The Brass Soldier - WARNING You may become "Nervous"!

Waffennacht

The Brass Soldier
4.3k+ Weapon Damage, 30k Resistance Medium Armor Stamplar.

Disclaimer: Several Players have reported feeling "nervous" or anxious after reading this guide. Be warned I aim to change perceptions of build possibilities and non-meta ideas. If you are weak of heart, please stop reading now, your safety is of our primary concern



Welcome to another one of my builds! This will be my first ever guide on a stamina build, I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy playing it.

My play style works best with an edge of tank, I like builds that can stand a bit of heat and this build does just that, while maintaining a lot of damage.

Special Thanks to: @Lexxypwns @Paulsimonps @Minno @Thogard @Casparian and @Dillpat you all provided information, math, and inspiration! And of course the Community J

Gear:

Fortified Brass x5
- Chest, Waist, Legs, Arms, and Weapon (2h, and 1h axe)

Strength of the Automaton x5/x4
- Jewelry, Legs, and Weapon (1h Dagger)

Velidreth Set x2

-All Stamina Glyphs on Armor
-All gear sets have the Impenetrable Trait.
-Weapon traits are Nirnhoned main hand and 2h, Precise on Dagger

Jewelry Glyphs x2 Weapon Damage, x1 Stamina Recovery


Stats buffed by Brutality and Major Ward, No Weapon DMG glyph, Blue jewelry, Purple Glyphs, Undaunted Mettle 1 Outside PvP

Fortified Brass: This set has received both acclaim and disregard, I think it’s a great set and pairs absolutely well with the medium armor passives. I’ve heard a lot of players say you should just run heavy armor rather than Brass. While I agree the tanky play style is similar, Brass affords you more offensive capabilities along with sustain, and maybe more importantly the ability to keep Rally as a spot heal and run Shuffle.
Let’s use Spriggan’s Thorns Set as an example, it provides 1096 Stamina x2, 129 wpn damage, and 3450 physical penetration, the 3450 penetration is worth 5% damage, the other stats are worth approximately 2% (rounding up) so essentially a total value of 11% damage (actually worth less than that I believe.) Brass provides 12.34% damage mitigation and health bonus, meaning Brass provides more than Spriggan’s in the opposite direction (and is effective against all builds while penetration is less effective against shield users.) High Critical Resistance, High Damage Resistance along with heals provide more mitigation than shields - the third best mitigation arguably behind Dodge Roll and Block.

Strength of the Automaton: I was comparing some of the most offensive sets for weapon damage, Strength of the Automaton provided more consistent damage bonus than Ravager or Hulking or 7th or Senche’s Bite and comes in Robust jewelry. When running Ravager most builds would run Lava Foot Stomp food because of the healthy jewelry. Well I wanted those same stats to pair with Automaton and gave it a whirl. The result was great, the stats provided are higher offensively than any other set.

Attention!
Remember! Automaton's Weapon Damage Buff DOES NOT show on your character sheet, and IS BUFFED by Major Brutality and all other wpn DMG Modifiers - The True Buffed Weapon Damage of the build is over 4.3k

Food
Lava Foot Stomp - Stamina and Stamina regeneration to make up for the fact that Fortified Brass does not provide any true sustain or damage qualities.

Mundus
The Serpent - with no set bonuses providing Stamina Regeneration, Serpent was almost a must. If you are in a coordinated group you can go with Warrior and rely on your group when you get low on stamina, if you were to choose that route you would get near 5k weapon damage.

Class
Templar - I feel like the natural tankiness of Templars is a great fit with Fortified Brass, you also get great abilities and purge effects. I have tested similar set ups on Stamina Warden with success, however I have not spent any length of time testing other classes.

Race
Argonian, Orc, Redguard, Bosmer even Nord are all great choices. Really each race has advantages that allow you to work a certain stat around. My Templar is an Argonian and I have no regrets. The passives for Argonians work really well with Templars.

Skills
Dual Wield Front Bar
Rending Slashes, Biting Jabs, Blinding Javelin, Power of the Light, Resolving Vigor, Ultimate: Dawnbreaker or Crescent Sweep

2H Back Bar
Rally, Stampede, Shuffle, Extended Ritual, Channeled Focus, Ultimate: Remembrance

The build focuses on Damage Over Time and Bleed Damage, this is a great counter to perm blocker builds and bleed goes through block. This also means you have sustained pressure to lock players down.

