why not bring some fire with bsw and sunderflame?

Memory_In_Motion wrote: »

why not bring some fire with bsw and sunderflame?

Those would certainly be a DPS loss compared to what he has.

Your gear is fine. Typically, you only want one trial set in a build. I would only run one of the ones you mentioned (siroria, rele, whorl) with Pillar, and I would only replace orders wrath if you are at the crit damage cap (which takes a good group everywhere but the trial dummy). Otherwise, you wont notice the difference.

Baconlad wrote: »

Why would you ask that?

The Light Attack question is highly relevant. A lot of people that struggle to bar swap also struggle to weave. If you struggle to weave, all those sets above are terrible options.

Is Whorl/Pillar Meta for most things on a dummy, yes, but man are you splitting hairs for most real life content. The dummy also basically means you are at the Crit Damage Cap almost without trying. As long as you have one piece of medium armor, you are there in your current setup (with three pieces you are 4% over). In most group, you still have a ways to go to hit the cap. (In other words, Orders wrath is closer to or even ahead of the trial sets outside the dummy or a very well coordinated group).

A note on Crit Damage Cap:
Your base is 50% and your cap is 125%. You only need 30% crit damage to cap yourself on the trial dummy, because the dummy is giving Major Force (20%), EC (15%), and brittle (10%). Your current setup is giving 10% (templar passive), 8% (orders wrath), 10% (minor force from Oakensoul). One piece of medium armor (2% per piece) caps you, and you have 3. So be sure you arent running Backstabber or Fighting Finesse when parsing, as they are a total waste. Outside of a trial dummy, you probably wont be capped unless your group is really on point, which closes the gap between orders wrath and the trial sets, and also brings Backstabber and Fighting Finesse back into play.

If you just want to see your dummy parse go up, sure, run one of the above instead of OW (they are all really close), and either go 5 pieces of medium if you can sustain it or go at least one piece and slot fighting finesse. Again, a templar with oakensoul needs to find 10% crit damage from somewhere on a trial dummy, so a combination of CP and medium armor is the way if you drop OW. You really only need one piece of light armor (and the non slottable CP that gives penetration) to cap your penetration on a dummy. After that, medium is better than light for raw damage (even if over the crit cap), but you need to make sure you can sustain your rotation. If you need to heavy attack even once on a trial dummy, your sustain is bad.

Edit: made some edits, so might be worth a re-read.

All that said, if you want to improve your damage, it's Rotation Rotation Rotation. Gear is an afterthought.

Baconlad wrote: »

I think I may have figured out why nirn does so well compared to rele. Bleed status effect. Rele doesn't proc hemorrhage effect! Gives it a 4 second dot on top of the huge 10 dot it already had

I think one reason its so popular is that it works really well as a back bar set. As long as you hit your back bar every 10 seconds, you will keep it up. It allows you to actually get the benefit of two 5 piece sets (you would front bar a trial set), a mythic (usually kilt), and a 2 piece monster. I think it loses at least some of its appeal on a one bar build, but still very strong and easy to keep up 100%. Because Oaken gives minor slayer, you really don't need a trial set.

For most classic 2 bar setups, Rele is really good for single target, but its kind of a one trick pony, it also doesn't do well on only a front/back bar (doesn't matter in your case). Hits one thing really hard (good for parsing). Siroria and Whorl both boost cleave damage, and both work well only on your front bar. Personally, I actually like Siroria better. As long as you don't dance all over the place, its easy to keep good stacks.

If I were in your shoes, I would probably go with your set of Orders Wrath and Pillar 95% of the time. If you want to take it to the next level, make a set of Whorl that you can swap in for Orders Wrath when parsing or in a more optimized group. If you are miles below the crit damage cap, OW will be ahead of Whorl. Pair with Oakensoul and 1 piece Slimecraw as you have.

If you really want to cover your bases, give yourself the ability to adjust your Light/Medium armor pieces depending on your group pen/crit damage. You dont need to go crazy, but I always carry my monster sets in both light and medium. I run as few as 2 medium pieces and as many as 5 depending on group/content. 3 is not a bad set and forget number.

Honestly, I doubt you will beat the combo of Pillar/OW in actual content (and there is nothing to micromanage), but Pillar and either Whorl or perhaps Rele will be ahead on a dummy or when at the crit cap. OW is one of those sets that is super strong, but at some point, it effectively becomes useless because the bonus it gives has a hard cap.

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

... Rotation Rotation Rotation...

@Oreyn_Bearclaw That should be your motto. 😅

It is! LOL

I have spent a lot of my time in ESO trying to help people pump out more DPS, both on these forums and in game. 99/100 times, their gear is NOT the issue. 5-6 years ago, there was a lot more gear disparity, now there are like 15 different combos that are within 2% of meta. And sure, there are things you can do on the margins to min/max for your parse, and perhaps, you might make a few build adjustments to squeeze out a few K here and there, but DPS in this game is all about rotation (rotation rotation ).

OP is actually a great example. I am not sure you can beat the gear setup he already has for a one bar build in 99% of content, but I can also tell that on a dummy, he is over the crit damage cap. So yes, a gear/CP change should see more dummy DPS. Will that change result in more DPS in real content? Depends on the group and the buffs he is getting.