Thus the changed might have made HA sustain much easier again

Nelson_Rebel · May 2017

Sorcerers still dominating class. No change at all worthwhile for other pve DD's

Subscription remains cancelled. Will await further Updates but this patch will still be debilitating and depressing for those who want to play other classes in endgame

templesus · May 2017

Finally, the Nova buff we templars have been asking for!!

Tulach · May 2017

So what about magicka based melee ranged dps and tanks. Magicka DK skills are all melee ranged attacks and utility, but have higher costs then other classes for same damage output or utility and are required to be used now either wearing light armor with no decent shields or in heavy armor with no sustain potential. The use of a sword and board setup or duel wield swords by this melee ranged magicka class is now being basically completely not viable due to the need to force all magicka classes to use a staff of some kind to maintain primary resource management.

Forcing a melee ranged magicka user to use a ranged weapon due to resource management seems a bit absurd really. Removing all of the tools necessary to make it even viable to maintain this closer proximity by changing the cost structure of the game destroys a large population of the game.

A magicka return melee weapon set that also is duel wield or similar needs to be implemented to make melee ranged magicka based classes viable again. Maybe a 1 hand staff with protection orb secondary slot as an alternative that plays into this type of use. Maybe magic wielding gloves that make your hands glow with elemental effects that can be equipped as a 2hd weapon that restores magic but requires melee weapon range to use. The changes being implemented the next patch remove the idea of a viable magicka based tank and deeply hurts melee ranged dps magicka users.

technohic · May 2017

Tulach wrote: »

So what about magicka based melee ranged dps and tanks. Magicka DK skills are all melee ranged attacks and utility, but have higher costs then other classes for same damage output or utility and are required to be used now either wearing light armor with no decent shields or in heavy armor with no sustain potential. The use of a sword and board setup or duel wield swords by this melee ranged magicka class is now being basically completely not viable due to the need to force all magicka classes to use a staff of some kind to maintain primary resource management.

Forcing a melee ranged magicka user to use a ranged weapon due to resource management seems a bit absurd really. Removing all of the tools necessary to make it even viable to maintain this closer proximity by changing the cost structure of the game destroys a large population of the game.

A magicka return melee weapon set that also is duel wield or similar needs to be implemented to make melee ranged magicka based classes viable again. Maybe a 1 hand staff with protection orb secondary slot as an alternative that plays into this type of use. Maybe magic wielding gloves that make your hands glow with elemental effects that can be equipped as a 2hd weapon that restores magic but requires melee weapon range to use. The changes being implemented the next patch remove the idea of a viable magicka based tank and deeply hurts melee ranged dps magicka users.

And here I thought I was alone in complaining about the weapon choices for Magicka Melee. I'm right with you on this. Gauntlets or knuckles for an unarmed monk archetype would be awesome.

BohnT · May 2017

Just laughing my ass off because so many people fail to realise that some changes they announced will make it to the server with live release and not with 3.0.4 this is so damn funny because it were everywhere on the forums.

And then the hipocrites who cried about HA meta and now cry because nothing will change except the devs finally reduced the damage across the board. ( one of the main goals of the balance patch

)

Last thing how about removal of the knock back on scatter shot and increase the range to 28m?

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Moglijuana · May 2017

LorDrek wrote: »

Why decrease ha 15%, why?????

Because I can do this currently.

I ain't mad if they make it a bit more fair lol.

ZOS_GinaBruno · May 2017

Just to clarify and make sure we're all on the same page, the Sorc adjustments and changes to Siphoning Strikes are not included in this patch. These will be coming in next week's PC patch on Live.

templesus · May 2017

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Seriously? No igneous shield fix? You honestly have 1 week before this gets to live.

The shield does not stack with other DKs so if another DK around you uses igneous you lose major mending without taking damage.

I found this bug out and informed the community multiple times on it at the start of pts..Not once received any form of acknowledgement from zos.

LiquidPony · May 2017

Mordenkainen wrote: »

So instead of buffing the NBs magicka skills a little to make them PvE-wise just a little more viable compared to literally any other class.

We get 1 more required attack to fire Assassins Will. And the change of being able to fire it multiple times from a single cast is so braindead it hurts reading this.

I have trouble weaving (That bug you were too lazy to fix and instead declared a feature so long ago) already and get stuck in my animation 50% of the time in fights.

Yes, let's add more complication to the class that already requires you to have parkinson to play it effectively. A+ Horse dung.

How do you imagine NB players ZOS? Do we have to drink 50 cans of energy drinks a day to play this class 'right' ?