Dueling Video
https://youtu.be/2CqyxwDwO00
The Brass Soldier is surprisingly tanky

Champion Points
The Steed
Iron Clad: 40
Spell Shield: 17
Medium Armor Focus: 17
Resistant: 50

The Lady
Hardy: 37
Elemental Defender: 37
Thick Skinned: 13

The Lord
Quick Recovery: 19

The Tower
Warlord: 56
Siphoner: 19
Sprinter: 3

The Lover
Mooncalf: 75

Thief
Tumbling: 72
Shadow Ward: 5

The Apprentice
Blessed: 43

The Atronach
Master-at-Arms: 34

The Ritual
Thaumaturge: 51
Precise Strikes: 37
Mighty: 64
Piercing: 1

Potions and Poisons


Probably my favorite potion to pair with Templar, the speed is necessary in BGs and I love the added benefit of Major Endurance. Sure Brutality is redundant but I haven't gone looking too hard for Potion mixes.

The Poison is wicked, if what they say is true the added cost of stamina includes roll dodge and CC break. This poison roots for 3.5 seconds (definitely long enough) but most opponents dodge roll out - at an increased cost - then add on top of that a hard CC, you're putting massive pressure to builds' stamina pools.

Battle Ground Example Video
https://youtu.be/dtNtRCPAwc4
I cut out boring parts, 1v1 parts (you can watch the duel example for that) etc, a good example of what the Brass Soldier is like in a few Battle Grounds.

Looking through the build you see it has sustained pressure, purge, burst with the ultimate and power of the light, several strong snares, a hard CC that can be used just as defensively as offensively, HoTs, Burst Heal, Evasion, Snare Removal, the only thing it does not have as is, is Major Expedition. We can gain access to this through potions. Though I typically only ever use the exceedingly cheap Health Potions.

This guide, like all my guides, is a work in progress, and will be updated with pictures and videos, Champion Points, etc when I have access and time. Thank you very much for all of your help Forum Community!

Please feel free to ask any questions, or mention something that I have missed!

Akinos

Looks good, an awesome for you for sharing this

Thogard

i like it but i dont think you could get away with this build on PC NA in the BGs. you dont have a shield or blade cloak to mitigate the big burst while you kite away, but you also won't have enough dmg to drop the targets fast enough to do a pure hit-and-run style medium stamplar build.

Lexxypwns

Thogard wrote: »

i like it but i dont think you could get away with this build on PC NA in the BGs. you dont have a shield or blade cloak to mitigate the big burst while you kite away, but you also won't have enough dmg to drop the targets fast enough to do a pure hit-and-run style medium stamplar build.

So a normal medium stamplar with blade cloak takes more damage than this build, brass gives 12.25% damage reduction against everything. Blade cloak gives less than 13% in most case against aoe and nothing against incap, frags, master's dw bleeds, most DoTs etc. even with a 30k dawnbreaker tooltip, which is totally unrealistic, it only does ~1500 more damage to this build than a similar setup with blade cloak. Now, that is significant, but not compared to all the cripple, DoT poison, light attack, etc damage you mitigate with brass.

Brass is worth not have my blade cloak over, imo

Waffennacht

Should have a nice dueling video up soon, then it's going to be BG videos.

@Thogard I dunno about not enough DMG. Even without wpn DMG glyph and just brutality, I go to 4k wpn DMG.

Quick Cloak is cool, if you wanted it would be easy to slide javelin to backbar and slot cloak. Though as @Lexxypwns pointed out, after diminishing returns you don't get much more mitigation.

Edit: in my stats pic I have a sword as my research for 1h axe isn't done yet. And with blue jewelry going to purple eventually etc (gold items) should push all stats higher.

Brutusmax1mus

That health is terrifyingly low. Even with great resistance. You don't think ruining bone pirates and going with damage glyphs/warrior mundus/ Cameron throne would net better results? I have a picture off my khajiit in brass bp off you'd like me to share. Still has 1 purple weapon and all purple glyphs and is on a night blade but i could switch it to my stamplar for better comparison.

casparian

@Waffenacht I've really been enjoying this build. Tonight I'll post a pic of my stats with the build on my Redguard with max Undaunted etc., in case anyone is turned off by your Argonian.

I do three things differently:
- I typically don't run a gap closer; I have POTL where you have Stampede. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on when gap closers are most useful.
- I put Quick Cloak on the front bar where you have POTL. I find that closing the gap with that burst of expedition into a heavy attack is much more efficient than Stampede, and comparable in terms of damage (and is much less likely to be dodged). I do miss the Stampede snare, though.
- I do run Dubious Throne instead of Lava Foot. My sustain even with Lava Foot + Serpent is low enough that heavy attacks have to do a lot of work for me, so I find that the extra health is worth the tradeoff. Plus I'm not cheap and I use potions that restore stamina.

