Vicious Ophidian 1h weapons

Denyiir

RNGesus didn't bless me with VO daggers yet, but I managed to get sword/mace with good traits, so:

Which would be better option TFS + Hunding (with daggers), or TFS + VO (sword/mace) ?

LiquidPony

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

jkolb2030

LiquidPony wrote: »

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

In most cases, you're using a heavy attack build on the DW bar and your bow bar is all light attack weaves for your typical DoTs. So with how much sustain you get with the heavy attacks people run DW VO so they can push more dps by pairing sets like VO with TFS; and with TFS stacks resetting if you use it on your DW bar, it makes it more optimal to run VO weapons and a 2pc monster.

To the OP -
I think TFS and Hundings w/ daggers will still be your best bet for most cases. However, if absolute maximum dps is not an issue, you can use either setup and see little difference between the dps results.

Note - TFS will always inflate your dummy skeleton parses.

tommalmm

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Hundings is more damage anyways than VO. In a good raid, you shouldn't really be using either TFS or VO except for maybe trash pulls.

For raids, my advice is to have weapons of both NM and hundings. If nobody else has NM, then wear that. If someone else is running NM, then go Hundings for a bit more personal DPS. TFS is fine on the body in trash pulls where you might not have all your Debuffs, but on any boss fight you should not be wearing it. You should be wearing a Debuff set: Sunder, Alkosh, MT, etc. and if all of them are accounted for, then you can look to a straight damage set like VO or automaton for your body pieces.

The only time I run TFS/VO is in 4 man stuff with questionable support, as it helps with sustain and penetration. In places like VMA, VO makes good jewelryand body pieces, but TFS is kinda crap because it never has time to stack as things die to fast, so VO + NM/hundings is superior.

TLDR: dont kill yourself for VO weapons. They are situational at best.

Danksta

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Or if you run in trial groups that don't run more than two stam, or for 4 man content.

If you don't have issues with sustain then Hunding's is better.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK.

Edit: I was clearly wrong please read on...

LiquidPony

jkolb2030 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

In most cases, you're using a heavy attack build on the DW bar and your bow bar is all light attack weaves for your typical DoTs. So with how much sustain you get with the heavy attacks people run DW VO so they can push more dps by pairing sets like VO with TFS; and with TFS stacks resetting if you use it on your DW bar, it makes it more optimal to run VO weapons and a 2pc monster.

To the OP -
I think TFS and Hundings w/ daggers will still be your best bet for most cases. However, if absolute maximum dps is not an issue, you can use either setup and see little difference between the dps results.

Note - TFS will always inflate your dummy skeleton parses.

Right, you would run VO on your DW bar with TFS because you don't want to lose the penetration bonus while you're on your DW bar. Don't see what the has to do with sustain, though: that falls under the "unless you have to" category of using VO.

Caltrops + Endless Hail + Poison Injection is pretty expensive and a pretty universal trio of bow bar skills for all PvE stam builds. If I'm using VO (which I don't use at all outside of Maelstrom anymore since Hunding's and Briarheart both parse better for me), I want that 8% cost reduction on those skills.

Danksta

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

LiquidPony

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

@RABIDxWOLVERINE dig deeper into Alcast's site; he does not recommend using TFS for organized Trials groups.

https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-optimization-raids/

TFS is definitely not optimal in organized raid groups.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

LiquidPony wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

@RABIDxWOLVERINE dig deeper into Alcast's site; he does not recommend using TFS for organized Trials groups.

https://alcasthq.com/eso-stamina-optimization-raids/

TFS is definitely not optimal in organized raid groups.

Damnit! I thought I finally was done gear hunting lol. I wouldn't say I run in organized trials but I hope to one day. I mainly play solo and so far I'm happy with TFS/Hundings but I will definitely dig deeper. Thanks @LiquidPony

RABIDxWOLVERINE

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony wrote: »

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

@LiquidPony and @Danksta Is there any way you two could elaborate further? I'm new to doing trials and what not as Ive never really considered myself good enough for end game content (I might be but haven't gained enough confidence to feel like I am maybe). If its a hassle to elaborate further could you at least point me to some places were I could arm myself with the knowledge needed to be a better end-game and overall player?

Thank you for enlightening me!

Oreyn_Bearclaw

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony wrote: »

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

@LiquidPony and @Danksta Is there any way you two could elaborate further? I'm new to doing trials and what not as Ive never really considered myself good enough for end game content (I might be but haven't gained enough confidence to feel like I am maybe). If its a hassle to elaborate further could you at least point me to some places were I could arm myself with the knowledge needed to be a better end-game and overall player?

Thank you for enlightening me!

