Optimal armor sets - mid-vet levels

Hekatia

Mid vet player here (470 CP) building out a range of specs (magicka and stamina DD, tank, healer). My toons are primarily geared for PvE (veteran undaunted pledges/normal DLC dungeons, PUGS, normal trials) but have a backup gear and skill set for PvP (Cyrodiil/IC and battlegrounds).

I don't have the skill or gear yet for vet trials or vet DLC dungeons. Many sets designated by Alcast as BiS (Perfect Vestments of Olorime, Perfect Relequen, Perfect Siroria) are therefore inaccessible to me. I'm ready to move up from some of my early game sets (Burning Spellweave, Torug's Pact, Spinner's, etc.) and am attempting to determine which mid-late game sets offer enough of an advantage over what I have to be worth building, and which sets are redundant or don't offer any advantage over what I have now.

Any feedback here would be appreciated. I want to understand if certain "good but not BiS" sets are clearly superior to others so that I can focus on collecting and building the best ones. Similarly, I want to eliminate sets which are clearly inferior or offer no advantage to de-clutter my inventory. I realize that many sets are situational or may depend on build, playstyle, objective and so forth and may not be generically "better" or "worse" than others. Speaking generally, I am looking for sets with broad utility to boost DPS (for DDs) or facilitate overall group play (tank/healer) and am not interested in super-niche sets that require a certain playstyle (i.e. Eternal Hunt).

Here's my list

Stamina DD
PvE Sets
(Imperfect) Arms of Relequen - good for trials/dungeons. Good boost for weaving light/heavy attacks. Maybe most useful stamina trial set below perfect variant.
Berserking Warrior - good for any melee (useless for bow builds)
Hunding's Rage - solid anywhere
Twice-Fanged Serpent - stacking penetration better for long fights and solo play. Better than Spriggans for PvE. Not sure if it's worth running for dungeons/pugs due to other debuffs. Maybe good for bow builds since Berserking Warrior not an option.
Briarheart - A set recommended a lot on Alcast but not sure how competitive it is with the other sets on DPS. Looks like good self-heal for stamina toons without shields.
Vicious Serpent - Good for trials/dungeons but minor slayer is redundant with Relequen and won't stack. Mobility boost would be most useful in PvP but it's a PvE set. Leaning against building it.
War Machine - Minor slayer redundant with Relequen. Not sure if major slayer will have enough uptime to justify the set (major slayer 10 sec after ultimate for player + 2 allies).
Hawk's Eye - looks okay for bow builds
PvP sets
Bone Pirate - solid anywhere, most used for PvP. Not sure why Hundings or Briarheart are recommended by Alcast for PvE whereas Bone Pirate is not.
Spriggans - flat penetration boost, better than TFS for PvP
Marksman - PvP bow builds only

Magicka DD
PvE sets
Siroria - dungeons/trials with relatively stationary toon (has to stand in circle). Not good for PvP
Mother's Sorrow - crit build
Burning Spellweave - fire build
Julianos - beginner/craftable
Mechanical Acuity - more burst than Julianos but not sure about total dps or pve role.
Spinners garments - penetration bonus maybe better than Julianos for solo content but possibly not as good for group content where tank and healer presumably debuff boss.
Moondancer - dungeons/trials. A set synergy bonus seems useful for trial tanks that stand in the middle of things (i.e. Roar of Alkosh) but I don't see that magicka DDs with ranged attacks are going to pick up enough synergies to make this worthwhile - at least not with the PUGs and random groups I fall in with. Maybe useful if you have a coordinated trial team on voice chat that optimizes this play style.
Monster helms
Valkyn Skoria - main dot users
Ilambris - main flame or shock users
Zaan - strong damage but requires close range (8m max)
Grothdarr - Alcast suggests as a backup/beginner set but it seems to me magicka DD will be out of range much of the time for its proc to damage enemies
PvP
Caluurion's Legacy - strong burst damage proc with single-target damage ability
Shacklebreaker - boost magicka + stamina, good pvp sustain set but lower dps
Shroud of the Lich - good sustain. Not sure if it makes up for lower dps.

Tank
Ebon Armory - (arguably) BiS
Roar of Alkosh - Alcast highly recommends and I'm sure it's great with well-coordinated groups spamming synergies. With the PUGs and random trials I run with, Torug's Pact seems more reliable.
Aegis of Galanwe - debating this vs. Torug's Pact for 2nd set after Ebon Armory. Not sure whether to go with slight DPS boost to allies from Galanwe vs. Torug's enchantment cooldown decrease with infused weapons.

