Reminder: There are as many skills getting buffed as there are nerfs. We need to test.

Marto · July 2019

As the title says. A lot of things in the meta and balance of the game are changing, and overall, ZOS is having a very different approach to how the game will be played from now on.
Endless Hail was nerfed, but Poison Arrow was buffed.
Many spammables got nerfed, but Wrecking Blow got buffed.

Damage per second numbers in all situations are bound to change. And more importantly, how much of your DPS depends on certain abilities will also change dramatically.
I encourage everyone to not only test their final DPS numbers, but also measure which skills do the most damage, and which do the least.

Avoid using weapons like the Maelstrom Bow or Maelstrom Staff, at least at the beginning. They change how abilities perform in a rather drastic manner, and can skew results in a way that won't let you realize if the change was positive or negative.

This patch, more than others before it, cannot be judged by looking at individual bulletpoints.
We don't know if this patch will bring a worse or a better meta. The developers don't know either. We need to test it. There is no other way around it.

ZeroXFF · July 2019

You still have to admit that they overdid it with the healing nerfs. Healing springs getting nerfed by a factor of 7 in HPS terms, and only one orb being available at a time... It's basically the end of a lot of already struggling trial groups.

As for DPS nerfs, on the high end it was too high, so I can't blame them for trying to bring that down, but in PUGs it has never been high enough. If they wanted to bring those two closer, they should have removed LA weaving, not nerfed skills, because the current approach will make PUGs even more of a pain.

Looking forward to testing the tank changes though, those are mostly buffs.

josh.lackey_ESO · July 2019

Except it is not a random distribution of buffs and nerfs. They all cut in the same direction.

BrokenGameMechanics · July 2019

Not true at all. Warden especially Magden maintains its unbroken streak of three years of nerfs with zero buffs. To top it it is also the first or second most heavily nerfed class for that particular release. We won that title again this release.

ecru · July 2019

There are some really weird buffs. Ritual of Retribution for example will now do as much damage as a typical ground aoe (Boneyard, Elemental Blockade, Twisting Path, etc) but will also heal for almost as much as an ability like Refreshing Path. I guess the buff to the heal is supposed to make up for the nerf to healing everywhere else, but the damage was also doubled (according to the patch notes, unless I'm reading them incorrectly), making it a weird hybrid of an ability that both heals and does damage, which is what got Refreshing Path nerfed in the first place.

Why are abilities being buffed into basically former iterations of abilities that were nerfed (or better)? There's no consistency. Will Refreshing Path now get it's damage back, or will Ritual of Retribution be some weird outlier that both does damage and heals and provides utility at the same time?

I honestly can't make sense of any of this. They're essentially forced to buff other abilities to make up for the healing nerf but that means certain abilities are clearly doing way too much.. since they have to.

Casul · July 2019

I'm curious how soul trap will be.

Mygalomorpea · July 2019

With the changes to dps my initial thought is "perhaps they want to lower the dps ceiling?". As long as every dps spec is balanced in the end, but now just at say... 80k iron attro instead of 90k iron attro... Then it is fine.

But on the healing side? Dps will be so overwhelmed by the changes there that no actual trials will be done anytime soon because they must first get perfect rotations, and as result the healers won't have proper tests before end of week 1 and therefore delaying the most critical nerfs in trials.

I do hope some of the pts testers will ignore doing less damage so that the impact on healers can be seen in full.

I understand why they want to change healing springs. It was the group panic button. But now it heals for only half the hp per tick and can only have 1 active? There is also the indirect nerf to the Master Resto staff as well. In return though we now have Combat Prayer healing for more.... Which nobody asked for. Now... If they upped the target count or duration of Mutagen then it could have been an alternative.. But... No... That got nerfed on both important counts.

Now the other alternative - healing orbs. I can see how in pvp have 3 orbs detonate close to you in rapid succession can be dangerous, but it would also promote team play. If you are nerfing it because of pvp then you should also nerf suppression field and... That templar ult with the synergy?.. And the frost ulti from wardens. Because if 3 people time those well then it is instant death to a lot of people.

Any how... Getting off topic. I understand that having 8 stamina dps running lokki is not good for build diversity in trials, but slowing down the orbs is already making it far less useful and removing a large degree of usefulness to non-templar healers, once again working against this change.

This will also reduce the amount of sorcerer healers since they don't have a class AoE HoT. But don't fear, the pets have been heavily nerfed...

Seeing a lot of issues that goes against "play how you want" for healers this patch iteration. I really hope it gets a proper rework instead of this ability by ability in isolation pass that was done

Xogath · July 2019

Mygalomorpea wrote: »

Seeing a lot of issues that goes against "play how you want" for healers this patch iteration. I really hope it gets a proper rework instead of this ability by ability in isolation pass that was done

"Play how you want" quickly went out the window years ago, and it's only getting worse. Sweeping nerfs to particular skill lines that are already underperforming (Two Handed) and buffing skill lines that are ahead of others (Dual Wield) only takes more away from the "play how you want" shtick.

They constantly talk about wanting to lessen the gap on these playstyles but vastly widen the gap with every PTS cycle.

Sweeping nerfs to the point that basic game mechanics change, and pigeonhole you in to certain playstyles, is how you turn players away from your game.. just look at what happened with WoW and its abhorrent class homogenization. They're just now admitting they were wrong 10+ years later.

On the other hand, too much build diversity is also bad because it becomes a balancing nightmare. Finding a happy medium of sorts is what needs to be done, but that is going to be an impossibility for this game until two things happen:

1. PvE and PvP are separated from one another once and for all. (I've outlined how this can easily be achieved more times than I care to count.)
2. Grossly underperforming skills need brought up to par with others skills that are typically being taken. A LOT of them honestly need redesigned at this point, as long as class flavor and lore is adhered to.

Narvuntien · July 2019

Yeah, I will hold judgement until I have done some tests because for somethings its hard to tell. I am not particularly happy with what appears to be MagDk nerfs.

I think the only thing that seems massively nerfed is (passive) healing...

I like the complete update to the guild skills though they desperately needed them though.

Marto · July 2019

I'm specifically very interested in abilities like poison injection, which received a pretty hefty buff

Poison Arrow:
Increased the cost to 2700 from 2430 on all morphs.
Decreased the initial hit damage by approximately 17% on all morphs.
Increased the damage over time portion on all morphs by approximately 78% per tick.
Venom Arrow (morph): This ability now ranks up in cost reduction rather than 1.1% damage; the final base cost is 2430.
Poison Injection (morph): Reduced the total execute multiplier of this morph to 100% from 260%.

Don't be too confused by the patch notes. I already did the math. Reducing the execute bonus doesn't reduce the damage when the target is <50% health, compared to how much damage it does on live.

On live, it would deal 100 damage to full health targets, and 360 damage on targets that have almost 0 health.
On PTS, it would deal 178 damage to full health targets, and 356 damage on targets that have almost 0 health.

Could this be enough to compensate for the lost DPS from Endless Hail, and thus leave the total DPS these abilities provide unchanged?