Is there a comprehensive guide to understanding eso gear and how it works?

wishlist14

Hello,
my question is more to do with how gear stats work and how to,put sets together to make a playable or viable combination. I dont want to go into all the details of a build. Im asking for a guide so new players that are struggling to choose overland gear or crafted gear sets can have a clearer understanding of how to combine eso sets.

With the hundreds of sets available, choosing a couple can be quite daunting and yet at the beginning its what makes eso fun....choosing your own sets and not feeling like you have to play a cookie cutter build with suggested sets.

Please note that i am aware we can wear anything we want, we have freedoms BUT for those that want to learn early in their journey it will be very helpful to get this information on how gear works. Thank you.😊💕

etchedpixels

A big chunk of the general guidance is actually on the skills screen where it gives you the list of armour passives for each type. For some of it like the combat there are basic models if you like spreadsheets, but they don't encompass the special effects in sets.

El_Borracho

Alcast has a decent guide to sets for magicka, stamina, tank, and healer builds that includes trial gear, non-trial gear, and craftable gear. Its geared towards endgame content, but it is good if that is what you are looking for.

https://alcasthq.com/category/eso-sets/

I don't know of any site that discusses all combinations for different content. For early-on or brand new players, just trying out all the sets you can works pretty well to see how they interact with each other as well as gameplay

fred4

I'd direct anyone to the UESP build editor. It might seem daunting, but you get to play around with all the sets in the game and will see the resulting stats of your build.

You generally want to wear two complete 5-piece item sets. Two-handed weapons count for 2 slots. In total there are 14 slots, 7 on the body, 3 jewelry, 2 for the front bar weapon, 2 for the back bar weapon. This can lead to build patterns, such as:

1. Wear 2 full sets on both bars and a monster set (head and shoulders).
2. Complete a full set on the back bar only, another one on the front bar only, and use a 2-piece monster set, a mythic item and 1 further piece, typically from the Trainee set (for max stats).
3. Use an arena weapon on one bar (Vateshran 2H, Master's 2H, Maelstrom bow and so on), complete a 5-piece set on the other bar, wear another 5-piece on the body and a monster set.

And so on, and so on.

So are you asking what stats to look for? That really depends on your playstyle. I typically shoot for 2K recovery of my primary resource (stamina or magicka). This goes for medium and light armor builds and for solo play. If you are in an organized group you may sustain from synergies and require less. If you play a heavy-attack build you may require considerably less. If you are in heavy armor you will get less, but you will sustain from being attacked. It's really hard to quantify what you will want for your playstyle. For example heavy armor sustain always feels weird to me. Adequate in a PvP brawl, but bad if you're trying to disengage, which makes sense when you think about it. I do not like heavy armor. I prefer fast, mobile builds that facilitate disengaging in PvP.

If you are a magsorc or other magic class that uses shields, you want sets that give you magicka. Can't really get enough. Shoot for 45K+ in CP. Wear Death-Dealer's Fete and Crafty Alfiq, for example. This is primarily for PvP builds.

If you PvP, you will likely want a Sharpened weapon as that tends to be the best option there. Sharpened on the front bar, Defending on the back bar. By no means the only options, but probably the most popular.

If you play a PvE DD, particularly one designed for group play, you need crit. As much as you can get. That's why Advancing Yokeda, Leviathan, Mother's Sorrow and Medusa are good options there, as well as plain old Hunding's / Julianos. Not the only ones, but some of the most easily obtained ones. Also consider the Harpooner's Wading Kilt and 1 piece Slimecraw for it's ever so slightly BIS crit bonus. It doesn't exactly have to be all crit. I believe Relequen in a meta PvE set that is a proc. I am talking about rules of thumb here.

75% crit is not unheard of on a PvE DD, but if you are more into solo play, you have to compromise. You need everything. Damage. Sustain. Maybe even a little tankiness. Personally I am happy with 40% to 50% crit on a PvE solo build. The optimal sets are Vicious Ophidian and False God, which have quite the optimal blend of sustain and damage, with the speed being a very welcome addition.

In PvE I'm usually happy with 20K health or a little over. If you are a Brawler character in PvP you may want at least 30K. You may also want 30K or more (buffed) resistances on such a character. On the other hand, if you are a nightblade you can go full squishy-mode and make do with lower health and certainly lower resistances.

In general you want weapon or spell damage these days, not max stat. Even templars were changed to not need max stat for Backlash anymore. The only class that really needs max stat, that I can think of, is magsorc in PvP.

If you are a magicka character in PvP, you need stamina for break free and occasional roll dodging. I consider around 15K kind of a minimum in CP PvP and I prefer to also have substantial (1K+) stam regen in that environment. This is where dual-regen foods can come into play or sets like Eternal Vigor, Amber Plasm and Shacklebreaker. However there are many reasons why you may feel differently. If you are a high elf you gain stamina from a class passive. If you wear heavy armor you gain it from a heavy armor passive. If you are a vampire you may choose to manage your stamina by going into Mist Form. You may also use Meditate from the Psijic skill line. As a nightblade you may choose to extricate yourself with Shadow Image when stamina gets low. It also should be said that Wild Hunt helps manage your stamina, since outright speed means you will find yourself statistically in fewer situations requiring a dodge roll. Immovability potions and the Slippery CP passive will also help manage your stamina. All this means that your stamina management can vary substantially from build to build. Many people playing magicka builds simply like a higher stamina pool in the 15K to 20K range in PvP, but forego outright stamina regen. Among the stamina builds, roll dodging nightblades tend to need the most (2K to 2.5K unbuffed), a tanky, blocking, heavy attacking, heavy armor Brawler spec may need the least (1.5K or even less).

