General Overland Set Grinding Strategies?

Pepper8Jack

Just coming back to the game after a long absence, and have quite a few builds to update as a result!

Took a look around for some gear grinding strategies and so far haven't seen anything too helpful. I already have the list of what gear pieces drop from each type of activity, and what sets drop where, but I'm curious if anyone has figured out a strategy for maximizing boss spawn timers/etc.

So if anyone knows some helpful tips or could possible point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it!

IcyDeadPeople

Best strategy for overland gear is buy them cheap from guild traders - unless you are looking for sharpened sword/destro staff, in which case good luck with that.

ColoursYouHave

Depending on the zone, you can run between all three dolmens on cooldown to farm jewelry. I usually only farm delve bosses and dolmens if I can get by with 3 jewelry, feet and belt, as the group bosses are more difficult to finish, and since they drop far more different items than delve bosses and dolmens, you are statistically much less likely to get a specific drop you are looking for.

Pepper8Jack

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Best strategy for overland gear is buy them cheap from guild traders - unless you are looking for sharpened sword/destro staff, in which case good luck with that.

I should also mention that I'm trying to minimize depletion of my gold savings as well... I don't remember the last time was under 1 mil and its scary

Asardes

If you plan on grinding just craft some gear with training trait, make it blue or purple and go on dolmens in populated areas. You'll gain lots of XP fast.

For gear overland world bosses, delves and public dungeons. Dolmens for jewelry. And dungeons/trials for other sets.

Pepper8Jack

Asardes wrote: »

If you plan on grinding just craft some gear with training trait, make it blue or purple and go on dolmens in populated areas. You'll gain lots of XP fast.

Sorry, this isn't an XP related question, all my chars are maxed already

Asardes

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

If you plan on grinding just craft some gear with training trait, make it blue or purple and go on dolmens in populated areas. You'll gain lots of XP fast.

Sorry, this isn't an XP related question, all my chars are maxed already

I added to that comment later. Additionally there are fixed locations where you can find different set pieces, but there are usually 3 sets in each area.

For instanced content (group dungeons and trials):
- Mini bosses will drop either a hand, waist, or feet set piece.
- Bosses will drop either a chest, shoulder, head or leg set piece.
- The final Boss will drop weapons or jewelry.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece.
Normal mode bosses will drop blue-quality items. Veteran mode bosses will drop purple-quality items.

For non-instanced content (world bosses, delves and public dungeons)
- Delve bosses have a chance to drop a waist or feet set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Overland group bosses have a 100% chance to drop head, chest, legs, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Public dungeon bosses have a chance to drop a shoulder, hand, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Treasure Chests gained from defeating a Dark Anchor have a 100% chance to drop a ring or amulet set piece form the zone they are located in.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece. Unique piece is always blue quality.
For overland sets drop quality varies from green to purple.

Here's a list of sets and where they drop:
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Sets

skyhawk002

Here is my "secret" strategy. You can only kill 2 bosses every 5 minute on 1 toon so get a timer. For farming delve bosses, plant an alt next to the boss and rotate alts. For farming world bosses get a raid group (24)and have them all give you their drops if they don't mind. It's a numbers game at the end of the day

Pepper8Jack

Asardes wrote: »

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

If you plan on grinding just craft some gear with training trait, make it blue or purple and go on dolmens in populated areas. You'll gain lots of XP fast.

Sorry, this isn't an XP related question, all my chars are maxed already

I added to that comment later. Additionally there are fixed locations where you can find different set pieces, but there are usually 3 sets in each area.

For instanced content (group dungeons and trials):
- Mini bosses will drop either a hand, waist, or feet set piece.
- Bosses will drop either a chest, shoulder, head or leg set piece.
- The final Boss will drop weapons or jewelry.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece.
Normal mode bosses will drop blue-quality items. Veteran mode bosses will drop purple-quality items.

