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Cyrodiil Healing Nerf!!

acastanza_ESO
acastanza_ESO
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This looks like a great change, finally nerfing OP HOT stacking in Cyrodiil. But question for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin, the wording is a little confusing here. Does having 3+ HOTs nerf all healing (e.g. Blessing of Restoration will get halved too), or just the HOTs themselves?
  • Artisian0001
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    It's just the HoTs themselves but you are asking the wrong question. The real question should be (because it says it's only HoT sticky abilities, not direct heals) is whether or not this applies to the first 2 HoTs because the language isn't clear. It just says the healing is reduced by 50% if you have 3 or more, not that each subsequent one will get decreased. If I was walking around in a 2 man group and a random person hit me with a mutagen would both of our HoTs be decreased by 50%?
    Edited by Artisian0001 on January 12, 2026 6:50PM
  • ZOS_Kevin
    ZOS_Kevin
    Community Manager
    da0sibe6mbpc.png

    This looks like a great change, finally nerfing OP HOT stacking in Cyrodiil. But question for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin, the wording is a little confusing here. Does having 3+ HOTs nerf all healing (e.g. Blessing of Restoration will get halved too), or just the HOTs themselves?

    Just checked in with the team. All healing will be reduced if you have 3 or more healing over time effects on your character.
    Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter
    Staff Post
  • acastanza_ESO
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    It's just the HoTs themselves but you are asking the wrong question. The real question should be (because it says it's only HoT sticky abilities, not direct heals) is whether or not this applies to the first 2 HoTs because the language isn't clear. It just says the healing is reduced by 50% if you have 3 or more, not that each subsequent one will get decreased. If I was walking around in a 2 man group and a random person hit me with a mutagen would both of our HoTs be decreased by 50%?

    It doesn't clearly say that the healing reduction only applies to the HOTs, it says that it'll only be triggered by sticky hots, but is definitely not clear.
  • Artisian0001
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    da0sibe6mbpc.png

    This looks like a great change, finally nerfing OP HOT stacking in Cyrodiil. But question for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin, the wording is a little confusing here. Does having 3+ HOTs nerf all healing (e.g. Blessing of Restoration will get halved too), or just the HOTs themselves?

    Just checked in with the team. All healing will be reduced if you have 3 or more healing over time effects on your character.

    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.
  • Radiate77
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    Great change, my only concern is that this HoT check does not differentiate between self-applied heals and foreign ones. I feel like this is an important distinction.

    In a world where our own HoTs do not count towards this number, this becomes much less of a problem.
    Edited by Radiate77 on January 12, 2026 11:45PM
  • acastanza_ESO
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    da0sibe6mbpc.png

    This looks like a great change, finally nerfing OP HOT stacking in Cyrodiil. But question for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin, the wording is a little confusing here. Does having 3+ HOTs nerf all healing (e.g. Blessing of Restoration will get halved too), or just the HOTs themselves?

    Just checked in with the team. All healing will be reduced if you have 3 or more healing over time effects on your character.

    Holy crap
  • ZOS_Kevin
    ZOS_Kevin
    Community Manager
    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.

    Can you give some context here? That way, we can provide feedback to the team.

    Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter
    Staff Post
  • MincMincMinc
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    Yeah this is madness. So now if a random proc healer runs by you and slaps on hots, now your own healing is going to be gutted. Cant wait to be 1vXing and the most dangerous part is when a random teammate shows up trying to heal me thinking he is helping but instead cuts my healing by 50%.

    Also how performative do we think slapping more calculations onto the most calculation dense skills will be? Lag on top of lag is all I see. Not to mention pushing ball groups to spam aoe ground hots which certainly wont be more performative on the server considering what we saw in vengeance with the lag introduced test 2 with groups spamming resto heals.

    If we want to prevent groups stacking hots.
    • Maybe start by not having all the group sets like rallying cry demand you spam aoe hots on your group as a proc condition. Why not have these group proc sets demand a healer use single target aimed heals or something less bloated on the server? Maybe they proc off of successfully purging allies at low health. IDK anything is better than telling ballgroups to spam aoe hots on repeat until they have ult. How about make these group sets only trigger off group utility ultimates or synergies. STOP INCENTIVIZING BAD BEHAVIOUR.
    • Maybe prevent hots from stacking like how the game used to be? Use the vengeance split skill system to make pvp versions of the code and then change the pvp versions of skills to not stack effects. Solving your hot stacking issue while also drastically cutting out on potential calculations.
    • Make hots purge themselves if they tick twice in a row while you are at full hp. This cuts out tons of calculations and prevents lingering sticky hots endlessly staying on players.
    • Hots like Echoing vigor should be balanced around 4 man teams instead of 12 man teams to incentivize small man group play. For group heals like this you should just give the caster a guaranteed self heal and make the group heal a different tick that doesn't stack.
    • Make more skills non smart heal like in vengeance where rapid regen had to be aimed at a target to apply. This opens up doors to more skilled exciting healing gameplay instead of just holding W and spamming an automatic aoe conal skill that does the "smart" targeting for you. If damage dealers can aim, so can healers.
    Edited by MincMincMinc on January 13, 2026 1:03AM
    I only use insightful
  • Artisian0001
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.

