This preview is going to tell you about the 5 biggest changes coming to ESO Update 35 Lost Depths on August 22nd on PC and September 6th on Consoles!
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This Deltia from deltiasgaming.com and the goal of this video is to give you broad overview of the most important changes coming to the game in Update 35 so you’ll be prepared when the patch launches to adjust your current build.
Let’s get started with the number #1 change you should be aware about and that’s the Damage over Time and Heals over Time adjustments. They are the most complex and hard to understand, but let me try to Barney-Deltia this for you.
#1 Damage over Times and Heal Over Time
Before I get into the damage over time changes, I should explain why are DoTs so important in ESO? It’s because they typically they outperform the damage of your main spammable.
So, if you have one action or a 1 second cool down, you want to cast the most damage producing option. Those are typically hard hitting, short duration 10 second DoTs. You only use your main spammable as a filler when your DoTs are all “up”, then go back to reapplying as they drop off. The best players sometimes run no spammables at all – just DoTs and an execute.
With this in mind, lets address the coming changes. The first iteration of the PTS on July 11th had the community in an uproar when the majority of damage over time abilities were changed to a 20 second duration instead of 10 seconds and applied damage every 2 seconds rather than every 1.
During this phase of testing, you ended up with many DoTs outperforming your main spammable but with double the duration, you just ended up with an incredibly lack luster combat experience which resulted in 9-10 main spammables, before applying 4-5 DoTs and repeating.
Thankfully this change was reverted on July 25th to what is most likely to go live. Here are the direct, written changes to DoTs, quoted directly from the patch notes:
Damage and Healing over Time ability standards are now better differentiated based on the type of ability they are. These changes mainly target Area of Effect-based abilities to increase their tick rates and reduce their durations.
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Damage over Time effects that stick to a target remain at their new standard introduced in PTS v8.1.0 with a 20 second duration, 2 second frequency, coming in at 0.105 coefficient DPS.
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Adjusted Damage over Time abilities that are bound to a static area back to 10 seconds, 12 seconds, or 15 seconds depending on their sourced skill line. These tick once every second (with a reduced cost compared to what’s currently on the Live servers) and 0.14 DPS (down from 0.1575 currently on Live and up from 0.105 from PTS v8.1.0).
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If an ability’s DPS has been adjusted to a value outside of 0.14, the individual change list will note the change in efficacy.
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Now, this note is a bite deceptive in what actually is sticky vs static but I’ll give you some examples. What this change causes is the homogenization of DoTs. The TL:DR goes like this: one or more class abilities will be your standard 10, 12 or 15 second DoT
- Dragonknight – Eruption
- Necromancer – Boneyard
- Nightblade – Twisting Path
- Sorcerer – Lighting Flood
- Templar – Blazing Spear
- Warden – Winters Revenge
Then you have some DoTs that will apply the longer, lack luster 20 second long, 2 second tick for damage
DK
- Searing Strike
- Fiery Breath and both morphs
Necro
- Skeletal Mage
- Shocking Siphon
Nightblade
- Dark Shade
- Cripple and both morphs
Sorcerer
- Summon Volatile Familiar
- Summon Twilight Tormentor
Templar
- Solar Barrage
- Ritual of Ret
- Sun Fire
Warden
- Swarm
Note that two of the skills which will most likely be used on magicka and or stamina builds (Mystic Orb and Razor Caltrops) remain at 10 seconds with damage every one second, so they are great replacement skills or additional options.
The final summary on DoTs is that they will now fall into either 10/12/15/20 second durations in a homogenous system with one or two class DoTs that are great for all damage dealers to run. You will pair your class DoTs with weapon skill line abilities to fill in the damage. Try finding the highest damage dealing DoTs with the shortest duration so they can be cast more frequently
Heals Over Time were also adjusted initially similar to DoTs then adjusted back on July 25th so healers don’t panic. Your abilities should be largely the same, for better or for worse.
Most likely your build and damage won’t suffer that much but become slightly easier to maintain. I will keep parsing, testing in content both solo, four player and trials and will see how regular play may start shifting the meta once this goes live, but for right now this is the most important element.
Moving onto #2 and that’s light and heavy attack damage.
#2 Light and Heavy Attacks
Let’s first discuss light attack weaving: What is it and why is it so important in ESO? Light attack weaving has been in the game since launch. It’s not a hack but is complicated for people to understand. Essentially, your skills are on a one second global cool down and your light attack is on a separate 1 second cool down. Thus, you can get free damage be pairing or weaving the two as close together as possible. Like a heartbeat (thud thud, thud thud), syncing up your ability with a light attack as close as you can to squeeze every ounce of DPS out of your character.
And this apparently was what ESO aimed to change. To lower the need for flawless weaving in order to hit high DPS. July 11th was the first iteration of Light and Heavy attack changes, which would now deal a flat amount of damage rather than scaling with your highest Offensive stats.
This fundamental change caused another uproar with the community, and as you might have predicted, they later it changed back.
Another important change in the patch notes was:
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The final hit from Restoration and Lightning Staves can now be dodged once again, to ensure there is better counter play at denying an opponent resources and the stronger portion of the attack.
Then on August 1st we saw light and heavy attacks get adjusted again:
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Light and Heavy Attacks once again scale with the highest of your offensive stats, rather than dealing a flat amount of damage.
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Reduced the damage that Light Attacks do by approximately 26% compared to what’s currently on the Live servers, to ease back on their overall impact while retaining their importance in a rotation.
I tested these changes on live and PTS with my good old Templar. In parse number 1 I was using the same gear as on the PTS, same CP, and everything else. I used a 3 million solo parse dummy to simulate an average player doing dungeons and overland world bosses. My light attacks came in as my 2nd damage source with 5676 DPS and 11.6% of my DPS.