For non-instanced content (world bosses, delves and public dungeons)
- Delve bosses have a chance to drop a waist or feet set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Overland group bosses have a 100% chance to drop head, chest, legs, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Public dungeon bosses have a chance to drop a shoulder, hand, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Treasure Chests gained from defeating a Dark Anchor have a 100% chance to drop a ring or amulet set piece form the zone they are located in.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece. Unique piece is always blue quality.
For overland sets drop quality varies from green to purple.

Here's a list of sets and where they drop:
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Sets

skyhawk002 wrote: »

Here is my "secret" strategy. You can only kill 2 bosses every 5 minute on 1 toon so get a timer. For farming delve bosses, plant an alt next to the boss and rotate alts. For farming world bosses get a raid group (24)and have them all give you their drops if they don't mind. It's a numbers game at the end of the day

Very helpful. I had figured out that there was a boss cooldown for characters, so I did use a few chars in the same place and would swap whenever a boss was killed. Ended up taking ~4-5 hours but got my full divines necropotence setup

So is the cooldown just an even 2 bosses/5 minutes? or is it 1 every 2.5 minutes? It's a small distinction but could be helpful to know the exact timing for possible optimizations

Asardes

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

If you plan on grinding just craft some gear with training trait, make it blue or purple and go on dolmens in populated areas. You'll gain lots of XP fast.

Sorry, this isn't an XP related question, all my chars are maxed already

I added to that comment later. Additionally there are fixed locations where you can find different set pieces, but there are usually 3 sets in each area.

For instanced content (group dungeons and trials):
- Mini bosses will drop either a hand, waist, or feet set piece.
- Bosses will drop either a chest, shoulder, head or leg set piece.
- The final Boss will drop weapons or jewelry.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece.
Normal mode bosses will drop blue-quality items. Veteran mode bosses will drop purple-quality items.

For non-instanced content (world bosses, delves and public dungeons)
- Delve bosses have a chance to drop a waist or feet set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Overland group bosses have a 100% chance to drop head, chest, legs, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Public dungeon bosses have a chance to drop a shoulder, hand, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Treasure Chests gained from defeating a Dark Anchor have a 100% chance to drop a ring or amulet set piece form the zone they are located in.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece. Unique piece is always blue quality.
For overland sets drop quality varies from green to purple.

Here's a list of sets and where they drop:
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Sets

skyhawk002 wrote: »

Here is my "secret" strategy. You can only kill 2 bosses every 5 minute on 1 toon so get a timer. For farming delve bosses, plant an alt next to the boss and rotate alts. For farming world bosses get a raid group (24)and have them all give you their drops if they don't mind. It's a numbers game at the end of the day

Very helpful. I had figured out that there was a boss cooldown for characters, so I did use a few chars in the same place and would swap whenever a boss was killed. Ended up taking ~4-5 hours but got my full divines necropotence setup

So is the cooldown just an even 2 bosses/5 minutes? or is it 1 every 2.5 minutes? It's a small distinction but could be helpful to know the exact timing for possible optimizations

Relogging is pretty slow and cumbersome so I prefer hitting multiple bosses on the map with the same character in quick succession, but not so quick as to get thwarted by the cool-down. Most overland bosses are quite easy to solo for a good player with decent gear and ~CP300+. In some zones people form groups for the purpose of farming bosses and follow such a route as to farm the bosses more efficiently. Unless you are after a certain boss' named drop this is by far the most efficient way to do it. I usually combine farming and grinding together to save time.

When I need certain skills trained on my character I grind the dolmens, world bosses and public dungeon in a zone from which I need one or more sets. For example the recent update changed quite a bit of skills and my main characters needed respecs. As a result some skills and morphs had to be re-trained. I wanted the Spinner set in order to bring my magicka characters to PvP so I chose to train in Malabal Tor. I usually did a rotation trough 2-3 dolmens and one world boss within ~10 minutes: south dolmen -> seaside dolmen -> world boss nearby and repeat. If people were slow clearing the north one I could also tick that one at the end of the rotation. Late in the evening when fewer people were online I also hit the public dungeon in the same area for other armor pieces and weapons. Thus far I have been able to get at least 3 complete sets of purple Spinner jewelry, an impenetrable sash, an impenetrable chest a sharpened inferno and sharpened lightning staves from that set (consecutive drops from the world boss), as well as many other pieces from the other 2 zone sets which I will be able to sell. Last week I was training my recently acquired PvP skill on my NB on dolmens in Auridon, which has a particularly fast rotation and had a sharpened Elegant sword drop from one of the dolmen mobs, in addition to the many purple rings and necklaces from the chests. So it's quite practical to combo the two activities as you can get some good loot along the way.

