ESO Update 51 PTS Patch Notes & Changes

Major and Minor Buff Consolidation

• Major Brutality and Minor Brutality now provide both Weapon and Spell Damage; Major Sorcery and Minor Sorcery are removed and replaced by Brutality
• Major Savagery and Minor Savagery now provide both Weapon and Spell Critical Chance; Major Prophecy and Minor Prophecy are removed and replaced by Savagery
• Vexation is added as a healing-done reduction counterpart to Mending

Class Group Passives

• Elder Dragon continues to grant Minor Brutality , which now affects both Weapon and Spell Damage
• Hemorrhage continues to grant Minor Savagery , which now affects both Weapon and Spell Critical Chance
• Exploitation replaces Minor Prophecy with a unique 2974 Offensive Penetration group buff
• Illuminate replaces Minor Sorcery with a unique 2974 Armor group buff

Mundus Stones

• The Warrior grants both Weapon and Spell Damage
• The Apprentice grants 8% Experience and Inspiration gain instead of Spell Damage

Alchemy

Weapon and Spell Power traits are consolidated into Increase Power, while Weapon and Spell Critical traits are consolidated into Critical. Alchemy also gains Mending, Vexation, Damage Shield, Heal Absorption, and Force trait options, four new reagents, updated traits on existing reagents, and new potion and poison naming priorities.

Previously crafted potions remain unchanged apart from hybridized Damage and Critical effects, Maim changing to Cowardice, and updated icons.

Stealth and Invisibility

Almost every skill activation now removes Stealth or Invisibility.

Most Nightblade skills remain exceptions unless they provide major burst or heal allies, while many low-noise skills retain their current behavior.

Bone Shield , Blood Mist damage, Rally 's heal, Annulment , Unstoppable , Shield Wall , Defensive Posture , Bone Armor , Venom Skull , Feral Guardian , Falcon's Swiftness , Cutting Dive , Blazing Shield , Relentless Focus , Earthspike , and Earthshield Mantle now remove Stealth or Invisibility.

Trap Beast , Expert Hunter , and Strife no longer remove Stealth or Invisibility when cast.

Effects That Prevent Stealth

• Imbue Weapon , Crystal Weapon , Magelight , Overload , Sleet Storm , and their morphs prevent Stealth and Invisibility while active on the caster

Proc Attacks

• Proc attacks no longer gain Sneak's bonus damage or guaranteed Critical Strike and no longer gain Shadowy Disguise 's guaranteed Critical Strike. Molten Weapons and Tome-bearer's Inspiration damage are now treated as proc events.

Summoned Combat Pets

• Ability terminology now uses “summon” only for entities that count as summoned combat pets. Visual creature effects such as Icy Conjurer and Dive are no longer described as summons.

Major and Minor Slayer and Aegis

• Major Slayer , Minor Slayer , Major Aegis , and Minor Aegis now apply against every monster, including monsters in overland zones, public dungeons, delves, Imperial City, and PvP-enabled areas

Dragonknight

• Flame Lash 's Power Lash healing is reduced by 50%
• Engulfing Dragonfire costs 3510 Magicka instead of 3780 Magicka and reduces damage taken by 15% while channeling
• Earthspike Mantle receives updated spike models

Nightblade

• Strife and Funnel Health cost 4050 Magicka instead of 2700 Magicka and deal 35% more damage
• Strife and Funnel Health heal for 40% of damage done instead of 50%
• Swallow Soul heals for 40% of damage done instead of 35%

Sorcerer

• Exploitation once again triggers when attempting to activate a Dark Magic ability rather than only after a successful cast

Necromancer

• Corpse-enabling effects such as Malevolent Promise and Nobility in Decay no longer create false corpse availability or interfere with another Necromancer's corpses

Arcanist

• Zenas' Empowering Disc now grants its effects when a target enters or leaves the area while sprinting
• Tome-bearer's Inspiration and its morphs trigger only from Arcanist skill damage rather than every class ability damage event

Not in patch notes

• Overload , Energy Overload , and Power Overload tooltips now clarify that their Heavy Attacks deal damage every 1 second. This was already how they worked.
• Bone Goliath Transformation , Ravenous Goliath , and Pummeling Goliath prevent concealment while active. Pummeling Goliath's Bash tooltip now says it hits in an area in front of you instead of saying it can hit multiple targets. This is only a wording change.
• Frozen Gate , Frozen Device , and Frozen Retreat prevent concealment while active. Both morphs' portals last 15 seconds. Frozen Retreat's Icy Escape synergy tooltip now says it can be activated by an ally in the area instead of only by an ally in the portal. This is only a wording change; the synergy already worked this way.

