TESO: Update 35 nerfs DpS professionals, casuals should be able to keep up better
Since yesterday, July 6, 2022, we have known that the Lost Depths dungeon DLC and free update 35 will be released on August 22, 2022 on PC/Mac, Steam and Stadia and on September 9, 2022 on Xbox and PlayStation. In addition to the two dungeons Earthroot Enclave and Capsize Depths, you can expect balance changes, the introduction of additional “mini-events” for battlegrounds and broad-based improvements to experience gain in PvP in general.
That changes with the combat system
As in the last updates, significant changes to the combat system of TESO fall under “Balance changes”. In a extensive preview the Zenimax developers have now given an outlook on the planned adjustments. The developers have two main goals for Update 35: to make in-game combat more accessible by increasing the duration of outgoing effects (damage over time, buffs, and ailments), and also to balance excessive damage production at the higher end of the scale. You can find out what that means in concrete terms below.
Weaving
If you want to achieve maximum damage in TESO at the moment, you have to master “weaving”, i.e. the activation of several actions within the global cooldown. This quirk has always characterized the game’s combat system, and many players enjoy mastering this style of play.
Unfortunately, weaving actions has such a severe impact on performance that players who don’t master this quirk are left miles behind. There’s nothing wrong with that in general, because it’s just part of the process for players who max out the system to deal more damage. However, the difference shouldn’t be that big.
Therefore, with Update 35, the developers are adjusting the effects of Light and Heavy Attacks by setting their damage values, regardless of their respective attributes. In doing so, the designers want to reduce the difference in damage potential enough that there is still some satisfaction in learning to weave and a noticeable effect, albeit less than before.
The devs also provide an example: For reference, with a lot of endgame content, experienced players deal about 15-20 percent of their total damage with light attacks alone, making them a significant contributor to the damage differential mentioned. After the adjustments, these players receive 6 to 11 percent less damage overall, resulting in a much smaller and therefore healthier differential. In principle, weaving is still worthwhile.
combat effects
Aside from weaving, there’s a second area where you can significantly increase or decrease your damage output, and that’s through the optimal or inefficient use of actions that boost events or trigger additional events without you having to activate them repeatedly – that is DoTs, Buffs and Debuffs. By keeping as many abilities of this type active for as long as possible, you greatly improve your combat potential. On the other hand, if you let important effects expire or don’t renew them at all, you lose a lot of damage.
Currently, many of these abilities fall within a 10 second window. So you have to use these skills once every ten seconds to get the most out of them. With a total of ten slots for active skills, a whole range of effects can come together that you have to keep an eye on. And in conjunction with the weaving just mentioned, you have to achieve a high number of actions per minute (APM) in order to be effective, but you also need a fixed rotation to keep as many of the effects as possible active at the same time.
You can only do this if you keep your attention on the action bars and effects. And then getting to hear some of the actual action can quickly become overwhelming. Therefore, with Update 35, the developers are increasing the duration of many DoTs, buffs and debuffs. To compensate, the values of these effects are lowered a bit so that they are not too powerful.
Reference-www.buffed.de