PTS v11.1.0 — I don't hate these balance changes

Erickson9610 · July 2025

Honestly, I think they're all pretty solid changes. A few long-standing issues across PvE and PvP were tackled, and a lot of powercreep was reeled in with the Major/Minor system. I think this is a good direction to go in.

LunaFlora · July 2025

agree! i love this update and it's pretty good

DenverRalphy · July 2025

This one... I was hoping for something like this..

WuffyCerulei · July 2025

I do like most of the changes, EXCEPT removing the max resources from Bound Armor and morphs. Tanks, healers, and DPS ALL benefit from the max resources as well as the block mitigation. But now it's strictly a tank skill on the PTS, which just sucks.

TX12001rwb17_ESO · July 2025

Why did they make it, so u have to block to use the %150 heal from Dark Cloak?

What was the point of this change? does it at least allow me to move though?

Reginald_leBlem · July 2025

Nope, I hate it.

The nerfing of ultimate generation, specifically via class passives, is actually infuriating. Particularly when reading the developer comment.

To get ultimate fast you have to SPECIFICALLY BUILD FOR IT. Which, even with passives, means sacrificing other stats for ultimate generation! As you should!

Now everything is part of the same major/minor system, there’s not interplay between classes (a system we've barely had time to enjoy), pearls of elnofey is well and truly dead, and nightblade is now completely gutted as a subclass.

It's ridiculous. Just because it's not as bad as some updates doesn't make it good.

robpr · July 2025

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Why did they make it, so u have to block to use the %150 heal from Dark Cloak?

What was the point of this change? does it at least allow me to move though?

Yes, you can move now with full heal if you move and block at the same time.

coop500 · July 2025

Very sad to see Oakensoul users indirectly suffer from Grim Focus and Bound Armament changes too.

I doubt that 8% stamina was destroying anything.

Tariq9898 · July 2025

They still haven’t added any unique buffs to pure classing. That’s what’s missing from this update.

Treeshka · July 2025

Maybe it is time to revert the nerf of Pillager and Pearls.

SkaiFaith · July 2025

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Honestly, I think they're all pretty solid changes. A few long-standing issues across PvE and PvP were tackled, and a lot of powercreep was reeled in with the Major/Minor system. I think this is a good direction to go in.

Agree, at the moment it looks like a good patch. I was hoping to see new combat animations implemented this round but aside from that, everything's fine. Really nice balance.

Cooperharley · July 2025

They're overly homogenizing so many things and didn't buff any under-performing skill lines with subclassing. What's your favorite part?

The major & minor heroism changes to passives was silly because there's not even 100% up time on those buffs when previously you could source it with heroism pots & banner. Now those are dead passives largely.

I'm not seeing the vision here

alpha_synuclein · July 2025

Cooperharley wrote: »

I'm not seeing the vision here

Nerf endgame?

MashmalloMan · July 2025

Terrible patch. Sorc is dead. NB is fine. What's new?

The ultimate generation changes are questionable. I understand the direction, but at the same time building for ult gen was a deliberate decision, a niche, but fun one with real results, now you're going to hit a soft cap.

This screams like their decision to make Daedric Prey only effect Daedric Pets, they're anti fun approach to balancing is tiresome. An all pet build performs terribly, the 50% bump wouldn't even make it close enough to compete with meta Arc/NB setup, but did they test it before nerfing the fun? No, of course not. It's so bad that a Daedric Summoning/Storm Calling pet build with Assassination using Killers Blade over Daedric Prey or Fury performs better.. so why did it get nerfed in the first place?

Solariken · July 2025

The class ultimate changes are yet another big nerf to Oakensoul tho

kevkj · July 2025

In 2035 you will gain Minor Heroism by being in combat and Major Heroism for using any ability so that every single player has the exact same ultimate generation. But also all ultimate costs have been doubled and heroism values have been halved.

alpha_synuclein · July 2025

kevkj wrote: »

In 2035 you will gain Minor Heroism by being in combat and Major Heroism for using any ability so that every single player has the exact same ultimate generation. But also all ultimate costs have been doubled and heroism values have been halved.

Don't give them ideas...xd

Alaztor91 · July 2025

Cooperharley wrote: »

They're overly homogenizing so many things and didn't buff any under-performing skill lines with subclassing. What's your favorite part?

The major & minor heroism changes to passives was silly because there's not even 100% up time on those buffs when previously you could source it with heroism pots & banner. Now those are dead passives largely.

I'm not seeing the vision here

ZOS already said that they would adjust ''outliers''(aka nerf unique skills) with U46 when Subclassing was introduced. Nerfing ''overperforming'' stuff and continue homogenizing the game seems to be their ''vision''.

Morimizo · July 2025

Not that I'm the least bit surprised by the nerfs, but it is thoroughly exhausting to chase the necessary buffs around, so I disagree wholeheartedly with the OP.

