Update 51 capped PvP shields, merged Sorcery and Prophecy into Brutality and Savagery, and gave healers a new anti-heal to worry about. Here's what actually changes for PvP healers, and who wins and loses.

Who This Is For

If you heal in Cyrodiil, Imperial City or Battlegrounds, Update 51 changed your job. None of it is a flashy new set. It's the plumbing: how big shields can get, which buffs exist, and how much everyone else can heal themselves. I went through the live patch notes line by line so you don't have to. These are the five changes I think matter most for PvP healers, with the actual numbers.

PvP Shields Are Capped Now

This is the big one. Under Battle Spirit, damage shields now have a ceiling tied to your Max Health, and the ceiling drops as your group gets bigger. Before Update 51, there was no cap like this. In a group of 1 to 4 players, a shield can be up to 300% of your Max Health. At 5 players it's 220%, at 8 it's 160%, at 10 it's 80%, and at 12 or more it's just 60%. So who wins? Solo players and small-scale groups, honestly. ZOS says they're avoiding any penalty to small groups for now, and 300% of your health bar is more shielding than almost any normal setup reaches. Ball groups, not so much. A 12-player group used to be able to stack shields bigger than their entire health bar, and now they're capped at a little over half of it. That's a massive nerf to shield stacking, and it's aimed squarely at them. Two things to keep in mind. First, this only touches shields. Healing isn't affected, so your heals over time and burst heals work exactly like before. Second, ZOS says these numbers are not final and may get clamped harder in a future update. If they do, small groups could feel it too. If you run 6-player small-scale like I do, your cap is already lower than solo, so shield-heavy comps built around huge Max Health pools are the ones to watch. There's also a small bonus for support players: Battlegrounds added new medals for granting shields, buffs and debuffs, and healing done now shows up on the scoreboard. Healers finally get credit on the screen that matters.

Sorcery and Prophecy Are Gone

Major and Minor Sorcery and Prophecy no longer exist. Brutality now gives both Weapon and Spell Damage, and Savagery now gives both Weapon and Spell Critical Chance. Minor Brutality is 10% and Minor Savagery is 6%, for both sides. For most healers this is more of a rename than a loss. If a skill or set used to give you Prophecy, it gives you Savagery now, and the crit works the same way. Where it bites is anything you were running specifically because it stacked a Sorcery source on top of a Brutality one. Those overlap now, so double-check your buff sources instead of assuming you're still getting both. While you're at it, check your mundus. The Apprentice no longer gives Spell Damage. It's an 8% bonus to experience and inspiration now. The Warrior gives both Weapon and Spell Damage, so if you were on the Apprentice for damage, that's your swap. Plenty of healers run the Ritual instead, but it's worth a look.

Templar and Sorcerer Healers Got New Group Buffs

Templars and Sorcerers used to hand their groups Minor Sorcery and Minor Prophecy through a class passive. Since those buffs are gone, both classes got something new. The Templar's Illuminate passive now gives your group a unique 2974 Armor buff. The Sorcerer's Exploitation passive now gives your group a unique 2974 Offensive Penetration buff, and it triggers when you attempt to activate a Dark Magic ability. I'll be straight about the tradeoff here: a lot of Templar players aren't happy. They traded a damage buff for a defensive one, on a class that was already on the lower end for PvP damage. For a healer, though, I think the Armor buff is a better fit than it sounds. It's group survivability, and that's our whole job. And if you subclass Dark Magic onto a Templar, like the build I'm working on now, you can bring both buffs to your group at once.

New Anti-Heal: Vexation and Heal Absorption

Vexation is new. It's the counterpart to Mending: where Mending increases healing done, Vexation reduces it. It shows up through Alchemy, and the part PvP healers need to know is poisons. A Vexation poison applies Minor Vexation to its target, and it lasts longer than the Minor Vexation a Mending poison applies. There's also a Heal Absorption poison now. ZOS hasn't published how strong Vexation actually is, so I'm not going to guess at a number. What I will say is that anti-heal just got a lot easier to access, because anyone can craft it. My read: cleanse and burst healing matter more in U51, and I'd expect to see these poisons on gankers first. On the upside, Mending potions now give Major Mending, so we got a new tool too.

Everyone Else's Self-Heals Got Nerfed

This one's good news for us. ZOS cut self-healing across a bunch of setups that could previously keep themselves alive without a healer: Strife and Funnel Health now heal for 33% of their damage done, down from 50%. ZOS said outright that it's "to try and avoid cases where these abilities replace healers in group scenarios." Heads up: some sites are still listing 35% from the PTS. The live number is 33%. Swallow Soul actually went up, to 40% from 35%. Dragonknights lost a lot of staying power too. Hearth of Flame heals 20% less, and the Power Lash activation of Flame Lash heals 50% less. Werewolves got hit as well: Hircine's Bounty heals about 13% less, Hircine's Fortitude about 10% less, and many werewolf skills cost a lot more to cast. Sorcerer Blood Magic drops to 3% or 6% of your Max Health, down from 5% or 10%. Put that together with the shield cap and the direction is pretty clear: ZOS wants healing to come from healers. That's the best news in this patch if you're one of us.

The Update in One Line

Small-scale and solo healers came out ahead in Update 51, ball groups lost their shield stacking, and ZOS spent this patch making healers matter more. My first U51 builds are on the way, so follow along on the channel and come hang out in the Discord.