What to farm in Infinite Archive, and for what purpose?

fred4 · December 2024

I'll keep this list short, because Infinite Archive sets have been largely derided, and for good reason. I am, however, not well enough versed on most of them. If you have sets to add, please comment.

Soulcleaver is the set I actually use extensively. It is not meta. The ultgen nerf incurred by it is basically just mean, since the set is not regarded as competitive. However, it suited my well-established main character down to the ground. So what do I use it for:

PvP, especially the PvPvE of Imperial City. If you want to mix solo boss farming with PvP, you want to heal from damage. You run Swallow Soul, even though it's a bad spammable. It is a bad spammable, because it's damage is crap. It pales in comparison to Concealed Weapon. That said, it's easier to hit players with a ranged skill and, of course, you heal from it. Soulcleaver lifts that spammable to a decent (but merely decent) level and it adds some kick to Sap Essence, which also heals you and which you use to execute dodge rollers. The cost reduction helps with spamming particularly Sap Essence.
Casual PvE: A Siphoning-based magblade is good for casual solo play and solo arenas. You care less about damage and rely on the self-healing.
Competitive PvE: Well, it's not. Or is it? If your ambition is to merely get by in vet trial PUGs, Soulcleaver is not bad, possibly even good, since you're ready-made for portals requiring self-healing. I'm not expecting to beat arcanists on my nightblade, but if I can hover around the 12% mark of overall group damage in a random PUG, I'm happy. The combination of Soulcleaver, Whorl of Depths, and Velothi Ur matches the arcanist approach. It forgoes light attacks in favor of greater AOE damage. Sap Essence gets buffed quite a bit. I've done 14.4% of group damage in the last phase of vLC, despite parsing only 75K on a dummy. It may not have been a great PUG, but all the same.

Basalt-Blooded Warrior: Don't even bother. To the best of my recollection people thought this set would be good when IA came out. I'm really scratching my head. You could double-bar it in PvP, where you would value the back bar healing, but:

You really care about the ultigen above all else. You won't have 100% uptime on it outside of an Oakensoul build, so why not wear Drake's Rush and also help your group instead?
Double-barring a set is just not a good build pattern in PvP. It's very hard to compete with "front bar set" + "back bar set" + "monster set" + "mythic" + "1x Trainee". Basalt-Blooded doesn't really do that.

El_Borracho · December 2024

Pyrebrand is a decent DK set in PVP and PVE, especially on a bow build.

fred4 · December 2024

El_Borracho wrote: »

Pyrebrand is a decent DK set in PVP and PVE, especially on a bow build.

Didn't it get nerfed? What was the effect of that? I'm not keeping track...

Cooperharley · December 2024

El_Borracho wrote: »

Pyrebrand is a decent DK set in PVP and PVE, especially on a bow build.

*was a decent set before u44. Now it's not. ZOS took a sledgehammer to it per usual rather than a slight nerf, or even better, BUFFING other lesser-used sets.

The only thing in IA worth farming IMO are the class style pages for the class sets and the maligraphic horse mount if you haven't received that yet. After that, there's no incentive in my book.

El_Borracho · December 2024

Cooperharley wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

Pyrebrand is a decent DK set in PVP and PVE, especially on a bow build.

*was a decent set before u44. Now it's not. ZOS took a sledgehammer to it per usual rather than a slight nerf, or even better, BUFFING other lesser-used sets.

The only thing in IA worth farming IMO are the class style pages for the class sets and the maligraphic horse mount if you haven't received that yet. After that, there's no incentive in my book.

Welp, that's a bummer.

exiars10 · September 11

There are 3 sets which are actually worth as per skinnycheeks:

Beacon of Oblivion - A-Tier - Solid set for Sorcerers not using pets
Aerie’s Cry - B-Tier - Decent option for the Animal Companions line (have to be Warden base)
Aetheric Lancer - B-Tier - Decent option for the Aedric Spear line (have to be Templar base)

It seems hyperioxes is a big fan of Beacon of Oblivion as he recommends and uses it a lot in his solo Sorcerer builds.
He also recommends and uses Aerie’s Cry on Stamina Warden solo build.

