Going through the patch notes regarding CP changes introduced with the MW expansion today. I’ve no doubt tweaks will come, but for now and to help me with initial CP reallocation, I took some notes:

New CP cap is 630.

Health, stamina, magicak CP gains are now capped at CP300 with +20% vs the old cap of 20% at CP600.

Gains are on a diminishing returns curve. Generally, 50 points = about 75% of the benefit.


100 points = +15%:
Hardy, Elemenal Defender, Quick Recovery, Siphoner, Mooncalf, Arcanist, Health, Tenacity, Tumbling, Blessed, Elemental Expert, Mighty.

100 points = +25%:
Ironclad, Thickskin, Bastion, Warlord, Shadowward, Elfbain, Shattering blows, Master at Arms, Thaumatage, Precise Strikes.

100 points = +35%:
Expert Defender, Sprinter, Bashing focus, Shade, Physical Weapons Expert, Staff Expert.

100 points = +55%: Befoul.

100 points = +5280:
Spell shield, Light armor focus, Medium armor focus, Heavy armor focus. Spell erosion, Piercing.

100 points = +1650: Resistant.

Edit: Oops. When I moved this post from another thread to here, somehow it made me the thread originator. I can't delete it to fix since that would delete the thread. Oh well. My intent was simply to add this post to hazmick's excellent new thread.

Now that the NDA is over, we can freely talk about the Morrowind expansion. I thought a separate topic would be best while early access is going on to avoid spoiling it for those that are waiting.

I'll show some screenies I took on the PTS a little later - lots of great stuff to see on Vvardenfell!

Oh boy! Khajiit is downloading the update now!

I'm up and running now with the pre-ordered access.

I'm going to play Bowgirl for awhile since she is not L50 yet. I'll let Healer and Sorc rest for a bit while I think about how to redo their CP.

The pre-order perks of armored horse and dog are nice but don't really suit Buffy.

The magnificently bright spot for Buffy is that new warden costume. It is EXACTLY what we've been looking for since missing the mantled knee-length mage robes with pouch from Skyrim. And (ESO+) it dyes up perfectly into Buffy's forest green and buckskin colors. Woot!

The bow heavy attack now autofires when it is ready. This is good and bad but, overall, I'm gonna call it good.

Since the sorc doesn't rely on volatile familiar or crystal frags, she'll easily be fine. She uses liberal heavy shock staff attacks already and has a massive magicka pool (Necropotence) so sustain should also be fine for her.

Templar will take some more thought and adjustment. Overall, she will be nerfed some for sure but I'm confident she'll adjust and be okay.

The patch changes aren't actually too bad. PTS Haa-Rei was fine while questing in Morrowind, and it's not too difficult to change your builds and adapt.

I agree about the Warden costume - looks great!

Suran!!

Oh so now the game starts in Morrowind? What about the Coldharbour stuff?

By starting in Morrowind, you don't "officially" become Soul Shriven until you set foot on the mainland and take the quest--kickstarting the beginning in Coldharbour without the tutorial bits. The game still functions as if you were though, lmao. I didn't get to see it myself, but apparently they put the intro cutscene back into the game that was removed with Tamriel Unlimited. The one where you get to watch the PC get sacrificed.

Anyways, I didn't get too far into the Morrowind storyline while in Beta, but I did explore a bit. My opinion of it was between "this is great!" and "this is too empty." It was advertised that exploration would be rewarding so I expect more than what you can find in vanilla (and you can find some neat things in out of the way locations), but then again I didn't explore too thoroughly.

Also, they decided to keep the rancid female Dunmer outfits, which is even worse because practically everything else fits Morrowind's aesthetic. It isn't as bad as the concept art, but jesus are the designs jarringly out of place. who greenlit this? Why weren't they limited to the mainland, where it would make more sense (especially if you take it as an imitation of Almalexia's...outfit....) A better alternative, IMO Like I said, the male outfits are basically what's displayed there. :T

Anyways, that rant aside, I figure I can share what I'm going for with my Warden once I decide to buy the expansion.

