Would like some feedback on a few builds

Divestor · July 2022

With ES games I enjoy the theme of being "avatar of Thief, Warrior and Mage" and thereby playing a character who is using and mastering their full potential capabilities to surmount all obstacles (the Prisoner, incarnate of Lorkhan, . With that in mind, I've been theorycrafting a few builds with the mindset of creating solo characters whose adaptability is their greatest strength. I want these to be able to solo veteran dungeons / trials / arenas, and I'm wondering if they are in any manner a strong basis for a build, and what tweaking needs to be done.
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The Brawler #1
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Race: Redguard / Orc
Class: Nightblade
Armor: 5 Heavy + 1 Medium + 1 Light ; Divines
Weapons: One Hand & Shield x2
Sets: Twice-born Star + Deadlands Assassin or Arms of Relequen
Resources: 10 Magicka, 30 Health, 24 Stamina
Mundus: Lord & Lady, or Thief & Lady
Ability Bar #1
- Perfected Gallant Charge : Infused Mace of Weapon Damage + Infused Shield of Health
1. Shielded Assault (One Hand & Shield)
2. Defensive Stance (One Hand & Shield)
3. Dark Cloak (Nightblade, Shadow)
4. Dark Shade (Nightblade, Shadow)
5. Channeled Acceleration (Psijic Order)
Ultimate: Bolstering Darkness (Nightblade, Shadow)
Ability Bar #2
- Perfected Void Bash : Precise Mace of Poison Damage + Divine Shield of Health
1. Pierce Armor (One Hand & Shield)
2. Power Extraction (Nightblade, Siphoning)
3. Mirage (Nightblade, Assassination)
4. Reverberating Bash (One Hand & Shield)
5. Relentless Focus (Nightblade, Assassination), or Leeching Strikes (Nightblade, Siphoning)
Ultimate: Incapacitating Strikes (Nightblade, Assassination), or Dawnbreaker (Fighters Guild)
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The Brawler #2
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Race: Redguard
Class: Sorcerer
Armor: 5 Medium + 1 Heavy + 1 Light ; Divines
Weapons: One Hand & Shield, Two Handed
Sets: Twice-Born Star + Diamond's Victory
Resources: 14 Magicka + 28 Health + 22 Stamina
Mundus: Shadow + Thief, or Lady + Thief
Skills
Ability Bar #1
- Perfected Puncturing Remedy : Divine Shield of Stamina + Infused Sword of Absorb Magicka
1. Bound Aegis (Sorcerer, Daedric Summoning)
2. Defensive Stance (One Hand & Shield)
3. Crystal Weapon (Sorcerer, Dark Magic)
4. Pierce Armor (One Hand & Shield)
5. Camouflaged Hunter (Fighters Guild), or Inner Light (Mages Guild)
Ultimate: Temporal Guard (Psijic Order)
Ability Bar #2
- Perfected Merciless Charge : Infused Greatsword of Weapon Damage
1. Stampede (Two Handed)
2. Hurricane (Sorcerer, Storm Calling)
3. Structured Entropy (Mages Guild)
4. Brawler (Two Handed)
5. Critical Surge (Sorcerer, Storm Calling)
Ultimate: Suppression Field (Sorcerer, Dark Magic), or Dawnbreaker (Fighters Guild)
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Thanks for any feedback!

DrNukenstein · July 2022

on the NB, balancing the shadow % health bonus is a big deal. You don't want to tax your health when you bar swap on any class. Easy fix without changing gear and replacing minimal skills would be switching mirage and dark shade then either switching to surprise attack instead of pierce armor, or swapping the shadow ult for something else. With one extra shadow skill on either bar, you might be able to get it really close with a health glyph on the shield for the bar with less shadow skills.

Divestor · July 2022

Do you think health scaling for damage shields against vet bosses would not be terribly impacted by exchanging Dark Shade for Mirage? I admit that it would make better sense on a rotation / theme-of-bar mindset. I like it, but I don't wanna lose out on the max potential for the shields that are enabled by the level of cost-effectiveness they have here (which I believe allows them to be kept up as much as I need them).

Edit: Maybe worth it to note that I have close to no idea what I am doing in terms of soloing vet bosses - I have played for around 3 months or so and am CP 560 on my main - khajiit NB. With her the main issue that I have is sustain, which is why I am thinking Redguard for % cost reduction to weapon skills, stam restore etc.

I'm aware that this build will not be dealing amazing damage; that it will probably take hours to solo these areas if I can survive. So mainly I'm wishing to survive, and that does include mainly using Heavy Attacks to restore resources and L/M/H attacks w/ Incapacitating Strike to deal damage. I figured that using Pierce Armor was a good idea because it will cost so little that I can use it against many adds right after drawing them in and hitting with Void Bash -> Power Extraction (I guess now -> Dark Shade -> Pierce Armor - ty for input!) - that its efficiency as a single breaching skill - considering the DD limitations imposed by the nature of my objective - is sort of unmatched, even if I lose out on a true spammable.

All of that to say, do you believe that switching Pierce Armor to Surprise Attack will boost overall damage *as well as* evening out the Health discrepancy between bars, considering that I will want to use it as a spammable if I can't keep Pierce Armor for focusing on basic (light, medium, heavy) attacks, and that sustain will still be decent enough to keep resources level while I'm roll dodging and blocking my way through damage?

I just thought of the fact that Surprise Attack will guarantee criticals if striking from the flank, so I'm seriously reconsidering. But my survivability might be boosted most by replacing Pierce Armor / Surprise Attack with a Siphoning Strikes morph and using crit potential, basic attacks and Relentless Focus as my main DD facility.

Do you think that Divines Shield of Health on AB#1 + Infused Shield of Health on AB#2 is a good bet if I only switch Mirage and Dark Shade?

Thanks for your input so far!

Divestor · July 2022

Yeah I'll switch Reverberating Bash to Power Slam, hadn't fully realized the implications of that one lol

fred4 · July 2022

Hmm. You really want to know how it's done?

Let's set some expectations first of all. You can't solo everything you've said. You can't solo trials in general. You may be able to solo normal mode Asylum Sanctorium with a lot of patience, but I don't know for sure.

You can probably solo all normal dungeons and all veteran non-DLC dungeons, even on hard mode, except where mechanics get in the way. Some DLC dungeons have also been soloed on veteran (hard) mode, notably Scalecaller Peak. However to solo that place, you need a ranged build and you probably need high DPS to get through the Doylemish fight, otherwise you get CCd and end up the victim of a guaranteed one shot. The place has been soloed with a lightning heavy attack DK build, as have other difficult, barely soloable places. This goes to highlight one of the issues with soloing the most difficult content: There isn't a one size fits all solution. Melee tank builds work for some things, notably Blackrose Prison, whereas some other places require ranged builds. Veteran Blackrose Prison arenas 1 and 2 have been done by a tank. Some YouTuber posted it, then he gave up, not least because of how tedious it was. I've done arena 1 on vet, as far as the first boss. I could probably do that boss, but too tedious.

Healing mechanics are a problem. This will prevent you from ever soloing Hel Ra Citadel as the mini bosses right at the entrance outheal your damage. Same with one particular world boss in Murkmire. Most world bosses can be soloed comfortably, though. They are not hard, nor are vMA or vVateshran by the standards of what can ultimately be soloed.

fred4 · July 2022

Let's go over the tools you need to make the kind of tank / brawler build you're looking for, which I happen to play myself and which I use for soloing dungeons and carrying random groups.