    Can you give some context here? That way, we can provide feedback to the team.

    A random person can apply a HoT to you and reduce healing you receive from ALL sources by 50% which is an insane amount. A 50% nerf to all HoTs is already HUGE, and deals a big blow to ballgroups, but that's fine, they are strong. A 50% reduction to every single heal you have because of only 3 HoTs is an insanely over the top way to go about it. ZOS does this constantly, this happened with the DoT meta years ago where almost all DoTs were increased by 50% and then became way too strong. What is with the company and doing radical sweeping changes? 50% nerf to ALL HEALING when you can start at a much lower number, like 10%, or a nerf of 50% to only HoTs(which is still massive) is much more logical than this. ESO is the only game I have ever played where changes like this happen and they make zero sense from a balance perspective and the amount of people that quit will far exceed those who like this. Regardless of what the forums say come check this comment in a year if this actually goes through and check the PvP population then.

    No group is going to be able to siege into a keep anymore. Siege is already too strong and even if the change goes through in a way where people outside of your group can't effect you, groups of 3+ will not be able to get into keeps at all and the game will die as a result when every fight just becomes open field because so many people actually dislike taking fights.
    Edited by Artisian0001 on January 12, 2026 7:04PM
  • acastanza_ESO
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.

    Can you give some context here? That way, we can provide feedback to the team.

    I 100% support halving the healing of the HOTs when there are >=3 HOTs on you, but I think nerfing burst healing too is probably taking things too far. Burst healing should probably not be determined by HOT status, burst healing isn't a passive thing that just happens, it is a reactive thing that depends on player skill and this is making player's actual direct actions less impactful than it should be.

    EDIT: I think it should also probably exclude your own self-applied HOTs from the calculation (e.g. three external HOTs).
    Edited by acastanza_ESO on January 12, 2026 7:06PM
  • ArctosCethlenn
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    Nerfing ball groups, sure fine. But if this is gonna be a thing you should remove the ability to apply sticky hots to people you're not grouped with, otherwise it becomes very easy for people to troll and abuse their own faction; throw a few hots around and halve everyone in the area's healing. When I'm soloing at a keep fight I don't want my self healing reduced cause some dingus threw three bad hots at me.
  • CameraBeardThePirate
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.

    Can you give some context here? That way, we can provide feedback to the team.

    Hey Kevin,

    If only HoTs had reduced effectiveness, this would be a harsh, but arguably fair nerf to HoT stacking.

    The problem with reducing ALL heals is that Direct Heals are not a problem in Cyrodiil; HoTs and Shields are (i.e., effective health that can be passively stacked by large groups). By reducing all heals with 3 HoTs, you've effectively opened the door to trolls running around Cyrodiil throwing out multiple sticky HoTs to destroy survivability across the entire zerg.

    HoT stacking is the issue, along with shield stacking. Nerfs should be pointed specifically at those - either reduce ONLY HoT effectiveness with 3 or more (and maybe increase that limit to 4 to reduce the ability to troll your own faction), or simply limit HoTs to a certain number.

    If you reduce the effectiveness of ALL healing with 3 HoTs on you, a solo player with few to no HoTs at all can be killed by someone on their own faction spamming weak scribing HoTs.
    Edited by CameraBeardThePirate on January 12, 2026 7:10PM
  • Militan1404
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    Wow i knew they dont understand their own game but this is even worse some how.. this would do more damage to small groups than actuall ballgroups that they try to target.. good work on killing your game even more zos, misson accomplished.
  • React
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    da0sibe6mbpc.png

    This looks like a great change, finally nerfing OP HOT stacking in Cyrodiil. But question for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin, the wording is a little confusing here. Does having 3+ HOTs nerf all healing (e.g. Blessing of Restoration will get halved too), or just the HOTs themselves?

    Just checked in with the team. All healing will be reduced if you have 3 or more healing over time effects on your character.

    Huge thanks to the team for finally making a serious, impactful change to heal stacking. It might not be enough to reign in the power of 12 man groups, but it is an excellent and long overdue first step.
    @ReactSlower - PC/NA - 2000+ CP
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  • olsborg
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    da0sibe6mbpc.png

    This looks like a great change, finally nerfing OP HOT stacking in Cyrodiil. But question for @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin, the wording is a little confusing here. Does having 3+ HOTs nerf all healing (e.g. Blessing of Restoration will get halved too), or just the HOTs themselves?

    Just checked in with the team. All healing will be reduced if you have 3 or more healing over time effects on your character.

    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.

    Ehm, no, they might have saved it tbh, ballgroups get nerfed wich is much,much needed.

    PC EU
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  • MincMincMinc
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    Okay, you have effectively ruined the game.

    Can you give some context here? That way, we can provide feedback to the team.

