Unfathomable Darkness vs briarheart for pve dps

francesinhalover

what's better btw the 2?
I'm using stam sorce.

information i'm looking for a damage sets for dungs ,rarely vet dlc dungs , open world and normal trials. unless someone invites me to a vcr that never happened and will probably never happen.
i'm cp 912 , i can't afford dlc, i was saving gold for some but it went from 600/1 crown to 1400/1 so ... yeah.
I like unfathomable because it looks good, that's it. I'm not sure what other set i could farm... maybe one that gives minor force so i don't need trap beast? i miss poison injection...
I don't have friends in game and i barely have friends in real life, so i play alone usually , i pub stuff when i need something from dungs sometimes goes well, i have seen some amazing tanks.
ign uncledaniel if you want to help me with something like vcr.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Really depends on your goal. Briarheart is basically a stat set with a self heal. That self heal can be really nice, but as a stam sorc, you can get by with crit surge (or ring of pale order) if you don't have a healer most of the time. UD is a damage based proc set. I think it is reasonably strong, but I also think there are better options if that is the type of set you are after. They are a bit of an apples to oranges comparison

In terms of Pure Damage, I really cant answer (I would guess UD, but its just a guess). If pure damage is your goal, I dont think you would run either.

whitecrow

One word: crows

lolo_01b16_ESO

It's impossible to answer that without having more information about how you play, what enemies you fight and what your group members are doing if you have any.

As a rough rule: Skilled players benefit more from sets that increase your stats like briarheat, while sets that deal damage like unfathomable darkness are often better for less experienced or slower players.
Additionally unfathomable darkness only hits one target at a time, so the more enmies you fight at the same time, the more desirable briarheart becomes.

francesinhalover

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Really depends on your goal. Briarheart is basically a stat set with a self heal. That self heal can be really nice, but as a stam sorc, you can get by with crit surge (or ring of pale order) if you don't have a healer most of the time. UD is a damage based proc set. I think it is reasonably strong, but I also think there are better options if that is the type of set you are after. They are a bit of an apples to oranges comparison

In terms of Pure Damage, I really cant answer (I would guess UD, but its just a guess). If pure damage is your goal, I dont think you would run either.

pure damage is the goal, thats why i said dps in the title

I chose una looks awesome with the crows and goes well with the sorce theme.
but briarheart just looks so strong

Hexvaldr

If you have a good rotation and weave light attacks, briar heart. Crit is king. If you play more casual, proc sets will help you more. Why not run both together?

Gundug

Vicious Ophidian / Vicious Serpent from the Craglorn trials is not difficult to gather. I would run that over the two sets you mention for solo and casual group play. It gives Minor Slayer, excellent sustain, and good damage stats.

I find most sets that center around a proc damage effect to be underwhelming, although some are fun. You don’t have DLC, but Azureblight is a trash mob eraser if you can drop a lot of AOE DOTs over a clustered group. You could always farm out some DLC sets during the free Plus trials that run periodically.

Kwoung

francesinhalover wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Really depends on your goal. Briarheart is basically a stat set with a self heal. That self heal can be really nice, but as a stam sorc, you can get by with crit surge (or ring of pale order) if you don't have a healer most of the time. UD is a damage based proc set. I think it is reasonably strong, but I also think there are better options if that is the type of set you are after. They are a bit of an apples to oranges comparison

In terms of Pure Damage, I really cant answer (I would guess UD, but its just a guess). If pure damage is your goal, I dont think you would run either.

pure damage is the goal, thats why i said dps in the title

I chose una looks awesome with the crows and goes well with the sorce theme.
but briarheart just looks so strong

There is no "pure damage" answer really. It depends on what you are fighting, how many mobs there are, and more importantly, what skills and passives you are using. Either one of those (and most other) sets can be more or less effective than the other in any or all situations, depending on the many other variables.

Myself, I am running Hexos & Medusa with a 2H front & back bar right now, and I can solo pretty much anything and plow through it now. Prior to this build, I was mostly running the default raid level DPS sets with Pale Order, which worked ok and stuff melted slightly faster, but didn't help much when you miss a block and get hit for 35K+ from a mob. Because as we all know, a dead DPS is no DPS.

SydneyGrey

Unfathomable Darkness will aggro enemies that you don't want aggro'd, so it's terrible for sneaky characters. Just thought I'd mention that.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

francesinhalover wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Really depends on your goal. Briarheart is basically a stat set with a self heal. That self heal can be really nice, but as a stam sorc, you can get by with crit surge (or ring of pale order) if you don't have a healer most of the time. UD is a damage based proc set. I think it is reasonably strong, but I also think there are better options if that is the type of set you are after. They are a bit of an apples to oranges comparison

In terms of Pure Damage, I really cant answer (I would guess UD, but its just a guess). If pure damage is your goal, I dont think you would run either.

pure damage is the goal, thats why i said dps in the title

I chose una looks awesome with the crows and goes well with the sorce theme.
but briarheart just looks so strong

Briarheart is a really nice set. Maybe not max damage, but good stats and a heal. Personally, I would run it over UD for most stuff if those were my only options, especially if playing solo.