Let me first set the scene. You're going to feel tremendous pressure to stay alive, much like you would if attacked by multiple players in PvP. You won't have time to do half the things you are proposing. Heavy attacks are out. Too slow and you are too open to attack and crowd control while you're doing them. The only exception to this are lightning staff builds, which are entirely built around heavy attacks from range. We're not going to talk about those. That's an entirely different build philosophy. We're going to talk about melee builds.

If you haven't felt the pressure to stay alive every single second, you haven't set foot in content that's really hard to solo yet. We're not talking about vMA nor vVateshran here. Those places give you a taste of that kind of pressure, but at the end of the day they were designed for single players with around 20K health. They won't one shot you like vBRP or a vet dungeon boss can.

So let me rule out a couple of more things. Heals that you have to spend time casting. Forget them. When you are in truly difficult content, you don't have time to cast those heals. Forget Vigor. Forget Dark Cloak. Forget burst heals. The build I play is a stamsorc. I make an exception for Dark Deal, because it's also a sustain skill. It heals and restores resources. I also make an exception for the Clannfear, because of sorc passives. It gives you health, health regen and stam regen passively and it works as an emergency heal that scales with health. However I find that I rarely use the Clannfear heal, except in vet Blackrose Prison. Why? Because when you spend a GCD (global cooldown, 1 second) healing, that's a GCD where you are not progressing the fight. It stalls the fight and is very expensive, e.g. magicka hungry. If you're unlucky you get attacked in that second for the same amount you are healing and you're right back to square one, except with 4K less magicka. It's a recipe for death within a few seconds. You have to stay on attack so you reduce the threat by killing things. That's of paramount importance.

What you need is passive healing. What class has a passive heal? Sorc. Forget the stamblade. It's worthless for these purposes. A magblade would be different, because Swallow Soul and Sap Essence both heal while attacking. However in my practical experience magblade pales compared to stamsorc or stamina builds in general. If you want to know the reason for that, you'll have to keep reading.

So, by the way, I'm of course referring to Crit Surge. That skill raises sorc to the top or near the top (depending on who you talk to) of the solo play tier list. By the way, the class frequently touted as best for solo play is magplar. Let me just say, the people who recommend magplar as the #1 solo class do not know what they're talking about. Yes, that means Deltia and others. It's a great beginner class, but the inability to block while spamming Sweeps holds it back big time, as does the fact that Sweeps does not generate a shield like a certain other skill. More on that below. People who recommend magplar have not attempted to solo vet Blackrose Prison. If you take a magplar into vet Blackrose Prison on it's own and spam Sweeps, you die. Maybe there are ways of working around that, but I doubt it.

What other passive healing can we get? Well, Pale Order is an option, as is the blue CP that heals you from attacking. I don't use those options, because my build was intended for 4-man group play as well as soloing, Thus Pale Order wouldn't work for me. You might try it, though. As to that blue 7% healing from damage CP star, it is weak. Just not very good. I'd rather invest in damage, crit damage / healing and mitigation.

Then there is health regen. We're going to take it where we can get it cheaply. That means not from the armor sets. The armor sets have to give us something else, which I'll get to. Where can you get health regen otherwise? From gold food, but most of all from never using your ultimate and using Strategic Reserve CP. And from being a sorc. Remember the Clannfear? Having a skill from that skill line slotted adds +20% health regen, totalling about 3.8K health regen with a potion. That's a 3.8K passive heal every 2 seconds. Not a lot, but the consistency of that heal is what makes it great. Do not underestimate health regen. It's OP.

Divestor · July 2022

You've given me a lot to think about, I really appreciate the points you've made and the in-depth look you've given me. In the end, I am also looking to create a solo + group viable build - I'm in this for the personal benefit of successfully mixing head-canon and victory.

Critical Surge definitely seems like a powerful heal and paired with Strategic Reserve and the Clannfear, I can see how any other passive healing options would be inherently less valuable. I totally was underestimating health regen and was planning on using different CP options.

So, what you are saying is that a generally powerful tactic for defeating these enemies is to beat them at their otherwise most effective game - to out-heal the damage they're causing, and to out-damage the heal they're benefiting from.

Does this mean that inflicting Defile in some capacity is optimal if paired with the above, as well as decent damage? I'm assuming then that crit potential is of high priority, too? And, what armor type do you use?

fred4 · July 2022

The next thing you need is damage shields. This is something I'm happily not alone in saying. Damage shields are number one for solo play. Why is this? Why is it better to have a damage shield rather than, say, tremendously good healing? Because damage shields are a health extension. It's like you temporarily have more health. This means you can survive bigger one shots. Simple as that. This is very palpable and among the reasons why magplar is not the best solo class. I know, I know. Keep reading, please.

Now remember: Casting a damage shield, Blazing Shield, Bone Shield, Sorc Shield, is a no. It's the same as with burst heals. Those skills are expensive and a literal waste of time. It's a second spent casting such a skill that you don't have. I've tried using Bone Shield in my build. It was not good.

So we're looking for shields that will proc automatically. There are plenty of sets that proc such shields. Hexos Ward. Iceheart. Prayer Shawl. Numerous others. There is even an enchant. All garbage. OK, I'm overstating this, however there is one shield that trumps all others in both size and uptime: The Brawler shield. That means the Brawler skill from the 2H skill line. That shield can be anywhere from 6K to about 20K in size and it procs every second, while you spam Brawler. In terms of the amount of shielding per second that skill gives you, it's probably the same as everything else combined.

You should not use those other shields, except maybe a monster set (Iceheart) and the shielding enchant. Not really even Iceheart, though. 1 or 2 pieces of Magma Incarnate is probably better. Why? Because Brawler is an expensive skill. That's it's one downfall, although you have the best race. Redguard gives you weapon skill cost reduction. You need to be able to sustain Brawler. That's your number one priority and why you don't have room for other shields in the build. Brawler spam keeps you alive. The more pressure you face, the more you'll be forced into spamming that skill, because nothing else comes close in solo play where you also have to deal damage. You may have to block some attacks while spamming Brawler. That really hurts your stamina.

In other words, here's the next thing you need: Stamina sustain. Lots of it. That's why we're not wearing shielding sets nor Twice Born Star nor Relequen nor Deadland's Assassin. There is one set that rules them all for solo play. Vicious Ophidian. There is a CP star that give you 1.5K stamina when you kill something. That is also worth considering, as is Wretched Vitality on the back bar, which I use for very hard content, such as Blackrose Prison. And, of course, this is why I like Magma Incarnate or maybe Engine Guardian. Dark Deal lets you convert magicka to stamina. Wretched Vitality, Magma and Engine Guardian all help by giving you magicka as well.

Make no mistake: Casting Dark Deal is dangerous. Refreshing Hurricane and Crit Surge is dangerous. You may have to run or dodge roll while casting those skills in high pressure content. In the really hard content, casting anything but Brawler can be dangerous.

Now let's talk about health. I built my character as a tank, because I wanted to play a tank. I had played Brawler builds before with lower health. Then I put all my attribute points into health, sitting at 35K to 40K health. Much better. This makes a palpable difference. I also went for being at the resistance cap (33K), although I find that the least necessary. In solo play it can be more helpful to have sustain, e.g. by back barring Wretched Vitality instead of Tormentor. Keeping Vicious Ophidian as well.

