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The PTS patch notes for the upcoming Lost Depths DLC have a lot of changes coming not just for the DLC but also for base game. The Oakensoul mythic, a powerful jewelry piece which limits your character to one bar but provides multiple powerful buffs in return, is just one of the major changes which could be coming to the live server in August. Oakensoul has been nerfed, but just how badly? Keep reading for an in-depth ESO Oakensoul Comparison PTS vs Live and see how much the mythic is changing and whether it’s still going to be worth collecting all those lead pieces after August 22nd!
ESO Oakensoul Comparison PTS vs Live
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Welcome back gang it’s Deltia from deltagaming.com and I’m here to do a side-by-side comparison of Oakensoul on the live server in comparison to the changes proposed in the PTS. If you don’t know, some important and impactful major buffs have been reduced to minor buffs and a lot of people are very critical. I haven’t seen a whole lot of side-by-side comparisons with testers actually doing content, so I was very skeptical on this change. In order to test it myself I ran it by comparing apples to apples on my Magicka Templar – using two five-piece sets in Veteran Maelstrom Arena and discovering what it actually looks like and what it actually feels like. So, I’m going to walk you through what I used and why, as well as what the runs feel like. The ultimate goal of this comparison is to find out if Oakensoul is crap or worthwhile, and also to give feedback to the developers on what we could do to improve it so that it could help the landscape of ESO.
For those who may not know, Oakensoul is a one bar mythic – so it locks you into one bar, and it gives you a ton of major buffs. Currently on the live server it gives you Major Courage, so that’s weapon and spell damage; Major Berserk, which is raw damage. Major Savagery or Major Prophecy increases weapon and spell crit. Major Protection (which we’re going to touch on a little bit later) and Major Brutality and Sorcery – so it’s going to give you an armor buff, it’s going give you your weapon and spell damage, your crit buff and it’s going to make you very, very strong. Along with Major Force so you do a lot of damage and you don’t have to cast a lot of abilities – which frees you up you just basically use main spammables and a couple of dots.
That’s exactly what we did on this Magicka Templar (shout out toon_raider who suggested to just do basic sets!). We set this character up with Deadly Strikes, a set you can buy in Cyrodiil from the vendor. The second set I used was Overwhelming Surge, also a base game set you can get from the Tempest Island dungeon. One piece of Slimecraw from Wayrest Sewers I and we’re set. I had six light pieces, one medium, and then obviously Oakensoul. The weapon was an inferno staff with the precise trait. The reason I went with this loadout is because it’s applicable to the average player who may not be using Bahsei’s or Kinra’s or any crazy out of this world solo arena sets that very can pull off – so something most players can actually get pretty easily and put on and implement.
In addition, for this High Elf Magick Templar I used the Thief mundustone along with the champion points listed in the image above and ran it back-to-back. The very first run was on the live server with Oakensoul activated in its current form. You can really tell the damage difference, along with the incoming damage reduction, which was the most noticeable thing. Currently on the live server you get Major Protection, you get Major Berserk, and Major Force, so you just hit very hard without the need to really do much other than your main spammable on a Magicka Templar. The Magicka Templar is specifically unique in that your main spammable is great single target and AOE. It’s a perfect beginner class for this specific reason, and with Oakensoul it’s a match made in heaven. Load up your bar with maybe one or two damage over time effects and I didn’t even have a heal. The reason why is Purifying Light and Puncturing Sweeps is such a strong combination that it carried my entire healing.
Another thing I noticed regarding the damage was that I got much more health again – that it seemed like when doing Puncturing Sweeps I was doing more damage and that’s how the healing scales. Purifying Light was also healing me and with those two things I didn’t even need to put a shield on. I also noticed a lot of incoming damage reduction since a Magicka Templar has Minor Protection built into their kit when you’re using jabs. But they don’t passively have Major Protection and you normally have to slot an ability for that to apply. But wearing the current version of Oakensoul means you’re getting Major Protection, reducing your damage taken significantly. You can also get the Preparation passive using champion points in the Staving Death sub-constellation, which provides another 10% damage reduction. So in a Templar with the current Oakensoul you’re looking at an almost constant 25% damage reduction. When a couple of different bosses swipe and hit me it didn’t drop a ton my health and it was much easier to recover. I would just rotate, maybe a dodge or two in there when my magic was low or I needed some mobility and it was very easy to survive. Not to mention you have Major Heroism so you’re getting ultimate back really fast and you’re constantly using your meteor ultimate. Meteor is a fantastic ultimate of choice if you just have one stun. When the boss is stationary in the AOE it just completely burns them down, plus you get ultimate back, so you’re constantly firing off meteors which makes it very easy to blow through the content.
