Make a support gear setup using ONLY..

Grandchamp1989

A small challenge to the community.

Totally theoretical setup for the gear master minded.

1)
Say you're new to tanking or healing and you only have access to guild trader gear / overland gear / crafted gear a guildie can make for you.

Under those parameters make the best *group oriented* setup (meaning what benefits the group the most) for a new support looking to do say.. vet dungeons with a group.

Restricted gear: No dungeon gear / arena gear / trial gear.

Example of this could be:

Tank: Akaviri Dragonguard for faster warhorn with Powerful Assault and two piece Endurance set
Healer: Akaviri Dragonguard for faster warhorn with Kagrenacs hope for faster ressurection and two piece willpower

You get the idea.

2)
Next challenge - now our support character has done a lot of dungeons and want to move into trials.

Using only Guild trader gear / Crafted sets and now Dungeon sets from the many runs, make the best group oriented setup for our test subject to join for their first organized trials.

Restricted gear: No arena gear / trial gear.

Disclaimer:
Yes, yes people wouldn't take a tank without Yolna, Pearls etc. and yes they could just que for the normal version... But this is the whole point to use other sets to Theoreticly think outside the box with the like 200+ available sets in the game.
And remember it's just for fun, don't take it too serious. Just curious to see what people would be able to come up with under those parameters.

Ratzkifal

1) I'm seeing Torug's Pact with the crusher enchantment being very strong in this scenario. You can also take it a step further if you also slap Heartland Conqueror on as well.
Since you didn't set a limit on how much gold this is allowed to cost, Morag Tong could be a good set too, considering all sorts of damage boosting sets suddenly aren't available anymore.
I can also see Powerful Assault being meta under these circumstances.
Akaviri Dragonguard is also good for sure, but Potentate might actually take its spot. They might also both be used in tandem.
Phoenix Moth Theurge might honestly be good in this for the Minor Courage.
Martial Knowledge could also have a comeback.
Wisdom of Vanus is probably not going to be very useful unless you are trying to go somewhere with a healing mechanic in it, then it might be worth it, since it stacks with the restoration staff passive.

I probably missed one or two but these are the most powerful support sets remaining.

Treeshka

For only Guild Trader and Overland sets, Torug's Pact and Powerful Assault for tank. Phoenix Moth Theurge and Way of Martial Knowledge for healer.

For Dungeon Sets along with previously available sets, Turning Tide and Powerful Assault along with Encratis's Behemoth for tank. Spell Power Cure and Phoenix Moth Theurge along with Nazaray or Symphony of Blades for healer.

If mythic items are allowed for both conditions Pearls of Ehlnofey for healer as well.

FantasticFreddie

I'm assuming this is for a new player?
Healer:
Coldharbours favorite is a fun craftable set
Powerful assault and Martial knowledge can both be bought from guild trader, with the added bonus that they are both useful sets at endgame level however they are EXPENSIVE.
If cost is no object, however, you could buy a ton of key fragments and open chests in white gold tower and see if you get lucky with SPC pieces as well. Technically a dungeon set, but since there is a way to get pieces without actually running the dungeon I'll put this as a possibility.... only if you are rich tho.
Torus Pact can also be good, although I would be more likely to put it on a tank.
For a basic, baby's first healer setup for a broke newbie I would do 5 piece Coldharbours favorite, 5 piece julianos or torugs pact, and use purple willpower rings to cut the cost down a bit.

For a healer with a wealthy benefactor I would say body pieces martial knowledge, powerful assault weapons and jewelry, and 2 piece just about anything, and also buy up all the key fragments, then use that setup to go farm spell power cute and if you have access to DLC content jorvulds guidance, just to collect and trait you won't use it yet.

Once you get into dungeons, it depends a bit if you have DLC access or not, but start farming symphony of blades, nazaray, and arch druid for monster sets, if you don't have dlc access Bogdan or sentinel are perfectly respectable sets to use.

SPC/PA is a very strong combo and can take a baby healer all the way to the end game, so that's a good goal to shoot for, and you can stay there for ages while you farm crystals, practice a healing rotation, get into DLC content and start doing trials.
If baby healer is broke af, has no wealthy support, then stay in crafted sets until you can use SPC/ worm cult, which is an easy base game set to farm and is completely fine and acceptable to all but the sweaty groups.

Tanks: yall are on your own I really don't know.

Soarora

When I was a new healer I used vanus from summerset overland. I don’t recall what my other 5pc was. Then I moved to spc/jorvulds. Good for starting since your heals are forced to be stronger and then once you have that down can work on buffs/debuffs with decent uptimes. Downside is I really was struggling not dying without a trial piece but maybe I just got good.

jaws343

If I were to make an overland/crafted/guildtrader healer, I'd probably go with:
Chimera's Rebuke crafted set. Gives some decent resource return to allies.
Powerful Assault, trader bought. Decent group buff, easy to proc.
Blessing of Potentates, trader bought. Reduced ult cost means more warhorns or more healing ults.