This is how you want to think of sets for stamina. If you want to take an extreme example like myself (bit of a hoarder/perfectionist), I carry weapons in 3 sets: Hundings, VO, NM, and I carry body/jewlery pieces of all three of those, as well as Sunderflame and alkosh (Should also prob have Morag Tong). I basically try to have it planned so I can run any combination that my group needs.

So fast forward to a raid. How many stam we got? Okay, does anybody have a preference on what sets they run? If nobody says anything, I run Sunder/NM. You can still hit 50k plus single target with this, and you are giving 3440 + 2580= 6020 penetration to all the stamina players in your group (more than a set of TFS). If someone says, hey I got NM covered (pretty common as its craftable), then I will go Sunder/Hundings for a bit more personal DPS. If both sunder and NM are covered, then I can go look to something like Alkosh/Hundings, or even VO/Hundings.

End of the day, the best stamina players in the best raids are flexible and coordinate sets. The lowest DPS should be running the most Debuff sets, and the best players can hopefully go full damage. Some days you might be the little fish, some days you might be the big fish, so carrying one set of gear is a poor choice.

There is no magic answer, you want to make sure everything is covered:

Penetration sets:

Sunderflame: Only needs to be worn by one person. Gives 3440 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on stationary bosses. This seems to be the rarest of the 3 as you need to farm from COA. I personally run this a lot. If you get good with sunder (takes a bit of practice), you will never be lonely on raid night.

Nightmothers: Again, only needs to be worn by one person. It's craftable, so weapons are easy to acquire. Gives 2580 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on most fights. Stam Sorcs are excellent for this with hurricane, as they put in on everything.

Alkosh: This one is a little more difficult to use, but its very powerful. Most raids have at least 2 sometimes 3 people running Alkosh, often one is a tank. In good raids, you will typically see alkosh around 80%. This gives both magic and stamina 3010 penetration, making it extra potent.

Buff Sets:

War Machine: This gives two teammates Major Slayer when casting an Ult, which is a nice damage buff. Practically speaking, it should probably only be run by NBs and Templars because they have very low cost ultimates.

Morag Tong: Gives a buff to poison damage. If you have at least two Stam DKs (lots of poison damage), someone should probably run this set.

Damage Sets:

Hundings: This is the bread and butter of damage sets. It's nice because its craftable, so weapons are a piece of cake.

Automaton: Probably only viable on stam sorcs, but it is BIS for them for straight damage.

Vicious Ophidian: Slightly less damage than hundings, but it comes with some extra perks of mobility and stamina management. Weapons are hard to get, but if you have them, they are really nice in trash fights, and work just fine on bosses. The flip side is that the jewelry is super easy to farm. VO/Hundings is a solid straight damage combo for a lot of classes.

Briarheart: Basically hundings with a small heal. You dont see it much because the weapons are hard to get, which makes hundings a much easier choice for most. If you have the weapons in perfect traits, knock yourself out.


TLDR: 1. Coordinate with group. 2. Make sure all penetration sets are covered. 3. See if any of the buff sets make sense for your group. 4. Fill in the gaps with damage sets. 5. Win.

LiquidPony

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony wrote: »

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

@LiquidPony and @Danksta Is there any way you two could elaborate further? I'm new to doing trials and what not as Ive never really considered myself good enough for end game content (I might be but haven't gained enough confidence to feel like I am maybe). If its a hassle to elaborate further could you at least point me to some places were I could arm myself with the knowledge needed to be a better end-game and overall player?

Thank you for enlightening me!

This is how you want to think of sets for stamina. If you want to take an extreme example like myself (bit of a hoarder/perfectionist), I carry weapons in 3 sets: Hundings, VO, NM, and I carry body/jewlery pieces of all three of those, as well as Sunderflame and alkosh (Should also prob have Morag Tong). I basically try to have it planned so I can run any combination that my group needs.

So fast forward to a raid. How many stam we got? Okay, does anybody have a preference on what sets they run? If nobody says anything, I run Sunder/NM. You can still hit 50k plus single target with this, and you are giving 3440 + 2580= 6020 penetration to all the stamina players in your group (more than a set of TFS). If someone says, hey I got NM covered (pretty common as its craftable), then I will go Sunder/Hundings for a bit more personal DPS. If both sunder and NM are covered, then I can go look to something like Alkosh/Hundings, or even VO/Hundings.

End of the day, the best stamina players in the best raids are flexible and coordinate sets. The lowest DPS should be running the most Debuff sets, and the best players can hopefully go full damage. Some days you might be the little fish, some days you might be the big fish, so carrying one set of gear is a poor choice.

There is no magic answer, you want to make sure everything is covered:

Penetration sets:

Sunderflame: Only needs to be worn by one person. Gives 3440 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on stationary bosses. This seems to be the rarest of the 3 as you need to farm from COA. I personally run this a lot. If you get good with sunder (takes a bit of practice), you will never be lonely on raid night.

