Zenimax Details Combat Changes Coming In Elder Scrolls Online’s Update 33

As was revealed during yesterday’s Elder Scroll Online Global Reveal stream, there’s a lot happening in the game during 2022 detailing the next batch of content, the incoming card game, and the like. Today, the game’s combat team expanded on that with a post detailing changes you can expect in update 33. When this update hits it will bring a significant change to how player abilities work in the game – the goal being to make them scale dynamically with the player’s highest offensive stats. Players should already be somewhat familiar with this from the changes made to passives.

When these changes are implemented it will make it so that abilities that had their scaling restricted to one set of traits or another can be used for both. Effectively, abilities that had scaling tied to Weapon Damage and Max Stamina will now scale with Spell Damage and Max Magicka. The reverse is also true. It won’t be a free-for-all, however. There will be limits to how frequently this can be done based on the stat path a player has chosen.

The team also plans to eventually merge bonuses on buffs, but in the meantime they’ll be dual sourcing them on abilities and item sets. One example given is Major Prophecy and Major Savagery. Ideally, the eventual merge will cut down on names and effects. On that same line of thinking, the devs have also gone through abilities and cleaned some things up, even abilities that don’t get as much use get a little love to make them feel better.