There is really no good reason to build for a high stamina pool anymore. All characters got an extra 1K weapon and spell damage a year or two ago, at base. This has created a situation where even a tank, such as my build, can have 4.5K weapon damage plus Bloodthirsty execute damage. I also built for around 42% crit, not least to proc Crit Surge reliably. Finally I'm using the ubiquitous Master's 2H weapon, which scales up Brawler damage the more targets you hit. This build can do AOE damage of 60K or more. Using Silver Leash helps to pull those targets. It's only slow killing bosses, although even that can be improved. When I'm solo, I sometimes slot Executioner and Crystal Weapon instead of Caltrops and Silver Leash. I guess you could retain Caltrops and drop Blinding Flare (which passively gives you Major Protection) instead. Weaving and alternating Crystal Weapon with Brawler should up your single target damage by 50% in the current patch.

Here, then, is my build: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=421256

This build is proven in numerous vet dungeons, both solo and in groups. The potion is weapon crit / health / stamina, by the way. Relatively cheap to make.

fred4 · July 2022

What remains to be discussed? Defile was nerfed a long time ago, because it was OP in PvP. I doubt it does much to stop those bosses that heal from outhealing your damage.

I tested an Oakensoul variation of the build, but wasn't that impressed. I also have a variation where I use Vicious Ophidian, Medusa, Master's 2H front bar, Maelstrom 2H back bar. That build does more damage, as does the Oakensoul one I would say, which can help where you have a DPS race, for example when killing the vMA ice stage boss on the final platform. As for vVateshran, if you get encircled by the shades in the final fight, you can escape the circle by streaking through a shade.

The Tormentor set back bar does a couple of things. Stampede leaves an AOE on the ground. This keeps proccing the Infused back bar enchant for permanent uptime, as long as an NPC is standing in the AOE. It's also an AOE taunt, and it gives you about 3.5K resistances that carry over to the front bar. Great set.

Some bosses, notably the final one in Frostvault, have phases where they don't take damage. The Tormentor set does not work at those times and you'll need to slot another skill for the taunt.

I tried making a build with Brawler front bar and 1H+S back bar for group tanking. As a tank in vet DLC dungeons there are some bosses where you really need to block with 1H+S, otherwise they one shot you. In the end I decided to have a completely different gear layout for that. I felt that a mixed Brawler / 1H+S build would have been too much of a compromise after looking at it in UESP. Instead I used alternate gear that changes the character to a more conventional tank with Yolnakhriin and block cost reduction for group play:

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=433679

In that build I use another trick that few if any tank uses: Introspection. Restores health, magicka, stamina while giving 30% damage reduction. Good when you don't know mechanics and you're out of resources. Introspection works as a group tank, because you typically have some downtime where you have nothing to do. Not good solo. In solo play you need to stay on the move. You can't sit still and be damaged or interrupted. Dark Deal works much better in solo play, because you can move.

I suppose I should mention Precognition. I used Temporal Guard for the 5% damage reduction, but the other morph can be useful in solo play. Some bosses will CC you and only a group mate can normally free you. Precognition helps to break the CC in some of those cases. In fact the Doylemish fight in Scalecaller has that issue. With Oakensoul you may have enough ultigen to do that fight, e.g. by getting Precognition back quickly.

This brings up another potential avenue for an OP solo build in the current patch, e.g. a DK ulti-gen build with something like 80% Corrosive Armor uptime. People in PvP are apparently doing it. This would involve Oakensoul, Decisive weapons, Bloodspawn, Minor Heroism potions, and so on. It might work.

Divestor · July 2022

Sorcerer build looks really amazing!

Can Siphoning Strikes, with light attacks in a perfect weave, and a constantly focused battlefield awareness w/ knowledge of mechanics, allow me to survive by using Dark Cloak? Can I weave purely defensive abilities and ensure survival by that (not discounting your focus on sustain, I'm totally hearing it and will implement!) in tandem with recognition of the enemy's action before it occurs?

I'm really excited that soloing rewards a proactive approach!

If 15% less damage taken by player is significant enough to help (protection), then wouldn't 15% less damage done by enemies be more significant (maim)? Are you saying I won't have time to activate Minor Resolve through Mirage every 26 seconds and Major Resolve through Dark Cloak every 13.5 seconds (if not more)?

RESISTANCE + MITIGATION

14,897 (7 pcs legendary heavy armor) + 2441 (resolve passive) + 8922 (Minor & Major Resolve) + 4491 (Divines, Lady)

7 pieces heavy armor = 30,751 (46.59% mitigation), w/ Divines Shield = 32,721 (49.58%) or
5 pieces heavy armor = 29,165 (44.19% mitigation), w/ Divines Shield = 31,135 (47.17%)

With High Elf passive Spell Recharge, 5% less damage taken while using an ability with a cast or channel time - which brings me to be mitigating more than 50% if using 5 or 7 pieces of heavy armor. I would need to be using an ability with a cast or channel time, but it does not say I must be in the process of casting or channeling the ability, so I believe that Channeled Acceleration would be a very strong option if I could get the opportunity to cast it w/o being interrupted - even if interrupted, if I have it on the bar w/ Major Protection while also benefiting from Dark Cloak's Minor Protection and Mirage's Minor Resolve, I'd have 95% reduction of damage to me while casting, and if I also proc it w/ Unstoppable then the potential seems trivial.

I predict (accurately or no) that a difference between abilities with a cast time as opposed to abilities with a channel time is while both can be interrupted, the former extends the native moments of susceptibility only while the GCD configures the allocation of the resources being spent (ultimate, stamina, magicka, health), while the latter applies and bounds moments of susceptibility to sort of demarcate exactly when during the skill's process of effect that an interruption is viable. This is why Flurry is interruptible for the duration but Snipe is interruptible only while drawing the bow, and not really after the arrow fires; in both cases, an interrupt would fully stop the ability, but Flurry will have an interruptible *effect* while Snipe will have an interruptible *draw* - and why Channeled Acceleration is only interruptible during the cast time; even though the skill is titled as it is, it's listed as having a cast time rather than being a channel, and once the resources are spent it's no longer susceptible to its effects being annulled. Meditation can be interrupted for the entirety of its effect, even though it has a cast time and isn't a technical channel, but the tooltip specifically details this fact (if in doubt, specific > general). I don't know enough from experience and I'm not currently in a position to test. Also I promise I'm not trying to explain to you or condescend, only that I'm in need of a sounding board. It's for proccing Spell Recharge with Channeled Acceleration. I believe I'll get +5% mitigation for the duration of the ability.