I don't really know what my favorite undaunted set is for this build yet. I still have a soft spot for Selene, because BEAR. Plus the extra stamina is nice. I also want to experiment with Mephala -- since it's so easy to pull off heavy attacks with a DW build, the idea of adding a 50% snare to my heavies is appealing.

The only thing I'd still like to test is whether having resistances this high should change my CP setup. I suspect it might be more efficient to take points out of Hardy and Ele Defender and throw them into Medium Armor Focus and Spell Wall in order to pump those resists up to the cap. Given the way sources of mitigation stack, my understanding is that maxing out resists would be more efficient in this case than stacking near-cap resists with Hardy and Ele Defender. Thoughts? Edit: holy diminishing returns Batman! Taking 37 CP out of Ele Defender and putting them in Spell Shield grants an extra 1% spell resistance. I think I'll keep them in Ele Defender. Doing the same with Hardy and Medium Armor Focus does give me an extra 5% physical resistance, though, which is more appealing.

Storymaster

Rock on, @Waffennacht

KingJ

Argonian ewww.

Nice build @Waffennacht can't wait to see it in action.

Takes-No-Prisoner

I tried Brass out, after reading the other thread. While it's not something I have warmed up to yet(i made a med/heavy set), I am still curious how other people are using this set. So I'll be lurking around.

WillhelmBlack

casparian wrote: »

@Waffenacht I've really been enjoying this build. Tonight I'll post a pic of my stats with the build on my Redguard with max Undaunted etc., in case anyone is turned off by your Argonian.

I do three things differently:
- I typically don't run a gap closer; I have POTL where you have Stampede. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on when gap closers are most useful.
- I put Quick Cloak on the front bar where you have POTL. I find that closing the gap with that burst of expedition into a heavy attack is much more efficient than Stampede, and comparable in terms of damage (and is much less likely to be dodged). I do miss the Stampede snare, though.
- I do run Dubious Throne instead of Lava Foot. My sustain even with Lava Foot + Serpent is low enough that heavy attacks have to do a lot of work for me, so I find that the extra health is worth the tradeoff. Plus I'm not cheap and I use potions that restore stamina.

I don't really know what my favorite undaunted set is for this build yet. I still have a soft spot for Selene, because BEAR. Plus the extra stamina is nice. I also want to experiment with Mephala -- since it's so easy to pull off heavy attacks with a DW build, the idea of adding a 50% snare to my heavies is appealing.

The only thing I'd still like to test is whether having resistances this high should change my CP setup. I suspect it might be more efficient to take points out of Hardy and Ele Defender and throw them into Medium Armor Focus and Spell Wall in order to pump those resists up to the cap. Given the way sources of mitigation stack, my understanding is that maxing out resists would be more efficient in this case than stacking near-cap resists with Hardy and Ele Defender. Thoughts? Edit: holy diminishing returns Batman! Taking 37 CP out of Ele Defender and putting them in Spell Shield grants an extra 1% spell resistance. I think I'll keep them in Ele Defender. Doing the same with Hardy and Medium Armor Focus does give me an extra 5% physical resistance, though, which is more appealing.

Stamplar has a 70% snare iirc, Mephala's is only 50%. Not worth it.

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

I tried Brass out, after reading the other thread. While it's not something I have warmed up to yet(i made a med/heavy set), I am still curious how other people are using this set. So I'll be lurking around.

It's good but not Seventh Legion good.

Props to Waffennacht for making something new, love it. I'll be sticking with my Troll King and Seventh for a while though, fits my Orc Stamplar perfectly.

Minno

What's your CP?!?!

casparian wrote: »

@Waffenacht I've really been enjoying this build. Tonight I'll post a pic of my stats with the build on my Redguard with max Undaunted etc., in case anyone is turned off by your Argonian.

I do three things differently:
- I typically don't run a gap closer; I have POTL where you have Stampede. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on when gap closers are most useful.
- I put Quick Cloak on the front bar where you have POTL. I find that closing the gap with that burst of expedition into a heavy attack is much more efficient than Stampede, and comparable in terms of damage (and is much less likely to be dodged). I do miss the Stampede snare, though.
- I do run Dubious Throne instead of Lava Foot. My sustain even with Lava Foot + Serpent is low enough that heavy attacks have to do a lot of work for me, so I find that the extra health is worth the tradeoff. Plus I'm not cheap and I use potions that restore stamina.

I don't really know what my favorite undaunted set is for this build yet. I still have a soft spot for Selene, because BEAR. Plus the extra stamina is nice. I also want to experiment with Mephala -- since it's so easy to pull off heavy attacks with a DW build, the idea of adding a 50% snare to my heavies is appealing.

