1.6 Discussions - Ongoing

Ok, so I know there is the patch note thread, but that is a huge thread simply because the patch notes were MASSIVE!  I wanted to create a single thread to go over the changes 1.6 is bringing us.  Feel free to pop in here and discuss changes you have seen or ask questions.  If you are talking about changes or answering someones question, I ask that you please verify how these changes are working on PTS and not base your answer just off the patch notes and no PTS experience.  

Provisioning:

I think the new system is great.  Takes a bit getting used to, but inventory space will be much better off.  The transfer of current food and recipes is a bit strange, but it will likely work in your benefit.  One notable ingredient that is going away is pepper.  It will sell for a decent amount now, but I have another suggestion.  Pepper is used to make the purple VR5 food, Consummate Honey Brittle.  This food, as best I could tell from PTS, was converted to VR10 purple food.  My provisioner has the recipe and the food in my inventory is now the new VR10 food.  I would suggest that you make as much Consummate Honey Brittle as you can prior to 1.6 going live.  This will use up your pepper, a better option then selling it I believe, and give you a nice stock of VR10 food.

Food vs. Drink:  Since they changed all the values of numbers, it is hard to say how much they changed the drink regen values.  Food and drinks still cannot be used at the same time, and food still only buffs maximum available resources while drink only buffs resource regeneration.  What does help drinks, in addition to the supposed increase in regen, is the removal of the softcaps.  Previous to 1.6, with good gear sets and itemization it was relatively easy to reach softcap on your most important resource regen and maybe even others (my tank could get overcharged on all three).  With the removals, I think regen could become pretty important for DPS and healers in terms of sustainability.  I think there is a real possibility for healers and DPS to start using drink instead of food for PvE.  I also think drinks will be much more helpful in PvP for the regens as well.  Only time will tell if the changes are in fact worth it.

Argonians:

What?!  Argonians!  Yeah, Argonians got a sweet unwritten buff I am super happy about.  The Amphibious trait has changed.  It now grants 50% swim speed (same as before) and whenever you drink ANY potion you restore 2/4/6% of your maximum magicka, stamina, AND health!  Such a sweet change I think.  Argonians are now potion chugging machines.  This will be a very nice and welcome change for both my tanking and heal setup as well as a huge bonus in Cyrodiil.

Templars:

I only got a little bit of play time last night, and pretty much all of that was trying to absorb all the changes.  A few notes and I will add more later.  

Blinding Flashes:  This skill is gone, but fear not as the DK skill Ash Cloud and Dual Wield skill sparks are also gone.  It was replaced with a channeled execute skill.  I am not thrilled at all about the channeling aspect of it as it will be pretty easy to interrupt in Cyrodiil.  It will be a nice welcome addition for PvE though.  The two morphs are intersting choices as well.  One heals you for 20% of the damage done (good for Cyrodiil), the other does increased damage based on how much magicka you have remaining.  DelaDude brought up a nice point with this for PvE.  For boss fights this will be pretty nice as you can pop a spell power/crit and magicka pot then execute for some serious damage.  While I will miss blinding flashes, I think the new skill is a nice help to Templar DPS 

Sun Shield (and morphs): 10% increased cost.  Kinda bummed about this, but really this skill is insanely strong.  Not to mention there is a Champion Passive that increases the magnitude of shields.  Sad about the increase, but it is manageable I think.

Puncturing Strikes: Nice DPS boost for single target and a cost reduction.  Also added a stamina morph for this skill.  Overall a really nice change for Templars of all types.

Backlash: Probably one of the biggest changes out there for Templars.  This skill is now, in my opinion, an absolute must have.  I am going to see if I can fit it in on my tanking set up, and it certainly will have a spot on my healing and PvP set up.  The skill is now INSTA CAST!!  That alone is a huge change.  In addition, multiple Templars can use this skill and they will not cancel each other out, another nice change for group set ups.  The skill also has a magicka and stamina based morph.  Overall, this skill is a monster now.

Eclipse:  Some changes to this skill as well, but honestly I haven't used it in quite awhile so I will leave it for someone else to speak about.

Sun Fire: The DoT does more damage and it debuffs the target, nice little bonuses for an already staple skill

Dark Flare: Reduced the cast time.  Another nice change to help DPS

Blazing Spear:  DoT aspect of this skill will persist even if someone uses the synergy.

Passives:  So I am going off the top of my head here, but the one notable change I remember is that one of the Dawns Wrath passives now gives all group members the Minor Sorcery buff (8% spell damage) whenever you use a Dawns Wrath skill.  Nice little group utility passive.