Veinblood1965 · September 11

El_Borracho wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

El_Borracho wrote: »

Pyrebrand is a decent DK set in PVP and PVE, especially on a bow build.

*was a decent set before u44. Now it's not. ZOS took a sledgehammer to it per usual rather than a slight nerf, or even better, BUFFING other lesser-used sets.

The only thing in IA worth farming IMO are the class style pages for the class sets and the maligraphic horse mount if you haven't received that yet. After that, there's no incentive in my book.

Welp, that's a bummer.

Agreed, the weekly vendor stuff can be worth it sometimes if you don't feel like chasing mythic leads but other than that I've not been back in a while due to just this thing. I saw no sets in there worth messing with. If they made some really tough ones to get in there that were on par with a few good mythics like Oaken Soul for example that would be nice.

allochthons · September 12

Corpseburster mixes really well with Macabre Vintage. I use it with a 1-piece pen monster set (Valkyn Scoria) and Oakensoul on my stam necro. It's not meta, but it sure is fun! Use blighted blastbones, then HA or scythe until BB hits, then use Detonating Siphon to explode the BB. It's great. Xynode's Lazy Bones.

Corpseburster
Class: Necromancer

2 items: Adds 3-129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 items: Adds 3-129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 15-657 Critical Chance
5 items: Consuming a corpse causes the corpse to explode, dealing 1298 Magic Damage to enemies within 5 meters and applying Minor Breach to them for 5 seconds, reducing their Physical and Spell Resistance by 2974. This effect can occur once every 0.5 seconds, scales off the higher of your Weapon and Spell Damage, and deals 10% more damage for each Grave Lord ability slotted.

Macabre Vintage

2 items: Adds 3-129 Weapon and Spell Damage
3 items: Adds 3-129 Weapon and Spell Damage
4 items: Adds 3-129 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 items: Adds 3-150 Weapon and Spell Damage
5 items: When you kill a monster they burst with blood magic, dealing 50% of their Max Health to enemies within 6 meters as Bleed Damage, up to 24096 Bleed Damage. This damage cannot critically strike. This effect can occur once every 0.5 seconds.

allochthons · September 12

Cooperharley wrote: »

The only thing in IA worth farming IMO are the class style pages for the class sets and the maligraphic horse mount if you haven't received that yet. After that, there's no incentive in my book.

Monster style pages. Just bought the Baron Zaudrus mask for 15K archival fortunes. Can't beat that.

Necrotech_Master · September 12

ive personally used aetheric lancer, pyrebrand, and aeries cry

aetheric lancer is pretty decent dmg, the main annoyance i had with the set was needing to be in the circle to fire it, which doesnt work when your only aedric spear ability is jabs and the target moves away from your trigger circle

pyrebrand is pretty decent, as a supplement for light attack weaving, the heavy attack bonus is still see some people using in cyrodiil for burst (especially on WWs)

aeries cry is decent, though i feel like it ticks dmg far too slow to really mean much, it still hits decently

from what ive heard from others:

corpsebuster is pretty decent for a necro dps in pve in certain situations if your exploding corpses frequently

basalt blooded warrior can be pretty powerful on a DK healer, i know a friend who uses that on a dk healer spec in pvp (mostly battlegrounds)

soulcleaver ive heard is pretty decent as well in certain situations

other sets not mentioned ive heard either nothing special, or nothing at all about

for me personally, i enjoy running archive as its a fun test of builds but also can do some silly stuff with the visions and verses (i once nuked the arc 1 tho'at in 4 seconds on a dps spec, my combat metrics said i was doing like 521k dps lol)

i just farm the fortunes for the monster style pages, antiquity leads i need codex entries for, occasionally treasure maps if its a particular zone im interested in, and furnishing plans (since they added those)

RebornV3x · September 12

I like some of the styles that come out of there the Reawakened Hirophant and Monolith of Storm styles look pretty cool and each class has a special aura if you wear 5 pieces. I don't really care for the gear out of IA myself