Nightmothers: Again, only needs to be worn by one person. It's craftable, so weapons are easy to acquire. Gives 2580 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on most fights. Stam Sorcs are excellent for this with hurricane, as they put in on everything.

Alkosh: This one is a little more difficult to use, but its very powerful. Most raids have at least 2 sometimes 3 people running Alkosh, often one is a tank. In good raids, you will typically see alkosh around 80%. This gives both magic and stamina 3010 penetration, making it extra potent.

Buff Sets:

War Machine: This gives everyone Major Slayer when casting an Ult, which is a nice damage buff. Practically speaking, it should probably only be run by NBs and Templars because they have very low cost ultimates.

Morag Tong: Gives a buff to poison damage. If you have at least two Stam DKs (lots of poison damage), someone should probably run this set.

Damage Sets:

Hundings: This is the bread and butter of damage sets. It's nice because its craftable, so weapons are a piece of cake.

Automaton: Probably only viable on stam sorcs, but it is BIS for them for straight damage.

Vicious Ophidian: Slightly less damage than hundings, but it comes with some extra perks of mobility and stamina management. Weapons are hard to get, but if you have them, they are really nice in trash fights, and work just fine on bosses. The flip side is that the jewelry is super easy to farm. VO/Hundings is a solid straight damage combo for a lot of classes.

Briarheart: Basically hundings with a small heal. You dont see it much because the weapons are hard to get, which makes hundings a much easier choice for most. If you have the weapons in perfect traits, knock yourself out.


TLDR: 1. Coordinate with group. 2. Make sure all penetration sets are covered. 3. See if any of the buff sets make sense for your group. 4. Fill in the gaps with damage sets. 5. Win.

We also keep Powerful Assault in the back pocket of a couple of our stamDKs. We've seen a significant DPS increase when we get the chance to run it (about 200 weapon damage with Major/Minor Brutality).

Example ...

Stamplar: NMG + War Machine
StamDK 1: Sunderflame + Hunding's/Briarheart
StamDK 2: Morag Tong + Hunding's/Briarheart
StamDK 3: Powerful Assault + Hunding's Briarheart

krachall

Good thread! I have some questions.

I currently run fixed sets, meaning I don’t have a set to swap to, and that is Hunding’s + VO + Monster. My VO the jewelry set, all gold, so I’m hesitant to swap it out.

For the Hunding’s set (3 Armor + weapons) should I make a set of NMG to swap with?

I’ve been farming TFS but have gotten no weapons at all. My thought was to swap TFS and Hunding’s and keep VO fixed but that doesn’t sound like a good idea any more.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony wrote: »

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

@LiquidPony and @Danksta Is there any way you two could elaborate further? I'm new to doing trials and what not as Ive never really considered myself good enough for end game content (I might be but haven't gained enough confidence to feel like I am maybe). If its a hassle to elaborate further could you at least point me to some places were I could arm myself with the knowledge needed to be a better end-game and overall player?

Thank you for enlightening me!

This is how you want to think of sets for stamina. If you want to take an extreme example like myself (bit of a hoarder/perfectionist), I carry weapons in 3 sets: Hundings, VO, NM, and I carry body/jewlery pieces of all three of those, as well as Sunderflame and alkosh (Should also prob have Morag Tong). I basically try to have it planned so I can run any combination that my group needs.

So fast forward to a raid. How many stam we got? Okay, does anybody have a preference on what sets they run? If nobody says anything, I run Sunder/NM. You can still hit 50k plus single target with this, and you are giving 3440 + 2580= 6020 penetration to all the stamina players in your group (more than a set of TFS). If someone says, hey I got NM covered (pretty common as its craftable), then I will go Sunder/Hundings for a bit more personal DPS. If both sunder and NM are covered, then I can go look to something like Alkosh/Hundings, or even VO/Hundings.

End of the day, the best stamina players in the best raids are flexible and coordinate sets. The lowest DPS should be running the most Debuff sets, and the best players can hopefully go full damage. Some days you might be the little fish, some days you might be the big fish, so carrying one set of gear is a poor choice.

There is no magic answer, you want to make sure everything is covered:

Penetration sets:

Sunderflame: Only needs to be worn by one person. Gives 3440 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on stationary bosses. This seems to be the rarest of the 3 as you need to farm from COA. I personally run this a lot. If you get good with sunder (takes a bit of practice), you will never be lonely on raid night.

Nightmothers: Again, only needs to be worn by one person. It's craftable, so weapons are easy to acquire. Gives 2580 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on most fights. Stam Sorcs are excellent for this with hurricane, as they put in on everything.