Champion Points:  Huge system that will add some variety to builds.  Lots there and I didn't get to dig into it too much.  Expect lots and lots of discussions about this in the future.  Screenies of ALL stars and passives  Another note, there are 4 "stars" per constelation, 9 Constellations total, and a max off 100 points allowed in each star.  That means a max of 3600 Champ points.  At 400,000 XP per champ point (current rate on PTS) this is 1,440,000,000 xp total.  At the old rate of 1,000,000 xp per vet rank this is the equivalent of achieving VR 1440.  Yeah, its that big of a system.

Buffs: Another huge change to the game.  Group dynamics are really key now it seems.  These changes will require quite a bit of coordination from the group.  One quick observation and generalization.  Major Buffs seem to be mostly applied either by yourself, or single target (for debuffs especially).  Minor buffs can be either applied by yourself or from the group.  Maximizing group minor buffs is going to be an interesting challenge.

Ok, so that's about all I have for right now.  I plan on spending a great deal of time on the PTS and I suggest you all do the same.  These changes are drastically changing the game and it would be best to adapt to them sooner rather than later.  

I am looking forward to some really good discussions on here, in game, and on the voice chat for PTS that DelaDude has arranged for us.

Good stuff.  I got to spend a little time n the PTS last night...not as much as I wish.  I am going to need to find new places to loot for recipes because my standard places are now all locked up.  The honey hole Wayrest is no more, unless you want to pay off your bounty.  Unfortunately guards are unkillable but you can escape.  When I logged in to Belkarth immediately there was a 15 person brawl going on w/ a guard.  I dropped a heal then was immediately part of it and the group was wiped in a couple of minutes.  I decided I would go on a killing rampage was was able to run up my bounty to a smooth 2k gold.  Luckily I was able to get out of town alive and came back to a couple of dead bodies that had blue loot which covered the cost on the bounty.

EDIT:  I forgot to mention that this will pretty much eliminate skill spam in banks.  I accidentally fat fingered R and dropped a Standard in the bank in Belkarth.....insta death

I ran a loop around Spellscar to see how everything felt.  My light armor DK took a beating.  He was able to kill and stay alive but the LA seems to be a lot less tanky (funny to even type that).  I hope that I can get some addons working on PTS to really get a look at what the damage is actually doing and not rely on "feel"

Provisioning looks like a big overhual.  I logged on to my cook and here is what I see that is now considered "old" and out of the game.

Here are the vet purple recipes I have:

Can someone start getting a list of all the new materials for me?

I am starting to try and compile a list of what old ingredients have turned into new ones by comparing my provisioner on live to PTS.  For instance, I think tomatoes have turned into a new item Frost Mirriam.  

Here is what I think converts in the pics above:

Goat meat = tomato

Battaglir Weeds = fish

Crawdad = apples

Moon sugar = beets

Mudcrab meat = corn

Guar Eggs = pumpkin

This is my guestimate since I am comparing the number of mats I have of each and matching them up between servers.  I will be able to go through more this evening when I can get both servers going at the same time on different computers.

Here are the new items listed w/ the grocer:

You can buy all the mats now for cooking from what I can tell, but have to double check this.  All your recipes will convert over to something new.  You still cannot eat AND drink.  It is one other other.

I need to play around more, but I'm going to make a separate post about prepping for this update and what to expect when you log into it based on the insanity of my first hour on.  ROFL!

Shield stacking is out of control right now in AvA on the PTS.  Multiple shields are being stacked to mitigate over twice a character's health, while others are finding ways to get their magicka restoration or stamina restoration higher than their shield cost so that they can keep refreshing shields for a long time.  I believe ZOS is getting quite a bit of feedback on this (I know I've given several in-game) and hopefully it will be addressed before going to live.

One way I've seen it dealt with (or at least how opponents are getting around my blazing shield) is to keep cc'ing someone. Even if they block, their stamina will run out fast as the cost of blocking is much higher in 1.6. Once they get cc'ed their is a window where they are vulnerable to burst damage.

Fog, I listed the materials I found in my inventory after conversion in a blog post, in case you can use that.

http://eso.gaiscioch.com/lore/update_6_provisioning__a_first_look.html

so how bad is it in ava deac, heard a few horror stories about how things are turning out in there

Just a few more observations.

Champion points are pretty helpful and really improve upon your character.  Investing them smartly is going to be a key factor.

Jewelry regeneration enchants seemed to get hit pretty hard.  Set regeneration is huge and a near must.  Jewelry is much better being enchanted with either weapon/spell power (although this is still a small amount IMHO), or ideally in cost reduction.

