In today's article, we are going to take a look at what's new and what's changed in the Markarth DLC (U28). There is plenty to talk about, therefore we are going to take a look at some of the new additions first and afterwards we are checking out the changes (like Major/Minor System) that come along with the Markarth DLC (U28). Please be aware, that this article has been written based on pts patch notes.

• PC Launch: 2nd November
• Console Launch: 10th November

Exciting New Content

The Markarth DLC is featuring the epic conclusion of the Dark Heart of Skyrim! Markarth introduces not only the new zone of The Reach, but also adds two world bosses, two delves, and an exciting solo arena Vateshran Hollows that is sure to challenge you. You can also find several new collectibles, item sets, achievements, and titles, in addition to new Antiquities that can only be dug up in The Reach.

New Solo Arena Vateshran Hollows

The U28 Markarth DLC will bring a new solo arena into the game. The arena is called Vateshran Hollows. You will have to fight yourself through different arenas to complete the challenge of the Vateshran Hollows. You can learn more about the solo arena in the Vateshran Hollows overview page or in the Vateshran Hollows Guide.

New Zone

You will be able to visit two new zones with the Markarth DLC. The Reach and the Blackreach Arkthzand Cavern. Like always there is plenty to discover and this will be the last zone to finish the Dark Heart Of Skyrim storyline.

Dyes & Skins

The Markarth DLC also offers some new and unique dyes and skin. The so called Darkstorm Emerald dye which is the greenest green that you will find in the game and the Void Pitch dye which is the blackest black that you will find in the game so far, you can find a video showcasing both colors here. Alongside a new skin that is obtainable from the solo arena Vateshran Hollows called Void Pathosis, you can find a video showcasing the new skin here.

New Houses

There are a total of two new houses that will launch in the Markarth DLC (U28).

• Shalidor's Shrouded Realm
• Stone Eagle Aerie

New Housing Items

Please click on the item to see the picture in the housing section of the website.

Reachmen Chandelier, Gnarled
Dwarven Serving Dish, Vegetable Soup
Dwarven Amphora, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Brazier, Square Polished
Dwarven Corner Bench, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Desk, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Divider, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Kettle, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Lamp, Conal Frustum Cage
Dwarven Lamp, Cylinder Cage

Dwarven Low Table, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Pew, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Relief, Connected Circles
Dwarven Sideboard, Granite Polished
Dwarven Table, Grand Polished
Dwarven Bed, Reach Furs Canopy
Dwarven Bed, Reach Furs Double
Dwarven Counter, Granite
Dwarven Wall Lamp, Reachfolk Adorned
Reachmen Chandelier, Shaded

Dwarven Dinner Bowl, Hearty Stew
Dwarven Plate, Full Breakfast
Dwarven Chair, Ornate Polished
Dwarven Cooking Implements, Hanging
Dwarven Pot, Polished
Dwarven Potted Plant, Polished Vase
Dwarven Relief, Tracks
Dwarven Strainer, Kitchen
Dwarven Table Lamp, Polished Dome
Dwarven Bed, Reach Furs
Dwarven Bench, Ornate Granite

Dwarven Divider, Ornate Granite
Dwarven End Table, Columnar Granite
Dwarven Table, Granite
Dwarven Table, Granite Kitchen
Dwarven Cage, Polished Specimen
Dwarven Mirror, Polished
Dwarven Candlestick, Polished
Dwarven Mug, Polished
Dwarven Plate, Polished
Dwarven Beacon, Aetheric
Dwarven Liminal Diffusion

Dwarven Stand, Void Crystal
Dwarven Crystal Receptacle
Dwarven Tonal Cascade
Dwarven Tonal Manacle
Nighthollow Banner
Reach Effigy of Turnabout
Falmer Totem of Dominance
Reachwitch Protective Totem
Tree, Reach Totem
Dwarven Broom, Restored
Dwarven Loaf Pan, Rectangular

