Update 9 (Thieves Guild) Latest Information

This article is for players who might have missed some details about some key aspects of ESO changing in Update 9 (Thieves Guild).

Update 9 feat. The Thieves Guild

Release Date for PC/Mac: March 7

Release Date for XBox One: March 22

Release Date for PS4: March 23

Skills Changes with Update 9

Item Sets with Update 9

All About The Thieves Guild

Animations Priority Roll Back

The new animation sequence which was released with PTS patch 2.3.0 is not going to be released to the live servers.

Rich Lambert

Just wanted to update everyone on where we are at with the animation prioritization efforts going on right now. At its core, the goal for the change was to make it clear which attacks players were using, while preserving the responsiveness of combat. We’ve made great strides towards this, but there are still a number of cases where things just don’t look or feel right (blocking as an example). As such, we’re going to be rolling back this change in next weeks PTS patch (2.3.4) and will not be taking it to the live megaservers.

 

We will continue to iterate on the system internally and will roll out the changes when they are ready.

Cyrodiil

The Thieves Guild patch (Update 9) will allow all players to freely assign new Home and Guest Campaigns due to the introduction of Champion Point free Campaigns.

After the patch players with multiple characters on different Alliances will be able to assign characters to the same Home or Guest Campaign without restriction.

This article by ZOS goes into some of the other changes to Cyrodiil in Update 9.

Also, remember the new Cyrodiil vendor coming with the patch, which sells Undaunted gear for Alliance Points or gold.

PVP Item Sets

The new PVP sets will be available through the Rewards for the Worthy mails received for playing PVP.

Gina Bruno

Just to confirm, below are the only sets that will be available from Rewards for the Worthy when the Thieves Guild update goes live.

 

Vicious Death
Transmutation
Marksman’s Crest
Leki’s Focus
Fasalla’s Guile
Warrior’s Fury

 

For the item sets listed above, we will be increasing the drop rate so you are guaranteed to receive a piece from one of these item sets each time, rather than only having a small chance to receive a piece from a large pool of possibilities. You will still be able to obtain the previously available item sets from the Alliance vendors, and we are currently evaluating plans to alter their wares in the future, both to change the exact sets they offer, and to bring their wares up to VR16.

Moving forward, we will regularly cycle out older item sets from Rewards of the Worthy so you are given a greater opportunity to acquire the newest item sets, and older item sets will be purchasable from the Alliance vendors.

Azure Plasm

The system for distributing the first batch of Azure Plasm for the Soul Shriven style was explained in detail. Azure Plasm is the style material needed to make Soul Shriven style gear. You can get it by destroying Dark Anchors (Dolmens). The mail system will mail some Azure Plasm with the Motif as a kind of “starter pack” based on the amount of unique Dolmens you have destroyed so far.

Hey folks! We appreciate the feedback on the system mail, and we’ll look into adjusting it. We want it to reflect that the number of Azure Plasm you receive is based on the unique Dark Anchors you’ve destroyed, not an exact 1:1 match up to Dark Anchors defeated.

 

To expound on the formula a little more, we look at the number of unique Dark Anchors you’ve destroyed, and base the number of Azure Plasm off of that. So if you’ve destroyed the Lagomere Dolmen five times, that counts only as a single Dark Anchor, not five. The one additional wrinkle is that we count the Dark Anchors in Cyrodiil for double – which is reflected in the actual drop rates, by the way; Dark Anchors in Cyrodiil drop more Azure Plasm than Dark Anchors elsewhere.

 

Finally, the mail is sent to a character, not an account. So if you’ve had multiple characters beat Caldwell’s Silver, then each character who’s done so will receive a mail when you log in with them. Each mail will have Azure Plasm based on that character’s record of destroying Dark Anchors.

Hawk Eye Bow Passive

ZOS_KNowak

Hey guys, thanks for the discussion on Bow PvE DPS. We agree that “pure” Bow PvE builds are parsing a little bit lower than we’d like in dungeon and Trial encounters. We want to improve Bow’s sustained damage without buffing its burst (especially from sneak), and we targeted a change that will help out Bow builds without influencing the hybrid Dual Wield/Bow or Two Handed/Bow builds which are already very competitive.

 

Old Hawk Eye:
Increases the damage of your Bow attacks by 8/15% when striking off-balance enemies.

 

New Hawk Eye:
Your successful Light and Heavy Attacks increase the damage of all your Bow abilities by 2/5% for 4 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

 

A standard Bow PvE DPS rotation should be able to generate and maintain Hawk Eye stacks throughout a boss encounter, and this keeps it out of reach of sneak burst or hybrid builds who only use Bow to keep up Volley or Poison Injection.

Magelight / Shadow Cloak

Some changes were made to reveal effects to balance them with Nightblade Shadow Cloak and invisibility potion mechanics.

If you are invisible, enemy players using Magelight and Revealing Flare will reveal you and prevent you from returning to stealth and invisibility for 3 seconds, down from 5 seconds.

Piercing Mark will no longer prevent you from entering stealth or invisibility. It will match its behavior currently on the live megaservers, and will only give the caster of the Piercing Mark unerring vision of you.

DLC Rewards

When you buy a DLC and travel to the new zone contained within it, you’ll unlock a new reward. See this article by ZOS for more information. At the moment both rewards are pets, but future DLCs might reward players with different items.