Dungeon sourced setup isn't really too far off most setups, so not really much of a challenge. Spell Power Cure, Hollowfang, Chokethorn/Earthgore/Bogdan/Symphony.

Kartalin

1 (no dungeon/trial/arena gear)
Healing: Kagrenac's + Mother's Sorrow
Tanking: Torug's Pact + Powerful Assault
MagDPS: Order's Wrath + Mother's Sorrow
StamDPS: Order's Wrath + Briarheart

(bonus) No Proc IC/Cyrodiil: Heartland Conqueror + Pariah

Fill in rest with Trainee and/or Wild Hunt mythic (no dungeon/trial lead drops).
.

El_Borracho

#2 Seems fairly easy:

Healer: Powerful Assault + SPC, aka the current meta

Tank: Turning Tide + Pangrit Denmother. Basically the meta setup with Yolna-lite

TybaltKaine

Here are my go to fun and easy to get sets for a Healer.

1:Eyes of Mara and Winter's Respite. Reduces cost of Resto skills and gives you an extra aoe heal so you can have two giant heals on the ground at the same time. Redistributor is my honorable mention here if you can't get Eyes of Mara. You are basically always overhealing yourself if you use group heals, so it adds more juice to your heals basically all the time.

2. Spell Power Cure and Winter's Respite. SPC is almost BIS even after all this time and pretty easy to get, and Winter's again for the giant free aoe heal whenever you use a ground effect.

FantasticFreddie

How did I forget about winters respite!!!

TybaltKaine

I love using it as my backbar Ice Staff. I drop caltrops or something on trash and heal the DD's at the same time while still keeping my circle on the Tank. It's great.

Ragnarok0130

For #2 (PVE healer) I’d go SPC/Worm/Symphony of Blades for a dungeon only gear build out. The old SPC/Hollowfang/Earthgore combo gets an honorable mention as it’s still a solid set in dungeons despite falling out of meta.

Necrotech_Master

for 1 i would say on a healer, you could go winters respite + pheonix moth (both overland drop sets)

coldharbours favorite is also a fairly decent crafted set that can support healing OR dmg

for beginner tanking i would suggest the crafted set of whitestrakes retribution which gives you a big dmg shield proc when you get under 35% hp, hatchling shell is also a decent overland set because it grants a dmg shield when you take dmg

Ishtarknows

I don't understand why anyone suggests Kagrenacs for a new healer. Alcast's page still has it listed. You're supposed to stop them dying! That's your job lol

SPC, martial knowledge, powerful assault, as others have said before. Failing that 2 good mag DD sets will buff your heals while you learn to trust your skills so you don't need sets to do the healing for you

Agenericname

For tanking-

For the first I would probably go with Phoenix Moth Theurge and Powerful Assault with 2 pieces of Trainee, or something just for the stats.

For the second Turning Tide, Powerful Assault, and probably source Minor Courage through Magma Incarnate. Maybe Crimson and Tremorscale for the pen if necessary.

It depends, really. Are the DDs bound by the same rules?

Kartalin

I still like Drake's Rush and Powerful assault for tanking dungeons on my DK. I also use arena weapon/shield but in lieu of that then Magma is a good choice, especially since I'm using Echoing Vigor already to proc PA.

Jaimeh

For the second question, a good combo would be SPC/Jorvuld's, since they would be a new healer and presumably not that good with maintaining uptimes.

FrancisCrawford

Almost nobody should do vet dungeons without having done the same dungeons in normal mode first.

So object to the wording of the challenge. E.g., if you think a healer should have SPC, one can get an SPC set together in just a few runs of WGT.

But it's reasonable to require there be ONE dungeon set only, to obviate any need to farm weapons/jewelry (perhaps beyond a single piece that's automatic as a quest reward).

FrancisCrawford

Anyhow, if a healer truly doesn't have access to dungeon sets, they are playing at the very low end. So it's worth considering Torug's with Infused Crusher AND Infused Weakening ...

... although nobody seems sure as to how much Weakening actually cuts boss damage. Is there a reliable source for this?

For a second set just go with a sustain and/or stat set, as the premise implies groups that are likely to screw up a lot and need spot healing.

Number_51

Technically you don't even need to do dungeons for Spell Power Cure. You can buy Key Fragments for the Daedric Embers Trophy Vault off guild traders. I imagine it would be incredibly expensive as compared to just running the dungeon. After 100s of Brands of Imperium and Essence Thief set pieces, you might get a Spell Power Cure or two.

Brands of Imperium used to be OK for a tank as well. Haven't kept up enough to know if it still is.

Agenericname

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Almost nobody should do vet dungeons without having done the same dungeons in normal mode first.

So object to the wording of the challenge. E.g., if you think a healer should have SPC, one can get an SPC set together in just a few runs of WGT.

But it's reasonable to require there be ONE dungeon set only, to obviate any need to farm weapons/jewelry (perhaps beyond a single piece that's automatic as a quest reward).

Why not? If theyre not in the queue, it shouldnt matter.