Alkosh: This one is a little more difficult to use, but its very powerful. Most raids have at least 2 sometimes 3 people running Alkosh, often one is a tank. In good raids, you will typically see alkosh around 80%. This gives both magic and stamina 3010 penetration, making it extra potent.

Buff Sets:

War Machine: This gives everyone Major Slayer when casting an Ult, which is a nice damage buff. Practically speaking, it should probably only be run by NBs and Templars because they have very low cost ultimates.

Morag Tong: Gives a buff to poison damage. If you have at least two Stam DKs (lots of poison damage), someone should probably run this set.

Damage Sets:

Hundings: This is the bread and butter of damage sets. It's nice because its craftable, so weapons are a piece of cake.

Automaton: Probably only viable on stam sorcs, but it is BIS for them for straight damage.

Vicious Ophidian: Slightly less damage than hundings, but it comes with some extra perks of mobility and stamina management. Weapons are hard to get, but if you have them, they are really nice in trash fights, and work just fine on bosses. The flip side is that the jewelry is super easy to farm. VO/Hundings is a solid straight damage combo for a lot of classes.

Briarheart: Basically hundings with a small heal. You dont see it much because the weapons are hard to get, which makes hundings a much easier choice for most. If you have the weapons in perfect traits, knock yourself out.


TLDR: 1. Coordinate with group. 2. Make sure all penetration sets are covered. 3. See if any of the buff sets make sense for your group. 4. Fill in the gaps with damage sets. 5. Win.

So basically what your telling me to do is go farm sunderflame, morag tong, and alkosh so I can be more versatile? I'm also working on my VO set. How do you get gold jewelry for VO?

Danksta

krachall wrote: »

Good thread! I have some questions.

I currently run fixed sets, meaning I don’t have a set to swap to, and that is Hunding’s + VO + Monster. My VO the jewelry set, all gold, so I’m hesitant to swap it out.

For the Hunding’s set (3 Armor + weapons) should I make a set of NMG to swap with?

I’ve been farming TFS but have gotten no weapons at all. My thought was to swap TFS and Hunding’s and keep VO fixed but that doesn’t sound like a good idea any more.

As a stam DPS it's good to keep a set of several sets. I keep TFS (incase there's 2 stam or less in the group, including myself), VO, Hunding's, NMG, Sunderflame, Automaton (still working on filling out the set and really only good on Sorc and Templar), Morag Tong.

Also, for TFS you don't want to run weapons because the buff will fall off while on your back bar.

Danksta

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony wrote: »

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

@LiquidPony and @Danksta Is there any way you two could elaborate further? I'm new to doing trials and what not as Ive never really considered myself good enough for end game content (I might be but haven't gained enough confidence to feel like I am maybe). If its a hassle to elaborate further could you at least point me to some places were I could arm myself with the knowledge needed to be a better end-game and overall player?

Thank you for enlightening me!

This is how you want to think of sets for stamina. If you want to take an extreme example like myself (bit of a hoarder/perfectionist), I carry weapons in 3 sets: Hundings, VO, NM, and I carry body/jewlery pieces of all three of those, as well as Sunderflame and alkosh (Should also prob have Morag Tong). I basically try to have it planned so I can run any combination that my group needs.

So fast forward to a raid. How many stam we got? Okay, does anybody have a preference on what sets they run? If nobody says anything, I run Sunder/NM. You can still hit 50k plus single target with this, and you are giving 3440 + 2580= 6020 penetration to all the stamina players in your group (more than a set of TFS). If someone says, hey I got NM covered (pretty common as its craftable), then I will go Sunder/Hundings for a bit more personal DPS. If both sunder and NM are covered, then I can go look to something like Alkosh/Hundings, or even VO/Hundings.

End of the day, the best stamina players in the best raids are flexible and coordinate sets. The lowest DPS should be running the most Debuff sets, and the best players can hopefully go full damage. Some days you might be the little fish, some days you might be the big fish, so carrying one set of gear is a poor choice.

There is no magic answer, you want to make sure everything is covered:

Penetration sets:

Sunderflame: Only needs to be worn by one person. Gives 3440 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on stationary bosses. This seems to be the rarest of the 3 as you need to farm from COA. I personally run this a lot. If you get good with sunder (takes a bit of practice), you will never be lonely on raid night.

Nightmothers: Again, only needs to be worn by one person. It's craftable, so weapons are easy to acquire. Gives 2580 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on most fights. Stam Sorcs are excellent for this with hurricane, as they put in on everything.

Alkosh: This one is a little more difficult to use, but its very powerful. Most raids have at least 2 sometimes 3 people running Alkosh, often one is a tank. In good raids, you will typically see alkosh around 80%. This gives both magic and stamina 3010 penetration, making it extra potent.