Meanwhile with the exact same set up on the PTS I hit 5.6% with 2666. Obviously, this wasn’t 26% mentioned in the patch notes, but there are many factors outside of light attacking that could causing the change.
The TL;DR here is: yes, light attack weaving will still be meta and one of the best ways to increase over all DPS and will be less of why someone is gods gift to a parse dummy. Eat your vegetables, take your vitamins, and learn how to light attack weave people.
But Deltia, what about medium weaving? I’m glad you asked and that’s number three on the list!
#3 Empower
Have I mentioned there was an uproar on the forums? This time it’s because of an odd move and that’s the change to the empower buff.
The pre update 35 empower buff did the following: “Increases the damage of your Light, Medium and Heavy Attacks by 40%.” We can understand why this is so sought after because the huge impact it has on yours or everyone’s overall DPS.
This was changed to:
This buff now increases your damage against monsters with Heavy Attacks by 80%, rather than your damage done with Light and Heavy Attacks by 1800 from PTS v8.1.0 or 40% from the live servers.
Now if you read that line carefully, it says heavy attacks – not fully charged heavy attacks. Meaning the new meta would-be medium weaving which is even more complex and harder to learn than light attack weaving.
Medium weaving is essentially holding down your trigger/mouse slightly longer than a light attack to register a heavy but not a fully charge. An example of this is Dizzying Swing: you set someone off balance in pvp and semi hold your light attack to get a stun but no more. Thankfully this is not going live and the developers have confirmed that the Empower buff will ONLY be on fully charged heavy attacks.
So, again, not a freak out thing here, medium weaving won’t be the new norm and you’re seeing a trend, over reaction, adjustment and basically a similar game. The developers did for the most part listen to the community on most of these changes but not all.
As of the making of this video and preview guide the information has not been published on the official forums but was discussed on an internal server and I’ve been given permission to share it.
The TL;DR for the average player thus far is this: You’ll see a dip in damage, but nothing major. You’ll also see an uptick in the ease of rotation and less emphasis on light attack weaving. And that brings us to number 4 change and its boss Health.
#4 Boss Health
On the August 8thPatch Notes we got a small note adjusting bosses health
Dungeons
- Reduced the health of all bosses in Veteran difficulty.
Trials
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Reduced the health of all bosses, Champions and Bannermen in Veteran difficulty.
And in a separate post by Gina Bruno:
The health changes vary slightly for each boss so it’s not simply a flat numerical or percentage change. We can at least confirm the changes only affect Dungeon and Trial bosses, not Arenas.
So don’t expect every boss to have 5% health reduction! You’ll see some at 6% and others much higher, but this gets to the point that while damage has been reduced so has bosses’ health. Ultimately, with these changes the actual content feels very similar in time to kill, difficulty and mechanics as the current update 34 patch.
One other note that’s worth mentioning: Classes will have similar amounts of damage due to the homogenization of dots and main spammables. This along with the non-reliance on light attack weaving is shrinking the gaps in PvE for the average player. When making choices on your “main” for this patch, factor in hard hitting executes will be very useful especially if they come from you class kit. For example, Templar Radiant Oppression and Nightblade Killers Blade. The quicker you can get to execute, the harder your execute hits the greater the advantage a class will have in general.
Moving onto number 5 and our last one and that’s main spammables.
#5 Main Spammables
You’ll have some freedom in picking from a variety of main spammables, some of which seem quiet odd but actually preform equal to or better current in class main spammables. Rapid Strikes from the Dual Wield weapon line is performing exceptionally well with an updated animation and adjustment of overall damage. This makes it a great option for nearly a melee stamina build including Templar.
Now the goofy one that I’ve been using for a bit with a high tool tip AoE damage and great passives to boost damage is Silver Shards from Fighter’s Guild. The tooltip will be nearly as high or if not much higher than most main spammables. The added advantages are that it’s range, and it’s fighters guild – so merely slotting it will increase your weapon and/or spell damage via the passive. On top of that it’s as AoE with similar to a little higher stamina cost in comparison to most stamina builds main spammables
Now you have more options with Psijic Orders Imbue Weapon. Elemental Weapon is great for light attack weaving and can work at melee or range. Crushing Weapon, the stamina morph, is also a good option if you prefer it over Silver Shards or Rapid Strikes.
The meta has been shifting more and more towards stamina because of the gear options, main spammable options and flexibility in builds. Moreover, even the standard arena weapon gear sets may be off meta now and change to a back bar Pillars of Nirn 5pc, front bar Whorl of Deeps, Monster helm and a mythic. But I’ll have more on that in another video!
The spammable options in class are still:
Dragonknight still have whip
Wardens still have the most annoying sounding main spammable, Cutting Dive
Nightblades can slot Concealed Weapon just for the buff and use something else
Templars, pick your poison if you still want to use Jabs
Sorcerers, Crystal Weapons Frag still good option
Necromancers have a ton of options including a god mode selfheal Scythe, though it doesn’t do as much damage as other spammables mentioned
I’m going to play around with these main spammables in actual live content, dungeon, areans and trials and update my builds based on effectiveness, ease of access and dps performance. But you are not pigeonholed into only using one main spammable. You will have a lot of options and while some might seem odd they could become meta as things are shifting and we are figuring out the game.
Wrap Up
Well, if you’ve made it this far into this write-up, praise Talos! There are a million more things to cover but we have a class, gear and complete run down on our website deltiasgaming.com which you can find HERE.
I’ll be streaming the new patch all week starting on August 22nd, updating builds and coming out with videos and post as we find and figure out ESO for the future
Additional Guides:
If you’re looking for a one-bar PvE builds click HERE, one-bar PvP builds HERE or one-bar Werewolves builds HERE. Also, consider watching me on TWITCH where you can ask me questions about my current builds.
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