Additional Combat Changes for Update 35

ZOS_GinaBruno · August 2022

Hi everyone,

In preparation for next week’s PC launch of Update 35, we wanted to let you know about a couple additional combat changes we are planning to make.

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks. This change was made to prevent a situation where "medium attack weaving" could become a leading damage producing playstyle; these attacks are generally made by error rather than intentionally , as they are harder to do than a Light Attack or Fully-Charged Heavy Attack.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27% and increasing the amount of Magicka restored by 10%. We’re taking out some of the raw power from this weapon type to prevent it from becoming a dominant damage producing weapon, and instead moving its focus of this attack type to be on the Recovery side of things.

Hope this helps give a bit more visibility into what’s coming up.

Arjuna1696 · August 2022

Thank you for the update! Will there be ANY other combat changes or reverts to U35 that haven't been in any of the patch notes already?

qcell · August 2022

This is insufficient. Xalvakka and Taleria HM have too much health given the DPS nerf.

ESO_Nightingale · August 2022

here's hoping 36 isn't like this catastrophe.

Astin_nds · August 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

In preparation for next week’s PC launch of Update 35, we wanted to let you know about a couple additional combat changes we are planning to make.

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks. This change was made to prevent a situation where "medium attack weaving" could become a leading damage producing playstyle; these attacks are generally made by error rather than intentionally , as they are harder to do than a Light Attack or Fully-Charged Heavy Attack.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27% and increasing the amount of Magicka restored by 10%. We’re taking out some of the raw power from this weapon type to prevent it from becoming a dominant damage producing weapon, and instead moving its focus of this attack type to be on the Recovery side of things.

Hope this helps give a bit more visibility into what’s coming up.

I see well that things are refined but what about this? Can you tell what balance exists here?

Rapid regeneration -40% healing. and it doesn't give buffs.
Resolving vigor , upd 8.1.4 , we have removed healing reductions and ADD minor resolve....
any stamina class will totally unbalance the balance, use class ability for major resolve and use Resolving Vigor... minor resolve + major resolve for 20s and heal 2x than rapid regeneration?... we need to balance this, just restoration staff you can throw all his skill line because a stamina with vigor can heal infinitely with echoing vigor to everyone and resolving vigor will heal more than you x2 and will have more defense... please BALANCE him. remove the reductions to regeneration to make it viable...
Staminas = Players , Magickas = Players....
on top of that we are blocked yes or yes in the rest of the staff and on top of that it is not SURE that you heal with these skills

update 35 looks good for Staminacroll Online.....

Astrid · August 2022

Smh just cancel the update - the more that’s added, the worse it gets. I’ve seen next to no people who have asked for any of these changes, or who have approved of them. Terrible direction.

Firstmep · August 2022

Anyone coming here to ask for additional changes, just turn back. We are 6 days out, that's it.
Any more changes will come in 3 months time.

HackTheMinotaur · August 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

In preparation for next week’s PC launch of Update 35, we wanted to let you know about a couple additional combat changes we are planning to make.

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks. This change was made to prevent a situation where "medium attack weaving" could become a leading damage producing playstyle; these attacks are generally made by error rather than intentionally , as they are harder to do than a Light Attack or Fully-Charged Heavy Attack.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27% and increasing the amount of Magicka restored by 10%. We’re taking out some of the raw power from this weapon type to prevent it from becoming a dominant damage producing weapon, and instead moving its focus of this attack type to be on the Recovery side of things.

Hope this helps give a bit more visibility into what’s coming up.

@ZOS_GinaBruno Can you ask the team to clarify what this means for Lightning Staff heavy attack builds? Specifically will the damage ticks before the final hit get the Empower buff or not?

SeaUnicorn · August 2022

There is still an issue of Illustrious having lower tooltip, which makes slotting Resto staff, and bringing Healer into content a net loss for a group. If class heals heal for same amount or more - groups do not need 2 people carrying Resto staves. In 4man it will be more efficient to have a Tank and 3 DDs each carrying a class or skill line heal, while in 12 man it will be more efficient to have 2 Tanks and 10DDs each carrying 1 class heal. Please do not make Healer job obsolete in content.

prof_doom · August 2022

HackTheMinotaur wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno Can you ask the team to clarify what this means for Lightning Staff heavy attack builds? Specifically will the damage ticks before the final hit get the Empower buff or not?