1, 2

The name was just a placeholder (that was taken, I ultimately went with Nord in Development) I'm mostly concerned about the hair and face. I guess I can ultimately go with that but idk. I got time to work on it I guess. Personality-wise, he's supposed to be a blend of Jo'zira and Eolan (there is a very good reason for this). As for Backstory...eh, gotta work on that too.

Incoming screenie dump, excuse the PTS watermarks:

A familiar sight

Some great armour designs

Buoyant Armiger

Telvanni guard

Militant Ordinator

New bugs

New...birds?

Silt strider

Vivec city

Vivec interior

Telvanni towers

Telvanni interior

Telvanni furniture

Ashlanders

Ashlands

Old new friend

Thanks for the great screens. Not in or going to MW for a long time. Bowgirl is loving having all of Grahtwood to herself. Bowgirl is only L27 now so she has decided to pass by open dolmens rather than trying to solo them. Lol.

I don't use any Add on 'mods' so I'm loving the buff tracker you can set up now in Settings > Combat to show various buffs. Buffy is quite dependent on her chow buffs and never wants them to run out. And this will be really helpful for the healer to track all buffs/debuffs/HoTs etc.

I never played TES III and was never inspired by anything I saw in various vids of the game except the wonderful music. I'm glad to hear that has liberally been infused into things on the mainland.

One of the MW patch changes was to improve pets sometimes unsummoning when you went through various loading screens. They done good. When entering a dungeon, for example, Spike used to be gone. Now he 'resummons' himself as Buffy enters.

Aw man. No Cephalopod helm for Telvanni guards?

Anyways, more related to the patch, but the Research Scrolls, new hireling mails and instantly logging out of your house alone are good additions.

I was going to think about my CP allocation a little for the squad but I already spent like half of them so I guess that's how it'll be. I haven't tried to adapt to changes since...after Wrothgar? Let's see if my complacency gets me anywhere this time.

CP allocations. I just did Buffy the pet magsorc and her new numbers look fine. I wasn't too concerned about her since she doesn't rely on volatile familiar or crystal frags and uses plenty of heavy attacks. Next project will be Buffy the healing magplar. She was more heavily nerfed and I may well consider changing her skills up just a little.

Not yet? I'm sure they'll find a way to profit from adding it later.

Best addition so far has to be the new songs added to the lute emote. Haa-Rei has been rocking out in the Sadrith Mora town square.

Speaking of Sadrith Mora - the Telvanni house isn't yet purchasable but it's listed as a 'notable' home so it's likely going to be reeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaally expensive.

Datamining has been done and tbh, two of the hairs caught my eye.

This one's for maybe replicating one of my Skyrim characters in ESO now that there's a frost/healing class. (maybe...oh, hey!
I completely forgot that until recently he was my avatar here!)

This one probably for my warden, since in my mind he always had Eolan's hair and I didn't want to repeat it on another character.

Allocated all of magplar and magsorc's CP points and now their numbers look just fine.

Then did a daily undaunted delve with magplar and happily discovered three things:
1. The templar nerfs didn't degrade her performance that I could tell. Of course, it will take some long boss fights to reveal any new weakness in her healing/sustain.
2. With all her timed effects going on, the new buff timer display is wonderful!
3. Buried in the patch notes it says the undaunted xp gained from their daily delves was significantly increased. Yup, instead of 5 xp, she got 10 xp for her daily delve. That (100% increase) is indeed significant, as it halves the time it takes to level undaunted via those solo quests.

Though I wasn't too concerned about her success after the MW patch, I just took magsorc out for a solid stress test that involved a challenging quest. She did great.

My focus has really been on adjusting to the changes in gameplay and how they affect Buffy in her Bowstamsorc, Staffmagsorc and Staffmagplar variants.

I'm breathing a sigh of relief as I can now conclude all three are doing okay.


I'm sure I'll let the theorycrafters, bugfixers and guidewriters all do their jobs before I venture into the new content as far as Vaardenfell and the warden class.