• Elemental Susceptibility now costs 3240 Magicka instead of being free
• Shield Charge and its morphs automatically block for 0.5 seconds after activation. This block has no cost.
• Expert Hunter and its morphs increase Stealth Detection Radius to the same range as a detection potion. They no longer apply an area reveal that prevents concealment after detection.
• Imbue Weapon and its morphs increase weapon attack damage by 5% for 6 seconds after casting. Crushing Weapon raises this bonus to 8%.

Not in patch notes

• Imbue Weapon , Elemental Weapon , and Crushing Weapon now have 6 seconds to be consumed instead of 2 seconds. They can now be consumed by a Heavy Attack too, instead of only by a Light Attack, and no longer refund their resource cost when the effect expires without being consumed. Crushing Weapon's Major Breach also lasts 6 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Active Skill Costs

• Pounce costs 3213 Stamina instead of 1071 Stamina
• Carnage costs 1188 Stamina instead of 995 Stamina
• Hircine's Bounty costs 4590 Magicka instead of 4320 Magicka
• Roar costs 3443 Stamina instead of 1071 Stamina
• Gnash and Rip and Tear cost 1800 Stamina instead of 765 Stamina; Bloody Gnash costs 1620 Stamina
• Rending Claws and Bloodclaw cost 2340 Stamina instead of 995 Stamina
• Claw Fury costs 420 Stamina per tick instead of 383 Stamina

Healing

• Hircine's Bounty healing is reduced by about 13%
• Hircine's Fortitude healing is reduced by about 10%
• Claw Fury heals for 10.46667% of Max Health when dealing damage, once per second

Insatiable Hunger

• Insatiable Hunger - The synergy moves to the lowest player-skill priority and appears only while the caster is at or below 66% Health, at or below 200 Ultimate, or out of combat

Not in patch notes

• The Gnash and Rip and Tear tooltips now correctly say the second hit deals 125% more damage below 25% Health instead of scaling up to 125%. The Bloody Gnash tooltip now correctly says it deals 200% more damage instead of scaling up to 200%. The abilities already worked this way.
• Blood Hunger no longer increases Rip and Tear 's initial-hit damage. It only increases the healing by 25%.

Traveling Knife

• Traveling Knife with Pull Focus now has a target cap of 6, matching other crowd-control effects

New Monster Sets

Tarcyr and Mylenne Moon-Caller are the two new Monster Sets from the new Solo Dungeons.

Gear

Tarcyr

Monster Set

(1 item) Adds 1206 Maximum Health

(2 items) While you don't have Battle Spirit, taking direct damage causes your attacker to cower in Fear for 2 seconds. Enemies immune to Fear are afflicted with Major Cowardice for 4 seconds instead, reducing their Weapon and Spell Damage by 430.

This effect can occur once every 0.5 seconds. An enemy can only gain Major Cowardice from this effect once every 11 seconds.

Gear

Mylenne Moon-Caller

Monster Set

(1 item) Adds 129 Weapon and Spell Damage

(2 items) Dealing damage with a Class or Werewolf ability deals Bleed Damage to enemies within 8 meters of the target. 10% of the damage done is restored to you as Stamina. This effect can occur once every 10 seconds.

If you are a Werewolf, gain 25 Fury and 1 Blood Hunger when this set activates.