A very good question.
If it's only going to apply to the final tick, then the last tick of a lightning staff is probably going to need to be rebalanced.

karekiz · August 2022

The irony is:

We nerfed DPS again and still didn't increase it LOL.

marius_buys · August 2022

I have 15K hours of playtime in this game and honestly, a damage nerf on PvE side just helps absolutely no one. The average player WILL NOT be able to complete vet solo arenas, especially Vateshran as they will simply not make the dps checks.

Necrotech_Master · August 2022

so is resto now a net-negative on dmg compared to live? i know it got a few buffs but a 27% dmg nerf again seems very heavy handed, it only had its dmg buffed by like 9% (which was huge compared to many other heavies which got nerfed by that same amount)

from this patch it still seems like zos just doesnt like a lot of things:

healers (in general)
NB tanks
stam sorcs
wardens (in general)
sticky dots
DKs (due to sticky dots nerfs)

and im sure that list could go on lol

Dalsinthus · August 2022

Thank you for the clear communication.

I disagree with the characterization of medium attacks as being made in error. There are lots of circumstances where effective medium weaving out damages light attack weaving (e.g., bow builds are better off medium weaving between snipe casts).

People should understand that this is a further DPS nerf for update 35. It also means we're going into the patch without any testing of these changes.

I am very worried about lightning heavy attack builds. With the changes to empower, we were at the cusp of lightning staves having a place again and being an accessible dps option. Now, I am assuming that the ticks leading up to the final hit will not receive the empower buff. Plus lighting heavies have lost damage and lost a tick through this patch. What was already a weak play style is probably unviable again. No one is asking for heavy attack builds to be optimal, but please make them a viable approach for newer players or players with difficulties light weaving effectively (e.g., players with arthritis).

While I appreciate that some changes were made in response to feedback, this update feels rushed and poorly thought through.

Astin_nds · August 2022

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

so is resto now a net-negative on dmg compared to live? i know it got a few buffs but a 27% dmg nerf again seems very heavy handed, it only had its dmg buffed by like 9% (which was huge compared to many other heavies which got nerfed by that same amount)

from this patch it still seems like zos just doesnt like a lot of things:
healers (in general)

NB tanks

stam sorcs

wardens (in general)

sticky dots

DKs (due to sticky dots nerfs)

and im sure that list could go on lol

Versus

This clarifies a bit that they really HATE restoration staff to death, so much so that it will no longer be viable in Pvp or pve XD, I have a thread about this here in the forum:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614506/magickas-we-have-a-big-problem-magickas-healers-too-where-is-the-balance/p1

marius_buys · August 2022

ZOS please stop treating elite PvE players like the enemy of the game because you are creating mid and low tier casualties as a result.

From a PvE perspectice nobody cares if some players burn through end game content, they are certainly not the norm and when you nerf the elite 1% its PvE scrubs like me who suffer. Seriously consider that 90% of players in this game are non elite and that you are moving completing DLC PvE content way out of our reach.

And regarding the feelings of the defeated NPC's, its ok, they are just bits and bytes per se, whilst on the other side of your Cavalier changes sits real people... that pay their way and just want to be able to play, preferably at easy and medium level difficulty.

TheKaan · August 2022

Astin_nds wrote: »

I see well that things are refined but what about this? Can you tell what balance exists here?

I'm not saying you're wrong and these tooltips are perfect, but you're attempting to compare these abilities one-to-one when that's not what they are. The combat team obviously don't see them that way, and by looking at them strictly in parallel you might get an exaggerated view of the imbalance between them.

Just to play devil's advocate, consider that:
- Vigor is more expensive.
- Stamina and Magicka are not the same.
- Regen has almost twice the range.
- Regen is a smart heal, Vigor is not.

Perhaps most importantly, these are not class abilities. Anyone can use them. And if Vigor is as overpowered as you say, go ahead and use it! If you're right, everyone else will do the same and ZOS will realise they've overtuned it.

As for the OP, thanks for the heads up.

VaranisArano · August 2022

I'm glad we're finding out about the coming changes on the forums now (and not just secondhand from posters who're also on the Discords). Thanks!

Are there any plans to re-standardize the sets and skills that grant Empower now that buff is substantially changing in nature and no longer works in PVP before this goes Live on the 22nd?

Or are we expected to wait three or more months until the standardization work begins?

