Summary
The Elder Scrolls Online Update 51 PTS has reached Week 4, bringing another round of balance adjustments, reward improvements, solo dungeon changes, and long-awaited bug fixes. While many major class changes were already covered earlier in the PTS cycle, this update includes several important new details worth knowing before Update 51 goes live. To adapt to the changes, buy The Elder Scrolls Online Items and get the gear you need.
Here are the biggest changes from Week 4 and what they mean for PvE players, dungeon groups, and solo builds.
Undaunted Pledge Transmute Crystal Improvements
One of the most useful changes this week affects Undaunted Pledges, particularly DLC dungeons. Instead of receiving only a small or inconsistent number of Transmute Crystals, DLC pledges now provide substantially better rewards:
Normal DLC pledge: 5 Transmute Crystals
Veteran DLC pledge: 10 Transmute Crystals
Veteran Hard Mode: 15 Transmute Crystals
The important detail is that these are awarded directly as Transmute Crystals rather than Transmute Geodes.
This is a significant improvement for players who regularly run pledges. However, make sure you have room in your Transmute Crystal inventory before collecting the rewards. Because the crystals are awarded directly, players who are already at the cap may lose them instead of storing them in a geode.
Combat and Class Changes
Week 4 contains several animation fixes and smaller combat adjustments, while some of the larger class changes from earlier PTS weeks remain intact.
Nightblade: Swallow Soul and Strife
The Strife skill line received a substantial buff during the PTS cycle. The important question is now how its morphs compare with Concealed Weapon.
Without the Soulcleaver set, the buffed Swallow Soul remains slightly weaker than Concealed Weapon at maximum damage. However, players using Soulcleaver can push Swallow Soul slightly above Concealed Weapon.
This creates a useful choice for Magicka Nightblade builds:
Without Soulcleaver: Concealed Weapon remains the stronger spammable.
With Soulcleaver: Swallow Soul becomes the better option.
This gives Magicka Nightblades a genuine reason to choose between the two morphs depending on their equipment setup.
Sorcerer: Static Reverberation and Crystal Weapon
Sorcerer changes continue to generate discussion, particularly around Static Reverberation and its interaction with the updated skill system.
A recent PvE parse showed Static Reverberation reaching around 21K damage, which is considerably higher than before. However, that result also used Crystal Weapon as the spammable, creating more opportunities for Static Reverberation to trigger.
Crystal Weapon therefore appears to be the slightly stronger morph in the current version, although the final choice will depend on the build and scenario.
The important mechanical change is that Static Reverberation now triggers from Sorcerer damage only, rather than any source of damage. Monolith of Storms is also now considered a Sorcerer ability, allowing it to contribute to Static Reverberation procs.
Other changes include a fix for Mooncalf's cooldown behavior, which could previously result in unintended double procs, as well as a bug fix for Death Dealer's Fete.
Solo Dungeon Changes
Update 51's new solo dungeons also received several important adjustments based on PTS feedback.
Pulled Punches Misfortune
One of the most notable changes concerns the Pulled Punches Misfortune.
Previously, this effect reduced both light and heavy attack damage to zero. That created a major problem for heavy-attack builds because they essentially could not function with the Misfortune. It also affected light-attack builds that relied on sets triggering from light-attack damage.
The effect has now been changed so that all damage is reduced by 30% instead.
This is a considerable damage penalty, particularly for builds that previously relied heavily on light or heavy attacks. However, the major advantage is that every build type can now participate rather than completely invalidating certain playstyles.
For players attempting to clear the solo dungeons, this should make the Misfortune more universally applicable while still providing a meaningful difficulty increase.
Dungeon Bug Fixes and Achievement Improvements
Several long-standing dungeon issues were also addressed.
Stone Garden
A bug that could cause Blood Rage to persist after players entered a different instance of Stone Garden has been fixed. This should prevent the unwanted effect from carrying between instances.
Lepusa Achievement
The Slowed Not Stopped achievement received an especially welcome correction.
Previously, only one player could receive credit at a time, making the achievement extremely frustrating for groups. Players also had to carefully coordinate the boss kill while meeting the required resource condition and other mechanics.
The requirement has now been correctly updated so that resources must be reduced to 30% or less, rather than 25% or less. More importantly, the achievement should now properly award credit rather than limiting progression to a single player.
This should make the achievement considerably less tedious for organized groups.
Rockgrove and Castle Thorn
A bug involving Bahsei in Rockgrove could cause health and resource values to become desynchronized. That issue has been fixed.
In Castle Thorn, Lady Thorn's bat swarm previously had a visual bug where the safe area could become difficult or impossible to identify correctly. The safe area should now display properly.
There is also a helpful recovery change: players who are reviving an ally inside the damaging bat swarm area now receive immunity from the damage while performing the resurrection.
This will not save a failed trifecta attempt if someone dies during the encounter, but it gives groups more flexibility when simply trying to complete Veteran or Hard Mode content.
High Isle of the Tamriel and Norvault Rewards
The PTS also includes several fixes and reward adjustments for High Isle of the Tamriel and Norvault content.
Different chest types now have more clearly defined rewards. Depending on the chest, players can find items such as:
Overland set pieces
Tradable Antiquity leads
Trial item set pieces
Valuable crafting materials
An hourglass has also been added to Norvault to allow players to reset it.
The exact value of these reward changes will depend on how rewarding the final version feels once players can test the system at scale. ESO has historically been conservative with rewards from general chests and containers outside of special events, so the live implementation will determine whether these changes meaningfully improve the experience.
Solo Dungeon Crests and the Crest Merchant
Solo dungeons are also receiving improvements to their new currency system.
The easiest solo-dungeon difficulty now awards 50 Crests instead of 10, making the introductory difficulty much more rewarding.
Crests can be spent with the new Crest Merchant, which offers various rewards at different prices. The PTS has adjusted the costs of several items, with some becoming more expensive and others becoming cheaper.
The system is unlikely to encourage players to repeatedly farm only two solo dungeons indefinitely. However, as more solo dungeons are added, players should naturally accumulate a substantial number of Crests and eventually have enough currency to purchase rewards from the merchant.
Final Takeaways
Week 4 of the Update 51 PTS is not as large as some previous weeks, but several changes are important. Undaunted DLC pledges now provide 5, 10, or 15 direct Transmute Crystals, Magicka Nightblade gains a more meaningful choice between Swallow Soul and Concealed Weapon, and Sorcerer builds gain new interactions with Static Reverberation.
The solo dungeon changes are equally significant. Pulled Punches now reduces all damage by 30% instead of completely disabling light and heavy attacks, while Crest rewards have increased dramatically on the easiest difficulty.
Finally, several frustrating dungeon bugs—including the Lepusa achievement issue and Castle Thorn's bat swarm visibility problem—have finally been addressed.
Week 5 will be the final PTS week before the testing period ends, followed by roughly four weeks before Update 51 is expected to reach the live servers. To prepare for the live launch, The Elder Scrolls Online Items can help you adapt quickly to final changes and optimize your builds ahead of time.