Bleed Damage

Coefficient	82.35% Weapon or Spell Damage
Tags	BleedAoEDirect

Prebuffing

• Ansuul's Torment and Armor of the Veiled Heritance now require combat to activate, preventing their effects from being triggered before combat

Stealth and Invisibility

• A large set pass fixes effects that could activate without removing Stealth or Invisibility. Maligalig's Maelstrom also prevents Stealth or Invisibility while active and can no longer trigger on concealed targets.

Pet Damage

• Icy Conjurer , Aegis Caller , Scavenging Demise , Honor's Call, Mad Tinkerer , and Cinders of Anthelmir now deal pet damage

Ground Area Damage

• Song of Lamae , The Juggernaut , and Aspect of Mazzatun can now activate when the incoming damage comes from a ground area effect

Other

• Draugrkin's Grip 's damage-done bonus increases to 373 from 330, but is reduced to 186 against targets with Battle Spirit
• Plague Slinger 's damage type changes to Disease

Battle Spirit Damage Shields

Damage shield strength is limited to 300% of Max Health in groups of 1 to 4. The limit falls to 220% at 5 players, then drops by another 20% per player through 10 players, reaching 80%. It drops by 10% per player between 11 and 12 players, reaching 60% at 12.

These numbers are not final and ZOS expects to adjust them based on feedback. The Battle Spirit and Imperial City Battle Spirit tooltips have been updated for these limits.

Big Team Battles

Two-team and three-team Battlegrounds are combined into the Big Team Battles queue with 6v6v6 and 9v9 formats. The competitive queue remains two-team 4v4.

• New medals reward damage shields worth at least 20% of your Max Health after they absorb at least 50% of their value before expiring
• New medals reward Major and Minor buffs or debuffs that last at least 4 seconds
• Scoreboards now show damage dealt, healing done, and objectives contributed toward
• The Zone Guide is disabled in Battleground zones
• Battle scaling has been fixed in affected level 10–49 Battlegrounds
• The scoreboard can no longer be pushed off-screen at maximum UI scale and now abbreviates damage, healing, game scores, and Chaos Ball time

Vengeance

Vengeance is available through the Group and Activity Finder. Siege vendors no longer show Cyrodiil-only siege weapons, forward camps, or keep recall stones that cannot be used in Vengeance.

• New green, blue, and purple siege weapons deal increasing damage to players
• Damage ability target caps increase from 3 to 12
• Defensive and crowd-control ability target caps increase from 3 to 6
• Rapid Maneuvers grants Gallop in addition to Major Expedition

Prioritize Damage Shield Visibility

A new optional setting at Settings > Gameplay > Combat > Prioritize Damage Shield Visibility controls which shield remains fully visible when multiple damage shields are active.

• Off: All damage shields remain at the same visibility. This is the default
• Current Shield Health: The damage shield with the most Health remains fully visible while the other active shields are reduced
• Start Time: The earliest-cast damage shield remains fully visible while the other active shields are reduced

VFX Intensity Presets

Three optional settings under Settings > Video control VFX intensity separately for your character, friendly or neutral players, and hostile players. Changes update in real time without reloading your character.

• Normal: Keeps the current VFX intensity and is the default
• Low: Reduces VFX intensity by 60%
• Minimal: Reduces VFX intensity by 90%

These settings affect mounts, combat abilities, emotes, mementos, item sets, vanity pets, and equipped gear. Every category is adjusted together for the selected Self, Friendly, or Enemy setting.

NPCs, Companions, combat pets, environmental effects, special quest scenes, and combat telegraphs are not affected. Models used within VFX are also unchanged, but the effects applied to those models are reduced, which can make some models appear more solid.

Customizable HUD – Beta (PC Only)

• Most on-screen UI elements can be moved, and their associated settings are available from the editor
• Open the Systems menu and select Edit HUD (BETA), then hover over an element to identify it or select it for more details
• Drag elements to reposition them, or reset one element or the entire HUD layout
• Press Escape to confirm the layout and update the UI
• The beta is currently limited to PC. The complete feature is planned for PC and console in a later update

This feature will be available starting Week 3 of the Update 51 PTS cycle.

Solo versions of March of Sacrifices and Moonhunter Keep can be entered through the world map or from their entrances in the relevant zones.