Dwarven Plate, Salvaged Decorative
Reachfolk Banner, Markarth
Stone Garden Casket, Alchemized Bloodknight
Stone Garden Circulator, Rootbound
Stone Garden Tank, Vacant
Stone Garden Vat, Alchemized Bristleback
Stone Garden Vat, Alchemized Chaurus
Stone Garden Vat, Alchemized Durzog
Stone Garden Vat, Vacant
Bust: Maebroogha
Trophy: Maebroogha

Music Box, Mother Morrowind's Sacred Lullaby
Music Box, Never Fall, Never Die
Dwarven Bookcase, Granite
Dwarven Bookcase, Granite Filled
Dwarven Chandelier, Polished Braced
Dwarven Corner Shelf, Granite
Dwarven Dresser, Granite
Dwarven Lamppost, Polished Powered
Dwarven Lantern, Polished Wall
Dwarven Nightstand, Granite
Dwarven Sconce, Polished Barred

Dwarven Wall Cabinet, Granite
Dwarven Wardrobe, Ornate Polished
Reachmen Pergola, Ivy
Reachmen Pergola, Ivy Overhang
Tree, Giant Snowy White Pine
Tree, Young Mountain Mahogany

Covenant Breton Terrier (Non-Combat Pet)
Dominion Breton Terrier (Non-Combat Pet)
Pact Breton Terrier (Non-Combat Pet)
Snowball Buddy (Non-Combat Pet)
Somnolent Void Rot (Non-Combat Pet)
Dwarven Scarab (Non-Combat Pet) – (Split into 7 Fragments, Antiquity)
Arkthzand Insight Vertex Shroud (Hat)
Antique Map of the Reach (Antiquity Furnishing)
Red Eagle Cave Painting (Antiquity Furnishing)
Vampiric Stained Glass (Antiquity Furnishing)

New Sets

The Markarth DLC brings plenty of new sets with it.

2 New Mythic Items:

• Ring: Ring of the Pale Order
• Necklace: Pearls of Ehlnofey

3 New Craftable Sets:

• Aetherial Ascension
• Legacy of Karth
• Red Eagle's Fury

3 New Overland Sets:

• Light: Voidcaller
• Medium: Witch-Knight's Defiance
• Heavy: Radiant Bastion

3 New Arena Normal Sets:

• Light: Hex Siphon
• Medium: Pestilent Host
• Heavy: Explosive Rebuke

6 New Arena Ability Altering Weapons (Vateshran Hollows arena):

• Resto Force Siphon: Perfected Force Overflow - Force Overflow
• 2H Momentum: Perfected Frenzied Momentum - Frenzied Momentum
• DW Hidden Blade: Perfected Executioner's Blade - Executioner's Blade
• Bow Snipe: Perfected Point-Blank Snipe - Point-Blank Snipe
• S&B Power Bash: Perfected Void Bash - Void Bash
• Destro Weakness to Elements: Perfected Wrath of Elements - Wrath of Elements

Full Set List: https://eso-hub.com/en/dlc/markarth

New Craftable Consumable: Alliance War Skill Boosters

You can learn more about the Alliance Boosters in the How To Alliance War Boosters Guide.

The Markarth DLC (U28) will introduce a new set of consumables: the Colovian War Torte, the Molten War Torte, and the White-Gold War Torte. These items increase the rate at which you advance your Alliance War Skill Lines by 50%, 100%, or 150%, respectively.

Q: When can you use these?
A: The War Tortes can be used by any character Level 10 or above.

Q: What do these consumables' boosts do?
A: The boost applies only towards advancing your Alliance War Skill Lines. They do not help you earn more AP, become Emperor, or gain a place in the Leaderboard.

Q: What stacks with what?
A: War Tortes will not stack with one another. If you've just consumed a War Torte of any kind, you cannot consume another War Torte until the first one's duration runs out.

War Tortes are considered a food for the purposes of Provisioning. However, they do not prevent you from also having a food or drink buff active. This means you can eat a Colovian War Torte, immediately eat a Mistral Banana-Bunny Hash, and you will have both effects active on you.