Buff Sets:

War Machine: This gives everyone Major Slayer when casting an Ult, which is a nice damage buff. Practically speaking, it should probably only be run by NBs and Templars because they have very low cost ultimates.

Morag Tong: Gives a buff to poison damage. If you have at least two Stam DKs (lots of poison damage), someone should probably run this set.

Damage Sets:

Hundings: This is the bread and butter of damage sets. It's nice because its craftable, so weapons are a piece of cake.

Automaton: Probably only viable on stam sorcs, but it is BIS for them for straight damage.

Vicious Ophidian: Slightly less damage than hundings, but it comes with some extra perks of mobility and stamina management. Weapons are hard to get, but if you have them, they are really nice in trash fights, and work just fine on bosses. The flip side is that the jewelry is super easy to farm. VO/Hundings is a solid straight damage combo for a lot of classes.

Briarheart: Basically hundings with a small heal. You dont see it much because the weapons are hard to get, which makes hundings a much easier choice for most. If you have the weapons in perfect traits, knock yourself out.


TLDR: 1. Coordinate with group. 2. Make sure all penetration sets are covered. 3. See if any of the buff sets make sense for your group. 4. Fill in the gaps with damage sets. 5. Win.

So basically what your telling me to do is go farm sunderflame, morag tong, and alkosh so I can be more versatile? I'm also working on my VO set. How do you get gold jewelry for VO?

Exactly. You want to be able run different sets depending on what your group happens to be running. You get gold VO jewelry from the Craglorn trials on vet. If you happen to run with an experienced group will likely get you 3 jewelry pieces in a run or two.

krachall

Danksta wrote: »

krachall wrote: »

Good thread! I have some questions.

I currently run fixed sets, meaning I don’t have a set to swap to, and that is Hunding’s + VO + Monster. My VO the jewelry set, all gold, so I’m hesitant to swap it out.

For the Hunding’s set (3 Armor + weapons) should I make a set of NMG to swap with?

I’ve been farming TFS but have gotten no weapons at all. My thought was to swap TFS and Hunding’s and keep VO fixed but that doesn’t sound like a good idea any more.

As a stam DPS it's good to keep a set of several sets. I keep TFS (incase there's 2 stam or less in the group, including myself), VO, Hunding's, NMG, Sunderflame, Automaton (still working on filling out the set and really only good on Sorc and Templar), Morag Tong.

Also, for TFS you don't want to run weapons because the buff will fall off while on your back bar.

Ah! So TFS is really a better swap for VO (Armor+jewelry) than Hunding’s (Armor + Weapons).

What I can manage today is:
Hunding’s/NMG on weapons
VO/TFS on jewelry

Is that the right combo? So I could run the following sets:

Hunding’s+VO (my main)
Hunding’s + TFS
NMG + VO
NMG + TFS

When is TFS preferred over VO?

MJallday

Denyiir wrote: »

RNGesus didn't bless me with VO daggers yet, but I managed to get sword/mace with good traits, so:

Which would be better option TFS + Hunding (with daggers), or TFS + VO (sword/mace) ?

ive got 2 VO daggers in precise. havent bothered using them yet. they any good?

i run TFS + Hundings with daggers - love it.

idk

LiquidPony wrote: »

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

@LiquidPony

It's basically lose the cost reduction for a few seconds or chance losing the 5 stacks of pen and have to build them back up again.

kylewwefan

These are for high end well coordinated trials groups. I would figure any stam toon would do good to have a set of NMG to switch into.

My best DPS on the skeleton has come from TFS/Hundings.

It depends on what you want to do. For most things, VO/Hundings or NMG and monster set will be great.

Danksta

krachall wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

krachall wrote: »

Good thread! I have some questions.

I currently run fixed sets, meaning I don’t have a set to swap to, and that is Hunding’s + VO + Monster. My VO the jewelry set, all gold, so I’m hesitant to swap it out.

For the Hunding’s set (3 Armor + weapons) should I make a set of NMG to swap with?

I’ve been farming TFS but have gotten no weapons at all. My thought was to swap TFS and Hunding’s and keep VO fixed but that doesn’t sound like a good idea any more.

As a stam DPS it's good to keep a set of several sets. I keep TFS (incase there's 2 stam or less in the group, including myself), VO, Hunding's, NMG, Sunderflame, Automaton (still working on filling out the set and really only good on Sorc and Templar), Morag Tong.

Also, for TFS you don't want to run weapons because the buff will fall off while on your back bar.

Ah! So TFS is really a better swap for VO (Armor+jewelry) than Hunding’s (Armor + Weapons).

What I can manage today is:
Hunding’s/NMG on weapons
VO/TFS on jewelry

Is that the right combo? So I could run the following sets:

Hunding’s+VO (my main)
Hunding’s + TFS
NMG + VO
NMG + TFS

When is TFS preferred over VO?