Healer
Sanctuary - increases group healing received
Olorime - major courage (increased dps) inside circle and decreases damage from dungeon/trial monsters
Worm's Raiment - magicka dps appreciate when healer wears this in trials
Spell Power Cure - looks like a pretty good boost to buff dps
Jorvuld's Guidance - no experience to know if this boost is useful
Combat Physician - set for noob PUGS with dps who don't know how to protect themselves
Kagrenac's Hope - In decent groups, I can't see that you'll need to be resurrecting allies often enough for the 25% decrease rez time to be needed. On the other hand, I'm sure there are situations where it can come in handy.

Feedback appreciated. I've shared my impressions but am no expert and would appreciate analysis from more experienced players who can critique or make a different case. Thanks!

Smasherx74

Relequen and ravager is a pretty good combo. For Stamplar I think it's a bit of a min max thing, my exact same build can pull 60k from what I've seen one player do, but I personally can only manage 40-50k. While BiS gear is a huge part of your performance, having an optimal rotation, knowing when to change to different rotation phases (like for execution predicting how fast they're dying, etc..) and keeping everything up as much as possible is something that must be noted when talking about optimal play.

If you're not weaving every single time, you're going to lose DPS on relequen. If you can't keep Relequen up, you're losing DPS. If a black cat walked in front of you and you're having an unlucky day, you're losing dps. Some sets may perform better than more optimal sets for your build simply because of how you play or how your rotation looks, or what class you chose.

El_Borracho

As a Stam DD without Perfect Relequen, I prefer basic Relequen body pieces and VO jewelry and weapons with Selene's on a 5-5-2 build. I don't have the Maelstrom Bow, which is why I run the VO axe/dagger and bow combo. Would like to run Advancing Yokeda, but as you have pointed out, there is no bow for that set, so you'd be losing the critical strike buff every time you swap bars without gaining the damage boost from the MA bow. Its pretty much the closest I can currently get to the alcast dual wield build.

I've found this combination outperforms the VO and TFS build and the Hundling's/VO/Spriggan's combos when it comes to damage dealing. Sustain is a little harder, but Dubious Camoran Throne helps. I've seen quite a few people run the Briarheart/VO or Briarheart/Relequen combos and they like them, but haven't tried it myself. I tend to run more trials and dungeons than solo content, and this seems to be the best sub-BiS gear I've played with

Hekatia

Thanks for the insight. Is vicious serpent (Ophidian) still worth uding even with the minor slayer bonus being redundant with Relequen? It’s mobility bonus doesn’t seem too useful in PVE and I’m not sure what would give it the advantage over other sets like TFS.

Anybody using Bone Pirate in PvE? Thoughts from Briarheart users?

Also any thoughts on the magicka sets?

GreasyDave

Vo is great. But its only worth running one trial set. If you have relequen go wirh that.

Regards other stam sets i suggest collecting and testing. Hundings is good because you make the pieces you are missing.

I run a stamsorc and am waiting for pts to flip to eu to test vo with either leviathan, or automaton. Vipers is also an option. If you run a dk theres a buff to poison i believe.

Monster helm i use stormfist. Selenes needs to be melee close to proc and hit. Against a skelly it might work well but i find against bosses i move in and out of red circles so often that i lose melee distance and the storm fist proc is more reliable.

I am no build expert. I returned to the game last month. But this is what ive learnt from forums this last few weeks.

Hekatia

Thanks for great comments. Any magicka set advice? Mothers Sorrow vs. Julianos vs Burning Spellweave vs. Spinners vs. Mechanical Acuity?

zaria

GreasyDave wrote: »

Vo is great. But its only worth running one trial set. If you have relequen go wirh that.

Regards other stam sets i suggest collecting and testing. Hundings is good because you make the pieces you are missing.

I run a stamsorc and am waiting for pts to flip to eu to test vo with either leviathan, or automaton. Vipers is also an option. If you run a dk theres a buff to poison i believe.

Monster helm i use stormfist. Selenes needs to be melee close to proc and hit. Against a skelly it might work well but i find against bosses i move in and out of red circles so often that i lose melee distance and the storm fist proc is more reliable.

I am no build expert. I returned to the game last month. But this is what ive learnt from forums this last few weeks.

VO, no its not good on dummy parses, but for pugs with an fake or at best mediocre healer on most fight its good , on easy content with lots of trash its idiotic fun