The only thing I'd still like to test is whether having resistances this high should change my CP setup. I suspect it might be more efficient to take points out of Hardy and Ele Defender and throw them into Medium Armor Focus and Spell Wall in order to pump those resists up to the cap. Given the way sources of mitigation stack, my understanding is that maxing out resists would be more efficient in this case than stacking near-cap resists with Hardy and Ele Defender. Thoughts?

5-8% hardy/ele
18% Ironclad
15-18% thick skin
Rest into crit resists (3000-3300?)

Way I see it, you can maybe put 2 points into MA focus to get to the next percentage of mitigation (but no more than 5 since that's how many it would take to go to another percent in Hardy). Reducing crit would help keep DMG down therefore pulling down some points from other areas.

But I agree we need to see his CP!

Takes-No-Prisoner

WillhelmBlack wrote: »

Takes-No-Prisoner wrote: »

I tried Brass out, after reading the other thread. While it's not something I have warmed up to yet(i made a med/heavy set), I am still curious how other people are using this set. So I'll be lurking around.

It's good but not Seventh Legion good.

I'm running 7th Legion/Tava's on my Stam Warden because I enjoy the tanky life style. Can't seem to get away from 7th legion ATM.

But enough about that

*sinks back into lurk* ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Waffennacht

I'm gonna post CP soon, and I'm gonna guess it's not optimal lol but I'll work on that.

@casparian I'm gonna keep you in mind when I check out my CPs

7th Legion/ Ravager, both are great sets. And I tried running both, (not at the same time... That's my stamden...) Just mathmatically on a medium build Automaton our performs them in terms of offense (health trait on jewelry)

So for a jewelry set, Senche's bite and Automation add a ton of offense and don't need to be on both bars (neither does 7th or Ravager necessarily)

I really like the medium Passives, and when I compared the Stats of 7th + Ravager against Automaton + Brass, the stats are darn near identical - difference is armor Passives. (Fully buffed)

I could easily go with dubious for more health, it's just not necessary

I'll be posting the duel video today, almost entirely against leaderboard leaders.

VirtualElizabeth

I was actually thinking of trying this set myself. But instead of Automaton, I have been having fun with Dreugh King Slayer. I will be at the crafting station tonight!

Waffennacht

Hey everyone, I just added a quick 6 minute video of dueling examples. I'll be working on the battleground video next.

CPs coming soon I promise. But really it won't be any huge shocker, I imagine it's pretty much the same as any more DoT oriented build. Now if I could have @Paulsimonps do some math for me... hint hint... lol please?

cschwingeb14_ESO

Tri-glyphs would be a great source more health. If the extra Magicka is useful it might be worth it

Waffennacht

cschwingeb14_ESO wrote: »

Tri-glyphs would be a great source more health. If the extra Magicka is useful it might be worth it

That's not a bad suggestion, I personally don't feel like I need anymore health but it's up to preference. A lot of my builds are for inspiring other players to go their own way.

I also only make tri Glyphs with kutas and I'm all out and broke now

zParallaxz

Waffennacht wrote: »

Should have a nice dueling video up soon, then it's going to be BG videos.

@Thogard I dunno about not enough DMG. Even without wpn DMG glyph and just brutality, I go to 4k wpn DMG.

Quick Cloak is cool, if you wanted it would be easy to slide javelin to backbar and slot cloak. Though as @Lexxypwns pointed out, after diminishing returns you don't get much more mitigation.

Edit: in my stats pic I have a sword as my research for 1h axe isn't done yet. And with blue jewelry going to purple eventually etc (gold items) should push all stats higher.

I also agree the health is very low esp. for a medium armour build. Also the damage may not be there as Thorgard said, if ur running 30-35k stam u must have at least 4.3k+ weapon damage to effectively kill decent people. Magplar is different because skoria syngerizes so well with back lash and u can run lower stats.

Waffennacht

zParallaxz wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

Should have a nice dueling video up soon, then it's going to be BG videos.

@Thogard I dunno about not enough DMG. Even without wpn DMG glyph and just brutality, I go to 4k wpn DMG.

Quick Cloak is cool, if you wanted it would be easy to slide javelin to backbar and slot cloak. Though as @Lexxypwns pointed out, after diminishing returns you don't get much more mitigation.

Edit: in my stats pic I have a sword as my research for 1h axe isn't done yet. And with blue jewelry going to purple eventually etc (gold items) should push all stats higher.

I also agree the health is very low esp. for a medium armour build. Also the damage may not be there as Thorgard said, if ur running 30-35k stam u must have at least 4.3k+ weapon damage to effectively kill decent people. Magplar is different because skoria syngerizes so well with back lash and u can run lower stats.