MurderMostFoul

Just farm AP then buy the region set boxes from AP vendors. You get the fun of PvP, then the boxes are cheap and you can RNG them back to back to back very quickly till you find what you need.

It will give blue gear that can be raised to purple/gold. The only remaining items are purple neck and rings, which you'll be better off buying from the Guild Traders.

charlie_delta

Remember too that some sets are bop and you'll never get them on traders even if you were willing to spend zillions. System is broken.

danno8

charlie_delta wrote: »

Remember too that some sets are bop and you'll never get them on traders even if you were willing to spend zillions. System is broken.

I believe all overland sets are BoE, which is what the OP stated he was looking for in his title.

Kiralyn2000

Set pieces also drop from Advanced/Master treasure chests. Of course, "farming" those isn't really something you can do easily.

Erock25

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Just farm AP then buy the region set boxes from AP vendors. You get the fun of PvP, then the boxes are cheap and you can RNG them back to back to back very quickly till you find what you need.

It will give blue gear that can be raised to purple/gold. The only remaining items are purple neck and rings, which you'll be better off buying from the Guild Traders.

Where be them there region specific ap vendors? Tell me now and tell me true.

Asardes

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Just farm AP then buy the region set boxes from AP vendors. You get the fun of PvP, then the boxes are cheap and you can RNG them back to back to back very quickly till you find what you need.

It will give blue gear that can be raised to purple/gold. The only remaining items are purple neck and rings, which you'll be better off buying from the Guild Traders.

The problem with those is that you get less control over what you get, because any piece of gear can drop in them. For example you may only need weapons. Each type of boss has 2-4 slots that it drops gear for. There are a total of 10 slot types (2 jewelry types, 7 body piece slots and weapon). So the chances of getting what you actually need from the AP RNG boxes is between 2 and 5 times worse than actually farming them in that zone. And the chances of getting them from there are already pretty dim. For example, if I take into account my Spinner's Inferno Staff the chances of getting that from a world boss are a bit smaller than 1/(3x3x8+3x12x8) = 1/264. Buying AP boxes gives a chance of 1/(3*9*8+3*12*8) = 1/504 at best. In terms of average tries to bring your chance to get the desired item at roughly 50% the number is ~180 and ~350 respectively. If you already have millions of AP to spend, the latter option may actually turn to be advantageous in terms of time spent, since buying a box only takes a click but not farming the AP specifically to get the desired items from gambling on boxes.

t3hdubzy

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

Best strategy for overland gear is buy them cheap from guild traders - unless you are looking for sharpened sword/destro staff, in which case good luck with that.

I should also mention that I'm trying to minimize depletion of my gold savings as well... I don't remember the last time was under 1 mil and its scary

Easier to grind gold then sharpened weapons

Narvuntien

I was soloing stonefalls worldbosses
Mudcrab (shellcacker) --> Kwama ---> Netch ----> Dreugh ----> Mudcrab, All Wednesday.

The good thing about stonefalls is that red mountain, silks of the sun and Shalk are all good sets.

or I could empty my bank for a sharpened Sun Inferno staff, not sure the extra bit of damage over BSW is worth it...

Asardes

Narvuntien wrote: »

I was soloing stonefalls worldbosses
Mudcrab (shellcacker) --> Kwama ---> Netch ----> Dreugh ----> Mudcrab, All Wednesday.