I am unclear on the exact specifics of the current Meta and it may vary from class to class, but for raw damage, guessing it is going to be Relequen and one of the Crit Sets (Kinra, AY, Tzogvin, Leviathan). So in other words, neither of the two you listed.

If "theme" is important, Relequen is both a better damage set than UD AND it fits the hurricane theme of a stam sorc, but you will need DLC and to farm a trial.

Trial sets are nice with minor slayer. Vicious Ophidian is one of the easier ones to get and it is base game. VO plus Briarheart is a great solo combo. Speed, cost reduction, self heal, and pretty darn good damage. Unless doing competitive raiding where ST damage is the most important goal, its a hard all around combo to beat. Wonderful for tackling something like VMA the first time.

fiender66

I play mostly solo, and do not like to shift bars (my VERY personal choice is to have a bar for single targets and the other for aoe/mobs). That said, my preference goes to UD. The proc is useful oftentimes, and I have never been happy with the briar healing.
This is my personal choice, OFC, better to experiment with both before forming ones opinion.
In the mag field, the same holds for Mad Tinkerer IMO.

Kwoung

fiender66 wrote: »

I play mostly solo, and do not like to shift bars (my VERY personal choice is to have a bar for single targets and the other for aoe/mobs). That said, my preference goes to UD. The proc is useful oftentimes, and I have never been happy with the briar healing.
This is my personal choice, OFC, better to experiment with both before forming ones opinion.
In the mag field, the same holds for Mad Tinkerer IMO.

Like every set really, Brairheart healing is garbage is you haven't built for it, if you build for it, it can keep you alive amazing well, build meaning very high crit rate, CP points in making it better and AE skills to make sure you have multiple crits happening at all times on everything around you. The crows on the other hand... I think do about 1k DPS single target, so pretty much any set that does 1k DPS and is an AE is multitudes better, as are sets that do more than 1k DPS single target.

buttaface

I can't say which is better, but here are a couple of options for mostly solo stamsorc after the patch.

Ancient Dragonguard. craftable. great all around.
Way of Fire, craglorn, jewelry/weapons, underrated, proc every 2 seconds that goes off on any weapon based dot and can crit, have put this on a couple stam toons including a werewolf and stamblade, great results.
Mother's Sorrow/Medusa, many stam builds could do with 2-4 light pieces for the pen and a small crit boost in mother's sorrow case, weapons and jewelry for medusa.
Gryphon's Ferocity, crit dmg and speed buff, overland summerset i think.

I used briarheart for many builds for years and finally just got tired of the small downtime and the yellow armbands so started looking for alternatives, there are MANY after the last patch, the above are just a few.

Ippokrates

For group play as dd, Briarheart is ok. Works well with flurry - and as a stamsorc you have access to nice CC, which can give your dual skills nice bonus. You can support it with Dragonguard Elite (it is DLC set but you can buy it really cheap at guild traders) which will really nicely boost your crit chances. Sure, you need to control flanking and drop backstabber (it is really tricky to get both, however it is possible) but with this patch crit dmg limit, it is not as problematic as before. Also, you can get Stormfist - monster set from Tempest Island - it is great stuff for Stamsorc and as far i see in pug runs, many people using it this patch - it will benefit from Briarheart dmg bonus, Dragonguard Elite crit chance and your passives. Of course you can replace DGE with Berserking Warrior if you already collected jewelry and maces


But for solo, go brawler. The 2h maul from Dragonstar Arena is the best option. Also above mentioned Vicious Ophidian. VO is probably the best set you can have without DLC (also for dmg), so you can later replace one of your current sets.

Bow without DLC would be rather hard, because it is nice to have Asylum Bow - without it, getting enough penetration would be real nightmare - so bow only on backbar for weapon glyph.

fiender66

Kwoung wrote: »

fiender66 wrote: »

I play mostly solo, and do not like to shift bars (my VERY personal choice is to have a bar for single targets and the other for aoe/mobs). That said, my preference goes to UD. The proc is useful oftentimes, and I have never been happy with the briar healing.
This is my personal choice, OFC, better to experiment with both before forming ones opinion.
In the mag field, the same holds for Mad Tinkerer IMO.

Like every set really, Brairheart healing is garbage is you haven't built for it, if you build for it, it can keep you alive amazing well, build meaning very high crit rate, CP points in making it better and AE skills to make sure you have multiple crits happening at all times on everything around you. The crows on the other hand... I think do about 1k DPS single target, so pretty much any set that does 1k DPS and is an AE is multitudes better, as are sets that do more than 1k DPS single target.

Actually, I use the crows only on farming toons, that have to speed run delves, publics and mob zones and almost nothing else.
Last time I used briar was on my 2H stamplar, with a crit above 60% (is that enough?) and good weap damage. I was not happy, so I changed to sellistrix+gryphon+hundings. With this set she is a blast, a tad squishy in long fights (very unfrequent these ones, maybe only in arenas, elsewhere mobs and bosses are wiped out at lightning speed - FG1 soloed in 5'30'' with skip), but this I remedied by using the templar mag healing, that does not impact on stam sustain. I rely heavily on rally-stampede-wreck, using brawler only if the first single attack is not enough.