Seriously, if you want your players to do this weaving *** more and more with each patch, fix its animation hiccups.

And honestly, the Spectral Bow hits for about 65% of what Crystal Fragments from the sorcerer hits for. What do Sorcerers have to do to get their inhumane crystal frag crit? Press 1 button.

NBs? We need to do the light attack weaving *** dance for about half of the performance of a skill another class needs to push only 1 button for. Getting the spectral bow also takes ages compared to just press the crystal frags button.

And those 8% from minor berserk the skill grants not even remotely evens this out. If it would, people would actually ask for NBs for trials.

@Mordenkainen ... ... I just almost can't even ...

And honestly, the Spectral Bow hits for about 65% of what Crystal Fragments from the sorcerer hits for. What do Sorcerers have to do to get their inhumane crystal frag crit? Press 1 button.

You got a source for that?

Yolo sorc parse, where the max frag proc was a little over 50k:
http://image.prntscr.com/image/50d05e9517704ad58a77e5a668384d02.png

Magblade parse, same boss, where the max Assasin's Will proc was 61k (and the buff/debuff uptime is much worse in this group):
https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32790959/vmol_boss1_46k.png

I have trouble weaving (That bug you were too lazy to fix and instead declared a feature so long ago) already and get stuck in my animation 50% of the time in fights.

This sounds like a L2P issue. Weaving is important for many game mechanics. Siphoning, Spectral Bow, Maelstrom staves, BSW/Scathing uptime, etc. If you can't weave, then roll a heavy attack build.

Sorcs are preferred over magblades because: Liquid Lightning, Volatile Familiar, and Ward. Nothing to do with Frag procs.

FlamingBeard · May 2017

templesus wrote: »

Finally, the Nova buff we templars have been asking for!!

The sarcasm is delicious!

I don't remember the last time I ever used Nova over Aggressive Horn.

I might just slot Aggressive Horn twice on my healer, to be honest.

Meteor is so much more efficient at dealing damage than Nova, and it costs less too. Shooting Star even returns ultimate upon impact! And there's no way Nova is winning over Elemental Storm for my backbar ultimate either.

In the trash it stays!

Docmandu · May 2017

Uriel_Nocturne wrote: »

They decreased the damage and decreased the charge time. Which are two changes that effectively cancel each other out.

Not entirely true for all situations... overall DPS might be the same.. but in PvP burst is the killer, not damage over time. So I can see this making certain combos less viable, at least in PvP.

actosh · May 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to clarify and make sure we're all on the same page, the Sorc adjustments and changes to Siphoning Strikes are not included in this patch. These will be coming in next week's PC patch on Live.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

When they are coming with the live update, could you guys at least tell us how they will look like????

Feanor · May 2017

I'd happily pay another € 69 if I could get a different dev team for ESO 3.1.

Moncho11 · May 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to clarify and make sure we're all on the same page, the Sorc adjustments and changes to Siphoning Strikes are not included in this patch. These will be coming in next week's PC patch on Live.

Most likely will just be another nerf for Siphoning worded as a buff and like a 5% damage adjustment to an unused class skill for Sorcs. Haha

LorDrek · May 2017

Moglijuana wrote: »

LorDrek wrote: »

Why decrease ha 15%, why?????

Because I can do this currently.

I ain't mad if they make it a bit more fair lol.

Use block, that needs.

Inig0 · May 2017

cool cant wait to test out rotation builds vs heavy attack builds when i get home. :>> im expecting there to be some hybrid of the two. where you heavy weave for a rotation every other or every two rotos. idk we will have to see! Some of my guildies are saying that regen glyphs are working nicely too.

Sakiri · May 2017

kyler9987b16_ESO wrote: »

Where are the Sorc pet nerfs? These stupid little *** do way to much dmg in PVE.

Going straight to Live, not even PTS.

Eisotopius · May 2017

ZOS, you guys still don't get it, do you?

You still don't understand why people were mad when you showed off the first 3.0.0 patchnotes. You don't understand why they're still mad. And, at this point, I don't think you ever will.

You guys shouldn't be fine with nerfing everything into the ground because "sustainability is too good on live lol let's murder literally every build in the game". You should be looking at exactly what needs to be changed, you should be actually listening to advice from the people who actually play and understand the game, and more importantly, you shouldn't be taking advice from Wrobel.

And you'll never understand any of that for as long as you continue on in your stubborn belief that you can balance PvP and PvE together. You can't. Stop trying. You'll never understand where you went wrong for as long as you keep pretending you can do that.