Story and Companions

The Solo Dungeons let you play through each story at your own pace, either alone or with an NPC Companion.

Meted Misfortunes

Optional Meted Misfortunes increase the difficulty and rewards:

• 0 Misfortunes is comparable to overland difficulty
• 1 Misfortune is comparable to a Normal solo arena
• 2 Misfortunes is comparable to a Veteran solo arena
• 3 Misfortunes is harder than other comparable solo content

Rewards

Solo Dungeons award Undaunted Crests, which can be spent at vendors in the Undaunted Enclaves outside Wayrest, Mournhold, and Elden Root.

They also award the new Tarcyr and Mylenne Moon-Caller Item Sets and their corresponding Style Pages.

Update 51 includes several Player Experience improvements. The Customizable HUD and Hybridization changes are covered earlier in this article.

Achievement Pinning

You can pin an unearned achievement to the HUD from the Achievements tab in the Journal. Pinned achievements share space with Golden Pursuit tasks, with a new keybind used to cycle between them.

Completing an achievement that belongs to an achievement line automatically advances the pin to the next achievement in that line.

Antiquities Improvements

Scrying and Excavation now rank up faster at early levels. Blue Leads become accessible significantly faster, Purple Leads become accessible a little faster, and Purple Leads grant more skill line progress.

Entering a dig site now displays a prompt to use the Antiquarian's Eye. Its cooldown has also been reduced so it is easier to follow without overshooting the dig site.

Antiquity Leads retain their increased first-drop rate until their Codex is complete, which generally takes three drops. ZOS also increased the drop rates of many older Antiquities to match newer standards.

Transmute Stations

Transmute Stations are now available in each Alliance crafting hub in Cyrodiil and in each Alliance base within the Imperial City Sewers.

Level Up Rewards

• The Level Up Rewards screen no longer lists every additional dungeon unlocked through the Dungeon Finder
• Level 27 now awards 1,000 gold instead of a treasure map choice
• Level 43 now awards 2,500 gold instead of an Attribute and Skill Respecification Scroll

Quest Starters and Houses

Quest Starter descriptions now state which quest they begin.

Favorited homes and your Primary Residence are now sorted to the top of the Houses tab on the map.

Eidetic Memory

ZOS fixed issues with more than 50 Eidetic Memory books, including books that were unavailable after their associated quest or were not added to the collection correctly.

This feature is available during Weeks 1 and 4 of the Update 51 PTS cycle.

High Seas of Tamriel is a new 2026 in-game event. The Gold Coast plays host to a ghost, with two quests available during the event.

Raising the Riotous Redress

The spirit of Olsien Guy Mard, Baron-Captain of the All-Flags Navy, has washed ashore. You work with him and several new allies to restore an enchanted ship's bell, break a Sload curse, and raise a sunken vessel.

Bounty of the Abecean Sea

The daily quest sends you into a ship-to-ship battle against the Maormer Lousewhisperer cult. Afterwards, you dive underwater to fight sea creatures and recover sunken treasure.

Rewards

Completing event quests awards Deep Plunder Boxes. The first box each day is Legendary and contains 300 Trade Bars alongside a chance at additional rewards. Subsequent event quests can award an Epic Deep Plunder Box once per character each day.

Possible rewards include new outfit style pages, progress towards a unique mount, treasure maps, furnishings, Pirate Gold, and more.

Antiquities

The event introduces new nautical Antiquities, including tradeable Antiquity Leads. These can be traded or sold before being consumed to add the Lead to your Antiquities Journal.

Some furnishing crafting recipes can also be obtained as Antiquity Leads. Excavating one of these Leads awards a recipe that can be crafted repeatedly.

Antiquities are planned to become part of the base game shortly after the event ends. Antiquities earned during the event will remain in your journal, including for players who do not own Greymoor.

I tried High Seas of Tamriel on PTS, but it is currently bugged. Trying to enter the event gave me this error:

This feature is available starting Week 1 of the Update 51 PTS cycle.

Rumors are a new type of content that sends you across Tamriel to investigate mysteries. Unlike quests, they do not provide step-by-step objectives or direct you through the UI. You have to interpret the clues and work out how to solve each mystery.