Sorcerer

Daedric Summoning
Bound Armor: This ability and the Bound Aegis morph now passively grant Major Resolve (up to 5948 Armor) for slotting on either bar, rather than granting Minor Protection (5% reduced damage taken) and increasing your Max Magicka by 5-8%.
Bound Armaments: This morph now grants Major Sorcery and Prophecy (12% Critical Chance) for slotting, rather than 8% Max Stamina.

and:

Storm Calling

Lightning Form: This ability and its morphs now grant Minor Force while active, rather than Major Resolve.

As a pure sorc, I lose 8% mag, 5% reduced dam (in addition to 8% stam and 5% mag from last update), and gain a passive that is prob the most common (maj sorc and proph) and one of the least useful (min forc). I'll prob have to keep Bound Arm anyway, unless I utilize a scribed skill, which is just irritating. Lightning Form becomes, what, a few seconds of more movement speed? Likely will be replaced now.

Sounds like forced subclassing to me.

AdmiralDigby · July 2025

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Honestly, I think they're all pretty solid changes. A few long-standing issues across PvE and PvP were tackled, and a lot of powercreep was reeled in with the Major/Minor system. I think this is a good direction to go in.

Let me sum up this changes from a PVE point of view:

- You now do 5% less damage.
- You still have to play beamcanist.

These are terrible changes. They didn't address any issues.

katorga · July 2025

ZOS will ruin the game trying to nerf things in response to subclassing.

btw, this does nothing to change the fact that arcanist/NB/templar is the only dps build for endgame, and is so good you don't need tanks, healers, companions, or even groups, for anything below endgame.

diamondo · July 2025

When will we be seeing balance who don’t want to sub class in PVP?

valenwood_vegan · July 2025

I'm glad someone doesn't hate 'em, I sure do.

To quote myself from shortly after the subclassing reveal stream:

"While I like the idea overall, I fully expect *the* signature, class-defining skills that we know and love (at least those that still remain) to be nerfed into mundane nothingness. I just don't think this will be worth the obvious balance problems and the inevitable chainsaw-over-scalpel- solutions to them."

Sticking with my thinking at the time, I'll continue to watch from the sidelines for now while we have a couple more patches of these kinds of fundamental changes to long-existing skills and builds, all because subclassing was rushed out with obvious balance problems and little thought.

LukosCreyden · July 2025

Removing Major Resolve from Lightning Form kills my build, so no, I am not best pleased. Took me forever to come up with a new build

sleepy_worm · July 2025

The jarring see-saw balancing really points to a lack of long-term vision. It's probably treadmill for the sake of treadmill, but it definitely feels like fumbling in the dark more than gradual refinement.

Radiate77 · July 2025

sleepy_worm wrote: »

The jarring see-saw balancing really points to a lack of long-term vision. It's probably treadmill for the sake of treadmill, but it definitely feels like fumbling in the dark more than gradual refinement.

Have you ever thought for a second, that perhaps you’re just not seeing that vision?

My friends and I saw Scribing from a mile away, and when we saw Skill Styling… we saw Subclassing.

They’ve been trying to make ESO feel more like a traditional TES game, and any way they can do that within the binds of an MMO, they will continue to do so.

propertyOfUndefined · July 2025

I honestly agree with most of the changes for once. I can at least understand the rationale behind them.

sleepy_worm · July 2025

Radiate77 wrote: »

Have you ever thought for a second, that perhaps you’re just not seeing that vision?

My friends and I saw Scribing from a mile away, and when we saw Skill Styling… we saw Subclassing.

They’ve been trying to make ESO feel more like a traditional TES game, and any way they can do that within the binds of an MMO, they will continue to do so.

I'm not really talking about Subclassing. I'm talking about immediate changes directly after Subclassing.

doctorosen · July 2025

This is idiotic!
Why give a multiclass with a choice of unique, I repeat unique, class abilities, in order to unify them later? Then what is the point of sabclassing? Let's just make one class and let everyone play it!
Yes, I am outraged by the nerf of ultimate generation. They take away my unique NB ability to set ulta, making it a worthless buff that I can get from other sources. And what's the point of sabclassing then?
Magpies are robbed of their legitimate resists and resource pool, giving them the same buff as DC. At the same time, we are told that this is done to make the choice of subclassing more difficult. Or maybe it's worth complicating the content? Adapt it to the new capabilities of the players so that they don't carry through your labors in one evening.
@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin

RandomKodiak · July 2025

The Hurricane nerf is bad, really bad. Damn near makes all three lines of Sorc useless for dps players now. Sorry but this needs fixing. PvE Sorcs have been taking hits for a long time now because "they do so well in PvP'". This is by far the worst, if the Dev team is bound and determined to make Sorcs PvP only they should just tell us so us Sorc mains can leave now. I know up until U46 they parsed the best but in actual content funniest thing being a single target only made you not wanted in group Now they just want to relegate us to support no thanks, we deserve some sort of answer as to why the devs don't want us to play the PvE side of the game and soon.

RandomKodiak · July 2025

And one other note to anyone saying it's not that bad. Why would we ever slot BA over Relentless? Relentless gets extra crit, hits 18% harder and gives the same buff now. These changes do not make any sense at all even by their normal spreadsheet standards.