Elder Scrolls Online: Dark Brotherhood Changes
Jun. 4, 2016Elder Scrolls Online: Dark Brotherhood Changes
This meant you could roll an alt and have hundreds of Champion Points at Level 1, giving you a significant advantage inDungeonsorPvP. The system encouraged playing more than one character, however players still complained that it took too long to level up to Veteran Rank 16, and so Zenimax has now removed the Veteran Ranks to accommodate. Level 50 is the new cap, and since your Champion Points carry over to your alts, you could have a max level character of another class in 8 hours or so if you now wish. Happy Alting!
For the most part they remain largely the same. Where aSetorWeaponmight have been Veteran Rank 12 before, it is now instead Champion 120. The stats, damage and defense remain the same as they were at Veteran Rank 12. Really the only difference is that now Weapons, Armor and Sets are gated behind Champion Ranks. Since your character will automatically be given 10 Champion Ranks for each Veteran Rank you had, you’ll still be able to use all the gear you could before the change. The best gear currently requires Champion 160 and is expected to increase in future Updates. The advantage is, of course, your alts are now the level of your most played character, and can enjoy endgame gear.
With the Update came 10 new sets, changes to 8 existing ones and scaling improvements to others. 4 of these new sets were actually added to theImperial City, and are gated behind that DLC as you need to barter with the Tel Var Stone Vendor there in order to obtain them (you can of course, purchase them from other players). 3 are new crafted sets and 3 can be obtained from the Daily Reapeatable Quests or chests aroundGold Coast. The most intriguing of these sets isPelinal’s Aptitudewhich makes your Weapon and Spell Damage the higher of the two values, allowing for some interesting new builds.
Of the 8 existing sets that got revamped, the 2 most notable changes are to theDreugh King Slayer Setand theViper Sting Set. Dreugh King Slayer now passively provides Major Brutality, effectively gimping the Set (except in some situational builds), and the Viper’s Sting Set got a huge increase to the damage you deal. The other 6 sets were improved, but not enough to be worth noting.
Many Sets have now been scaled to Champion 160, most notably are the Trials Sets and ALL PvP Sets. Furthermore, you can no longer purchase Sets directly from the Elite Gear Vendor and other Vendors in Cyrodiil, but now must purchase boxes that drop pieces at random. These boxes have a considerably reduced cost (20,000 AP), and and are also separated into type (light, medium, heavy), and playstyle (defensive/offensive). You may also purchase Hew’s Bane boxes, which drop pieces of 6 of theThieves Guild Sets.
All in all, these changes should drastically improve build variety and give the economy of the game a much needed boost. I myself am looking forward to gettingRavagerat Champion 160!
A few things have changed on thecraftingfront. First, Poison Making has been added to theAlchemycraft. New crafting ingredients have been added to make this possible, and many of them drop from enemies (yay for less bag space!). Just as with potions, you will need higher level Alchemy in order to make more potent poisons.
Secondly, there have been some improvements made toTraits. Notably are the changes toWell-Fitted,Charged,Sturdy,Powered,Defending,Nirnhoned, and the addition ofProsperousandDecisive. Well-Fitted now reduces the cost of Roll Dodging as well as Sprinting, making this a serious consideration for Stamina builds. Charged andInfusedcould both be used in some very specific builds, and might become more mainstream. Powered will now be a staple on most Restoration Staves and Sturdy will be a must on mostShields. Defending actually gives a lot of Resistance now and is worth considering if you need a bump in defense. Nirnhoned simply increases your Weapon Damage by a % now, which is just awesome!
These changes should, again, help to shake up variety, get some creative builds going and really break up that cookie cutter formula the game has possessed for quite some time.
Lastly I want to talk a bit about theSkillchanges that came with this Update. Firstly I’ll cover the buffs and nerfs to some prominent skills:
Wrecking Blow– Got a major nerf, as the knockdown and stun were completely removed. It instead has been added to Dizzying Swing, which lost it’s Maiming properties, forcing the player to now choose between the knockdown or the extra damage. I expect to see many more people running Dizzying Swing now, as the knockdown is just too good.
Dawnbreaker– Now deals Physical Damage (thank god!), and now knocks down ANYONE in its Smiting morph. It also no longer does extra damage to Undead/Daedra. This is huge because it has long been used to deal with Vamps in PvP.
Mage Light– Is no longer a toggle and both versions now detect stealth. I expect many players will slot this in their PvP build now more than ever, as the Radiant morph now reduces the damage taken from stealth by 50% AND prevents you from being stunned.
Guard– This skill was completely changed and used to be useless. Now it sends 30% damage from a player of your choice to you until you turn it off or move out of range. This skill now has a legitimate place in PvP and PvE. It’s only drawback is the 15m range, which will be hard to stay within in PvP. I was fully expecting a morph that increased the range, but no such luck. Hoping they change to one in a future patch.
Perhaps the biggest change to Skills in the Update was to theFighters Guild line. This whole line has been almost completely redone and where the line used to be effective very situationally (mainly fighting undead), they have broadened the scope of most of the skills to make them effective against any enemy. While it remains to be seen how these changes will affect builds and playstyles, you can expect these Skills to be used in some niche builds.
One thing to note is that many Skills that have Stamina morphs or variations have now been changed to deal Poison, Disease or Physical damage so as to be benefited by Champion System passives likeMighty. This is a great change and should help to improve the DPS of many existing builds and help to create new ones.
Elder Scrolls Online has had me playing for over two years now, thanks to a developer team that not only listens to the players, but acts smartly on their suggestions. A lot has changed in these past 26 months, and with moreDLCcontent being added it is actually a great time to consider subscribing to ESO Plus to enjoy the perks toinspiration, experience, free access to DLC and of course, to take advantage of the “expanded crafting inventory” from the “Craft Bag”.
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Castielle
Senior Editor at Fextralife. I enjoy gaming, playing and watching sports, cooking yummy food, watching a good movie and hanging out with Fex.
Wrecking blow spam is lame. Unfortunately nothing is being done about nightblade magicka det, sap and vicious death combo
Guess you won’t see like 20 noobs running around 2h spamming wrecking blow. Honestly there annoying lol with no skill.
I’m looking forward to the patch on console – it’ll be interesting to see just how many CP people around you actually have.
I did some PvP in Azura today, and the campaign is really dead. A shame as I enjoy the equalizer of no champion points there… Haderus was a lagfest :_:
I’m hyped!
(Except for the wrecking blow part sigh I finally had a skill setup I liked T-T)
Oh, poisons are a thing now? I might actually have to start playing again, just to put that 50 Alchemy score to work.