As a DK who's Empowering Chains morph no longer grants its namesake buff in PVP vs other players, I'm curious as to whether the Combat Team is ready to roll this out as a single major change in Update 35 or if I should brace for several updates worth of change fatigue as they roll out Empower Part 1 and then fix whatever smaller things they broke in Updates 36, 37, etc.

Astin_nds · August 2022

TheKaan wrote: »

Astin_nds wrote: »

I see well that things are refined but what about this? Can you tell what balance exists here?

I'm not saying you're wrong and these tooltips are perfect, but you're attempting to compare these abilities one-to-one when that's not what they are. The combat team obviously don't see them that way, and by looking at them strictly in parallel you might get an exaggerated view of the imbalance between them.

Just to play devil's advocate, consider that:
- Vigor is more expensive.
- Stamina and Magicka are not the same.
- Regen has almost twice the range.
- Regen is a smart heal, Vigor is not.

Perhaps most importantly, these are not class abilities. Anyone can use them. And if Vigor is as overpowered as you say, go ahead and use it! If you're right, everyone else will do the same and ZOS will realise they've overtuned it.

As for the OP, thanks for the heads up.

Now magickas need to be staminas? for get a decent heal?... awesome xDDD , rest staff utility = get a good campfire XD

We return to the same thing, a skill that uses stamina that does not favor a magicka, but a hybrid or stamina, because if you do that with vigor you will get good healing, much more than his own rapid regeneration skill.. it makes no sense no matter where you look at it and on top of that if this ability used the resource depending on your wp and sp then it would be good for everyone and we could all use it, but it seems not

Rapid regen is 1 target only, rapid regen first heals the one in front of you instead of you, rapid regen doesn't stack, unless another morp is thrown against you, rapid regen heals on real server just a little more than Vigor, rapid regen needs a restoration staff (you can't carry your cute little shield etc etc), rapid regen is magic cost, for magickas, or hybrids, Vigor is just stamina, and consumes stamina.
Summary : Magickas can't heal themselves (a decent heal since Vigor will heal 2-3k and rapid regen of 3k that healed now will heal 1'- 1.5k)... do you still think it's wrong to compare them?
It's a single-target skill, they heal the same way, vigor gives resistance, rapid regeneration doesn't, and if you're unlucky, you heal another when you needed it

, do you still think the same?

I absolutely do not care if the change affects you for the better or for the worse, I look for BALANCE, and there is none here, it is simply visible to the naked eye, anyone can see it, on the live server they are practically identical. If you don't want to see it, it's because you really don't want a balance in the game END

Destai · August 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

In preparation for next week’s PC launch of Update 35, we wanted to let you know about a couple additional combat changes we are planning to make.

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks. This change was made to prevent a situation where "medium attack weaving" could become a leading damage producing playstyle; these attacks are generally made by error rather than intentionally , as they are harder to do than a Light Attack or Fully-Charged Heavy Attack.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27% and increasing the amount of Magicka restored by 10%. We’re taking out some of the raw power from this weapon type to prevent it from becoming a dominant damage producing weapon, and instead moving its focus of this attack type to be on the Recovery side of things.

Hope this helps give a bit more visibility into what’s coming up.

Thanks @ZOS_GinaBruno appreciate the insight and detail. I'm happy they've changed in response to our feedback, but ultimately still worried about the fact those changes were proposed to begin with. What other changes are there with similar unintended consequences? Could those consequences be averted if this change was given more runway? Food for thought.

Additionally, people are looking for clarification on this thread that you've previously engaged. Please be more attentive in threads that you've commented on. Often times people look for additional feedback on your posts, especially when the comments are short. Just creates more questions, you know?

Lalothen · August 2022

If the Empower buff's % modifer isn't being increased to compensate, you guys are basically nerfing HA builds. Lightning staff HA builds are in a decent position on the current PTS; losing the 80% buff on their channeled damage tics is going to be a significant nerf - on top of the 16.7% they lost compared to Live thanks to the reduction in the number of channeled tics.

HA builds using other weapons will also remain too far behind to be worthwhile unless the % modifier is increased.

Guess I need to run the numbers again:

These tests were done on the Target Centurion, Lambent, which is classified as a "normal trial dummy". I had all weapon skill line passives, had not allocated any stat points, and only utilised basic CP160 weapons, along with wearing 7 pieces of white CP160 light armor in Divines (Lover Mundus) and the penetration passive, giving a total of 10,977 penetration. I procced Empower using Empowering Grasp.

