Elder Scrolls Online: Horns of the Reach DLC Changes Explained

Jul. 25, 2017

Elder Scrolls Online: Horns of the Reach DLC Changes Explained

TheElder Scrolls Onlinechanges with every major update:Morrowind,The Dark Brotherhood,Orsinium, etc. And, now with Update 15:Horns of the Reachjust around the corner in August, more changes are coming to the base game. While it will be hard to top the sweeping changes of ESO Morrowind, Horns of the Reach does make some significant changes to the base game. Let’s take a look at what they’re changing in this patch that just went live on PTS last week. As always we will stick to the major game changers and important changes, not every nitty gritty thing. For those of you interested in the full list of changes, please see thePatch Notes pageon the ESO Wiki.

Note that they are all subject to change before going live.

Besides the 6 newSetsand 2Monster Helm Setsadded with the new dungeons:Falkreath HoldandBloodroot Forge, there have been some major changes to nearly all existing Sets. 1, 2, 3 and 4 piece bonuses that contain Max Magicka, Health or Stamina, Weapon or Spell Critical, Physical or Spell Penetration or Physical or Spell Resistance have all been altered.

These are some huge changes that should help to increase the overall DPS of players across Tamriel. Dungeons are much harder since ESO Morrowind was released and between these changes and the nerfing of the 4 hardest dungeons in ESO, players will probably once again have a similar experience to what they had before the Morrowind update.

Some other major changes coming to Sets are the nerfs to the Monster Helm Sets and a few other Sets that are some of the best in the game. Since the first nerf to proc sets (making them unable to critically hit) wasn’t enough, Zenimax has taken it a set further by nerfing them in other ways. They have also taken some steps to further improve some of the less used Monster Helm Sets, to entice players into varying their builds.

All in all these changes should bring a bit more balance to PvP and actually make some of these sets better in PvE. Hopefully we’ll see more of them worn around the game…

Perhaps one of the largest changes made to the game with the Horns of the Reach update is in the form of Trait changes. There has been a pretty stable meta for Weapon Traits, and after this update, that will change. Let’s take a look at these changes and see how:

Zenimax have adjusted the values and bonuses of most WeaponTraitsin the following ways, with the listed values for Two-Handed, gold-quality items:

You can see that Sharpened has taken a 50% cut to it’s penetration, effectively dethroning it as the best Weapon Trait in the game. PvP and DPS players will now have to find Nirnhoned, Precise or Infused versions of their preferred weapons. Tanks and PvP players using Defending on their Sword or Staff of their defensive bar will now have a difficult decision to make, as Defending was also cut in half. This will probably piss off many players; namely those who spent weeks or months farming Maelstrom Arena or City of Ash…

The last of the significant changes in the Horns of the Reach update lies with theMundus Stones. While not everyone shares the same Mundus Stone, there have long been 2 or 3 that have ruled the ESO meta for a very long time. Zenimax has buffed nearly all the values to really give players tough decisions and allow more build flexibility.

The values and bonuses of most Mundus Stones are adjusted in the following ways, with the listed values for CP160+ characters:

You can see that the only nerf was to the Thief, which is the most popular in the game. Nearly all others were boosted by about 33%, making nearly all of them useful to one build or another. I’m excited to play around with these and see what numbers I come up with.

There are a few miscellaneous Horns of the Reach update changes that aren’t as huge as those listed above, but did warrant mentioning. So I’ll list them here.

Some of these are just quality of life changes, and others will have a more significant impact. Such as the increase speed at which poison ticks and the increased damage that DoTs will now deal. My Templar is really looking forward to this change as it should further increase my DPS. Also, Health Recovery builds will finely have a counter and Dodge Rolling now granting immunity to immbolizations while in Silence will help combat groups running Negate with Encase or Talons.

Thoughts on the changes? Insights of your own to share? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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