Hundings vs Briarheart for VMA

NewFordOrder

Currently trying to decide if I want to pair Hundings or Briarheart with Spriggans for VMA. It seems like the damage difference is negligible, so would briarheart be preferred due to the healing?

VaranisArano

I'm running VMA for the first time on two stam sorcs, one with hundings and one with briarheart, and I'm not sure it makes a huge difference? I'm sure the extra healing actually is helping me, but not as much as learning the spawns, prioritizing my targets, and being proactive with my Vigors is helping. Especially the being proactive with Vigor part.

davey1107

There’s been a considerable amount of dps testing, and as we’d kinda expect the two sets perform almost identically. The only note is that briar needs to be kept up...which shouldn’t be a problem in maelstrom. If kept up 2/3 of the time, it adds an average 297 weapon damage, pretty identical to Hundings.

In theory, someone might squeeze a little bit more dps from briar if they were really good with their rotations and used the cool down to reapply buffs and non-damage abilities. I can do that somewhat in dungeons and trials, but it’d be a bit much in maelstrom. It’s too intense to monitor myself that much.

As for the heals...they’re on a 1-2 second global Cooldown. This makes them roughly 12-25% the heals of vigor. That’s pretty minor, helpful but minor. It makes briar a pretty attractive set though...sort of a Hundings minus 5 weapon damage with minor heals. And in maelstrom...I don’t know about everyone else...but I definitely hit like 1% health frequently, lol.