Now that we know that a new DLC and update is arriving to The Elder Scrolls Online in August, we begin the steady march of update previews from ZeniMax Online Studios, and the first one out of the game relates to combat tweaks coming in Update 35, which are primarily focused on closing skill gaps between players.
This is being done by applying a flat amount of damage to light and heavy weapon attacks, and increasing the duration of effects like DoTs, buffs, and debuffs, while also reducing the effectiveness of such effects per second. The idea is to reduce the stress of keeping DoTs or buffs applied and to make “weaving” – applying multiple actions during the global cooldown window – slightly less impactful on the higher end in order to not leave low-end players in the dust.
The announcement post does acknowledge that there will be some growing pains in the interim while further promising that balance tweaks will be made post-launch. “Since the scale of these changes is large in nature, please understand it may take more time for adjustments to come since changing one standard affects many specific abilities,” the post remarks.
As one might expect, reaction to these proposed changes are mixed, with many decrying the feeling of reward that mastering weaving provides or others pointing out that gear-related power creep is still an issue.