Feanor · May 2017

I have the feeling at ZOS they just throw darts at an ability chart and whatever gets hit gets changed next.

Kilandros · May 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to clarify and make sure we're all on the same page, the Sorc adjustments and changes to Siphoning Strikes are not included in this patch. These will be coming in next week's PC patch on Live.

@ZOS_GinaBruno are there more DK changes coming with next week's patch on Live? Specifically, is Igneous Shield overlapping (a 2nd DK casting the ability refreshes the first DKs shield, thus removing Major Mending immediately) being looked at?

LorDrek · May 2017

More dk changes - remove from game.

Lum1on · May 2017

I honestly like what ZOS has done here. I just want to point out few things.

I'll be talking about magicka classes only (inferno staff) and PvE end game content.

HEAVY ATTACKS

General
Increased the damage of Light Attacks by 15%.

Decreased the damage of Heavy Attacks by 15%.

Increased the resources restored by fully-charged Heavy Attacks by 30%.

Reduced the cast time of fully-charged Bow Heavy Attacks by 10%.

Reduced the cast time of fully-charged Flame and Frost Heavy Attacks by 12.5%.

If you look at the numbers (inferno staff) it basically means that you do approximately 5,0% less damage. How? By reducing the cast time by 12,5% it means you'll be able to do 9 heavy attacks instead of 8.

100 / 12,5 = 8
(x * 0,85 * 9) / (x * 8) = 0,95625 ~= 95,6% (5,0% less)

Of course it probably won't be so straightforward, but the idea remains the same and it won't be that much off.

We don't know yet how this will honestly change the impact of the rotation (for those who wanted to become heavy attack masters) but I hope this means it won't be valid anymore - except for DK's if they want to use Molten armaments. I wish heavy attacks would be viable in a "basic build" only to restore resources like how I think ZOS sees it as well.

COST REDUCTIONS FOR DRAGONKNIGHTS

Dragonknight

Ardent Flame
Fiery Grip: Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 7%.

Draconic Power
Inhale: Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 6%.

Spiked Armor: Reduced the cost of this ability and its morphs by approximately 16%.

Some of here have already complained that it's "too small decrese". Maybe, if you look at the numbers on Live (because of the cost reductions you have there). But if you look at the base cost;

Fiery grip: 3,780 (new value: 3,515, more than 200 off)
Inhale: 4,320 (new value: 4,060, more than 300 off)
Spiked armor: 3,240 (new value: 2,721, more than 500 off)

Believe it or not, it is a huge deal.

GRIM FOCUS AND ITS MORPHS

The community has asked a buff for this skill for a long, long time. Now that it finally gets a decent (if not even better) buff, everybody's still complaining because the amount of attacks will be increased to 5 from 4? This will be a huge buff in PvE and in PvP and increasing the amount of required attacks just makes it more fair.

And some of you have said "they should fix the weaving first". I have zero problems with weaving light attacks - in PvE or PvP (not so many tests on PvP, though, but still -- zero problems). I hope you don't say "have you tried with Strife (or its morphs)" because I have. And it's not broken. It's different than weaving Force pulse. It's slower. There's a difference. Adapt. Improve... Learn.

OTHERS

Of course there are something I just don't get. Blade cloak for example; of course it helps stamina players in some level through trials, but they need a lot more to be as good as magicka is in its current state.

Or Nova (and its morphs)? Of course it's a nice change to reduce the land time, but the reason amazes me. If someone wants to cast Nova on a moving target... That is wrong. It should never be casted on a moving target because it's a waste of, well, everything! So the reasoning is beyond me.

Warden

Animal Companions
Fetcher Infection (Swarm morph): Reduced this morph’s damage bonus on every other cast to 50% from 75%.

Swarm: Increased the damage of this ability and its morphs by 10%.

I never used Fetcher infection like some of the PTS testers did; double casted it. If you didn't (like me) you'll see no difference when looking at the damage after two casts. If you did, you will lose the damage. And I think this is a good change. Not game breaking, though, and I'm still looking for something "bigger" for Warden as a DPS.

Sorcerers focus on lightning (Shock) damage.
Templars and Nightblades focus on magic damage (both of them in their own unique way).
Dragonknights focus on flame damage.
Wardens (should?) focus on ice (Frost) damage.

But Warden only has one good ice (Frost) based damage skill. And everybody knows that using Ice staff might be a little tricky in group plays if you need to get resources. And the special thingies are not even close as cool and great as Lightning and Inferno staves' have.

Saint_Bud · May 2017

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Just to clarify and make sure we're all on the same page, the Sorc adjustments and changes to Siphoning Strikes are not included in this patch. These will be coming in next week's PC patch on Live.

