a consideration for class based armor bonuses.

Wing

a year prior i would not have really cared about this sort of idea.

however because ZOS is balancing everything around a spreadsheet to the point of making classes nothing but different colors i have thought that this might be an actual opportunity to get a wee bit of diversity back into the classes other then what color of damage you do.

some points:
-skill modifying have existed for ages in the form of weapons that modify single skills, this would build off that system.
-the spreadsheet balance actually makes it more reasonable to give us back some interesting power that has been stolen.


*side note i would not consider Mythic items for this job as they kind of have their own thing going on with competing with monster sets and weapon sets and i like that interaction and choice. a 5 piece set (crafted or world drop) feels more impactful and meaningful to something as important as your class.*

the annoying math
the same thing that has rolling pinned our classes, sets, and skills into a boring mess (sans DLC classes because $$$) can actually come in handy to give us a build path option. see the value of sets, skills numbers, passives, etc. is all pre determined in a spread sheet behind the scenes. so it would be easy enough to make a 5 piece set bonus that actually put those points BACK into a class skill.

example, say you have an armor skill that grants you your ~5-6k armor bonus of your various classes color for ~20 ish seconds. now say you have a 5 piece set bonus that modifies that skill to Increases your Health Recovery by 3% of your sum total Physical and Spell Resistance. (this is the 5 piece bonus of alessian order with an additional 1% due to the specificity of the class and skill requirement, its just an example)
that effect would be FAR too powerful for the skill alone, however, through class sets we have an avenue of what is essentially extra build points to break the rules of class balance, and in turn give us back some interesting class abilities that would otherwise not be allowed to be special.

you could easily make 2-3 sets per class to help reinforce playstyles that have otherwise been ironed out. while at the same time not forcing those playstyles because they are not inherent to the class, but a set that can be ignored.

i honestly think that this might help turn around this terrible dilution of classes that the spreadsheets have cursed us with, and give us something other then colors of damage.