SUSTAIN

I'm aware that some of the below may be less useful because having some magicka regen would be of more importance than degrees of stamina regen I list below. High Elf helps with this to an extent, though I imagine that I'll require more than Spell Recharge, so exchanging one stam recovery source for a mag recovery source could be optimal. I believe that High Elf "Syrabane's Boon" + Siphoning "Magicka Flood" still makes its recovery less of a definite priority than for stamina, here, just that it can't last forever. Makes those Restore Magicka pots sound better than ever, if I don't wanna sacrifice the below numbers especially -

With NB
Incapacitating Strike - 100 Mag + Stam / light attack
Leeching Strikes (213.5 restore / s, can be refreshed for immediate returns)
= 206 mag / stam for 1 light attack
High Elf - 625 restore
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Divines, Serpent - 507 recover
3 recovery jewelry - 507 recover
Artaeum Broth - 338 recover
Refreshing Shadows
Minor + Major Endurance and Intellect

= recovery buffed +60% = 2163.2 stamina recovered / 2s,
and
= 1 GCD (light attack + ability) = 1044.5 stamina restored / second,
and
= 5 second Leeching Strikes refresh = 1067.5 stamina restored / 5 seconds
totaling, on average, 23,396 stamina regained by some manner every 10 seconds

This (Leeching Strikes) is also 7416 health / 5 seconds or 14,832 health / 10 seconds of GCDs

And I'd wanna use Refreshing Path w/ h & m +/ s restore pots.

Not counting NB's Executioner +1000 Mag & Stam for 1 kill.

I believe I can get 202 ultimate / 54 seconds with Catalyst.

I'm totally aware these are only really trial dummy numbers, but I believe through these buffs that if mechanics rest there's benefit, and if they don't there's benefit. I am generally a terrible mathematician, so please help me out if I'm mistaken anywhere (or everywhere, lol) here.

I can definitely see the usage of a Two-handed considering especially the Stamina recovery % increase upon kill. That seems incredible. Caltrops seems very worthy of investment as a ranged AoE Major Breach application - I have to say that your sorc build appears phenomenal, these synergies with Critical Surge are wild, thanks for sharing!

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Okay, another question: how often do you block to mitigate?

I believe only cast / channel time abilities force block loss, so what if I were to be blocking for a few GCD while in the process of gaining 1-2 damage shields, and then recasting my Maim / Protection abilities and/or light attacking while maintaining the block and protected by the damage shields? Perhaps using an Unstoppable potion /

I understand block mitigation can reach fairly high numbers which would appear to outclass, and so be perfect in tandem with, some of my other more complex mitigation abilities. Which CP should I use to achieve this? I'm definitely going to use a food like Artaeum and Strategic Reserve champion, and replace the DD set with a more survival focused one. Soon, Dark Cloak will give 20% max health / second, making or keeping NB and Sorc the best on terms of reliable self-heals, while nearly every other HoT goes on a 2-second cycle just like Swallow Soul always has been. Swallow Soul is still reliable damage if boosted w/ single target + direct damage, and benefits dually from crit rating. I think it can be applied to multiple targets at once, so weaving 2 of them on different targets could be potent.

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I still haven't arrived to any conclusive answers, only speculating as to what's possible and hoping to be informed as to what there is to it beyond my theories. What do you think?

fred4 · July 2022

Let me preface this by emphasizing my build is tested. I'll comment on your ideas from experience, but without testing I could be wrong. So if I put your ideas down, I don't know for sure, but these are my gut reactions from experience. At the end of the day, test your stuff and report back to me, will you?

That said, to evaluate a build, you need to test it in the worst case scenario. One such scenario is to try and solo veteran Blackrose Prison.

The Master's 2H covers up my tank's damage deficit in many AOE scenarios. It will feel similar to much squishier builds in some cases, while doing similarly high damage, for example if you took it into Skyreach Caverns. A place like Skyreach doesn't test the build at all.

One of the real tests is vet Blackrose Prison to assess the survivability, and vMA, specficially the boss fight in arena 5 (ice stage), to make sure the damage is not too low for the DPS race on the last platform.

Divestor wrote: »

Can Siphoning Strikes, with light attacks in a perfect weave,

Oops. Let me cut you off right there

. There are big differences between truly passive healing (health regen), semi-passive healing (Crit Surge and HOTs), and healing from damage. You tend to learn this in PvP, because in PvP you get CCd a lot. A perfect weave can only be done while you are on the attack. Is this helpful? Yes. Should you always be on the attack? Yes. Same idea with Brawler and the shield. However a couple of things:

Number one: Does the Siphoning Attacks heal match the Brawler shield or the Crit Surge heal? No. Not even close. You'll have to double-check the healing values, but in my experience it's a much smaller heal, as is Structured Entropy. I don't even call these healing skills. Siphoning Attacks is a sustain skill (generally worth slotting) and Structured Entropy is a garbage DOT that serves no purpose whatsoever anymore, because it's been overnerfed. I'm pretty sure other skills are better, at least for the builds we're trying to make.

Number two: Passive healing heals you while you are knocked back, incapacitated, knocked about by ground AOE and immediately stunned again by some monsters that don't respect PvP mechanics. Titans are notorious for this. In PvP you get a 7 second stun immunity window after breaking free. In PvE that guarantee does not exist. Titans, such as the second last fight in City of Ash 2, constantly stun you. You can barely get any damage in. Monsters in the hedge maze in Moon Hunter Keep constantly stun you. I'm not sure you can solo that on a tank, even on normal, because there is also a healing mechanic and you don't do enough damage. However you can survive and give it a go, when you have sufficient health regen. Another example of a boss that constantly stuns you is the final boss in Spindleclutch 1 (arachnophobia stun). You don't notice this stuff so much in a group, because the stun frequency is typically divided by 4, because a healer heals you, because someone else brakes you free. Trying to solo group content is different.

and a constantly focused battlefield awareness w/ knowledge of mechanics,

I like your use of the term "constantly focused battlefield" awareness. That sounds like fun and I think it applies in some places like Blackrose Prison or the last boss in Red Petal Bastion, because there is so much going on and you can't exactly predict it all. In general it's often more a question of experience. In vMA you know when and where something spawns. You lay down ground AOE and whack it before it even has a chance to hit you. That's why vMA can be done and is, in fact, best done - I mean for the best scores and times - with super squishy, very high damage builds. It's complicated, but predictable. At the very least, when you go into places designed for groups, everything takes longer to kill. You run into more unpredictable situations in those longer fights than when you kill everything outright the second it spawns.

allow me to survive by using Dark Cloak if slots are Swallow Soul, Brawler, Dark Cloak, Race Against Time / Shuffle / Mirage, Revealing Flare?

So are we a magblade or a stamblade in this scenario? Using Swallow Soul purely has a HOT? This could be a good way of building. You can build for health regen much as a on sorc, because magblade has a 15% regen passive. So let's assume you have that and equate Swallow Soul + Leeching Strikes + Dark Cloak with Crit Surge + Dark Deal. I don't think the Swallow Soul HOT nor Leeching Strikes are that strong, but together they may equal the Crit Surge Heal. Let's equate the Leeching Strikes resource return with Dark Deal's return and let's equate Dark Cloak with the heal you get from Dark Deal. Does that equation work out? Maybe. I don't know.

Furthermore, to emulate the Clannfear, you could use Shrewd Offering, not that that is necessarily needed. I think you will have higher magicka requirements on the nightblade, because you will be casting Swallow Soul semi-regularly. The real elephant in the room is how good Dark Deal feels in practice. When there is a lull in combat, as you are waiting for the next spawn, or while you simply run away from enemies for a few seconds, you can use a few Dark Deals to restore your stamina to full. That's an option magblade does not have. Facing a monster to pull off a heavy attack feels significantly worse than Dark Deal. Yes, both can be interrupted, but heavy attacks are more likely to be interrupted and they can also miss. You have to remain in the monsters face with a heavy attack, possibly surrounded by their adds. Momentarily moving out of a monster's reach and Dark Dealing feels better. Furthemore you can do it in down time, between arena rounds or while you're running anyway.