    You can see my above reasonings, but a better concept if the team wants to stick with this would read

    "If 3 or more outside Hot effects are active on your person, reduce INCOMING hot effects by half from other players" My own healing should not be cut in any way by other random players.

    I still think this is going to cause more calcs on the server though, which is what my other suggestions are for above.
    Edited by MincMincMinc on January 12, 2026 7:10PM
    I only use insightful
  • Artisian0001
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    I'd like to also add, this is only a problem with big groups. Starting this at 3 HoTs, not even 3 PEOPLE is insane. This should be GROUP SPECIFIC and apply to groups over 6 people. Larger groups will just spam shields instead while running open field(no groups will siege keeps anymore), smaller groups will just die. Making this change to apply only to HoTs and start at a group size of 7 is way more realistic. If the change goes through at all in the way it's currently proposed I would not be surprised if you see at least 50% of the active player base of cyro leave,.
  • L_Nici
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    Oh my. Finally, not like we have been telling them for ages, that healstacking is a serious problem. Miracles still do happen.

    I see the issue of healers outside of groups capping the heals though, so I think that change has to include a "you can only heal yourself or a groupmember" clause, so no outsiders ruin your gameplay.
    Edited by L_Nici on January 12, 2026 7:27PM
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  • rlindsey912nub18_ESO
    Great change it’ll be nice to see players dying again and learn to react to damage in instead of standing there while block canceling hots
  • rlindsey912nub18_ESO
    People want change and want ball groups to die but complain about good changes just because the game is becoming a little less auto play
  • Blood_again
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    Radiate77 wrote: »
    Great change, my only concern is that this HoT check does not differentiate between self-applied heals and foreign ones. I feel like this is an important distinction.

    Expecting trolls who spam Regeneration all around in Cyrodiil after patch 49.
  • Moothos
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    This change does not seem well thought out.

    It doesn't make any sense for all healing (including burst heals) to be reduced by 50% just because you have 3 or more heals over time on you. If anything, the 3rd and subsequent heals over time should be the only things penalized.

    As this is currently written, it opens up the possibility of griefing where random people can throw a 3rd heal over time on your character, and now your own healing suffers for it.
  • Kartalin
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    In our 6-8 person "miniball", if you want to call it that, we typically have 2 people running radiating regen. Not a problem. But if some well-meaning rando hits one of our guys with a radiating regen, which one of these things happens to that player:

    1) All Radiating regen healing is reduced by 50%
    2) All HOT healing is reduced by 50%
    3) All healing is reduced by 50%

    I just want to be clear which of these things will happen.

    Are we considering going to a system where players can only be healed by group members only?

    Edited for clarity
    Edited by Kartalin on January 12, 2026 7:16PM
  • Artisian0001
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    Kartalin wrote: »
    In our 6-8 person "miniball", if you want to call it that, we typically have 2 people running radiating regen. Not a problem. But if some well-meaning rando hits one of our guys with a radiating regen, which one of these things happens:

    1) All Radiating regen healing is reduced by 50%
    2) All HOT healing is reduced by 50%
    3) All healing is reduced by 50%

    I just want to be clear which of these things will happen.

    Are we considering going to being healed by group members only?

    ALL healing is reduced if you have 3 or more HoTs on you.
  • Overamera
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    I think 3 HoTs is to low. As the main issue is usually ballgroups being unkillable with many so much more HoTs. Now you have to be careful that ur build doesnt have 3 HoTs or worry about people healing you. Atleast this is my first thought.
  • Artisian0001
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    People want change and want ball groups to die but complain about good changes just because the game is becoming a little less auto play

    This has mothing to do with autoplay or even with ballgroups. You can effectively have your healing reduced by 50% while being solo.
    Edited by Artisian0001 on January 12, 2026 7:21PM
  • Militan1404
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    Great change it’ll be nice to see players dying again and learn to react to damage in instead of standing there while block canceling hots

    Hate to tell you, but if you are struggling to kill players in subclass meta, the blame is on you and not the game and this change would do nothing for you. This change would make the game more like COD, what players have often stated that. They dont wont and would just drive away more playres from the game.
  • ZOS_Kevin
    ZOS_Kevin
    Community Manager
    Just chatted with the combat team. For those who think this change needs more work, we’re passing this feedback on so our teams can iterate on this. Please make sure to clearly express your feedback so we can take it into account during adjustments.
    Community Manager for ZeniMax Online Studio and Elder Scrolls OnlineDev Tracker | Service Alerts | ESO Twitter
    Staff Post
  • Alchimiste1
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  • MincMincMinc
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    ZOS_Kevin wrote: »
    Just chatted with the combat team. For those who think this change needs more work, we’re passing this feedback on so our teams can iterate on this. Please make sure to clearly express your feedback so we can take it into account during adjustments.

    TRANSPARENCY, thanks kevin for being an arbiter for the people. Please see my previous comments

    EDIT: I edited my first post above, just go look at that.
    Edited by MincMincMinc on January 13, 2026 1:01AM
    I only use insightful
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