With most of the groups I run with I don't use TFS, only if there are 2 stam DPS or less I will use it. If you have 3 or more stam DPS in your group it's best to have one run NMG and another run Sunderflame. It nets you more penetration than TFS for the same amount of 5 piece bonuses, group-wide. The rest of the stam DPS will also benefit from NMG and Sunderflame because it lowers the enemy resistances, opposed to TFS which just allows the person/people wearing the set to penetrate the enemies armor.

If I have less then 2 stam DPS in my group I will couple TFS with either Hunding's or Automaton. Brairheart is also a good choice, but probably not as good of an option as Hunding's which is easier to acquire.

WrathOfInnos

Definitely go with Hundings, and weave heavy attacks while on dual wield for sustain. VO is not needed. You could also look into Briarheart if you want to complete the 5 piece set with your dual weapons. Unlike Hundings, the Briarheart bonus will persist while on your back bar.

As for TFS, it is really more of a solo set. In a group with other stamina DPS, Sunderflame, Night Mothers Gaze and Alkosh are much better, since they buff everyone's DPS. Combine these 3 sets with Major and Minor Fracture and a Torugs Infused Crusher tank, and everyone will be over the penetration cap for PVE without a single point in Piercing CP or sharpened weapons.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

krachall wrote: »

Good thread! I have some questions.

I currently run fixed sets, meaning I don’t have a set to swap to, and that is Hunding’s + VO + Monster. My VO the jewelry set, all gold, so I’m hesitant to swap it out.

For the Hunding’s set (3 Armor + weapons) should I make a set of NMG to swap with?

I’ve been farming TFS but have gotten no weapons at all. My thought was to swap TFS and Hunding’s and keep VO fixed but that doesn’t sound like a good idea any more.

There is nothing wrong with hundings/VO for straight damage, but it is extremely selfish. If you are asked to run straight damage sets, then knock yourself out, but you arent bringing much to the table for your group. Unless you are hitting 55-60K single target on your DK, you should probably work on some support. The most obvious thing to do would just be to craft a set of Nightmothers for the same pieces as your Hundings. Then you can swap back and forth. The next step would probably be to farm Sunderflame to replace your VO. That would give 4 possible combos, which is more than most people bring to the table.

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

I run 5x TFS 4/5x Hundings and 2 pc monster set (Selenes currently) on my Stam DK and it seems to work better than anything else Ive tried.

I went off Alcast's Venom build and the way he explains it for trials and dungeons TFS/Hundings/Velidreth are BiS for Stam DK. I have more confidence in his opinion than any of these opinions but its probably largely class based.

It's actually based mostly off group composition. TFS only works for yourself. If you have more than 2 stamina in your group then one can run Night Mother's and another can run Sunderflame to get roughly the same 'penetration'. Though penetration isn't exactly accurate, it strips the armor of your target making it a debuff, thus all stamina users can benefit. So you have two players, each one wearing one of those sets. Then you can have other players wear other buff sets such as Morag Tong or War Machine, or even have some go 'full damage' meaning they aren't wearing a buff set but would still benefit from the penetration that TFS would've provided.

LiquidPony wrote: »

tommalmm wrote: »

TFS is useless save for solo play and cheesing target dummy.

Not really.

TFS is useful in dungeons because you're not going to be stacking armor debuffs and is also useful in raid groups that don't have the Sunderflame + NMG + Alkosh stack (if your group only has 1 or 2 stam toons in it for instance).

@LiquidPony and @Danksta Is there any way you two could elaborate further? I'm new to doing trials and what not as Ive never really considered myself good enough for end game content (I might be but haven't gained enough confidence to feel like I am maybe). If its a hassle to elaborate further could you at least point me to some places were I could arm myself with the knowledge needed to be a better end-game and overall player?

Thank you for enlightening me!

This is how you want to think of sets for stamina. If you want to take an extreme example like myself (bit of a hoarder/perfectionist), I carry weapons in 3 sets: Hundings, VO, NM, and I carry body/jewlery pieces of all three of those, as well as Sunderflame and alkosh (Should also prob have Morag Tong). I basically try to have it planned so I can run any combination that my group needs.

So fast forward to a raid. How many stam we got? Okay, does anybody have a preference on what sets they run? If nobody says anything, I run Sunder/NM. You can still hit 50k plus single target with this, and you are giving 3440 + 2580= 6020 penetration to all the stamina players in your group (more than a set of TFS). If someone says, hey I got NM covered (pretty common as its craftable), then I will go Sunder/Hundings for a bit more personal DPS. If both sunder and NM are covered, then I can go look to something like Alkosh/Hundings, or even VO/Hundings.