Light Armor is really squishy.  The days of a dress and stick player tanking 20 people in AvA are over... well kind of.

As stated above, damage shields are pretty strong right now.  That said, you still can break through them.  On of the issues with the current AvA on PTS is that a close knit well formed group of highly skilled DC players are out there.  They basically destroy anything.  Not entirely convinced this is broken skill systems vs population issues and the fact that this is a dedicated PvP guild running and testing together.  Oh, and as an Emperor you are basically a god.  In the end, AvA will be very taxing on people when 1.6 goes to live.  People that haven't tested will be utterly shocked at how the changes are.  If you are on PTS and expecting this and adapt, well you will be sitting pretty for a few weeks.

Enlightenment ("rested" champion XP) is pretty sweet.  Will really help people that can't sit there and level or grind all day keep up with champion points.

Champion Points and level are SHARED.  Meaning if you have 70 CP's all characters have 70 CP's.  Spending is independent.  This is nothing new to us.  Champion Point XP is INDEPENDENT.  What I mean is that the xp gained towards a new CP does not move across characters.  For instance, Drinks-with-Two Fists has lets say 300,000 of 400,000 champ points.  My other guy, Kitturn Darkheart, has 250,000.  Now, if I gain 50,000 on Drinks, he has 350,000 XP but Kitturn still has 250,000.  What happens when you level?  When you get a Champion level/point, whoever got it, lets say it was Drinks and he got the final 50,000 XP.  He now has 0 XP and 71 champion points.  Kitturn, would STILL have 250,000 XP towards the next point.  The only difference is that he would be working on my 72nd point now.  Man, this is harder to explain in words than just seeing it.  I hope this is somewhat clear.

That's all I have for now.  Will be sharing more later and of course at the Dude Summit this evening.

One more quick one.

Meteor, the ultimate from Mage's Guild that no one ever uses... Yeah, that thing is a BEAST now.  I mean wow.

Champion Points

One toon earns a point, they all get a point!  Your non-vet's can even assign points!

Does that help, Tnliverpool?  hehe

I can't say much for the AvA, I know of the people in my roleplay community have been doing some duels in AvA just to mess around with the skills in a controlled way against each other with different VR14 templates.

Now I am off to start my spreadsheet of at least 165 recipes and all the provisioning items.  I'll be verifying everything I have versus what you can buy (as listed above).

Tnliverpool, that DC group in AvA is led by Braidas, and he has a track record in the past of using any lopsided skill/exploit he can for an advantage. I don't know what all they are doing now, only been up against them 5 or 6 times. I know they are using shields heavy, but haven't picked up on much other meta stuff.

To give them credit, though, some of them do seem to be focusing fire on single targets. They must be in Team Speak with a leader calling out an opposing player's name and 4-6 DC players then spam high damage attacks on that player.

Two-handed stamina builds of any class are now very strong. In addition to Momentum, an excellent buff skill, I've found the following:

If you morph cleave to brawler, you can jump into a group and spam brawler and have a constant damage shield.  On my level 27 stamina sorcerer, I was able to go into the group dungeon in Shadowfen (mob level 27 in that dungeon) and solo not only groups of mobs, but all bosses except for one that seemed to be able to damage through the shields. Everything else could only occasionally land a hit with the refreshing brawler shield. The occasional damage was so low or infrequent that I didn't even need to heal, my health regeneration would take care of it in combat. I've found similar results on a v14 template stamina templar in Craglorn, and on my v1 stamina NB in Coldharbour.  My next test will be taking that template v14 stamina templar into some Craglorn delves doing brawler spam.

I also suspect that other forms of repeatable shields will be powerful unless they modify damage shields. I haven't tested adding a glyph to a weapon that gives a damage shield every time the weapon enchant procs. I think weapon enchants only proc every 4 seconds though. Perhaps you could use the weapon trait that lowers the weapon enchant cooldown. But then you would be missing out on either the trait that increases crit or the one that increases armor penetration.

The second thing I have found is that Upper Cut and its morphs from stealth behind an opponent is hitting for 22k+ on my v1 nighblade. If I pop buffs like momentum, and expert hunter, I can hit for close to 25k. I am almost 1-shotting frost atronachs in Coldharbor.  It's certainly fun, but I think this is a bit out of hand. I've heard of folks getting hit for the same amount of damage in AvA, though I haven't experienced it yet.

Edit: I just tested a full heavy attack from behind in stealth and it hit for 16k. It's the stealth from behind that seems to be strong.