Can I weave purely defensive abilities and ensure survival by that (not discounting your focus on sustain, I'm totally hearing it and will implement!)

No, you cannot! Not in solo play. Why is that? Because you don't progress the fight. You only prolong your inevitable demise that way. Your opponents are going to stay alive, beating on you, while you run out of resources. Then you die. So unless your goal is a troll tank that simply stalls a fight forever with, let's say, some off-meta healing set and permanent Mist Form, you can't do it. Purely defensive abilities are also expensive. Brawler is expensive too, but look at the cost difference between offensive and defensive skills in general. Offensive skills are typically around the 2K mark. Defensive skills cost 3K to 4K.

in tandem with recognition of the enemy's action before it occurs?

Well, recognising mechanics is important. Very important. But you asked to solo dungeons and trials, didn't you? Content that was made for more than one player. In that content, you will be in situations where you can't do anything about the next upcoming one shot, but shield or block. This happens in Blackrose Prison. There are too many archers and flame throwing mages that may decide to throw one shots at you all at the same time. You'll be able to interrupt most of them in time, but sometimes you have to take a hit.

fred4 · July 2022

Divestor wrote: »

If 15% less damage taken by player is significant enough to help (protection), then wouldn't 15% less damage done by enemies be more significant (maim)?

Oh dear. Sorry. It's just: This is a can of worms.

I believe Maim and Protection are exactly equivalent as far as a damage reduction, except Protection reduces all incoming damage to you and Maim all outgoing damage from a monster. In a 1v1 situation these should be equally strong. However, you just summed up Major and Minor Protection for 15%, didn't you? That's not how that works. It is multiplicative:

Major Protection = You take 0.9 (90%) of the full damage.
Minor Protection = You Take 0.95 (95%) of the full damage.
Both together = 0.9 * 0.95 = 0.855 = 85.5% of the full damage = 14.5% damage reduction.

That doesn't sound like much of a difference, but ... well. Moving on:

The two biggest factors of mitigation are your armor and blocking. You probably want to be at the armor cap (33K) first and foremost (although in practice I compromise for sustain in solo play). As long as you're below the armor cap, finding more armor is generally more effective than finding other mitigations, because adding armor is additive. What does this mean? Let's say you have 45% mitigation from armor, e.g. 29700 armor. Let's also say you have some monster set or mythic or whatever that gives you another 3300 armor for 5%. You have another one that gives you Minor Protection (5% mitigation). Are they both the same? Well, let's see:

Other armor (45%) + new gear piece that gives 3300 resistances (5%) = 50% mitigation. Hurrah!

Other armor (45%) + Minor Protection (5%) = 0.55 * 0.95 damage taken = 0.5225 damage taken = 47.75% mitigation. Err, what?

Yep. That's how that goes. I'm using Temporal Guard + Blinding Flare, because I had the bar slots available. In general, though, having lots of small mitigation factors, 5% here, 10% there, another 6% from CP, isn't as effective as reaching the armor cap.

Then there is blocking. At base, when your character is naked, they block 55% of damage. Once you wear armor and you use 1H+S or an ice staff, your blocking effectiveness rises into the 70% to 80% range, possibly more. Yep. Blocking outperforms everything. It's the single biggest factor and everything else is multiplicative. You cannot reach 100% mitigation.

Content was designed so that tanks are needed. Power creep has lead to a situation where tanks are not truly needed up to about the level of veteran non-DLC dungeons. After that, you're getting into content where tanks can only survive by blocking or possibly dodging, if you're good at reading mechanics. Of course, groups don't like the tank to move, so they often just block. Try going into vet Dread Cellar with even my patented solo build. Dread Cellar is harder than the first vet Blackrose Prison arena. You get CCd a ton and hit for a ton of damage by even the first mobs. One of the later bosses hits super hard. Brawler builds don't cut it there. All your other mitigations won't cut it, because blocking with 1h+S mitigates so much damage and the game is tailored for blocking tanks. Even if you multiply them all up, that has diminishing returns. You do not get close to how effective blocking is if you try to rely solely on other mitigations and don't block.

I made some previous calculations, because I have Major + Minor Protection and I use meditation in one of my builds. That's 45% mitigation on paper, if you think it's additive. But it's not, so it's only about 40%. Meanwhile blocking can mitigate more like 80% of damage (let's say we use Bracing Anchor CP). If both builds are at the armor cap, then the meditating build mitigates:

0.5 (from armor) * 0.6 (from meditation and protection) = 0.3 damage taken = 70% mitigation

Sounds impressive until you realise that the blocking build does this:

0.5 (from armor) * 0.2 (from block) = 0.1 damage taken = 90% mitigation

Now we take the ratio:

0.3 / 0.1 = 3

You know what that means? It means a build that uses the 30% Psijic mitigation passive and protections that add up to 40% damage reduction takes 3 times as much damage as a good blocking build. If something hits the blocking build for, say, 20K health, it will hit the super duper protection / meditating build for 60K health. The blocking build will survive. The meditating build will die. As it probably should. ZOS' design isn't all that stupid after all and they do design bosses to hit that hard in newer DLC dungeons and in trials. The only way you could work around this is by having a ton of health (which you then would need to find ways of healing back to full) or of having very large damage shields. But not really, because large enough shields do not exist. However this is why the constant health extension from the Brawler shield is still important or at least so very useful.

Are you saying I won't have time to activate Minor Resolve through Mirage every 26 seconds and Major Resolve through Dark Cloak every 13.5 seconds (if not more)?

No, no. You will have time to activate those buffs and you must activate them, except in the most borderline scenarios where content is basically near unsoloable you will feel very vulnerable while you're not swinging Brawler. You'll end up compensating for that with movement and dodge rolling, like a PvPer.

With High Elf passive Spell Recharge, 5% less damage taken while using an ability with a cast or channel time - which brings me to be mitigating more than 50% if using 5 or 7 pieces of heavy armor. I would need to be using an ability with a cast or channel time,

Yeah. That's a no. Dark Deal has a cast time and is too good a skill to ignore. Other than that, you want to be able to block at any moment. See above. 5% multiplicative mitigation, or even 40%, is laughable compared to blocking. This is why I'm saying templar doesn't work for extreme soloing, e.g. because you can't block while spamming Sweeps.

but it does not say I must be in the process of casting or channeling the ability, so I believe that Channeled Acceleration would be a very strong option if I could get the opportunity to cast it w/o being interrupted - even if interrupted, if I have it on the bar w/ Major Protection while also benefiting from Dark Cloak's Minor Protection and Mirage's Minor Resolve, I'd have 95% reduction of damage to me while casting, and if I also proc it w/ Unstoppable then the potential seems trivial.

Nope. See above. No such thing as 95% damage reduction. You will activate the 30% Psijic damage reduction passive alright, but do me a favour and run Race Against Time. Movement - clearing roots and snares where you can and having an instant cast movement skill - is far more important than the 30% mitigation from that Psijic passive. I am making use of that passive by sometimes meditating when I'm a group tank. In solo play that does not work. Movement is very important.

fred4 · July 2022

In regards to your sustain calculation, this is something I play by ear. In other words, test it and adjust it then.