The good thing about stonefalls is that red mountain, silks of the sun and Shalk are all good sets.

or I could empty my bank for a sharpened Sun Inferno staff, not sure the extra bit of damage over BSW is worth it...

Why not combo both 5+5, with 6L and a heavy monster set that gives spell damage/critical/maximum magicka and 4% extra health and 2% to the other stats from the undaunted mettle passive?

Narvuntien

Asardes wrote: »

Narvuntien wrote: »

I was soloing stonefalls worldbosses
Mudcrab (shellcacker) --> Kwama ---> Netch ----> Dreugh ----> Mudcrab, All Wednesday.

The good thing about stonefalls is that red mountain, silks of the sun and Shalk are all good sets.

or I could empty my bank for a sharpened Sun Inferno staff, not sure the extra bit of damage over BSW is worth it...

Why not combo both 5+5, with 6L and a heavy monster set that gives spell damage/critical/maximum magicka and 4% extra health and 2% to the other stats from the undaunted mettle passive?

Mana... but I am considering it.
I'll have to use Mag regen on my jewerlly and perhaps witchmothers brew.

I have one heavy one medium Skoria helm which is great with another Hp bonus. so I should have enough hp.

Pepper8Jack

Asardes wrote: »

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Pepper8Jack wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

If you plan on grinding just craft some gear with training trait, make it blue or purple and go on dolmens in populated areas. You'll gain lots of XP fast.

Sorry, this isn't an XP related question, all my chars are maxed already

I added to that comment later. Additionally there are fixed locations where you can find different set pieces, but there are usually 3 sets in each area.

For instanced content (group dungeons and trials):
- Mini bosses will drop either a hand, waist, or feet set piece.
- Bosses will drop either a chest, shoulder, head or leg set piece.
- The final Boss will drop weapons or jewelry.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece.
Normal mode bosses will drop blue-quality items. Veteran mode bosses will drop purple-quality items.

For non-instanced content (world bosses, delves and public dungeons)
- Delve bosses have a chance to drop a waist or feet set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Overland group bosses have a 100% chance to drop head, chest, legs, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Public dungeon bosses have a chance to drop a shoulder, hand, or weapon set piece from the zone they are located in.
- Treasure Chests gained from defeating a Dark Anchor have a 100% chance to drop a ring or amulet set piece form the zone they are located in.
- Each boss also has a small chance to drop a unique set piece. Unique piece is always blue quality.
For overland sets drop quality varies from green to purple.

Here's a list of sets and where they drop:
http://elderscrollsonline.wiki.fextralife.com/Sets

skyhawk002 wrote: »

Here is my "secret" strategy. You can only kill 2 bosses every 5 minute on 1 toon so get a timer. For farming delve bosses, plant an alt next to the boss and rotate alts. For farming world bosses get a raid group (24)and have them all give you their drops if they don't mind. It's a numbers game at the end of the day

Very helpful. I had figured out that there was a boss cooldown for characters, so I did use a few chars in the same place and would swap whenever a boss was killed. Ended up taking ~4-5 hours but got my full divines necropotence setup

So is the cooldown just an even 2 bosses/5 minutes? or is it 1 every 2.5 minutes? It's a small distinction but could be helpful to know the exact timing for possible optimizations

Relogging is pretty slow and cumbersome so I prefer hitting multiple bosses on the map with the same character in quick succession, but not so quick as to get thwarted by the cool-down. Most overland bosses are quite easy to solo for a good player with decent gear and ~CP300+. In some zones people form groups for the purpose of farming bosses and follow such a route as to farm the bosses more efficiently. Unless you are after a certain boss' named drop this is by far the most efficient way to do it. I usually combine farming and grinding together to save time.