Khajiit wants to go MagWard (is this the right abbreviation?) with Brenna but dammit he also wants her to be a bad ass with pointy objects too! Is there a happy medium with this? How do templars balance wielding heavy melee weapons with their magical abilities?

Quite simply, they don't. Since you don't get magicka back from melee weapon attacks, using melee weapons on any magicka build is purely aesthetic. For story content that's usually fine though.

So basically if you are wanting to play a mage/warrior hybrid, it would be best to just go ahead and focus on magicka with a staff ability bar and then perhaps do your special class magic abilities on the other bar tied to a melee weapon? Would that be right?

Magic-based characters focus on staves and class abilities. For every class, most class abilities favor magic.

Stamina-based characters focus on stamina weapons and slip in just a few of their class abilities that either have a stamina morph or magic skills that deliver results that do not scale with magic.

The primary successful exception to this is tanks. They are generally a true hybrid character focusing on health to survive, stamina to block and magic for special abilities. The price they pay for extra health and splitting resources between stamina and magicka is that, though they can take a real beating to protect others, they have poor damage and must rely on others for damage.

You will see some interesting and successful variants. For example, some damage-focused magplars wield 2 swords but never hit with them. They rely only on casting magic abilities. The reasons they carry 2 swords are twofold. First, they get an extra enchantment slot. Second, the top passive for dual swords in +5% to ALL damage. The price they pay is in sustain - no staff heavy attacks to regen magicka unless they slot one on the back bar.

Similarly, you will sometimes see magsorcs with twin daggers. Same reasoning except, since magsorcs are reliant on crit %, they benefit from the twin dagger top passive of +5% to crit %.

So on weapons enchants you don't need to hit with them to gain the benefit of their enchant?

If you mean enchants, then (like poisons) they won't do you much good if you are carrying the weapon only for one of the passive perks I mentioned. Traits on weapons, however, apply fine as long as the weapons are equipped.

The cutscene with Mannimarco is neat. I wish they had included it from the beginning. The stuff that Lyris and The Prophet tell you makes more sense once you’ve seen yourself be sacrificed. I didn’t plan on going the Coldharbour route again, but new Jerric was too curious not to talk to the Hooded Figure. *sigh*

Also The Prophet must have launched him extra hard out of Coldharbour this time, because he experienced a hard landing.

Some shots from the sacrifice cutscene:

You seem to be in the same situation as the bald guy who is walking in front of you

This does not look good

My turn (I failed to catch the previous sacrifice’s body being yanked from the altar)

Dude, put down the knife and let’s talk

Dead

But death is not the end



Khajiit, I use the Pelinal’s Aptitude crafted set for hybrid builds. It is not ideal, but it is the closest I have come to having a character feel like a battlemage.

Grits, thanks for the screenies. Oooh, I'm so glad Buffy left Meanimarco writhing in perpetual torment last time we saw him!


I am unhappy about two things relating to Spike the clannfear that really hurt Buffy the Bowgirl (stamsorc). The clannfear no longer autoheals between skirmishes. His self heal is expensive to use for a stamsorc so repeatedly using it is problematic. When Buffy is stealthed at range and tells Spike to attack, he instantly draws aggro instead of the game waiting until he actually closed the distance and bit. That tends to compromise Buffy's position earlier than she wants. The heal thing is the bigger and more problematic concern.

Since neither of these 'changes' were mentioned in the patch notes, I'm hoping they are unintended bugs to be fixed. Playing a bow stam sorc that uses a pet is already as challenging as we can deal with. These extra zingers, if not fixed, may cause her game to become too tedious to bother with.

For the pet using magsorc, these bugs aren't a big problem since she sits on a mountain of magic, can shield her pets and strikes with the power of a thunderstorm.

Does the dual weapons thing work for a waraxe and sword as well as two swords?



Oh thanks for the tip! Khajiit will have Mira be on the lookout for this station.