In group content you will get synergies. No problem.
In easier solo content you get a Dark Deal or a heavy attack in here and there and things die constantly, so Vicious Ophidian sustains you. Also no problem.
It's only in the most cutting edge content I find you can't have enough sustain, e.g. vBRP. It's not like vBRP (arena 1) can't be done without Wretched Vitality. It's just that Wretched Vitality prevents you from constantly having to Dark Deal. Swinging Brawler keeps you safer for longer. If you end up without the Brawler shield, because you're buffing and Dark Dealing, you end up having to block or dodge roll stuff you otherwise don't have to. It ends up being counter-productive.
The most extreme case of this is going into vet Hel Ra (trial) and pulling all the mobs at the entrance, including the mini-bosses. Constant CCs and overwhelming damage means you could survive with infinite Brawler sustain, but trying to bar swap for refreshing Crit Surge / Hurricane / Dark Deal either gets you killed or your dodge rolls leave you with no stamina and then you die as well.

In regards to blocking. On the Brawler build I try to do it as little as possible, because it is expensive. Sometimes you know a "Taking Aim" one shot is coming that you can't interrupt in time, but you don't know 100% exactly when. The Brawler shield might be good enough, or you block. Sometimes you see the boss heavy attack and you may have to block. This is painful. Spamming Brawler while blocking progresses the fight and is the best mitigation, but is very hard on sustain. I'm liable to let myself get knocked back on this build, blocking when I really have to, but not blocking every mechanic.

Blocking as a true tank is different, because you're not spamming an expensive skill and you have block cost reduction as well as greater mitigation from 1H+S. You use Sturdy gear and maybe block cost reduction jewelry. You're probably not specced into stamina regen at all. This is something I could not fit into the Brawler build and which is, in fact, fundamentally at odds with a high-sustain Brawler build. That's why I decided to use completely different gear and not even slot Brawler in my group tank variation of the build.

I believe only cast / channel time abilities force block loss, so what if I were to be blocking for a few GCD while in the process of gaining 1-2 damage shields and then recasting my Maim / Protection abilities

Holding block while recasting your buffs is an option. In fact, it's something I often do, but I may also just move, sometimes roll. It depends on the fight.

and/or light attacking while maintaining the block

You can't do that.

and protected by the damage shields?

Well, it entirely depends on how hard the content you are doing is. I've been talking a lot about soloing some of the hardest content that can possibly be soloed. Even stuff that other people don't attempt to solo at all. If your Brawler shields hold for more than one second, you may be thinking of easier content than I'm doing lately

.

Perhaps using an Unstoppable potion /

The potion for the stamsorc is Weapon Crit / Health / Stamina. You want all of that. Preferably all the time. Unstoppable potions are for PvP. They have an about 23% uptime. Basically useless in solo PvE. Not least because some monsters do not honor mechanics. They'll CC you anyway and some will snare you anyway and Race Against Time cannot cure it.

I understand block mitigation can reach fairly high numbers which would appear to outclass, and so be perfect in tandem with, some of my other more complex mitigation abilities. Which CP should I use to achieve this?

Bracing Anchor. A very good and overlooked red sub CP star (right hand side). I just don't know what I would give up in my build. I'm all about the unconditional regen (Rejuvenation), I love Slippery for the automatic break free, I'm using Fortified to reach resistance cap, and Strategic Reserve is a key part of the build.

Swallow Soul ... benefits dually from crit rating.

That information is about 7 years out of date to the best of my knowledge. Swallow Soul, or rather Funnel Health, healed for crazy amounts in PvP when I started playing the game. 8K a tick was possible. This was due to multiple bugs that have long been fixed. The double-crit was one.

I think it can be applied to multiple targets at once, so weaving 2 of them on different targets could be potent.

No. That only works with Burning Embers.

Divestor · July 2022

Blackrose Prison is good, I need to visit often to get one of the sets for this. I'll go w/ a group and learn mechanics, work up to veteran by leveling up 'til my CP is more comfortable (I'm at a bit above 550 atm, I believe I'll need more), and try to figure my way with fewer and fewer other players until I'm doing it alone or close. Meantime I'll test and level in environments with similar mechanics.

I still have one jewelry + armor set to consider, and I think I could use either Armor of the Seducer (if using all Stamina recovery on other set pieces, food, and Serpent w/ Lady), with having Fortitude 45% and Intellect 60% = 2175 health recovery, 540.8 magicka recovery, and each magicka ability reducing in cost by 1000-(1000*.10) - 625 = 275 mag. Or further Stamina recovery through Vicious Serpent, like you're using, to kind of cement that magicka is just more likely to return through Spell Charge even if I'm using a lot of stamina. A weapon spell damage stat increase feels like it could be stronger at this point because I'm getting so much mag reduction if I use it correctly and the heals I receive from abilities do scale from base damage stats.

Heavy Armor = 20% Health recovery
Nightblade = 15% Health recovery
Major Fortitude = 30% Health recovery
65% Health recovery
= 2475 Strategic Reserve
= 669.9 Artaeum food
= 3144.9 Health recovery

- Swallow Soul: Burst single-target & direct damage one-way periodic health leash. Variable damage and variable healing percentage increases with several potential class tools to make each happen.

- Healthy Offering: Burst self-heal much like Dark Cloak except instantaneous + gives Major Mending +16% healing. Using this grants +16 to Swallow Soul, for 54% of damage inflicted -> self-heal, paired on same bar is even better (for any Siphoning skill except ) although Healthy Offering also improves its following casts for those 8 seconds by 19%. Should probably be main-barred.

- Siphoning Strikes: Costs a small amount to initiate, heal and restore mag / stam on basic attack, passively builds a pool of mag / stam while active & you can refresh the skill at any time of its duration (or wait until the end) to grant you the current amount you've built up.

- Dark Cloak: Will soon give 20% health every second over 5 seconds. I disbelieve that it will be 36% of health with Major Mending, something more likely to be 20+(20*.16) every second over 5 seconds, for 23.2% health every second. Probably want it on bar w/ one other Shadow ability and a Siphoning ability, too.

Dark Cloak followed immediately by Healthy Offering then can spam

I can get Master's 1H&S instead of Void Bash if I need to mainly focus on heals for 1 bar, although this would help less with my applied CC I would gain more if the healing is more necessary for the fight. It does a very small amount of damage itself, but still feels in line w/ philosophy of Critical Surge. So maybe weaving Siphoning Strikes-enabled light attacks with Pierce Armor, and Swallow Soul and Power Slam if it's efficient, but only if all other protective capacities are up?

Divestor · July 2022

Or Refreshing Path instead of Swallow Soul?

fred4 · July 2022

I've said all I can say. Only one more thing. True hybrids are hard to play. Using a stamina spammable (Brawler) and magicka spammable (Swallow Soul) in the same build means you're veering in that direction, unless you treat Swallow Soul strictly as a heal. You'll have to carefully balance your sustain and may end up compromising your overall stats, if you balance your magicka and stamina. I certainly do not recommend getting stamina recovery from, say, jewelry enchants and magicka sustain from Seducer. For hybrid sustain you're looking at options, such as:

Wretched Vitality
Shacklebreaker
Amber Plasm
Eternal Vigor
Torc of Tonal Constancy
Dual-regen food (Bear Haunch) or all stat food (Sugar Skulls)

Divestor · July 2022

Well thanks for your advice! I'll definitely test.