When I need certain skills trained on my character I grind the dolmens, world bosses and public dungeon in a zone from which I need one or more sets. For example the recent update changed quite a bit of skills and my main characters needed respecs. As a result some skills and morphs had to be re-trained. I wanted the Spinner set in order to bring my magicka characters to PvP so I chose to train in Malabal Tor. I usually did a rotation trough 2-3 dolmens and one world boss within ~10 minutes: south dolmen -> seaside dolmen -> world boss nearby and repeat. If people were slow clearing the north one I could also tick that one at the end of the rotation. Late in the evening when fewer people were online I also hit the public dungeon in the same area for other armor pieces and weapons. Thus far I have been able to get at least 3 complete sets of purple Spinner jewelry, an impenetrable sash, an impenetrable chest a sharpened inferno and sharpened lightning staves from that set (consecutive drops from the world boss), as well as many other pieces from the other 2 zone sets which I will be able to sell. Last week I was training my recently acquired PvP skill on my NB on dolmens in Auridon, which has a particularly fast rotation and had a sharpened Elegant sword drop from one of the dolmen mobs, in addition to the many purple rings and necklaces from the chests. So it's quite practical to combo the two activities as you can get some good loot along the way.

Very thorough, thank you. Ultimately I ended needing hands and waist last, so I felt relogging between characters parked at the boss spawn of a delve would be quicker than moving to another delve so that's how I finished out my set.

Asardes wrote: »

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

Just farm AP then buy the region set boxes from AP vendors. You get the fun of PvP, then the boxes are cheap and you can RNG them back to back to back very quickly till you find what you need.

It will give blue gear that can be raised to purple/gold. The only remaining items are purple neck and rings, which you'll be better off buying from the Guild Traders.

The problem with those is that you get less control over what you get, because any piece of gear can drop in them. For example you may only need weapons. Each type of boss has 2-4 slots that it drops gear for. There are a total of 10 slot types (2 jewelry types, 7 body piece slots and weapon). So the chances of getting what you actually need from the AP RNG boxes is between 2 and 5 times worse than actually farming them in that zone. And the chances of getting them from there are already pretty dim. For example, if I take into account my Spinner's Inferno Staff the chances of getting that from a world boss are a bit smaller than 1/(3x3x8+3x12x8) = 1/264. Buying AP boxes gives a chance of 1/(3*9*8+3*12*8) = 1/504 at best. In terms of average tries to bring your chance to get the desired item at roughly 50% the number is ~180 and ~350 respectively. If you already have millions of AP to spend, the latter option may actually turn to be advantageous in terms of time spent, since buying a box only takes a click but not farming the AP specifically to get the desired items from gambling on boxes.

AP boxes may be a good option for getting the first few pieces of set, then after picking up some pieces targeting your grinding to the activities that will give the remaining pieces. Also taking a break or 2 to PvP a bit while still making progress toward your goal is not a bad way to alleviate the grind and liven things up a bit. I totally forgot they added these to the game while I was gone. A very good addition IMO.

Asardes

Narvuntien wrote: »

Asardes wrote: »

Narvuntien wrote: »

I was soloing stonefalls worldbosses
Mudcrab (shellcacker) --> Kwama ---> Netch ----> Dreugh ----> Mudcrab, All Wednesday.

The good thing about stonefalls is that red mountain, silks of the sun and Shalk are all good sets.

or I could empty my bank for a sharpened Sun Inferno staff, not sure the extra bit of damage over BSW is worth it...

Why not combo both 5+5, with 6L and a heavy monster set that gives spell damage/critical/maximum magicka and 4% extra health and 2% to the other stats from the undaunted mettle passive?

Mana... but I am considering it.
I'll have to use Mag regen on my jewerlly and perhaps witchmothers brew.

I have one heavy one medium Skoria helm which is great with another Hp bonus. so I should have enough hp.

Or simply weave heavy attacks. If you want

Asardes

I suppose he's magicka DK since he's after Silks of the Sun. So heavy attacks all the way. You can sustain pretty easily that way even with <1K recovery even now if you invested 50CP in tenacity. My only objection to that set is they didn't drop the health bonus for a more DPS oriented one like they did for the similar ones like Netch's Touch. Running 5 Silks + 5 BSW + 1p heavy monster head that gives maximum magicka/spell damage/critical could work well.