I am sad that the changes cant be testet, so we will not know if they good or bad. Also i hope there will a real sorc adjustment that bring sorcs dps in line with other classes and also consider the difficult of the classes rotation in the dps result. Easiest rotaion should not do the moast damage.

ZOS_GinaBruno · May 2017

For those asking about igneous Sheild, it's something we're aware of and working on, but likely won't have a solution in place in time for launch.

FlamingBeard · May 2017

I don't even care about my own class (Templar) anymore. Though it would be nice if you returned Repentance to its former functionality.

Just fix Dragonknight (such as the issue of friendly DKs overriding one another's Igneous Shields, which negates the first caster's Major Mending) so my Dragonknight friends don't leave this game, please.

This is the only game all of us have enjoyed together and I would hate for poor balance decisions to ruin that.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

For those asking about igneous Sheild, it's something we're aware of and working on, but likely won't have a solution in place in time for launch.

This is heavily disappointing and nonsensical.

Lum1on · May 2017

Zuboko wrote: »

I'm excited to see how the changes to Light and Heavy attacks will play out.

And a question about the changes to Grim focus, if I can fire off a bunch of light attacks fast enough is it possible to get two arrows at the same time?

No matter how fast you try to repeatedly hit that mouse one button, there's global cooldown of 1 second. So, basically, you can only cast 1 spell/attack per second. So there'll be at least 5 seconds between Grim focus' (and its morphs) bow procs.

Mordenkainen · May 2017

LiquidPony wrote: »

Mordenkainen wrote: »

So instead of buffing the NBs magicka skills a little to make them PvE-wise just a little more viable compared to literally any other class.

We get 1 more required attack to fire Assassins Will. And the change of being able to fire it multiple times from a single cast is so braindead it hurts reading this.

I have trouble weaving (That bug you were too lazy to fix and instead declared a feature so long ago) already and get stuck in my animation 50% of the time in fights.

Yes, let's add more complication to the class that already requires you to have parkinson to play it effectively. A+ Horse dung.

How do you imagine NB players ZOS? Do we have to drink 50 cans of energy drinks a day to play this class 'right' ?

Seriously, if you want your players to do this weaving *** more and more with each patch, fix its animation hiccups.

And honestly, the Spectral Bow hits for about 65% of what Crystal Fragments from the sorcerer hits for. What do Sorcerers have to do to get their inhumane crystal frag crit? Press 1 button.

NBs? We need to do the light attack weaving *** dance for about half of the performance of a skill another class needs to push only 1 button for. Getting the spectral bow also takes ages compared to just press the crystal frags button.

And those 8% from minor berserk the skill grants not even remotely evens this out. If it would, people would actually ask for NBs for trials.

@Mordenkainen ... ... I just almost can't even ...

And honestly, the Spectral Bow hits for about 65% of what Crystal Fragments from the sorcerer hits for. What do Sorcerers have to do to get their inhumane crystal frag crit? Press 1 button.

You got a source for that?

Yolo sorc parse, where the max frag proc was a little over 50k:
http://image.prntscr.com/image/50d05e9517704ad58a77e5a668384d02.png

Magblade parse, same boss, where the max Assasin's Will proc was 61k (and the buff/debuff uptime is much worse in this group):
https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32790959/vmol_boss1_46k.png

I have trouble weaving (That bug you were too lazy to fix and instead declared a feature so long ago) already and get stuck in my animation 50% of the time in fights.

This sounds like a L2P issue. Weaving is important for many game mechanics. Siphoning, Spectral Bow, Maelstrom staves, BSW/Scathing uptime, etc. If you can't weave, then roll a heavy attack build.

Sorcs are preferred over magblades because: Liquid Lightning, Volatile Familiar, and Ward. Nothing to do with Frag procs.

That screenshot comparison is nice. Proves my point actually. You need to hit only 1 button to get that 50k crit compared to 4 (next patch 5) light attacks which take about 4 (5) seconds to get 11k more.

In the meantime Sorcs can hammer at least 3 more of those 50k frags out provided their procs go off.

Also, I have no VMA weapons (what a surprise). And people posting as if they are a requirement is just scary at best.

I am playing ESO since day 1 of the first beta. Tell me, how much learning do I have to do still to be able to play the game? I get to 20k dps regularily on my magNB and 24k on good days.

Also my comparison for Sorcs VS NB desireability for trials was based on the classe overall performance. Not crystal frags. I even paragraphed my text, thought that's recognizeable.