Heavy Armor = 20% Health recovery
Nightblade = 15% Health recovery
Major Fortitude = 30% Health recovery
65% Health recovery
= 2475 Strategic Reserve
= 404.25 Amber Plasm
= 669.9 Smoked Bear Haunch
= 148.5 Rejuvenation
= 3697.65 Health recovery if I can maintain potion buffs.

At this point I can't imagine giving up a source of recovery just for gaining Max stats, so Amber Plasm really seems like a good idea, and Smoked Bear Haunch feels much more lively than Sugar skulls. I've used Sugar skulls for 1/2 the time I've been playing, and I feel that it is nice for exactly the type of fights I need it less for - not trash, but lower-tier bosses like delve bosses and whatnot. Trash fights don't make it necessary, and bosses more difficult than delve bosses require more resource sustain than max resources. This is as a khajiit.

Divestor · July 2022

This is what I've come up with and will try to test. I hope it works!

https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=463420

A note is that there are a few races that could be thought of as most optimal for the build - Khajiit, Altmer, Orc and Redguard each help with costs in their own way, and are the races I considered the most.

The differences are most minimal between Altmer and Khajiit, who also have the best recovery stats for each of Health, Magicka and Stamina.

Khajiit have a 495 Health, 453 Magicka and 408 Stamina *recovered* over the Altmer every 6 seconds, while Altmer have a 625 Magicka or Stamina *restored* every 6 seconds from activating an ability. The most

Altmer have a 3225 Spell & Weapon Power, for
Ability Bar #1: Effective 5114 Spell and 5378 Weapon Power
Ability Bar #2: Effective 5306 Spell and 5507 Weapon Power

while Khajiit have a 2954 Spell & Weapon Power, for
Ability Bar #1: Effective 4812 Spell and 5315 Weapon Power
Ability Bar #2: Effective 5003 Spell and 5455 Weapon Power

I believe the the difference between the S&W Power 2 is minimal for damage and *maybe significant* for healing, but that the difference between Healing as an Altmer and as a Khajiit is mostly offset by the latter's superior Health recovery. The editor shows, though, that the Khajiit will heal 8537, and the Altmer 8435, every GCD by combining Master's 1H&S, Leeching Strikes light attack, and Refreshing Path. It isn't much of a difference, but it's there.

The place where this build suffers as opposed to fred's is enemy-independent healing - I'll always want my potions up for the Fortitude, Endurance and Intellect bonuses, so reserving them for burst healing is not a real option. My best tool for it in the build I linked is combining Refreshing Path and Dark Cloak, for 5026 minimum Healing / second (that is not dependent on smacking anyone in my radius). If the extra healing / second is necessary, then using Swallow Soul in the place of Power Slam would net an additional 1989.72 healing / 2 seconds, or Healthy Offering for 8452 instant health and granting oneself Minor Mending for 8 seconds, causing the aforementioned 5026 / second to then be 5548 / second and subsequent casts of Healthy Offering to heal for 9096, for 14,644 healing / second.

However - the recent patch notes stated that Dark Cloak will soon heal 20% of Max health / second for 5 seconds, which on the ability bar with lowest Health, equates to around 7392.2 healing / second. I believe this will preclude any necessity of replacing Power Slam for better healing, so keeping the build as it is could be best for the future.

Because I was on the topic of replacing Power Slam with another skill, and future changes to NB skills, if I want to:

try to gain the advantage of a flank on my opponents,
give up the power in the cost-reduction of Power Slam,
go for a more offensive playstyle which doesn't incentivize blocking for attacking,
and take full advantage of the Khajiit's racial bonuses,

then exchanging Power Slam for Surprise Attack is a fun option, as it will soon guarantee a critical strike when attacking from behind.
I think in lower-tier content this will be a better option than it could be in explorations of soloing veteran trials, but still potentially feasible! I don't know yet.

Again, thank you nukenstein and fred for the advice and helping me l2p w/ the build editor!

fred4 · July 2022

Your build would not be for me,
cause it's got no A O E

Divestor · July 2022

No, can't nab everything in one build, and I've no need to proselytize - to the point, it does already have Dark Shade, and I could replace Power Slam and maybe even Blinding Flare with Deep Slash, Lightweight Beast Trap, Power Extraction, or skills like that if I need to. I would sacrifice a bit of sustain and a bit of protection, but AoE is definitely there if I need it.

Zodiarkslayer · July 2022

Reading this thread, I can only think of one thing. It is a quote from good old Skyrim, maybe you know it:
"Eyes on the Prey, not the horizon."

SOLO builds are all about balance between Defense, Sustain and Offense. These Nightblade builds above have no Offense at all. Every attempt to clear simple dungeons will be several hour long, mind numbing patience tests.
Plus soloing vet content requires a lot of Player skill. No amount of tankyness is going to make up for a lack of it.

I am sorry to be blunt. Honestly.

Divestor · July 2022

Ok, so what I am hearing is that I need more offensive power and if that comes at the cost of a bit of current defense or sustain then so be it.
Your bluntness doesn't bother me, I just need feedback while I theorycraft because I'm

1) not going to copypasta somebody else's build, since I'm not personally into the meta leadership-followership mindset. It's a worthy approach, but I don't like being pigeon-holed in a game with so much diversity, especially when I know that like you say, it's a synergy between player skill and being your own group healer, tank, damager and sustenance that matters - which is really basic to understand, even if the implementation is more complex.

2) only needing to know what I should build for in advance so that I can work on the player skill you're talking about.

Maybe there's some latent panic from when you old-timers needed to figure everything out for yourselves, and I get that devs don't necessarily help out as much as they should on that front, or maybe other players have come here asking the same question then lashed out when they didn't get the answer they wanted, so that you just expect it now - but you're here now, with all of your experience, and I'm not lashing out, so what's up?

Do I need to build for AoE DoT, specifically? Should I update CPs to provide more offensive power? Give up Flare, Slam, Refreshing Path, Siphoning Strikes for Power Extraction, Twisting Path, Bear Trap, Silver Shards, skills of that nature?

Direct damage is soon going to be more effective than DoTs - should I only go DD AoE to compensate?

fred4 · July 2022

@Divestor, can you please give examples of content that you are currently doing and which content you're doing solo, and which with groups. In your original post you said "I want these to be able to solo veteran dungeons / trials / arenas". That was an impossible / nonsensical request. I might have given you the wrong impression in responding as I did.

Trials are designed for 12 players and cannot be soloed. Veteran trials, especially the latest DLC one, are tuned to give even the very best and most coordinated players trouble in a 12 man group. A tank can mitigate 80%+ damage by blocking, as I have explained. From what I've read, there are phases of some trial fights where the tank takes 40K health hits regardless, one after the other, and needs to be constantly healed. You cannot solo that content.

Two of the arenas are designed for solo play. They are hard on veteran mode, but can obviously be soloed. The other two are 4-man group content. Veteran Blackrose Prison is regarded as one of the hardest pieces of content in the game. For a 4-man group. Not solo.

Dungeons are by definition 4-man content. Delves are something else. Public dungeons are something else. Easier content. Dungeons, without the "Public", run the gamut from soloable to "no way". While some that seem impossible have been soloed with speciality builds, such as vet Scalecaller Peak, others, such as Dread Cellar, are not soloable on vet, or certainly not with the tank / Brawler builds we've been discussing in this thread (I've tried).