If you have the Chef passive, you'll make more units of War Torts per crafting attempt. This means that, at maximum Chef rank, you'll make four units of War Torte every time you craft one of their recipes.

If you have the Gourmand passive, the duration of any War Tortes you eat will be increased. This means that, at maximum Gourmand rank, each unit of War Torte you eat will last 50 minutes, rather than the listed 30 minutes.
Taken together, someone who is both a fully-ranked Chef and Gourmand creating War Torte for their own use will get a total of three hours and twenty minutes of Alliance Skill boost from a single crafting of the recipe.

War Tortes also do not prevent you from having an EXP-boosting consumable's effect active.

How do you make War Tortes?

• Colovian War Torte
  • The recipe for the Colovian War Torte (the baseline, 50% boost item) can be found rarely in the wilds of Cyrodiil, from a curious, green-glowing book.
  • This recipe requires a new ingredient, Cyrodiil Citrus. These sweet fruits can be obtained by completing quests in any of the five towns in Cyrodiil.
• Molten War Torte
  • The recipe for the Molten War Torte requires a recipe scroll for the Colovian War Torte. You'll need to combine that with Chef Arquitius's Torte Dissertation. This tome can be obtained from Tel Var General Merchants for 500,000 Tel Var stones.
  • The Molten War Torte requires a unit of Colovian War Torte, and a new ingredient, Rubyblossom Extract. This ingredient can be purchased from Tel Var General Merchants for 100,000 Tel Var stones.
• White-Gold War Torte
  • The recipe for the White-Gold War Torte requires a recipe scroll for the Molten War Torte. You'll need to combine that with Chef Arquitius's Lost Thesis. This tome can be obtained from completing a Battleground; while it is exceptionally rare, it is more likely to drop the more victorious you are in battle.
  • The White-Gold War Torte requires a unit of Molten War Torte, as well as a new ingredient, Mourning Dew. This item is found, very rarely, from crafting resource nodes throughout Cyrodiil.
• All three recipes require you have your Provisioner Recipe Quality passive at Rank 4, and your Recipe Improvement passive at Rank 6; that is, both must be maxed out.

Most Important Changes

Now it is time to look at some of the most important changes and additions that we get during the Markarth DLC (U28) for the Elder Scrolls Online.

Item Set Collections

Introducing Item Set Collections to the base game with Markarth DLC (U28), a new system to help you find and manage all your item sets. Find and collect ‘em all! With so many Item Sets in ESO, it can be hard to keep track of them all, much less find them. With a new “sticker book” interface in the Collections menu, you can easily see all the Item Sets in the game, where they drop, and even their combat bonuses. You can also find a video explaining exactly how this new feature looks like.

Transmute Crystal Update

To better enable you to use the new Item Set Collection system, ZOS has increased the cap of Transmute Crystals! Now you can hold up to 500 Transmute Crystals (or 1,000 if you're an ESO+ member).

The number of Transmute Crystals you can earn from most PvE sources, including Undaunted Pledges, LFG rewards, Trial Weekly Quests, and Arena and Trial Leaderboards have been increased as well as Battleground Transmute Stone rewards.

Crafting Writs Update

Crafting Writs received a huge upgrade, especially useful for console players. You can now auto craft the quest items. That will increase the speed of completing the Writ dailies by a huge amount. You can watch a full video on the new feature here.

Battlegrounds Update

In the Markarth DLC (U28), ZOS is testing the re-addition of group queuing to Battlegrounds, where players of group sizes up to 4 can join the queue together and be placed on the same team.

Solo players can join this queue, or they can join the solo queue to be matched exclusively with other solo players. With this change, ZOS has also removed specific match queues to help promote overall queue health.

Major and Minor System Changes

The Major/Minor System gets a lot of changes, here is a list of the adjusted values of buffs and debuffs.

Minor Expedition: Increased to 15%, up from 10%.
Major Savagery and Prophecy: Increased to 12%, up from 10%.
Minor Breach: Increased to 2974, up from 1320.
Major Breach: Increased to 5948, up from 5280.
Major Breach now affects both Physical and Spell Resistance equally.