Here's the write up of Dual Wield's top passive:

Grants a bonus based on the type of weapon equipped: Each axe gives your melee attacks a 8% chance to bleed enemies for 2310 Physical Damage over 6 seconds. Each mace causes your attacks to ignore 10% of an enemy's Physical Resistance. Each sword increases your damage done by 2.5%. Each dagger increases your Weapon Critical rating.

Note the dual swords applies to ALL damage (even magic damage). I misspoke regarding dual daggers; as you can see they only boost weapon crit%. It is stamsorcs who normally DW daggers due to this. Their critical surge sorc ability lets them heal on crit hits so they want a very high crit rating.

If you use 2 of the same weapon you get 2x that weapon type bonus. If you use 2 diff weapon types you get 1x the bonus for each weapon. So it depends what you want to get from it.

Again though, for a magic character the choice is dual swords carried only to boost all damage.

Acadian, how did Buffy direct Spike to attack a target from stealth before this update? I have never been able to figure out a way other than attacking the target myself, which has limited the clannfear’s usefulness. Bad news for Elke about the clannfear healing. She has to dole out her magicka carefully so that she gets healed when she needs it. Thank you for the warning.

Today on a guild chat channel someone was asking everyone to describe their Warden so that they could get some ideas/get hyped. Jerric supplied, “Huge Nord pooping out health flowers.” So far that seems pretty accurate.

Oh, magplar Jerric used to carry his sword and board for occasional use of the weapon line's taunt ability. Now he can do that with a frost staff. But he misses carrying a shield.

To command pets to attack, you hold down the 'command pets' button, while targeting and doing a 'light attack' on the target. No attack will go off, instead, your pet(s) will attack that target. I do this all the time on PC but I'm under the impression that you can't do it on game consoles.

Before MW, Spike would charge in but not alert the foe until he drew first blood. By then he had solid aggro and Buffy could safely attack from stealthed range. For a stamsorc with clannfear, Dark Exchange will help a lot since you can trade stam for mag and hp. Both the aggro change and loss of autohealing between skirmishes were introduced coincident with MW. Since there is not a peep about either change in the patch notes, I'm really hoping it is a bug. As I've said, a bowsorc is too much of a challenge to accept anything making it harder/less fun.

It is a completely different proposition with Buffy the magsorc. When she has the pets open combat, Spike charges, Drusilla fires lightning bolts and Buffy slides to one side. The foe will get hit by Dru's lightning bolt first and charge right through Spike after Dru- but not before Spike gets a bite on him. About the time foe reaches Dru, she is dancing to avoid him and he decides that Spike is a better target after all, so he turns to meet Spike. All this time he's running back and forth, Buffy has laid down a solid carpet of thunderstorm under his feet and is pummeling with high damage. She can also shield and heal both pets at will. So very different, but ultimately much more potent package than the stambowsorc.

It is great fun to hear about Jerric's wardish adventures as he poops out healing flowers! The warden does look interesting but I think I'm going to wait to let the bugs and dust settle.

Ok got it. Looks like Brenna is just going to be a staff kind of gal, lol

I know no one wants to hear me whining, but did anyone else feel like Vvardenfell was...unfinished? Not just Vivec, mind, but it's almost like they didn't complete everything in time and just decided to close things off.

I know they did this with Craglorn on launch so maybe they're planning to expand in the future? They said something to this effect as far as the Sheogorad region goes. (Not on the list to things to do, but is considered, anyways).

As Ghastly said earlier in the thread:


Lol

Ooh, you got Divayth Fyr !!! I just met him yesterday for the first time, not sure how I missed him on the PTS, because I did that trial - I think because he looked so young that it never occurred to me that it was Divayth, so didn't notice his name, lol.






Great looking Warden!

I kind of agree with you on the main questline - almost too easy, but fun! I was hoping for it to be a bit harder; more involved from the sound of the build up Zen gave it. It ended too quickly, in my (humble) opinion.


