I'll be honest. I've been showing off. I've induldged the thought of going into content designed for 4 or even 12 people, because you can indeed do that for some of that content. You can complete many normal dungeons solo, as well as many non-DLC vet dungeons. You can't complete a trial solo that I know of, but you can certainly go in and get embroiled in the opening fight for fun to see how far you get. Same goes for vBRP. I'm not aware of anyone having completed that solo. When I've talked about the pressure you face while buffing up, about the need to sustain Brawler spam or you'll die, that was mainly in relation to my extreme attempts of soloing content that cannot be soloed to completion.

You want to make your own builds and "play as you want", that's fine. My builds are not meta in the conventional sense either, by the way. However you asked, knowingly or not, for advice on soloing content that wasn't designed to be soloed and that is really hard or impossible to solo. Please believe me when I say: "play as you want" goes out the window in that case. You have to adapt and go for what works. Your choices narrow and one build fits all isn't possible. You may have to adopt different approaches for different dungeons, if you really want to solo them.

As for taking advice from me, you're getting advice on a meta of sorts. The Fred meta, if you will. There are others, lightning heavy attack builds have been notable for example, but you're in for a hard slog forging your own path.

You've obviously understood some of the synergies within my build, e.g. that Caltrops keeps Crit Surge procced. You want multiple damage sources, Caltrops, Hurricane, Brawler, light attacks, to have a high chance of critting consistently every second and passively when you are CCd. Stampede also plays into this, by the way, as it's a guaranteed crit and leaves an AOE on the ground.

I think one of the things you didn't pick up on is the importance of AOE damage. Many if not most fights involve large numbers of adds or are "trash" fights. AOE skills are essential. Automatic self-healing while doing that is also essential to be honest. Or damage shields. That's why I'm using Brawler. The heals in my build are actually not especially strong, apart from the Clannfear. It's consistent heals in combination with the shield that makes the build strong.

The other thing you didn't pick up on is the importance of crit. Nightblade doesn't have Crit Surge, but it has crit damage passives. A meta DD will have 70%+ crit. A tank build normally does not build for weapon damage nor crit. However it turns out you can have a certain amount of having your cake and eating it. I didn't build for 42% crit just because I'm a stamsorc. It's one of the best ways to improve damage and healing.

It all depends on what content you actually do. If you play overland, delves, public dungeons, you can largely be a role player and play as you want. I still wouldn't recommend double sword and board, but whatever. Your build will not even be tested, especially not with the health regen and tanky measures we discussed. If you want to move on to higher level content and especially if you want to solo it, well...

Divestor · July 2022

Thanks, fred! Realistic expectations are better than anything for me. I suppose I can try building for a solo-ist who isn't specialized for any particular content but can perform strongly in most, rather than try for something so niche and extreme haha.

Given the difficulty of the content we've been talking about, I'm at least enthused that *somebody* is able to bring power against these vet trial gods for a time, anyway. That's dope.

You asked what sort of content I'm looking to play. I wish to do most of it, and being able to solo content that is designed for it, as well as things that are easier to solo which aren't designed for it - like veteran 4-man arenas and 4-man dungeons. But I'd also like a build that can be taken into normal trials and perform well enough for group members to get stuff they want - so I can contribute to my friends and guilds.

Is it possible to play a singular build that can perform well as a DD and a tank, seamlessly switching from world boss to veteran 4-man dungeon / arena (all solo) then into a normal trial (with a group)?

fred4 · July 2022

Divestor wrote: »

Is it possible to play a singular build that can perform well as a DD and a tank, seamlessly switching from world boss to veteran 4-man dungeon / arena (all solo) then into a normal trial (with a group)?

That's essentially what my sorc Brawler tank build does and I'd be hard pressed to come up with another build like it. So will you, cause I've played for 7 years and this is the end result.

It will do bosses. It will do vMA and vVateshran. You can't solo vet Blackrose and even on normal mode, I think I got as far as arena 3 (out of 5) solo. Normal Dragonstar should be doable. Vet no. It's a very long arena and, even if you got through everything else for the sake of the argument, the final fight is an absolute killer. You won't solo it.

It will work as a tank in veteran dungeons and normal trials, with the qualification that you need to run both gear and skill layouts, the 2H one and the 1H+S one, and switch them as needed. It will take you a while to get VO and Yolnakhriin, and so on. In the meantime you'll have to make do with other gear. I will post a video of me doing a vet dungeon in blue / purple crafted gear shortly. It was a long slog. Full CP and arena gear is definitely better.

While my tank does surprising damage, I wouldn't queue with it as a DD for group content. Not even the Brawler build. Be a tank.

fred4 · July 2022

My Brawler tank at CP450 with crafted gear. Note YouTube is still processing. Quality should imrove to 1080p in an hour or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM6OrV7YBUo

DrNukenstein · July 2022

Divestor wrote: »

Do you think health scaling for damage shields against vet bosses would not be terribly impacted by exchanging Dark Shade for Mirage? I admit that it would make better sense on a rotation / theme-of-bar mindset. I like it, but I don't wanna lose out on the max potential for the shields that are enabled by the level of cost-effectiveness they have here (which I believe allows them to be kept up as much as I need them).

Edit: Maybe worth it to note that I have close to no idea what I am doing in terms of soloing vet bosses - I have played for around 3 months or so and am CP 560 on my main - khajiit NB. With her the main issue that I have is sustain, which is why I am thinking Redguard for % cost reduction to weapon skills, stam restore etc.

I'm aware that this build will not be dealing amazing damage; that it will probably take hours to solo these areas if I can survive. So mainly I'm wishing to survive, and that does include mainly using Heavy Attacks to restore resources and L/M/H attacks w/ Incapacitating Strike to deal damage. I figured that using Pierce Armor was a good idea because it will cost so little that I can use it against many adds right after drawing them in and hitting with Void Bash -> Power Extraction (I guess now -> Dark Shade -> Pierce Armor - ty for input!) - that its efficiency as a single breaching skill - considering the DD limitations imposed by the nature of my objective - is sort of unmatched, even if I lose out on a true spammable.

All of that to say, do you believe that switching Pierce Armor to Surprise Attack will boost overall damage *as well as* evening out the Health discrepancy between bars, considering that I will want to use it as a spammable if I can't keep Pierce Armor for focusing on basic (light, medium, heavy) attacks, and that sustain will still be decent enough to keep resources level while I'm roll dodging and blocking my way through damage?

I just thought of the fact that Surprise Attack will guarantee criticals if striking from the flank, so I'm seriously reconsidering. But my survivability might be boosted most by replacing Pierce Armor / Surprise Attack with a Siphoning Strikes morph and using crit potential, basic attacks and Relentless Focus as my main DD facility.

Do you think that Divines Shield of Health on AB#1 + Infused Shield of Health on AB#2 is a good bet if I only switch Mirage and Dark Shade?

Thanks for your input so far!

Whatever you have to do to balance your health and resource stats on both bars. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but once you make that a consideration in your build you just can't drop it. It hurts to pay resources or health everytime you bar swap. The most straightforward way to do it without tweaking gear is to balance the same number of shadow skills on each bar, but that also limits build possibilities. I recently found that having an extra flat health bonus on the bar with less shadowskills can get it really close while opening up more build possibilities without creating a stat difference between bars.

Divestor · July 2022

Fellows, thank you for your support in showing me the tools I need to move forward with greater ease, and giving me your sound and well-informed advice.