Help me understand Armor Build

cagle0614 · September 29

I have been told over and over getting the spell critical and weapon critical up is what matters.
My main character is 671
The weapon and spell is at 49.9%

I have another character
Who is level 32 and is at 52%

I have been using craftable armor, Eternal Hunt, Order of Wrath, and Julianos.
In my character that is 52% two pieces are Magus.

The other 3 characters I have I craft the armor up to epic. I don't see a need to waster legendary as it is so expensive and they level so quickly.
I am very confused though ,because second highest character I can get the spell and weapon critical up to 48% with a bow. Yet If I use a sword and shield I can only get to like 38%

What am I missing?
How can my low level 32 character armor which is almost the same armor reach 52% and the others I can barely only get them up to 38%?

Justosay · September 30

Well, you have 12 slots for your gear: 7 armor pieces + 3 jewelry pieces + 2 for weapons (staff and bow are counted as 2 pieces).
Any piece gives you a bonus. But the most satisfying bonus comes from a full set, so (if you don't already have mythic item), the most logical combination is two 5-piece sets and a monster/weapon set.

Now about your stats. Since your resources aren't as endless as Infinite Archive, you should manage them wisely.
1) All mobs in the game have 9k armor (ground, public, and normal group) or 18k (hard content), so (as a damage dealer) you need 9000-9100 penetration to prevent your damage from being reduced.
2) Your stats:
- Primary stats (magicka, stamina, health). If you have less than 20k health, you'll die very often in hard content. And, of course, every skill drains your stamina and magicka. And don't forget about your "core abilities" (crouching, blocking, rolling, etc.).
- Armor. It mitigates incoming damage and is capped at 50% (33k armor). Very useful if you're a tank.
- Damage (before crit). Spellcasters primarily increase magicka, while stamina builds primarily rely on weapon/spell damage.
- Crit Chance. Critical hits not only increase your damage but also can trigger other abilities (for example, Hexos' Ward set grants you a shield on crit).
- Crit Damage. Every time you land a critical hit, you increase your damage. Typically, it adds 50% to damage, but you can increase it to cap at 125% (in your character's advanced stats, this appears as 75%).

You can obtain all of these from:
- passive skills (class, armor, weapon, world, guild, etc.),
- equipment (sets, glyths and traits),
- Mundus Stones,
- active skills and potions (temporary buffs)
- food/drink.
Also game gives you a bonus to your stats (it decreases every level to zero at 50 lvl).

Maybe I forget something but I believe it's mostly all you need to answer your question yourself...

LootAllTheStuff · September 30

cagle0614 wrote: »

I have been told over and over getting the spell critical and weapon critical up is what matters.
My main character is 671
The weapon and spell is at 49.9%

I have another character
Who is level 32 and is at 52%

I have been using craftable armor, Eternal Hunt, Order of Wrath, and Julianos.
In my character that is 52% two pieces are Magus.

The other 3 characters I have I craft the armor up to epic. I don't see a need to waster legendary as it is so expensive and they level so quickly.
I am very confused though ,because second highest character I can get the spell and weapon critical up to 48% with a bow. Yet If I use a sword and shield I can only get to like 38%

What am I missing?
How can my low level 32 character armor which is almost the same armor reach 52% and the others I can barely only get them up to 38%?

You need to look at where exactly the W&S damage is coming from. Eternal Hunt doesn't have any in the set bonuses, so you'll only get it from those pieces via enchantment/trait. Order's Wrath has it for the 3-pc set bonus, while Law of Julianos adds it only for 5 pc. You also mention Magus, which I'm assuming is Magnus' Gift, but 2pcs of that wouldn't give you the W&S damage bonus - it takes 4.

So depending on which sets you have equipped and what enchantments/traits you have on them, and more specifically which sets your weapons and shield belong to, you could easily see a difference. This would be particularly important if your shield was a different set to your sword; and even more complicated if your alternate weapon set is 2H/staff/bow (counts as 2 pc for the set bonus where the sword only counts for 1).

Also, "ENCHANTMENTS!" *Ahem*

cagle0614 · October 9

current armor 1 hand sword Julianos Divines
Shield Dragonguard Divines
Bow Julianos Precise
Helm Of Julianos Divines
Curass Of The Orders Wrath Divines
Pauldrons of Julianos Divines
Girdle Of The Orders Wrath Divines
Gaunlets Of The orders wrath Divines
Greaves of the orders wrath divines
Sabatons of the orders wrath divines
Necklace of Julianos Robust
Ring Dragonguard Elite Bloodthirsty
Ring Dragonguard Elite RobustWhen I have the Bow equipped The weapon and spell critical is 52.2%
When I have the Sword and shield the weapon and spell critical is 43.1%
Advise what craft able armor change can be done to increase sword and shield to 52.2%

What do I swap or change out?
From my experience the enchantments do not seem to do a great deal for weapon and spell critical
I am however open to all suggestions.

LootAllTheStuff · October 9

When you switch from bow to S&S, you effectively lose 1 piece from your Julianos set. Since you only have 3 other pieces from this set, you no longer get the full 5 pc bonus and you lose the extra weapon & spell damage bonus. But you also have different traits on your sword (1H) and bow (2H), which is why you also see a difference in W&S critical chance.

You have the precise trait on your bow which is giving you +6% or +7% (epic or legendary quality) W&S critical, but you don't have that on your sword - and even if you did, you'd only get half the bonus for 1H versus 2H weapons.

So the fundamental problem is that you will always see a reduction in in W&S critical chance when switching. An armour set won't change that unless it specifically gives a bonus for using 1H sword and shield. I'm not sure if such a set exists - there are many! - but there's a list of the ones which boost critical chance on the wiki: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Category:Online-Sets_with_Weapon/Spell_Critical

I would suggest switching the Dragonguard Elite shield for a Julianos one: you'll still have the 2pc W&S critical chance boost from the rings, but it would maintain the higher W&S damage bonus from 5pc Law of Julianos.

Dalinar4 · October 11

Don't forget how much your CP points can improve a build. You can use them to help compensate for where you are missing in other areas.