Getting Started

The introductory quest, Rumors Abound, is available from the Quest Starters section of the Crown Store. You can also begin by speaking to Tilli the Gossip at the southern docks of Daggerfall.

Rumor Journal

The Quest Journal now has a toggle between Quests and Rumors. Every clue you collect is stored in the relevant Rumor entry so you can review what you have found.

Rumor Types

Rumors are split into three categories based on their difficulty and complexity:

• Whispers
• Plots
• Conspiracies

Finding Rumors

Each Rumor entry includes a hint about where it can be acquired. Once you obtain it, the game leaves you to follow the clues and uncover the solution for its reward.

This feature will be available starting Week 2 of the Update 51 PTS cycle.

Urli appears in Daggerfall's Thieves Den and invites players carrying Wonderous Nowhere Keys to face the trials of Sage Voernet.

The Vault is a collection of rooms suspended between realms. Its three wings contain randomized puzzles, stealth encounters, navigation challenges, combat encounters, and hidden objectives.

Accessing the Vault

You need at least one Wonderous Nowhere Key in your inventory to enter. The entrance is in Daggerfall's Thieves Den, and the Invitation to Treasures quest from the Crown Store's Quest Starters section directs you there.

The Nowhere Vault can be explored alone or with a group.

Playing the Vault

You choose one of three wings when entering. Spending one Wonderous Nowhere Key opens a standard challenge room for the entire group, so only one player needs to use a key.

Special Rooms

• Story Rooms reveal more about the Vault and its inhabitants, and may contain treasure chests or clues tied to its secrets
• Jackpot Rooms can appear when leaving after completing a wing and contain valuable treasures, crafting resources, or other rewards

Story Rooms and Jackpot Rooms do not require a key to exit.

Nowhere Chests

Special Nowhere Chests are hidden throughout the Vault. Opening one costs another Wonderous Nowhere Key, so that key cannot be used to unlock the next standard room.

Wonderous Nowhere Keys

Existing Unformed Planar Keys will be converted into Wonderous Nowhere Keys. The new keys are tradeable and can be sold through Guild Stores.

They can be found uncommonly through:

• Heists and Thieves Troves
• Delves, World Bosses, and Treasure Chests
• Favors and Dynamic Encounters
• Rumors and Solo Dungeons

Secrets of the Vault

Almost every room contains a hidden objective connected to the Sage's greatest treasure. These objectives are tracked through associated Rumors, while additional hints found inside the Vault help explain how its secrets connect.

All of these changes are also listed throughout the article in their relevant sections, but I'm also listing them here to keep track of them.

Class Changes

• Overload , Energy Overload , and Power Overload tooltips now clarify that their Heavy Attacks deal damage every 1 second. This was already how they worked.
• Bone Goliath Transformation , Ravenous Goliath , and Pummeling Goliath prevent concealment while active. Pummeling Goliath's Bash tooltip now says it hits in an area in front of you instead of saying it can hit multiple targets. This is only a wording change.
• Frozen Gate , Frozen Device , and Frozen Retreat prevent concealment while active. Both morphs' portals last 15 seconds. Frozen Retreat's Icy Escape synergy tooltip now says it can be activated by an ally in the area instead of only by an ally in the portal. This is only a wording change; the synergy already worked this way.

Weapons & Guild Skills

• Imbue Weapon , Elemental Weapon , and Crushing Weapon now have 6 seconds to be consumed instead of 2 seconds. They can now be consumed by a Heavy Attack too, instead of only by a Light Attack, and no longer refund their resource cost when the effect expires without being consumed. Crushing Weapon's Major Breach also lasts 6 seconds instead of 5 seconds.

Werewolf

• The Gnash and Rip and Tear tooltips now correctly say the second hit deals 125% more damage below 25% Health instead of scaling up to 125%. The Bloody Gnash tooltip now correctly says it deals 200% more damage instead of scaling up to 200%. The abilities already worked this way.
• Blood Hunger no longer increases Rip and Tear 's initial-hit damage. It only increases the healing by 25%.