So what’s the catch? Well, it’s so dang powerful on PvE solo that you don’t even need a heal – you can pretty much just blow through the content. In its current form I like it in PvE because you’re not going to out-parse or out-perform a two-bar build. In fact, my other two bar Magicka Templar build can complete the arena about two to three minutes faster and that’s a great sweet spot.
Now let’s change gears here and talk about the PTS version of Oakensoul. The PTS version changes the major buffs to minor – so Minor Courage, Minor Berserk, Minor Force, Minor Protection, and Heroism. The developers also added in Minor Mending. On a Templar however, you already can get Minor Mending and you can already get Minor Protection so those are pretty much redundant buffs. I could really tell the biggest buff loss was Major Protection, and the additional damage taken really hurt when I was doing a couple of different bosses. At times me health would just drop to almost nothing, but thankfully I have tons and tons of experience so I was able to pop up pretty quickly. I still didn’t have a heal and was relying on jabs and Purifying Light and of course j-beam to heal me back up. The change to Heroism was very noticeable because you’re not getting meteors back nearly as often and I think that’s an okay and a fair nerf – especially if you’re going to take this into PvP. The game shouldn’t have Dragonknights using Corrosive Armor permanently and then Major Berserk and Major Force as well.
I can really feel a lot less damage done and a lot less healing coming back from my jabs. And that’s twofold because jabs and Purifying Light also got adjusted in the PTS notes. With this, along with the damage reduction you can see a pretty big gap and the arena was definitely more challenging. But I don’t think Oakensoul was completely nerfed.
My final thoughts here are that Oakensoul is still worth using for some players, but I don’t think it’s going to carry you through content as easily in its adjusted PTS form. However, I have a suggestion for the developers and I would request that you share this post to help pass my ideas along. I think the ultimate solution to get Oakensoul into the perfect sweet spot from my experience is to give it Minor Aegis which reduces your damage taken in dungeons and trials by 5%. So that is a specific PvE buff which will not translate into PvP. I would also suggest the addition of Minor Slayer which will increase your damage done by 5% in dungeons and trials. This will so effect only PvE and have zero impact on PvP.
The reason I think this is the best route for this mythic and to solve it is Two bars outperforms Oakensoul by far in PvE and that’s exactly where you want the game to be. For a mythic piece like this, you want high damage easy abilities, easy cast, easy peasy, but be able to complete the content if you like without being so powerful it out preforms any other builds. In its current form the damage reduction provided by Oakensoul was probably the most noticeable issue I had with it and I think the addition of the Minor Aegis buff is critical for making this useful.
I also did some duels off stream with Oakensoul using the one bar build on my hybrid templar that I always play, and the damage is so reduced it’s pretty weak. I’m very survivable and can run around and basically survive indefinitely, but I’m really going to struggle killing someone that’s equally as skilled and geared as me. But I think the majority of people that are using Oakensoul really want something that’s functional on PvE. Something that gets them to be able to experience the content that they want, and I think that making these two adjustments will radically change your experience. Don’t overreact, Oakensoul will hopefully go through another adjustment and they’ll listen to me – or you if you have a better idea than I do. But it’s not completely gutted in its current form, though it is significantly reduced. I think the average player might need a little bit of a tune-up to make it a really good thing that can be functional inside of PvE, but not be a mandatory set.
So here’s the proof! I hope you got something out of this, I have more to come as we continue to test the gear sets and the class specific changes. Make sure to keep an eye on deltiasgaming.com for news and analysis of all the upcoming changes!
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