One note for Nightblades: Mark Target and it's morphs now aggro's the target.  

Yeah, I ran across him and his one other templar buddy plus someone else 2H specced the second day of PTS outside Aleswell.  They will use any advantage they can get for sure.  I did manage to kill him, but if he has his whole coordinated focused group, good luck.  Funny thing is they haven't been spamming radiant destruction as much as people learned they can block it, and above 50% health doesn't hit all that hard.  Now, below 50% it is a legit execute.  As an emperor, I am not sure what he was doing, but with a heal debuff on him constantly a group of about 10 EP against him alone could not drop him below 60 or 70%.  When he did, he went back full almost instant.  Oh, and he had 54k or 57k HP.  Can't remember.  I wonder if he and his crew will show up for the ZoS PvP event.

Here's more on the 2-handed Brawler skill.

The tooltip on my v1 Nightblade for Brawler says: 

Swat enemies in front of you with a mighty swing dealing 1874 Physical Damage and causing them to bleed for an additional 2350 Physical Damage over 10 seconds. 

Also shields you from damage for 8 seconds absorbing up to 1156 damage plus 100% for each enemy hit.

So, if I hit 6 enemies with that skill, each refresh must be giving a 7 x 1156 (8092) damage shield.

On that stamina templar in Craglorn, I found that stacking brawler with blazing shield, that blazing shield would rarely take damage and thus rarely exploded to do damage to opponents. It gave extra shielding when stacked, but the constant refreshing of the brawler shield prevented blazing shield from doing is damage-dealing explosions.

Deacon, to add to the 2H stam discussion I have found that it will be a very powerful loadout.  Momentum/rally buff Major Brutality stays on you when you swap weapons.  Which means my swap to bow now deals 20% more damage.  On my VR12 Khajit my bow weapon damage goes from 1975 to 2370.  With Rally & the new Relentless Focus I have been able to crit w/ Lethal Arrow from stealth for 19,725.  I expect to see a lot more 2H/Bow in pvp now

For provisioning:  A member in one of my trade guilds, @Sneak-Thief, put this spreadsheet together:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1id92dghezDm5XpXxoMyAzbm2eE3TaNhj5M17OuhJBKE/pubhtml

Questions on Enlightment:

1) What triggers it?

2) How long does it last?

3) Is Enlightenment applied to individual characters or is it account wide?

The one thing I do know about it is that each character earns their own CP and when you hit 400k on that character you gain a point for all vets.  Example, I have 6 vets and individually they have 21k, 12k, 0, 124k & 156k.

While grinding in different spots I have found I can get 1 CP (over 400k) in under an hour, when not enlightened I can get about 120-150k of progress in my next CP.  It looks like Spellscar is dead but for EP I found grinding the snakes in Thormar just southwest of Rawl'kha in Reaper's March a very efficient spot

quick question here, since I haven't put much time into...  how are the armor stacking now.  from what I hear light armor is a lot more squishy now...  have they mange to create some sort of balance where heavies have there role and light armor wont be able to tank

Shield stacking is out of control right now in AvA on the PTS.  Multiple shields are being stacked to mitigate over twice a character's health, while others are finding ways to get their magicka restoration or stamina restoration higher than their shield cost so that they can keep refreshing shields for a long time.  I believe ZOS is getting quite a bit of feedback on this (I know I've given several in-game) and hopefully it will be addressed before going to live.

Shield stacking will no longer be viable in 1.6, I don't know about PvP but in PvE the Sorc tanks and going bonkers. They will no longer be able to tank in Cloth.

» Edited on: 2015-02-03 12:58:21

» Edited on: 2015-02-03 13:00:05

Lavum, this quote comes from the a sorc PTS tester in AvA:

I'm talking about Conjured Ward and to a lesser extent Healing Ward and Harness Magicka. The sorc's Shield-stacking Trifecta. With all 3 shields active I was able to absorb between 22-40K points of damage depending on my health and the damage type.

I tested this shield stacking out while assaulting a keep. I was able to bolt through the front door with *every* NPC focused on me, made it all the way upstairs, through the archers back down stairs on the opposite side and all the way back out the front door with relatively little risk. On live if I had tried this I would almost certainly be dead.

Source: Sorc observations on changes between Live and PTS

Then i was mis-informed, or the data they used was outdated. Either way this isn't good news. It pretty much breaks both PvP and PvE. I ran into a Sorc shield stacking in PvP once, 1 healer 6 DPS all pulling over 1k DPS and he killed us all. I guess we will have to wait and see. ESO is turning into a completely new game. Hopefully some checks and balances come to light.