Yes, the outside of it looked Awesome, but I wasn't very impressed with the size or look of the interior. I think the only draw inside would be the transporter.







Wait, THAT is your avatar here? I ... Uh ... your avatar looks like a baby alligator hatching from its egg, am I ... huh?

Second: Did you say those characters are from Skyrim? That game does not look like Skyrim to me, Wow !!! I think I need a quick trip to the eye doctor here!!!

This is so cool! I wish Zen would quit cutting the great stuff from the game and/or nerfing it!







I was hugely disappointed in the Clockwork City. I was so excited to be going there based on the previews Zen put out; but on going though it = it was a whole bunch of gorgeous nothing. Barely any enemies, absolutely no loot; way too easy to avoid the traps ... what was all the hype for? It was a lot less than I thought it would be.

Do I feel they pushed it out half finished = not quite that bad. But do I feel they will add to it over time = yes, and in my (humble) opinion = they had better, lol.

Oh, my current avatar is from this comic. I recently changed it to that.

The avatar I had before was of my Skyrim character, which wasn't supposed to stay as long as it did.

I'm guessing these hairs are coming with the Dwemer Crown Crate rewards and once I get access to Wardens, I'm shooting for both hairs so I can use one of them to recreate one of my Skyrim characters. He Approve


Anyways, as far as the Clockwork City goes, they said that this isn't supposed to be THE Clockwork City, but just a small section of it. A preview, in some ways. We're still getting that Clockwork City DLC, Morrowind just sort of leads into it a little more.

It's not like the plot progress hasn't been drip fed to us for longer than it should have, though. :V

Oh, I DO remember that avatar !!!! That comic you posted = !!!!

I must be a real cheapskate. I haven't bought the expansion yet. I really want it, I'm sure it is going to worth the money, and I think the game has earned my support, but I have to be careful how much I spend right now. I could afford the game, but with grad school coming up I just have to be wary about any purchases I make. I've had to spend a bunch of money on stuff lately too.

I probably could afford to buy the expansion, but I'm going to hold off for now. I definitely plan to get it in the near future though. It's going to be awesome seeing those familiar sights and faces again. Well, except for Vivec. [censored] that guy. Pretty cool that Divayth Fyr is in the game though.

idk mang, I don't think any of us would blame you if you prioritize real life over a game.

Anyways, it seems that Morrowind is currently selling for 18% off on quite a few of the game retail websites on Zenimax's "official" list. Question is, do I go for it or wait to see if it drops any more? The thing officially goes live next week so idk. Apparently I got till release to decide if GamersGate's countdown clock is any indication.

EDIT; Welp, I got it. Still gonna wait a bit to start, tho

No spoilers, but I think that the Balmora questline will end up being one of my favorite parts of the Chapter. It's pretty great, and once again it served the character well. Or I should say characters. It could just be me reaching for a reason to have picked the "right' character for the Chapter, though, like with Orsinium.

Well, it was more fitting than not. Let's just say that a certain note from a certain someone found in a library in Orsinium couldn't have been found by a better character than Eolan. And also the fact that the majority of the cameos were DC based, given that it was a (technically?) DC zone.

Anyways, considering that in the Squad's world the events of Morrowind are happening at the same time as their questing through the Alliance zones/stopping the Planemeld, I really gotta consider how Fjotreid's gonna end up meeting up with them. Hm... (Yes, even though Naryu's supposed to be in Deshaan for it. Let's just say it took quite a bit of convincing to get Hates to cooperate with the Ebonheart Pact and she ended up doing the questline pretty late. So it works out.)

I really liked the Balmora stuff too. The characters involved were all pretty interesting, and getting a choice at the end really made it feel like our character had a little bit of impact in the whole thing. I liked the Telvanni quest arc for similar reasons.

Having these smaller story arcs rather than one big story works really well IMO.

Totally agree. I just finished investigating for the Archcanon since I was stopping at every area to do the nearby quests (and doing some dailies while i was at it), but from what I've seen so far, the small contained story arcs worked well here just like they did in the vanilla zones.