End of the day, the best stamina players in the best raids are flexible and coordinate sets. The lowest DPS should be running the most Debuff sets, and the best players can hopefully go full damage. Some days you might be the little fish, some days you might be the big fish, so carrying one set of gear is a poor choice.

There is no magic answer, you want to make sure everything is covered:

Penetration sets:

Sunderflame: Only needs to be worn by one person. Gives 3440 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on stationary bosses. This seems to be the rarest of the 3 as you need to farm from COA. I personally run this a lot. If you get good with sunder (takes a bit of practice), you will never be lonely on raid night.

Nightmothers: Again, only needs to be worn by one person. It's craftable, so weapons are easy to acquire. Gives 2580 physical penetration and can have an effective uptime of nearly 100% on most fights. Stam Sorcs are excellent for this with hurricane, as they put in on everything.

Alkosh: This one is a little more difficult to use, but its very powerful. Most raids have at least 2 sometimes 3 people running Alkosh, often one is a tank. In good raids, you will typically see alkosh around 80%. This gives both magic and stamina 3010 penetration, making it extra potent.

Buff Sets:

War Machine: This gives everyone Major Slayer when casting an Ult, which is a nice damage buff. Practically speaking, it should probably only be run by NBs and Templars because they have very low cost ultimates.

Morag Tong: Gives a buff to poison damage. If you have at least two Stam DKs (lots of poison damage), someone should probably run this set.

Damage Sets:

Hundings: This is the bread and butter of damage sets. It's nice because its craftable, so weapons are a piece of cake.

Automaton: Probably only viable on stam sorcs, but it is BIS for them for straight damage.

Vicious Ophidian: Slightly less damage than hundings, but it comes with some extra perks of mobility and stamina management. Weapons are hard to get, but if you have them, they are really nice in trash fights, and work just fine on bosses. The flip side is that the jewelry is super easy to farm. VO/Hundings is a solid straight damage combo for a lot of classes.

Briarheart: Basically hundings with a small heal. You dont see it much because the weapons are hard to get, which makes hundings a much easier choice for most. If you have the weapons in perfect traits, knock yourself out.


TLDR: 1. Coordinate with group. 2. Make sure all penetration sets are covered. 3. See if any of the buff sets make sense for your group. 4. Fill in the gaps with damage sets. 5. Win.

So basically what your telling me to do is go farm sunderflame, morag tong, and alkosh so I can be more versatile? I'm also working on my VO set. How do you get gold jewelry for VO?

I would say that's not a bad long term goal. Morag Tong can be bought. Sunderflame really isnt that bad to get from 4 man stuff, and Alkosh Drops like candy in VMOL if you have the group for it. I would prioritize sunderflame and Nightmothers for debuff sets.

Gold VO drops from Vet Craglorn trials. If you do hardmode VSO (easiest HM in the game), everyone gets 2 gold jewelry drops. Most people that raid a lot vend their VO jewelry at this point, so you should be able to get a full set in one or two runs with a nice group. Weapons can be found in Crag trial chests or last bosses. If you can get your hands on 2 daggers, make one precise and the other infused/Nirn, and go nuts. I just got my second dagger over the weekend. VO/TFS is pretty awesome in trash, because the debuffs are never as good.

All that said, the difference between gold and purple jewelry is REALLY small. You can put gold enchants on purple jewelry to get the same weapon damage buff, so typically you are talking about a few points of stam or weapon damage at the most. I run purple sunder jewelry, and can easily hit 50k ST on static fights on my Sorc. Gold jewelry is shiny, but not a dealbreaker.

MJallday wrote: »

Denyiir wrote: »

RNGesus didn't bless me with VO daggers yet, but I managed to get sword/mace with good traits, so:

Which would be better option TFS + Hunding (with daggers), or TFS + VO (sword/mace) ?

ive got 2 VO daggers in precise. havent bothered using them yet. they any good?

i run TFS + Hundings with daggers - love it.

I would make one of them either infused or nirn. That makes a nice damage set to pair with other buff sets. Hundings is a hair more DPS than VO if it comes down to choosing one or the other, but VO gives great sustain and mobility. I love it in trash fights and 4 man stuff when my support is perhaps not as good.

krachall wrote: »

Danksta wrote: »

krachall wrote: »

Good thread! I have some questions.

I currently run fixed sets, meaning I don’t have a set to swap to, and that is Hunding’s + VO + Monster. My VO the jewelry set, all gold, so I’m hesitant to swap it out.

For the Hunding’s set (3 Armor + weapons) should I make a set of NMG to swap with?

I’ve been farming TFS but have gotten no weapons at all. My thought was to swap TFS and Hunding’s and keep VO fixed but that doesn’t sound like a good idea any more.