Minor and Major Fracture: Yeeted from this plane of existence to embrace its missing other half, Minor and Major Ward.
Minor Resolve: Increased to 2974, up from 1320.
Major Resolve: Increased to 5948, up from 5280.
Minor Fortitude/Endurance/Intellect: Increased to 20%, up from 10%
Major Fortitude/Endurance/Intellect: Increased to 40%, up from 20%.

Minor Defile: Decreased to 8%, down from 15%.
Major Defile: Decreased to 16%, down from 30%.
Major Mending: Decreased to 16%, down from 25%.
Major Vitality: Decreased to 16%, down from 30%.
Major Evasion: Decreased to 20%, down from 25%

Minor Berserk: Decreased to 5%, down from 8%.
Major Berserk: Decreased to 10%, down from 25%.
Minor Protection: Decreased to 5%, down from 8%.
Major Protection: Decreased to 10%, down from 30%.
Minor Maim: Decreased to 5%, down from 15%.
Major Maim: Decreased to 10%, down from 25%.

Minor Vulnerability: Decreased to 5%, down from 8%.
Major Vulnerability: Decreased to 10%, down from 25%.
Minor Magickasteal: Decreased to 168 per hit, down from 300.
Major Aegis and Slayer: Decreased to 10%, down from 15%.
Minor Courage: Increased to 215, up from 129.
Major Courage: Increased to 430, up from 258.
Major Force: Increased to 20%, up from 15%.

Minor Cowardice: This debuff has been reworked, and now reduces the target’s Weapon and Spell Damage by 215, rather than increasing their Ultimate cost abilities by 60%.

Empower:

• This buff now applies to all Light, Medium, and Heavy Attacks for its duration, and is no longer consumed on use.
• The following sources of Empower now last 3 seconds, down from 5 to reflect the change that Empower is no longer consumed:
  • Aegis of Galenwae
  • Might of the Guild
  • Empowering Grip
  • Wrecking Blow
  • Ambush

NEW Minor Brittle: Increases the target’s Critical Damage taken by 10%
NEW Major Brittle: Increases the target’s Critical Damage taken by 20%. Not yet sourced.
NEW Major Cowardice: Reduces a target’s Weapon and Spell Damage by 430.

ZOS Comment on these changes:

"All Major and Minor Buffs and Debuffs have been hard coded to go through server validation sooner and more effectively as cached values, rather than abilities that exist on your character. This new system will also properly ensure that no two same buffs or debuffs can ever stack in effectiveness, rather than needing to be individually spot checked on each application. It will also prioritize duration-based sources rather than permanent ones, so you do not need to fear losing their effects.

While doing so, we have also properly reigned in the power of these effects into our Set Bonus Efficiency (SBE) standard; Minor effects are now worth 2 set bonuses (previously between .4 and 4.2) and Major effects are worth 4 (previously between 2.14 and 13.3). The new values can be found below.

Now that these bonuses have been reigned in, we have also made sure to keep item sets in their intended SBE range, so we have done a pass on all sets that source these effects to ensure that. While each of these bonuses is normally worth 2 for Minor and 4 for Major, they are worth .5 less than their original value while sourced on an item set, since they are mainly sourced via the abilities and passives in the game. This ensures if you opt to run a set that grants you a permanent major or minor buff, you’ll gain some extra effectiveness on top of that to ensure they aren’t completely wasted if you gain access to the buff from another source. We have not done a full pass on class abilities since the SBE system is generally meant to be designed for non-abilities; that said, we will keep a close eye on class functionality in PvE and PvP due to these changes."

Necromancer Class Changes

The one big change that you have to keep in mind with this class is that the Major Vulnerability of the Colossus ultimate now works differently. The Vulnerability invulnerability got removed, therefore the debuff doesn't have a cooldown anymore. However, the Major Vulnerability debuff got a huge reduction from 25% to 10%. That means you won't be able to produce as much burst damage as before, but you can keep the Major Vulnerability debuff up a 100% again.