I then added Sergeant's Mail (+2580) & Noble Duelist (+2110) buffs (just on paper) to give some idea of what they can scale up to with PTS Empower.

I then recalculated what those numbers will look like with Empower just impacting the fully-charged HA:

Restoration staff:
No skill line passives increase Restoration staff damage.

Unempowered: 390 tic x 2 then 2,346 final hit = 3,126 total
PTS Empower: 703 tic x 2 then 4,223 final hit = 5,629 total
Fully-charged only Empower (with 27% reduction on final pulse): 390 tic x 2 then 3,083 = 3863

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 5,080 tic x 2 then 7,036 final hit = 17,136 total
PTS Empower: 9,144 x 2 then 12,665 final hit = 30,953 total
Fully-charged only Empower (with 27% reduction on final pulse): 5,080 tic x 2 then 11,525 final hit = 21,685

Resto nerfed in total by 30% - this is ok.

Lightning Staff:
With skill line passives - PM 10% resist ignored:

Unempowered: 651 tic x 2 then 1957 final hit = 3,259 total
PTS Empower: 1,173 tic x 2 then 3,522 final hit = 5,868 total
Fully-charged only Empower: 651 tic x 2 then 3,522 final hit = 4,824 total

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 5,341 tic x 2 then 6,647 final hit = 17,329 total
PTS Empower: 9,614 tic x 2 then 11,965 final hit = 31,193 total
Fully-charged only Empower: 5,341 tic x 2 then 11,965 final hit = 22,647 total

Lightning nerfed in total by 27.5% - this is not ok.

Inferno staff:
With skill line passives - T-foc +12% fully-charged HA, PM 10% resist ignored, AK +10% ST dmg

Unempowered: 2,595 final hit
PTS Empower: 4,671 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 4,671 final hit

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 7,285 final hit
PTS Empower: 13,113 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 13,113 final hit

Ice staff:
With skill line passives - PM 10% resist ignored

Unempowered: 2,127 final hit
PTS Empower: 3,829 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 3,829 final hit

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 6,817 final hit
PTS Empower: 12,271 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 12,271 final hit

Bow:
With skill line passives - L-shots +12% dmg, H-Eye +25% dmg

Unempowered: 3,674 final hit
PTS Empower: 6,613 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 6,613 final hit

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 8,364 final hit
PTS Empower: 15,055 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 15,055 final hit

1H/SH:
With skill line passives - S+B +5% wp/sp

Unempowered: 1,966 final hit
PTS Empower: 3,539 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 3,539 final hit

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 6,656 final hit
PTS Empower: 11,981 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 11,981 final hit

2H:
With skill line passives - H-weaps +284 wp/sp for Greatsword

Unempowered: 2,341 final hit
PTS Empower: 4,214 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 4,214 final hit

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 7,013 final hit
PTS Empower: 12,623 final hit
Fully-charged only Empower: 12,623 final hit

Inferno, Ice, Bow, 1H/SH & 2H remain significantly further behind.

DW:
With skill line passives - DW Exp +6% off-hand wp/sp, TB&B +284 wp/sp for sword x2

Unempowered: 793 x 2 final hit = 1,486 total
PTS Empower: 1,427 x 2 final hit = 2,854 total
Fully-charged only Empower: 2,854 total

With Sergeant's Mail & Noble Duelist:

Unempowered: 5,483 x 2 final hit = 10,966 total
PTS Empower: 9,869 x 2 final hit = 19,738 total
Fully-charged only Empower: 9,869 x 2 final hit = 19,738 total

This is still too far behind for a DW HA build to be viable

I'm happy that Empower will only apply to fully-charged HAs, but unless you double the % modifier to fully-charged heavy attacks (i.e. 160% instead of 80%) you are consequently going to end up significantly nerfing HA builds - and they're already at best around 25-30% behind LA builds on the PTS.

EDIT: Doubling the modifier would also put other weapons into the "feasible" zone for HA builds because it will impact their damage potential comparitively more than it will Lightning & Resto HAs

acastanza_ESO · August 2022

Still absolutely nothing for any magicka focused sorcerer that doesn't want to be a zookeeper.

Not to mention no addressing of how this negatively affects lightning staff heavy attack builds - the most popular of heavy attack based accessibility builds.