If you are a stamsorc, sets that give you magicka are your friend. Eternal Vigor. Orzorga's Smoked Bear Haunch. Engine Guardian. You use Dark Deal to top up your stamina or you use the magicka to Streak. If I'm in no CP I use both Eternal Vigor and Engine Guardian. The few times I am in BGs, it always seems to me like good sustain rules there.

And so on, and so on. I tried to give some values here, based on my personal experience, but even the fact that I primarily build with human / Caucasian characters, e.g. Nords and Bretons, skews my perspective. Bretons have good magicka management, but invariably need to supplement their stamina in PvP, for example.

fred4

wishlist14 wrote: »

Hello,
my question is more to do with how gear stats work and how to,put sets together to make a playable or viable combination. I dont want to go into all the details of a build. Im asking for a guide so new players that are struggling to choose overland gear or crafted gear sets can have a clearer understanding of how to combine eso sets.

With the hundreds of sets available, choosing a couple can be quite daunting and yet at the beginning its what makes eso fun....choosing your own sets and not feeling like you have to play a cookie cutter build with suggested sets.

Please note that i am aware we can wear anything we want, we have freedoms BUT for those that want to learn early in their journey it will be very helpful to get this information on how gear works. Thank you.😊💕

So who is early in their journey? You or you friends? You have 6 forum stars. It's nothing, it's just puzzling me. Anyway. My above answer is from a fairly advanced perspective and you may have gathered that I mostly PvP. The real answer will depend on what you do. Overland content, public dungeons, even world bosses, delves, the base game dungeons, all of that is so easy you don't need to pay that much attention to buildcraft. You'll also most likely be carried in normal trials, at least the older ones. If you want to know what you're made of, go into the two solo arenas on veteran mode or try to PvP. That's when you really have to start optimizing your builds. And yet you will also just optimize them for that specific thing. Solo builds are nice, because you can take them into a lot of group content too and start carrying people, however they are not optimal for group play with an experienced group as they tend to be too tanky and self-sufficient, leaving damage on the table in a group environment. That said, the most common problem I come across with beginners is that they pick up on the meta and select some group-oriented build from, say, Alcast and wonder why it doesn't work well for them in solo play. If that is you, then I'd direct you to someone like Hack the Minotaur, who does a lot of solo builds.

wishlist14

fred4 wrote: »

wishlist14 wrote: »

Hello,
my question is more to do with how gear stats work and how to,put sets together to make a playable or viable combination. I dont want to go into all the details of a build. Im asking for a guide so new players that are struggling to choose overland gear or crafted gear sets can have a clearer understanding of how to combine eso sets.

With the hundreds of sets available, choosing a couple can be quite daunting and yet at the beginning its what makes eso fun....choosing your own sets and not feeling like you have to play a cookie cutter build with suggested sets.

Please note that i am aware we can wear anything we want, we have freedoms BUT for those that want to learn early in their journey it will be very helpful to get this information on how gear works. Thank you.😊💕

So who is early in their journey? You or you friends? You have 6 forum stars. It's nothing, it's just puzzling me.

Hi @fred4,
I apologise fred for the confusing post, i should have clarified my reasons. I asked this question for myself and due to my inability to help other players when they ask me about sets. I am a grandmaster crafter (i shamefully dont understand how some sets work together effectively)and get asked for advice about gear. I have always followed Alcast for my builds early on since I never learned about gear sets and how to make builds ,well not about putting sets together that actually would work properly.

I gave you an swesome for your detailed and very informative reply i really appreciate it 😊🌻💕

oterWitz

I'll also add that Alcast and the people working with him on his new site eso-hub are working on making another build editor type tool which I hope/expect to be more user friendly than UESP's build editor (as much as I appreciate it, don't get me wrong). Beyond those, I don't know of any collection of knowledge solely dedicated to sets that work together well. As has been said, there are lists of meta sets for different roles, but I agree that there isn't really anything for new players and people interested in off meta builds, and that too often people (myself included) just recommend something like Hundings or Julianos and have done with it.

And if it helps you, I remember as a new player I was most confused by named buffs and damage types. A set like Dreugh King Slayer that drops from the earliest dungeon to unlock seems great until you realize how many sources of Major Brutality there are and that they don't overlap. Similarly, the Shadow of the Red Mountain set also drops in an early zone (Stonefalls) and has stamina lines but a flame damage 5-piece (and on top of that is just another trash proc set now, hmph), but a new player probably won't realize that flame damage is weak on a stamina character due to hybrid-unfriendly way this game was developed. Just two rules of thumb from my own experiences, to add to everything fred4 said.

wishlist14

oterWitz wrote: »

I'll also add that Alcast and the people working with him on his new site eso-hub are working on making another build editor type tool which I hope/expect to be more user friendly than UESP's build editor (as much as I appreciate it, don't get me wrong). Beyond those, I don't know of any collection of knowledge solely dedicated to sets that work together well. As has been said, there are lists of meta sets for different roles, but I agree that there isn't really anything for new players and people interested in off meta builds, and that too often people (myself included) just recommend something like Hundings or Julianos and have done with it.

And if it helps you, I remember as a new player I was most confused by named buffs and damage types. A set like Dreugh King Slayer that drops from the earliest dungeon to unlock seems great until you realize how many sources of Major Brutality there are and that they don't overlap. Similarly, the Shadow of the Red Mountain set also drops in an early zone (Stonefalls) and has stamina lines but a flame damage 5-piece (and on top of that is just another trash proc set now, hmph), but a new player probably won't realize that flame damage is weak on a stamina character due to hybrid-unfriendly way this game was developed. Just two rules of thumb from my own experiences, to add to everything fred4 said.

Thank you so much this helps 💕😊