• Frozen Colossus:
  • Major Vulnerability: Decreased to 10%, down from 25%.
  • Removed this Ultimate and the morphs’ Major Vulnerability invulnerability. Increased the duration of Major Vulnerability applied from these to 12 seconds per hit, up from 8. This will increase the total duration to 15 seconds per cast.

Skills affected: Frozen Colossus, Glacial Colossus, Pestilent Colossus

Nightblade Class Changes

Nightblades received some passive changes and a tiny adjustment to Power Extraction. The Executioner passive now restores 1000 magicka and stamina when it procs. and the Master Assassin passive now applies penetration instead of spell/weapon damage. Power Extraction now applies Minor Cowardice instead of an unique debuff.

• Executioner:
  • This passive now restores 500/1000 Magicka and Stamina when it procs, rather than 938/1876 Magicka or Stamina depending on your highest maximum.
• Master Assassin:
  • This passive now increases your Physical and Spell Penetration against targets you are flanking by 1487/2974, rather than your Weapon and Spell Damage against them by 129/258.
• Power Power Extraction (morph):
  • This morph now applies Minor Cowardice to enemies hit, rather than reducing their Weapon and Spell Damage by a unique amount. This will result in a larger decrease in Weapon and Spell Damage, but one that cannot be stacked with other sources.

Warden Class Changes

Wardens received one change with the Subterranean Assault skill, the skill doesn't apply a physical penetration debuff anymore, but it now recasts twice when you use it. Therefore you have to make sure to obtain Major Breach from another source to get the penetration that you used to get from this skill.

• Subterranean Assault (morph):
  • This morph no longer applies Fracture, as Deep Fissure now affects all Armor. This ability now recasts itself after completing, once per cast.

Templar Class Changes

Templars haven't received any direct changes to their class in the Markarth DLC (U28) . There were just some minor bug fixes.

Sorcerer Class Changes

Sorcerers haven't received any direct changes to their class in the Markarth DLC (U28) .

Dragonknight Class Changes

Dragonknights haven't received any direct changes to their class in the Markarth DLC (U28) .

Frost Staff Changes

Frost Staves have received adjustments to help them further stand out as a Tank and Support-oriented weapon type.

• Chilled Status Effect:
  • Applying Chilled while actively holding a Frost Staff now applies Minor Brittle in addition to its other effects. Note that the Staff must be on your active bar when Chilled is applied for this to proc.
• Destruction Expert:
  • This passive now also grants 900/1800 Magicka whenever you absorb damage with a Frost Staff damage shield. This new effect can occur once every 10 seconds.
• Destructive Touch:
  • Destructive Clench (morph): The Frost version of this morph now taunts enemies for 15 seconds.
• Impulse:
  • Each elemental type of this ability and its morphs have gained new functionality.
    • Flame Impulse now deals bonus damage that scales based on missing health if the target hit was burning.
    • Frost Impulse now applies Minor Protection to up to 6 group members for 6 seconds.
    • Shock Impulse now deals 5% more damage for each enemy hit, up to 30%.
• Tri-Focus:
  • This passive no longer causes your Heavy Attacks with a Frost Staff to taunt the enemy.
  • Increased the strength of the Damage Shield granted from Heavy Attacking with a Frost Staff to 12.5/25% of your Max Health, up from 4/8%.
• Wall of Elements:
  • The Frost version of this ability now applies a Damage Shield to you and 5 nearby group members that absorbs projectiles, but no longer snares enemies and deals 25% less damage than the other elemental version.
  • Elemental Blockade (morph): The Frost version of this morph now also applies an additional, smaller shield on you and group members in the area when it ends.

Champion System Changes

Reduced the Weapon and Spell Critical Chance granted from Perfect Strike and Spell Precision perk to 3% each, down from 9%.

Full Patch Notes List

For a full list of all the changes you can check out the official patch notes here. https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/patch-notes

If you are looking for a list of all PTS changes, you can find all the notes here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/categories/pts