U45 Public Test Server (10.3.0 - 10.3.4)
This is a "curated" list of changes and additions made to the game over the course of U45 PTS. It combines highlights of all patch notes from 10.3.0 - 10.3.4. Full patch notes are available at https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/pts
This PTS cycle includes some Cyrodiil testing with the temporary "Vengence" campaign. I'll be skipping over that since it's just a test and not something planned to be implemented permanently.
Red text = personal commentary
CONTENT
Update 45, "Fallen Banners" dungeon pack
Exiled Redoubt (West Weald)
Lep Seclusa (Hew’s Bane)
Release date: 3/10/25 for PC. 3/24/25 for consoles.
NEW SETS
Dungeon: Exiled Redoubt
Light – Vandorallen’s Resonance
2 – 1487 Offensive Penetration
3 – 657 Critical Chance
4 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – Dealing damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack places an electric charge on yourself and below your enemy. After 1 second, both charges explode in a 4 meter blast, each dealing Shock Damage to enemies hit. This effect can occur once every 6 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.
Procs from a fully-charged heavy attack, followed by a one-second delay, and has a very short range (4 meter total diameter = 2 meter radius). Too many hurdles to be useful in PvP.
Medium – Jerensi’s Bladestorm
2 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 – 1487 Offensive Penetration
4 – 1487 Offensive Penetration
5 – While in combat, casting an ability that leaves an effect on the ground creates a 6 meter Spike Vortex that deals Physical Damage over 5 seconds to enemies inside it. After 5 seconds, enemies within the Vortex are dealt additional Physical Damage over 5 seconds. This effect can occur once every 15 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.
Possibly a decent PvE set, but static ground DoTs with a small area (6m diameter) will have very limited usefulness in PvP. Could possibly pair well with Dark Convergence (same proc condition), but there are probably better options out there such as Plaguebreak, Tarnished Nightmare, Venomous Smite, and others.
Heavy – Lucilla’s Windshield
2 – 4% Healing Taken
3 – 1206 Maximum Health
4 – 1096 Maximum Stamina
5 – Blocking 3 attacks within 10 seconds creates an 8 meter Windshield at your feet for 10 seconds. Enemies within the area gain Minor Brittle, increasing their Critical Damage taken by 10%. While you are within the area, you gain Major Protection, reducing your damage taken by 10%. This effect can occur once every 7 seconds. You can only have 1 Windshield active at a time.
"Block" as a proc condition is always a turn off to my rolypoly spirit. Seems like it could be decent for someone who doesn't mind the proc condition. I think a different debuff than Minor Brittle would be nice since AOE Minor Brittle is pretty easy to come by. And I'd like to see the friendly buff apply to all allies standing in the area, although Major Protection would need to be changed to Minor Protection or some other weaker group buff in that case.
Monster Mask – Squall of Retribution
1 – 1206 Maximum Health
2 – When you take damage, gain one random effect for 6 seconds:
Gain Minor Protection, reducing your damage taken by 5%
Gain a damage shield that absorbs up to 5835 damage.
Gain a heal over time that heals every 2 seconds.
The heal over time scales off of your Max Health.
This effect can occur once every 4.5 seconds.
Decent selfish defensive monster set. Mindless proc condition. Fairly strong buffs. Good for dueling? Somewhat invalidated by Scribing options.
Dungeon: Lep Seclusa
Light – Fledgling's Nest
2 – 129 Magicka Recovery
3 – 1096 Maximum Magicka
4 – 1096 Maximum Magicka
5 – While in combat, casting an ability that leaves an effect on the ground creates an 8 meter Gryphon Nest for 10 seconds. You and group members inside the Nest gain 168 Magicka and Stamina Recovery. The first time you or a group member leaves the Nest, they gain Minor Courage for 10 seconds, increasing their Weapon and Spell Damage by 215. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.
Long duration static ground effect may be difficult for teammates to take advantage of. These buffs are also easily accessible via Scribing.
Medium – Noxious Boulder
2 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 – 657 Critical Chance
4 – 1487 Offensive Penetration
5 – Dealing damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack creates a 3 meter poison boulder. After 1.2 seconds, the boulder rolls forward, dealing Poison Damage to the first enemy hit and creating a 6 meter pool of poison for 5 seconds, dealing Poison Damage and applying the Poisoned status effect each second to enemies inside. This effect can occur once every 20 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon and Spell Power.
