Elder Scrolls Online: Some Damage Changes On Update 39

We covered U39 PTS changes for Elder Scrolls Online yesterday. So let's dive in: Damage to monsters effect will now affect proc damage and all DPS changes.

Damage To Monster 

So now Relequen, Zaan and Pillar of Nirn but also Burning status or Poisened status are getting affected by Bahsei, Ansuul, Major and Minor Slayer, very nice change. DK is getting a minor nerf on their Burning damage. 

DK Nerf 

Damage loss but doesnt change much, DK is still S tier Necromancer colossus is getting a cost reduction and Vuln duration is getting extended. 

Necro Buff 

Pretty insane change, but that's sadly gonna make Necro dps even weaker, as you now can take care of the major vuln uptime by yourself as Support Necro or Tank Necro with just Nazaray and Pillager, so you have even less reasons to bring a Necro to your raid, damage being terrible, But this does not affect ESO Gold you get.

We can only hope for Zos to revert some of the nerfs to blastbones, siphon, archer, the execute passive, the dot passive, boneyard, boneyard synergy, Orb and so on, the list is pretty long, it's pretty insane how bad Necro kit currently. 

I find kinda insane that they are not even reverting the execute passive to what it was while Templar Beam exist. Nightblade's Merciless resolve, the bow proc, gets a pretty huge buff, the ability is now fully passive and doesnt need to be activated anymore. 

Grim Focus/BA Change 

It's a nice Quality of life and a little damage increase for NB. Sorcerer Bound armement get a similar change exept that the skill got nerfed to the ground during U35, and even with this change it's still just bad. 

It's litteral damage loss to press the skill on a normal sorc setup as it does less damage than a spammable cast and I'm not even talking about the fact that you would need to remove a pet to slot it. 

Weapon Passive Changes 

Lot of weapons are getting their passive changed: Bow range passive, who used to be until 12% damage done with your bow abilities, is now 5% to evething and 6% crit if you stand a bit far from your target. It makes bow way stronger, Templar is very happy to get a 5% damage boost on Beam. 

Fire staff is nerfed to the ground, it now increases status effects initial hit by 500: this is straight up terrible, the weapon was weak already but now it's laughable, I tried it on dummy and this is so weak that I couldn't even notice a difference with the new passive and without. 

Lightning staff is kinda buffed, it's now a 12% damage increase to your channel or damage over time, so a mini deadly strike pretty much. It's strong on paper on Templar and Arcanist, as it boosts Jab/Jesus beam/Dragon ball beam, but it's still weaker than Daggers from what I tested. Penetrating magic passive is now 3k pen but only to staff abilities for some reasons, so it's still useless. 

Trifocus/Oakensoul Builds Nerf 

Trifocus gets some changed, now the fire heavy attack puts a 20s dot, it's kinda funny as you can now precharge a fire heavy attack before pulling the boss. The shock staff heavy now only cleaves on the final tick, it's a massive nerf to oakensoul builds. 

2H passives gets a nerf, kinda nothing to say here it's just a bit weaker than before. Dual wield passives gets a nerf, daggers lose 1% crit, not the end of the world it's still the best frontbar weapon. 

Mael 2H Big Buff 

UNLESS: Maelstrom 2H is getting a massive buff, now when you stampede you buff all your 2H abilities like Wreaking blow, carve, executionner and so on. It's very strong, you can see in background a nightblade parse I made with stacking 2H abilities and got almost 133k dps. 

Related: Elder Scrolls Online: What Was Updated In Patch 39? - New Content, Updates And Fixes

Azureblight Buff/Nerf 

Azureblight is getting a "buff", now each explosion has a 0.5s internal cd but in counterpart you can already build up the stacks of the next one and the explosions are stronger than before, so it's supposed to be better now. But it's buggued and can't crit anymore, even tho the set litteraly gives you a crit line. 

So on the current pts it's terrible, like not just bad, actually insanely terrible and useless. A comparaison to understand better: I placed 10 dummies in one place to create the best scenario possible for Azureblight, and it got outdamaged by caltrops, the weakest dot in the game. I don't know if that's intended or not but let's hope they will change that. 

Pillager Fix

Pillager profit is getting fixed, took 4 monthes but now at least we can raid again. 

Outro 

So that's it for today, what you think of the patch? Hope you have a nice day!