Are you mixing 2 sets randomly or first set: weapon/jewlery and second set: armor - seperatly

festher

i like the idea of a set consisting of weapon/jewlery and the other set armor. That makes it a little easier to mix 2 different sets later on another charater and so on.

Reason i ask is i have a gold shacklebreaker (nirn) and wanted to change my 3 shackle armor pieces out with jewlery, but now that i see the prices of shacklebreaker ring/nickless i might think otherwise and just mix in spinner's pieces where im missing the rest.

Another question is are you making certain you have 2 full sets on the back bar as well?
i do have 1h/shield shacklebreaker but its sounds to me like people dont do that always.

hope it makes sense!

NBrookus

2H weapons like staves and greatswords count as two pieces for set bonuses. You can have 5-5-2 easily on both bars.

festher

okay so thats the recommended way thanks

DocFrost72

Find a drop or dungeon set. Neck, rings, 2 body.

Weapons and 3 body crafted (always do this second, trust me).

Monster set or two one pieces.

Boom, simple easy and fast if you want to swap sets around.

Nestor

There are many ways to mix and match armor. Find the one that matches your playstyle.

One thing I avoid is to have weapons from different sets on Front and Back Bars. Swapping weapons from different sets may cause issues.

I also tend to use dropped set jewelry as Dolmen Farms are easy. The exception is Julianos, I will make jewelry in that set.

I also prefer to use a weapon from crafted sets as set weapons are still hard to find. And I never have to worry about traits.

Marginis

I have two main ways I set up my armor sets.

1. Jewelry and weapons, 5 piece set. Head and shoulders, 2 piece monster set. Rest of the armor, 5 piece set.
2. Jewelry and two armor pieces, 5 piece set. Rest of armor, 5 piece set. Weapons, 2 piece weapon set.

I like to try and make sure I'm getting the maximum defense out of things, so if I'm running 5 heavy 1 light 1 medium, I'll make the belt light and hands medium, if I'm running 5 medium I'll make the chestplate heavy and belt light, and if I'm running 5 light I'll make the chestplate heavy and the legs medium. If I'm running a 5 piece that only exists in light or medium or heavy, I'll usually stick the other types on my monster set. Of course I also run 5-2-0 and 7-0-0 sometimes, but those follow the pattern.

I do have a couple of exceptions to this, for very specific builds. On my main, I run Heavy chest legs and staff 5 piece heavy set, jewelry 3 piece jewelry set, light head and shoulders 2 piece monster set, rest of armor and weapon 2 as light 5 piece set. Swapping bars alternates between a 4 piece heavy set and 3 piece light set, and a 2 piece heavy set with 5 piece light set, with the 2 piece monster set and 3 piece jewelry set staying active.

I do not recommend this, as I had to farm forever for very specific gear, but it's absolutely excellent for my main's build which I also don't recommend using as it's incredibly tasking to play effectively.

NBrookus

5+5+2 is the easiest and the default setup, but there are many ways to mix and match. It just depends on how complicated you want to get and how comfortable you are with keeping track. For example, you can easily run Clever Alchemist only on the back bar to buff your damage -- but you always have to remember to drink your potion on your back bar. Then you can run an arena weapon or pieces 4 and 5 of another set on your front bar.

If you don't have a monster set yet, you can run 5+5+4

(5) Set A - Front bar weapon(s), 3 jewelry
(5) Set B - Back bar weapon(s), 3 body pieces
(4) Set C - 4 body pieces

Confused? Check out this amazing site:
https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildEditor

You can build on paper to your heart's content before farming anything or needing to spend gold or mats.

Iskiab

Not randomly, but it makes no sense to have one set all armour pieces and another set weapons and jewellery.

As a light armour wearer what I do is:
- If it’s a heavy set always put heavy chest and the rest jewellery or weapons
- If it’s a medium set always legs and the rest jewellery and weapons
- If it’s a light armour set I try to use as many non-chest pieces as possible

That’s the best way to mix and match sets and still wear 5x light.

EtTuBrutus

It doesn't matter how if you're looking for 552 permanently active. It only matters if you want to single bar a set or two, which can only be done through weapons swapping.

Wing

I tend to either collect my sets as

jewelry, gloves, and belt (first set of 5)
weapons, chest, pants, and boots (second set of 5)
head and shoulders reserved for monster obviously

some sets I might have in every location so they can be either, but this way its easy for me to swap out sets as they are all in the same structure.

the second set of 5 also tends to be my crafted sets, so I have more control around making the perfect weapons or what the dominant armor weight is.

fred4

Sometimes it depends on whether you want to continue farming for exactly the right pieces.

Sometimes it depends on whether you want that one heavy chest piece for optimum stats, as you are mixing a heavy set into a light or medium build. This results in weapon + 2x jewelry + chest piece for the heavy set.

Sometimes it depends on whether you need / want your jewelry golded out, e.g. because it's Swift or Infused. Because this is so expensive it may result in golding out the one set that is common to your build or it could be the set that happened to be available at the Golden vendor or that was cheap to buy. It might result in you having gold rings from one set and a gold necklace from another.

stritzi

Depends hard on the availability of the armor type of the sets, or how hard they are to acquire