Sounds like a cool visual! However not an exciting set otherwise. Procs from a fully-charged heavy attack (gross) followed by a 1.2s delay. Only hits one target then leaves a static ground effect (not great for PvP). Plus a very long cooldown of 20 seconds. Doubtful I will be farming this set.
Heavy – Heroic Unity
2 – 1096 Maximum Stamina
3 – 1206 Maximum Health
4 – 1206 Maximum Health
5 – Activating a Synergy gives you and up to 3 group members within 12 meters Major Heroism for 6 seconds, granting 3 Ultimate every 1.5 seconds. This effect can occur once every 1 second.
A competitor to Drake's Rush! A way to give your entire team MAJOR Heroism without bashing. Would work best on a coordinated team to ensure you will have plenty of synergies to activate.
Monster Mask – Orpheon the Tactician
1 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
2 – While in combat, casting an ability that leaves an effect on the ground summons a tentacle at the target’s location. After 2 seconds, the tentacle swings wildly in a 5 meter radius, dealing Physical Damage and stunning up to 6 enemies for 3 seconds. Enemies immune to stun take significantly more Physical Damage instead. This effect can occur every 8 seconds and scales off the higher of your Weapon or Spell Damage.
Will pair very well with Dark Convergence. Has the same proc condition so you can activate both sets with one skill. The DC pull grants targets CC immunity, guaranteeing that they will take the additional damage rather than getting stunned from the set. And the 1-second delay from DC makes the 2-second delay from this set much more manageable. I imagine the sequence will go: Cast > Pull > BOOM. And if the target happens to have a Haunting Curse + Mage's Wrath on them at the time too.. >:) Possibly the set I'm most looking forward to with this patch.
Rewards For The Worthy
Light - Arkay’s Charity
2 – 129 Magicka Recovery
3 – 129 Magicka Recovery
4 – 1096 Maximum Magicka
5 – When you cleanse a negative effect from yourself or an ally, restore 13 Ultimate to the target. This effect can occur once every 9 seconds per target.
Almost equivalent to Major Heroism. Not a bad option if you want an ult gen set and don't love the other options for one reason or another.
Medium – Lamp Knight’s Art
2 – 1096 Maximum Stamina
3 – 1096 Maximum Stamina
4 – 129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 – Gain 100000 Offensive Penetration. Reduce your damage done by 46%.
Lots of discussion around this one at first but it died down pretty quickly once people realized this is a bad set. Easiest way for me to think about it is this:
660 armor = 1% mitigation
An enemy with 30k armor has about 46% damage mitigation
Example 1:
Stuhn's Favor 5pc = 5312 penetration (+8% damage assuming no overpen)
30k armor (46%) - 5312 pen (8%) = 24,688 armor (38%) = 8% damage gained against target.
Example 2:
Lamp Knight's Art = infinite penetration. -46% damage.
30k armor - Infinite pen = +46% damage gained.
-46% damage penalty = +0% damage gained against target.
CONCLUSION: Targets would need to have 35k+ resistance in order for this set to deal comparable damage to other sets. But in that case you are sacrificing a ton of damage against most other targets.
Heavy - Blackfeather Flight
2 – 4% Healing Taken
3 – 1206 Maximum Health
4 – 1487 Armor
5 – When you Break Free, gain 100% Movement Speed for 7 seconds. This effect can occur once every 28 seconds.
Was interested until I saw the long cooldown. Would like to see them reduce the movement speed bonus and also reduce the cooldown considerably.
CHANGES TO EXISTING SETS
Flame Blossom:
This set no longer deals unintended extra instances of damage when paired with certain other sets.
Pretty sure Elfbane is the "certain other sets". RIP Axollion's build.
Way of Fire:
This set now only activates off Light and Heavy Attacks, rather than any weapon attack.
Excellent change. Still has all the power potential that it always had, you just have to consistently light-attack weave to get it. No more low-effort stealthblades crutching on this set.
Poisonous Serpent:
Reduced the damage on hit of this set by ~92%, but it now always applies the Poisoned status effect, rather than having a 10% base chance.
This set no longer activates the 1 second global cooldown for other instant damage proc sets, as it primarily deals damage over time now.
Seems considerably weaker than the old version.
Soulcleaver:
This set now increases the potency of your Siphoning abilities by 21%, up from 18%.
NICE! Already one of my favorite sets. I'll take a buff.
Wrathsun:
This set’s stacks now last for 15 seconds, up from 10.
Probably makes very little difference in this set's usefulness.
COMBAT & BALANCE CHANGES
No significant changes