The premise of the Telvanni quest alone sounds interesting, though. Let's see if it dethrones Balmora once I get to it.

They got Michael Gough to voice Bretons and as much as I respect his ability to add emotion and other little details to his line delivery, the man does not have a great range of voices. They're almost indistinguishable from his Nord voices he's been doing since Skyrim.

Y'know, these voices make me think of Wente Fay's from King's Quest. In fact one of the new Guild Traders he voices kinda looks like a taller version of Wente...hm....

Oh my god so

I finished the Morrowind questline (talk about cockteasing the damn Daedric plot...) and a few things under some spoilers.

Elaborating on the previous mention of Balmora, and other things.


Anyways, I quite enjoyed how they repeated what they did with the vanilla zones and made smaller story arcs for all the different locations.

On that note, last night Fjotreid did not have A Great Time while questing in Azura's Coast. He was forced to do all sorts of nasty things while working around the Telvanni. Luckily he had a Counterfit Pardon Edict and an invisibility potion to help him out.

Words about the main Telvanni questline


I really, really love these characters. It might not be possible, but I hope Veya and Sun-in-Shadows show up again (Most likely'll see Eoki, though, especially since he was in the tutorial).

Then there's the ghost-hunting group. Once again, Fjotreid may not have gotten the best outcome.

Anyways, I'm glad I found the expansion at a discount, cause otherwise I would have missed out on this for a while. Although I've been starved for story content for so long I'm just really, really happy we got something a little more substantial. On the whole the Gold Coast was not the best DLC, the DB questline included.

I still have a lot of things to do, which is great. Fjotreid's still at level 21, though, so this is fine.

One more spoilerific thing before I end this (it involves the Chapter, specifically the Vos questline, and TES III)

I know what you mean about the choices. Haa-Rei is still not sure if he did The Right Thing with regards to some of them (the ghostbusters especially), but I kind of like that. It'd be boring if the endings were too clean and clear cut.

I thought the Telvanni stuff, both Mistress Dratha and Sun-In-Shadow, was really interesting. Very much enjoyed that, even though I should hate House Telvanni.


I feel like the end of the Vivce arc (is that supposed to be the main one? idk) felt a bit too open. All the DLC zones leave a little room for future content, but the Clockwork City stuff here feels a little too overt imo.

Regarding the quest choices, yeah, it's another thing that I really liked and wondered about. Unlike other quest in the past, it seems that the different outcomes don't really affect anything past the story part.

This time around, some quest givers made it seem like the reward would have been different depending on your performance. I remember certain quests in Wrothgar also had this condition, but I never learned whether or not it made a difference, because MMO. Regardless, Fjotreid also took lesser rewards for decisions he felt were best. Always love that choice, tbh, and I always suppress my recently developed completionist/max reward junkie tendencies for it.
(See: the Mages Guild questline, which is one example I'm 100% sure works in the way I described)

The only hatred I felt for House Telvanni was on behalf of the characters. Maybe I get too easily invested into things and characters, but then that's what makes TES great for me.

Now that the Clockwork City is on the horizon, maybe it'll all be tied together.

I looked for Divayth Fyr the first time I went there on the PTS, then walked right by him - didn't recognize him from the 1000 year old mer we meet in the original Morrowind, lol.






WOO HOO!

If anyone picks up either the bow or belt from the Defiler set, I'd be glad to take it off your hands.

The Ashlander dailies just keep spitting jewellery at me, and it's difficult to grind the Vvardenfell WBs since you need a decent group to help you out.

I've been overloaded with Defiler/Warrior Poet/War Maiden stuff; (mostly Prosperous and Training traits, unfortunately; so most of it has been ground up).

I got most of it farming those two group dungeons (for my 6th house robe and hopefully a Dwemer geo-pet!!!) and in treasure chests and/or killing random enemies in my travels (even mudcrabs seem to drop armor for some odd reason!).

I'll start holding any Bows or Belts I get for you; is there any particular traits you want?