Completely ridiculous

xSkullfox · August 2022

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hi everyone,

In preparation for next week’s PC launch of Update 35, we wanted to let you know about a couple additional combat changes we are planning to make.

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks. This change was made to prevent a situation where "medium attack weaving" could become a leading damage producing playstyle; these attacks are generally made by error rather than intentionally , as they are harder to do than a Light Attack or Fully-Charged Heavy Attack.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27% and increasing the amount of Magicka restored by 10%. We’re taking out some of the raw power from this weapon type to prevent it from becoming a dominant damage producing weapon, and instead moving its focus of this attack type to be on the Recovery side of things.

Hope this helps give a bit more visibility into what’s coming up.

lol

warich · August 2022

Any notes on warden dps? It's falling way far behind any other class in U35.

TechMaybeHic · August 2022

What about the sets, Nocturnal Ploy and Maras Balm? Those sets are not OK as of their last PTS state.

Scaletho · August 2022

Ok, once again: why ZOS still didn't created a solution to address PvP and PvE issues separately?

Is it that difficult to understand that those two systems are utterly different in strategy, use of skills, morph options and type of builds/gears?

Why PvP supposed problems always means that PvE will suffer when a -- supposed -- solution is introduced in the game?

Jeez...

SpacemanSpiff1 · August 2022

Thank you for the information!

This is gonna be a great update.

danthemann5 · August 2022

They just don't get it.

Making all PvE content harder helps no one and hurts everyone. It disproportionately hurts casual or "lower tier" players more.

Making it harder to stay alive in PvP only hurts casual and "lower tier" players. Casuals become ball group and zerg fodder even more than they already are.

Adding broken sets to PvP makes PvP less fun and thus less desirable to play.

What about any of this is an improvement?

anvilbert · August 2022

I'll start digging the hole to bury my ESO in. Just shaking my head this is catastrophic nerf across the board because you WON'T separate the PVE and PVP and pissed at the top 1% for nuking your content!!!

Troodon80 · August 2022

I've said it before, but Update 35, even in its last week of PTS, is going to cause the end game scene to haemorrhage. I've spoken to a number of people from some of the highest end groups who are preparing to make the move to WoW or FFXIV. It's already hard for end game raiding groups to raid regularly. One group I joined a while back hasn't raided now for a couple months. Another stopped doing trifecta runs a few months ago as well, due to lack of available bodies to attend.

If the core idea of Update 35 is the raise end game to the ground and start over, then it's perfect. If you want a raiding community after the patch which is capable of clearing the newer trials' hard modes, then you need to address these trials and stop ignoring the feedback for specific content (especially the feedback given during their PTS cycles).

A few final notes:

Taleria's damage on hard mode (Maelstrom, Wound, Matron's Frost Bolt, etc.) needs to be reduced by around 10% and health should be reduced to under 170M.
Xalvakka's health on hard mode needs to be reduced to under 200M and increase the duration you have on each stage.
Not enough has been done to address or mitigate the healing loss despite questions being asked fairly frequently, ZOS has seemingly focused more on the DPS side of the game as usual. We get it, HPS values is absurd. 80% of HPS in this game is counted as overheal. But most ground based heals are capped to 6 people, which means that someone (i.e. the tank) who should get heals might not; further made worse by the fact that you increased the gap in ticks for some heals while leaving others at 1 second, but from what I can see things like Ring of Preservation now no longer tick for under 1 second, though there are a few enemy sourced attacks which tick at intervals lower than 1 second. Please make all enemy sourced abilities tick a minimum frequency of 1 second.

To re-address some of my original commentary:

Whoever did the parses at ZOS and said the DPS decrease "overall" would be between 6-11% wasn't truthful or had results presumably skewed by the changes to the raid dummy. Even comparing the inaccurate raid dummy it's still at minimum 11% and generally around 14% with tweaks to what we're using on Live (ignoring the restoration heavy attack 10 second parses we saw posted to Discord). Reducing boss, champion, and bannermen health by (broadly speaking) 10% still isn't enough to outweigh the discrepancy.
The trial dummy shouldn't have been given the added buffs and debuffs going into a patch with fundamentally game-altering DPS changes as the difference in DPS has been skewed, which also had conspiracy theorists shouting from the rooftops that you were fully aware of how this would be perceived and you did it anyway (and then you added EC as well). Please learn from this.

Sergykid · August 2022

don't repost a reply from another feedback thread into this one hoping it will be seen because thread is newer