Buffed it's 4.5k

Remember automaton does not show on character sheet but is affected by buffs

@zParallaxz my picture, as stated under, is not showing a weapon damage glyph proc, does not show automaton + buffs, that alone is 900 wpn DMG not showing

Edit: there added to the guide so people won't be confused anymore

Thogard

I’m not sure why everyone is so against the healthy trait on jewelry, especially when you’re stacking wep dmg for dmg instead of Stam.

IMO mitigation through resistance is great, but increased health is just as important... going from 20k to 25k is a 25% increase...

Btw when I said dmg is low... with these builds i never look at the end numbers posted, I just look at the sets, Mundus, jewelry enchants, and skills. To me, relying on just automaton and jabs seems kinda low. But then again, my own stamplar runs automaton, agility, and clever alchemist, and is an orc... so everything seems low lol.

Waffennacht

@Thogard I welcome you to watch the video and see how well the build does at the current health level. It's very easy to raise it, me I just don't need to.

Sixty5

That health level kinda makes me nervous, anything under 20k really just looks too squishy, regardless of the resists. And I get that it is more efficient if you have lots of little heal ticks going on like a good Stamplar, a person still only needs an 80k Combo to outright kill you.

Also, ever thought about running Selenes over Veli? I tend to find it a bit more reliable.

Waffennacht

@Sixty5 lol I understand a lot of players feel nervous about the health, the easiest changes for a player can be tri glyphs, attribute points, and even dubious throne.

For me, 18k is plenty, feel free to change as you wish!

Selene's is a choice, but what puts me off of it is the, "direct melee damage" and I believe jabs doesn't count. Meaning I'd have to rely on landing Rending/laHa for it's proc

Sixty5

Waffennacht wrote: »

@Sixty5 lol I understand a lot of players feel nervous about the health, the easiest changes for a player can be tri glyphs, attribute points, and even dubious throne.

For me, 18k is plenty, feel free to change as you wish!

Selene's is a choice, but what puts me off of it is the, "direct melee damage" and I believe jabs doesn't count. Meaning I'd have to rely on landing Rending/laHa for it's proc

Yeah, if it were me, I'd be running 3 infused on the big pieces with Tri-glyphs, just because I feel like I need the extra resources.

Also any reason as to not using Dubious for the food? I mean it doesn't really make a huge difference to your sustain or damage over what you are running now, but you'd be getting another 2k HP or so.

Waffennacht

Sixty5 wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

@Sixty5 lol I understand a lot of players feel nervous about the health, the easiest changes for a player can be tri glyphs, attribute points, and even dubious throne.

For me, 18k is plenty, feel free to change as you wish!

Selene's is a choice, but what puts me off of it is the, "direct melee damage" and I believe jabs doesn't count. Meaning I'd have to rely on landing Rending/laHa for it's proc

Yeah, if it were me, I'd be running 3 infused on the big pieces with Tri-glyphs, just because I feel like I need the extra resources.

Also any reason as to not using Dubious for the food? I mean it doesn't really make a huge difference to your sustain or damage over what you are running now, but you'd be getting another 2k HP or so.

I'm all about living on the edge

CTSCold

love the new title!

It’s a shame that it is needed though. You shouldn’t have to continually explain that it works for you. If people want more health then they can spec into it.

Waffennacht

Lol the way I look at it is they gave me one hell of a hook

Takes-No-Prisoner

Yea like you’re running Argonian, that there is more health through racial passives. You can get away with low health, it just demands you play perfectly. I seen it in your vid you have the idea down of what you have to do.

This build would probably be neat in small scale open world imo

Sixty5

Waffennacht wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

Waffennacht wrote: »

@Sixty5 lol I understand a lot of players feel nervous about the health, the easiest changes for a player can be tri glyphs, attribute points, and even dubious throne.

For me, 18k is plenty, feel free to change as you wish!

Selene's is a choice, but what puts me off of it is the, "direct melee damage" and I believe jabs doesn't count. Meaning I'd have to rely on landing Rending/laHa for it's proc

Yeah, if it were me, I'd be running 3 infused on the big pieces with Tri-glyphs, just because I feel like I need the extra resources.

Also any reason as to not using Dubious for the food? I mean it doesn't really make a huge difference to your sustain or damage over what you are running now, but you'd be getting another 2k HP or so.

I'm all about living on the edge

I'm all about living, and killing people.

That's why I swapped to Stamblade

BaByDontHurtMe

You guys have sparked my curiosity in Brass, I’m just curious if people find the max resistances a better alternative this patch compared to crit resistance in Impregnable Armor this patch ?