As a stam DPS it's good to keep a set of several sets. I keep TFS (incase there's 2 stam or less in the group, including myself), VO, Hunding's, NMG, Sunderflame, Automaton (still working on filling out the set and really only good on Sorc and Templar), Morag Tong.

Also, for TFS you don't want to run weapons because the buff will fall off while on your back bar.

Ah! So TFS is really a better swap for VO (Armor+jewelry) than Hunding’s (Armor + Weapons).

What I can manage today is:
Hunding’s/NMG on weapons
VO/TFS on jewelry

Is that the right combo? So I could run the following sets:

Hunding’s+VO (my main)
Hunding’s + TFS
NMG + VO
NMG + TFS

When is TFS preferred over VO?

I would say Hundings +VO if asked to go straight damage, Nightmothers + VO if you need to run support. NMG+TFS really only when parsing, Solo, or the only stam in group. Hundings +TFS is not bad in trash fights.

Here is the thing about TFS vs VO. TFS is the best penetration set to give to yourself, but does nothing for your group. In situations where you need to be selfish and you are going to be below the penetration cap, its the set of choice. VO is a straight damage set. It is better than TFS if your group is getting you to the penetration cap.

RABIDxWOLVERINE

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta yall should start a stam DPS class haha Ill sign up right now.

CLASS ROSTER

1.RABIDxWOLVERINE

Danksta

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta yall should start a stam DPS class haha Ill sign up right now.

CLASS ROSTER

1.RABIDxWOLVERINE

Haha! I'm really not that good and still learn new things quite often. I just do my research and am fortunate to play with some really good players that are willing to help out.

jkolb2030

LiquidPony wrote: »

jkolb2030 wrote: »

LiquidPony wrote: »

Never saw the point of running VO on the DW bar unless you absolutely have to. I wouldn't want to lose the stamina cost reduction on my bow bar.

In most cases, you're using a heavy attack build on the DW bar and your bow bar is all light attack weaves for your typical DoTs. So with how much sustain you get with the heavy attacks people run DW VO so they can push more dps by pairing sets like VO with TFS; and with TFS stacks resetting if you use it on your DW bar, it makes it more optimal to run VO weapons and a 2pc monster.

To the OP -
I think TFS and Hundings w/ daggers will still be your best bet for most cases. However, if absolute maximum dps is not an issue, you can use either setup and see little difference between the dps results.

Note - TFS will always inflate your dummy skeleton parses.

Right, you would run VO on your DW bar with TFS because you don't want to lose the penetration bonus while you're on your DW bar. Don't see what the has to do with sustain, though: that falls under the "unless you have to" category of using VO.

Caltrops + Endless Hail + Poison Injection is pretty expensive and a pretty universal trio of bow bar skills for all PvE stam builds. If I'm using VO (which I don't use at all outside of Maelstrom anymore since Hunding's and Briarheart both parse better for me), I want that 8% cost reduction on those skills.

I had to re-read my post, thinking i could chalk it up to not having coffee when i wrote it - but it looks like i mentioned sustain to the comment before me where you were concerned about losing stam cost reduction on the bow bar.

Was just trying to say it would be hardly noticeable when running a heavy attack build to begin with lol

RABIDxWOLVERINE

Danksta wrote: »

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta yall should start a stam DPS class haha Ill sign up right now.

CLASS ROSTER

1.RABIDxWOLVERINE

Haha! I'm really not that good and still learn new things quite often. I just do my research and am fortunate to play with some really good players that are willing to help out.

Where do you get your research? I would love to learn about this more.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

RABIDxWOLVERINE wrote: »

@Oreyn_Bearclaw and @Danksta yall should start a stam DPS class haha Ill sign up right now.

CLASS ROSTER

1.RABIDxWOLVERINE

Ha! I have actually taught a class or two in my day. Bearclaw Manor is typically full of people testing DPS rotations and stuff. We also have all the mundus stones for easy swapping. If anyone is PC/NA and would like an invite, send me a message.

Remember, gear is important, but only half the battle. Rotation Rotation Rotation. Definitely work to get the gear you need, but nobody hits 50k DPS in a trial without some work on the target dummy. My advice is always to start with a proven rotation and adapt it to your playstyle.

My strategy in this game has always been to find out what the best of the best are doing, and see where I can optimize. Typically that means simplifying the rotation where I can for the least amount of DPS loss. It has worked very well for me. I dont push buttons like Streak, Andy, Alcast, LZH, Etc., so I try to play to my strengths and use smarts where I can.

A simple rotation executed well will always beat a complicated rotation executed poorly. Fortunately, stamina rotation save for stamblade are very circular, which means the biggest challenge is often learning how to not die to mechanics in Melee range. If you are new to stam, Stam Sorc is far and away they easiest class because they can slot Crit Surge for bit of a cushion.